A. D. 1452. 669 



November 2^ — King Henry granted a fafe-conducl for four years to 

 rhree fkilful miners, with thirty other perfons, from Bohemia, Hungary, 

 Auflria, and Micia (rather Mifnia or MeifIen),who were to be employ- 

 ed in his mines in England. [Fcedera, V. xi, p. 317.] The mines in 

 thofe countries had been worked many centuries, and the miners were 

 probably the moft expert in Europe, 



1453, March — The parliament granted the king the duties of tunnage 

 and poundage for life. They alfo granted him, during his fubfidy of 

 wool, 23/4 from denizens and ^5 from aliens on every fack, with pro- 

 portional duties on other ftaple wares. And they impofcd an annual 

 tax of 40/ upon every alien merchant keeping houfe in England, and 

 20/ upon thofe who remained only fix weeks in the country, and more- 

 over /^6: 13 : 4 to be paid annually by every alien merchant during the 

 king's life. {Cotton'' s Abridgement, p. 649.] Whether thefe taxes operat- 

 ed as real burthens upon the Englifli confumers and fellers, or were, as 

 intended, a<flually taxes upon the foreigners, depended upon the Eng- 

 lifli merchants being capable, or not, of competing with them. 



May 29'" — The imperial city of Conftantinople was taken by afTauk 

 by Mohamed 11, emperor of the Turks. Conftantine Palseologus, the 

 laft of the many fucceflbrs of the firft Conftantine, who traniplanted the 

 feat of empire to the fhore of the Bofphorus, was found buried under 

 a mountain of his flaughtered fubje6ls : and the Roman empire, after 

 dragging out many centuries in the imbecillity of extreme old age, was 

 finally extinguifhed. Conftantinople was no longer an emporium or- 

 conneding point for the commerce of the eaftern and weftern regions 

 of the world. The Genoefe were obliged to abandon their fettlement 

 at Pera, adjacent to that city ; and they foon after lofl: all their other 

 fadlories or colonies in the JEgaean fea. Their eaftern trade, which had 

 been chiefly fupported by thofe fettlements, declined rapidly ; and the 

 Venetians, almoft without a rival, fupplied the increafmg demand of 

 Europe for the produdions of the Eaft, which they were enabled to ob- 

 tain on the moft advantageous terms by their connedions with the ful-- 

 tan of the Mamelukes. ^ 



- One good confequence of the overthrow of the Greek empire w^as,- , 

 that many men of literature and fcience, and along with them many 

 works of the learned of former ages, were difperfed through the weftern 

 countries of Europe ; and the knowledge diffeminated by their inftruc-- 

 tions, and by their books, which were multiplied, and rendered attain- 

 able by people of moderate wealth, by the late happy invention of 

 printing, wonderfully enlightened Europe, and had great influence in 

 bringing on a ftate of civilization, fovourable to the advancement of 

 commerce, the arts, and the happinefs of mankind. 



Odober 17"* — The city of Bourdeaux was a fecond time taken by the 

 French ; and the Englifli were finally expelled from every part of France, 

 except Calais and its fmall diftrid. Without detr.iding from the wonv 



