The Discovery of Muscovy

by Richard Hakluyt

Articles conceived and determined for the Commission of the Merchants of this Company resiant (resident) in Russia, and at the Wardhouse, for the second voyage, 1555, the first of May, as followeth.

First the governor, consuls, assistants, and whole company assembled this day in open Court committeth and authoriseth Richard Gray and George Killingworth jointly and severally to be agents, factors, and attorneys, general and special, for the whole body of this company; to buy, sell, truck, change, and permute, all and every kind and kinds of wares, merchandises, and goods, to the said company appertaining, now laden and shipped in the good ship called the Edward Bonaventure, appointed for Russia, the same to utter and sell to the most commodity, profit, and advantage of the said corporation, be it for ready money, wares, and merchandises, or truck, presently, or for time, as occasion and benefit of the company shall require, and all such wares as they or either of them shall buy, truck, or provide, or cause to be bought for the company to lade them homeward in good order and condition, as by prudent course of merchandises shall, and ought to appertain, which article extendeth also to John Brooke for the Wardhouse, as in the seventeenth and eighteenth articles of this commission appeareth.

2. Item, it is also committed, as above, to the said agents, to bind and charge the said company by debt for wares upon credit, as good opportunity and occasion shall serve, with power to charge and bind the said company and their successors for the payments of such things as shall be taken up for credit, and the said agents to be relieved, ab opere satis dandi.

3. Item, full authority and power is committed to the said first-named factors, together with Richard Chanceler, grand pilot of this fleet, to repair to the Emperor’s court, there to present the King and Queen’s Majesty’s letters, written in Greek, Polish, and Italian, and to give and exhibit the merchants’ presents at such time and place as shall be thought most expedient; they, or one of them, to demand, and humbly desire of the Emperor, such further grants and privileges to be made to this company as may be beneficial for the same, to continue in traffic with his subjects, according to such instructions as be in this behalf devised and delivered to the agents whereunto relation is to be had, and some one of these persons to attend upon the court for the obtaining of the same, as to their discretions shall be thought good.

4. Item, that all the said agents do well consider, ponder, and weigh such articles as be delivered to them, to know the natures, dispositions, laws, customs, manners, and behaviours of the people of the countries where they shall traffic, as well of the nobility as of the lawyers, merchants, mariners, and common people, and to note diligently the subtleties of their bargaining, buying and selling, making as few debts as possibly may be; and to be circumspect, that no law, neither of religion nor positive, be broken or transgressed by them, or any minister under them, nor yet by any mariner or other person of our nation; and to foresee that all tolls, customs, and such other rights, be so duly paid, that no forfeiture or confiscation may ensue to our goods either outward or inward; and that all things pass with quiet, without breach of the public peace or common tranquillity of any of the places where they shall arrive or traffic.

5. Item, that provision be made in Moscow or elsewhere, in one or more good towns, where good trade shall be found for a house or houses for the agents and company to inhabit and dwell at your accustomed diets, with warehouses, cellars, and other houses of offices requisite; and that none of the inferior ministers, of what place or vocation soever he be, do lie out of the house of the agents without license to be given; and that every inferior officer shall be obedient to the orders, rules, and governments of the said agents; and in case any disobedient person shall be found among any of them, then such person to be punished for his misbehaviour at the discretion of the said agents, or of one of them in the absence of the other.

6. Item, if any person of the said ministers shall be of such pride or obstinacy, that after one or two honest admonitions he will not be reformed nor reconciled from his faults, then the said agents to displace every such person from the place or room to him here committed, and some other discreet person to occupy the same, as to the said agents by their discretions shall seem meet.

7. Item, if any person shall be found so arrogant, that he will not be ordered nor reformed by the said agents, or by one of them in the absence of the other, then the said person to be delivered to the justice of the country, to receive such punishment as the laws of the country do require.

8. Item, that the said agents and factors shall daily one hour in the morning confer and consult together what shall be most convenient and beneficial for the company; and such orders as they shall determine, to be written by the secretary of the company, in a book to be provided for that purpose; and no inferior person to infringe or break any such order or device, but to observe the same exactly, upon such reasonable pain as the agents shall put him to by discretion.

9. Item, that the said agents shall in the end of every week, or oftener, as occasion shall require, peruse, see, and try, not only the cashier’s books, reckonings, and accounts, firming the same with their hands, but also shall receive and take weekly the account of every other officer, as well of the vendes, as of the empteous, and also of the state of the household expenses, making thereof a perfect declaration as shall appertain; the same accounts also to be firmed by the said agents’ hands.