656 



A. D. 1439. 



Pruffia, which gave great reUef, [Fcvdera, V. x, p. 717. — Stow's Survey 

 of London, p. 937.] 



November — The parliament, confidering that butter and cheefe could 

 neither bear long keeping nor heavy expenfes, permitted them to be ex- 

 ported, without any fpecial licence, to other places as well as to Calais, 

 [ASls 18 Hen. VI, c. 3.] The parliament mud undoubtedly have thought 

 that fome good efFeds arofe from the fyflem of impofing the hardihips 

 of long keeping and heavy expenfes on wool, hides, tin, &c. 



The parliament now prohibited merchant flrangers from buying and 

 felling with each other in England. They alfo enforced the law oblig- 

 ing them to live under the furvey of hofls, who were to be fufficient 

 Englifhmen, experienced in bufinefs, but not concerned in the branch 

 which their guefls were engaged in, and to be appointed by the ma- 

 giftrates of the towns wherein the flrangers tranfaded their bufinefs. 

 The merchant flrangers were obliged to do all their bufinefs of buying 

 or felling, landing or (hipping, under the infpedion of their hofls, and 

 to make fale, within eight months after their arrival, of all goods im- 

 ported by them, except cloth of gold and of filver, or of filk. They 

 were bound to lay out all the proceeds of their fales in Englifh goods. 

 The hofls were required to lodge in the exchequer twice a-year attefted 

 accounts of all the tranfadions of their guefls in buying and felling ; 

 and they were entitled to two pennies out of every twenty Ihillings of 

 goods bought and fold. [c. 4.] 



An abufe had crept in of meafuring cloths, not by the yard and full 

 inch, but by the yard and full hand, which the buyers alleged to be 

 the meafure of London, and thereby got 2 yards in every cloth of 24 

 yards. It was now enabled, that one inch only fhould be allowed in ad- 

 dition to the yard. [c. 16.] 



The parliament, conlidering that oil and honey were not by law liable 

 to be gauged *, ordered that they fhould be gauged as well as wine, ahd 

 that the buyer lliould have allowance for any deficiency of the flandard 

 meafure of 252 gallons in the tun, and in proportion in the pipe and 

 tertian or tierce, [f. 17.] 



The commons propoi'ed in parliament, that the Italians and others 

 living within the Straits of Morocco fhould not be permitted to import 

 into England imy other merchandize than the produce of their own 

 countries f. They alfo defired, that all fpiceries, fold in the out-ports 

 by merchant flrangers, fhould be as clear garbled as in London. But 

 both propofilions were rejeded by the king. {Cotton^s Abridgement^ p. 626.] 



1440, February 2"* — King Henry addrelTed an expoftulatory letter to 



* If the parliament had looked back to the aif\ one of the inmimciable evils, to which tlic avt of 

 4 Rich. II, c. I, itiey would have feeii, that oil priiitlnfj lias ajiplied a remedy, 

 aiid lioney were already on the lame fooling with f The reader will perceive that a principal part 



wine in rcfpeil to gauging. That overfight was I'f the famous navigation aft was propofed by the 



mcrcliants in the year 1439. 



