It is the peculiar felicity and prudence of the people in this kingdom, that whatever commodities and productions lie under the greatest discouragements from England, those are what they are sure to be most industrious in cultivating and spreading. Agriculture, which has been the principal care of all wise nations, and for the encouragement whereof there are so many statute laws in England, we countenance so well, that the landlords are everywhere, by penal clauses, absolutely prohibiting their tenants from ploughing;[40] not satisfied to confine them within certain limitations, as is the practice of the English: one effect of which is already seen in the prodigious dearness of corn, and the importation of it from London, as the cheaper market. And because people are the riches of a country, and that our neighbours have done, and are doing, all that in them lies to make our wool a drug to us, and a monopoly to them; therefore, the politic gentlemen of Ireland have depopulated vast tracts of the best land for the feeding of sheep. I could fill a volume as large as the history of the Wise Men of Gotham, with a catalogue only of some wonderful laws and customs we have observed within thirty years past. It is true, indeed, our beneficial traffic of wool with France has been our only support for several years, furnishing us with all the little money we have to pay our rents, and go to market. But our merchants assure me, this trade has received a great damp by the present fluctuating condition of the coin in France; and that most of their wine is paid for in specie, without carrying thither any commodity from hence. However, since we are so universally bent upon enlarging our flocks, it may be worth inquiring what we shall do with our wool, in case Barnstaple should be overstocked, and our French commerce should fail.