HOw considerable a part of the Gentry of this King­dom groans under the Burthen of Incombrance, without any Prospect of clearing or not encrea­sing their Debts, is too manifest: Yet it may not be improper briefly to observe, how this evil affects all Parties, as well Creditours as Debtours, The Creditour up­on a good Mortgage seems finally secure; But in the mean time, without actual Entry, suffers both in the want of his present Income, and long forbearance of his principal Sum, minority of times intervening: Having entered and being in Possession, he bocomes the Borrowers Servant to manage his Estate upon uneasy terms liable to Account: Improve he cannot prudently, nor scarce duly repair; and whilst the Property is thus unsetled, the Estate is so far from Improve­ment, (how capable soever) that frequeutly it sinks in Va­lue, if not to the Lenders dammage, (which sometines happens) yet to the great hurt of the Owner and Common­wealth. Seldom he commands his Debt without mutual trouble and vexation, (by reason of the many difficulties and obstructions in the presant sale of Land) which is too apt to beget ill Neighbourhood and unkindness betwixt Friends. Yet this is the Lendors best condition, for Credi­tours upon Personal Security are more dangerously ob­noxious to the unhandsom shifts and practices of too many Borrowers. With Debtours it is much worse, especially [Page 2]if their Debts overtop their Credit: Like Consumptive Persons, they converse with nothing but daily and sensible decay, condemned to perpetual Bondage, from which cer­tainly many of them would ransome themselves by selling almost at any Rate, but are continually frustrated and Tan­talized: Either those that would Purchase of them cannot command their Sums, (the case of too many fair Creditours) or the Land not being for the present letten, or not letten to satisfaction; no particular thereof will be accepted with­out ruinous abatements, or some unreasonable Covenants and Conditions are imposed by severe Purchasers, or some needless seruples raised by difficult Counsel, or some mis­chievous tricks and delayes contrived by extorting Interlo­pers: Upon these and the like accounts it happens, that fair Estates are swallowed up, Just Debts unsatisfyed, Civil Creditours driven to rigorous and extream courses, Well-meaning Debtours insolvent, Sureties exposed by their prin­cipals, Due Payment (the life-blood of Commerce) obstructed, the Land it selfe neglected and disparaged, the Bad enriched by the spoyles of Good men.

So spreading and contagious is the Nature of Debt, espe­cially where Land is cheap, Markets falling, and the pay­ment of Rents generally casual; that we cannot with Rea­son hope, the vast Bulk of our presant Incumbrance will e­ver clear it self, or be cleared by any gradual means; Ra­ther we have cause to fear the further progress of it, not vi­sibly to be prevented without some integral Expedient: Wherefore it is humbly proposed; That all Debtours (or at least those that have borrowed upon real Security) may be allowed to tender their Creditours Payment in Lands of equal value, at eighteen or twenty years Purchase, prized in the par­ticular with such moderate abatement of former Rents, where Farms are unletten, as shall be judged reasonable, with refe­rence to the fall of Lands; which payment Creditours refusing, shall from thenceforth, claime no Ʋse-money: And that Cre­ditours, after legal demand and lapse of convenient time, may [Page 3]have such payments decreed of Course; The Methods and Cir­cumstances of Proceeding being left to the Wisdome of Authority.

Seldom is any Expedeient so adjusted, as to comply with all concernments; should our Laws be tryed by that Touch­stone, there would not want Objectors against the best of them; It is therefore held sufficient, if they be profitable to the Majority, oppressive to none, and if upon the whole matter the good from them expected outvie the evil surmised, which herein will easily appear by comparing the Motives with the Objections.

For Motives, it is manifest, that many honest Borrowers will thereby be speedily disenthralled, whose condition o­therwise seems almost desperate; Creditours, who now complain of fatal disappointment, will command their just Debts: The Land (which is our only real and considera­ble fund) will not only recover, but greatly advance its price, when there shall be few Sellers upon Extremity, or Purchasers upon Advantage to beat down its value; Credit will become generally sound, and the high rate of Interest (supported by Incumbrance) may then indeed sink of it self without a Law; much of our Stock (now hurtfully managed at Use) will be naturally turned into Trade and Improve­ment; And thousands of Brokers and other Factours of Ex­tortion may hereafter employ their approved Abilities to the Service and Benefit of their Countrey.

The principal Objections are these; 1. It supposes an Ar­bitrary Proceeding without Precedent, and Powers of diffi­cult Execution. 2. What if the Title should prove intricate? 3. The Land may be remote or inconvenient to the Lender. 4. Lenders may in some Cases pay more than the present Value. 5. Borrowers will complain of being abridged in their Equity.

To the first it is answered; That whatsoever is enacted by common consent in Parliament, should not be counted Arbitrary, though it were without Precedent; But are there not Precedents for deciding of important Causes in a summa­ry way? How many such Commissions have we lately known? The late rigorous Act for the Rebuilding of London [Page 4]is instar omnium to this purpose: Neither indeed can such Au­thorities be here presumed to miscarry, their Rules being so easily ascertained.

To the second, The title in Mortgages is presumed alread­y to have been scanned, and may in many other Cases easily be cleared; If the fault be on the Borrowers part, the Lender may then fairely refuse, but Valeat quantum valere potest. However if the former Security be continued to make the Sale, the Lender cannot be prejudiced.

To the third and fourth, Why should the Creditour de­cline the purchase of that Land for its remoteness, which he accepted in Mortgage, or which was at least the fund of that Credit which he gave the Borrower, the Profits whereof should therefore competently answer his Interest without such overplus of Security as is now adayes demanded? Can he as­sign any real difference betwixt Lending and Purchasing, save the avoiding of just Duties? Let him then content him­self with the Advantages he hath so long enjoyed, and consi­der the Borrowers Hordships, who having all this while paid double Taxes, (viz.) both his own and his Creditours too, is thereby not only plunged into Debt, but again more grievous­ly punished in the abortive Sale of his Inheritance: Where­as the Creditour hath indeed no cause to distrust his Bargain, the value whereof will be neer doubled by the general clea­ring of Incumbrance, and equality of future Burthens.

To the fist, No Borrower can justly complain of that Ri­gour, which after default by him incurred, doth not impaire, but much improve his present Condition.

That this is not a mere Project, nor altogether New, what higher Evidence can be offered, than that memorable Edict provided by the Wisdome of Julius Caesar, (in times not unparallel to ours for Incombrance of Estates) related by Suetonius, and thus Englished in the Translation of that famous Historian? As touching Money lent out, when he had quite put down the expectation of Cancelling Debts, (a thing that was often moved) He decreed at length, that all Debtours should satisfie [Page 5]their Creditours in this manner; namely, by an Estimate made of their Possessions, according to the worth and value as they Purchased them before the Civil Warre, deducting out the Prin­cipal whatsoever had been pay'd, or set down in the Obligation for the Ʋse. By which Condition the fourth part well neer of the Money credited forth was lost.

It was the known Policy of the Roman State, after Civil Warrs, impartially to quit and cancel all manner of Debts; Hard measure one would think, for innocent Persons, as it were, to forfeit not the Use only but the Principal; yet private Interest, it seems, must stoop to buoy up the Publick: They considered, That the Riches of a Countrey, nothing is so Essential as the value of Land, to the value of Land no­thing so destructive as great Incumbrance; that by Civil Warre, not only former Debts were constantly augmented, but new ones vastly multiplyed; That by reason of publick distractions, the Rents of Land became generally desperate, and even the Land it self for the present much embased in its Price: Creditours, in the mean time, scaping the whole brunt, and thereby every where supplanting Free-holders. They therefore aptly applyed the quitting of Use-money to ballance the loss of Rents: The discharge of Principal Debts to repair the decay of Lands and Landlords. Thus were the common sufferings fairly destributed, and the seeds of future evils at once extirpated; there being otherwise such a Malig­nity in the Nature of Civil Warre, that it commonly leaves behinde it a dangerous Poyson and ferment. Upon such for­mer Practice the expectation of Cancelling Debts at that time seems to have been grounded.

From this excellent Edict, it is for our purpose remarka­ble, 1. That Lands were then strictly prised to the Credi­tour according to their former values, without any allow­ance for the fall of Rents. 2. That it was judged a modest re­lief to Debtours, and rather in favour of Creditours, for them to quit only all their Use-money incurred during the Civil Warre. 3. That the Law here cited being a Law of [Page 6]publick benefit and private Justice, was yet ordained by a Heathen Conquerour, (not to say Usurper) and therefore cannot but better become a lawful Christian Government? 4. That this Law seems mainly to have gratified the Nobili­ty, who yet were most of them sworn Enemies to Caesar: Whereas such a Law in our time, would redress and oblige, not barely his Majesties Loyal Subjects, but the most approved assertours of the Cause, thereby chiefly incumbred in their Estates.