[f] Rymer, t. x. p. 461.
[g] Rymer, t. viii. p. 488.
[h] Macpherson, p. 667.
[] Richard III., in 1485, appointed a Florentine merchant to be English consul at Pisa, on the ground that some of his subjects intended to trade to Italy. Macpherson, p. 705, from Rymer. Perhaps we cannot positively prove the existence of a Mediterranean trade at an earlier time; and even this instrument is not conclusive. But a considerable presumption arises from two documents in Rymer, of the year 1412, which inform us of a great shipment of wool and other goods made by some merchants of London for the Mediterranean, under supercargoes, whom, it being a new undertaking, the king expressly recommended to the Genoese republic. But that people, impelled probably by commercial jealousy, seized the vessels and their cargoes; which induced the king to grant the owners letters of reprisal against all Genoese property. Rymer, t. viii. p. 717, 773. Though it is not perhaps evident that the vessels were English, the circumstances render it highly probable. The bad success, however, of this attempt, might prevent its imitation. A Greek author about the beginning of the fifteenth century reckons the Ιγγληνοι among the nations who traded to a port in the Archipelago. Gibbon, vol. xii. p. 52. But these enumerations are generally swelled by vanity or the love of exaggeration; and a few English sailors on board a foreign vessel would justify the assertion. Benjamin of Tudela, a Jewish traveller, pretends that the port of Alexandria, about 1160, contained vessels not only from England, but from Russia, and even Cracow. Harris's Voyages, vol. i. p. 554.
[k] The Amalfitans are thus described by William of Apulia, apud Muratori, Dissert. 30.
Urbs hæc dives opum, populoque referta videtur,
Nulla magis locuples argento, vestibus, auro.
Partibus innumeris ac plurimus urbe moratur
Nauta, maris cœlique vias aperire peritus.
Huc et Alexandri diversa feruntur ab urbe,
Regis et Antiochi. Hæc [etiam?] freta plurima transit.
Hic Arabes, Indi, Siculi noscuntur, et Afri.
Hæc gens est totum prope nobilitata per orbem,
Et mercanda ferens et amans mercata referre.
[There must be, I suspect, some exaggeration about the commerce and opulence of Amalfi, in the only age when she possessed any at all. The city could never have been considerable, as we may judge from its position immediately under a steep mountain; and what is still more material, has a very small port. According to our notions of trade, she could never have enjoyed much; the lines quoted from William of Apulia are to be taken as a poet's panegyric. It is of course a question of degree; Amalfi was no doubt a commercial republic to the extent of her capacity; but those who have ever been on the coast must be aware how limited that was. At present she has, I believe, no foreign trade at all. 1848.]
[m] The inhabitants of Acre were noted, in an age not very pure, for the excess of their vices. In 1291 they plundered some of the subjects of a neighbouring Mohammedan prince, and, refusing reparation, the city was besieged and taken by storm. Muratori, ad ann. Gibbon, c. 59.
[n] Villani, 1. vii. c. 144.
[o] Macpherson, p. 490.