It Carries No
Money Out, And Not Only Supplies The English Plantations With
Servants, But Brings In A Great Deal
Of bullion for those that are
sold to the Spanish West Indies, besides gold dust and other
commodities, as red
Wood, elephants' teeth, Guinea grain, &c., some
of which are re-exported. The supplying the plantations with
negroes is of that extraordinary advantage, that the planting sugar
and tobacco and carrying on trade there could not be supported
without them; which plantations are the great causes of the increase
of the riches of the kingdom.
The Canary Company was incorporated in the reign of King Charles
II., anno 1664, being empowered to trade to the Seven Islands,
anciently called the Fortunate, and now the Canary Islands.
They have a governor, deputy-governor, and thirteen assistants or
directors, chosen annually in March. This company exports baize,
kerseys, serges, Norwich stuffs, and other woollen manufactures;
stockings, hats, fustians, haberdashery wares, tin, and hardware; as
also herrings, pilchards, salted flesh, and grain; linens, pipe-
staves, hoops, &c. Importing in return Canary wines, logwood,
hides, indigo, cochineal, and other commodities, the produce of
America and the West Indies.
There is another company I had almost overlooked, called the
Hudson's Bay Company; and though these merchants make but little
noise, I find it is a very advantageous trade. They by charter
trade, exclusively of all other his Britannic Majesty's subjects, to
the north-west; which was granted, as I have been told, on account
that they should attempt a passage by those seas to China, &c.,
though nothing appears now to be less their regard; nay; if all be
true, they are the very people that discourage and impede all
attempts made by others for the opening that passage to the South
Seas. They export some woollen goods and haberdashery wares,
knives, hatchets, arms, and other hardware; and in return bring back
chiefly beaver-skins, and other skins and furs.
The last, and once the most considerable of all the trading
companies, is that of the South Sea, established by Act of
Parliament in the ninth year of the late Queen Anne; but, what by
reason of the mismanagement of its directors in 1720, the
miscarriage of their whale-fishery, and the intrigues of the
Spaniards, their credit is sunk, and their trade has much decreased.
I proceed, in the next place, to inquire what countries the
merchants of London trade to separately, not being incorporated or
subject to the control of any company.
Among which is the trade to Italy, whither are exported broad-cloth,
long-ells, baize, druggets, callimancoes, camlets, and divers other
stuffs; leather, tin, lead, great quantities of fish, as pilchards,
herrings, salmon, Newfoundland cod, &c., pepper, and other East
India goods.
The commodities England takes from them are raw, thrown, and wrought
silk, wine, oil, soap, olives, some dyer's wares, anchovies, &c.
To Spain the merchants export broad-cloth, druggets, callimancoes,
baize, stuff of divers kinds, leather, fish, tin, lead, corn, &c.
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