Through many a foreft, many a spacious wild,
To stretch their scanty trains from fea to fea,
That some unprofitable skiff might float
Acrofs irriguous dales, and hollow'd rocks.

Far easier pains may swell our gentler floods,
And through the center of the isle conduct
To naval union. Trent and Severn's wave,
By plains alone disparted, woo to join
Majestic Thamis. With their filver urns
The nimble-footed Naiads of the springs
Await, upon the dewy lawn, to speed
And celebrate the union; and the light
Wood-nymphs; & those,who o'er the grots prefide,
Whose stores bituminous, with sparkling fires,
In fummer's tedious abfence, chear the fwains,
Long fitting at the loom; and those befides,
Who crown, with yellow fheaves, the farmer's
[hopes;
And all the genii of commercial toil:

These on the dewy lawns await, to speed
And celebrate the union, that the fleece,
And gloffy web, to every port around

May lightly glide along. Ev'n now behold,

Adown a thousand floods, the burden'd barks,

With white fails glift'ning, thro' the gloomy woods
Hafte to their harbours. See the filver maze

Of stately Thamis, ever chequer'd o'er
With deeply-laden barges, gliding smooth
And conftant as his ftream: in growing pomp,
By Neptune still attended, flow he rolls

To great Augufta's mart, where lofty trade,
Amid a thousand golden fpires enthron'd,

Gives audiencc to the world: the strand around
Close swarms with busy crowds of many a realm.
What bales, what wealth, what industry, what fleets!
Lo, from the fimple fleece how much proceeds.

THE

THE

FLEECE.

BOOK IV.

THE ARGUMENT.

UR manufactures exported. Voyage through the Channel, and by the Coaft of Spain. View of the Mediterranean. Decay of our Turkey-trade. Addrefs to the factors there. Voyage through the Baltic. The mart of Petersburg. The ancient channels of commerce to the Indies. The modern courfe thither. Shores of Afric. Reflections on the flave-trade. The Cape of Good Hope, and the eastern coast of Afric. Trade to Perfia and Indoftan, precarious through tyranny and frequent infurrections. Difputes between the French and English, on the coaft of Cormandel, cenfured. A profpect of the Spice-islands, and of China. Traffick at Canton. Our woollen manufactures known at Pekin, by the caravans from Ruffia. Defcription of that journey. Tranfition to the western hemifphere. Voyage of Ralegh. The fate and advantages of our North American colonies. Severe winters in thofe climates: hence the paffage through Hudson's Bay impracticable. Enquiries for an easier paffage into the Pacific ocean. View of the coafts of South America, and of those tempeftuous feas. Lord Anfon's expedition, and fuccefs against the Spaniards. The naval power of Britain content with the welfare of all nations. View of our probable improvements in traffick, and the diftribution of our woollen manufactures over the whole globe.

THE

FLEECE.

ow,

BOOK IV.

with our woolly treasures amply ftor'd, Glide the tall fleets into the wid'ning main,

A floating foreft: ev'ry fail, unfurl'd,
Swells to the wind, and gilds the azure sky.
Mean time, in pleasing care, the pilot steers
Steady; with eye intent upon the steel,
Steady, before the breeze, the pilot steers:
While gaily o'er the waves the mountain prows
Dance, like a fhoal of dolphins, and begin
To streak with various paths the hoary deep.
Batavia's fhallow founds by fome are fought,
Or fandy Elb or Wefer, who receive

The swain's and peafant's toil with grateful hand,
Which copious gives return: while some explore
Deep Finnic gulphs, and a new shore and mart,

The