Their Importations Consisted Of Flax, Corn, Biscuit, Flour,
Malt, Ale, Cloth, Wine, Spirituous Liquors, Copper, Silver, &C.; And They
Exported Ship-Timber, Masts, Furs, Butter, Salmon, Dried Cod, Fish-Oil, &C.
As the grand object of the League was to secure to themselves the profits
arising from the mutual supply of the north and south of Europe, with the
merchandize of each, they had agents in France, Spain, &c. as well as in
the countries on the Baltic.
England, at this period, did not carry on much
commerce, nor afford much merchandize or produce for exportation; yet even
in it the Hanseatic League established themselves. Towards the end of the
thirteenth century they had a factory in London, and were allowed to export
wool, sheep's skins, and tin, on condition that they kept in repair the
gate of the city called Bishopsgate: they were also allowed the privilege
of electing an alderman.
Bruges, which is said to have had regular weekly fairs for the sale of the
woollen manufactures of Flanders so early as the middle of the tenth
century, and to have been fixed upon by the Hanseatic League, in the middle
of the thirteenth, as an entrepot for their trade, certainly became, soon
after this latter period, a city of great trade, probably from its
connection with the Hanseatic League, though it never was formally admitted
a member. We shall afterwards have occasion to notice it in our view of the
progress of the Hanseatic League.
As the commerce of the League encreased and extended in the Baltic, it
became necessary to fix on some depot.
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