Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 10.djvu/253

 prodigious cost in planting walnut-trees about his seate, and making fish-ponds, man miles in circuit’ (, Diary, 16 March 1683). He died 22 June 1699. He was married three times, and had many children. His son, Sir Richard Child, was made Viscount Castlemain in 1718, and Earl of Tylney in 1731 (, Essex, p. 68).

In the year of the plague, 1665, Child wrote a short essay on trade, which he afterwards expanded, and which attracted a great deal of attention (editions in his lifetime: 1668, 1670, 1690, 1693; see, Insurance Cyclopædia. French translation in 1754;' ‘a new edition’ in 1775. To the later editions is appended ‘A small Treatise against Usury,’ written by Sir Thomas Culpepper). Its full title (ed. 1775) will indicate its character: ‘A New Discourse of Trade: wherein are recommended several weighty points relating to companies of merchants, the act of navigation, naturalisation of strangers, and our woollen manufactures; the balance of trade, and the nature of plantations, with their consequences in relation to the kingdom, are seriously discussed; methods for the employment and maintenance of the poor are proposed; the reduction of interest of money to 4l. per cent. is recommended; and some proposals for erecting a court of merchants for determining controversies relating to maritime affairs, and for a law for transference of bills of debts, are humbly offered.’ Child’s main purpose was to advocate the reduction of the legal rate of interest from six per cent. to four per cent. He contended that a high rate of interest hindered the growth of trade, encouraged idleness and luxury, and discouraged navigation, industry, arts, and invention. The Dutch were taking away our trade; and why? Because their rate of interest was at least three per cent. lower than ours. ‘The Dutch low interest, through our own supineness, hath robbed us totally of all trade, not inseparably annexed to this kingdom by the benevolence of divine Providence, and our act of navigation.’ Child’s theory was criticised in a pamphlet called ‘The Treatise of Money mistaken,’ wherein it was justly argued that he had mistaken an effect for a cause. He maintained his view, however, with much ingenuity, though admitting that from different aspects the same thing might be regarded as cause and effect. His other proposals for improving English trade (see especially chapters viii. ix. and x.) throw much light on the restrictive policy of the time, coming as they do from one who had stronger leanings towards free trade than most of his contemporaries. The answer which he makes to the argument that it is dearness of wages that spoils the English trade deserves to be noticed. ‘Wherever wages are high,’ he says, ‘universally throughout the whole world, it is an infallible evidence of the riches of that country; and wherever wages for labour run low, it is a proof of the poverty of that place’ (see, Causes of the late Increase of Robbers, sect. iv., for a curious criticism of this passage). Child’s proposals concerning the relief and employment of the poor (chap. ii.; reprinted in ‘Somers Tracts,’ xi. 606) are also deserving of attention, some of them having been carried into effect. (A summary of the ‘Discourse on Trade’ will be found in Anderson and Macpherson's ‘Hist. of Commerce,’ ii. 543-54. In a ‘Discourse concerning the East India Trade, in ‘Somers Tracts,’ x. 634, Child’s arguments are turned against the monopoly of the East India Company.) Child is said to have written ‘A Treatise wherein it is demonstrated that the East India Trade is the most national of all Foreign Trades,’ &.c., by Φιλόπατρις, 1681 (see, ii. 567, and , Lit. of Pol. Econ. p. 99); and many of the papers written in defence of the company after the revolution were no doubt composed by him (see , Hist. of the East India Company, p. 100).



CHILD, WILLIAM (1606?–1697), musician, born at Bristol in 1606 or 1607, was educated as a chorister under Elway Bevin, and on 8 July 1631 took the degree of Mus. Bac. at Oxford, where his name was entered at Christ Church. On 19 April 1630 he was elected a lay clerk of St. George's Chapel, Windsor, and shortly after he seems to have acted as organist jointly with Nathaniel Giles. On 26 July 1632 a stipend known as the exhibition of St. Anthony was assigned to him, and at this date he is referred to in the chapter records as ‘organista.’ About this time he is said to have been a pointed one of the organists at the Chapel Royal, Whitehall. On 4 April 1634 it was resolved by the dean and chapter of St. George’s Chapel that since he had for some time fulfilled the duties of both organists, he should in future enljoy the stipend of both. Child had presumably taken Giles’s duty as well as his own; Giles died in 1633-4, and from the time of his death there has only been a single organist at the chapel. Child was already known as a composer, for John Playford (Introduction to the Skill of Musick,