I. By the grants of free fairs for commerce, made formerly by the sovereigns of the Netherlands—two of which fairs lasted each time six weeks—whither merchants resorted from all parts of Christendom with their merchandise, custom free. _At these fairs vast concerns were managed, not only in merchandise, but in bills of exchange with all parts of Europe._ II. It had become the entrepot of the commerce between the southern and northern ports of Europe, and especially of the Portuguese merchants. This drew the German and other merchants to settle there; and the merchants of _Bruges_ largely removed thither after the Archduke Maximilian had (about 1499) reduced their city. The fairs were aided by, and themselves aided, this development. [Illustration] [Illustration] ENGLAND CHAPTER II. ORIGIN AND LAWS—ENGLAND. In the preceding survey I have intentionally omitted any mention of _England_. Historians of the ordinary type have thought it beneath their dignity to refer to anything so common-place as fairs. The real mainsprings of our commerce seem in fact very generally to have escaped them. The greatest commercial nation of the world has found no historian willing to record the true causes of its greatness. The intrigues of sovereigns, the machinations of ecclesiastics; the trickeries of statesmen and diplomatists, have alone commanded their attention and absorbed their limited energies. The Statute-book, the one great storehouse of our national history, has escaped their observation. I propose to devote a special chapter to the origin and development of fairs in England.