=232. Enlargement of the commercial area.=—Beyond these nearby districts English merchants were building up an important trade with Spain and Portugal in the South, and with the Scandinavian countries in the North, where the Hanseatic League was now unable to hold its own. English ships were voyaging further still. Bristol merchants like Sturmys and Canning built up merchant fleets of considerable size, and sent them as far as the eastern shore of the Mediterranean and the coasts of Iceland and Finland. A London grocer recorded in his diary about 1550 the voyage of an English vessel to “Russier” laden with “English bookes of the Scriptures” and with other wares which probably sold to better advantage. Nor have we yet reached the limit of English voyages. American readers are familiar with the exploits of the Cabots, which began a series of frequent voyages to America, and which were followed by daring expeditions to the far North in search of a passage to India, either east or west. These distant voyages were too venturesome as yet to be the means of regular commerce; they sought rather discoveries or plunder. The English merchant who went outside the narrow circle of civilized Europe turned his hand chiefly to smuggling, kidnapping, robbery, and murder. John Hawkins shared with Queen Elizabeth the profits of the African slave trade, and was proud to add to his coat of arms a demi-Moor proper, bound with a cord, to record his achievements. =233. Relative standing of the English ports.=—An idea of the relative rank in foreign commerce of the English ports can be gained from the proportions which they contributed to the customs revenue. The most striking fact is the immense lead of London over other ports, like that of New York in the United States now; it contributed half of the total in the time of Henry VII (say 1500). The second port, Southampton, fell in this period from 18 per cent to 9 per cent; the Flanders galleys had ceased coming, and the Guinea trade, by which it revived later, had not yet begun. Newcastle upon Tyne paid 5 per cent of the total, while the port of Bristol, destined to be later the great haven for the American trade, paid only 3 per cent and was exceeded by Boston. No other port than those named contributed as much as 3 per cent of the total customs revenue. The list of minor ports comprises some which had been great in the Middle Ages but which were now rapidly declining in relative importance (Ipswich, Sandwich, etc.), some, like Hull, which were destined to grow in importance, while great modern ports like Liverpool and Cardiff are not yet heard of at all. [Illustration: SPHERES OF TRADE OF ENGLISH COMPANIES IN THE EARLY 17th CENTURY ]