On the river-bank, exactly under what is now Cannon Street Railway Station, stood the Steelyard, Guildæ Aula Teutonicorum. In appearance it was a house of stone, with a quay towards the river, a square court, a noble Hall, and three arched gates towards Thames Street. This was the house of the Hanseatic League, whose merchants for three hundred years and more enjoyed the monopoly of importing hemp, corn, wax, steel, linen cloths, and, in fact, carried on the whole trade with Germany and the Baltic, so that until the London merchants pushed out their ships into the Mediterranean and the Levant their foreign trade was small, and their power of gaining wealth small in proportion. This strange privilege granted to foreigners grew by degrees. At first, unless the foreign merchants of the Hanse towns and of Flanders and of France had not brought over their wares they could not have sold them, because there were no London merchants to import them. Therefore they came, and they came to stay. They gradually obtained privileges; they were careful to obey the laws, and give no cause for jealousy or offence; and they kept their privileges, living apart in their own college, till Edward VI. at last took them away. In memory of their long residence in the city, the merchants of Hamburg in the reign of Queen Anne presented the church where they had worshipped, All Hallows the Great, with a magnificent screen of carved wood. The church, built by Wren after the Fire, is a square box of no architectural pretensions, but is glorified by this screen. The great (comparative) wealth of the City is shown by the proportion it was called upon to pay towards the king's loans. In 1397, for instance, London was assessed at £6,666 13_s._ 4_d._, while Bristol, which came next, was called upon for £800 only; Norwich for £333, Boston for £300, and Plymouth for no more than £20. And in the graduated poll tax of 1379, the Lord Mayor of London had to pay £4--the same as an Earl, a Bishop, or a mitred Abbot, while the Aldermen were regarded as on the same line with Barons, and paid £2 each.