572 PARLIAMENTARY COLBERTISM 
employment. It is indeed conceivable that the changes 
which were going on in the character of industry aggravated 
Fluctus- the evil; and that the occasional interruptions of trade 
ror dn inflicted periods of enforced idleness on weavers and others, 
oh and thus reduced them to the level of paupers’. However 
4) (a; this may be there can be little doubt that the charge which 
arose in connection with the maintenance of the poor was 
becoming intolerably severe. Gregory King calculated that 
the total population was five million, five hundred thousand ; 
and apparently about a fourth of the total population was 
more or less dependent on parochial relief’. In 1685 the 
botal poor rates for England were estimated at over £665,000%; 
and in the succeeding years, with bad seasons, heavy war 
expenses and interrupted commerce, pauperism appears to 
have gone on increasing with rapidity’. It had become 
obvious that little could be done by planting the poor on 
the land, and many schemes were now devised for drafting 
them into industrial employments. This seems to have been 
specially noticeable in the years succeeding the Civil War, 
when a good many pamphlets were issued, with proposals 
for building hospitals and setting the poor at work. Stanley's 
Remedy, the work of a repentant Elizabethan highwayman, 
who desired to confer a benefit on the public he had injured, 
was printed in 1646; Sir John Cooke, —the lawyer who 
suffered, in spite of his able defence, for his part in the 
execution of King Charles,—published his Unum necessarium 
A.D. 1689 
—1776. 
1 The author of a tract speaks of the poor rate in Elizabeth's time being 6d. 
« Whereas in our unhappy Days, 3s. in the Pound throughout the Kingdom is not 
cufficient to sustain them in a poor and miserable Condition more especially in the 
great Cities, and cloathing Countries ; for in many places, where there is most of 
our Woollen Manufactory made, the Poor Rate is from half a Crown to six or 
seven Shillings in the Pound, for the trading Poor have no way nor shelter but 
‘heir Trade which if that fail once they are downright Beggars presently, whereas 
jhe contrary is to be understood of poor Husband-men who have many ways to 
shelter themselves, as, a Common, a Cow, a Wood, gleaning of Corn in Harvest, 
Day Work, Children to look after Cows, Hogs, going to Plow, etc. Besides all 
provisions 40 per cent. cheaper.” A Brief History of Trade in England, 1702 
(Brit. Mus. 1138. b. 8), p. 63. 
* Davenant, Balance of Trade, in Works, mm. 184 and 203. 8 Tb. 1. 41. 
4 The figures commonly accepted for 1698 put the outlay at £819,000, but 
Sir George Coode saw reason to believe that this estimate was based on in- 
sufficient data. Report to the Poor Law Board on the Law of Settlement and 
Removal. in Reports, 1851. xxv1. 219, printed pag. 23.