126 A. D. 1559. 



' the very citizens began to wear it frequently ; for it is an infallible 

 ' obfervation, that pride and luxury are moil predominant during pub- 

 ' lie calamities.' 



1 1560. — The manuflxdure of fine woollen cloth in the Spaniih Ne- 

 therlands muft have been prodigionlly great before the Englifli got fo 

 much into it. Louis Guicciardin, their hlftorian, affirms, that in thofe 

 former times, upwards of 40,000 packs of Spanifh wool had been an- 

 nually imported thither ; but (adds he) as the Spaniards have, of late 

 years, made more cloth at home than formerly, they do not now (in 

 this year 1560 that I am writing this work) import into the Nether- 

 lands above 25,000 packs of Spanifh wool yearly. The decreafe of the 

 woollen manufadure of the Netherlands was, doubtlefs, the true caufe 

 of their importing a fraaller quantity of Spaniih wool than formerly, 

 though Guicciardin did not choofe to allign it. 



The poet Milton, in his brief hiftory of Mufcovia, fays, ' the En- 

 ' glifli began this year to trade to Narva in Livonia, the Lubeckers 

 ' and Dantzickers having till then concealed that trade from other na- 

 ' tions.' Although Milton does not mention the true reafon of this 

 circumftance, we conceive it to proceed from the Rullians having con- 

 quered Narva, as we have feen two years before this time. 



Queen Elizabeth, finding the popifh princes very jealous of the fup- 

 port given by her to the proteftants abroad as well as at home, wifely 

 provided for her own fecurity, by filling her magazines with ammuni- 

 tion, military and naval flores. She foon after made gunpov\'der (a 

 nevi^ manufaifture in England), and cauled brafs and iron ordnance to 

 be caft : She alio built a confiderable number of fhips for v.'ar, whereby 

 ihe formed the moft refpedable fleet that England had ever feen ; and 

 for the fafeguard thereof, flie ereded Upnore caftle on the river Med- 

 way : She moreover confiderably increafed the pay of her naval officers 

 and feamen ; whereupon (fays Camden) foreigners ftiled her the re- 

 ftorer of naval glory and queen of the northern leas. 



In imitation of the queen, the opulent fubjeds alfo built fliips of 

 force. The national navy, including the queen's and the private fliips 

 of war, was able to carry 20,000 fighting men againfl; an eneniy ; and 

 England no longer depended on Hamburgh, Lubeck, Dantzick, Genoa, 

 and Venice, I'br a fleet in time of war. 



Elizabeth, about this time, reftored the filver coin nearer to its fler- 

 ling purity than it had been for 200 years bef<:)re ; her father, more 

 efpecially, having, towards the clofe of his reign, fhamefully debafed it 

 by mixing it with copper for his own profit, though greatly to the de- 

 triment of the public. 



Guicciardin (in his Defaiptlon of the Netherlands) fays that the Dutch, 

 even before their revolt from Spain, carried on fo great a trade, that 

 •about this time they brought annually from Denmark, Eailhnd, Livo- 



