to have been sent everything produced by human industry and labour; "to which," says Guicciardini, "the meaner people of Spain have an utter aversion." A considerable quantity of English wool, however, probably still continued to be exported direct from England to Spain, and was there worked up into finer fabrics than the looms of this country could yet produce.
A memorable branch of English commerce is believed to have begun in the year 1562—the detestable African slave-trade. It is related that Mr. John Hawkins—the same who under the name of Sir John Hawkins was afterwards so distinguished as a naval commander—having learned that negroes brought a very good price in Hispaniola, assisted by subscriptions of sundry gentlemen, now fitted out three ships, of which the largest was 120 tons, the smallest only 40, and, proceeding to the coast of Guinea, there made up his cargo with human beings, and sailed with them to Hispaniola, where he sold his Africans and his English goods, and, loading his ships with hides, sugar, ginger, and many pearls, returned home the next year, having made a very prosperous adventure. Other two voyages of the same kind are recorded to have been made by Hawkins, who, in commemoration of his priority over all his countrymen in this line of enterprise, received as an addition to his arms " a demi-moor proper, bound with a cord:" but we do not hear much more of the African slave-trade as carried on by the English, till after the close of the present period.
It was in the year 1566 that the building of the Royal Exchange, in the city of London, was begun by the famous Sir Thomas Gresham, styled the queen's merchant, according to Anderson, "because he had the management of all her remittances, and her other money concerns with foreign states, and with her armies beyond sea." Before this the merchants of London used to meet in Lombard-street, in the open air. Sir Thomas was the son of Sir Richard Gresham, also an eminent London merchant, who is said to have been the original author of the project of building an exchange or covered
