The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 (324 page)

Thomas Smith, who had farmed them, to refund some of his former profits.a
This improvement of the revenue was owing to the suggestions of one Caermarthen; and was opposed by Burleigh, Leicester, and Walsingham: But the queen’s perseverance overcame all their opposition. The great undertakings, which she executed with so narrow a revenue, and with such small supplies from her people, prove the mighty effects of wisdom and economy. She received from the parliament, during the course of her whole reign, only twenty subsidies and thirty-nine fifteenths. I pretend not to determine exactly the amount of these supplies; because the value of a subsidy was continually falling; and in the end of her reign it amounted only to eighty thousand pounds,
b
though in the beginning it had been a hundred and twenty thousand. If we suppose, that the supplies, granted Elizabeth during a reign of forty-five years, amounted to three millions, we shall not probably be much wide of the truth.
c
This sum makes only sixty-six thousand six hundred and sixty-six pounds a-year; and it is surprizing, that, while the queen’s demands were so moderate, and her expences so well regulated, she should ever have found any difficulty in obtaining a supply from parliament, or be reduced to make sale of the crown-lands. But such was the extreme, I had almost said, absurd parsimony of the parliaments during that period. They valued nothing in comparison of their money: The members had no connexion with the court; and the very idea, which they conceived of the trust committed to them, was, to reduce the demands of the crown, and to grant as few supplies as possible.

The crown, on the other hand, conceived the parliament in no other light than as a means of supply. Queen Elizabeth made a merit to her people of seldom summoning

parliaments.d
No redress of grievances was expected from these assemblies: They were supposed to meet for no other purpose than to impose taxes.

Before the reign of Elizabeth, the English princes had usually recourse to the city of Antwerp for voluntary loans; and their credit was so low, that, besides paying the high interest of ten or twelve per cent. They were obliged to make the city of London join in the security. Sir Thomas Gresham, that great and enterprizing merchant, one of the chief ornaments of this reign, engaged the company of merchant-adventurers to grant a loan to the queen; and as the money was regularly re-paid, her credit by degrees established itself in the city, and she shook off this dependance on foreigners.
e

In the year 1559, however, the queen employed Gresham to borrow for her two hundred thousand pounds at Antwerp, in order to enable her to reform the coin, which was at that time extremely debased.
f
She was so impolitic as to make, herself, an innovation in the coin; by dividing a pound of silver into sixty-two shillings, instead of sixty, the former standard. This is the last time that the coin has been tampered with in England.

Commerce

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Queen Elizabeth, sensible how much the defence of her kingdom depended on its naval power, was desirous, to encourage commerce and navigation: But as her monopolies tended to extinguish all domestic industry, which is much more valuable than foreign trade, and is the foundation of it, the general train of her conduct was ill calculated to serve the purpose at which she aimed, much less to promote the riches of her people. The exclusive companies also were an immediate check on foreign trade.

Yet, notwithstanding these discouragements, the spirit of the age was strongly bent on naval enterprizes; and besides the military expeditions against the Spaniards, many attempts were made for new discoveries, and many new branches of foreign commerce were opened by the English. Sir Martin Frobisher undertook three fruitless voyages to discover the north-west passage: Davis, not discouraged by this ill success, made a new attempt, when he discovered the straits, which pass by his name. In the year 1600, the queen granted the first patent to the East-India company: The stock of that company was seventy-two thousand pounds; and they fitted out four ships, under the command of James Lancaster, for this new branch of trade. The adventure was successful; and the ships, returning with a rich cargo, encouraged the company to continue the commerce.

The communication with Muscovy had been opened in queen Mary’s time by the discovery of the passage to Archangel: But the commerce to that country did not begin to be carried on to a great extent till about the year 1569. The queen obtained from the czar an exclusive patent to the English for the whole trade of Muscovy;
g
and she entered into a personal, as well as national, alliance with him. This czar was named John Basilides, a furious tyrant, who, continually suspecting the revolt of his subjects, stipulated to have a safe retreat and protection in England. In order the better to ensure this resource, he purposed to marry an English woman; and the queen intended to have sent him lady Anne Hastings, daughter of the earl of Huntingdon: But when the lady was informed of the barbarous manners of the country, she wisely declined purchasing an empire at the expence of her ease and safety.
h

The English, encouraged by the privileges, which they had obtained from Basilides, ventured farther into those countries, than any Europeans had formerly done. They transported their goods along the river Dwina in boats made of one entire tree, which they towed and rowed up the stream as far as Walogda. Thence they carried their commodities seven days journey by land to Yeraslau, and then down the Volga to Astracan. At Astracan, they built ships, crossed the Caspian Sea, and distributed their manufactures into Persia. But this bold attempt met with such discouragements, that it

was never renewed.i

After the death of John Basilides, his son Theodore revoked the patent, which the English enjoyed for a monopoly of the Russian trade: When the queen remonstrated against this innovation, he told her ministers, that princes must carry an indifferent hand, as well between their subjects as between foreigners; and not convert trade, which, by the laws of nations, ought to be common to all, into a monopoly for the

private gain of a few.k
So much juster notions of commerce were entertained by this barbarian, than appear in the conduct of the renowned queen Elizabeth! Theodore, however, continued some privileges to the English, on account of their being the discoverers of the communication between Europe and his country.

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The trade to Turkey commenced about the year 1583; and that commerce was immediately confined to a company by queen Elizabeth. Before that time, the grand signior had always conceived England to be a dependant province of France;
l
but having heard of the queen’s power and reputation, he gave a good reception to the English, and even granted them larger privileges than he had given to the French.

The merchants of the Hanse-towns complained loudly in the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign of the treatment, which they had received in the reigns of Edward and Mary.

She prudently replied, that, as she would not innovate any thing, she would still protect them in the immunities and privileges, of which she found them possessed.

This answer not contenting them, their commerce was soon after suspended for a time, to the great advantage of the English merchants, who tried what they could themselves effect for promoting their commerce. They took the whole trade into their own hands; and their returns proving successful, they divided themselves into staplers and merchant adventurers; the former residing constantly at one place, the latter trying their fortunes in other towns and states abroad with cloth and other manufactures.

This success so enraged the Hanse-towns, that they tried all the methods, which a discontented people could devise, to draw upon the English merchants the ill opinion of other nations and states. They prevailed so far as to obtain an imperial edict, by which the English were prohibited all commerce in the empire: The queen, by way of retaliation, retained sixty of their ships, which had been seized in the river Tagus with contraband goods of the Spaniards. These ships the queen intended to have restored, as desiring to have compromised all differences with those trading cities; but when she was informed, that a general assembly was held at Lubec, in order to concert measures for distressing the English trade, she caused the ships and cargoes to be confiscated: Only two of them were released to carry home the news, and to inform these states, that she had the greatest contempt imaginable for all their proceedings.
m

Henry VIII. in order to fit out a navy, was obliged to hire ships from Hamburgh, Lubec, Dantzick, Genoa, and Venice: But Elizabeth, very early in her reign, put affairs upon a better footing; both by building some ships of her own, and by encouraging the merchants to build large trading vessels, which, on occasion, were

converted into ships of war.n
In the year 1582, the seamen in England were found to

be fourteen thousand two hundred and ninety-five men;o
the number of vessels twelve hundred and thirty-two; of which there were only two hundred and seventeen above eighty tons. Monson pretends, that, though navigation decayed in the first years of James I. by the practice of the merchants, who carried on their trade in foreign bottoms,
p
yet before the year 1640, this number of seamen was tripled in England.
q

The navy, which the queen left at her decease, appears

Military force.

considerable, when we reflect only on the number of vessels, which were forty-two: But when we consider that none of these ships carried above forty guns; that four only came up to that number; that there were but two ships of a thousand tons; and twenty-three below five hundred, some of fifty, and some even of twenty tons; and that the whole number of guns belonging to the fleet was seven hundred and seventy-four;
r
we must entertain a contemptible idea of the English

navy, compared to the force which it has now attained.NOTE [JJ]
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there were not above five vessels, fitted out by the noblemen and sea-ports, which exceeded two hundred tons.
t

In the year 1599, an alarm was given of an invasion by the Spaniards; and the queen equipped a fleet and levied an army in a fortnight to oppose them. Nothing gave foreigners a higher idea of the power of England than this sudden armament. In the year 1575, all the militia in the kingdom were computed at a hundred and eighty-two

thousand nine hundred and twenty-nine.u
A distribution was made, in the year 1595, of a hundred and forty thousand men, besides those which Wales could supply.
w

These armies were formidable by their numbers; but their discipline and experience were not proportionate. Small bodies from Dunkirk and Newport frequently ran over, and plundered the east coast: So unfit was the militia, as it was then constituted, for the defence of the kingdom. The lord lieutenants were first appointed to the counties in this reign.

Mr. Murden
x
has published from the Salisbury collections a paper, which contains the military force of the nation at the time of the Spanish Armada, and which is somewhat different from the account given by our ordinary historians. It makes all the able-bodied men of the kingdom amount to a hundred and eleven thousand five hundred and thirteen; those armed, to eighty thousand eight hundred and seventy-five; of whom forty-four thousand seven hundred and twenty-seven were trained. It must be supposed that these able-bodied men consisted of such only as were registered, otherwise the small number is not to be accounted for. Yet Sir Edward
y
Coke said in the house of commons, that he was employed about the same time, together with Popham, chief justice, to take a survey of all the people of England, and that they found them to be 900,000 of all sorts. This number, by the ordinary rules of computation, supposes that there were above 200,000 men able to bear arms. Yet even this number is surprizingly small. Can we suppose that the kingdom is six or seven times more populous at present? And that Murden’s was the real number of men, excluding catholics and children and infirm persons?

Harrison says, that in the musters taken in the years 1574 and 1575, the men fit for service amounted to 1,172,674; yet was it believed that a full third was omitted. Such uncertainty and contradiction are there in all these accounts. Notwithstanding the greatness of this number, the same author complains much of the decay of populousness: A vulgar complaint in all places and all ages. Guicciardini makes the inhabitants of England in this reign amount to two millions.

Whatever opinion we may form of the comparative populousness of England in different periods, it must be allowed, that, abstracting from the national debt, there is a prodigious encrease of power, in that, more perhaps than in any other European state, since the beginning of the last century. It would be no paradox to affirm, that Ireland alone could at present exert a greater force than all the three kingdoms were capable of at the death of queen Elizabeth. And we might go farther, and assert, that one good county in England is able to make, at least to support, a greater effort than the whole kingdom was capable of in the reign of Harry V; when the maintainance of a garrison in a small town, like Calais, formed more than a third of the ordinary national expence. Such are the effects of liberty, industry, and good government!

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