At this period licenses were freely granted for the export of wool to any part of the Continent, on payment of a heavy duty to the Crown. It was to evade this duty that the smuggling trade was carried on. When, in 1423,[26] it was enacted that no license should be granted to export the “slight,” i.e., the short “wools of Southampton, Kent, Sussex and York,” except to the staple at Calais, a still more direct encouragement was given to the men of the coast to evade the law; and, in 1436, wharves[27] were assigned for the shipping of wool, to avoid the damage done to the King by those who shipped their wools in divers secret places and creeks, “stealing and conveying the same, not customed, to divers parts beyond the seas, and not to Calais.” The shippers were required to find sureties and to bring back from Calais certificates of unlading there.
The price of wool fell considerably; and, in 1454, it was not much more than two-thirds of its price 110 years previously; the wool-growers were alarmed, and their representatives in the Commons complained of the great “abundance of wools, as well by stealth as by license, uttered into the parts beyond the sea,”[28] and prayed that wool might not be sold under certain prices; Shropshire marsh wool was fixed at fourteen marks; Kent at 3l., instead of 100s.; Sussex at 50s.; and Hants at seven marks a sack; whilst in the next reign (of Edward IV.) it was enacted that no alien should export wool, and denizens only to Calais.
In 1547, under Edward VI., complaints were made as to the falling-off in the amount of duty due to the crown; the irregularity with which it was paid; and the mode in which the price was artificially raised by the merchants. An enquiry was directed into the rate of subsidy due to the King, and the weight and quality of the wool in England and Calais;[29] and a bill was introduced for regulating the buying by staplers and clothiers. In the year 1548, the act against regrating was continued.
About this time, it would seem that the woollen manufacture existed both in the counties of Kent and Sussex.[30] In 1551, renewed attempts to improve the English manufacture were made. A body of Flemish weavers was settled at Glastonbury,[31] and supplied with wools; and the Legislature passed a very stringent act for regulating the times of buying wool—so stringent, indeed, that several of its clauses had to be repealed in 1553. Queen Elizabeth also favoured still more the immigration of foreign weavers. Although licenses were granted for the export of wools on payment of duty, and in October, 1560, we have an account of wools shipped legally to Bruges,[32] yet practically the merchants of the staple had obtained a monopoly of exportation.[33]
The loss of Calais, however, and consequently of the staple there, had most materially injured the English wool-grower and the merchants of the staple. The latter laid their complaints before Queen Elizabeth, in 1560, representing the injury they had sustained since the loss of Calais,[34] and obtained such redress as was within the power of the crown, namely, by license to export wool generally, on payment of export duty. A similar license had been granted to Lord Robert Dudley, which was renewed in 1562;[35] and in 1571 the act of Edward VI., putting restrictions on the home trade, was extended.
The Parliaments of Mary, Elizabeth and James granted the high duty of 1l. 13s. 6d. a sack on wool exported by natives, and double the amount by foreigners. It is noticeable that at this time short wools had become of still less value; and that the long Cotswold wool had come into the most favour.
These restrictions operated very prejudicially on the trade; and in 1572 the Company of Woolmen petitioned the Queen to take off the restraints imposed by the act of the preceding year and by Edward VI.;[36] and five years afterwards (1577) the scarcity and high price were so great as to give rise to grave complaints against the merchants of the staple from the clothiers of Wilts, Worcester, Gloucester and Essex[37] (then the principal seats of the woollen manufacture). In August of that year commissioners were appointed in sundry counties to have the special oversight for the restraint of the unlawful buying and engrossing wool;[38] and towards the close of the reign of James I. (in 1621–24–26) bills were introduced prohibiting all exportation of wool.[39]
On April 17, 1630, Charles I. also published a proclamation against the export of wool, but still granted licenses. In 1647, in consequence of the high price, an ordinance passed wholly prohibiting the exportation of wool and Fuller’s Earth.[40] Again, on November 18, 1656, a further proclamation was issued against the exportation; yet it was avowed, by an authority writing in that year,[41] that, though the exportation was prohibited as almost a felony, there was nothing more daily practised. Nor was the loss, said he, in this case all the injury; for when honest men did “detect these caterpillars,” and endeavoured by due course of law to make stoppage thereof, and to have the offenders punished, so many were the evasions—such combination and interests in the officers who ought to punish; such favour had they in the courts of justice, and in general, such were the affronts and discouragements—that the dearest lover of his country, or most interested in trade, dared not to prevent that mischief which his eyes beheld to fall upon his nation.
After the Restoration, in 1660, an act was passed entirely prohibiting the export of wool; and in 1662, the illicit export was made felony. The severity of the punishment had no effect in discouraging the active spirits along the southern coast, and they readily risked their necks for 12d. a day. Seven years after the last enactment, it is stated that from Romney Marsh the greatest part of the rough wool was exported, being put on board French shallops by night, with ten or twenty men well armed to guard it; whilst in some other parts of Sussex, Hants, and Essex, the same methods were used, but not so conveniently.[42] In 1671, Mr. W. Carter declared that the misery of England was the great quantity of wool stolen out of England. Holland drew from Ireland whole ship-loads of wool, besides what came from England, being stolen out from the Kentish, Essex, and Sussex coasts. In the town of Calais alone, there had been at least, within two years, brought in forty thousand packs of wool from the coasts of Kent and Sussex; for Romney Marsh men were not content only with the exportation of their own growth, but bought wool ten or twenty miles up the country, brought it down to the seaside, and shipped it off;[43] and all attempts at effective prosecution of the offenders were defeated.[44]
In 1677, the landowners endeavoured, without success, to obtain a direct sanction for a legitimate export trade; and “Reasons for a Limited Exportation” were published. Andrew Marvel, writing in this same year, describes the owners as a militia, that, in defiance of all authority, convey their wool to the shallops with such strength, that the officers dare not offend them.[45]