Notwithstanding piracy, warfare, and the risks of navigation in little known seas, the returns show a steady increase in the size and number of English vessels. The necessities of distant trading explain the increase in size both in view of a relatively smaller cost of working and a larger number of partners interested in the cargo, and the results of successful maritime war were shown in a carrying trade which it may almost be held to have founded. But an extension of commerce was sometimes thrust unwillingly on the English merchants. Some of them petitioned in 1571 that the trade with Portugal was of more value than that with the East Indies, and that an agreement should be come to with the King of Portugal by which Englishmen would undertake not to trade with the East if a free opening were given by that monarch in his European dominions. They said that the traffic to the East Indies ‘often attempted hath taken small effect,’ that in fifteen years no merchants had made any profit, ‘except such as being spoiled there have made great gain by the recompense here.’[777] They did not foresee the future subjects of spoliation, but although trade was progressing it moved onwards tentatively and with hesitation; and but for the cessation of trade with Portugal the formation of the East India Company might have been long deferred.
If a merchantman escaped the ordinary risks of the sea as they were understood in the sixteenth century, risks that included much more than is comprised in the expression to-day, the owner’s troubles were by no means over. Commerce with the East could only be carried on by constant bribery; if he traded to Spain he had to reckon with the suspicious bigotry of Church and State, and when returned to England he had to deal with the more selfish dishonesty of custom-house officials, and sometimes of persons of higher rank. Three victims of Spanish procedure petition Burghley:—
‘In this moste wofull manner sheweth unto your Honour your suppliantes John Tyndall and Robert Frampton of Bristowe and William Ellize of Alperton ... late marchants and the Quenes Maiesties naturall subjectes late in case right good to live and nowe in state most miserable. That where your said suppliantes did trade into Spayne in the way of marchandise—soe it is Right Honourable that besydes longe and miserable imprisonment besydes the intollerable torment of the Strappadoe there susteyned by the authoritie of the Inquisition of Spayne your said suppliantes are there spoyled of all their goodes to the vallew of ˡⁱ2228 10ˢ 6ᵈ, to their utter undoing.’[778]
Their ship was seized and they were tortured because a Cato in English was found on board—Spain and England being at peace. They go on to ask that they may have restitution out of Spanish goods in England. In 1588, of the crew of a Scotch ship just arrived at St Lucar, ‘accused to be protestantes and fleshe eaters on dayes prohibite,’ three were burnt and the rest sent to the galleys, upon accusation, without any trial.[779] As the knowledge of these and other stories spread, one does not wonder at the massacres of Smerwick and Connaught; it is only a matter for surprise that any Spanish prisoner received quarter.
It was a usual clause in a charter-party that a merchantman should carry ordnance and small arms. In the peaceful Bordeaux fleet of 1593, the three largest vessels carried from 17 to 21 guns, and all the others have from 3 to 16 pieces of various sizes. Owners whose vessels had escaped the perils of the voyage had to be prepared for trickery at home. Accusations of dishonesty were general against the officers of the customs; ‘they alter their books leaving out and putting in what pleases them’; the wages of the waiters were £12, 16s a year, but some of them kept large establishments, the officers were said to attend about two-and-a-half hours daily, and the chief ones seldom came at all. These latter, says the writer, appointed clerks who grew rich the same way, and these again took under clerks who made a living out of the merchants; the chief posts were sold at high prices, while, in the country, the Queen was defrauded of half the customs.’[780] Another person, writing to Robert Cecil in 1594, says ‘there has been transported out of Rye within twelve months not less than £10,000 of prohibited wares. The customs officers not only connive but help.’[781] Other examples might be cited to show that there had not been much improvement in these years, although the service had been reorganised in 1586 when the Customer, Sir Thos. Smith, who farmed some of the imposts, had been compelled to disgorge a portion of his profits. The revenue from the customs was £24,000 in 1586, in 1590 £50,000, and £127,000 in 1603. If the merchant escaped the extortions of the custom house he might find that persons of the highest rank did not disdain to avail themselves of the organised chicane of the law. In 1586 Leicester sent a cargo to Barbary, and in the return lading, the factor thought it safer, on account of pirates and other enemies, to mark all his employers’ goods with Leicester’s mark. On the arrival of the ship Elizabeth’s favourite claimed the whole cargo and, the law being on his side, the owners were compelled to compound with him for their own property.[782]
Returns of Merchant Ships and Seamen.
There are more detailed lists of merchant ships for the period under review than for any other reign. By these lists, equivalent to a return of vessels now built to Admiralty requirements, the government knew, from time to time, how many ships could be relied on as fighting auxiliaries and how many could be used as tenders and transports. They also enabled the Council to judge whether the measures taken for the protection and encouragement of native shipping were successful. The first of these returns is for March 1560 and is incomplete since there is no entry for such a port as Bristol, and Somerset and the Welsh counties are also omitted:—[783]
| Tons 100 | Tons 120 | Tons 140 | Tons 160 | Tons 180 | Tons 200 | Tons 260 | Tons 300 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| London | 1 | 2 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 2 |
| Saltash | 1 | |||||||
| Fowey | 1 | |||||||
| Northam | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||||
| Plymouth | 2 | 1 | 1 | |||||
| Salcombe | 1 | |||||||
| Dartmouth | 1 | 3 | 1 | |||||
| Cockington | 1 | |||||||
| Kingswear | 2 | 1 | 1 | |||||
| Southampton | 1 | |||||||
| Christchurch | 1 | |||||||
| Sandwich | 1 | |||||||
| Brightlingsea | 1 | 1 | ||||||
| Walderswick | 2 | |||||||
| Southwold | 1 | 1 | ||||||
| Cley | 1 | 1 | ||||||
| Wells | 2 | |||||||
| Grimsby | 1 | |||||||
| Scarborough | 1 | |||||||
| Hull | 4 | 1 | 1 | |||||
| Newcastle | 12 | 1 | ||||||
| Chester | 1 | 1 |
Here there are seventy-six ships and although some towns, such as Southampton, may not have their full complement given, there was probably no other port, with the exception of Bristol, possessing vessels of 100 tons or upwards. During the early years of the reign the country was impoverished and the people little inclined to effort. Mary left the crown deeply indebted and, concurrently with an increase of national expenditure, there was, for the moment, a general decline of commerce, and a shifting of the centres of commercial distribution, especially felt by some of the older seaports. Yarmouth petitioned in 1559 for relief from payment of the tenths and fifteenths on account of loss of trade; their harbour had cost them £1000 a year and was not yet finished, the town walls £100 a year, and the relief of their poor yet another hundred.[784] In 1565 Yarmouth had 553 householders; 7 seagoing ships, of which the largest was 140 tons; 25 smaller ones, and 81 fishing boats together with 400 seamen.[785] Doubtless the burgesses did not minimise their calamities but similar complaints came in from all quarters. Hythe had, from 80 vessels and fishing boats sunk to 8; Winchilsea, ‘there is at this present none, and the town greatly decayed.’[786] Between 1558 and 1565 Dartmouth owners had lost four and sold eleven ships, and seemingly had no intention of replacing fifteen others worn out by service. The complaints of Chester are chronic in the same sense; its merchants had lost £22,000 in seven years from piracies and shipwrecks; and Hull in a shorter period had lost £23,000 from the same causes.
The next list, of 1568,[787] gives seventy-three vessels of 100 tons or more but from this many important places, such as London, Bristol, Hull, and others are wanting so that it may be assumed that a marked improvement had already commenced. There are many isolated certificates of ships belonging to various ports scattered through the State Papers, and from one of them we find that ‘Hawkyns of Plymouth’ possessed, in 1570, thirteen of 2040 tons; one of them was of 500 and another of 350 tons. There is a certificate of vessels trading between September 1571 and September 1572,[788] which gives eighty-six of 100 tons and upwards, including forty-nine of 6870 tons belonging to London, but this is not a complete list of ships owned in the various ports, but only of those that had been engaged in trade. For February 1577 there is a full return which yields the following results:—[789]