In 1528, there were 149 vessels engaged in the Iceland fishery all which, with the exception of 8 from London, belonged to the east coast ports. Yarmouth sent 30, Cley, Blakeney, and Cromer 30, and Dunwich, Walderswick, Southwold, and Covehithe 32. To the herring fishery in the North Sea went 222, of which the Cinque Ports sent 110 and the east coast the remainder. Trading to Scotland were 69 ships of which only 6 sailed from London.[398] This return was used years afterwards to show the prosperous condition of these trades as compared with a later period when the number of vessels employed had greatly fallen off; except that it is endorsed in Cecil’s handwriting the date of the comparison is unknown. For 1533, there is a certificate of the ships returned from Iceland that year, 85 in number, of which 6, of from 50 to 100 tons, belonged to London; 10, of from 35 to 95 tons to Lynn; 14, of from 40 to 95 tons to Yarmouth; 7, of from 60 to 150 tons to Orwell haven; and 17, of from 30 to 90 tons to Wells and Blakeney.[399] Unless they were trading vessels, used on occasion for the Iceland fishery, the average tonnage seems very high for North Sea fishing boats of that century. Nearly 700 sail were reputed to enter Calais harbour every year and ‘at the least’ 340 foreign herring boats also traded there.[400] These figures point to a flourishing local trade round the coasts and in the fisheries, but there are only three returns relating to ships of larger size and they do not give particulars for more than a few ports;—[401]
| Tons 100 | Tons 110 | Tons 120 | Tons 130 | Tons 140 | Tons 160 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Minehead | 1 | |||||
| Burton[402] | 1 | |||||
| Lynn | 1 | |||||
| Cley | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Yarmouth | 6 | 1 | ||||
| Lowestoft | 1 | 3 | ||||
| Aldborough | 1 | |||||
| Hull | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | |
| Newcastle | 7 | 1 | 1 |
There were 99 other vessels of from 40 to 100 tons also sailing from these ports; but if the table were complete and included London, Bristol, Southampton, and Dartmouth—to name no others—we should infer a surprisingly large total from the 32 belonging to these towns. Foreign observers, men representing a maritime state like Venice, considered the sea strength of England much greater than would be assumed from the few sources of information we possess. In 1531, the Venetian representative reported that Henry could arm 150 sail;[403] in 1551, Barbaro thought that the crown could fit out 1500 sail of which ‘100 decked’[404] and in 1554, Soranzo remarked that there were ‘great plenty of English sailors who are considered excellent for the navigation of the Atlantic.’[405] These Venetians paid especial attention to the English marine and in no instance do they write of it depreciatingly.
Trade and Voyages.
Commerce does not appear to have progressed in a ratio corresponding to its growth during the close of the fifteenth century. Trade had been then recovering the position lost through the unsettled political state previously existing, and had benefited under a king who made its expansion the keynote of his policy. Half a century had brought it relatively into line with that of other countries, and thenceforward its increase was no longer a question of regaining a standard already once attained, but of competition with other powers whose trade was marked out on definite lines. This accounts for the comparatively stationary condition of commerce under Henry, and until new factors came into play under different circumstances. According to Hakluyt voyages to the Levant were frequent until 1534 but then fell off.[406] In that year Richard Gonson, son of William Gonson the naval official, undertook a Mediterranean trading voyage, which occupied a year, the usual time allowed for the passage out and home. In the same way English merchants traded with the Canaries and northern ports, but we have no details bearing on the extent of the traffic. William Hawkyns of Plymouth, father of Sir John Hawkyns, made three voyages, of which the last was in 1532, to Brazil and Guinea. From a remark, however, made by Chapuys, in a despatch to the emperor, voyages to Brazil could not have been uncommon.[407]
In 1517 there is said to have been an exploring expedition sent out under the command of Thomas Spert, who had been master of the Henry Grace à Dieu and other ships, and who possessed Henry’s confidence then and afterwards.[408] He was a yeoman of the crown, and by Letters Patent of 10th November 1514, enjoyed an annuity of £20 a year. In 1527 John Rut, another man-of-war officer, left England in June with two vessels for Newfoundland, one, the Mary Guildford, being a king’s ship. Rut returned in her without having effected anything; the other was lost at sea. Two other attempts at discovery are also assigned to this year.[409] In 1536 Hore, with the Trinity and the Minion, reached Cape Breton Island, and a further voyage was intended in 1541. These enterprises show Henry’s desire to extend English commerce, and a further illustration of the fact is to be found in his endeavour in 1541 to obtain permission for some Englishmen to sail in the next Portuguese fleet for India, ‘to adventure there for providing this realm with spices.’[410]
Doubtless the religious revolt had for the time an injurious influence on our trade, seeing that Englishmen were regarded as heretics by some of their best customers, and that the whole influence of the Roman Church was employed in Spain, and elsewhere, to the detriment of the country. The reaction born of intellectual freedom, and of the moral and material strength which was its natural product, did not make itself felt till later. Moreover as long as England acknowledged the Roman rule she was bound by the division of the new discoveries made by the Popes, a division which fatally hampered her attempts to share the riches of the golden West. When that dividing line was no longer recognised, and individual enterprise or greed had free play, the conditions which brought her into antagonism with other maritime powers were also those which stimulated the growth of national vigour and self reliance. In that sense the Reformation considered as a liberation from restraining ties, was an important factor in the development of English sea power.
There were two statutes, in 1532 and 1539, confirming the navigation act of 1490. In 1540 it was enacted that whoever should buy fish at sea from foreign fishermen to sell on shore, should be subjected to a fine of £10, a statute which seems to point to the commencing decay of the native fishing industry. The cable and hawser manufacture, long associated with Bridport, was protected by the parliament of 1529, and Henry is said to have expended immense sums in the endeavour to make Dover a safe harbour.[411] Another act for the preservation of Plymouth, Dartmouth, Teignmouth, Falmouth, and Fowey havens, from the injury caused by the gravel brought down from the tin works, was passed in 1532. In 1513 a license for the formation of a guild, afterwards the Trinity Corporation, was granted for the ‘reformation of the navy lately much decayed by the admission of young men without experience, and of Scots, Flemings, and Frenchmen as lodesmen;‘[412] in 1536 the Trinity guild of Newcastle was founded.[413] ‘Navy’ is here used in its original sense, meaning the shipping and seamen of the kingdom generally, and not the ‘King’s Navy Royal.’ During the sixteenth century the Trinity House had no connection with the Royal Navy; during the greater part of the seventeenth century, it had an occasional consultative, but no direct connection. It has never had any actual share in the administration of the Navy, nor that close association with it that, trading on the loss and destruction of its early documents, it has claimed.
Coast Defences.
Allied to the defence of the kingdom by sea was the protection of the seaboard by the forts or castles, on the south and east coasts, some of which still exist. The initial motive was the threatening political outlook of 1539 when a European coalition against England appeared probable. During the next few years upwards of £74,000, from the spoil of the suppression, was spent for this purpose,[414] and this perhaps does not include £17,498 devoted to the fortifications of Hull. ‘A book of payments,’ made to the garrisons in 1540, enumerates seventeen of these defences, but more were afterwards built.