Memoir of the life of John Law of Lauriston

OF LAURISTON. 13
manufactures of the kingdom, making and
maintaining highways, bridges, and harbours,
and in other beneficial purposes. He also
proposes that the council should be empower-
ed to dispense with prejudicial monopolies,
regulate the weights and measures, punish
fraudulent bankrupts, liberate honest debtors
who have made a fair surrender of their ef-
fects, and setee upon all beggars and vaga-
bonds; and it is further submitted, that all
duties upon exports, and upon such imports
as are proper to be meliorated or manufactur-
ed in the kingdom, should be taken off, one
per cent only excepted, but that the duties on
all other imports should be doubled.
From the exertions of a Council vested with
such powers, and possessing revenues so am-
ple, Mr. Law entertained the most sanguine
expectations of a speedy recovery of the trade
and manufactures of Scotland, from the de-
pressed state in which, at that time, they
were; but the project did not appear in the
same light to the supreme judicature of the
kingdom, during the reign of King William;
and, consequently, met with no encourage-
ment.