57^ J^. D. 1675. 



' load the fole trade to Portugal, but now the French and Dutch are our 



* competitors, as they are alfo to Italy, where we formerly fupplied all. 



* The Venetians alfo fupply and vend much cloth there. We kept th'e 

 ' monopoly of the woollen manufadure to mofl parts of the trading 



* world during all the reign of King James I, and the greateft part of 

 ' that of King Charles I. This was our principal jewel : and as, at the 



* fame time our imports -were lefs than of late, no wonder our coin- 

 ' age was fo great.' 



Thus we receive not a little light into the hiflory of our woollen ma- 

 nufadure from this able author, whofe work, though written with fome 

 feeming exaggeration here and there, is ftill worth perulal even at this 

 day *. 



The Dutch Eaft-India company at this time got the town of St. Tho- 

 mas on the Coromandel coafl into their hands by aflifling the king of 

 Golconda to recover it from the French, to whom he had given it fome 

 years before, the French having then taken it from the Portuguefe. 



This year the Englifli parliament granted L300,ooo for building 

 twenty large fliips of war, viz. one firfl rate fhip of 1400 tons, eight fe- 

 cond rate fhips of each 1 1 00 tons, and eleven third rates ef each 700 

 -tons. Such as know the fete of the navy in our days know, that fliips 

 of the above rates are feveral hundred tons larger than thefe were : and 

 alfo that they could not be now built for confiderably more than the 

 above fum. At the fame time the parliament refolved for the future 

 to apply the tonnage and poundage duty abfolutely for the benefit of 

 the navy, whichwas.no fmall mortification to the king, who was far- 

 ther difpleafed at their refufing him money for taking off the anticipa- 

 tions on his own proper revenues, and it was on that occafion openly 

 obferved, that the parliament, or the public, was nowife obliged to pay 

 the king's private debts, fince that would prove a very dangerous pre- 

 cedent hereafter. This was a wife and gallant flep towards our prefent 

 mofl happy parliamentary conftitution, when every fum granted by 

 parliament is appropriated fpecifically, or elfe in certain extraordinary 

 cafes, is granted upon account, i. e. to be accoimted for by the crown 

 officers in the fucceeding feffion of parliament. 



1676. — It was in or about the year 1676, that the printing of calicoes 

 was firfl fet on foot in London : as was alfo brought into ufe from 

 Holland to London, the weaver's loom-engine, then called the Dutch 

 loom-engine. Tlius all nations mutually gain the benefit from each 

 other of new inventions and improvements, none of which can, for any 

 length of time, be abfolutely engrofled by any particular firfl dif- 

 coverer. 



In a manufcript account of Newfoundland, in the author's pafiefllon, 



* A judicious and candid reader will eafily excufe the repetition, which we cannot avoid, of fome 

 points in fuch fubjctts as thefc, coming from diiferent authors. A% 



