Governor Simon Bradstreet wrote in 1680, in answer to an enquiry from the Lords of the Privy Council: "There may bee near twenty English merchants within our Government bred up to that calling, and neere as many others that do trade and merchandize more or less; but Foreign merchants of other Nations Wee have none ... there are two or three [merchants] in our Corporation that may bee worth sixteen or eighteen thousand pound a piece, some few others worth eight or ten Thousand pounds a piece, a third sort worth four or five thousand pounds a piece.... Hee is accounted a rich man in the Country that is worth one thousand or Fifteen hundred pounds. There are about one hundred or one hundred and twenty Ships, Sloopes, Katches and other Vessells that trade to and from hence yearly of our own or English built, most of them belonging to the Colony, wee have eight or ten ships of one hundred tons or upwards, three or four of two hundred tons or more, and about Forty or Fifty Fishing Katches of betwixt twenty and Forty tons; Six or eight English ships do usually come hither yearly belonging to the Kingdom of England, bringing commodities of all sorts from thence. "The obstructions wee [encounter] within our trade are the generall decay of any profitable trade in the places wee mostly trade unto. Vizt. to all his Majesties plantations in America, where wee send our horses, beasts, timber, provisions, mackeril, fish, etc. For the commodities of those places which are spent here or transported into England wee finde those markets many times so overlaid and clogged with the like comoditys from England, Ireland and other places, that many of our commodities are sold at cheaper rates many times then they were worth at home. 2dly The Algeir men of warr infesting the seas in Europe have taken some of our Ships and men which is a discouragement to our trade and Navigation. 3dly the French at Nova Scotia or Acadia (as they call it) do interrupt our Fishers in those parts and Sr. Edmond Andros, Governor of New-Yorke for his highness the Duke of Yorke, doth the like betwixt the French and Pemaquid requiring duty to bee paid to them by all our Vessells that fish in those Seas, otherwise threatening to make prizes of them, which hath been alwaies Formerly free For his Majesties Subjects for Fishing ever since wee came hither. The double custom which our merchants pay for Sugar, Indigo, Cotton Wool, Tobacco, etc. First at the places from whence they fetch these commodities, the greatest part whereof is transported from hence to England, where they pay the full custome again. "Wee impose no rates or dutys upon Goods exported they being generally the produce of the Country got with hard labour and sold at low prices ... and but one penny pr pound upon Goods imported, when they come into the Merchant's hands, which is the taxe wee have set upon houses, Lands, cattle and other estate of the Country yearly."[58]