The East India Company have desired to have China raw silk put upon the same footing as to duty with the Italian, but have been refused. The reason why the court has a greater superiority among the Lords than Commons, beside the bishops, is that the court gives places to the Lords, chiefly for their interest among the Commons. Eighteen hundred children put upon the parishes at Dublin in five years, of which, upon inquiry, there remained only twenty-eight. Ninety-five thousand seamen computed to be in France; only sixty thousand in England. Ships formerly lasted twenty-seven years in the English navy; now only thirteen. Within the last two thousand years, almost all the despotic governments of the world have been improving, and the free ones degenerating; so that now they are pretty near a par. There must be a balance in all governments; and the inconvenience of allowing a single person to have any share is, that what may be too little for a balance in one hand will be too much in another. The fiars of wheat, in 1400, were fixed at Edinburgh, 6 sh. 7 p. Scots money. Banks first invented in Sweden on account of their copper money. There is not a word of trade in all Machiavel, which is strange, considering that Florence rose only by trade. About twenty thousand tun of wine imported into England about the time of the first Dutch war.--_Sir Josiah Child._ One per cent. in interest, worse than two per cent. in customs; because ships pay the interest, not the customs. Eight hundred thousand Jews chased from Spain by Ferdinand the Catholic.--_Geddes._[129:1] About 100,000 Moors condemned for apostacy, by the Inquisition, in forty years. 4000 burned.--_Id._ Near a million of Moors expelled Spain.--_Id._ The Commons of Castile, in taking arms against Charles the Fifth, among other things petition, that no sheep nor wool shall be allowed to go out of the kingdom.--_Id._ The interest in Rome reduced to six per cent. under Tiberius.--_Tacit._ The laws of Arragon required a public trial for the subjects: but allowed the king a kind of despotic power over his servants and ministers, in order to render the great men less fond of court preferment.--_Geddes._ 'Twould be more easy for the English liberties to recover themselves than the Roman, because of the mixed government. The transition is not so violent. The farms were large among the ancients. The Leontine farms in Sicily contained 130,000 acres, and were farmed to eighty-three farmers.--_Cicero in Verrem._ After the conquest of Egypt by Augustus, the prices of every thing doubled in Rome. The Roman colonies, in the time of Augustus, voted in their colonies, and sent their votes to Rome. The Romans very exact in their book-keeping; in so much, that a crime, such as bribery or poisoning, could be proved or refuted from their books.--_Cic. pro Cluentio._