from England, in his work entitled "The Interest of Holland," published in 1669, show the estimation of the commercial greatness of this country which was now prevalent on the continent; and the passage is also worth quoting from the sketch it gives of the rise and progress of our manufactures and trade. "When the compulsive laws of the Netherland Halls," he observes, "had first driven the cloth-weaving from the cities into our villages, and thence into England, and that, by the cruelty of the Duke d'Alva, the say-weaving went also after it, the English by degrees began to vend their manufactures throughout Europe: they became potent at sea, and no longer to depend on the Netherlands. Also, by that discovery of the inexpressibly rich cod-bank of Newfoundland, those of Bristol in particular made use of that advantage. Moreover, the long persecution of Puritans in England has occasioned the planting of many English colonies in America, by which they drive a very considerable foreign trade thither. So that this mighty island, united with Ireland under one king, seated in the midst of Europe, having a clear deep coast, with good
year 1699, 3,280,525l. 8s. 9d.: which balance in the year 1703 was so considerably increased as to be no less than 2,117,523l. 3s. 10½d.; total gained by us from having no trade with France in the year 1703, 4,250,388l. 1s. 10½d. A most interesting consideration." All this declamation, in which the figures of arithmetic are made to play as wild a part as ever did those of rhetoric, is gravely repeated and adopted by Anderson (ii. 496). The statement for the year 1662-3 he had previously characterized, in the same spirit, as "a most melancholy account, truly," "more especially," he adds, "as coming from this able author, who possessed that important office [of inspector of the customs] in the reigns of King William and Queen Anne." (p. 478.) But, if he had gone to Davenants own Report, he would have found wherewithal to console himself. "Here you may please to observe," remarks that writer, after having transcribed the two accounts, "what an appearance there is of an excess against us all the world over those two years, in which no man in his right senses will deny but that we carried on a thriving traffic." (p. 377.)
