But as we are, at present, got into the Metaphors of Trade and Navigation, it has been no small Omission, in every kind of Director, that they have lately forgot the Genius of _England_; of its being a Country of Merchants. Had Dr. _Mead_ remember’d the Place of his Education, he might likewise have saved himself much Labour in explaining a groundless _Phænomenon_, and spoke more Truth. Was not Dr. _Mead_ bred, if not born, within the Smoak of _Black Wall_ and _Wapping_, where both _Church_ and _Conventicle_ have long been a safe Retreat to foreign Goods, that were not to stand the awful View of a _Custom House_ Officer? Yet, in all that Time, and ever since, there have not appeared any Degrees of a Plague. Have not Merchandize been brought from many Parts of _Turkey_, all which have very deservedly an ill Name for the _Pestilence_, that very commonly rages among them. And how comes it to pass, That during this constant, and uninterrupted Commerce, when _soft_ and _porous_ Goods, the proper _Fomes_, have been brought from _Smyrna_, _Scanderoon_, _Aleppo_, _Constantinople_, and other Parts, the Pestilence has never taken a Journey hither, in all Appearance, those Fifty five Years? In all that Time _Turkey_ Goods have not served a Quarantine, nor visited any other _Lazaretto_’s, besides the Companies Cellars; a certain Proof that Goods very seldom, or ever, bring a Plague into a Country; and oftner find it there than propagate it. It is very remarkable, That our Commerce with _Swedeland_, _Poland_, and other Parts of those Eastern Countries, has been very considerable, when Plagues have been raging among the mentioned People; and yet we have not found any Attempts from this silent Enemy on this our happy Island. Nay, we must more especially observe, that in the Year 1708 and 1709, a most destructive Pestilence made great Waste in _Dantzig_; and, that there were some Hundreds of _British_ Ships bound up in Ice, the whole Winter through; yet we had no other Visit from it, than the supposed fag End of it, by the _Dunkirk_ Fever; which happen’d four Years after the former had expir’d. And therefore this Opinion, of a Pestilence being preserved, and convey’d to distant Places in Goods, as a _Fomes_, is not sufficiently supported; a particular Care ought to be taken to suppress such ill-grounded Notions, so prejudicial and hurtful to the People, and Trade of an Island Country.