to be 'contrary to all law, reason, charity, right, and conscience.' Their jurisdiction was closed, and the foreign trade was declared free.[1]
In the first half of the century the old-established London houses had suffered from the competition; and they took advantage of the necessities of an embarrassed Government to make an effort to recover their privileges.
The reputation of English goods had unquestionably suffered in the foreign markets; and the fraudulent manufactures, which were in reality the natural growth of an age of infidelity, they represented as the effect of a disorganized intrusion of unauthorized persons into 'the feat and mystery' of merchandise.
The fall of the exchange, notoriously due to the debasement of the currency, they attributed with equal injustice to the same cause; and Northumberland, to gain the support of so strong a body, and too happy to rest on others the consequences of his own misdoings, undertook, if possible, to gratify them.[2]
- ↑ 12 Henry VII. cap. 6.
- ↑ When the House of Commons petitioned Henry VIII. against the abuses of the spiritual courts, the bishops replied to the special charges of misconduct with a defence of the principle on which their authority was founded. It is amusing to find Sir Thomas Gresham addressing Northumberland with precisely similar arguments. All that was urged, either by prelate or merchant, was most excellent, provided only that the wisdom and honesty of the jurisdiction which they defended was equal to its claims and professions. 'The exchange,' wrote Gresham, 'is one of the chiefest points in the commonweal that your Grace and the King's Majesty's Council hath to look unto; for, as the exchange riseth, so all the commodities in England falleth; and as the exchange falleth, so all the commodities in England riseth; as, also, if the exchange riseth it will be the
