PART II.-CHAPTER X. 



FALLING OF RENTS. 



[AUBREY addressed to his friend Mr. Francis Lodwyck, merchant of London, a project on the 

 wool trade; proposing, amongst other things, a duty on the importation of Spanish wool, with a view to 

 raise the price of English wool, and consequently the rent of land. (See the Note on this subject in 

 the preceding page.) Mr. Lodwyck's letter in reply, fully discussing the question, may be consulted 

 in Aubrey's manuscript by any one interested in the subject. It is inserted in the chapter now 

 under consideration ; which contains also a printed pamphlet with the following title : " A Treatise 

 on Wool, and the Manufacture of it; in a letter to a friend: occasioned upon a discourse concerning 

 the great abatements and low value of lands. Wherein it is shewed how their worth and value 

 may be advanced by the improvement of the manufacture and price of our English wooll. Together 

 with the Presentment of the Grand Jury of the County of Somerset at the General Quarter Sessions 

 begun at Brewton the 13th day of January 1684. London. Printed for William Crooke, at the 

 Green Dragon without Temple Bar. 1685." (Sm. 4to. pp. 32.) J. B.] 



THE falling of rents is a consequence of the decay of the Turky-trade ; which is the principall 

 cause of the falling of the price of wooll. Another reason that conduces to the falling of the prices of 

 wooll is our women's wearing so much silk and Indian ware as they doe. By these meanes my farme 

 at Chalke is worse by sixty pounds per annum than it was before the civill warres. 



The gentry living in London, and the dayly concourse of servants out of the country to London, 

 makes servants' wages deare in the countrey, and makes scarcity of labourers. 



Sir William Petty told me, that when he was a boy a seeds-man had five pounds per annum 

 wages, and a countrey servant-maid between 30 and 40s. wages. [40s. per ann. to a servant-maid 

 is now, 1743, good wages in Worcestershire. MS. NOTE, ANONYMOUS.] 



Memorandum. Great increase of sanfoine now, in most places fitt for itt ; improvements of mea- 

 dowes by watering ; ploughing up of the King's forrests and parkes, &c. But as to all these, as ten 

 thousand pounds is gained in the hill barren countrey, so the vale does lose as much, which brings it 

 to an equation. 



The Indians doe worke for a penny a day ; so their silkes are exceeding cheap ; and rice is sold 

 in India for four pence per bushell. 



