of exports upon the three years to the value of 425,040l., or of about 142,000l. per annum. But Davenant maintains that, "to carry on some mystery of trade," the merchants, now that it cost them nothing, were accustomed to enter larger quantities than they really exported, especially of the perpetuanas, serges, and other coarser descriptions of cloth. By the books of the Custom House, he says, the exportation of woollens would appear to be growing every year larger and larger, while at the same time there was a general complaint all over England of wool being a drug.[1]
The amount of the trade of England, in so far as it gave employment to our own shipping, whether for intercourse with foreign parts or for coasting purposes, and also its distribution over the country, at the end of the reign of King William, may be collected from an account of the mercantile marine of the kingdom as it existed in January, 1702, which has been drawn up from returns then made to inquiries instituted by the Commissioners of the Customs. From this account it appears that there belonged to the port of London 560 vessels, of the average burden of about 151 tons, and 10,065 men; to Bristol 165 vessels, of 105 tons on an average, and 2,359 men; to Yarmouth 143 vessels, of 62 tons on an average, and 668 men; to Exeter 121 vessels, of the burden of 58 or 59 tons on an average, and 978 men; to Hull 115 vessels, of nearly 66 tons on an average, and 187 men (80 of the Hull vessels were at this time laid up); to Whitby 110 vessels, of 75 tons on an average, and 571 men; to Liverpool 102 vessels, of between 84 and 85 tons on an average, and 1,101 men; and to Scarborough 100 vessels, of nearly 69 tons on an average, and 606 men. None of the other ports had so many as a hundred vessels; but Newcastle had 63, measuring in all 11,000 tons, or above 173 tons on an average, and Ipswich 39, measuring 11,170 tons in all, or above 286 tons on an average. The number of vessels belonging to all the ports in England was 3281, measuring 261,222 tons, or nearly 80 tons on an average; and the total number of seamen
- ↑ Second Report on Public Accounts, in Works, v. 445.
