A. D. 1688. 631 



next to thofe of Amfterdam, Genoa, and Venice, is reckoned the chief 

 in credit : but in trade that city is accounted the third in Europe, and 

 comes next to London and Anifterdam, having now become the ma- 

 gazine of Germany and of the Baltic and Northern feas. Hamburgh 

 gives great privileges to the jews, and to all flrangers whatever ; but 

 more efpecially to the Englifli company of merchant-adventurers, to 

 whom they allow a large building, where they have a church, and where- 

 in the deputy -governor, fecretary, minifters, and other officers of the 

 company live, to whom the magiftrates make an annual prefent of wine, 

 beer, fheep, falmon, and fturgeon, in their feafons. Yet he acknow- 

 leges their bigotry in not permitting the calvinifts to have a public 

 church within their city, who are forced to go out of the gates to Al- 

 tona, a fine village, a quarter of an hour's walk from Hamburgh, be- 

 longing to the king of Denmark, who, though a lutheran prince, has 

 the wifdom to allow the calvinifts a public church there : which con- 

 duit of the Ham.burghers may poflibly hereafter turn to their great pre- 

 judice. He aUb obferves, that the city of Lubeck has been guilty of 

 the like bigotry, and is at prefent much fallen from its prifline fplen- 

 dour and commerce, having been in old times fo powerful as to wage 

 war againfl Denmark and Sweden, and to conquer fundry of their 

 places and iilands, &c. But here our author fhould have noted, that 

 generally thofe conquefls were made by Lubeck only as the head, but 

 in the name, and by the aid, of the other cities of the Hanfeatic league. 

 We have elfewhere traced the rife, profperity, and decline, of that city, 

 and fhall therefor now only obferve, with this author, that their bigot- 

 ry to luthcranifm made their magiftrates, through the perfuafion of 

 their clergy, banifli the papifts, calvinifts, Jews, and all other diflenters, 

 from their city and territory, to the almoft entire ruin of their com- 

 merce. He lays, that in his time (168H) they had not above 200 fhips, 

 nor any other territory but the city itfelf, and a fmall towTi named 

 Travemund, at the mouth of the river Trave, eight miles below Lu- 

 beck ; the reft of their antient territory being long llnce in the hands 

 of the Danes and Swedes, (the former from Holftein, the later from 

 Wifmar) by whom the burghers, fays he, are kept in fuch continual 

 alarm, as to be quite tired out with keeping guard and paying taxes : 

 yet, he fays, they ftill maintained 15CO foldiers in pay; and, befides 

 them, 400 of their burghers, in two companies, are obliged to watch 

 dayly. To this once-glorious city, we, in England, ought to acknow- 

 lege ourfelves beholden for fome of our earlieft improvements in fhip- 

 building and commerce, and for our firft water-conduits in London, 

 Briftol, Exeter, &c. taken from their models : the Lubeckers having had 

 much the ftart of us in refpect of many advantageous improvements, 

 the natural effeds of an earlier extended commerce, though now it be 

 only the fkeleton of its antient commerce and grandeur. 



