THE EARLY COMMERCE OF PLYMOUTH. 31T 
name), in 1568-9 for £5 a year. The increase from that time for 
the next half century or so must have been very slow ; for in 1623 
they only yielded £20 12s. 5d.; nor do I think there could have 
been much improvement for several years. When, in 1634, 
Devonshire was ordered under the ship-money writs of that year 
to furnish a ship of 400 tons, Plymouth was only assessed at 
£185 Os. 8d., while Plympton St. Mary had to pay £184 16s., 
and Barnstaple £252 4s.-8d. But in the following year, when 
£9000 was demanded of Devon for a ship of 900 tons, Plymouth 
had to pay £190 against Exeter’s £350, while Barnstaple went 
back to £150, and Plympton to £35. Dartmouth was assessed at 
£80, and Totnes £120. If it is safe to draw any conclusion from 
the comparison of the two years, we might perhaps assume that the 
commerce of Plymouth was of a very fluctuating character, and 
that some improvement had taken place in the interim. And that 
there were very remarkable fluctuations there is plenty of proof. 
The most serious falling off was that caused by the great siege, 
which put an end to all commercial operations, and reduced the 
town to such a state of extremity that it was for the time relieved 
of all duties. 
Under the Protectorate Plymouth must have thriven. The first 
Receivers’ accounts of the seventeenth century that have been pre- 
served are for 1658-9 ; and there we find landleave and town custom 
yielding £129 15s. 6d., cranage and moorage £20 Is. 5d., measur- 
age £1 6s. 8d. Town rents and water-cocks produced £74 Qs. ; 
but the chief item of receipt was still, as of old, the town mills— 
not now, however, the old mills at Millbay, which figure so 
prominently in the early history of the town, but the mills built 
on the leat—which brought an average revenue to the corporation 
exceeding £200, while a fourth of the net receipts went to the 
Hospital of Orphans’ Aid. The Corporation derived little benefit 
from the markets and shambles, except indirectly, then and for 
many a long year. Master Mayor disposed of these rents in 
keeping his worshipful table; and as he felt it to be a point of 
duty to entertain all the distinguished strangers who visited the 
town, he was continually pleading that his income was not suffi- 
cient, asking for more, and getting it. I will say this for the old 
unreformed corporation, down certainly to the middle of the last 
century, that they were always given to hospitality—at other 
people’s expense. But the way in which they squandered the town 
