A. D. 1582. iji 



down the Nile to Alexandria, and alfo by way of the caravans to 

 Aleppo, they alfo were wont to take freight in their fliips from port to 

 port, whereas now (1635* all ftrangers are more defirovis to employ 

 our own fliips in that fervice. Jacobs \^Lex mercatoria, p. 9.] alleges, 

 (upon what authority I know not) ' that the Barbary merchants were 

 ' incorporated in King Henry VII's time; but that company decaying, 



* out of their ruins arofe the Levant or Turkey company, who, firft 

 ' trading with Venice, and then with Turkey, furnifhed England that 



* way with Eaft-India commodities, which, till then, were brought to us 

 ' (raoflly) by land, and to the Portuguefe alone by long fea,' &c. 



This year the fhip Sufan of London, mounting thirty-four guns, car- 

 ried out to Turkey the Englilli ambafllidor Hareborn, who now firft fet- 

 tled peace with Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, which piratical ftates had 

 taken many fhips belonging to London, Eriftol, &c. And Hareborn 

 having eftablifhed all the Englifh factories in Turkey, notwithftanding 

 the malice of the French and Venetians, returned over land to Eng- 

 land. 



The fame year a voyage to China was attempted from England with 

 four fhips; which, however, went no farther than the coaft of Brafil, 

 and returned home for want of provifions, after having fought with 

 fome Spanifh fliips of war on that coaft. 



Mezeray, in his Hiftory of France, acquaints us that the yearly reve- 

 nue of their king, Henry HI, v,'as now got fo high as thirty-two millions 

 of livres, (or L3, 200, 000 Sterling^ a livre being at this time equal to 

 two fliillings Enghfh. 



The Hanfeatic merchants, in their complaints to the diet of the em- 

 pire againft England, afferted, that by the high duty laid on woollen cloth 

 in England, it was become (fays Werdenhagen) twice or thrice as dear as 

 it had before been : that hence Iprung the vaft increafe of England's 

 wealth, 200,000 cloths being yearly exported thence, three fourths where- 

 of were carried into Germany ; and from thence a great part was carried 

 into Poland, Denmark, and Sweden : that the remaining fourth part 

 was fent to the Netherlands and to France ; but little or none into Spain; 

 from whence it was eafy to infer the immenfenefsof the profit accruing 

 to that nation thereby. The only remedy therefor was to banifli the 

 Englilh merchant-adventurers out of the empire ; and abiolutely to pro- 

 hibit all manner of Englifh woollen manufactures, as what they judged 

 would effedually bring the queen to terms with the Hanfe towns. 'The 

 queen had fome friends in tins diet, who, together with her own able 

 envoy, Gilpin, long and ftreououfly defended her and her merchant-ad- 

 venturers. Yet in the end, the intereil of the Hanfe towns prevailed 

 with the diet, who palled fenter.ce againft the Englifh merchants, and 

 abfolutely prohibited all Englilh woollen goods : yet Gilpin by a iira- 

 tagera obtained that the fentence fhould not be executed till the decifioxv 



Y2 



