The first check which the Levant trade received was given by the East India Company: about the year 1670 the Levant Company complained that their trade in raw silk was much diminished; they had formerly imported it solely from Turkey, whereas then it was imported in great quantities direct from India. In 1681, the complaints of the one company, and the defence of the other, were heard before the Privy Council. The Levant Company alleged, that for upwards of one hundred years they had exported to Turkey and other parts of the Levant, great qualities of woollen manufactures, and other English wares, and did then, more especially, carry out thither to the value of 500,000 l; in return for which they imported raw silks, galls, grograms, drugs, cotton, &c.; whereas the East India Company exported principally gold and silver bullion, with an inconsiderable quantity of cloth; and imported calicoes, pepper, wrought silks, and a deceitful sort of raw silk; if the latter supplants Turkey raw silk, the Turkey demand for English cloth must fail, as Turkey does not yield a sufficient quantity of other merchandize to return for one fourth part of our manufactures carried thither.
The East India Company, on the other hand, alleged that the cloth they exported was finer and more valuable than that exported by the Turkey Company, and that, if they were rightly informed, the medium of cloths exported by that company, for the last three years, was only 19,000 cloths yearly: it is admitted, however, that before there was any trade to China and Japan, the Turkey Company's exportation of cloth did much exceed that of the East India Company. With respect to the charge of exporting bullion, it was alleged that the Turkey Company also export it to purchase the raw silk in Turkey. The East India Company further contended, that since their importation of raw silk, the English silk manufacturers had much encreased, and that the plain wrought silks from India were the strongest, most durable, and cheapest of any, and were generally re-exported from England to foreign parts.
We have been thus particular in detailing this dispute between these companies, partly because it points out the state of the Levant Company and their commerce, at the close of the seventeenth century, but principally because it unfolds one of the principal causes of their decline; for, though some little notice of it will afterwards occur, yet its efforts were feeble, and its success diminished, chiefly by the rivalry of the East India Company.
The Levant trade, as we have seen, was gradually obtained by the English from the hands of the Venetians and other foreign powers. The trade we are next to notice was purely of English origin and growth;--we allude to the trade between England and Russia, which began about the middle of the sixteenth century. The discovery of Archangel took place, as we have already related, in 1553. Chanceller, who discovered it, obtained considerable commercial privileges from the Czar for his countrymen. In 1554, a Russian Company was established; but before their charter, the British merchants had engaged in the Russian trade. The first efforts of the company seem to have been confined to attempts to discover a north-east passage. Finding these unsuccessful, they turned their attention to commerce: they fortunately possessed a very enterprising man, peculiarly calculated to foster and strengthen an infant trade, who acted as their agent. He first set on foot, in 1558, a new channel of trade through Russia into Persia, for raw silk, &c. In the course of his commercial enquiries and transactions, he sailed down the Volga to Nisi, Novogorod, Casan, and Astracan, and thence across the Caspian Sea to Persia. He mentions that, at Boghar, which he describes as a good city, he found merchants from India, Persia, Russia, and Cathay,--from which last country it was a nine months journey to Boghar. He performed his journey seven different times. It appears, however, that this channel of trade was soon afterwards abandoned, till 1741, when it was resumed for a very short time, during which considerable quantities of raw silk were brought to England by the route followed by the Russian agent in the sixteenth century. The cause of this abandonment during the sixteenth century seems to have been the length and danger of the route; for we are informed that one of the adventures would have proved exceedingly profitable, had not their ships, on their return across the Caspian, with Persian raw silk, wrought silks of many kinds, galls, carpets, Indian spices, turquois stones, &c., been plundered by Corsair pirates, to the value of about 40,000 l. The final abandonment of this route, in the eighteenth century, arose partly from the wars in Persia, but principally from the extension of India commerce, which being direct and by sea, would, of course supply England much more cheaply with all eastern goods than any land trade. Beside the delay, difficulty, and danger of the route from the Volga, already described, the route followed in the sixteenth century, till the merchants reached the Volga, was attended with great difficulty. The practice was to transport the English goods, which were to be exchanged, in canoes, up the Dwina, from Archangel to Vologda, thence over land, in seven days, to Jeroslau, and thence down the Volga, in thirty days, to Astracan.
The Russians having conquered Narva, in Livonia in 1558, the first place they possessed in the Baltic, and having established it as a staple port, the following year, according to Milton, in his brief history of Muscovia, the English began to trade to it, "the Lubeckers and Dantzickers having till then concealed that trade from other nations." The other branches of the Baltic trade also encreased; for it appears by a charter granted by Elizabeth, in 1579, to an Eastland Company, that trade was carried on between England and Norway, Sweden, Poland, Lithuania, Prussia, Pomerania, Dantzic, Elbing, Konigsberg, Copenhagen, Elsinore, and Finland. This company was established in opposition to the Hanseatic merchants; and it seems to have attained its object; for these merchants complained to the Diet of the Empire against England, alleging, that of the 200,000 cloths yearly exported thence, three-fourths went into Denmark, Sweden, Poland, and Germany; the other fourth being sent to the Netherlands and France.
It was not to be supposed that our commerce with Archangel and Narva would long remain without a rival. The Dutch, aware of its importance, prevented by their influence or presents, the Czar from renewing the Russian Company's privileges. As this trade was become more extensive, and carried off, besides woollen goods, silks, velvets, coarse linen cloth, old silver plate, all kinds of mercery wares, serving for the apparel of both sexes, purses, knives, &c. Elizabeth used her efforts to re-establish the company on its former footing; and a new Czar mounting the throne, she was successful.
The frequent voyages of the English to the White Sea made them acquainted with Cherry Island, of which they took possession, and where they carried on for a short time the capture of morses: the teeth of these were regarded as nearly equal in quality and value to ivory, and consequently afforded a lucrative trade; oil was also obtained from these animals. Lead ore is said to have been discovered in this island, of which thirty tons were brought to England in 1606. The Russian Company, however, soon gave up the morse fishery for that of whales. They also carried on a considerable trade with Kola, a town in Russian Lapland, for fish oil and salmon: of the latter they sometimes brought to England 10,000 at one time. But in this trade the Dutch likewise interfered.
The fishery for whales near Spitzbergen was first undertaken by the company in 1597. In 1613, they obtained from King James an exclusive charter for this fishery; and under this, fitting out armed ships, they expelled fifteen sail of French, Dutch, and Biscayners, besides some private English ships. But the Dutch persevered, so that next year, while the Russian Company had only thirteen ships at the whale fishery, the former had eighteen. The success of their whale fishery seems to have led to the neglect of their Russian trade, for, in 1615, only two vessels were employed in it, instead of seventeen great ships formerly employed. From this period, the commerce carried on between Russia and England, by the Russian Company, seems gradually to have declined.
The commerce between England and the other parts of Europe, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, presents little that calls for notice; as the manufactures and capital of England encreased, it gradually encreased, and was transferred from foreign to English vessels. The exports consisted principally of woollen goods, prepared skins, earthen-ware, and metals. The imports of linens, silks, paper, wines, brandy, fruits, dye-stuffs, and drugs. The woollen cloths of England were indeed the staple export to all parts of England during the whole of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: as our cotton, earthen-ware, and iron manufactures sprung up and encreased, they supplied other articles of export;--our imports, at first confined to a few articles, afterwards encreased in number and value, in proportion as our encreased industry, capital, and skill, enlarged our produce and manufactures, and thus enabled us to purchase and consume more. A very remarkable instance of the effect of skill, capital, and industry, is mentioned by Mr. Lewis, a merchant, who published a work entitled, The Merchant's Map of Commerce, in 1641. "The town of Manchester," he says, "buys the linen yarn of the Irish in great quantity, and, weaving it, returns the same again, in linen, into Ireland to sell. Neither doth her industry rest here, for they buy cotton wool in London, that comes first from Cyprus and Smyrna, and work the same into fustians, vermilions, dimities, &c., which they return to London, where they are sold, and from thence not seldom are sent into such foreign parts where the first materials may be more easily had for that manufacture." How similar are these two instances to that which has occurred in our own days, when the cotton-wool, brought from the East Indies, has been returned thither after having been manufactured, and sold there cheaper than the native manufactures.
But though there are no particulars relative to the commerce between England and Europe, which call for our notice, as exhibiting any thing beyond the gradual extension of commercial intercourse already established; yet in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there were other commercial intercourses into which England entered, that deserve attention. These may be classed under three heads: the trade to Africa, to America, and India.