Numb. 207.
THE
Moderate Intelligencer:
Impartially communicating Martiall
Affairs to the KINGDOM of
ENGLAND.
From Thursday, March 1. to Thursday March 8. 1649.
THe lamentable Letters and tried from most Countries of England,
purporting the great wants that poore people are in for
want of imployment, both handicrafts and labourers, gives
occasion at this time to say something by way of remedy, and
truly as it is the most honourable worke in it selfe, most satisfactory
to the People, and pleasing to God, so one of the chief
supporters of any Common-wealth of Republique, it therefore
concerns the private helme strerem, not to slight what ever
is offered for redresse of this or any other grievance, in it
selfe excellent, when the opportunity to present, is with patience waited, and the expedient
with very great humility offered, for case of minde, and possible to content
some, though few, who thinke anothers childe as handsome as their own, consider first
in the negative, what will not relieve the people, and then what will.
The erecting of a house of labour will not, experience hath told, nor converting Cathedrals
into places of manifactory: Handicrafts men can tell the learned Grandees, that
manifact is a work of time, and cannot make the actors thrive in new places without
more damage to some-body then an old Cathedrals is worth, doth any man thinke that
spinning hemp and flax bought of the Merchant who brought from Dantzick, customed
it there, here, and after sold it to a whole-sale man, he retails it when spun, woven, &c.
will bring a poore Englishman, his wife and children, food, rayment, house rent, and