I am unwilling to publish the Reasons, which an intelligent Person gave me, for such Consequences:  Because it would not do Honour to certain Persons, by whose Interest it is expected, that Charters are to be obtain’d.  As to the Great Bubble, which as open’d a Subscription, where every Man is to pay five Times the Value of what he purchases, a Gentleman, who is very conversant in Trade, informs me, that the Foreigners, who have Original Stocks to a very great Value, have already sent Commissions to have it all sold, when it comes to this extravagant Price.  By this Means, they will have Opportunities of draining the Nation of its current Coin.  I suppose, it will be answer’d, that the Exportation of Coin is provided against by Statutes; it is granted; and so is the Exportation of Wooll:  Yet we are all sensible, the Law is transgress’d every Day in this Point:  And it must be allowed, that Money may be as easily smuggled as any Commodity whatsoever.  The Consequence of this will be, that a Circulation of Paper must be set on Foot to supply the Want of ready Money:  And then, as I have read in a very witty Author, a Crown-Piece will be shewn about as an Elephant, and Guineas will be stiled of Blessed Memory.

Without being deeply learned in Trade, this appears to me a natural Consequence:  Yet, notwithstanding all that can be said, I find the giddy Multitude resolute to forsake the profitable Paths of Industry, to grasp only at Bubbles and Shadows.  This calls to my Mind the Fable of Jupiter and the Old Woman.  The indulgent God gave the Woman a Hen, which laid a Golden Egg every Day:  She, not content with this slow Way of growing rich, and being curs’d with a foolish Avarice, thought a Mine of Golden Eggs must be lodged in the Hen’s Belly:  But, killing the Bird, she found only common Entrails, and lost at once the expected Treasure, and the Advantage which she reaped before, by its laying every Day.

But it is Time to have done with these Discourses; the World is obstinate in the Pursuit of Follies, and not to be reclaimed either by the Authority of Parliaments, or good Sense:  It is not so much the Consideration of this, as the Season being so far advanced, which now induces me to lay down my Pen.  My Thoughts and Desires, I must own, are turn’d to Solitude and rural Pleasures.  The Man, who desires to have his Body in Health, should rise from Table with some Remains of Appetite, and not be covetous of gorging to Satiety:  So a Writer, who would not wish to surfeit the Town, should submit to give over Writing, before they begin to think he has harass’d them too long.