173 . ENGLAND.- 



lead, and iron, hardware, iron utensils, clocks, watches, verdigris, 

 spices, cochineal, and logwood. She imports from thence raw silks 9 

 carpets, skins, dyeing drugs, cotton, fruits, medicinal drugs, coffee, 

 and some other articles. Formerly the balance of this trade was about 

 500,000/. annually, in favour of England. The English trade was 

 afterwards diminished through the practices of the French ; but the 

 Turkey trade at present is at a very low ebb with the French as well 

 as the English. 



England exports to Italy woollen goods of various kinds, peltry, 

 leather, lead, tin, fish, and East-India goods ; and brings back raw 

 and thrown silk, wines, oil, soap, olives, oranges, lemons, pomegra- 

 nates, dried fruits, colours, anchovies, and other articles of luxury. 



To Spain, England sends all kinds of woollen goods, leather, tin, 

 lead, fish, corn, iron and brass manufactures, haberdashery wares, 

 assortments of linen, from Germany and elsewhere, for the American 

 colonies ; and receives in return, wines, oils, dried fruits, oranges, 

 lemons, olives, wool, indigo, cochineal, and other dyeing drugs, co- 

 lours, gold and silver coin. 



Portugal formerly was, upon commercial accounts, the favourite 

 ally of England, whose fleets and armies have more than once saved 

 her from destruction. England sends to this country almost the same 

 kind of merchandises as to Spain, and receives in return vast quanti- 

 ties of wines, with oils, salt, dried and moist fruits, dyeing drugs, and 

 gold coin. 



The direct trade with France, Holland, and Flanders, has been in- 

 terrupted by the late and present wars, though great quantities of 

 English commodities still continue to be introduced into those coun- 

 tries through the ports of the north of Germany. 



England sends to the coast of Guinea sundry sorts of Goarse wool- 

 len and linen, iron, pewter, brass, and hardware manufactures, lead, 

 shot, swords, knives, fire-arms, gunpowder, and glass manufactures. 

 And, besides its drawing no money out of the kingdom, it lately sup- 

 plied the American colonies with negro slaves, amounting in number 

 to above 100,000 annually. The other returns are in gold-dust, gum, 

 dyeing and other drugs, red-wood, guinea-grains, and ivory. 



To Arabia, Persia, China, and other parts of Asia, England sends 

 much foreign silver coin and bullion, and sundry English manufac- 

 tures, of woollen goods, and of lead, iron, and brass ; and brings 

 home from those remote regions, muslins and cottons of many va- 

 rious kinds, calicoes, raw and wrought silk, chintz, teas, porcelain, 

 gold-dust, coffee, sak-petre, and many other drugs. And so great a 

 quantity of those various merchandises is exported to foreign Euro- 

 pean nations, as more than abundantly compensates for all the silver 

 bullion which England carries out. 



During the infancy of commerce to foreign parts, it was judged 

 expedient to grant exclusive charters to particular bodies or corpo- 

 rations" of men ; hence the East-India, South-Sea, Hudson's-Bay, 

 Turkey, Russia, and Royal-African companies ; but the trade to Tur- 

 key, Russia, and Africa, is now laid open ; though the merchant who 

 proposes to trade thither must become a member of the company, be 

 subject to their laws and regulations, and advance a small sum at ad- 

 mission, for the purpose of supporting consuls, forts, &e. 



The prodigious extent of the trade of England, and its great and 

 rapid increase of late years, will clearly appear from a comparative 

 statement of the imports and exports, at different periods ; the value 



