to the fleet, and made it, in the end, the best equipped navy in Europe. She raised the pay of the sailors, as she had done that of the soldiers, and the merchants entered so readily into her service that she had no longer occasion to hire vessels, as her predecessors had done, from the Hanse Towns, or from Venice and Genoa. She built a fort on the Medway, somewhere near the present Sheerness, to protect her fleet, and justly acquired the name of the Queen of the North Seas. Many circumstances combined to give a, new and wonderful development in her time to commerce: the discovery and partial settlement of the New World; the way opened by the Cape to India; the extension of commercial inquiry and enterprise into the north of Europe and to the banks of Newfoundland. But ere this stirring period arrived, commerce had had many severe restrictions, the fruit of the ignorance of political economy, to struggle with.
Henry VII. is greatly praised by Hall, the chronicler, as a prince who "by his high policy marvellously enriched his realm and himself, and left his subjects in high wealth and prosperity; as is apparent by the great abundance of gold and silver yearly brought into the kingdom, in plate, money, and bullion, by merchants passing and repassing." But the great reason of the rapid advance of commerce under Henry VII. was, undoubtedly, the quietness and stability of affairs which he introduced; for Henry was too fond of hoarding to be a very munificent patron of trade. Amongst the very first measures which he passed was one against usury, totally forbidding the loan of money on interest, which, if it could have been really carried out, would have nearly extinguished commerce altogether. In this, however, Henry was but continuing the practice of his predecessors, who, though great warriors, were no merchants. So severe was Henry's enactment against usury, that, by the Act of the third year of his reign, every offender was, on discovery, to be fined £100, and the bargain to be made void. Henry VIII. abrogated this absurd law, and allowed usury under ten per cent.; it was again put in force by Edward VI. in terms of the utmost severity, declaring it to be "a vice most odious and detestable, and utterly prohibited by the Word of God." Elizabeth again restored the law of her father in love, permitting interest under ten per cent.
Whilst Henry VII. endeavoured to extinguish usury, he was equally jealous of foreign merchants—of their bringing their foreign manufactures and carrying out English goods—lest our wealth should be drained away by them. The careful old king could not see that it mattered little by whom the exchanges of commerce were made, so that merchants were left to make their own bargains; whence the result would be that they would only purchase such things as they wanted, and sell such as they did not want, with benefit to everybody. It accorded, however, with Henry's ideas, and was so far beneficial as to induce the settling of English merchants in foreign countries, with the object of endeavouring to drain them of their wealth. Therefore, he was careful to heal the breach with the Netherlands which the patronage of Perkin Warbeok by the Duchess of Burgundy had made, and the company of Merchant Adventurers was again established in Antwerp. The treaty on this occasion was termed by the rejoicing Flemings the "Intercursus Magnus," or Great Treaty of Intercourse; but, as we have related, Henry, in 1496, on intercepting the Archduke Philip at Weymouth, forced from him a less liberal treaty, which the Flemings branded as the "Intecursus Mains," or Evil Treaty.
In the same one-sided spirit of trade, Henry, in 1489, concluded a treaty with Denmark, by which English companies were authorised to purchase lands in Bergen in Norway, Lamden and Landscrona in Schonen, Dragor in Zealand, and Loysa in Sweden, on which to erect factories and warehouses, to remain theirs in perpetuity for the purposes of trade. He also renewed a similar treaty at the same time with the great trading republic of Venice, by which the English companies were to enjoy all the privileges of the citizens of Florence and Pisa, where they were established, and were privileged to export English wool, and re-ship the spices and valuable articles brought by the Venetians overland from India.
It was not long, however, before Henry was called on to check the effects of monopoly in his English companies. The Merchant Adventurers of London soon showed so strongly these effects that they compelled the king to interfere.
The markets of Europe were now fast growing in importance and demand. The wealth of South America was flowing into Spain, in the shape of gold, to the amount of a million sterling annually, and the spices and riches of the East Indies into Portugal, since the discovery of the way round the Cape. Amsterdam became a groat mercantile depot of these commodities as central in Europe, and the benefit of it was felt nowhere more sensibly than in England. Henry VII., who had let slip the opportunity of securing South America and the West Indies by neglecting the offers of Columbus, now endeavoured to repair the mischief by granting patents to the Cabots and others for the discovery of new lands. He could not open his heart or his coffers sufficiently to assist the adventurers with funds, but he was ready to reap his share of the benefit, which was to consist of all the countries discovered, and a fifth of the immediate proceeds. Under such patents the Cabots, father and son, in the course of several voyages, discovered Labrador, in 1497, and afterwards ran along the whole coast of North America, to the Gulf of Mexico.
From this moment the spirit of mercantile enterprise rapidly developed itself. In 1530 we find Captain Hawkins trading to Guinea for elephants' teeth, and to Brazil, to which coasts voyages soon became common. Trading to all parts of the Mediterranean was frequent during the reign of Henry VIII.; taking out wool, cloth, and skins, and importing silks, drugs, wines, cotton-wool, spices, and Turkey carpets. The voyages of Cabot had opened up a new trade—that of cod-fishing—on the coasts of Newfoundland, which was eagerly engaged in; and the voyages of Willoughby and Richard Chancellor, by exploring the White Sea, at the suggestion of Cabot, opened a new trade with Russia. A Russian company was formed by Edward VI., and fully incorporated by Mary, who vigorously prosecuted that trade; and in 1556 an ambassador arrived at London from the Czar. Jenkinson, an agent of this company, afterwards descended the Volga to Astracan, and crossing the Caspian Sea, reached Bokhara, the great resort of the merchants of
