Jenkinson took from Persia to Russia, and from thence to England." "Yet," adds the historian, "the continual troubles and ravages in Persia have since suspended the good effects of this law." In 1566 the Russia Company obtained from the Sophi of Persia immunity from tolls and customs for their merchandise in that kingdom, and full protection for their goods and persons. The same year also their charter was ratified by an act of parliament, said to have been the first English statute which established an exclusive mercantile corporation.[1] In 1571 Jenkinson went out to Russia with the appointment of ambassador from Queen Elizabeth to the Czar, and succeeded both in obtaining the restoration of the company's privileges, which the Czar had suspended, and in reinstating its affairs, which, from losses and mismanagement, had fallen into great disorder.
The event in the reign of Mary which most affected the foreign commerce of the country was the loss of Calais in 1558. This continental town, which England had held for two hundred and eleven years, however useless, or worse than useless a possession it might be, politically considered, was, as Anderson remarks, "extremely well situated for a staple port, to disperse, in more early times, the wool, lead, and tin, and in later times the woollen manufactures of England, into the inland countries of the Netherlands, France, and Germany." The staple for the above-mentioned articles of native produce was now transferred to Bruges, and helped somewhat to check the decline of that famous emporium, whose ancient grandeur had been for some time fast becoming pale under the overshadowing ascendancy of Antwerp.
We may consider as an indication of the growing internal trade of the country in this reign the passing of the first general statute for the repair of the highways (the 2 and 3 Phil. and Mary, c. 8). This act directs
- ↑ Of this act the title only is printed among the Statutes of the Realm:—"An Act for the Corporation of Merchant Adventurers for the Discovery of New Trades."
