tion, such as will nowise interfere with England,
otherwise than to its advantage.

The first I shall mention, is touched at in a letter which I received
from one of you, gentlemen, about the highways; which, indeed, are
almost everywhere scandalously neglected. I know a very rich man in this
city, a true lover and saver of his money, who, being possessed of some
adjacent lands, hath been at great charge in repairing effectually the
roads that lead to them; and has assured me that his lands are thereby
advanced four or five shillings an acre, by which he gets treble
interest. But, generally speaking, all over the kingdom the roads are
deplorable; and, what is more particularly barbarous, there is no sort
of provision made for travellers on foot; no, not near this city, except
in a very few places, and in a most wretched manner: whereas the English
are so particularly careful in this point, that you may travel there an
hundred miles with less inconvenience than one mile here. But, since
this may be thought too great a reformation, I shall only speak of roads
for horses, carriages, and cattle.[97]

Ireland is, I think, computed to be one-third smaller than England; yet,
by some natural disadvantages, it would not bear quite the same
proportion in value, with the same encouragement. However, it hath so
happened, for many years past, that it never arrived to above
one-eleventh part in point of riches; and of late, by the continual
decrease of trade, and increase of absentees, with other circumstances
not here to be mentioned, hardly to a fifteenth part; at least, if my
calculations be right, which I doubt are a little too favourable on our
side.

Now, supposing day-labour to be cheaper by one half here than in
England, and our roads, by the nature of our carriages, and the
desolation of our country, to be not worn and beaten above one-eighth
part so much as those of England, which is a very moderate computation,
I do not see why the mending of them would be a greater burthen to this
kingdom than to that.

There have been, I believe, twenty acts of Parliament, in six or seven
years of the late King, for mending long tracts of impassable ways in
several counties of England, by erecting turnpikes, and receiving
passage-money, in a manner that everybody knows. If what I have advanced
be true, it would be hard to give a reason against the same practice
here; since the necessity is as great, the advantage, in proportion,
per