The commerce of Scotland and Ireland during the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, supplies us with very few materials. In the year 1544, Scotland
must have had no inconsiderable foreign trade, as in the war which took
place at this time between that country and England, twenty-eight of the
principal ships of Scotland, laden with all kinds of rich merchandize, were
captured by the English, on their voyage from France, Flanders, Denmark,
&c.; and in the same year, when the English took Leith, they found more
riches in it than they had reason to expect. While Scotland and England
were at peace, however, the former was principally supplied through the
latter with the commodities which Antwerp, during the sixteenth century,
dispersed over all Europe. The exports of Scotland to Antwerp, &c. were
indeed direct, and consisted principally, as we have already remarked from
Guicciardini, of peltry, leather, wool, indifferent cloth, and pearls.
The earliest account which occurs of the Scotch carrying on commerce to any
port out of Europe, is in the year 1589, when three or four Scotch ships
were found at the Azores by the earl of Cumberland. In the year 1598, it
appears, from a letter of king James to Queen Elizabeth, that some Scotch
merchants traded to the Canaries. There is evidence that the Scotch had
some commerce in the Mediterranean in the beginning of the seventeenth
century; for in the "Cabala," under the year 1624, the confiscation of
three Scotch ships at Malaga is noticed, for importing Dutch commodities.
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