In the first chapter of his poem the author gives a very lucid account of the course of the commerce then carried on between England, Spain, and Flanders. No mention is made of France, as England was then engaged in hostilities with that country; but from Spain English merchants imported figs, raisins, wine, dates, licorice, oil, grains, white pastile soap,[624] wax, iron, wool, wadmolle, goat fell, saffron, and quicksilver; and, from Flanders, fine cloth of Ypres and of Courtray were carried in Spanish ships homewards, with fustians and also linen cloth. These cargoes requiring necessarily to pass between Calais and Dover going and coming, Spain and Flanders being then mutually dependent, while the raw material of the Flemish manufactures came from England, it followed that the interest of both these powers lay in keeping peace with that country, or the Flemish factories would be starved. In the second chapter the trade with Portugal is described. It represents that Portugal is England’s friend, her shipping resorting thither to trade in wines, wax, grain, figs, raisins, dates, honey, Cordovan leather, hides, &c., all of which merchandize were carried in great quantities to Flanders, justly described as the largest “staple” or market at that time in all Christendom. But Portugal is accused of being changeable; “she is in our power while we are masters of the narrow seas.”
In the third chapter, it is stated that the people of Bretagne were great rovers on the sea, and had often done much havoc on the coasts of England, landing, killing, and burning to her great disgrace, but that they durst not be her open foes so long as she had possession of the narrow seas. The vigour of Edward III. is extolled in granting letters of reprisals to the seamen of Dartmouth, Plymouth, and Fowey, by which the pirates from Brittany, especially those from St. Malo, were extirpated. The trade of Scotland is reported to have consisted of wool, wool-fells, and hides; but her wool was sent to Flanders to be dressed, as it was not equal in quality to the English wool, with which it was often mixed before being manufactured. Scotland, we are also informed, brought from Flanders mercery and haberdashery in great quantities: moreover, one-half of these Scottish ships were then generally laden home from Flanders with cart-wheels and wheel-barrows. The writer remarks that the Scotch ships must pass by the English coast on their way to Flanders, and might therefore be easily intercepted,
“——If they would not our friends bee
We might lightly stoppe hem in the sea.”
The trade of the Easterlings,[625] Prussia, and Germany, consisted of copper, beer, bacon, bow staves, steel, wax, pottery, pitch and tar, fir, oak planks, Cologne thread, wool cards, fustian, canvas, and buckram, exported to Flanders; whence were carried back silver plate and wedges, and silver (which came to Flanders in great plenty from Bohemia and Hungary); also woollen cloths of all colours. “And they aventure full greatly unto the Bay For salt that is needefull;”
“They should not passe our streems withouten leve
It would not be, but if we should hem greue.”
There then follows a description of the commerce of Genoa, whose merchants resorted to England in great caracks “arrayed withouten lacke,” with cloth of gold, silk, black pepper, woad, wool, oil, cotton, rock-alum, taking as a return cargo, wool, and woollen cloth made with home-spun wool, proceeding frequently from England to Flanders, then the chief market of north-eastern Europe.
“If they would be our full enemies,
They should not passe our streems with marchandise.”