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.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 642 of 1007
Words from 175525 to 175779
of 273188
