78 A. D. 1534' 



had an imufual trade to Sicily, Candia, and Chio, and fometimes to Cy- 

 prus, and to Tripoli, and Barutti, in Syria. Their exports were woollen 

 cloths, calf fidns, &c. ; and their imports were filks, camblets, rhubarb, 

 malmfey, mulcadel, and other wines ; oils, cotton-wool, Turkey carpets, 

 galls, aiid India fpices. The Englifh merchants likewife employed I'un- 

 dry foreign ftiips in that trade, as Candiots, Ragufans, Sicilians, Geno- 

 efe, Venetian galeafles, and Spanifli and Portugal fhips. In thofe* days 

 they generally employed a whole year in fuch voyages. 



1535. — The next year, a (hip of 300 tons, from London, went on 

 the fame Levant voyage, with 100 perfons in her, and returned in i r. 

 months ; and the Englifh merchants fettled fadors in thofe places. AH 

 thefe particulars the indefatigable Hakluyt picked out of the antient 

 merchants books of thofe times ; and he traced thofe voyages down even 

 to the year 1552, though not fo frequent in the latter years as in the 

 former. The journals of thofe old voyages {how that they v/ere then 

 thottght exceedingly difficult and dangerous. 



We muil not forget the great generofity of a very famous and rich 

 merchant at Augfburg, named Fugger, v/ho had alfo an houfe and great 

 dealings at Antwerp. For defraying the expenfe of an expedition to 

 Tunis, the emperor had run deep in debt to Fugger, who having invit- 

 ed him to an entertainment at his houfe, in order to teftify his refpc6l 

 for that prince, made a fire in his hall with cinnamon, and threw all the 

 emperor's bonds into that coftly fire, now made much more fo by that 

 great act of generofity. 



It was in this year, according to Lord Herbert,, that great ordnance 

 of brafs, as cannon and culverius, were firft made in England, they 

 having before been had from foreign parts *. 



We may have already oblerved, that fince the acceflion of King- 

 Henry VIII, there was not only a great increafe of the woollen manu- 

 fiidure of England, but likewife of its foreign commerce, and alfo fun- 

 dry other marks of increafing riches. Never thelefs, any one entirely 

 unacquainted with the then circumftances of England would be led to 

 imagine quite the contrary, from the preambles of certain ads of par- 

 Hament of the 26th and 27th years of that king's reign, where it is laid 

 that great numbers of houies have of a long time lain in ruins in the 

 city of Norwich, occafioned by a fire there twenty-fix years before ; alfo 

 in Lynn-Bifliop in Norfolk, and in Nottingham, Shrewfiaury, Ludlow, 



* Other canncn, we niRy prefume, had been according to Lefly [/> reb. geji. Scot. p. 338, et!. 

 made in England long before now, as we know 1675], wiio fays, that in his time very many can- 

 for certain, tliat great cannon, moft probably of non with that infciiption were to be feen in Scot- 

 iron, had been made in the calUe of Edinburgh kuuL Seven cannon made by Eorthwick, call'-d 

 by a ScottilK artift called Robert Bcrthwick, who the /even f^Jen, were particularly noted. [Pit- 

 ui"ed to infcribc upon them ficttic, p. 174, <•</. 1778 Stoiu's /Imales, p. 8iO, 



' ."iIsch.iBa fum Scoto Borth'jik fabiicatu Robtrto,' (d. l(iOQ-~\ J\L 



