The Consolidator; or, Memoirs of Sundry Transactions from the World in the MoonDefoe, Daniel
Science
The Consolidator; or, Memoirs of Sundry Transactions from the World in the Moon
Defoe, Daniel
Fantasy fiction; Interplanetary voyages -- Fiction; Moon -- Fiction; Political fiction; Satire
But I was farther confirm'd in my Observation of the weakness of the
publick Heads of that Country, as to Trade, when I saw another most
preposterous Law going forward among them, the Title of which was
specious, and contain'd something relating to employing the Poor, but
the substance of it absolutely destructive to the very Nature of
their Trade, tending to Transposing, Confounding and Destroying their
Manufactures, and to the Ruin of all their Home-Commerce; never was
Nation so blind to their own Interest as these Lunarian Law Makers,
and the People who were the Contrivers of this Law were so vainly
Conceited, so fond of the guilded Title, and so positively Dogmatick,
that they would not hear the frequent Applications of Persons better
acquainted with those things than themselves, but pusht it on meerly
by the strength of their Party, for the Vanity of being Authors of
such a Contrivance.
But to return to the new Model of the Crolians. The advice of the
Lunarian Philosopher run now thro' all their Affairs, UNITE was the
Word thro' all the Nation, in Trade, in Cash, in Stocks, as I noted
before.
If a Solunarian Ship was bound to any Out Port, no Crolian would load
any Goods aboard; if any Ship came to seek Freight abroad, none of
the Crolians Correspondents would Ship any thing unless they knew the
Owners were Crolians; the Crolian Merchants turn'd out all their
Solunarian Masters, Sailors and Captains from their Ships; and thus,
as the Solunarians would have them be separated in respect of the
Government, Profits, Honours and Offices, they resolv'd to separate
in every thing else too, and to stand by themselves.
At last, upon some publick Occasion, the publick Treasurers of the
Land sent to the capital City, to borrow 500000 Lunarians upon very
good Security of establisht Funds; truly no Body would lend any Mony,
or at least they could not raise above a 5th part of that Sum,
enquiring at the Bank, at their general Societies Cash, and other
Places, all was languid and dull, and no Mony to be had; but being
inform'd that the Crolians had erected a Bank of their own, they sent
thither, and were answered readily, that whatever Sum the Government
wanted, was at their Service, only it was to be lent not by
particular Persons, but such a Grandee being one of the prime
Nobility, and who the Crolians now call'd their Protector, was to be
Treated with about it.
The Government saw no harm in all this; here was no Law broken, here
was nothing but Oppression answered with Policy, and Mischief fenc'd
against with Reason.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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