The Grand Concern of England Explained; in Several Proposals Offered to the Consideration of Parliament. 1. For Payment of Publick Debts. 2. For Advancement and Encouragement of Trade. 3. For Raising the Rents of Lands … By a lover of his countrey, and well-wisher to the prosperity both of the King and kingdoms (London, n.p., 1673), [4], 62pp.; 4°. BL: 100.g.71. ESTCR23421. Extract, pp. 21–4. Hünersdorff

A sixty-page quarto political tract written in defence of domestic British economic interests, which, the writer argues, were threatened by the growth in foreign imports, especially of expensive luxuries like coffee and brandy. The unknown author identifies himself only as ‘A Lover of his country and well-wisher to the prosperity both of the King and kingdoms’. The early 1670s were a period of growing criticism of the economic policy of Charles II’s ministers, who were accused of not having the nation’s interests at heart. These critics identified themselves increasingly as a group or interest known in Parliament as the Country Party, centred on the circles around Buckingham and Shaf esbury (see John Spurr, England in the 1670s: ‘This Masquerading Age’ (Oxford, Blackwell, 2000), pp. 18–20, 77–9). Amongst the thirteen specific proposals the tract advances are: a restriction on the further expansion of London; the regulation of the booming property market; the general naturalisation of all foreign protestants; the regulation of stage coaches; the establishment of a court of Requests (for small claims amongst poor people) in all towns, as it is in the City; and ‘That a Bound be put to the Extravagant habits, and Excesses of all sorts of Persons’ (p. 5, not reproduced here).