trade, by a regulation with the Dutch, of which more reason shall be given, when that particular shall be taken into consideration.

We have yet another great help which is our own, and wants only our industry, to gather the harvest; which is our fishing and erecting of busses, both for the inriching of our kingdom, and the breeding of mariners; and this by private industry, though to private loss, is beaten out already, and shall be offered to the commonwealth, if they please to accept of it; and to give you one only encouragement, I do avow, that, before the Dutch were lately interrupted by the Dunkir kers, by their industry, and our fish, they made as great returns between Dantzick and Naples, as the value of all our cloth, which is one million yearly; and this, in a due place, I desire should have its due weight and consideration.

We have one help more, if we knew how to use it, that is, by the new drained lands in the fens, most fit for flax and hemp, to make all sorts of linnen for the body, for the house, and sails for ships; that is a Dutch and French trade: But, in Holland, one acre of ground is rented at three pounds, which if the Hollanders may have in the fens for ten or twelve shillings, it will be easy to draw the manufacture into England, which will set infinite people at work, and we may be able to serve other nations with that, which we buy dear from them; and then the state and kingdom will be happy and rich, when the King's customs shall depend upon commodities exported, and those able to return all things which we want, and then our money must stay within our kingdom, and all the trade return in money. To encourage you to this, I give you one example:

That if the several sorts of callicoes made of cotton wools, in the Mogul's and Dan's dominions, doth cloath, from head to foot, all Asia, a part of Europe, Egypt, much of Africa, and the Eastern islands, as far as Sumatra; which makes that prince, without mines, the richest prince in the world; and, by his Majesty's grace and privileges granted to the Dutch, I am confident we may make and undersel, in all linnen cloth, all the nations in Europe.

But I have now wandered far from my theme, which was the decay of trade, and of the woollen commodity.

I must first, therefore, present to your consideration the causes thereof, in my observations, whereof some are internal, and some external.

The internal have proceeded from our own false making, and stretching, and such like practices, whereby, indeed our cloth is discredited; I speak by experience, from Dantzick and Holland, northward to Constantinople, as I will instance in due time.

This false lucre of our own, and the interruption in the dying and dressing projected, and not overcome, gave the first wound, though, could it have been compassed, it had doubled the value of our commodity.

This hath caused the Dutch, Silesians, and Venetians to attempt the making of cloth, and now, by experience, as I am informed, the half is not vented, that was in the latter age.

Another internal cause hath risen from such impositions, as have made our cloth too dear abroad, and, consequently, taught others to provide for themselves.

Another internal cause hath sprung from pressures upon tender consciences, in that many of our clothiers, and others, have forsaken the kingdom, and carried their arts with them, to the inexpressible detriment of the commonwealth.

The external causes have been the want of perfection, and countenance to our merchants, established abroad in factories, by the state, and by the treaties; whereby the capitulations have not been kept, nor assured to them, neither in Prussia, nor in the Sound, nor Hamburgh, nor Holland, nor in the East; and this I dare say, that Laban never changed Jacob's wages so often, as the Hollanders have forced our merchants to change their residences, and the very course of this trade, by laws and tricks, for their own advantage, of which the merchant-adventurers will more fully inform you.

Another external cause is lamentable, a report of the increase of pirates, and the insecurity of the Mediterranean seas: whereby Bristol, and the western ports, that cannot have so great shipping as London, are beaten out of trade and fishing; and, if once those thieves shall find the way to Bank, and Newfoundland, they will undo the west parts of England.

I will trouble you with a consideration, very considerable in our government, whether, indeed, London doth not monopolise all trade: In my opinion, it is no good state of a body, to have a fat head, thin guts, and lean members.

But, to bring something before you of remedy, I say thus, for my first ground, that, if our cloth be not vented, as in former years, let us embrace some other way, to spend and vent our wools. Cloth is a heavy and hot wearing, and serves but one cold corner of the world: But if we embrace the new draperies, and encourage the Walloons, and others, by privileges, and naturalisations, we shall employ all the wool we have, set more people to work, than by cloth, and a pound of wool, in those stuffs, true made, will outsel two pounds in cloth; and thus we may supply France, Italy, Spain, Barbary, and some parts of Asia, by such light and fine stuffs, as will fit those warmer regions, and yet have sufficient for the cold climates, to be spent and adventured in true made cloth, by the reputation both of our nation and commodity.

But, in this course, I must observe, that these strangers, so fit to be nourished, and being protestants, may have privileges to use their own rights in religion, so as they be not scandalous, as the Dutch and French had granted to them by Queen Elisabeth; and certainly, the settling of religion secure in England, the fear whereof made many weak minds to waver, and abandon this country, is, and will be a great means to resettle both the great and lesser manufactures of woollen commodities.

For the external causes, we must fly to the sanctuary of his Majesty's gracious goodness and protection; who, I am confident, when the

whole business shall be prepared for him, and that we have shewed him our duty and love, and settled his customs, in such a bountiful way, as he may reap his part of the fruit of trade; I am confident, I say, that he will vouchsafe you all favour, fit to be conferred upon good subjects; and not only to protect you abroad, by his forces and authority, and by treaties with his neighbours, but by increasing the privileges of merchants at home, and confirming all their charters; the breach whereof hath been a great discouragement unto them; and, without which duly observed, they cannot regulate their trade.

There are some particulars, in the Spanish trade, perhaps worthy of animadversion, as underselling a good commodity to make money, or barter for tobacco, to the imbasement of our own staple for smoke, which, in a due place, ought to be taken into regulation.

Another consideration, for a ground of trade, ought to be the nature of it, with whom, and for what we trade, and which trade is most principally to be nourished; which, out of doubt, are the Northern trades, which are the root of all others, because the materials, brought from those parts, as from Sweden, Muscovy, Norway, Prussia, and Livonia, are fundamental, and of absolute necessity; for, from these trades, get we the materials of shipping, as pitch, tar, cordage, masts, and such like, which inables us to make all the southern trades, themselves, of less use, being only wine, fruit, oranges, and curiosities for sauces, or effeminacy; but, by these, we sail to the East-Indies, and may erect a company of the West-Indies, for the golden fleece which shall be prepared for you, whensoever you are ready for so great a consultation.

The right way to nourish these northern trades, is, by his Majesty's favour, to press the King of Denmark to justice, not to insist on his intolerable taxes, newly imposed upon trade, in the passage of the Sound; in example whereof, the elector of Brandenburgh, joined with the King of Poland, hath likewise more than trebled the ancient and capitulated duties; which, if that they shall continue, I pronounce all the commerce of the Baltick sea, so overburthened, that the eastland company cannot subsist, nor, without them, and the Muscovy company, the navigation; but that the materials for shipping will be doubled, which will eat out all trades. I have given you but essays, and struck little sparks of fire before you; my intention is but to provoke the wit and abilities of others; I have drawn you a map, wherein you cannot see things clearly and distinctly; only I introduce matter before you, and now I have done, when I have shewed you the way how to enlarge and bring every particular thing into debate.

To which end, my motion and desire is this, that we may send to every several company of merchants, trading in companies, and under government and privileges; and to ask of them, what are their grievances in their general trade (not to take in private complaints:) what are the causes of decay, or abuses in their trades, and of the want of money, which is visible; and of the great losses, both to the kingdom, and to every particular, by the late high exchanges: And to desire every one of these companies, to set down their judgment, in writing to the

state of the complaints, severally, we shall make some judgments of these relations one to another: this done, I desire to require all the same several companies, upon their own papers, to propose to us, in writing, the remedies applicable in their judgment: which materials having all together, and comparing one with another, we shall discover that truth which we seek; that is, whether trade and money decay or not? And how to remedy it.

But I have one request more, and so I will ease you of my loss of your time. That when, from all these merchants, we shall have before us so much matter, and without such variety, and, perhaps, not without private and particular ends, that then you will give me leave to represent to you the names of some general, and others disinterested and well experienced in many particulars, who may assist our judgments in all the premises, particularly in money and exchanges, and give us great light to prepare our result and resolution, to be, by the whole house of commons, represented to his Majesty; and, for expedition, that a sub-committee may be named, to direct this information from the merchants.

A

TRUE DESCRIPTION,

OR

RATHER A PARALLEL BETWEEN

CARDINAL WOLSEY, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK,

AND

WILLIAM LAUD, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, Printed in the year 1641. Quarto, containing eight pages.

THE HERE be two primates, or archbishops, throughout England and Wales, Canterbury and York, both Metropolitans, York of England, Canterbury of all England; for so their titles run. To the primate of Canterbury are subordinate thirteen bishops in England, and four in Wales; but the primate of York hath at this time but two suffragans in England, namely, the bishops of Carlisle and Durham ? though he had in King Lucius's days, who was the First Christian king of this our nation, all the prelacy of Scotland within his jurisdiction; Canterbury commanding all from this side the river Trent to the furthest limits of Wales, and York commanding all from beyond the

Trent to the utmost bounds of Scotland: and hitherto their prime archiepiscopal prerogatives may, not improperly, be paralleled.

In the time of Henry the First, were potent two famous prelates, Anselm of Canterbury, who durst contest against the king; and Girald, of York, who denied to give place, or any precedence at all to Anselm. Thomas Becket, who was first chancellor, and afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, in the reign of Henry the Second, bore himself so insolently against the king his sovereign, that it cost him his life, being slain in the church, as he was going to the altar. But, above all, the pride, tyranny, and oppression of the Bishop of Ely, in the reign of Richard the First, wants example; who was at once Chancellor of England and regent of the land, and held in his hand at once the two Archbishopricks of York and Canterbury; who never rode abroad without a thousand horse for his guard to attend him, whom we may well parallel with the now great Cardinal of France; and need he had of such a train to keep himself from being pulled to pieces by the oppressed prelates and people, equally extorting from the clergy and laity; yet he, in the end, disguising himself in the shape of an old woman, thinking to pass the sea at Dover, where he waited on the strand, a pinnace being hired for that purpose, he was discovered by a sailor, and brought back to abide a most severe sentence. Stephen Lancthon, Archbishop of Canterbury, in the time of King John, would not absolve the land, being for six years together indicted by the pope, till the king had paid unto him, and the rest of the bishops, eighteen thousand marks in gold. And thus I could continue the pride of the prelacy, and their great tyranny, through all the kings reigns; but I now fall upon the promised parallel betwixt Thomas Wolsey, Archbishop of York and Cardinal, and William Laud, doctor in divinity, and Archbishop of Canterbury.

They were both the sons of mean and mechanick men, Wolsey of a butcher, Laud of a clothworker; the one born in Ipswich, threescore miles, the other in Reading, thirty miles distant from the city of London; both of them very toward, forward, and pregnant graminarscholars, and of singular apprehensions, as suddenly rising to the first form in the school. From thence, being young, they were removed to the University of Oxford, Wolsey admitted into Maudlin college, Laud into St. John's; and, as they were of different times, so they were of different statures, yet either of them well shaped, according to their proportions: Wolsey was of a competent tallness, Laud of a less size, but might be called a pretty man, as the other a proper man; both of ingenious and acute aspects, as may appear by this man's face, the other's picture. In their particular colleges they were alike proficients, both as active of body as brain, serious at their private studies, and equally frequent in the schools; eloquent orators, either to write, speak, or dictate; dainty disputants; well versed in philosophy, both moral, physical, and metaphysical, as also in the mathematicks, and neither of them strangers to the muses, both taking their degrees according to their time; and, through the whole academy, Sir Wolsey was called