Books: The Querist

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103. Qu. Whether, after all other shifts, the last and grand
resource for exhausting that ocean, was not the erecting of a compte
en banc in several towns of France?

104. Qu. Whether, when the imagination of a people is thoroughly
wrought upon and heated by their own example, and the arts of
designing men, this doth not produce a sort of enthusiasm which
takes place of reason, and is the most dangerous distemper in a
State?

105. Qu. Whether this epidemical madness should not be always before
the eyes of a legislature, in the framing of a national bank?

106. Qu. Whether, therefore, it may not be fatal to engraft trade on
a national bank, or to propose dividends on the stock thereof?

107. Qu. Whether it be possible for a national bank to subsist and
maintain its credit under a French government?

108. Qu. Whether it may not be as useful a lesson to consider the
bad management of some as the good management of others?

109. Qu. Whether the rapid and surprising success of the schemes of
those who directed the French bank did not turn their brains?

110. Qu. Whether the best institutions may not be made subservient
to bad ends?

111. Qu. Whether, as the aim of industry is power, and the aim of a
bank is to circulate and secure this power to each individual, it
doth not follow that absolute power in one hand is inconsistent with
a lasting and a flourishing bank?

112. Qu. Whether our natural appetites, as well as powers, are not
limited to their respective ends and uses? But whether artificial
appetites may not be infinite?

113. Qu. Whether the simple getting of money, or passing it from
hand to hand without industry, be an object worthy of a wise
government?

114. Qu. Whether, if money be considered as an end, the appetite
thereof be not infinite? But whether the ends of money itself be not
bounded?

115. Qu. Whether the mistaking of the means for the end was not a
fundamental error in the French councils?

116. Qu. Whether the total sum of all other powers, be it of
enjoyment or action, which belong to man, or to all mankind
together, is not in truth a very narrow and limited quantity? But
whether fancy is not boundless?

117. Qu. Whether this capricious tyrant, which usurps the place of
reason, doth not most cruelly torment and delude those poor men, the
usurers, stockjobbers, and projectors, of content to themselves from
heaping up riches, that is, from gathering counters, from
multiplying figures, from enlarging denominations, without knowing
what they would be at, and without having a proper regard to the use
or end or nature of things?

118. Qu. Whether the ignis fatuus of fancy doth not kindle
immoderate desires, and lead men into endless pursuits and wild
labyrinths?

119. Qu. Whether counters be not referred to other things, which, so
long as they keep pace and proportion with the counters, it must be
owned the counters are useful; but whether beyond that to value or
covet counters be not direct folly?

120. Qu. Whether the public aim ought not to be, that men's industry
should supply their present wants, and the overplus be converted
into a stock of power?

121. Qu. Whether the better this power is secured, and the more
easily it is transferred, industry be not so much the more
encouraged?

122. Qu. Whether money, more than is expedient for those purposes,
be not upon the whole hurtful rather than beneficial to a State?

123. Qu. Whether there should not be a constant care to keep the
bills at par?

124. Qu. Whether, therefore, bank bills should at any time be
multiplied but as trade and business were also multiplied?

125. Qu. Whether it was not madness in France to mint bills and
actions, merely to humour the people and rob them of their cash?

126. Qu. Whether we may not profit by their mistakes, and as some
things are to be avoided, whether there may not be others worthy of
imitation in the conduct of our neighbours?

127. Qu. Whether the way be not clear and open and easy, and whether
anything but the will is wanting to our legislature?

128. Qu. Whether jobs and tricks are not detested on all hands, but
whether it be not the joint interest of prince and people to promote
industry?

129. Qu. Whether, all things considered, a national bank be not the
most practicable, sure, and speedy method to mend our affairs, and
cause industry to flourish among us?

130. Qu. Whether a compte en banc or current bank bills would best
answer our occasions?

131. Qu. Whether a public compte en banc, where effects are
received, and accounts kept with particular persons, be not an
excellent expedient for a great city?

132. Qu. What effect a general compte en banc would have in the
metropolis of this kingdom with one in each province subordinate
thereunto?

133. Qu. Whether it may not be proper for a great kingdom to unite
both expedients, to wit, bank notes and a compte en banc?

134. Qu. Whether, nevertheless, it would be advisable to begin with
both at once, or rather to proceed first with the bills, and
afterwards, as business multiplied, and money or effects flowed in,
to open the compte en banc?

135. Qu. Whether, for greater security, double books of compte en
banc should not be kept in different places and hands?

136. Qu. Whether it would not be right to build the compters and
public treasuries, where books and bank notes are kept, without
wood, all arched and floored with brick or stone, having chests also
and cabinets of iron?

137. Qu. Whether divers registers of the bank notes should not be
kept in different hands?

138. Qu. Whether there should not be great discretion in the
uttering of bank notes, and whether the attempting to do things per
saltum be not often the way to undo them?

139. Qu. Whether the main art be not by slow degrees and cautious
measures to reconcile the bank to the public, to wind it insensibly
into the affections of men, and interweave it with the constitution?

140. Qu. Whether the promoting of industry should not be always in
view, as the true and sole end, the rule and measure, of a national
bank? And whether all deviations from that object should not be
carefully avoided?

141. Qu. Whether a national bank may not prevent the drawing of
specie out of the country (where it circulates in small payments),
to be shut up in the chests of particular persons?

142. Qu. Whether it may not be useful, for supplying manufactures
and trade with stock, for regulating exchange, for quickening
commerce, for putting spirit into the people?

143. Qu. Whether tenants or debtors could have cause to complain of
our monies being reduced to the English value if it were withal
multiplied in the same, or in a greater proportion? and whether this
would not be the consequence of a nation al bank?

144. Qu. If there be an open sure way to thrive, without hazard to
ourselves or prejudice to our neighbours, what should hinder us from
putting it in practice?

145. Qu. Whether in so numerous a Senate, as that of this kingdom,
it may not be easie to find men of pure hands and clear heads fit to
contrive and model a public bank?

146. Qu. Whether a view of the precipice be not sufficient, or
whether we must tumble headlong before we are roused?

147. Qu. Whether in this drooping and dispirited country, men are
quite awake?

148. Qu. Whether we are sufficiently sensible of the peculiar
security there is in having a bank that consists of land and paper,
one of which cannot be exported, and the other is in no danger of
being exported?

149. Qu. Whether it be not delightful to complain? And whether there
be not many who had rather utter their complaints than redress their
evils?

150. Qu. Whether, if 'the crown of the wise be their riches' (Prov.,
xiv.24), we are not the foolishest people in Christendom?

151. Qu. Whether we have not all the while great civil as well as
natural advantages?

152. Qu. Whether there be any people who have more leisure to
cultivate the arts of peace, and study the public weal?

153. Qu. Whether other nations who enjoy any share of freedom, and
have great objects in view, be not unavoidably embarrassed and
distracted by factions? But whether we do not divide upon trifles,
and whether our parties are not a burlesque upon politics?

154. Qu. Whether it be not an advantage that we are not embroiled in
foreign affairs, that we hold not the balance of Europe, that we are
protected by other fleets and armies, that it is the true interest
of a powerful people, from whom we are descended, to guard us on all
sides?

155. Qu. Whether England doth not really love us and wish well to
us, as bone of her bone, and flesh of her flesh? And whether it be
not our part to cultivate this love and affection all manner of
ways?

156. Qu. Whether, if we do not reap the benefits that may be made of
our country and government, want of will in the lower people, or
want of wit in the upper, be most in fault?

157. Qu. What sea-ports or foreign trade have the Swisses; and yet
how warm are those people, and how well provided?

158. Qu. Whether there may not be found a people who so contrive as
to be impoverished by their trade? And whether we are not that
people?

159. Qu. Whether it would not be better for this island, if all our
fine folk of both sexes were shipped off, to remain in foreign
countries, rather than that they should spend their estates at home
in foreign luxury, and spread the contagion thereof through their
native land?

160. Qu. Whether our gentry understand or have a notion of
magnificence, and whether for want thereof they do not affect very
wretched distinctions?

161. Qu. Whether there be not an art or skill in governing human
pride, so as to render it subservient to the pubic aim?

162. Qu. Whether the great and general aim of the public should not
be to employ the people?

163. Qu. What right an eldest son hath to the worst education?

164. Qu. Whether men's counsels are not the result of their
knowledge and their principles?

165. Qu. Whether an assembly of freethinkers, petit maitres, and
smart Fellows would not make an admirable Senate?

166. Qu. Whether there be not labour of the brains as well as of the
hands, and whether the former is beneath a gentleman?

167. Qu. Whether the public be more interested to protect the
property acquired by mere birth than that which is the Mediate fruit
of learning and vertue?

168. Qu. Whether it would not be a poor and ill-judged project to
attempt to promote the good of the community, by invading the rights
of one part thereof, or of one particular order of men?

169. Qu. Whether the public happiness be not proposed by the
legislature, and whether such happiness doth not contain that of the
individuals?

170. Qu. Whether, therefore, a legislator should be content with a
vulgar share of knowledge? Whether he should not be a person of
reflexion and thought, who hath made it his study to understand the
true nature and interest of mankind, how to guide men's humours and
passions, how to incite their active powers, how to make their
several talents co-operate to the mutual benefit of each other, and
the general good of the whole?

171. Qu. Whether it doth not follow that above all things a
gentleman's care should be to keep his own faculties sound and
entire?

172. Qu. Whether the natural phlegm of this island needs any
additional stupefier?

173. Qu. Whether all spirituous liquors are not in truth opiates?

174. Qu. Whether our men of business are not generally very grave by
fifty?

175. Qu. Whether there be really among us any parents so silly, as
to encourage drinking in their children?

176. Qu. Whence it is, that our ladies are more alive, and bear age
so much better than our gentlemen?

177. Qu. Whether all men have not faculties of mind or body which
may be employed for the public benefit?

178. Qu. Whether the main point be not to multiply and employ our
people?

179. Qu. Whether hearty food and warm clothing would not enable and
encourage the lower sort to labour?

180. Qu. Whether, in such a soil as ours, if there was industry,
there could be want?

181. Qu. Whether the way to make men industrious be not to let them
taste the fruits of their industry? And whether the labouring ox
should be muzzled?

182. Qu. Whether our landlords are to be told that industry and
numbers would raise the value of their lands, or that one acre about
the Tholsel is worth ten thousand acres in Connaught?

183. Qu. Whether our old native Irish are not the most indolent and
supine people in Christendom?

184. Qu. Whether they are yet civilized, and whether their
habitations and furniture are not more sordid than those of the
savage Americans?

185. Qu. Whether this be altogether their own fault?

186. Qu. Whether it be not a sad circumstance to live among lazy
beggars? And whether, on the other hand, it would not be delightful
to live in a country swarming, like China, with busy people?

187. Qu. Whether we should not cast about, by all manner of means,
to excite industry, and to remove whatever hinders it? And whether
every one should not lend a helping hand?

188. Qu. Whether vanity itself should not be engaged in this good
work? And whether it is not to be wished that the finding of
employment for themselves and others were a fashionable distinction
among the ladies?

189. Qu. Whether idleness be the mother or the daughter of spleen?

190. Qu. Whether it may not be worth while to publish the
conversation of Ischomachus and his wife in Xenophon, for the use of
our ladies?

191. Qu. Whether it is true that there have been, upon a time, one
hundred millions of people employed in China, without the woollen
trade, or any foreign commerce?

192. Qu. Whether the natural inducements to sloth are not greater in
the Mogul's country than in Ireland, and yet whether, in that
suffocating and dispiriting climate, the Banyans are not all, men,
women, and children, constantly employed?

193. Qu. Whether it be not true that the great Mogul's subjects
might undersell us even in our own markets, and clothe our people
with their stuffs and calicoes, if they were imported duty free?

194. Qu. Whether there can be a greater reproach on the leading men
and the patriots of a country, than that the people should want
employment? And whether methods may not be found to employ even the
lame and the blind, the dumb, the deaf, and the maimed, in some or
other branch of our manufactures?

195. Qu. Whether much may not be expected from a biennial
consultation of so many wise men about the public good?

196. Qu. Whether a tax upon dirt would not be one way of encouraging
industry?

197. Qu. Whether it may not be right to appoint censors in every
parish to observe and make returns of the idle hands?

198. Qu. Whether a register or history of the idleness and industry
of a people would be an useless thing?

199. Qu. Whether we are apprized, of all the uses that may be made
of political arithmetic?

200. Qu. Whether it would be a great hardship if every parish were
obliged to find work for their poor?

201. Qu. Whether children especially should not be inured to labour
betimes?

202. Qu. Whether there should not be erected, in each province, an
hospital for orphans and foundlings, at the expense of old
bachelors?

203. Qu. Whether it be true that in the Dutch workhouses things are
so managed that a child four years old may earn its own livelihood?

204. Qu. What a folly is it to build fine houses, or establish
lucrative posts and large incomes, under the notion of providing for
the poor?

205. Qu. Whether the poor, grown up and in health, need any other
provision but their own industry, under public inspection?

206. Qu. Whether the poor-tax in England hath lessened or increased
the number of the poor?

207. Qu. Why the workhouse in Dublin, with so good an endowment,
should yet be of so little use? and whether this may not be owing to
that very endowment?

208. Qu. Whether that income might not, by this time, have gone
through the whole kingdom, and erected a dozen workhouses in every
county?

209. Qu. Whether workhouses should not be made at the least expense,
with clay floors, and walls of rough stone, without plastering,
ceiling, or glazing?

210. Qu. Whether the tax on chairs or hackney coaches be not paid,
rather by the country gentlemen, than the citizens of Dublin?

211. Qu. Whether it be an impossible attempt to set our people at
work, or whether industry be a habit which, like other habits, may
by time and skill be introduced among any people?

212. Qu. Whether all manner of means should not be employed to
possess the nation in general with an aversion and contempt for
idleness and all idle folk?

213. Qu. Whether it would be a hardship on people destitute of all
things, if the public furnished them with necessaries which they
should be obliged to earn by their labour?

214. Qu. Whether other nations have not found great benefit from the
use of slaves in repairing high roads, making rivers navigable,
draining bogs, erecting public buildings, bridges, and manufactures?

215. Qu. Whether temporary servitude would not be the best cure for
idleness and beggary?

216. Qu. Whether the public hath not a right to employ those who
cannot or who will not find employment for themselves?

217. Qu. Whether all sturdy beggars should not be seized and made
slaves to the public for a certain term of years?

218. Qu. Whether he who is chained in a jail or dungeon hath not,
for the time, lost his liberty? And if so, whether temporary slavery
be not already admitted among us?

219. Qu. Whether a state of servitude, wherein he should be well
worked, fed, and clothed, would not be a preferment to such a
fellow?

220. Qu. Whether criminals in the freest country may not forfeit
their liberty, and repair the damage they have done the public by
hard labour?

221. Qu. What the word 'servant' signifies in the New Testament?

222. Qu. Whether the view of criminals chained in pairs and kept at
hard labour would not be very edifying to the multitude?

223. Qu. Whether the want of such an institution be not plainly seen
in England, where the disbelief of a future state hardeneth rogues
against the fear of death, and where, through the great growth of
robbers and housebreakers, it becomes every day more necessary?

224. Qu. Whether it be not easier to prevent than to remedy, and
whether we should not profit by the example of others?

225. Qu. Whether felons are not often spared, and therefore
encouraged, by the compassion of those who should prosecute. them?

226. Qu. Whether many that would not take away the life of a thief
may not nevertheless be willing to bring him to a more adequate
punishment?

227. Qu. Whether there should not be a difference between the
treatment of criminals and that of other slaves?

228. Qu. Whether the most indolent would be fond of idleness, if
they regarded it as the sure road to hard labour?

229. Qu. Whether the industry of the lower part of our people doth
not much depend on the expense of the upper?

230. Qu. What would be the consequence if our gentry affected to
distinguish themselves by fine houses rather than fine clothes?

231. Qu. Whether any people in Europe are so meanly provided with
houses and furniture, in proportion to their incomes, as the men of
estates in Ireland?

232. Qu. Whether building would not peculiarly encourage all other
arts in this kingdom?

233. Qu. Whether smiths, masons, bricklayers, plasterers,
carpenters, joiners, tilers, plumbers, and glaziers would not all
find employment if the humour of building prevailed?

234. Qu. Whether the ornaments and furniture of a good house do not
employ a number of all sorts of artificers, in iron, wood, marble,
brass, pewter, copper, wool, flax, and divers other materials?

235. Qu. Whether in buildings and gardens a great number of
day-labourers do not find employment?

236. Qu. Whether by these means much of that sustenance and wealth
of this nation which now goes to foreigners would not be kept at
home, and nourish and circulate among our own people?

237. Qu. Whether, as industry produced good living, the number of
hands and mouths would not be increased; and in proportion
thereunto, whether there would not be every day more occasion for
agriculture? And whether this article alone would not employ a world
of people?

238. Qu. Whether such management would not equally provide for the
magnificence of the rich, and the necessities of the poor?

239. Qu. Whether an expense in building and improvements doth not
remain at home, pass to the heir, and adorn the public? And whether
any of those things can be said of claret?

240. Qu. Whether fools do not make fashions, and wise men follow
them?

241. Qu. Whether, for one who hurts his fortune by improvements,
twenty do not ruin themselves by foreign luxury?

242. Qu. Whether in proportion as Ireland was improved and
beautified by fine seats, the number of absentees would not
decrease?

243. Qu. Whether he who employs men in buildings and manufactures
doth not put life in the country, and whether the neighbourhood
round him be not observed to thrive?

244. Qu. Whether money circulated on the landlord's own lands, and
among his own tenants, doth not return into his own pocket?

245. Qu. Whether every squire that made his domain swarm with busy
hands, like a bee-hive or ant-hill, would not serve his own
interest, as well as that of his country?

246. Qu. Whether a gentleman who hath seen a little of the world,
and observed how men live elsewhere, can contentedly sit down in a
cold, damp, sordid habitation, in the midst of a bleak country,
inhabited by thieves and beggars?

247. Qu. Whether, on the other hand, a handsome seat amidst
well-improved lands, fair villages, and a thriving neighbourhood may
not invite a man to dwell on his own estate, and quit the life of an
insignificant saunterer about town for that of a useful
country-gentleman?

248. Qu. Whether it would not be of use and ornament if the towns
throughout this kingdom were provided with decent churches,
townhouses, workhouses, market-places, and paved streets, with some
order taken for cleanliness?

249. Qu. Whether, if each of these towns were addicted to some
peculiar manufacture, we should not find that the employing many
hands together on the same work was the way to perfect our workmen?
And whether all these things might not soon be provided by a
domestic industry, if money were not wanting?

250. Qu. Whether money could ever be wanting to the demands of
industry, if we had a national bank?

251. Qu. Whether when a motion was made once upon a time to
establish a private bank in this kingdom by public authority, divers
gentlemen did not shew themselves forward to embark in that design?

252. Qu. Whether it may not now be hoped, that our patriots will be
as forward to examine and consider the proposal of a public bank
calculated only for the public good?

253. Qu. Whether any people upon earth shew a more early zeal for
the service of their country, greater eagerness to bear a part in
the legislature, or a more general parturiency with respect to
politics and public counsels?

254. Qu. Whether, nevertheless, a light and ludicrous vein be not
the reigning humour; but whether there was ever greater cause to be
serious?

FINIS.

ERRATUM

Qu. 168, for Indulg'd, read ill judg'd.

Part III

Query 1.

Whether the fable of Hercules and the carter ever suited any
nation like this nation of Ireland?

2. Qu. Whether it be not a new spectacle under the sun, to behold,
in such a climate and such a soil, and under such a gentle
government, so many roads untrodden, fields untilled, houses
desolate, and hands unemployed?

3. Qu. Whether there is any country in Christendom, either kingdom
or republic, depending or independent, free or enslaved, which may
not afford us a useful lesson?

4. Qu. Whether the frugal Swisses have any other commodities but
their butter and cheese and a few cattle, for exportation; whether,
nevertheless, the single canton of Berne hath not in her public
treasury two millions sterling?

5. Qu. Whether that small town of Berne, with its scanty barren
territory, in a mountainous corner, without sea-ports, without
manufactures, without mines, be not rich by mere dint of frugality?

6. Qu. Whether the Swisses in general have not sumptuary laws,
prohibiting the use of gold, jewels, silver, silk, and lace in their
apparel, and indulging the women only to wear silk on festivals,
weddings, and public solemnities?

7. Qu. Whether there be not two ways of growing rich, sparing and
getting? But whether the lazy spendthrift must not be doubly poor?

8. Qu. Whether money circulating be not the life of industry; and
whether the want thereof doth not render a State gouty and inactive?

9. Qu. But whether, if we had a national bank, and our present cash
(small as it is) were put into the most convenient shape, men should
hear any public complaints for want of money?

10. Qu. Whether all circulation be not alike a circulation of
credit, whatsoever medium (metal or paper) is employed, and whether
gold be any more than credit for so much power?

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