A. D. i^r^. 571 



• It was enaded, that a veflel fhould not be liable to feizure for a little 

 thing put onboard, without paying cuftom, unknown to the owner. 

 [Stat. I, 38 Edw. Ill, c. 8.] It is evident that the want of precifion in 

 this law (as indeed in mofl others of the age) left it in the breafl of the 

 judge to acquit or condemn any veflel, juft as he chofe to call the thing 

 fmuggled a little thing or a great thing. 



That there might be the greater plenty of wine in the country, the 

 king allowed all denizens, except artificers, to bring wine from Gaf- 

 coigne, as well as the Gafcons and other aliens. \Stat. i, 38 Edw, III, 



c. II.] 



1365, May 20"* — A (hip belonging to the bifhop of Aberdeen, having 

 been left at anchor with only two men onboard, had been driven out to 

 fea, and put into Yarmouth, where the admiral feized her as a wreck. 

 On complaint being made to King Edward, he ordered the admiral to 

 reflore the veflel, which could not be adjudged to be wreck when there 

 was any living animal onboard, and much lefs being in the charge of 

 two men. [Fcedera, V. vi, />, 462.] 



July 28''' — The king, obferving that many of the clergy and laity 

 carried great fums of money out of the kingdom, by bills of exchange, 

 and by way of advance, in merchandize, in coin, and by many other 

 fubterfuges, without obtaining his licence, fent orders to many of the 

 great officers of his foreign dominions to make flirid: fearch by day and 

 by night, and to flop all perfons having money, bullion, bills of ex- 

 change, 8tc. except known merchants ; and to make all mariners and 

 merchants arriving from England fwear, that they had no money, bul- 

 lion, or bills of exchange, except for the purpofes of their lawful trade. 

 \Fcsdera, V. vi, p. 475.] As the balance of trade is known to have 

 been favourable to England at this time, thefe prohibitions, and very 

 laborious and expenfive watchings, fliow clearly, that, though fome re- 

 mittances were made by bills of exchange, the fcience of negotiating 

 them, and, indeed, all other commercial fcience, was fcarcely known, 

 at leaft in England. 



The number of perfons at this time in England, poflefllng property 

 to the value of thirty pennies in cattle *, was only Jortj-eigbt thoufand, 

 if we may venture to take it from the collection of S'. Peter's pennies, 

 amounting only to 300 marks, which the king this year took to him- 

 felf. [Slaw's Annales, p. 420.] 



* Stow fays, ' All that had 30 penny woorth of -his houfe. Earlier defcriptions may be fcen in the 



' goods, of one manner cattel in their houfe of Saxon laws, and Spelman's explanations of them 



• their own proper.' — The fenfe cf this is rather in his Concilia and his Glofary : but this is the 



obfcure : but It may perhaps be explained from latelt I find, for I do not know whence Stow hai 



Knyghton's dcfcription \_coI. 2356] of the perfons taken the paflage, which 1 have here quoted from 



liable to pay S,. Peter's penny in the reign of the him, and given on the farth of his general inte- 



Conqueror, viz. every perfon having the value of grity. 

 thirty pennies of live money (flaves and cattle) in 



4G 2 



