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Those other things which I am more to make rehearsal of, are such as concerne building, and other mechanicall necessary vses, as diuers sorts of trees for house and ship-timber, and other vses else: Also lime, stone, and bricke, least that being not mentioned some might haue bene doubted of, or by some that are malitious the contrary reported.
Good lambes-wooll haue we for their lambe skins, and for their miniuer, large minerals in our coffers. Mechanicall men they call vs, and not amisse, for most of vs being Mochi, yt is, cuckolds & whooremasters, fetch our antiquitie from the temple of Mocha, where Mahomet is hung vp. Three parts of the world, America, Affrike and Asia, are of this our mechanike religion.
Seldom haue you seene anie Poet possessed with auarice, onely verses he loues, nothing else he delights in: and as they contemne the world, so contrarily of the mechanicall worlde are none more contemned. Despised they are of the worlde, because they are not of the world: their thoughts are exalted aboue the worlde of ignorance and all earthly conceits.
In the mids thereof standeth an exceeding high mountaine, from which issue foure riuers that moisten all the countrie. The inhabitants are wittie and most expert in Mechanicall arts. They haue a kinde of peculiar language and letters.
In the consideration whereof it is first to bee regarded with what commodities our owne country aboundeth either naturall or artificiall, what quantity may be spared, and wher the same may with the easiest rate be gained, and how in his best nature vnto vs returned, all which by this passage shall be vnto vs most plentifully effected, and not onely that, but this also which is most to be regarded that in our thus trading wee shall by no meanes inrich the next adioyning states vnto vs, for riches bread dread, and pouertie increaseth feare, but here I cease fering to offend, yet it is a question whether it were better by an easy rate to vent our commodities far of or by a more plentifull gayne to passe them to our neerer neighbours, and those therby more inriched then ourselues, the premises considered wee finde our country to abound with woll, and wollen cloth, with lead, tin, copper and yron, matters of great moment, wee also knowe our soyle to be fertill, and would if trad did so permit haue equal imploiment with any of our neighbours, in linnen cloth, fustians, seys, grograms or any other forraine artificiall commodities, besides the excellent labours of the artsman, either in metallyne mechanicall faculties, or other artificiall ornaments, whereof India is well knowne to receiue all that Europe can afford, rating our commodities in the highest esteeme of valewe, which by this passage is speedily perfourmed, and then none of these should lie dead vpon our handes as now they doe, neither should we bee then ignorant as now we are in many excellent practices into which by trade wee shoulde bee drawne.
His father was Walter Wilkins, a goldsmith in Oxford, like his son "ingeniose, and of a very mechanicall head, which ran much upon the perpetuall motion," a problem less hopeful than most, not all, of those which attracted his more practical son, who inherited from him his "insatiable curiosity."
For though all our hope of peace be frustrate, and our quarels determinable by the sword: though our enemie hath by his owne forces, and his pensionaries industry, confined the united Prouinces into a narow roume, and almost disunited the same: if he be now in a good way to harbor himselfe, in the principall hauens of France, from whence he may front vs at pleasure: yea though we are to hope for nothing but a bloodie warre, nor can trust to any helpe but Armes; yet how far the common sort are from reuerencing or regarding any persons of condition, was too apparant in the returne of this our iourney, wherein the base and common souldier hath bene tollerated to speake against the Captaine, and the souldier and Captaine against the Generals, and wherein mechanicall and men of base condicion doe dare to censure the doings of them, of whose acts they are not woorthy to talke.
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