782 ON PRICES GENERALLY BETWEEN 1583 AND 1702. 



The foreign trade of England was trivial and unimportant 

 during the whole of the sixteenth century. I can discover no 

 means by which its domestic stock of currency could be in- 

 creased. The early struggles of English trading companies 

 were very unsuccessful. The foothold which the English got 

 in Russia was nearly lost after the death of Ivan the Terrible 

 and the subsequent revolution. The Levant Company was in 

 its beginnings a failure, and the first ventures of the East India 

 Company, under Clifford Lord Cumberland, who was himself 

 little other than a buccaneer, were miserably small when 

 compared with the courageous ventures and abundant capital 

 of the Dutch Company. 



But early in the seventeenth century, English traders con- 

 trived to get a firm hold on their Indian factories. The 

 success of the India Company's trade is demonstrated by 

 the anger and dismay of the Turkey Company. Very soon 

 in the century, and increasingly towards its close, England 

 developed its American plantations, claimed through the 

 Hudson's Bay Company lordship over the vast region north 

 of the great lakes, and became the first colonising country in 

 the world. One of the most significant illustrations of the 

 progress made by the American plantations is the rapidity 

 with which Virginian superseded Spanish tobacco. 



Despite the terrible plagues 1 which devastated England 

 during the seventeenth century, and the extreme unhealthiness 

 of towns, especially London, during the whole period before 

 me, the population of England and Wales was I believe 

 doubled in the century. The immigration from Flanders 

 and France of the exiles for religion made a notable addition, 

 the development of domestic industries and the demand for 

 English products stimulated population, while the fuller set- 

 tlement of the country, especially in the North, was a third 



1 The deaths from plague in London, at its several most severe visitations, are 

 given in the Notes of vol. vi. They were collected from the Bills of Mortality 

 by Captain Graunt, F.R.S., and Corbyn Morris; edition of 1751. I have re- 

 printed the figures. 



