THE EARLY COMMERCE OF PLYMOUTH. 315 
Charles I. personally sent on an expedition to Spain, which ter- 
minated in ‘disgrace and disappointment,” and when it returned 
brought back the plague. In the April of 1626 fourteen or 
fifteen were dying daily in Plymouth, and the inhabitants were 
flying to the country. In June all commierce had ceased; the 
town was destitute of its best inhabitants; and the infection had 
spread into all the parishes where the soldiers were quartered. In 
July there were only two of the magistrates or aldermen left in 
Plymouth, and no constables. Altogether 1,600 of the townsfolk 
died. Two years later the Duke of Buckingham’s miserable expedi-~ 
tion for the relief of Rochelle sailed and failed. He had better 
have given relief at home. The sailors of the Lion, Adventure, 
and Vanguard, then lying in the harbour, were so ill provided 
that, for want of victuals, they robbed all who came near them. 
This was the way in which Charles I. went to war abroad, with 
half-starved and mutinous sailors. No wonder that he fared no 
better afterwards at home. 
We may infer the “badness of the times,” too, from a petition 
of this date to the Privy Council, to prohibit the exportation of 
pilchards, save in ships of Devon and Cornwall, it being set forth 
as a reason ‘divers ships and mariners lye idle without employ- 
ment within our harbour” while foreign ships were continually 
employed, and special mention was made of certain Flemish vessels 
of great burden being so engaged. 
The materials for a survey of the commerce of Plymouth during 
the first half of the seventeenth century are very scanty. The 
Receivers’ records for this period have disappeared ; and if by acci- 
dent a few rough account-books had not been preserved, we should 
be left wholly to inference.* The tonnage dues received by the 
mayor, at 1d. per ton, for the foreign and alien ships which came 
within the Cawsey, from 1514 to 1582, ranged from nothing up to 
* The Town Customs in 1623 yielded £20 12s. 5d. Malt, barley, wheat, peas, 
rye, and salt, paid $d. a qr.; hops, canvas, 2d. a hundred; cloth, 4d. a piece; 
wine, 6d.a tun; beef, 6d. atun; sugar, 4d. achest; dry-fish, 3d. a thousand; 
salt, 1d. a ton; coals, 1d.a wey or chaldron; herrings, 6d. a last, $d. a barrel; 
‘‘kerses,’’ 3d. a piece; hides, 1s. a hundred; tar, 6d. a last; vinegar, 2d. a 
tun; iron, 4d. a ton; oakum, 1d. per cwt.; healing-stones (slates), 4d. per 
thousand; tallow, 2d. per hundred; ‘‘ trayne”’ (oill), 4d. a tun, 1d. a hogshead ; 
‘‘ caske,”’ 1d. a ton. 
Quantities levied on: 70 tons 3,933 qrs. salt; 234 chal. 131 weys coals; 
27 last 160 barrels herrings; 352 qrs. malt; 167 qrs. barley; 60 qrs. wheat 
