TRADE AND MARKETS. 



In point of fact, discreditable as were, from a modern point 

 of view, the beginnings of English maritime enterprise, the 

 form they took was almost inevitable. The Pope had con- 

 ferred, at a time when such grants were considered valid, the 

 New World and all parts of the Old World which lay out of 

 Europe and the Papal suzerainty, on Portugal and Spain. As 

 long as Teutonic Europe acknowledged the Pope's authority, 

 it was not easy to dispute these grants, and after the Teutonic 

 revolt occurred, it was not politic for the reformed kingdoms 

 to openly set them at nought. But it was very difficult to 

 prevent private warfare, when the object of such warfare was 

 opulent, was possessed of lucrative privileges, and was quite 

 unable to defend these privileges by a general blockade of the 

 ocean. Hence piracy or buccaneering became an acknowledged 

 fact, and the rule, no peace with Spain below the line, an 

 admitted principle. Hence Drake sailed with the distinct 

 purpose of plundering Spanish commerce, at a time when 

 England was professedly at peace with Spain, and the com- 

 merce which he intended to assail was virtually being carried 

 on by the Spanish crown. It was difficult to effect an entrance 

 into those districts where Spain claimed an absolute monopoly, 

 but by buccaneering, and the failures of Frobisher and Davis 

 explain, though they may not justify, the expedition of Drake. 

 But the period contained in these volumes closes before the 

 final and permanent breach with Spain began. Up to 1582, 

 England had virtually no commerce either with the West or 

 the East Indies, and the quarrel with Spain was the occasion 

 for the settlement of the American plantations. Raleigh's first 

 voyage was in 1584, though he had been associated with an 

 adventure of Gilbert's in 1578. 



The internal trade of England was mainly carried on in 

 the great fairs. Among these, the famous fair of Stourbridge \ 

 in the parish or liberty of Barnwell, near Cambridge, was and 

 remained the most considerable. I have described this fair in 



1 The cry" of Stourbridge fair may be seen in Gutch's Collectanea Curiosa, vol. i.p. II. 

 The prices of ale, &c. point to the first half of the sixteenth century at latest. 



