The true way of multiplying mankind to public advantage, in such a country as England, is to invite from abroad only able handicraftsmen and artificers, or such who bring over a sufficient share of property to secure them from want; to enact and enforce sumptuary laws against luxury, and all excesses in clothing, furniture, and the like; to encourage matrimony, and reward, as the Romans did, those who have a certain number of children.

Whether bringing over the Palatines were a mere consequence of this law for a general naturalization; or whether, as many surmised, it had some other meaning, it appeared manifestly, by the issue, that the public was a loser by every individual among them; and that a kingdom can no more be the richer by such an importation, than a man can be fatter by a wen, which is unsightly and troublesome, at best, and intercepts that nourishment, which would otherwise diffuse itself through the whole body.
About a fortnight after, the Commons sent up a bill for securing the freedom of Parliaments, by limiting the number of Members in that House who should be allowed to possess employments under the crown.[23] Bills to the same effect, promoted by both parties, had, after making the like progress, been rejected in former Parliaments; the court and ministry, who will ever be against such a law, having usually a greater influence in the House of Lords, and so it happened now.

Although that influence were less, I am apt to think that such a law would be too thorough a reformation in one point, while we have so many corruptions in the rest; and perhaps the regulations, already made on that article, are sufficient, by which several employments incapacitate a man from being chosen a Member, and all of them bring it to a new election.[24] [Footnote 23: This self-denying ordinance easily passed through the House of Commons, where probably men were ashamed of opposing it; and in such a temper were the Peers, in whose House the ministry proposed to make the stand, that it was very likely to have passed there also.

But an amendment was ingeniously thrown in, to suspend the operation of the proposed Act until after the Queen's death; so that it was evaded for the present, and never again revived.

[S.] The Bill was rejected February 29th, 171-1/2.