MEDALS STRUCK IN COMMEMORATION OF THE ARMADA
From medals in the British Museum.

As the Merchant Adventurers grew richer it became necessary, according to the bad practice of the time, to bribe statesmen for a continuance of their privileges; they also increased the fees for admission. The troubles between Holland and England in the seventeenth century drove the Adventurers to Hamburg, where they remained, and were called the Hamburg Company.

The vast enlargement of trade and enterprise under Elizabeth was well begun under her father. In 1511 ships began to sail from the ports of London, Southampton, and Bristol to Sicily, Candia, Chio, Cyprus, and Tripoli; they took out woollen cloths and hides, and they brought back rhubarb, silk, corselets, malmsey, oil, cotton, carpets, and spices. An English merchant was appointed Consul at Candia; another merchant, a foreigner, was made Consul at Chio; in the year 1535 a ship took out from London a hundred persons who were settled by the English merchants as factors at the various centres of trade. Trade openings were made on the Coast of Guinea and with Morocco; ships sailed to Newfoundland and to Brazil. In the year 1583 was formed the first of the new Companies for trading purposes. This Company had an interesting but a disastrous beginning. It was started with a capital of £6000 in 240 shares of £25 each; its original idea was to find a north-east passage to China and to open trade with the Chinese. Three vessels were fitted out under the command of Sir Hugh Willoughby. Would you know how the fleet started? Hakluyt tells the story:—

“It was thought best by the opinion of them all, that by the twentieth of May, the Captaines and Mariners should take shipping, and depart from Radcliffe, upon the ebbe, if it pleased God. They having saluted their acquiaintance, one his wife, another his children, another his kinsfolkes, and another his friends deerer then his kinsfolkes, were present and ready at the day appoynted; and having wayed ancre, they departed with the turning of the water, and sailing easily, came first to Greenewich. The greater shippes are towed downe with boates, and oares, and the mariners being all apparelled in Watchet or skie coloured cloth, rowed amaine, and made way with diligence. And being come neere to Greenewich (where the Court then lay) presently upon the newes thereof, the Courtiers came running out, and the common people flockt together, standing very thicke upon the shoare; the privie Counsel, they lookt out at the windowes of the Court, and the rest ranne up to the toppes of the towers; the shippes hereupon discharge their Ordinance, and shot off their pieces after the maner of warre, and of the sea, insomuch that the tops of the hilles sounded therewith, the valleys and waters gave an echo, and the Mariners they shouted in such sort, that the skie rang againe with the noyse thereof. One stoode in the poope of the ship, and by his gestures bid farewell to his friends in the best maner hee could. Another walkes upon the hatches, another climbes the shrowds, another stands upon the maine yard, and another in the top of the shippe. To be short, it was a very triumph (after a sort) in all respects to the beholders. But (alas) the good King Edward (in respect of whom principally all this was prepared) hee onely by reason of his sickenesse was absent from this shewe, and not long after the departure of these ships, the lamentable and most sorrowfull accident of his death followed.”

Other accounts of this incident represent the King as being carried out to see this gallant spectacle, the last he was to see upon earth.

The little fleet met with bad weather off the coast of Spitzbergen; two of them, including the captain’s ship, ran into a harbour of Lapland, where the whole company were frozen to death; the third got into the White Sea and so to Archangel; the captain, Richard Chancellor, procured sledges and travelled to Moscow, where he obtained from the Czar permission to trade on the northern coast of Russia. Thus was founded the Russia Company. A few years later one of the agents of the Russia Company was despatched as an Ambassador from the English Court to the Czar, who in his turn sent an Ambassador to Whitehall. On his voyage the Russian Ambassador was wrecked on the coast of Scotland. The Russia Company, hearing of the disaster, sent a deputation with a supply of everything that the Ambassador might want. On his approach to the City he was met by a company of eighty merchants on horseback, who escorted him to Highgate, where he lay that night, and on the next day was met by Lord Montague, representing the Queen, with 300 knights and esquires and 140 merchants of the Russia Company. Rooms were found for him in Gracechurch Street, where many costly gifts awaited him.

The history of this Company deserves to be written at length on account of the enterprise and intelligence of its agents. Indeed, justice has never been done to the agents and factors of the great London Companies. It was not the Directors, sitting at home at their long table, who created the Indian Empire; maintained and widened the English trade; carried the English flag over lands unknown and to peoples unheard of; it was not the Directors who opened up routes, stood before capricious despots, marked the resources of new countries and reported on their wants. These things were done by the factors and the agents, who encountered all risks, facing possibly prison, torture, disease, and sometimes a cruel death, for the enlargement of trade and the enrichment of their masters. They were the pioneers; sometimes they were the Forlorn Hope of the English trade and wealth. No Company, not even the East India Company, was better served by its agents than the Russia Company. They obtained from the Czar important privileges; they could trade in any part of Russia without safe conduct or licenses; they could not be arrested for debt; they could appoint their own officers and servants; and they had jurisdiction over all Englishmen resident in Russia. In other words, they had a monopoly of the Russian Trade.

The Company showed a clear comprehension of these advantages; they continued to attempt the north-east passage; they sent ships laden with merchandise to Archangel, whence their agents travelled over Russia; they even opened communications with Persia by means of their agent Anthony Jenkinson, who has already in his own words given us an account of his adventurous career. When he sailed from the Volga to Astrakhan, he passed over the Caspian to the town of Boghaz, where he found traders from the Far East. He sent home a map of Russia, the first published in England. This way of trade, however, proved too dangerous on account of Cossack pirates who infested the Caspian Sea and robbed the Company’s ships. However, the Company, anxious to secure these advantages, procured an Act of Parliament granting them the exclusive trade with the countries of Persia, Armenia, and Media, as well as Russia.