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of the Customs, was summoned before the Star Chamber, 

 of atrocious memory, fined the enormous sum of £2000, 

 and imprisoned five years for the non-payment of the fine, 

 and, at last, only set at liberty by the breaking out of the 

 great civil war, which, in the end, so amply revenged his 

 wrongs and those of a thousand others. Mr. Yates then 

 proceeded to show that the immediate effect of the civil war 

 had been still further to embarrass the position of the mer- 

 chants, although some good measures had originated in the 

 time of the commonwealth. He then went on to trace the 

 difficulties with which commerce had to struggle through 

 the inglorious reign of Charles II., a reign marked by 

 plague, pestilence, fire, disgraces at sea, extravagance at 

 Court, the open robbery of the Exchequer, and a system 

 of policy designed and calculated to destroy all the energies 

 of the nation. After tracing the history of commerce to 

 the final downfall of the Stewarts, Mr. Yates proceeded to 

 trace its history through the happier times which succeeded 

 the establishment of constitutional freedom. These diffi- 

 culties he showed to have originated in the slow develope- 

 ment of internal communication, in which he stated that we 

 were as much behind the French, for a considerable period, 

 as we are now in advance of them, from mistaken notions 

 of political economy, only recently recognized to be such ; 

 from the waste of continual wars, and from the pressure of 

 an immense national debt, and an oppressive and ill- 

 arranged system of taxation. Mr. Yates concluded his paper 

 as follows: — 



" Nevertheless, it was observed, that in all intervals of 

 peace the elasticity of foreign trade was such as to rebound, 

 in every successive instance, until again depressed by the 

 renewal of hostilities. In the middle of the last century 

 more peaceful times at length succeeded. Our immense 

 resources became fully understood and extensively drawn 

 into operation. The fruits of that glorious martyrdom, to 



