rity states that this very year there were at Newfoundland two hundred and fifty English ships, the burden of which, in all, amounted to 15,000 tons.[1] The Newcastle coal-trade employed alone four hundred vessels; namely, two hundred for the supply of London, and as many more for the rest of England. "And, besides our own ships," says our author, "hither, even to the mine's mouth, come all our neighboring nations with their ships continually, employing their own shipping and mariners. ....The French sail hither in whole fleets of fifty sail together; serving all their ports of Picardy, Normandy, Bretagne, &c., even as far as Rochelle and Bordeaux. And the ships of Bremen, Embden, Holland, and Zealand supply those of Flanders, &c., whose shipping is not great, with our coals." Besides all these, there were the ships belonging to the East India Company, which, if they were not as yet very numerous, were some of them the largest merchantmen of the kingdom. Sir Dudley Digges, in a treatise entitled "The Defence of Trade," published this same year, in reply to the author of "The Trade's Increase," who had attacked the company, gives a list of all the ships they had employed from their first establishment, which he makes to have been twenty-four in number; of which one was of 1293 tons burden, one of 1100, one of 1060, one of 900, one of 800, and the rest of from 600 to 150.
According to a return made to an order of the privy council, in 1614, the entire value of the exports from England to all parts of the world, for the preceding year, was 2,090,640l. 11s. 8d. ; and that of the imports, 2,141,283l. 17s. 10p. In order, however, to make it appear that the balance of trade was at this time favourable, the account adds to the value of the exports 86,794l. 16s. 2d. for custom on the goods; 10,000l. for the impost paid outwards on woollen goods, tin, lead, and pewter; and 300,000l. for the merchants' gains, freight, and other petty charges: in this way making out an appparent balance of the exports over the imports,
- ↑ Gerard Malynes, in his Lex Mercatoria, 1622, p. 347.
