Early in the sixteenth century the exports of English cloth by the foreign merchants amounted to 44,000 pieces, while the English ships took away no more than 1,000 pieces. When our own merchants were prepared with ships and had what may be called the machinery of trade; as a market, wharves, permission to buy and sell; it is obvious that the old state of things could no longer continue. It was not, however, until the reign of Edward VI. that the foreign merchants were finally deprived of all their privileges and charters.
These rivals, with their powerful organisations and their hold over all the northern ports, once out of the way the English merchants began to push out their enterprises in all directions. You shall see immediately how they prospered.
Meantime there remains a monument erected in memory of the Hanseatic League. In the reign of Queen Anne the merchants of Hamburg presented to the church where the merchants of the Steelyard had worshipped for 400 years, a splendid screen of carved wood. Unless the church, which is already threatened with destruction, is pulled down, you should go to see that screen, and remember all that it means and commemorates.
44. TRADE.
PART II.
English trade, that is to say, trade in English hands, practically began with Edward III. and, slowly increasing under his successors, gained an enormous development under Elizabeth. Several causes operated to produce this increase. In the first place the abolition of the Steelyard, though ordered by Edward VI., was not completely carried out till many years afterwards. During this period the merchants were learning the immense possibilities open to them when this incubus should be removed. Next, the great rival of London, Antwerp, suffered, like the rest of the Netherlands, from the religious wars. Thirdly, the wise and farseeing action of Gresham transferred the commercial centre of the northern world from that town to London.
Antwerp in the fifteenth century was the richest and most prosperous city in western Europe. There were 200,000 inhabitants, a great many more than could be counted in London: 5,000 merchants met every day in the Bourse for the transaction of business: 2,500 vessels might be counted in the river: 500 loaded waggons entered every day from the country. It was the port of the great and rich manufacturing towns of Bruges and Ghent. In the latter town there were 40,000 weavers, and an army of 80,000 men fully armed and equipped, could be raised at any moment. The former town, Bruges, was the Market—the actual commercial centre—of the world. Hither came the merchants of Venice and Genoa, bringing the silks, velvets, cloth of gold, spices and precious stones from the East to exchange for the English wool and the produce of Germany and the Baltic.
KING EDWARD VI.
(From a picture belonging to H. Hucks Gibbs, Esq.)
The Religious Wars of the sixteenth century: the ferocities, cruelties, and savagery of those wars: depopulated and ruined this rich and flourishing country: the Inquisition drove thousands of Flemings, an industrious and orderly folk, to England, where they established silk manufactures: and the carrying trade which had been wholly in the hands of the Antwerp shipowners was diverted and went across the narrow seas to London, where it has ever since remained.