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For each other land of necessity

Have great need to buy some of the three ;

And we receive of them into this coast

Ware and chaffare that lightly [easily] will be lost". Even in the sixteenth century it was the ground of complaint that merchants brought in "strange merchandise and artificial fantasies "1. The Libelle also insists that the carrying trade should be in English hands, and sought to restrict the duration of foreign merchants in England to a period of forty days.

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England's

Another work, On England's Commercial Policy 2, was com- On posed somewhat later than the Libelle of English Polycye, from Comwhich it freely borrowed many of its sentiments. It is mercial Policy. valuable for its allusions to the condition of the working classes, to which attention has already been drawn. In common with the Libelle the writer is at pains to show how England was in a position to exercise supremacy over all other countries, though his contention is based not on the ground of our strategic position, but on our industrial resources. No country was able to dispense with English commodities, wool and cloth, and this gave us a hold by which "we might rule and govern all Christian kings". He counselled further that we should sell our wares dear. The writers of both poems in fact were essentially mercantilist in their standpoint. They appear to have taken the view that foreign countries by obtaining our commodities enriched themselves at our expense; it was reserved for a later age to recognize that in a fair exchange both parties to the contract may equally benefit. They were anxious, therefore, that England should not part too easily with her commodities either by exchanging them for mere trifles, "things of complacence", or by selling them too cheaply.

1 Pauli, Drei volksw. Denkschr. 37.

2 Political Poems and Songs, vol. ii.

3 Supra, P. 423.

Commercial

Henry
VII.

At the end of the fifteenth century a new epoch in the treaties of history of English commerce opened up with the reign of Henry VII. Henry was the first of the line of modern statesmen, and his significance lies especially in the fact that he seems to have recognized clearly the futility of the old schemes of aggrandizement on the continent. His face was turned westward, and his encouragement of voyages of discovery revealed to England her true destiny and helped to place her upon the path along which she has since moved. The pioneer of geographical discoveries was John Cabot, who was the first to set foot on the mainland of North America1. Henry's care for foreign commerce is seen especially in the numerous mercantile treaties which he concluded with the different states of Europe. His commercial activities fairly embraced the whole continent. He made a compact with Ferdinand and Isabella, by which the subjects of either country were at liberty to trade in the other country and to receive the same treatment as the nativeborn. He carried out agreements with the Empire3, France, and Friesland 5, which conferred trading privileges upon English merchants; but most important of all were the treaties between England and the Netherlands. The latter was the chief market for English produce, and it was of the utmost consequence to establish the relations between the two countries on a satisfactory basis. The Magnus Intercursus (1496) restored commercial intercourse after it had been suspended for a considerable time. Henry, irritated at Burgundy's support of Perkin Warbeck, and in order to force the archduke's hand, had banished Flemings from his dominions, ordering the Merchant Adventurers to leave Antwerp and removing the mart of English cloth to Calais 6. The Merchant Adventurers rallied loyally to the king's side, and "being a strong company (at that

(i.) Relations with the Netherlands.

1 There appear to have been three Cabot voyages, the first two under John Cabot, and the third under Sebastian his son. For a discussion as to this, see J. A. Williamson, Maritime Enterprise (1913), 103 et passim. 2 Rymer (O. ed.), xii. 421 (1490); ibid. xii. 744 (1499).

3 Ibid. xiii. 6(1502). 4 Ibid. xii. 500 (1492). s Ibid. xiii. 121 (1505). 6 Bacon, Works, vi. 147. A proclamation in 1493 forbade all trade between England and the Low Countries: Crawford, Tudor and Stuart Proclamations, i. 3, No. 23.

time) and well under-set with rich men and good order, did hold out bravely; taking off the commodities of the kingdom, though they laid dead upon their hands for want. of vent"1. The Magnus Intercursus ensured a free market for the sale of English cloth, which was no longer to be excluded from the Netherlands (except Flanders); it also stipulated that only the customary duties should be imposed, and obtained the removal of the new imposition placed on English cloth 2. The English merchants, says Bacon, "came again to their mansion at Antwerp where they were received with procession and great joy". In 1499 another treaty removed all existing duties on cloth and allowed it to be sold anywhere within the dominions of Burgundy (except Flanders), and not merely at Bruges and Antwerp1. Finally, in 1506, the Malus Intercursus crowned Henry's efforts to establish complete freedom of trade by enabling English merchants to sell cloth in the Low Countries retail and not only wholesale, and even to sell cloth in Flanders, although here traffic was to be wholesale 5. But the next year Philip of Burgundy died, and the Regent's refusal to ratify the treaty compelled a fresh agreement in which the concession of retail trading was withdrawn, though the other privileges remained intact.

Relations

Henry's relations with the Netherlands showed his (ii) anxiety to advance the commercial interests of his country with the and find an outlet for the cloth manufacture. The same Hansards. principles of conduct influenced his dealings with the Hansards and the Venetians. At the outset, indeed, Henry did not enjoy a free hand; the great disturbing factor of his reign was the insecurity of his throne which compelled him to pursue a makeshift policy. His leading idea was to prevent foreign courts from lending encouragement to pretenders, and he shrank from an open breach with the powerful Hanseatic League, which had already assisted one claimant to obtain the English throne and might easily be

1 Bacon, Works, vi. 172.

Rymer, xii. 655. Proclamation of peace: Tudor and Stuart Proclamations, i. 3, No. 24. 3 Works, vi. 173.

4 Rymer, xii. 716; Tudor and Stuart Proclamations, i. 5, No. 37. Rymer, xiii. 134.

English trade in

the Medi

induced to assist another. But though compelled to confirm
their privileges, he showed none the less clearly the trend of
his inclinations and harassed them in divers ways. In
order to break down their exclusive monopoly, he entered
into compacts with Denmark (1489) and Riga (1498). The
former welcomed an alliance against the common rival
and admitted English merchants on advantageous terms,
conferring upon them full trading rights in Denmark
and Iceland1. A generation earlier (1450) Canynges, the
merchant prince of Bristol, and other traders had been
allowed to share in the trade with Iceland 2. The treaty with
Riga (1498) was a virtual attempt to detach it from the
League, but the latter reasserted its control and foiled
Henry's efforts to make a breach in its monopoly 3. There
were difficulties raised on both sides: Henry's commissioners
reiterated their grievance that Englishmen were denied
reciprocal rights in the Hanseatic dominions in spite of the
Treaty of Utrecht; the Hansards complained of their
injuries in England," which they would fain have written
with a pen of iron on a hard flint-stone that they might
never more forget it "5. But later a new menace con-
fronted Henry in the pretensions of the earl of Suffolk, and
once again the claims of dynasty proved paramount. He
abandoned his hostility to the League and restored it to
complete favour. A statute of 1504 provided that no acts
relating to merchants or merchandise should extend
the prejudice, hurt or charge of the said merchants of the
Hanse contrary to their ancient liberties, privileges, and
free usages and customs of old time granted to " them;
and the League maintained its position throughout the
reign of Henry VIII.

to

Henry not only sought to gain a firmer footing for Englishmen in the Baltic, his enterprise also made itself terranean. felt in other directions. English merchants had already begun to participate in the trade of southern Europe, and to frequent the ports of the Mediterranean with their Ibid. xii. 701. 4 Schanz, Englische Handelspolitik, ii. 423, No. 94 (1499). 5 W. Busch, England under the Tudors (1895), i. 154. 6 Statutes, ii. 665.

1 Rymer, xii. 381.

2 Ibid. xi. 273, 277.

ships. They had petitioned Henry IV. (1411) to allow them to send wool and other merchandise through the Straits of Gibraltar 1, and in 1449 special licence for this purpose had been extended to John Taverner, a merchant of Hull 2. Henry (1486) appointed a consul at Pisa, who was to determine all suits and controversies and to receive the fourth part of one ducat for every hundred ducats' worth of English goods carried thither 3; in this direction he was only following in the steps of Richard III., who had made Lorenzo Strozzi, a Florentine, English consul at Pisa. In the opening years of the sixteenth century, "divers tall ships of London . . . with certain other ships of Southampton and Bristol had an ordinary and usual trade to Sicily, Candia, Chios and somewhile to Cyprus", and also to Tripolis and Syria. They carried cloth and brought back silks, rhubarb, malmsey and other wines, sweet oils, cotton-wool and spices: "all which particulars", says Hakluyt, “ do most evidently appear out of certain ancient ledger-books" of London merchants 5. The progress of English trade in the Mediterranean was marked in the next reign by the appointment of a consul at Scio 6 in 1513, and at Candia in 1530. The (iii.) great rival of English traders in the South was Venice, with whose supremacy in the Mediterranean answered to the Venice. Hanseatic domination in the Baltic. In order to protect their monopoly, the Venetians (1488) laid an extra duty of four gold ducats upon malmsey wine exported from Candia by English shippers. This would have ruined the English wine trade in Candia; and Henry, alive to the danger, took active steps to meet the challenge. A proposal was made to establish an English wool-staple at Pisa as a centre of Italian trade in competition with Venice, which was to receive no wool beyond six hundred sacks . In these negotiations with Venice, Pisa was assigned the part that Denmark and Riga had played in Henry's relations with the Hanseatic League. The plan originated with Florence which controlled Pisa, and it at once awakened

1 Rot. Parl. iii. 662 a.

3 Ibid. xii. 314.

5 Hakluyt (ed. 1903), v. 62.

7 Ibid. xiv. 389.

2 Rymer, xi. 258.

4 Ibid. xii. 270 (1485).

Rymer, xiii. 353.

8 Ibid. xii. 391, 392 (1490).

Relations

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