with the amount of the customs paid upon them, in the year 1354. The exports here mentioned are, 31,651½ sacks of wool at 6l. per sack; 8036 cwt. (120 lbs.) of wool at 40s. per cwt.; 65 woolfels, total value 21s. 8d.; hides to the value of 89l. 5s. ; 4774½ pieces of cloth at 40s. each; and 8061½ pieces of worsted stuff at 16s. 8d. each: total value of the exports, 212,338l. 5s., paying customs to the amount of 81,846l. 12s. 2d. Wool therefore would appear, by this account, to have constituted about thirteen-fourteenths of the whole exports of the kingdom. The customs would seem to have been almost entirely derived from wool: the amount paid by the hides and cloth exported amounts only to about 220l. The duty on the export of wool exceeded 40 per cent. on the value. The imports mentioned are, 1831 pieces of fine cloths at 6l. each ; 397¾ cwt. of wax at 40s. per cwt.; 1829½ tuns of wine at 40s. per tun; and linens, mercery, grocery, &c., to the value of 22,943l. 6s. 10d.:—making a total value of 38,383l. 16s. 10d. The great excess, according to this statement, of the exports over the imports, has been regarded as evincing the moderation and sobriety of our ancestors. "But when we look at the articles," it has been well observed, "and find that of raw materials for manufactures, which constitute so great a part of the modern imports, there was not one single article imported, and that, on the other hand, the exports consisted almost entirely of the most valuable raw materials, and of cloths in an unfinished state, which may therefore also be classed among raw materials, we must acknowledge that it affords only a proof of the low state of manufactures and of commercial knowledge among a people who were obliged to allow foreigners to have the profit of manufacturing their own wool, and finishing their own cloths, and afterwards to repurchase both from them in the form of finished goods."[1]
This account is probably to be considered as comprehending only those articles from which the revenue of the customs was derived. We know that several other
- ↑ Macpherson, Ann. of Comm. i. 554.
