After Entering
Into Details Respecting The Dutch Fishery, By Means Of Which, He Says, They
Sell Herrings Annually To The Value Of Upwards Of One Million And A Half
Sterling, Whereas England Scarcely Any, He Reverts To The Other Branches Of
Dutch Commerce, As Compared With Ours.
The great stores of wines and salt,
brought from France and Spain, are in the Low Countries:
They send nearly
1,000 ships yearly with these commodities into the east countries alone;
whereas we send not one ship. The native country of timber for ships, &c.
is within the Baltic; but the storehouse for it is in Holland; they have
500 or 600 large ships employed in exporting it to England and other parts:
we not one. The Dutch even interfere with our own commodities; for our wool
and woollen cloth, which goes out rough, undressed, and undyed, they
manufacture and serve themselves and other nations with it. We send into
the east countries yearly but 100 ships, and our trade chiefly depends upon
three towns, Elbing, Koningsberg, and Dantzic; but the Low Countries send
thither about 3,000 ships: they send into France, Spain, Portugal, and
Italy, about 2,000 ships yearly with those east country commodities, and
we, none in that course. They trade into all cities and port towns of
France, and we chiefly to five or six.
The Low Countries have as many ships and vessels as eleven kingdoms of
Christendom have; let England be one. For seventy years together, we had a
great trade to Russia (Narva), and even about fourteen years ago, we sent
stores of goodly ships thither; but three years past we sent out four
thither, and last year but two or three ships; whereas the Hollanders are
now increased to about thirty or forty ships, each as large as two of ours,
chiefly laden with English cloth, herrings, taken in our seas, English
lead, and pewter made of our tin. He adds, that a great loss is suffered by
the kingdom from the undressed and undyed cloths being sent out of the
kingdom, to the amount of 80,000 pieces annually; and that there had been
annually exported, during the last fifty-three years, in baizes, northern
and Devonshire kersies, all white, about 50,000 cloths, counting three
kersies to one cloth.
Although there is undoubtedly much exaggeration in the comparative
statement of the Dutch and English commerce and shipping in the details,
yet it is a curious and interesting document, as exhibiting a general view
of them. Indeed, through the whole of the seventeenth century, the most
celebrated and best informed writers on the commerce of England dwell
strongly on the superior trade of the Dutch, and on their being able, by
the superior advantages they enjoyed from greater capital, industry, and
perseverance, aided by the greater encouragement they gave to foreigners as
well as their own people, to supply the greatest part of Europe with all
their wants, though their own country was small and unfertile. A similar
comparative statement to that of Raleigh is given by Child in 1655; he
asserts that in the preceding year the Dutch had twenty-two sail of great
ships in the Russia trade, - England but one: that in the Greenland whale
fishery, Holland and Hamburgh had annually 400 or 500 sail, - and England
but one last year: that the Dutch have a great trade for salt to France and
Portugal, with which they salt fish caught on our coasts; that in the
Baltic trade, the English have fallen off, and the Dutch increased tenfold.
England has no share in the trade to China and Japan: the Dutch a great
trade to both countries. A great part of the plate trade from Cadiz has
passed from England to Holland. They have even bereaved us of the trade to
Scotland and Ireland. He concludes with pointing out some advantages
England possesses over Holland: In the Turkey, Italian, Spanish, and
Portuguese trades, we have the natural advantage of our wool: - our
provisions and fuel, in country places, are cheaper than with the
Dutch; - our native commodities of lead and tin are great advantages: - of
these, he says, as well as of our manufactures, we ship off one-third more
than we did twenty years ago; and he adds, that we have now more than
double the number of merchants and shipping that we had twenty years ago.
He mentions a circumstance, which seems to indicate a retrograde motion of
commerce, viz., that when he wrote most payments were in ready money;
whereas, formerly, there were credit payments at three, six, nine, twelve,
and even eighteen months. From another part of his work, it appears that
the tax-money was brought up in waggons from the country.
The gradual advancement of a nation in knowledge and civilization, which is
in part the result of commerce, is also in part the cause of it. But
besides this advancement, in which England participated with the rest of
Europe, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there were other
circumstances peculiar to this country, some of which were favourable, and
others unfavourable to the increase of its commerce.
Among the favourable circumstances may be reckoned the taking away of the
exclusive privileges of the steelyard merchants by Edward VI., by which
native merchants were encouraged, private companies of them formed, and the
benefits of commerce more extensively diffused: - the encouragement given by
Elizabeth, particularly by her minister Cecil, to commerce; this was so
great and well directed, that the customs which had been farmed, at the
beginning of the reign, for 14,000_l_. a year, towards its close were
fanned for 50,000_l_.; - the pacific character of James I., and the
consequent tranquillity enjoyed by England during his reign; - the strong
and general stimulus which was given to individual industry, by the feeling
of their own importance, which the struggle between Charles I. and the
Parliament naturally infused into the great mass of the people; - the
increased skill in maritime affairs, which was produced by our naval
victories under Cromwell; - the great vigour of his government in his
relations with foreign powers; and the passing of the navigation act.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 172 of 268
Words from 174915 to 175952
of 273188
