TRADE AND MARKETS. 143 



Agincourt, and by assisting in the creation of an indepen- 

 dent Burgundian kingdom on the Western side of the Rhine 

 have altered the history of Europe. Henry the Seventh, with 

 greater shrewdness and success, contrived to create the com- 

 mercial treaty, which, under the name of the Inter cur sus 

 Magnus, created interests which endured for nearly a century 

 between England and Flanders, while it baffled completely 

 the various plots against the House of Tudor which were 

 framed or assisted by Margaret Plantagenet, the Dowager of 

 Burgundy. 



The policy which is advocated in the poem which I have 

 referred to, is repeated in another which Mr. Wright has in- 

 cluded in the same work. But this later production, put at 

 the conclusion of the volume, refers to a custom which the 

 writer complains of as a late growth among capitalists, that 

 of compelling their workmen to accept goods in lieu of wages, 

 and these at arbitrary prices. It is singular to find that in the 

 fifteenth century the abuse of the tally shop was experienced 

 and complained of. The writer suggests that the mines of 

 silver should be better worked, and that the money be coined 

 on the spot. The proposal is worth noting, because it shows 

 that there was or might be supplied in England a certain 

 amount of silver, and that therefore this country was not, 

 during the period in question, wholly dependent on foreign 

 sources for this metal. The Libel of English Policy informs 

 us also about the Irish gold mines, which it states supplied 

 metal of the finest * touch/ or quality. 



I know nothing which similarly illustrates the character of 

 English trade till I find the statute 32 Hen. VIII, cap. 14. 

 The object of this statute is the improvement or restoration 

 of the English mercantile marine. It had been, the preamble 

 of the statute informs us, an object with certain English kings 

 to secure the growth of merchant shipping by what we should 

 call navigation acts. Thus by an act of 5 Rich. II, cap. 6, 

 merchandise could be imported in English bottoms only, a 

 monopoly which was slightly modified by an act of the next 



