Increased privileges to foreign merchants.
Although the reign of Edward, like that of his predecessor, was unfortunately marked by many contentions at home and abroad, the interests of commerce were not neglected, and foreigners obtained privileges far beyond any they had previously enjoyed.[562] Those, for instance, who repaired to England were not merely granted full quiet and security, but they were exempted from all differential duties and special restrictions, and from the payment of either “murage, pontage, or pavage,” although in cities they were only allowed to sell their goods by wholesale, except in the case of spices or mercery wares. Goods of any kind might be exported or imported, with the exception of wine, which could not be re-exported without a special licence. Foreign merchants were also allowed to take up their abode at any town or borough in the kingdom, subject only to the civil and municipal laws of the country. The crown promised not to seize their goods without making full satisfaction. Bargains were to be enforced after the “earnest penny” had passed between the buyer and seller; and all bailiffs and officers of fairs were commanded to do justice without delay, from day to day, “according to the law of merchants.” Before goods were weighed, it was stipulated that both buyer and seller were to see that the scales were empty and of equal balance, and all weights were to be of one standard. When the scales were balanced, “the weigher” was expressly required to remove his hands. Moreover, in all trials by jury, in which strangers were interested, the jury was to consist of half Englishmen and half foreigners.
Letters of marque first issued.
It was also in the reign of Edward I. that letters of marque appear to have been for the first time issued. A merchant of Bayonne,[563] at that time a port of the English dominions in Gascony, had shipped a cargo of fruit from Malaga, which, on its passage along the coast of Portugal, was seized and carried into Lisbon by an armed cruiser belonging to that country then at peace with England. The king of Portugal, who had received one-tenth part of the property, declined to restore the ship and cargo, or make good the loss; whereupon King Edward’s lieutenant in Gascony granted the owner of the ship and his heirs licence, to be in force for five years, to seize the property of the Portuguese, and especially of the inhabitants of Lisbon, to the extent of the loss he had sustained and of the expenses of recovery.
Law for the recovery of debts, and adjustment of average.
It was likewise during the reign of Edward (10th Oct., 1283) that parliament passed the famous “statute of merchants,” which gave a remedy for the due recovery of debts, “as for want of such a law many merchants were impoverished, and many foreign merchants desisted from trading with England.” It is remarkable that, in the required process, the debtor was supposed incapable of writing, and was, therefore, required to put his seal to a bill drawn by the mayor’s clerk, who thereupon affixed the royal seal prepared for that purpose. If, on judgment against him, the debtor was proved to have no property, he was imprisoned and fed on bread and water until the just demands of the creditors were satisfied.
Nor were Edward’s commercial enactments confined to those we have thus briefly noticed; for, understanding that certain citizens of London,[564] together with other merchants of England, Ireland, Gascony, and Wales, were in the habit of compelling the barons of the Cinque Ports and others to pay an average on articles which ought to have been exempted, as in the case of goods thrown overboard in storms, he ordained that the vessel with her apparel, provisions, and cooking utensils, “the master’s ring, necklace, sash, and silver cup,” as well as the freight for the goods brought into port, should be free of all such payments: on the other hand, that all other things in the vessel, not excepting even the seamen’s bedding, should bear a proportion of the loss incurred, and that the master should not be permitted to claim freight for goods so thrown overboard.[565]
Shipping of Scotland, A.D. 1249.
Extremely liberal Navigation Act.
In Scotland, as might have been expected, commerce was of even slower growth than in England, nor was it till the reign of Alexander III. that there was any real maritime force; and although the vassals of Scotland, as, for instance, the king of Man, were required to contribute ships for the use of the state in proportion to their lands, the king does not appear to have considered that such merchant vessels as these were of much value, as he passed a law whereby his merchants were prohibited for a limited period from exporting any goods in their own vessels, “because some of them had been captured by pirates, and others lost by shipwreck and by arrestments in foreign ports.” Of course, the inevitable result followed that, for a time, the merchant vessels of Scotland were totally extinguished. The enactment, however, for some unaccountable reason, seems to have given satisfaction, as the historians of the period remark that—“in consequence of these laws the kingdom abounded in a few years with corn, money, cattle, sheep, and all kinds of merchandise, and the arts flourished.”[566] It is, indeed, possible that Scotland may have imbibed the spirit of extreme liberality in its maritime policy which then prevailed throughout England, where it was evidently supposed that foreign merchants brought wealth which England could not otherwise have obtained. It is, perhaps, remarkable that we have no notice of any trading port of Scotland except that of Dunbar, which, at that time, was subject to the English crown.