AFTER so many Assurances given by some Persons, to furnish the Freeholders of England with Money, upon the Securities of their Estates, one would have thought no Landed-Man in the Kingdom could have remained under any Difficulty to raise Money for supplying his Occasions, or to clear off his Incumbrances, and that Leases of Ejectment, and Sub-poena's in Chancery to fore­close Equities of Redemption, would have been out of Date; but notwithstanding all that hath been promised, we find the Freeholders under as bad if not worse Circumstances than ever. The Bank of England, who have caused many Advertisements to be inserted in the Gazettes, of furnishing the Freeholders with Money at 5 l. per Cent. per Annum, not meeting with one Title in an hundred that will please them, have turn'd the Current of their Business another way, and are setting up Banks in Foreign Countries, leaving the poor Freeholders to shift for themselves.

The Orphans Bank have set out an Order to lend Money upon a Deposite of Gold or Silver, and to discount Bills of Exchange at 3 l. per Cent. per Annum, but mention not one word of lending Money on Land-Security.

In fine, tho all make use of that pleasing and popular Argument, of easing the Freeholders, and raising the Value of Land, yet not one step hath been taken therein, nor must we expect ever will, so long as the Management is in private Hands, and not by Persons appointed either by the Publick, or by the Freeholders themselves; but all that hath been said or promised (if one may have leave to judg by Mens Actions) seems only a Pretence, without the least Reality or Purpose to perform the same. Now when the Revenue of the Excise, the An­nual Income settled on the Orphans, the Lottery-Tickets, the Annuities for Lives, and indeed almost any thing that has but the face of a Security, altho depending on Contingencies, are made use of for Funds whereupon to issue out Bills, and have some of them actual Credit for three times more than the real Value; It cannot but seem strange to any considering Man, that the Freehold Estates of England, or rather England it self, which all must acknowledg to be the very Basis of those Funds, should be disregarded; and the issuing out Bills on Land-Security for a far less Sum than the Value, should be ridiculed, and made a Jest of: yet some People have had so little Sense as to pass their Censures on my Proposals to the Parliament, for issuing out Bills of Credit on Land-Security; and the Bill which was brought in by Mr. Brockman this last Sessions by Order of the Honourable the House of Commons, entituled, An Act for the Improvement of the Freehold Estates of England, and the Encouragement of Trade, and which was referr'd to a Committee, who made a considerable Progress therein, was by some Persons op­posed, for no other Reason as I could ever hear of, but because it would have been prejudicial to their particular Interests. I did therefore once design to have printed a Breviate of the said Bill, that all Persons might have seen whether the same was reasonable or practicable; but upon further Consideration I forbore it, finding too many led more by Humour than Reason, and that they will not believe any thing possible to be done, until they see it effected. I shall therefore (being encouraged so to do by several Persons of great Worth) reduce the same into Practice, and to lay the Foundation of a National Bank (and probably the greatest Bank in the World) so far as it is capable of being done, without the Assistance of an Act of Parliament; still submitting the same to such Regulations, Alterations, or Amendments as the great Council of the Kingdom shall in their Wisdom at any time hereafter think needful to make.

Some perhaps who are desirous to keep the Freeholders Necks still under the Servile Yoke of 6 l. per Cent. per Annum Interest, besides other Charges, which with the Taxes hath eaten up several of their Estates, may make trivial Objections against these my Proposals, and demand where will the Money be found to answer the Bills of Credit? But I do not think my self obliged to acquaint every impertinent Querist with the Methods I have to propose for raising a Fund of Money: It is sufficient I have hitherto born the whole Charge of prose­cuting this Business, which when accomplished will be so greatly for the Freeholders Advantage, and will more than double the Value of their Estates. All that I desire of the Freeholders is that they will enable me to do it by subscribing, and settling their Estates in Trust upon credible[?] and substantial Persons of their own naming, and to choose some from among themselves to put in Practice those Methods I have to lay before them, so far forth as they shall appear agreeable to Reason and no farther.