1699 BELLERS ON THE POOR, MANUFACTURES, TRADE, PLANTATIONS "THE MOST DETAILED COLLECTION OF PAPERS ON SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC REFORM TO BE ISSUED BY ANYONE DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY" 009. BELLERS, John. Essays about the Poor, Manufactures, Trade, Plantations, and Immorality, and of the excellency and divinity of inward light demonstrated from the attributes of God, and the nature of Mans Souls, as well as from the Testimony of Holy Scriptures. London. Printed and sold by T. Sawl, in White-Hart-Court in Gracious-Street, and at the Bible in Leaden-Hall-street, 1699. 4to. [6],26p. A pale ink smudge on the title page, head of title page cropped with loss of the ruled border, otherwise a very good copy, lower edge untrimmed. Finely rebound in quarter calf, marbled boards. WING B 1828. GOLDSMITHS 3568. KRESS 2107. This pamphlet is Bellers's most important contribution and is described by George Clarke in John Sellers his life, times and writings, London. 1987 p. 80, as "the most detailed collection of papers on education, social and economic reforrn to be issued by anyone during the seventeenth century. " On the reverse of the title page Bellers quotes from three important contemporary pronouncements on the Poor: (1) The speech of the King on 9th December, 1698, in which he called the attention of Parliament to the need to find "some effectual Expedient..for Imploying the Poor." (2) Chief Justice Hale's Discourse on the poor and (3) Sir Josiah Child Discourse about the Poor. Beller's solution to the problem of poverty, like that proposed by Hale, Child, and Firmin was to put the poor to profitable work.