432 A, D.. 1647. 



as indeed tliey have to this time done, to come every year over the Py. 

 renean mountains into Spain, for getting in their harvefts. This me- 

 lancholy iituation is by fome authors fuid to liave put the Spanifli court 

 upon confultation, about the middle of this century, whether it might 

 not be advifeable for the king and his court, &c. to remove to and fettle 

 -entirely in America, in confideration of their not having a fufficiency 

 of people for the joint prefervation of the Spanifh dominions both in 

 Europe and America. In the next fucceeding reign of King Charles II, 

 Spain grew ftill more feeble : yet, after all, fhe has fince, through wifer 

 counfels, been able to weather mod of her misfortunes, and is, in our 

 days, in a more profperous condition than flie had been for above 130 

 years backward. 



The lords and commons of the Englifli parliament now wifely and 

 abfolutely prohibited the exportation of Englifli wool. They alio ilfued 

 a proclamation for fupporting the privileges and charters of the fociety 

 ,of the merchant-adventurers of England, who, in this year, had re- 

 Tnoved their foreign refidence or comptoir from Delft to Dort. And our 

 woollen trade at this time was in a very profperous condition. 



Yet, through many various misfortunes, and efpecially the many en- 

 ■croachments and cruelties of the Dutch company, the Englifli Eaft- 

 India company's trade feems to have been at this time almofl quite 

 funk, or at leafl much decayed. 



It was about this year that the Caribbee ifland of Marygalante was 

 begun to be planted by the French. Such parts of it as are plain and 

 not quite barren they cultivated very well, chiefly for the growth of to- 

 bacco : but it is faid to be in general very mountainous. Columbus, in 

 the year 1493, named it after his own fliip- 



England's wealth and commerce at this time mufl: have been very 

 confiderable, fince, notwithflanding the interrviptions which a fix years 

 civil war muft have occafioned, the lords and commons had raifed up- 

 wards of forty millions fl:erling for the war againfl; the king, between 

 the years 1^41 and 1647, or about 1.6,666,666 : 13:4 per annum, 

 \_Rojal tre<ijii.ry of England, p. 297, 8w, 1725] befide what the king 

 had raifed in the counties where his interefl; was predominant. 



1648. — The pitch and tar manufadure of Sweden was in early times- 

 a very confiderable part of their commerce. The principal ports from 

 whence ihole articles were of old exported to the refl: of Europe, were 

 Stockholm and Wyburg. But Queen Chriftiana having, in the year 

 1648, erected a joint-ftock tar company, exclufive of all others, where- 

 by they were faid to have doubled their capital every three years, thofe 

 monopolifts laid fuch ejCorbitant prices on pitch and tar, they obliging 

 ihemfelves by that charter to take off all that was made in the king- 

 dom, that even fuch parts of Sweden as before made no tur were then 

 ubligejl to fall into the making of it, whereby the quantity was greatly 



