us by above two hundred thousand souls.

For a people, denied the benefit of trade, to manage their lands in such
a manner as to produce nothing but what they are forbidden to trade
with,[83] or only such things as they can neither export nor manufacture
to advantage, is an absurdity that a wild Indian would be ashamed of;
especially when we add, that we are content to purchase this hopeful
commerce, by sending to foreign markets for our daily bread.

The grazier's employment is to feed great flocks of sheep, or black
cattle, or both. With regard to sheep, as folly is usually accompanied
with perverseness, so it is here. There is something so monstrous to
deal in a commodity (further than for our own use) which we are not
allowed to export manufactured, nor even unmanufactured, but to one
certain country, and only to some few ports in that country;[84] there
is, I say, something so sottish, that it wants a name in our language
to express it by: and the good of it is, that the more sheep we have,
the fewer human creatures are left to wear the wool, or eat the flesh.
Ajax was mad, when he mistook a flock of sheep for his enemies; but we
shall never be sober, until we have the same way of thinking.

The other part of the grazier's business is, what we call black-cattle,
producing hides, tallow, and beef for exportation: all which are good
and useful commodities, if rightly managed. But it seems, the greatest
part of the hides are sent out raw, for want of bark to tan them; and
that want will daily grow stronger; for I doubt the new project of
tanning without it is at an end. Our beef, I am afraid, still continues
scandalous in foreign markets, for the old reasons. But our tallow, for
anything I know, may be good. However, to bestow the whole kingdom on
beef and mutton, and thereby drive out half the people who should eat
their share, and force the rest to send sometimes as far as Egypt for
bread to eat with it, is a most peculiar and distinguished piece of
public economy, of which I have no comprehension.

I know very well that our ancestors the Scythians, and their posterity
our kinsmen the Tartars, lived upon the blood, and milk, and raw flesh
of their cattle, without one grain of corn; but I confess myself so
degenerate, that I am not easy without bread to my victuals.

What amazed me for a week or two, was to see, in this prodigious plenty
of cattle, and dearth of human creatures, and want of bread, as well as
mone