A. D 1 60 1. 



223 



' Mercatoria) the meetings of merchants in London were held in Lom- 

 ' bard ftreet (fo called becaufe certain Italians of Lombardy kept there 

 ' a pawn-houfe or lombard long before the Royal exchange was built), 

 ' all the pohcies of infurances at Antwerp which then were and now 

 ' (1622) yet are made, do make mention, that it (hall be in all things 

 * concerning the faid alTurances as was accuftomed to be done in Lom- 

 ' bard ftreet in London, which is imitated alfo in other places of the 

 ' Low Countries.' 



The fenate of Staden wrote to fome great man of Queen EHzabeth's 

 court (not named), requefting him to alTure the queen of their readi- 

 nefs to receive the Englifti merchant-adventurers to refide in their town 

 as formerly, provided there be no monopoly or college, as they ftile it, of 

 the faid merchant-adventurers, fince they have learned that the imperial 

 court has become more favourable to the Englifh ; and that the em- 

 peror's mandate ftruck only at the monopoly, as what the Hanfeatics 

 oppofed. In the mean time all Engliih merchants in general may freely 

 refort to Staden. {Fosdera, V. xvi, p, 408.] But it was with a very bad 

 grace that the merchants of the Hanfe complained of monopolies, who 

 for three centuries had been the greateft monopolifts in Europe. We 

 may therefor confider this letter as merely complimentary. 



The wars of Ireland having drained much of the money of England, 

 Queen Elizabeth coined fhillings, fixpences, threepences, and halfpence, 

 of a bafer allay than the Englifti Sterling coins, which flie fent into Ire- 

 land, as the only proper coins to pafs there ; and flie alfo erected an of- 

 fice of exchange between England and Ireland, for exchanging the faid 

 new money with fterling moneys of England, appointing the offices of 

 exchange to be at London, Briftol, and Chefter, in England, and Dub- 

 lin, Cork, Galway, and Carrickfergus, in Ireland, where twenty fliil- 

 lings Englifh money were to be exchanged for twenty-one fliillings Irifii. 

 \F(xdera, V. xv\, p. 414.] 



King Henry IV of France, an able and penetrating prince, publiftied 

 an edidl for reducing the intereft of money in that kingdom to 6;^ per 

 cent. That king therein obferves, that high intereft had ruined many 

 good and antient houfes ; that it had obftruded commerce, tillage, 

 and manufadures, many perlons, through the facility of their gain by 

 intereft of money, chooftng rather to live idly in good towns on their 

 income arifing therefrom, than to labour in the raiore painful employ- 

 ments, in liberal arts, or in huftjandry. 



It might have been expeded that the Englifti, now a nation of confi- 

 derable commerce, would have perceived the benefit of low intereft 

 fooner than France ; yet the fad was quite otherwife, for intereft was 

 not reduced in England from ten to eight till the year 1624, nor from 

 eight to fix per cent till fifty years after this time. 



