The Consolidator Part 11

If the Government wanted a Million of Mony upon any Emergency, they were ready to lend it as a Body, not by different Sums and private Hands blended together with their Enemies, but as will appear at large presently, it was only Crolian Mony, and pa.s.s'd as such.

Nor were the Consequences of this New Model less considerable than the Proposer expected, for the Crolians being generally of the Trading Manufacturing part of the World, and very Rich; the influence this method had upon the common People, upon Trade, and upon the Publick was very considerable every way.

1. All the Solunarian Trades-Men and Shop-keepers were at their Wits end, they sat in their Shops and had little or nothing to do, while the Shops of the Crolians were full of Customers, and their People over Head and Ears in Business; this turn'd many of the Solunarian Trades-Men quite off of the hooks, and they began to break and decay strangely, till at last a great many of them to prevent their utter Ruin, turn'd Crolians on purpose to get a Trade; and what forwarded that part of it was, that when a Solunarian, who had little or no Trade before, came but over to the Crolians, immediately every Body come to Trade with him, and his Shop would be full of Customers, so that this presently encreas'd the number of the Crolians.

2. The poor People in the Countries, Carders, Spinners, Weavers, Knitters, and all sorts of Manufacturers, run in Crowds to the Crolian Temples for fear of being starv'd, for the Crolians were two thirds of the Masters or Employers in the Manufactures all over the Country, and the Poor would ha' been starv'd and undone if they had cast them out of Work. Thus infenfibly the Crolians encreas'd their number.

3. The Crolians being Men of vast Cash, they no sooner withdrew their Mony from the General Bank but the Bank languisht, Credit sunk, and in a short time they had little to do, but dissolv'd of Course.

One thing remain'd which People expected would ha' put a Check to this Undertaking, and that was a way of Trading in Cla.s.ses, or Societies, much like our East-India Companies in England; and these depending upon publick Privileges granted by the Queen of the Country, or her Predecessors, no Body could Trade to those Parts but the Persons who had those priviledges: The cunning Crolians, who had great Stocks in those Trades, and foresaw they could not Trade by themselves without the publick Grant or Charter, contriv'd a way to get almost all that Capital Trade into their Hands as follows.

They concerted Matters, and all at once fell to selling off their Stock, giving out daily Reports that they would be no longer concern'd, that it was a losing Trade, that the Fund at bottom was good for nothing, and that of two Societies the Old one had not 20 per Cent. to divide, all their Debts being paid; that the New Society had Traded several Years, but if they were dissolv'd could not say that they had got any thing; and that this must be a Cheat at last, and so they resolv'd to sell.

By this Artifice, they daily offering to Sale, and yet in all their Discourse discouraging the thing they were to sell no Body could be found to buy.

The offering a thing to Sale and no Bidders, is a certain never-failing prospect of a lowring the Price; from this Method therefore the value of all the Banks, Companies, Societies and Stocks in the Country fell to be little or nothing worth; and that was to be bought for 40 or 45 Lunarians that was formerly sold at 150, and so in proportion of all the rest.

All this while the Crolians employ'd their Emissaries to buy up privately all the Interest or Shares in these Things that any of the Solunarian Party would sell.

This Plot took readily, for these Gentlemen exposing the weakness of these Societies, and running down the value of their Stocks, and at the same time warily buying at the lowest Prices, not only in time got Possession of the whole Trade, with their Grants, Privileges and Stocks, but got into them at a prodigiously low and despicable Price.

They had no sooner thus worm'd them out of the Trade, and got the greatest part of the Effects in their own Hands, and consequently the whole Management, but they run up the Price of the Funds again as high as ever, and laught at the folly of those that sold out.

Nor could the other People make any Reflections upon the honesty of the practice, for it was no Original, but had its birth among the Solunarians themselves, of whom 3 or 4 had frequently made a Trade of raising and lowring the Funds of the Societies by all the Clandestine Contrivances in the World, and had ruin'd abundance of Families to raise their own Fortunes and Estates.

One of the greatest Merchants in the Moon rais'd himself by this Method to such a heighth of Wealth, that he left all his Children married to Grandees, Dukes, and Great Folks; and from a Mechanick Original, they are now rankt among the Lunarian n.o.bility, while mult.i.tudes of ruin'd Families helpt to build his Fortune, by sinking under the Knavery of his Contrivance.

His Brother in the same Iniquity, being at this time a Man of the Feather, has carry'd on the same intrieguing Trade with all the Face and Front imaginable; it has been nothing with him to persuade his most intimate Friends to Sell, or Buy, just as he had occasion for his own Interest to have it rise, or fall, and so to make his own Market of their Misfortune. Thus he has twice rais'd his Fortunes, for the House of Feathers demolisht him once, and yet he has by the same clandestine Management work'd himself up again.

This civil way of Robbing Houses, for I can esteem it no better, was carry'd on by a middle sort of People, call'd in the Moon BLOUTEGONDEGOURS, which which signifies Men with two Tongues, or in English, Stock-Jobbing Brokers.

These had formerly such an unlimited Power and were so numerous, that indeed they govern'd the whole Trade of the Country; no Man knew when he Bought or Sold, for tho' they pretended to Buy and Sell, and Manage for other Men whose Stocks they had very much at Command, yet nothing was more frequent than when they bought a thing cheap, to buy it for themselves; if dear, for their Employer; if they were to Sell, if the Price rise, it was Sold, if it Fell, it was Unsold; and by this Art no body got any Mony but themselves, that at last, excepting the two capital Men we spoke of before, these govern'd the Prizes of all things, and nothing could be Bought or Sold to Advantage but thro' their hands; and as the Profit was prodigious, their number encreas'd accordingly, so that Business seem'd engross'd by these Men, and they govern'd the main Articles of Trade.

This Success, and the Imprudence of their Conduct, brought great Complaints against them to the Government, and a Law was made to restrain them, both in Practice and Number.

This Law has in some measure had its Effect, the number is not only lessen'd, but by chance some honester Men than usual are got in among them, but they are so very, very, very Few, hardly enough to save a Man's Credit that shall vouch for them.

Nay, some People that pretend to understand their Business better than I do, having been of their Number, have affirm'd, it is impossible to be honest in the employment.

I confess when I began to search into the Conduct of these Men, at least of some of them, I found there were abundance of black Stories to be told of them, a great deal known, and a great deal more unknown; for they were from the beginning continually Encroaching into all sorts of People and Societies, and in Conjunction with some that were not qualify'd by Law, but meerly Voluntarily, call'd in the Moon by a hard long Word, in English signifying PROJECTORS these erected Stocks in Shadows, Societies in Nubibus, and Bought and Sold meer Vapour, Wind, Emptiness and Bl.u.s.ter for Mony, till they drew People in to lay out their Cash, and then laught at them.

Thus they erected Paper Societies, Linnen Societies, Sulphur Societies, Copper Societies, Gla.s.s Societies, Sham Banks, and a thousand mock Whimsies to hook unwary People in; at last sold themselves out, left the Bubble to float a little in the Air, and then vanish of it self.

The other sort of People go on after all this; and tho' these Projectors began to be out of Fashion, they always found one thing or other to amuse and deceive the Ignorant, and went Jobbing on into all manner of things, Publick as well as Private, whether the Revenue, the Publick Funds, Loans, Annuities, Bear-Skins, or any thing.

Nay they were once grown to that extravagant highth, that they began to Stock-Job the very Feathers of the Consolidator, and in time the King's employing those People might have had what Feathers they had occasion for, without concerning the Proprietors of the Lands much about them.

'Tis true this began to be notorious, and receiv'd some check in a former meeting of the Feathers; but even now, when I came away, the three Years expiring, and by Course a new Consolidator being to be built, they were as busie as ever. Bidding, Offering, Procuring, Buying, Selling, and Jobbing of Feathers to who bid most; and notwithstanding several late wholesome and strict Laws against all manner of Collusion, Bribery and clandestine Methods, in the Countries procuring these Feathers; never was the Moon in such an uproar about picking and culling the Feathers, such Bribery, such Drunkenness, such Caballing, especially among the High Solunarian Clergy and the Lazognians, such Feasting, Fighting and Distraction, as the like has never been known.

And that which is very Remarkable, all this not only before the Old Consolidator was broke up, but even while it was actually whole and in use.

Had this hurry been to send up good Feathers, there had been the less to say, but that which made it very strange to me was, that where the very worst of all the Feathers were to be found, there was the most of this wicked Work; and tho' it was bad enough every where, yet the greatest bustle and contrivance was in order to send up the worst Feathers they could get.

And indeed some Places such Sorry, Scoundrel, Empty, Husky, Wither'd, Decay'd Feathers were offer'd to the Proprietors, that I have sometimes wonder'd any one could have the Impudence to send up such ridiculous Feathers to make a Consolidator, which, as is before observ'd, is an Engine of such Beauty, Usefulness and Necessity.

And still in all my Observation, this Note came in my way, there was always the most bustle and disturbance about the worst Feathers.

It was really a melancholly Thing to consider, and had this Lunar World been my Native Country, I should ha' been full of concern to see that one thing, on which the welfare of the whole Nation so much depended, put in so ill a Method, and gotten into the management of such Men, who for Mony would certainly ha' set up such Feathers, that wherever the Consolidator should be form'd, it would certainly over-set the first Voyage; and if the whole Nation should happen to be Embarkt in it, on the dangerous Voyage to the Moon, the fall would certainly give them such a Shock, as would put them all into Confusion, and open the Door to the Gallunarian, or any Foreign Enemy to destroy them.

It was really strange that this should be the Case, after so many Laws, and so lately made, against it; but in this, those People are too like our People in England, who have the best Laws the worst executed of any Nation under Heaven.

For in the Moon this hurry about choosing of Feathers was grown to the greatest heighth imaginable, as if it encreast by the very Laws that were made to suppress it; for now at a certain publick Place where the Bloutegondegours us'd to meet every Day, any Body that had but Mony enough might buy a Feather at a reasonable Rate, and never go down into the Country to fetch it; nay, the Trade grew so hot, that of a sudden as if no other Business was in Hand, all people were upon it, and the whole Market was chang'd from Selling of Bear-Skins, to Buying of Feathers.

Some gave this for a Reason why all the Stocks of the Societies fell so fast, but there were other Reasons to be given for that, such as Clubs, Cabals, Stock-Jobbers, Knights, Merchants and Thie---s. I mean a private Sort, not such as are frequently Hang'd there, but of a worse Sort, by how much they merit that Punishment more, but are out of the reach of the Law, can Rob and pick Pockets in the Face of the Sun, and laugh at the Families they Ruin, bidding Defiance to all legal Resentment.

To this height things were come under the growing Evil of this sort of People.

And yet in the very Moon where, as I have noted, the People are so exceeding clear Sighted, and have such vast helps to their perceptive Faculties, such Mists are sometimes cast before the publick Understanding, that they cannot see the general Interest.

This was manifest, in that just as I came away from that Country, the great Council of their Wise Men, the Men of the Feather, were a going to repeal the old Law of Restraining the Number of these People; and tho' as it was, there was not Employment for half of them, there being 100 in all, and not above 5 honest ones; yet when I came away they were going to encrease their Number. I have nothing to say to this here, only that all Wise Men that understand Trade were very much concern'd at it, and lookt upon it as a most destructive Thing to the Publick, and forboding the same mischiefs that Trade suffer'd before.

It was the particular Misfortune to these Lunar People that this Country had a better Stock of Governors in all Articles of their Well-fare, than in their Trade; their Law Affairs had good Judges, their Church good Patriarchs, except, as might be excepted; their State good Ministers, their Army good Generals, and their Consolidator good Feathers; but in Matters relating to Trade, they had this particular Misfortune, that those Cases always came before People that did not understand them.

Even the Judges themselves were often found at a Loss to determine Causes of Negoce, such as Protests, Charter-Parties, Avarages, Baratry, Demorage of Ships, Right of detaining Vessels on Demorage, and the like; nay, the very Laws themselves are fain to be silent and yield in many things a Superiority to the Custom of Merchants.

And here I began to Congratulate my Native Country, where the Prudence of the Government has provided for these things, by Establishing in a Commission of Trade some of the most experienc'd Gentlemen in the Nation, to Regulate, Settle, Improve, and revive Trade in General, by their unwearyed Labours, and most consummate Understanding; and this made me pity these Countries, and think it would be an Action worthy of this Nation, and be spoken of for Ages to come to their Glory, if in meer Charity they would appoint or depute these Gentlemen to go a Voyage to those Countries of the Moon, and bless those Regions with the Schemes of their sublime Undertakings, and discoveries in Trade.

But when I was expressing my self thus, my Philosopher interrupted me, and told me I should see they were already furnisht for that purpose, when I came to examine the publick Libraries, of which by it self.

But I was farther confirm'd in my Observation of the weakness of the publick Heads of that Country, as to Trade, when I saw another most preposterous Law going forward among them, the t.i.tle of which was specious, and contain'd something relating to employing the Poor, but the substance of it absolutely destructive to the very Nature of their Trade, tending to Transposing, Confounding and Destroying their Manufactures, and to the Ruin of all their Home-Commerce; never was Nation so blind to their own Interest as these Lunarian Law Makers, and the People who were the Contrivers of this Law were so vainly Conceited, so fond of the guilded t.i.tle, and so positively Dogmatick, that they would not hear the frequent Applications of Persons better acquainted with those things than themselves, but pusht it on meerly by the strength of their Party, for the Vanity of being Authors of such a Contrivance.

But to return to the new Model of the Crolians. The advice of the Lunarian Philosopher run now thro' all their Affairs, UNITE was the Word thro' all the Nation, in Trade, in Cash, in Stocks, as I noted before.

If a Solunarian Ship was bound to any Out Port, no Crolian would load any Goods aboard; if any Ship came to seek Freight abroad, none of the Crolians Correspondents would Ship any thing unless they knew the Owners were Crolians; the Crolian Merchants turn'd out all their Solunarian Masters, Sailors and Captains from their Ships; and thus, as the Solunarians would have them be separated in respect of the Government, Profits, Honours and Offices, they resolv'd to separate in every thing else too, and to stand by themselves.

At last, upon some publick Occasion, the publick Treasurers of the Land sent to the capital City, to borrow 500000 Lunarians upon very good Security of establisht Funds; truly no Body would lend any Mony, or at least they could not raise above a 5th part of that Sum, enquiring at the Bank, at their general Societies Cash, and other Places, all was languid and dull, and no Mony to be had; but being inform'd that the Crolians had erected a Bank of their own, they sent thither, and were answered readily, that whatever Sum the Government wanted, was at their Service, only it was to be lent not by particular Persons, but such a Grandee being one of the prime n.o.bility, and who the Crolians now call'd their Protector, was to be Treated with about it.

The Government saw no harm in all this; here was no Law broken, here was nothing but Oppression answered with Policy, and Mischief fenc'd against with Reason.

The Government therefore took no Notice of it, nor made any Scruple when they wanted any Mony to Treat with this n.o.bleman, and borrow any Sum of the Crolians, as Crolians; on the contrary in the Name of the Crolians; their Head or Protector presented their Addresses and Pet.i.tions, procur'd Favours on one Hand, and a.s.sistance on the other; and thus by degrees and insensibly the Crolians became a Politick Body, settled and establish'd by Orders and Rules among themselves; and while a Spirit of Unanimity thus run thro' all their Proceedings, their Enemies could never hurt them, their Princes always saw it was their Interest to keep Measures with them, and they were sure to have Justice upon any Complaint whatsoever.

When I saw this, it forc'd me to reflect upon Affairs in our own Country; Well, said I, 'tis happy for England that our Dissenters have not this Spirit of Union and Largeness of Heart among them; for if they were not a Narrow, mean-Spirited, short-Sighted, self-Preserving, friend-Betraying, poor-Neglecting People, they might ha' been every way as Safe, as Considerable, as Regarded and as Numerous as the Crolians in the Moon; but it is not in their Souls to do themselves Good, nor to Espouse, or Stand by those that would do it for them; and 'tis well for the Church-Men that it is so, for many Attempts have been made to save them, but their own narrowness of Soul, and dividedness in Interest has always prevented its being effectual, and discourag'd all the Instruments that ever attempted to serve them.

'Tis confest the Case was thus at first among the Crolians, they were full of Divisions among themselves, as I have noted already of the Solunarians, and the unhappy Feuds among them, had always not only expos'd them to the Censure, Reproach and Banter of their Solunarian Enemies, but it had serv'd to keep them under, prevent their being valued in the Government, and given the other Party vast Advantages against.

But the Solunarians driving thus furiously at their Destruction and entire Ruin, open'd their Eyes to the following Measures for their preservation: And here again the high Solunarians may see, and doubtless whenever they made use of the Lunar-Gla.s.ses they must see it, that nothing could ha' driven the Crolians to make use of such Methods for their Defence, but the rash Proceedings of their own warm Men, in order to suppressing the whole Crolian Interest. And this might inform our Country-men of the Church of England, that it cannot but be their Interest to Treat their Brethren with Moderation and Temper, least their Extravagances should one time or other drive the other as it were by Force into their Senses, and open their Eyes to do only all those Things which by Law they may do, and which they are laught at by all the World for not doing.

This was the very Case in the Moon: The Philosopher, or pretended-such as before, had often publish'd, that it was their Interest to UNITE; but their Eyes not being open to the true Causes and Necessity of it, their Ears were shut against the Council, till Oppression and Necessities drove them to it.