In the course of a year and a half,
during a scarcity in England, there was carried away from the ports of
Southampton, Bristol, and Exeter alone, nearly 200,000_l_.: and if London
and the rest of England were included, there must have been 2,000,000 more.
The Dutch, he adds, have a regular trade to England with 500 or 600 vessels
annually, whereas we trade, not with fifty to their country. After entering
into details respecting the Dutch fishery, by means of which, he says, they
sell herrings annually to the value of upwards of one million and a half
sterling, whereas England scarcely any, he reverts to the other branches of
Dutch commerce, as compared with ours. The great stores of wines and salt,
brought from France and Spain, are in the Low Countries: they send nearly
1,000 ships yearly with these commodities into the east countries alone;
whereas we send not one ship. The native country of timber for ships, &c.
is within the Baltic; but the storehouse for it is in Holland; they have
500 or 600 large ships employed in exporting it to England and other parts:
we not one. The Dutch even interfere with our own commodities; for our wool
and woollen cloth, which goes out rough, undressed, and undyed, they
manufacture and serve themselves and other nations with it. We send into
the east countries yearly but 100 ships, and our trade chiefly depends upon
three towns, Elbing, Koningsberg, and Dantzic; but the Low Countries send
thither about 3,000 ships: they send into France, Spain, Portugal, and
Italy, about 2,000 ships yearly with those east country commodities, and
we, none in that course.
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