136 Mr. Wimpey on (Economical Regifters. 
the firft departments in the kingdom of France. 
He requefted I would inform him, What might 
be the proportion, which the produce in grain of 
the lands in England of one year bore to that of 
another, for a feries of thirty or forty years. To 
this I could only anfwer. That we had no annual 
regifter, either public or private, that I knew' 
of, which could anfwer his queftion ; and that the 
only means we had of gueffing, were, by the pro¬ 
portion which the price of one year bore to that 
of another. 
This was not lefs aftonifhing to him, than it 
had been to feveral other fagacious foreigners, 
who have fhrewdly remarked, “ that, in Eng¬ 
land, fo keen are individuals in the purfuit of 
their own private emolument, and fo ignorant 
and remifs is its government, that they have 
frequently given a bounty of fifteen per cent, 
to export their corn, when all they had in fcock 
was very far fhort of being fufficient to lupport 
their own people, till the next harveft.” In this 
deplorable (late of oeconomical and commercial 
ignorance, we continue dill, which I conceive 
might be remedied with little difficulty, trou¬ 
ble, or expence. But, for government to give 
a bounty for the exportation of grain, to the 
amount of from fifteen to thirty per cent, as it 
hath fometimes done, without knowing, either 
the average quantity grown, or the quantity 
