37© Dr. Parry's Essay on the Nature, Produce, Origin, 



Hackliiyt, in his Collection oF English Voyages, has a Poem called " The Libel 

 " of English Policie, exhorting all England to keepe the narrowe Sea ;" the be- 

 ginning of which appears to have been written before the year 1438, and a subse- 

 quent part after 1449. In the first chapter the writer says, 



" But, Flemings, if yee bee not wroth, 



" The great substance of your cloth at the full 



•' Dee wot ye make it of our English woU." 



And again, 



• " the wooll of England 



Susteineth the commons Flemings, I understand." • 



The last sentiment, and even the words themselves, evidently allude to the treaty 

 of the gth of Henry IV. above quoted. But surely it must be allowed that the 

 sustenance of the Flemings must have been very meagre, if, as this author restricts 

 the sense, it were founded on the annual manufacture of 18,200 packs of English 

 wool. Besides which, it must be recollected, that a part of this very quantity went 

 to the numerous towns in the great Hanseatic Confederacy, and part to Genoa, 

 Florence, and Venice. In confirmaiion of this opinion, we find, that, in 1438, 

 leave is given for the agent of the King of Portugal to export for his use to Flo- 

 rence sixty sacks of Cotswold wool, in order to procure, in return, certain cloths of 

 silk and gold for that king.t 



In the course of our history it frequently happened that our monarchs, having 

 borrowed money of the Lombards, or other wealthy persons, repaid them by grant- 

 ing them in advance so much of the custom and subsidies next due, as should be 

 sufficient to liquidate the debt. In order the more readily to obtain such loans, they 

 not only sometimes connived at various acts of extortion in these creditors, but 

 occasionally dispensed with the laws which confined she sale of commodities to 

 particular ports. Indignant at this conduct, the Parliament, in the year 1448, the 

 27th of Henry VI. passed an act, in which they complain that the subsidies and 

 customs of the staple of Calais, which in the reign of Edward the Third amounted 

 to £"68,000. did not now exceed ^^ 12,000. ; for which reason they decree, that no 

 license granted or to be granted by the king shall be available for the carriage of 

 ■wool, &c. to any place out of the realm, but Calais.]}; 



• Vol. I. page 188. t Feeders, X, 684. J Anderson, 1448. 



