chant strangers of the nation of Italy—under which name are included not only the Venetians, Genoese, Florentines, Apulians, Sicilians, and Lucaners, or people of Lucca, but also the Catalonians "and other of the same nation," according to the fashion of speaking in that age, which was to consider all the countries bordering on the Mediterranean as belonging to Italy,—were resident in great numbers both in London and in other cities of England, and were in the habit of taking warehouses and cellars in which to store the wares and merchandises, they imported, "and them in their said warehouses and cellars deceivably pack, meddle (mix), and keep unto the time the prices thereof been greatly enhanced, for their most lucre, and the same wares and merchandises then sell to all manner of people, as well within the ports whereunto they bring their said wares and merchandise, as in other divers and many places generally within this realm, as well by retail as otherwise." An extensive and active internal trade, therefore, was carried on by these foreign residents: it is probable, indeed, that, besides their business as importers and exporters, the greater part of the domestic sale of commodities brought from beyond seas was in their hands. This is the second condition in the natural commercial progress of a country; first, its poverty and barbarism invite only the occasional resort of foreigners, without offering any temptation to them to take up their residence within it; then, as its wealth increases, foreigners find even its home trade an object worth their attention, and one which they easily secure by the application of their superior skill and resources; lastly, in the height of its civilization, and when the energies of its inhabitants have been fully developed—in a great measure by the impulse received from these stranger residents—its traffic of all kinds, as well as all the other business carried on in it, naturally falls into the almost exclusive possession of its own people. England, then, at the end of the fifteenth century, was only yet making its way through the intermediate or transition stage in this advance from having no commerce at all to having a com-
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