A. D. 1615. 281 



' We trade to Naples, Genoa, Leghorn, Marfeilles, Malaga, &c. with 

 ' only 20 fliips, chiefly with herrings ; and 30 fail moi'e laden with 

 ' pipe-flaves from Ireland. 



' — To Portugal and Andalufia, we fend 20 fhips for wines, fugar, 

 ' fruit, and Weft-India drugs. 



' — To Bourdeaux, we fend 60 fhips and barks for wines. 



' — To Hamburgh and Middleburgh, 35 fliips are fent by our mer- 

 ' chant-adventurers company. 



' — To Dantzick, Koningfljerg, &c. we fend yearly about 30 fliips, 

 ' viz. fix from London, fix from Ipfwich, and the reft from Hull, Lynn, 



* and Newcaftle : but the Dutch many more. 



' — To Norway, we fend not above 5 fhips, and the Dutch above 



* 40 ; and great fhips too. 



* — Our Newcaftle coal-trade employs 400 fail of fliips, viz. 200 for. 



* fupplying of London, and 200 more for the reft of England. 



' And befides our own fhips,' (fays this author) * hither, even to the 



* mine's mouth, come all our neighbouring nations with their fliips con- 



* tinually, employing their own fhipping and mariners. I doubt not,' 

 (continues he) ' whether if they had fuch a treafure, they would not 

 ' employ their own fhipping folely therein. The French fail thither in 

 ' whole fleets of 50 fail together ; ferving all their ports of Picardie, 

 ' Normandie, Bretagne, 8cc. even as far as Rochel and Bourdeaux. And 

 ' the fhips of Bremen, Enibden, Holland, and Zeeland, fupply tliofe of 

 ' Flanders, &c. whofe fhipping is not great, with our coals ! 



' — Our Iceland fifliery employs 120 fliips and barks of our own. 



' — And the Newfoundland fifhery, 150 fmall fhips.' [Yet Gerard' 

 Malynes, in his Lex Mercatoria (printed anno 1622, p. 247), fays, that 

 this very year there were 250 fhips from England at the Newfoundland 

 fifhery, the tonnage of which amounted to 15,000 tons. And that the 

 French, Bifcayners, and Portuguefe, can make two voyages yearly with 

 400 fhips.} 



' — And our Greenland whale fifliery, 14 fhips. 



' As for the Bermudas,' (fays he) ' we know not yet what they will 

 ' do ; and for Virginia, we know not what to do with it ; the prefent 



' profit of thofe two colonies not employing any ftore of fhipping 



' The great expenfe that the nobility and gentry have been at in plant- 

 ' ing Virginia is no way recompenfed by the poor returns from thence *.' 



* How much is the cafe altered fince this author Judicious readers need not to be told, that fuch 



wrote ? And how great a fund of authentic mercan- tiiemoirs as thcfe, concerning the ilate of trade and 



tile hiftoiy have fuch old trafts fupplicd us with, (hipping, in different period?, drawn from fafls, 



which otherwife might have been loll ; many of written by fuch able authors as lived at the refpec- 



which have been collceted witli great labour and tivc times, tend moll effeftually to illullrate the 



expenfe ; and therefor ought to be made a begin- vail increafc of, and furprillng alterations in, our 



ning to a public mercantile hbrary, in order to pre- commerce, colonies, i5cc. and the like alfo in thole 



ferve fuch valuable memoirs from deftruflion. of other nations. 



Vol. II. N n 



