The Success Of Their Whale Fishery Seems To Have Led To The
Neglect Of Their Russian Trade, For, In 1615, Only Two Vessels Were
Employed In It, Instead Of Seventeen Great Ships Formerly Employed.
From
this period, the commerce carried on between Russia and England, by the
Russian Company, seems gradually to have declined.
The commerce between England and the other parts of Europe, during the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, presents little that calls for notice;
as the manufactures and capital of England encreased, it gradually
encreased, and was transferred from foreign to English vessels. The exports
consisted principally of woollen goods, prepared skins, earthen-ware, and
metals. The imports of linens, silks, paper, wines, brandy, fruits,
dye-stuffs, and drugs. The woollen cloths of England were indeed the staple
export to all parts of England during the whole of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries: as our cotton, earthen-ware, and iron manufactures
sprung up and encreased, they supplied other articles of export; - our
imports, at first confined to a few articles, afterwards encreased in
number and value, in proportion as our encreased industry, capital, and
skill, enlarged our produce and manufactures, and thus enabled us to
purchase and consume more. A very remarkable instance of the effect of
skill, capital, and industry, is mentioned by Mr. Lewis, a merchant, who
published a work entitled, _The Merchant's Map of Commerce_, in 1641. "The
town of Manchester," he says, "buys the linen yarn of the Irish in great
quantity, and, weaving it, returns the same again, in linen, into Ireland
to sell. Neither doth her industry rest here, for they buy cotton wool in
London, that comes first from Cyprus and Smyrna, and work the same into
fustians, vermilions, dimities, &c., which they return to London, where
they are sold, and from thence not seldom are sent into such foreign parts
where the first materials may be more easily had for that manufacture." How
similar are these two instances to that which has occurred in our own days,
when the cotton-wool, brought from the East Indies, has been returned
thither after having been manufactured, and sold there cheaper than the
native manufactures.
But though there are no particulars relative to the commerce between
England and Europe, which call for our notice, as exhibiting any thing
beyond the gradual extension of commercial intercourse already established;
yet in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there were other commercial
intercourses into which England entered, that deserve attention. These may
be classed under three heads: the trade to Africa, to America, and India.
I. The trade to Africa. - The first notice of any trade between England and
Africa occurs in the year 1526, when some merchants of Bristol, which, at
this period, was undoubtedly one of our most enterprising cities, traded by
means of Spanish ships to the Canaries. Their exports were cloth, soap, for
the manufacture of which, even at this early period, Bristol was
celebrated, and some other articles. They imported drugs for dyeing, sugar,
and kid skins.
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