prosperous, and their commerce extended, they became jealous of the German colony. Attacks were made upon it by London mobs,1 and Edward VI. actually (in 1551) rescinded its charter.2 That was the beginning of the end. Mary restored it for a time, but towards the close of Elizabeth's reign (1597) it was finally abolished. This, too, was another sign of the growth of our own foreign trade. § 138. Trade with Flanders. Antwerp in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries.

6

5

We have mentioned before how the eastern ports and harbours of England used to swarm with small, light craft that plied all the summer through between our own country and Flanders. We have seen, too, that this continuous trade was due to the fact that we supplied the Flemish looms with wool. Up to the fifteenth century the chief, but by no means the only, Flemish emporium to which our English ships plied, was Bruges, but in the sixteenth century this town quite lost its former glory, and Antwerp took its place. The change was partly due to the action of Maximilian, the Emperor, to whom Henry VIII. was afterwards allied, and who, in revenge for a rebellion in which Ghent and Bruges took part, caused the canal which connected Bruges with the sea to be blocked up at Sluys7 (1482), and thus English and other ships were compelled to direct their course to Antwerp, which was rapidly becoming a great and flourishing port. Antwerp remained without a rival till near the close of the sixteenth century, and every nation had its representatives there. Our own consul, to use a modern term, was, at the 1 Craik, British Commerce, i. 233.

2 Ib., i. 233-235.

Anderson, Chron. Deduct. Commerce, ii. 145.

3 Ib., i. 234.

5 The English merchants at Bruges were organised into a kind of gild or company, and allowed to elect a mayor of their own, Rot. Stap., 27-46 Edward III., m. 11, Tower Records, Record Office. This was in 1359. See Appendix C. to Cunningham, English Industry and Commerce, vol. i.

"The "mansion" of the English merchants at Antwerp is mentioned by Bacon, Life of Henry VII. (p. 147, ed. Lumby).

7 Anderson, Chron. Deduct. of Commerce, i. 511, 520.

8 Ib., p. 521. It also derived much importance from the trade carried

close of the fifteenth century, Sir Richard Gresham; and later, in the reign of Henry VIII., his celebrated son, the financier and economist, Sir Thomas Gresham.1 The fact of our having these representatives there is again a proof of the growth of trade in the sixteenth century. An Italian author, Ludovico Guicciardini (who died in 1589), gives in his Description of the Netherlands a very precise account of our own commerce with Antwerp at this period, and it is interesting to note how varied our commerce had by this time become. This is what he says as to our imports: "To England Antwerp sends jewels, precious stones, silver bullion, quicksilver, wrought silks, gold and silver cloth and thread, camlets, grograms, spices, drugs, sugar, cotton, cummin, linens, fine and coarse serges, tapestry, madder, hops in great quantities, glass, salt-fish, metallic and other merceries of all sorts; arms of all kinds, ammunition for war, and household furniture." 2 As to our exports, he tells us: "From England Antwerp receives vast quantities of coarse and fine draperies, fringes and all other things of that kind to a great value; the finest wool; excellent saffron, but in small quantities; a great quantity of lead and tin; sheep and rabbit skins without number, and various other sorts of the fine peltry (i.e. skins) and leather; beer, cheese, and other provisions in great quantities; also Malmsey wines, which the English import from Candia. It is marvellous to think of the vast quantity of drapery sent by the English into the Netherlands." "

This list is sufficient to show an extensive trade, and we shall comment upon one or two items of it in the next chapter. Here we need only remark upon the great growth of English manufactures of cloth, and on the fact that English merchants now evidently traded in the Levant.

on by the Portuguese after the discovery of the sea route to India. Cf. Craik, British Commerce, i. 215.

1 The lives of Richard Gresham (1485?-1549) and of Thomas Gresham (1519?-1579) are well given by Charles Welch in the new Dictionary of National Biography.

2 Extract in Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, ii. 131. $ Ib., ii. 131.

§ 139. The Decay of Antwerp and Rise of London as the Western Emporium.

1

But the prosperity of Antwerp did not last quite a century. Like all Flemish towns, it suffered severely under the Spanish invasion and the persecutions of the notorious Alva. In 1567 it was ruinously sacked, and its commerce was forced into new channels, and the disaster was completed by the sacking of the town again in 1585. Antwerp's ruin was London's gain. Even in 1567, at the time of the first sacking, and earlier still, many Protestant Flemish merchants and manufacturers fled to England,3 where, as Sir Thomas Gresham promised them, they found peace and welcome, and in their turn gave a great impulse to English commercial prosperity. Throughout Elizabeth's reign, in fact, there was a continual influx of Protestant refugees to our shores, and Elizabeth and her statesman had the sagacity to encourage these industrious and wealthy immigrants.* Besides aiding our manufactures, as we shall see later, they aided our commerce. In 1588 there were 38 Flemish merchants established in London, who subscribed £5000 towards the defence of England against the Spanish Armada.5 The greatness of Antwerp was transferred to London, and although Amsterdam also gained additional importance in Holland, London now took the foremost position as the general mart of Europe, where the new treasures of the two Americas were found side by side with the products of Europe and the East.

6

1 Craik, British Commerce, i. 260; Anderson, Commerce, ii. 125, 159.

2 In 1560 Philip's envoy reported to his master that "ten thousand of your Majesty's servants in the Low Countries are already in England with their preachers and ministers." Green, History, ii. 389. Cf. also Froude, History, iv. 535.

3 Anderson, Chron. Deduct. of Commerce, ii. 159 says, "About a third part of the manufacturers and merchants who wrought and dealt in silks, damasks, taffeties, bayes, sayes, serges, and stockings, settled in England, because England was then ignorant of those manufactures.”

⚫ Letters patent were granted on 5th November 1565, permitting the "strangers" settled at Norwich to manufacture "such outlandish commodities as hath not been used to be made within this our realm of England." Burnley, Wool and Woolcombing, p. 67.

5 Bourne, Romance of Trade, p. 115. * Anderson, Commerce, ii. 159.

§ 140. The Merchants and Sea-Captains of the Elizabethan Age in the New World.

It is thus of interest to note how the great Reformation conflict between Roman Catholic and Protestant in Europe resulted in the commercial greatness of England. Interesting, also, is the story of the expansion of commerce in the New World, owing to the attacks of the great sea captains of those days-Drake, Frobisher, and Raleigh—as well as of numberless privateers, upon the huge Catholic power of Spain.1 These attacks were perhaps not much more than buccaneering exploits, but the leaders of them firmly believed that they were doing a good service to the cause of Protestantism and freedom by wounding Spain wherever they could. And possibly they were right. Their wondrous voyages stimulated others, likewise, to set out on far and venturesome expeditions. Men dreamt of a northern passage to India, and although Hugh Willoughby's expedition failed, one of his ships under Richard Chancellor reached Archangel, and thus opened up a direct trade with Russia; so that in 1554 a company was formed specially for this trade. Sir John Hawkins voyaged to Guinea and Brazil, and engaged in the slave-trade between Africa and the new fields of labour in America. It was, too, in Elizabeth's reign that the merchants of Southampton" entered upon the trade with the coast of Guinea, and gained much wealth from its gold dust and ivory. Bristol fishermen sailed across the dreaded Atlantic to the cod-fisheries of Newfoundland," and at the close of Elizabeth's reign English ships began to rival those of other nations in the Polar whale-fisheries.8

1 Cf. Froude, History, ix. pp. 30, 303, 338, 485; also Green, History, ii. pp. 422-425, on the "sea-dogs" and Drake.

2 A short summary of the deeds of Frobisher, Drake, and Cavendish is given in Craik, British Commerce, i. 245-256. See also Hakluyt's Voyages. 4 Hakluyt, i. 246. ▲ Ib., i. 265. 5 Craik, Brit. Commerce, i. 243.

3

6 Craik, British Commerce, i. 222, notes that trading voyages both to Brazil and Guinea become common after 1530.

7 They had done so in Edward VI.'s reign, and the fisheries are mentioned in the 2 and 3 Edward VI., c. 6. But only fifteen ships from England were engaged in the fisheries in 1577 as compared with 150 from France. Craik (quoting Hakluyt), British Commerce, i. 259.

8 Craik, British Commerce, i. 259, ii. 29.

This reign witnessed also the rise of the great commercial companies. The company of Merchant Adventurers had indeed existed since 1407, if not before,11 having been formed in imitation of the Hanseatic League. The Russian Company of 1554 was formed upon the model of this earlier company; and later came the foundation of the great East India Company. The last was due to the results of Drake's far-famed voyage round the world, which took three years, 1577-80. Shortly after his return it was proposed to found "a company for such as trade beyond the equinoctial line," but a long delay took place, and finally a company was incorporated for the more definite object of trading with the East Indies.3 The date of this famous incorporation was 1600, and in 1601 Captain Lancaster made the first regular trading voyage on its behalf. To this modest beginning we owe our present Indian Empire.1

§ 141. Remarks on the Signs and Causes of the

Expansion of Trade.

Now, if we look at the broad features that mark the growth of sixteenth century trade, we shall see that it was closely connected with England's decision to abide by the Protestant cause. It was that which won her the friendship of the Flemish merchants; it was the religious disturbances in Flanders that gained for London the commercial supremacy of Europe; it was our quarrel with Roman Catholic Spain that inspired the voyages of Drake and Hawkins, and thus caused others to venture forth into new and perilous seas, over which in course of time English merchants sailed almost without a rival. And, as we have shown, the signs of the expansion of England are seen in events

1 Rymer, Foedera, viii. 464. It was an offshoot of the Mercers Company, which originated from the Brotherhood of St Thomas of Canterbury. Cf. 12 Henry VII., c. 6.

2 Cf. Froude, History, xi. pp. 121-158.

3 Craik, British Commerce, i. 251; Macpherson, History of the European Commerce with India, pp. 72-82; Stevens' Dawn of British Trade to the East Indies contains a reprint of the minutes of the Company.

4 For the history of the Company, see ch. xviii., below.