316 A. D, 1622. 



we have not been able to prevent it efFedually, even to this day, not- 

 withflanding the feveral much feverer laws made againfl that pernicious 

 practice fince thofc times. As for the query in article ift, why the 

 price of wool is fallen ? that is anfwered already by the king's com- 

 plaint in his preamble, that our cloth is not fo much demanded beyond 

 fea as formerly : and furely the importing and ufmg of Irifli and Scot- 

 tifh wool was not likely to make it rife in price ! What relates to dying 

 fluffs in article 4th feems a groundlefs, or at leafl; a trifling, complaint ; 

 and to the third we need fay nothing. As for the 6th, we have in the 

 feries of our work fufficiently enlarged on companies, with and without 

 joint flocks, and more efpecially on our Eaft-India company, whofe ad- 

 vocates in thole times (as we have feen) feem to us fufficiently to have 

 anfwered the main objections of their enemies ; which is all that needs 

 to be faid by way of anfwer to that article. The 9th, icth, i ith, and 

 1 2th articles require no particular remark. The king's defire to revive 

 the obfolete and impra(3:icable law concerning merchant-ftrangers lay- 

 ing out all their money on our own merchandize was injudicious: but 

 our importing all our hemp and flax rough is very right ; and is fince his 

 time almofl always practifed. In all our researches we could never 

 come at the report made by thofe conamiflioners to the privy-council ^. 



The general balance of the commerce of England for the year ending 

 at Chriftmas 1622, as exhibited by Mr. Miffelden, [Circle of commerce ^ 

 p. 121, ed. 1623] was as follows. 



' The total amount of exportations (including therein the cuflom at 

 ' 5 per cent on fuch goods as pay poundage, the impofls on bays, tin, 

 * lead, and pewter, and the merchant's profit of 15 per cent, together 

 ' with freight and petty charges) was - 1^2,320,436 12 10 



* The total imports, (including 1^91,059 : 1 1 : 7 cuf- 

 ' toms, and Li o0;O0o for fine run goods, &c.) 2,619,315 o o 



' Balance loft to England this year by foreign com- 

 ' merce _ _ _ 298,878 7 2' 



This accurate author gives us alfo the total amount of the cuftoms 

 of England, outward and inward, for the year 1622, viz. Li 68,222 



15/ii t-. . . 



De Witt (in his Intereft of Holland) acquaints us, that the Dutch, 

 for preventing difturbance in their whale fifhery, now eredted an exclu- 



* 



As the king exprelles his intention that this afcertain the fx^5 balance of the national commerce. 



fliould be a {landing commiffion, \_fee p. 41 1, col. As the cuiloms of England in the year 1613, (al- 



:] it may be coiifideied as the Ijrlt rudiments of ready inferted, alfo from MilTcldtn) were L20,I47 



the board of trade. M. under the colkftion of this year, it was certainly 



f The rule for competing the amount of the not on a comparifon of thofe two years that KinT 



experts and imports was then to multiply the cuf- James, in the preamble to lils co nmiirion of in- 



toms paid on either by twenty ; wliich muil have quiry, founded his complaint of th; decay of liis 



been very inaccurate, as probably every method cuftoms. 

 v/ill ever prove wliereby any one may pretend to 



