But though the maritime commerce of England made little progress till the reign of Alfred the Great, there can be no doubt that it derived various advantages from the impulse given to that of the neighbouring country of France by the exertions of Charlemagne, as that wise and able monarch is justly deemed to have laid the foundations of French trade with distant countries. Nowhere do we find a more striking instance of his _tact_ than is displayed in his letter to Offa, with the object of renewing the commercial relations between France and England:[474] “Charles by the grace of God, king of the Franks and Lombards, and patrician of the Romans, to our venerable and most dear brother Offa, king of the Mercians, greeting. First, we give thanks to Almighty God for the sincere Catholic faith, which we see so laudably expressed in your letters. Concerning the strangers, who, for the love of God and the salvation of their souls, wish to repair to the thresholds of the Blessed Apostles, let them travel in peace without any trouble. Nevertheless, if any are found among them not in the service of religion but in pursuit of gain, let them pay the established duties at the proper places. We also will, that merchants shall have lawful protection in our kingdom according to our command; and if they are in any place unjustly aggrieved, let them apply to us or our judges, and we shall take care that ample justice be done to them.” [Sidenote: Extension of French commerce, A.D. 813.] It is, further, no small evidence of the effect produced by the energetic rule of Charlemagne that, only a few years later, the merchants of Lyons, Marseilles, and Avignon, confiding in his power and fame, and in the friendship between him and Harún-al-Rashíd, whose ships were then supreme in the Mediterranean, made a joint plan for sending vessels twice a year to Alexandria, whither no Christian vessels had adventured since it came into the possession of the Muhammedans. The spices of India and the perfumes of Arabia were then for the first time brought direct to their own port of Marseilles by the merchants of France, and one of the most ancient trades was thus re-opened.[475] From Marseilles these goods were conveyed by one of the inland continental routes we have already described, up the Rhône and the Saône, then re-embarked on the Moselle for the Rhine, and, by means of this latter river, distributed through Germany and the northern countries. [Sidenote: Commerce of England harassed by the Danes.] [Sidenote: Their ships, and the habits of their owners.]