But we cannot expect this from any of our neighbours abroad, whose interest depends upon our loss." He therefore proposed his registry of property as a ready means of raising a credit for purposes of trade.

Thus, he says, "I can both in England and Wales register my wedding, my burial, and my christening, and a poor parish clerk is entrusted with the keeping of the book; and that which is registered there is held good by our law.

But I cannot register my lands, to be honest, to pay every man his own, to prevent those sad things that attend families for want thereof, and to have the great benefit and advantage that would come thereby.

A register will quicken trade, and the land registered will be equal as cash in a man's hands, and the credit thereof will go and do in trade what ready money now doth." His idea was to raise money, when necessary, on the land registered, by giving security thereon after a form which he suggested.
He would, in fact, have made land, as gold now is, the basis of an extended currency; and he rightly held that the value of land as a security must always be unexceptionable, and superior to any metallic basis that could possibly be devised.
This indefatigable man continued to urge his various designs upon the attention of the public until he was far advanced in years.

He professed that he was moved to do so (and we believe him) solely by an ardent love for his country, "whose future flourishing," said he, "is the only reward I ever hope to see of all my labours." Yarranton, however, received but little thanks for his persistency, while he encountered many rebuffs.