294 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
on ships 6d. “if bearing batell or cokett,” 4d. if not; and on brew- 
houses of 1d. annually. And so in the same reign we find 
something like a bonded warehouse established, Parliament de- 
claring that merchants and mariners coming “to a place called 
Conners, in the island of St. Nicholas, shall not pay any duties on 
their merchandise unless it is exposed for sale.” 
But. the best proof of the extent of the trade of Plymouth—for 
on its trade its population depended—in these early days is afforded. 
by the Subsidy Roll of 1377. In that year Plymouth contained 
4837 persons liable to the poll tax of 4d. per head; that is, of 
persons above fourteen, excluding ‘‘true real mendicants.” The 
total population of the town must therefore have been upwards 
of 7000, and it must have ranked next to London, York, and 
Bristol. Its contribution was £80 12s, 4d.; while Exeter paid 
but £26, having only a taxable population of 1560. Dartmouth 
paid merely £8 8s. 8d., having but 506. The contribution of 
Exeter is rather in excess of its numerical ratio, because it had 
more beneficed clergymen than Plymouth, and they had the 
privilege of setting a good example to their flocks by paying ls. 
So much for size, now for wealth. This we may infer from the 
returns of the tenths and fifteenths. These were taxes on movables, 
tenths being levied on the clergy, cities, and boroughs, and fifteenths 
in the rural districts. Originally, no doubt, intended to be an 
approximate sum, a tenth and fifteenth became in time a conven- 
tional equivalent for a fixed contribution of about £39,000, and 
was levied accordingly. In 1374, the nearest levy to the poll tax 
quoted, Devon raised as its share of this impost £953 15s. Of 
this Plymouth seems to have paid £34 12s, 8d., and may therefore 
be estimated as having contained a thirtieth of the chattel wealth 
of the whole county. But when to this we add the value of its 
shipping, we see that it must have been well-to-do indeed. My 
figures for the tenth and fifteenth are derived from an entry in the 
Municipal Records, czrca 1537, which. states that the town had only. 
been in the habit of paying £22 12s. 8d., £12 having been de- 
ducted from its assessment. The whole amount was then demanded. 
Soon after the date of this Subsidy Roll the prosperity of the 
town seems to have received a sudden check. Probably the 
descents of the French had something to do with this, and not- 
ably the raid of the Bretons in 1403, when we are told that the 
town was spoiled and six hundred houses burnt. There must 
