This small number to manage so great a Trade incourageth the Clothier to adventure to make false Cloth, because it is impossible, that so few Merchants can search and visit every Cloth, as it ought to bee done, and the Clothiers conscience is satisfied. For he saith that the falsest Cloth is answerable to the best price, because none may export but they, and therefore they will give what price they please for this deceitfull Cloth hath cause great iarres and differences betweene the English Merchants and the forraine Nations for Tare or Rebatements, and the generall Report of the falsenesse of English Manufactures, hath caused a wonderfull decay of the sale thereof.
The Trade thus limited to a small number of a Company, residing for the most part at London, is a generall prejudice to the whole Kingdome, which though it have made London rich, it hat made all the Ports and other parts of the Kingdome poore; for it enforceth needlesse and chargeable carriage and Recarriage of divers commodities, whereby they are endeared unto us, and it hinders all the Ports (being the Walls of the Kingdome) from having either forraine or domesticke Commodities brought unto them at the best hand, which causeth them to be almost desolate and forsaken: and it hindereth the Clothiers and new Drapers, (which dwell in remote parts:) from selling their Cloth and Stuffes at their next ajoyning Ports, for how can they sell, when there are no Merchants?
It causeth all Chapmen to give poore and faint prices for Wool, because when it is indraped, it may not more freely be exported to the best advantage. So that the Grower is hindered in the price of his Wooll, for every losse and prejudice that comes upon cloth and the Clothier, doth fall upon the Wooll, and the Wooll Grower. And the Clothier saith, hee is prevented of his best Chapmen for his Cloth, for that merchants Strangers, or other English merchants cannot worke upon the advantage of Markets and the Clothiers necessitie, which beates downe the price of Cloth; the price of Cloth beateth downe the price of Wooll; the price of Wooll beateth downe the price of Lands which cannot be improved; and forraine Commodities are freely taken in Barter for the Returne of our home Commodities; when moneys nor Bullion can be imported, as that beene declared: so that the Hammers at the Minte, where the pulses of the common-wealth should be felt, are the life and moving. And it is come to such extremitie with the Eastland merchants, that they cannot vent their Cloth in Barter of other Wares to make Returne, and by money their losse would be incredible.
Shall this be Proclaimed a Free Trade, when within ourselves, we are in Bondage, and have lost the benefit of the Two essential Parts of Trafficke, namely the Rule of money and exchanges? Let every man judge.
Today nothing of the dependances of Trade, as the increase of Navigation and Navigators, when Merchants heretofore had more freedome, and the Ports were furnished and frequented, with great store of shipping; which although they were but small of burden: yet every one had their severall Pilot and Mariners, which did daily supplie the Land, with plenty of Sea-men.
The Merchants Staplers have observed, that the Merchants Adventurers, have an inevitable opportunity of Combination, to set what price they please upon cloth to the Clothier, of Wooll to the Grower, and of all Commodities exported and imported; and likewise to lay what private impositions they please, upon any of the said Commodities, so that whether they doe well or ill for the Common-weale, there can be no apparant triall: for having power to barre all others from Trade, but themselves, they are like a Commoditie weighed in a Ballance, that hath but one end, where there can be no Counterpoize, and then it seemes to bee great weight, although it be never so light. So that this ingrossing of Trade into few mens hands, hath caused our home Trades to decay, our Manufactures to decrease, and our home-bred Commodities to lie upon our hands unsold, or to be sold at a low price, to the utter undoing of all sorts of poore people in England, and the great damage of all his Majesties loving Subjects; and whilest our merchants hinder one another from Trade, other Nations increase their own Manufactures, and enlarge their Trade; not only for the said Countries of high and low Germany, but also for Russia, Eastland, Poland and other places.
For the making of good and true Cloth, many excellent Lawes have beene made and enacted, especially in the fourth yeere of his Majesties happy Raigne; whereupon I have heretofore made a Demonstration which was exhibited to the Right Honourable the Lords of the Privie Councell, shewing the weight, length and breadth of all sorts of Clothes, and that Weight and Measure doth controlle each other, whereby the Merchant that buyeth the Cloth, may be enabled to finde out the fraud and deceit of the Clothier: but this should bee done before the selling of them, and that by honest Officers or Magistrates, according to the said Acte, whereof our great Booke (now under the Presse,) intituled Lex Mercatoria or the Law Merchant, doth intreat of more particularly.
