Thomas More to Peter Giles
Thomas More sends greetings to Peter Giles.
I am almost ashamed, my dearly beloved Peter Giles, to send you this book about the Utopian commonwealth nearly a year later, when I am sure you expected it within a month and a half. And no wonder. You knew well enough that I had already been spared all the labor and thought involved in inventing this work. I had no need to trouble my mind about arranging or presenting the subject. I had nothing else to do but repeat what you and I together heard Master Raphael relate and explain.
Nor was there any reason for me to try to present the matter eloquently. His conversation could not have been polished and eloquent, since it was unstudied, sudden, and unrehearsed, and since, as you know, he is more proficient in Greek than in Latin. The closer my writing came to his plain, familiar, and simple speech, the closer it would come to the truth. Truth is the only mark toward which I direct, and ought to direct, all my work and study here.
I grant and confess, friend Peter, that having all these things ready to hand relieved me of so much labor that almost nothing remained for me to do. Otherwise, either inventing or arranging the subject might have demanded time, leisure, and study from a mind neither inferior nor entirely unlearned. But if the matter had also needed to be written eloquently, rather than merely truthfully, no amount of time or study would have enabled me to do it.
Since all the concerns, obstacles, and delays that would otherwise have required so much labor and study were removed, nothing remained but to write the matter plainly as I had heard it spoken. That was indeed a light and easy task. Yet my other cares and troubles left me almost less than no leisure to finish even this small piece of business.
Every day I spend my time on legal matters: pleading some cases, hearing others, deciding some as an arbitrator by an award, and finally settling others as an umpire or judge. I go one way to see and visit a friend and another way to attend to my private affairs. I spend almost the whole day away from home among other people and the rest at home among my own. I leave no time for myself, by which I mean for my book.
When I come home, I must talk with my wife, chat with my children, and speak with my servants. I count all these things among my duties because they must necessarily be done, unless a man wishes to be a stranger in his own house. In every way, a man must shape his conduct and arrange his life so that he is cheerful, good-humored, and pleasant among those whom nature has provided, chance has brought to him, or he himself has chosen as the companions of his life. Yet he must not spoil them through excessive familiarity and indulgence, or make his servants his masters by tolerating too much.
Among all these things, the day, the month, and the year slip away. When, then, am I to write? And so far I have said nothing about sleep or meals, although eating consumes no less time than sleep does for many people, and sleep quietly carries off almost half a person’s lifetime. Therefore, I gain only the time I steal from sleep and meals. Because that time is very little, though it is still something, I have at long last finished Utopia, late though it is.
I have sent it to you, friend Peter, to read and examine, so that if anything has escaped me, you may remind me of it. In this respect, I do not greatly distrust myself. I wish my intelligence and learning were as respectable as my memory, which is not among the worst or dullest. Yet I do not trust it so completely that I suppose nothing could have slipped from my mind.
My boy John Clement, who, as you know, was there with us, has brought me into serious doubt. I allow him to miss no conversation from which some profit or goodness may be gained. From this young, sprouting grain, which has already begun to grow in both Latin and Greek learning, I expect in time a plentiful harvest of fine, ripe grain.
Hythloday, unless my memory fails me, stated that the bridge at Amaurot crossing the river Anider is five hundred paces long, which is to say half a mile. But John maintains that two hundred of those paces must be taken away, because the river at that point is no more than three hundred paces wide. I earnestly ask you to recall the matter. If you agree with him, I will agree with you and confess that I was mistaken. But if you cannot remember it, I will certainly write what I have written, according to my own recollection. Just as I will take great care that nothing false appears in my book, so, when something is doubtful, I would rather say something false by mistake than invent a lie, because I would rather be honest than clever.
This matter can easily be settled if you will take the trouble to ask Raphael himself, either in person, if he is now with you, or by letter. You must do so because of another uncertainty as well. I cannot tell whose fault caused it, whether mine, yours, or Raphael’s. We did not remember to ask him, nor did he remember to tell us, in what part of the new world Utopia is situated.
I would rather have spent a considerable sum of money than have allowed this fact to escape us. I am ashamed to be ignorant of the sea in which the island stands when I have written such a long account of it. There are also certain people among us, especially one virtuous and devout man who is a professor of theology, who is exceedingly eager to go to Utopia. He is moved not by a vain and curious desire to see strange things, but by the intention of furthering and increasing our religion, which has already begun there successfully.
To accomplish this worthy purpose more effectively, he intends to arrange for the pope to send him there and even to have himself made Bishop of Utopia. He feels no scruple about having to seek this bishopric by petition. He considers it a godly petition because it proceeds not from a desire for honor or profit, but solely from godly zeal.
Therefore, friend Peter, I most earnestly ask you to speak with Hythloday face to face, if you can, or otherwise to write to him. Please manage the matter so that nothing untrue may be found in my book and nothing true may be missing from it. I truly think it would be wise for you to show him the book itself. If I have missed or failed in any point, or if any fault has escaped me, no one can correct and amend it as well as he can. Yet even he cannot do so unless he reads through what I have written.
Moreover, by this means you will discover whether he is willing and content for me to put this work into writing. If he intends to publish his own labors and travels, he might be reluctant, as I also would be, to have me anticipate him by publishing the Utopian commonwealth and rob his story of the bloom and charm of novelty.
To tell you the truth, however, I have not yet fully decided whether I will publish my book at all. People’s natures are so varied, some people’s tastes so perverse, their minds so unkind, and their judgments so corrupt, that those who lead cheerful and pleasant lives by following their sensual pleasures and bodily desires may seem much better off than those who trouble and exhaust themselves with care and study to publish something that may benefit or delight others, only to have those same people receive it with disdain, mockery, and ingratitude.
Most people are uneducated, and many despise learning. An uncultivated and barbarous person approves nothing except what is truly barbarous. Someone with only a slight taste of learning rejects as plain stuff and common merchandise anything not crammed full of old, moth-eaten terms that have fallen out of use. Some take pleasure only in rusty antiquities, while others take pleasure only in their own work.
One person is so sour, crabbed, and unpleasant that he cannot tolerate any merriment or amusement. Another is so narrow between the shoulders that he can bear no jokes or taunts. Some poor souls are so afraid that every sharp word will bite off their noses that they dread every quick and cutting remark as much as someone bitten by a rabid dog fears water. Some are so changeable and wavering that they adopt a new opinion every hour, saying one thing while sitting and another while standing.
Another sort sits on tavern benches and, over their cups, passes judgment on the intelligence of writers. With great authority, they condemn every author and every work however they please, spitefully mocking, jeering, and scoffing at them. Meanwhile, they themselves remain safe and, as the proverb says, out of gunshot. They are so sleek and smooth that they do not have so much as one hair of an honest man by which anyone might take hold of them.
There are also some people so unkind and discourteous that, although they take great pleasure and delight in a work, they cannot bring themselves to appreciate its author or offer him a kind word. They are much like rude, ungrateful, and boorish guests who fill their bellies with excellent delicacies and then go home without thanking their host. Go now and prepare an expensive feast at your own cost for guests with such delicate palates, such varied tastes, and, besides all that, such unkind and ungrateful natures.
Nevertheless, friend Peter, please do with Hythloday as I asked you before. Afterward I shall remain free to reconsider the matter. Still, since I have taken great pains and labored hard in writing it, if the work meets with his approval, I will follow the counsel of my friends about publishing the book, and especially yours.
Farewell, my dearly beloved friend Peter, and extend my warm wishes to your gentle wife. Love me as you always have, for I love you better than ever.
Book 1
Henry VIII, the unconquered king of England, a prince adorned with every virtue becoming a great monarch, had differences of no small consequence with Charles, the most serene prince of Castile. He sent me to Flanders as his ambassador to negotiate and settle the matters between them. My colleague and companion was that incomparable man Cuthbert Tunstall, whom the king had recently appointed Master of the Rolls to universal approval. I will say nothing about him, not because I fear that a friend’s testimony might be distrusted, but because his learning and virtues are too great for me to do them justice and so well known that they need no praise from me, unless I wished, as the proverb says, to “show the sun with a lantern.”
The men appointed by the prince to negotiate with us met us at Bruges as agreed, and they were all worthy men. The Margrave of Bruges was their leader and the foremost among them, but the man considered the wisest, who spoke for the rest, was George Temse, Provost of Casselsee. Both natural ability and training had made him eloquent. He was deeply learned in the law, and his great capacity, combined with long experience in public affairs, made him highly skillful at untangling them.
After we had met several times without reaching an agreement, they went to Brussels for a few days to learn the prince’s wishes. Since our business permitted it, I went to Antwerp. While I was there, many people visited me, but none was more welcome than Peter Giles, a native of Antwerp. He is a man of great honor and holds a respectable position in his town, though a lower one than he deserves. I do not know whether a more learned or better-mannered young man can be found anywhere. He is both highly principled and extremely knowledgeable, courteous to everyone, especially kind to his friends, and so full of candor and affection that perhaps no more than one or two people anywhere could equal him as a perfect friend. He is extraordinarily modest and entirely free of deceit, yet no one possesses more prudent simplicity. His conversation was so pleasant and his cheerfulness so innocent that his company greatly eased my longing to return to my country, my wife, and my children, a longing made very strong by four months’ absence.
One day, as I was returning home from Mass at St. Mary’s, the principal and most frequented church in Antwerp, I happened to see him talking with a stranger. The man seemed past the prime of life. His face was tanned, he had a long beard, and his cloak hung carelessly around him, so from his appearance and clothing I concluded that he was a sailor.
As soon as Peter saw me, he came over and greeted me. While I was returning his greeting, he took me aside, pointed to the man with whom he had been speaking, and said, “Do you see that man? I was just thinking of bringing him to meet you.”
“He would be very welcome for your sake,” I answered.
“And for his own sake too,” Peter replied, “if you knew him. No one alive can give such a full account of unknown nations and countries, a subject I know greatly interests you.”
“I did not guess badly, then,” I said, “because at first sight I took him for a sailor.”
“But you are quite mistaken,” Peter said, “because he sailed not as a sailor but as a traveler, or rather as a philosopher. This is Raphael Hythloday. His family name is Hythloday. He is not ignorant of Latin, but he is exceptionally learned in Greek. He devoted himself more particularly to Greek because he had given himself so fully to philosophy, and he knew that the Romans left us nothing of much value in that field except what can be found in Seneca and Cicero.
“He is Portuguese by birth and was so eager to see the world that he divided his estate among his brothers, shared the dangers of Amerigo Vespucci, and took part in three of the four voyages that have now been published. But he did not return with Vespucci from the last voyage. Instead, almost by force, he obtained permission to be one of the twenty-four men left at the farthest place reached during that final voyage to New Castile. Being left there greatly pleased a man who cared more for travel than for returning home to be buried in his native country. He often used to say that the road to heaven was the same from every place, and that a man without a grave still had the heavens above him.
“Yet that state of mind would have cost him dearly if God had not been very gracious to him. After he and five Castilians had traveled through many countries, extraordinary good fortune finally brought him to Sri Lanka and then to Kozhikode. There he happily found some Portuguese ships and, beyond everyone’s expectations, returned to his native country.”
When Peter had told me this, I thanked him for his kindness in intending to introduce me to a man whose conversation he knew would be so welcome. Raphael and I then embraced. After exchanging the usual courtesies between strangers meeting for the first time, we all went to my house. We entered the garden, sat down on a grassy bank, and talked together.
Raphael told us that after Vespucci sailed away, he and the companions who remained in New Castile gradually won the affection of the local people by meeting with them often and treating them gently. At last, they not only lived among them without danger but spoke with them familiarly. They gained such favor with a prince, whose name and country I have forgotten, that he generously supplied them with everything they needed, as well as the means to travel: boats when they went by water and wagons when they traveled overland. He also sent a very trustworthy guide with them to introduce and recommend them to any other princes they wished to visit.
After many days’ journey, they came to towns, cities, and commonwealths that were both well governed and well populated. Under the equator, and as far on either side as the sun travels, there were vast deserts scorched by the sun’s perpetual heat. The soil was withered, everything looked desolate, and every place was either completely uninhabited or filled with wild animals, serpents, and a few people who were no less wild or cruel than the beasts themselves.
As the travelers went farther, however, a new scene opened before them. Everything grew milder, the air became less scorching, the soil greener, and even the animals less wild. At last they found nations, towns, and cities that not only had commerce with one another and with their neighbors, but also traded by land and sea with very distant countries. This gave Raphael and his companions opportunities to see many countries in every direction, since they were welcomed aboard every ship setting out on a voyage.
The first vessels they saw were flat-bottomed. Their sails were made of reeds and tightly woven wicker, though some were made of leather. Later they found ships with rounded keels and canvas sails, like ours in every respect, whose sailors understood both astronomy and navigation. Raphael won their extraordinary favor by showing them how to use the compass needle, of which they had previously been entirely ignorant. Before this, they sailed with great caution and only during the summer. Now they regard all seasons alike and trust entirely to the lodestone. Perhaps this makes them more confident than safe, so there is reason to fear that a discovery expected to bring them such great advantage may, through their carelessness, cause them great harm.
It would take too long to dwell on everything Raphael told us he had observed in each place, and it would carry us too far from our present purpose. Perhaps on a more suitable occasion we may relate whatever needs to be told about the wise and prudent institutions he observed among civilized nations. We asked him many questions about all these things, and he answered very willingly. We asked nothing about monsters, because nothing is more commonly reported. Everywhere one may hear of ravenous dogs and wolves, and cruel man-eaters, but states that are governed well and wisely are not so easy to find.
Just as Raphael told us about many things that were wrong in those newly discovered countries, he also described quite a few practices that could serve as models for correcting the errors of the nations among whom we live. An account of those matters may be given at some other time, as I have already promised. For now, I intend to relate only what he told us about the customs and laws of the Utopians, beginning with the occasion that led us to discuss that commonwealth.
Raphael had spoken with great judgment about the many errors found both among us and among those nations. He had discussed wise institutions here and there, and described the customs and government of every nation through which he had traveled as clearly as if he had spent his whole life there. Struck with admiration, Peter said, “Raphael, I wonder why you do not enter the service of some king. I am sure there is no king to whom you would not be very welcome. Your learning and your knowledge of both people and affairs would enable you not only to entertain a king very pleasantly, but also to be of great use by providing examples and offering advice. In this way, you could advance your own interests and greatly benefit all your friends.”
“As for my friends,” Raphael answered, “I need not be very concerned, because I have already done everything for them that duty required of me. While I was not only healthy but still young and vigorous, I distributed among my relatives and friends what other people do not give up until they are old and sick, when they reluctantly surrender what they can no longer enjoy themselves. I think my friends ought to be content with this and not expect me, for their sake, to enslave myself to any king whatsoever.”
“Easy now,” Peter said. “I do not mean that you should be a slave to any king, only that you should assist kings and make yourself useful to them.”
“Changing the word,” Raphael said, “does not change the matter.”
“Call it what you like,” Peter replied. “I see no other way for you to be so useful, both privately to your friends and publicly to everyone, while also making your own condition happier.”
“Happier!” Raphael answered. “Am I to achieve that in a way so contrary to my nature? I now live as I please, something I believe few courtiers can claim. So many people already seek the favor of the powerful that they will suffer no great loss if they are not troubled by me or by others of my temperament.”
At this I said, “I see, Raphael, that you desire neither wealth nor greatness. Indeed, I value and admire such a man far more than I do any of the great men of the world. Yet I think you would act in a way worthy of so generous and philosophical a mind if you devoted your time and thought to public affairs, even if doing so caused you some personal discomfort. You could never do this more effectively than by joining the council of some great prince and urging him toward noble and worthy actions, as I know you would if you held such a position. Both good and evil flow from the prince over an entire nation, like water from an unfailing spring. Your great learning, even without practical experience in public affairs, or your extensive experience, even without any other learning, would make you a very suitable counselor to any king.”
“You are mistaken twice over, Mr. More,” Raphael said, “both in your opinion of me and in your judgment of the situation. I do not have the ability you imagine I have. Even if I did, the public would not be one bit better off after I had sacrificed my peace for its sake. Most princes devote themselves more to the business of war, about which I know nothing and wish to know little, than to the useful arts of peace. They are generally more intent on acquiring new kingdoms, whether by right or wrong, than on governing well those they already possess.
“Among the advisers of princes, there are none who are not so wise that they need no assistance, or at least none who do not think themselves so wise that they imagine they need none. If they cultivate anyone’s favor, it is only that of people personally favored by the prince, whom they try to secure to their own interests with fawning and flattery. Indeed, nature has made us all love flattery and take pleasure in our own ideas. The old crow loves its young, and the ape loves her cubs.
“Now suppose that, in a court made up of people who envy everyone else and admire only themselves, someone proposed something he had either read in history or observed during his travels. The others would think their reputation for wisdom would decline and their influence would be greatly weakened unless they could discredit it. If every other tactic failed, they would finally resort to saying that this or that practice pleased our ancestors, and that we would do well if we could only equal them. They would settle on that answer as a sufficient refutation of everything that had been said, as though it were a great misfortune for anyone to be found wiser than his ancestors.
“Yet although they willingly abandon all the good practices of former ages, whenever better practices are proposed, they stubbornly shelter behind this excuse of reverence for the past. I have encountered these proud, harsh, and absurd judgments in many places, and once in England in particular.”
“Have you ever been there?” I asked.
“Yes,” he answered. “I stayed there for several months, not long after the rebellion in the west was suppressed with a great slaughter of the poor people who took part in it.
“I was then deeply indebted to that reverend prelate John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal, and Chancellor of England. He was a man,” Raphael continued, “Peter, as Mr. More well knows, as venerable for his wisdom and virtue as for the high office he held. He was of average height and was not stooped with age. His appearance inspired reverence rather than fear. His conversation was easy, though serious and dignified.
“He sometimes enjoyed testing the spirit of those who came to petition him on business. He would speak sharply but courteously to them and observe their courage and presence of mind. He took great pleasure in these qualities when they did not become insolence, since they closely resembled his own temperament, and he considered such people the most capable of handling public affairs.
“He spoke with both grace and weight. He was exceptionally skilled in law, possessed a vast understanding and had an extraordinary memory. Study and experience had cultivated the excellent talents nature had given him. When I was in England, the king relied heavily on his advice, and the government seemed chiefly supported by him. From his youth onward he had continually practiced public affairs, and after passing through many reversals of fortune, he had acquired a vast store of wisdom at great cost. Wisdom bought so dearly is not quickly lost.
“One day, while I was dining with him, an English lawyer at the table began enthusiastically praising the severe justice inflicted on thieves. He said they were being hanged so rapidly that sometimes twenty were placed on a single gallows. Since so few escaped punishment, he could not understand why so many thieves still remained and continued robbing everywhere.
“Taking the liberty of speaking freely before the Cardinal, I said there was no reason to be surprised. This method of punishing thieves was neither just in itself nor beneficial to the public. Its severity was excessive, yet it was ineffective as a remedy. Simple theft is not so great a crime that it should cost someone his life, and no punishment, however severe, can deter people from robbery when they have no other means of making a living.
“‘In this,’ I said, ‘you in England, along with much of the world, imitate bad schoolmasters who would rather beat their pupils than teach them. Dreadful punishments are enacted against thieves, but it would be far better to establish conditions that enable everyone to make a living. People could then be saved from the fatal necessity of stealing and dying for it.’
“‘Enough care has already been taken for that,’ the lawyer said. ‘There are many crafts, as well as farming, by which they can manage to live, unless they prefer to follow evil ways.’
“‘That does not answer the problem,’ I said. ‘Many people lose their limbs in civil or foreign wars, as they did recently in the Cornish rebellion and some time ago in your wars with France. Maimed in the service of their king and country, they can no longer practice their old trades and are too old to learn new ones. But since wars occur only occasionally and are separated by intervals, let us consider what happens every day.
“‘You have a great many noblemen who are as idle as drones and live on the labor of others, particularly that of their tenants, whom they cut to the bone to increase their revenues. This is the only area in which they practice economy. In everything else, they spend so extravagantly that they reduce themselves to poverty.
“‘Moreover, these noblemen surround themselves with large numbers of idle retainers who have never learned a trade by which they could earn a living. As soon as their lord dies, or they themselves fall sick, they are thrown out. Your lords are more willing to feed idle people than to care for the sick, and the heir is often unable to maintain as large a household as his predecessor did.
“‘When those who have been turned out grow fiercely hungry, they rob just as fiercely. What else can they do? After wandering until they have worn out both their health and their clothes, they become ragged and look ghastly. People of wealth will not employ them, and poor people dare not. They know that someone raised in idleness and pleasure, accustomed to swaggering about with a sword and shield and scorning the whole neighborhood as far beneath him, is unfit to use a spade or mattock. Nor will he serve a poor man for the low wages and meager food that such a man can afford.’
“‘This class of men ought to be especially cherished,’ the lawyer replied, ‘because the strength of the armies we need consists in them. Their birth gives them a nobler sense of honor than can be found among tradespeople or plowmen.’
“‘You might as well say,’ I answered, ‘that you must cherish thieves for the sake of war, since you will never lack the one as long as you have the other. Robbers sometimes prove to be gallant soldiers, and soldiers often prove to be bold robbers. These two ways of life are closely related.
“‘Yet this harmful custom of maintaining many retainers, though common among you, is not peculiar to England. France has an even more destructive class of people, for the whole country is filled with soldiers who remain under arms even in peacetime, if such a condition can be called peace. They are kept in pay for the same reason you offer in defense of noblemen’s idle retainers. Supposed statesmen insist that public safety requires a strong body of veteran soldiers to be kept constantly ready.
“‘They believe that untrained men cannot be trusted, and they sometimes seek opportunities to make war so that their soldiers may practice the art of cutting throats. As Sallust observed, they want to keep their soldiers’ hands in use so that a long interruption will not make them unskillful.
“‘But France has learned at great cost how dangerous it is to feed such beasts. The fate of the Romans, Carthaginians and Syrians, as well as many other nations and cities that standing armies overthrew and utterly ruined, ought to make others wiser. The foolishness of the French policy is evident even from the fact that their trained soldiers often find your untrained men too much for them. I will say no more about that, in case you think I am flattering the English.
“‘Daily experience shows that craftspeople in the towns and laborers in the countryside are not afraid to fight these idle gentlemen, unless some physical misfortune has disabled them or extreme poverty has broken their spirit. There is therefore no reason to fear that those strong, well-built men (the only kind noblemen like to keep around them until they ruin them) would be less fit for action if they were properly educated and usefully employed. At present, idleness makes them weak, and an effeminate way of life makes them soft.
“‘It seems entirely unreasonable that, in anticipation of a war you never need to have unless you choose it, you should maintain so many idle people who will always disturb you in peacetime. Peace deserves far more consideration than war.
“‘But I do not think this necessity of stealing arises from that cause alone. There is another cause more peculiar to England.’
“‘What is that?’ the Cardinal asked.
“‘The expansion of pasture,’ I answered. ‘Your sheep, which are naturally gentle and easily controlled, may now be said to devour people and depopulate not only villages but towns. Wherever sheep produce softer and richer wool than usual, the nobility, the gentry and even those holy men the abbots are not satisfied with the old rents their farms provided. It is not enough for them to live at ease while doing no good to the public. They decide to do it harm instead.
“‘They put an end to farming, destroy houses and towns, preserve only the churches and enclose the land to shelter their sheep. As though forests and parks had not already swallowed enough land, these worthy countrymen turn the best-inhabited places into wastelands.
“‘When some insatiable wretch who is a plague to his country decides to enclose many thousands of acres, both owners and tenants are driven from their property. Some are removed by trickery, others by brute force, and still others are exhausted by mistreatment until they are forced to sell.
“‘In this way, those miserable people, men and women, married and unmarried, old and young, are all compelled to leave their homes. They take with them their poor but numerous families, since farming requires many hands, yet they do not know where to go. They must sell their household belongings for almost nothing, although those possessions would not bring much money even if they could wait for a buyer.
“‘When that little money is gone, as it soon will be, what remains for them but to steal and be hanged, God knows how justly, or to wander about begging? If they beg, they are imprisoned as idle vagabonds, though they would gladly work if they could find anyone willing to hire them. There is no longer any demand for the farm labor in which they were raised when no arable land remains. One shepherd can tend a flock occupying land that would require many workers if it were plowed and harvested.
“‘This also raises the price of grain in many places. The price of wool has risen so high that poor people who once made cloth can no longer afford to buy it, which leaves many of them unemployed as well. Since pastures began expanding, God has punished the owners’ greed by sending a disease among the sheep that has destroyed vast numbers of them. It might have seemed more just to us if the plague had fallen on the owners themselves.
“‘But even if the number of sheep increased without limit, their price would probably not fall. The trade cannot be called a monopoly because it is not controlled by one person, but it is held by so few people, all of them so rich, that they are under no pressure to sell before they choose. They therefore wait until they have raised the price as high as possible.
“‘Other kinds of livestock are expensive for the same reason. Many villages have been demolished, and farming has been badly neglected, so no one makes a business of breeding them. The rich do not breed cattle as they do sheep. Instead, they buy lean cattle cheaply, fatten them on their land and sell them again at high prices.
“‘I do not think all the troubles this practice will cause have yet been recognized. The rich already sell cattle dearly, but if the animals are consumed faster than the regions that breed them can supply them, the stock must decline and a severe scarcity must follow. Through these practices, your island, which once seemed the happiest place in the world in this respect, will suffer greatly because of the cursed greed of a few people.
“‘In addition, the rising price of grain forces everyone to reduce their households as much as possible. What can those who are dismissed do except beg or rob? A proud-spirited man is much more readily drawn to robbery than to begging.
“‘Luxury is also rapidly invading your country and increasing your poverty and misery. There is excessive vanity in clothing and great extravagance in food, not only in noble households but among tradespeople, farmers and people of every rank. You also have many brothels. Besides those openly recognized as such, the taverns and alehouses are little better.
“‘Add to these dice, cards, tables, football, tennis and quoits, through which money quickly disappears. Those who take up these games must eventually turn to robbery to obtain more.
“‘Banish these plagues. Order those who have depopulated so much land either to rebuild the villages they demolished or to lease the land to people who will do so. Restrain the rich from buying up and controlling supplies, a practice almost as harmful as monopolies. Provide fewer opportunities for idleness. Restore farming and regulate the wool trade so that work may be found for the crowds of unemployed people whom poverty now forces into theft. Otherwise, those who are now idle vagabonds or useless retainers will certainly become thieves in the end.
