38 A P P E N D I X, No. IV. 



iliftinclly marked, though the precife difference in this re- 

 lpe<n: is not afcertained. 



This deficiency in Guicciardin and other hiflorians may 

 be in feme meafure fupplLed by the following fadl that in- 

 cidentally fell in my way. In the year 1470 a Spanifhvef- 

 fel bound for the Netherlands, having been taken by an 

 Englifli privateer, the owners of that veffel lodged a claim of 

 damages, and in the account prefented for that purpofe, the 

 wool is ftated as being worth, in the Netherlandsy L.4 per 

 fack, weighing one quintal Spanifli *, which is equal to 

 L.p, I2s. per fack Englifh of 364 pounds. About that 

 time the beft EngliHi wool, as may be gathered fromSmith's 

 Memoirs of Wool, (vol. l.pnjjim)^ fold in Flanders for not 

 lefs than L.18 cr L.20 per fack. Rapin, in one cafe, ex- 

 prefsly mentions that Englifh wool, anno 1337J fold in 

 Flanders at the exorbitant rate of L.40 per fack ; ten thou- 

 fand fades having brought in Brabant no \^Sz than four 

 hundred thoufand pounds \. This fuperiority in price ne- 

 ceflarily fuppofes a great fuperiority in the quality of Eng- 

 lifli wool at that time. 



This fuperiority in the quality of Englifh wool over all 

 others then generally known in the commercial world, con- 

 tinued down to the days of Elizabeth. In the days of that 

 great Princefs, attempts were made to recover fome of the 

 branches of the woollen manufadlure that feem to have been 

 Toll: during the troubles occafioned by the contefls between the 

 York and Lancaftrian parties for the crown, particularly 

 refpedling the art of dying, and perhaps dreiUng cloth. — 

 For, though the exports of cloth from England in the days 

 of Elizabeth were very great, amounting on an average of 

 years to about two millionr, Sterling :}:, yet a great part of 

 thefe clotiis were exported without having been dyed, which 



gave 



* Hift. cf Ccm. snno 1470. f Rapin's Ada Rcgia, p. 151. 



\ Smith's Mem. cf W'ool, cap. xx.— xxvi. 



