History of London — 18 - Lessons 43 - 45: Trade (I - III)

PART I.

London was anciently the resort of 'foreign' merchants.

It was rich because 'foreign' merchants brought and exchanged their goods at this port.

There were no ships built in England until the reign of King Alfred.

When the kingdom became tranquil he is said to have hired out his ships to foreign merchants.

A list of tolls paid by foreign ships in the reign of King Ethelred II.

shows that the imports were considerable.

The foreign merchants, however, were not to 'forestall their markets from the burghers of London,' so that the retail trade was kept in native hands.

When retail trade was separated from wholesale trade all that the London merchants had was the collection, the warehousing, and the sale of the exports.

It is reasonable to suppose that foreign merchants coming to the City year after year would find it useful to have a permanent settlement--a wharf with officers and servants of their own.

Such a settlement was, no doubt, permitted from very early times.

But in the year 1169 was founded a trade association which, for wealth, success, and importance, might compare with our East India Company.

This was the Hanseatic League (so called from the word _Hansa_, a convention).

In the League were confederated: first, twelve towns in the Baltic, Luebeck at the head; next, sixty-four--and even eighty--German towns.

They were first associated for protection against pirates: they speedily became the greatest trading company of the period.

In the reign of Henry III.

the League obtained a Royal Charter granting them liberty of constant residence at a place in London.

They were permitted to have a permanent establishment at a place called the Steelyard--i. e. the place where the Steelyard or Scales had formerly been kept--under certain conditions, including the payment of custom dues.

They were called the Merchants of the Steelyard: they at once drew to themselves the whole trade of England with the northern ports: and they remained there for nearly 400 years.

There was another association of foreigners called the Merchants of the Staple.

That is to say, they dealed in what was called the 'staples' of England--in the raw produce, as lead, tin, wool, &c. Gradually, however, the word Staple came to be applied solely to wool as the most important export.

The Lord Chancellor, to this day, is seated on a Woolsack.

The Merchants of the Staple became merged in the Merchants of the Steelyard.

These foreign merchants were at all times extremely unpopular with the Londoners, who envied their wealth, which they thought was made at the expense of the City, not understanding, for a long time, that the same way of wealth was open to themselves.

When they began to put forth merchant ships on their own account, they at first sought the southern ports, sailing to Dunquerque, Sluys, Rouen, Havre, Bordeaux, Lisbon, and even to the Mediterranean ports.

Whittington's trade was entirely with the South.

It was not at Luebeck or on the shores of the Baltic that he found his cloth of gold, his rich velvets, his silks, his gold embroidery, his scented wood, his wines, his precious stones.

And the reason why he sent his ships to the South was that the trade of the North was in the hands of the Steelyard.

Edward III.

seems first of our kings to have understood the value of manufactures and of foreign trade.

He first passed laws for the repair of the highways: under his reign the Merchant Adventurers were encouraged and assisted: he first stimulated the making of English cloth instead of selling our wool: under him the shipping of the London merchants began to increase and to develop.

Still the foreign merchants continued to occupy the Steelyard: still our merchants were shut out of the northern ports: still other foreigners received permission to settle: even craftsmen came over from Germany and the Low Countries and followed their trade in London.

Richard III.

, in order to please the citizens, ordered their expulsion, but it does not appear that the order was obeyed.

Henry VII.

, on the other hand, persuaded many Flemish woollen manufacturers to come over to this country.

Early in the sixteenth century the exports of English cloth by the foreign merchants amounted to 44,000 pieces, while the English ships took away no more than 1,000 pieces.

When our own merchants were prepared with ships and had what may be called the machinery of trade;

as a market, wharves, permission to buy and sell; it is obvious that the old state of things could no longer continue.

It was not, however, until the reign of Edward VI.

that the foreign merchants were finally deprived of all their privileges and charters.

These rivals, with their powerful organisations and their hold over all the northern ports, once out of the way the English merchants began to push out their enterprises in all directions.

You shall see immediately how they prospered.

Meantime there remains a monument erected in memory of the Hanseatic League.

In the reign of Queen Anne the merchants of Hamburg presented to the church where the merchants of the Steelyard had worshipped for 400 years, a splendid screen of carved wood.

Unless the church, which is already threatened with destruction, is pulled down, you should go to see that screen, and remember all that it means and commemorates.

44. TRADE.

PART II.

English trade, that is to say, trade in English hands, practically began with Edward III.

and, slowly increasing under his successors, gained an enormous development under Elizabeth.

Several causes operated to produce this increase.

In the first place the abolition of the Steelyard, though ordered by Edward VI.

, was not completely carried out till many years afterwards.

During this period the merchants were learning the immense possibilities open to them when this incubus should be removed.

Next, the great rival of London, Antwerp, suffered, like the rest of the Netherlands, from the religious wars.

Thirdly, the wise and farseeing action of Gresham transferred the commercial centre of the northern world from that town to London.

Antwerp in the fifteenth century was the richest and most prosperous city in western Europe.

There were 200,000 inhabitants, a great many more than could be counted in London: 5,000 merchants met every day in the Bourse for the transaction of business: 2,500 vessels might be counted in the river: 500 loaded waggons entered every day from the country.

It was the port of the great and rich manufacturing towns of Bruges and Ghent.

In the latter town there were 40,000 weavers, and an army of 80,000 men fully armed and equipped, could be raised at any moment.

The former town, Bruges, was the Market--the actual commercial centre--of the world.

Hither came the merchants of Venice and Genoa, bringing the silks, velvets, cloth of gold, spices and precious stones from the East to exchange for the English wool and the produce of Germany and the Baltic.

[Illustration: KING EDWARD VI.

(_From a picture belonging to H. Hucks Gibbs, Esq.

_)] The Religious Wars of the sixteenth century: the ferocities, cruelties, and savagery of those wars: depopulated and ruined this rich and flourishing country: the Inquisition drove thousands of Flemings, an industrious and orderly folk, to England, where they established silk manufactures: and the carrying trade which had been wholly in the hands of the Antwerp shipowners was diverted and went across the narrow seas to London, where it has ever since remained.

Before the ruin of Antwerp, Bruges, and Ghent, it was of these towns that the Kings of England obtained their loans.

They were taken up by the merchants of the Low Countries at an interest of 14 per cent.

This enormous interest, then thought quite moderate and reasonable, explains how the merchants of that time grew so wealthy.

Part of the loans, also, often had to be taken in jewels.

In order to negotiate these loans and to pay the interest an agent of the English Sovereign was kept at Antwerp, called the Royal Agent.

Very fortunately for London, the Royal Agent under Edward VI.

, Mary, and the early years of Elizabeth, was Sir Thomas Gresham.

You must learn something about this great man.

He was the son of Sir Richard Gresham, formerly Lord Mayor: nephew of Sir John Gresham, also Lord Mayor (who preserved Bethlehem Hospital on the Dissolution of the Religious Houses): he came of a Norfolk family originally of the village of Gresham: like Whittington he was of gentle birth.

He was educated at Cambridge: he was apprenticed to his uncle after taking his degree: and he was received into the Mercers' Company at the age of twenty-four.

It must be observed that from the outset the young man had every advantage--good birth, good education, good society, and wealth.

[Illustration: SIR THOMAS GRESHAM.

] At the age of thirty-two he was appointed Royal Agent at Antwerp.

At this time the City was at the height of its splendour and prosperity.

Gresham walked upon the long quays, gazed at the lines of ships, saw the river alive with boats and barges, loading and unloading, watched the throng of merchants in the Bourse, saw the palaces, the rows and streets of palaces in which they lived, thought of London which he had formerly regarded with so much pride though he now perceived that it was even poor and quiet compared with this crowded centre of an enormous trade--why, the city which he had thought the envy of the whole world could show no more than 317 merchants in all, against Antwerp's 5,000: and these, though there were some esteemed wealthy, could not between them all raise a loan of even 10,000_l.

_ The King had to go abroad for the money and to pay 14 per cent.

for it.

Then he began to ask himself whether something could not be done to divert some of this trade to his native town.

[Illustration: FIRST ROYAL EXCHANGE.

] First of all, he applied himself to the reduction of the interest.

This he managed to lower from fourteen per cent.

to twelve and even to ten.

A

gain of four per cent.

on a loan of, say, 60,000_l.

_ meant a saving of 2,400_l.

_ a year.

When he came back to England he brought with him a discovery which seems simple.

It is, however, the most difficult thing in the world for people to understand: we are always discovering it, over and over again.

His discovery was this--it applies to every kind of business or enterprise--It is that union will effect what single effort is powerless to attempt.

The City had for centuries understood this in matters of government: they were now to learn the same thing in matters of trade.

The merchants of Antwerp had a central place where they could meet for purposes of union and combination.

Those of London had none.

As yet union had only been practised for the regulation of trade prices and work.

True, the merchant adventurers existed, but the spirit of enterprise had as yet spread a very little way.

Gresham determined to present to his fellow citizens such a Bourse as the merchants of Antwerp had enjoyed for centuries.

He built his Bourse;

he gave it to the City: he gave it as a place of meeting for the merchants: he gave it for the advance of enterprise.

The Queen opened it with great State, and called it the Royal Exchange.

It stood exactly where the present Royal Exchange stands, but its entrance was on the south side, not the west.

And no gift has ever been made to any city more noble, more farseeing, more wise, or productive of greater benefits.

45. TRADE.

PART III.

The merchants got their Exchange.

What did they do in it?

They did most wonderful things with it.

Greater things were never done in any Exchange.

For the first time they were enabled to act together: and it was the most favourable opportunity that ever happened to any trading community.

The charters of the foreigners were abolished: the markets of Bruges were depressed in consequence of the civil wars already beginning: that city itself, with Antwerp and Ghent, was on the point of ruin.

The way was open, and the spirit of enterprise was awakened.

In ordinary times it would have been the love of gain alone that awakened this spirit.

But these were not ordinary times.

The people of Western Europe took a hundred years to discover that Columbus had doubled the world: that there was a new continent across the ocean.

They began to send their ships across: nobody as yet knew the possibilities of that continent with its islands: the Spaniards had the first run, but the French and the English were beginning to claim their share.

Then a way to India and the East had been found out: we were no longer going to be dependent on the Venetians for the products of Persia, India, the Moluccas, China.

All those turbulent and restless spirits who could not settle down to peaceful crafts or the dull life of the desk, longed to be on board ship sailing Westward Ho.

Fortune was waiting for them there: fortune with fighting, privation, endurance--perhaps death by fever or by battle: yet a glorious life.

Or they might sail southwards and so round the Cape of Good Hope--called at first the Cape of Storms--and across the Indian Ocean to the port of Calicut, there to trade.

There were dangers enough even on that voyage to tempt the most adventurous: Moorish pirates off the coast of Morocco: European pirates--English pirates--coming out of the rivers and ports of Western Africa: storms off the Cape: hurricanes in the Indian Ocean: the rocks and reefs of seas as yet unsurveyed: treachery of natives.

Yet there were never wanting men in plenty to volunteer for these long and perilous voyages.

At home, then, the spirit of enterprise, joined with the spirit of adventure, achieved mighty things.

The merchant adventurers succeeding to some of the trade of the Hanseatic League, established 'courts,' i. e. branches at Antwerp, Hamburg, and Dordrecht: they had also courts at York, Hull, and Newcastle.

Many other companies were founded.

There was the Eastland Company or merchants of Ebbing.

Their trade was with the Baltic.

There was the 'Merchant Adventurers for the discovery of Lands, not before known to, or frequented by, the English.'

This afterwards became the Russian Company.

They sent out Sir Hugh Willoughby with three ships to find a North-East passage to China.

He and all his men were frozen to death on the shores of Russian Lapland.

The Company afterwards took to whaling.

There was also the Turkey Company, which lasted to well into the present century.

There was the Royal African Company, which has been revived.

There were the Merchants of Spain: the Merchants of France: the Merchants of Virginia: the East India Company: the Hudson's Bay Company: the South Sea Company: the Guinea Company: the Canary Company.

Some of these companies were founded later, but they are all sprung from the spirit of enterprise, first called into existence by Gresham when he built his Exchange and brought the merchants together.

[Illustration: SHIPPING IN THE THAMES, CIRCA 1660. (_From Pricke's 'South Prospect of London.'

_)] By leaps and bounds the prosperity of the City increased, and has still continued to increase, for the three hundred years that have passed since Queen Elizabeth opened the Royal Exchange.

Whether this prosperity will still further advance; whether forces, as yet unnoticed, will bring about the decay of London, no one can venture to prophecy.

Antwerp may again become her rival: may perhaps surpass her; the port of Antwerp is rising yearly in importance: and that of Hamburg further north, has, like Liverpool, its miles of quays and wharves and its hundreds of vessels.

But the trade of London is still far greater than that of any other port in the world, and for its three hundred years of prosperity we must thank, above all men, that wise merchant Sir Thomas Gresham.

[Illustration: SIR FRANCIS DRAKE, IN HIS FORTY-THIRD YEAR.

(_From the engraving by Elstracke.

_)] He did more than give an Exchange to the City.

He gave a college: he gave his own house in Broad Street for a college: he endowed it with professorships: he intended it to become for London what Christ Church was to Oxford, or Trinity to Cambridge.

It has been converted into a place for the delivery of lectures, but there are signs that the City will once more have such a college as Gresham intended.

46. PLAYS AND PAGEANTS.