3S8 Dr. Parry's Essay on the Nature, Froduce, Origin, 



being implicated in an event, which had occurred nearly a century before. This 

 event was only remotely connected with the fact in question, which might have had 

 no better foundation than report, and which, if false, his opponent was not interested 

 in refuting. 



Edward the Third, who now reigned in England, was sufficiently jealous of the 

 preservation of our wool, which he had abundant reason to consider as the chief 

 source of our wealth, and his own revenue. The exportation of live sheep would 

 have been esteemed a most flagrant violation of the public welfare, of which he 

 would have obtained the earliest information, and which he would have employed 

 the most effectual means to prevent. Thus, in the proclamation in 1338, already 

 quoted, having heard that live rams had been bought up by strangers, and were 

 then lying for exportation on ship-board, in the port of St. Botolph's, he states the 

 great damage and loss that would thence accrue to this country, from the diminu- 

 tion of the price of our wool, and the amendment of that of foreign countries : but 

 far from appearing to suspect any past practices of a similar kind, he simply orders 

 his bailiffs, &c. diligently to examine the ships in the said port, so as to prevent 

 such exportations by any persons whatever, and to cause these individual rams 

 to be re-landed, and in no wise to be transported to the said foreign countries. * 

 • The exportation of Cotswold sheep, in the time of Edward the Fourth, rests on 

 little better authority. Two instances of this kind are alleged ; one to the King of 

 ' Gastile and Leon, in 1464; the otherto the King of Arragon, in 1468. They are 

 , mentioned together by Stow and Speed, as occurring in 1465; so that many 

 persons judge the two reports to allude to a single act. They are, I believe, 

 spoken of by no author before Stow, who did not publish till 1592, 127 years 

 after the supposed fact. I can discover no treaty whatever between these 



* Rex Ballivis Villae de Sancto Botulpho, &c. Quia ad nostrum pcrvcnit audituin, quod 

 diversi homines, dc partibus exteris, tain mcrcatores quam alii, diversos Arietes vivos infra 

 Regnum nostrum cmerunt, et eos usque ad dictum portum duxerunt, et ultra mare ad dictas 

 partes exteras, in fraudem et dcteriorutionem pretii Lanx' infra Regnum nostrum pra^dictum, et 

 emendationem Lanse in dictis partibus exteris ducere intendunt, quod si tolerarctur, in nostri 

 praejudicium, et totius popuU Regni nostri dampnum, etjacturam cederet manifeste ; nos vobis 

 mandamus, quod hujusmodi Arietes vivos in dicto portu ad partes exteras nullatenus cariari per- 

 mittatis et omnes Arietes vivos, quos in eisdem navibus invcneritis, extra easdem ad terram 

 ponatis ; ita quod ad dictas partes extcra: nullatenus ducautur quovis modo. Scptimo die Mali 

 an. I2.E.III. Fcedcra, V. 36. 



