Amongst themselues they agree well, and companie louingly together: to their gentlemen they carrie a verie dutifull regard, as enured in their obeysance from their ancestors, and holding them as Roytelets, because they know no greater. Onelie it might be wished, that diuers amongst them had lesse spleene to attempt law-suits, for pettie supposed wrongs, or not so much subtiltie and stiffenesse to prosecute them: so should their purses be heauier, and their consciences lighter: a reporter must auerre no falshood, nor conceale any truth.
We must also spare a roome in this Suruey, to the poore, of whom few Shires can shew more, or owne fewer then Cornwall. Ireland prescribeth to be the nurserie, which sendeth ouer yeerely, yea and dayly whole Ship-loades of these crooked slips, and the dishabited townes afford them rooting: so vpon the matter, the whole County maketh a contribution, to pay those Lords their rent. Manie good Statutes haue beene enacted for redresse of these abuses, and vpon the first publishing, heedfully and diligently put in practise: but [68] after the nine dayes wonder expired, the law is forgotten, the care abandoned, and those vermine swarme againe in euerie corner: yet those peeuish charitable cannot be ignorant, that herethrough, to the high offence of God and good order, they maintaine idlenes, drunkennesse, theft, lecherie, blasphemie, Atheisme, and in a word, all impietie: for a worse kind of people then these vagabonds, the realme is not pestered withal: what they consume in a day, wil suffice to releeue an honest poore parishioner for a week, of whose work you may also make some vse: their staruing is not to be feared, for they may be prouided for at home, if they list: no almes therefore should be cast away upon them, to the robberie of the needy impotent; but money least of all: for in giuing him siluer, you do him wrong, by changing his vocation, while you metamorphize him from a begger to a buyer. Lacks he meat, drinke, or apparrell? (and nothing els he ought to be owner of) he must procure them of the worst by free gift, and not make choice, for a iust price, of the best. Well, though the rogue laugh you to scorne at night, the alewife hath reason the next day to pray for you.
Surely we finde by experience, that this so hainous an enormitie may be both easily and quickly reformed: for let the Constables execute upon the rogues that last most beneficiall Act of Parliament, with due seueritie for one weeke, and the terror thereof will free the parish for a month: vse it a month, and you are acquited for the whole yere. If the Constables persift in their remisnesse, let the Iustices lay the penalty vpon them, and they will no longer hoodwinke themselues at their neighbours faults. Let the neighbour be so pinched by the purse, but once or twise, and he will become a great deale the more sensible to season his charity with discretion for a long time after.
Vpon the first statute, there was a house of correction erected at Bodmin, to the great charge, but little benefit of the Countrey. Which experience lessoneth them to illude this later, by appoynting certaine cotagers houses in euery parish to serue, nomine tenus, for that purpose.
Lazer-houses, the deuotion of certaine Cornish Gentlemens ancesters erected at Minhinet, by Liskerd, S. Thomas by Launceston, and S. Laurence by Bodmyn: of which, this last is well endowed & gouerned. Concerning the other, I haue little to say, vnlesse I should eccho some of their complaints, that they are defrauded of their right. The much eating of fish, especially newly taken, and therein principally of the liuers, is reckoned a great breeder of those contagious humours, which turne into Leprosie: but whence soeuer the cause proceedeth, dayly euents minister often pittifull spectacles to the Cornishmens eyes, of people visited with this affliction; some being authours of their owne calamity by the forementioned diet, and some others succeeding therein to an haereditarius morbus of their ancestors: whom we will leaue to the poorest comfort in miserie, a helplesse pittie.