“For my part I do not know any profession of Life (especially in an Island) more to be cherished and countenanced with honourable employments than the Merchant-Adventurer (I do not mean only the staplers of Hamburgh and Rotterdam); for if valiant and dangerous actions do enoble a Man, and make him merit, surely the Merchant-Adventurer deserves more Honour than any; for he is to encounter not only with Men of all Tempers and Humours (as a French Counsellor hath it), but he contests and tugs oft-time with all the Elements; nor do I see how some of our Country Squires, who sell Calves and Runts, and their Wives perhaps Cheese and Apples, should be held more genteel than the noble Merchant-Adventurer who sells Silks and Satins, Tissues and Cloths of Gold, Diamonds and Pearl, with Silver and Gold.”
In the year 1606 James made an attempt to introduce the breeding of silkworms. He sent mulberry-trees into the country with instructions for the feeding of the worms. There was a certain amount of English-grown silk manufactured, as is shown by an entry in Thoresby’s Diary. “Saw at Mr. Gale’s a sample of the satin lately made at Chelsea of English silkworms, for the Princess of Wales, which was very rich and beautiful.” The experiment proved unsuccessful, yet it caused the immigration of a great number of silk throwsters, weavers, and dyers, who settled here and entered upon the silk trade in London. The raw silk was brought from India and China by the East India Company.
A table of imports from India in 1620 gives the most astonishing difference between the cost in India and the selling price in London (see Capper, Port and Trade of London, p. 82):—
| Imports, 1620. | Cost on Board Ship in India. | Selling Prices in London. | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| s. | d. | £ | s. | d. | s. | d. | £ | s. | d. | |
| 250,000 lbs. Pepper | 0 | 2-1/2 | 2,604 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 8 | 20,833 | 6 | 8 |
| 150,000 lbs. Cloves | 0 | 9 | 5,625 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 45,000 | 0 | 0 |
| 150,000 lbs. Nutmegs | 0 | 4 | 2,500 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 18,750 | 0 | 0 |
| 50,000 lbs. Mace | 0 | 8 | 1,666 | 13 | 4 | 6 | 0 | 15,000 | 0 | 0 |
| 200,000 lbs. Indigo | 1 | 2 | 11,666 | 13 | 4 | 5 | 0 | 50,000 | 0 | 0 |
| 107,140 lbs. China Raw Silk | 7 | 0 | 37,499 | 0 | 0 | 20 | 0 | 107,140 | 0 | 0 |
| 50,000 pieces Calico | 7 | 0 | 17,500 | 0 | 0 | 20 | 0 | 50,000 | 0 | 0 |
79,061 | 10 | 0 | 306,723 | 6 | 8 | |||||
In 1620 the East India Company established themselves at Madras, where they had a trade in diamonds, muslin, and chintzes in return for English or European goods. They had in their service 2500 mariners, 500 ship carpenters, and 120 factors.
The story of Cockaine’s patent should be (but it was not) a lesson in Free Trade. It was this man’s custom to send white cloth from England to Holland to be dyed and dressed, and then sent back for sale. Alderman Cockaine proposed to the King to do the dyeing and dressing himself if he had a patent. He represented that the whole profit made by the Dutch would be saved by this arrangement. The King consented; he prohibited the exportation of white cloth to Holland, and seized the charter of the Merchant Adventurers which allowed them to export it. The Dutch naturally retaliated by prohibiting the importation of English dye cloths. It was then discovered that Cockaine could not do what he proposed to do; his cloths were worse dyed and were dearer than those dyed by the Dutch. After seven years of complaints over this business, the patent was removed and the charter restored.
The following is a statement of the trade of England at this time:—
“We trade to Naples, Genoa, Leghorn, Marseilles, Malaga, etc., with only twenty ships, chiefly herrings, and thirty sail more laden with pipes-staves from Ireland.
To Portugal and Andalusia we sent twenty ships for wines, sugar, fruit, and West Indian drugs.
To Bordeaux we send sixty ships and barks for wines.
To Hamburgh and Middleburgh, thirty-five ships are sent by our Merchant Adventurers’ Company.
To Dantzic, Koningsburg, etc., we send yearly about thirty ships, viz. six from London, six from Ipswich, and the rest from Hull, Lynn, and Newcastle, but the Dutch many more.
To Norway we send not above five ships, and the Dutch above forty, and great ships too.
Our Newcastle coal trade employs 400 sail of ships; viz. 200 for supplying of London, and 200 for the rest of England.
And besides our own ships, hither, even to the mine’s mouth, come all our neighbouring nations with their ships continually, employing their own shipping and mariners. I doubt not whether, if they had such a treasure, they would employ not their own shipping solely therein. The French sail thither in whole fleets of fifty sail together, serving all their ports of Picardie, Normandie, Bretagne, etc., even as far as Rochel and Bordeaux. And the ships of Bremen, Emden, Holland, and Zealand supply those of Flanders, etc., whose shipping is not great, with our coals.
Our Iceland fishery employs 120 ships and barks of our own.
And the Newfoundland fishery 150 small ships.
And our Greenland whale fishery fourteen ships.
As for the Bermudas, we know not yet what they will do; and for Virginia, we know not what to do with it; the present profit of these two colonies not employing any store of shipping” (Capper, p. 84).
The completion of the New River in 1620 was a great boon and blessing to the people, but the greatest benefit to trade in the reign of James I. was the improvement of the navigation of the upper part of the Thames by deepening the channel, so that not only was Oxford placed in communication with London, but the country all round Oxford.
The granting of monopolies was an interference with trade which would now cause a revolution. There were many complaints. Parliament declared that all monopolies were void. That was under James. Charles began, notwithstanding, to sell monopolies to whomsoever would pay him most for them. Thus the importation of alum was prohibited, for the protection of the alum works of Whitby; also brick-making, the manufacture of saltpetre, of tapestry, the coining of farthings, the making of steel, the making of stone pots and jugs, making guns, melting iron ore, and many other things. More than this, Charles made the sale of tobacco a royal monopoly; he forbade the infant colony of Virginia to sell tobacco to any foreign state; he levied a duty of four shillings a chaldron on all coal exported to foreign parts; and he actually endeavoured to establish a malting and a brewing monopoly. When we read the historian on the despotic acts of Charles and his attempts on the liberties of his people, let us bear in mind the constant exasperations of these interferences with trade—that is, with the livelihood of the people. When at last he became awakened to the danger of the position, he revoked all their “grants, licences, and privileges”; but it was then too late—revolution had already arisen.