“1. For taking God’s blessing out of the Sea to enrich the Realm, which otherwise we lose. 2. For setting the People on work. 3. For making Plenty of Cheapness in the Realm. 4. For increasing of Shipping, to make the Land powerful. 5. For a continual Nursery for breeding and increasing our Mariners. 6. For making employment of all Sorts of People, as blind, lame, and others, by Sea and Land, from ten or twelve years and upwards. 7. For inriching your Majesty’s Coffers, by Merchandises returned from other Countries for Fish and Herrings. 8. For the increase and enabling of Merchants, which now droop and daily decay.” The trade of London during the first half of the seventeenth century decayed. The decay was due partly to the monopoly of the privileged companies, which stifled or discouraged enterprise; partly to the civil wars; partly to the Customs duties; and partly, it would seem, to a falling off in the vigour and enterprise which had marked the Elizabethan period. In trade, as in everything, there are times of reaction and of torpor. Meantime, in spite of everything, foreign trade increased. But Raleigh’s comparison between the trade of Holland and that of London shows how small our foreign trade was, in comparison with the vast bulk carried on by the Dutch. After Sir Walter Raleigh’s “observations” let me quote Howell on the profession or calling of the merchant:— “For my part I do not know any profession of Life (especially in an Island) more to be cherished and countenanced with honourable employments than the Merchant-Adventurer (I do not mean only the staplers of Hamburgh and Rotterdam); for if valiant and dangerous actions do enoble a Man, and make him merit, surely the Merchant-Adventurer deserves more Honour than any; for he is to encounter not only with Men of all Tempers and Humours (as a French Counsellor hath it), but he contests and tugs oft-time with all the Elements; nor do I see how some of our Country Squires, who sell Calves and Runts, and their Wives perhaps Cheese and Apples, should be held more genteel than the noble Merchant-Adventurer who sells Silks and Satins, Tissues and Cloths of Gold, Diamonds and Pearl, with Silver and Gold.” In the year 1606 James made an attempt to introduce the breeding of silkworms. He sent mulberry-trees into the country with instructions for the feeding of the worms. There was a certain amount of English-grown silk manufactured, as is shown by an entry in Thoresby’s _Diary_. “Saw at Mr. Gale’s a sample of the satin lately made at Chelsea of English silkworms, for the Princess of Wales, which was very rich and beautiful.” The experiment proved unsuccessful, yet it caused the immigration of a great number of silk throwsters, weavers, and dyers, who settled here and entered upon the silk trade in London. The raw silk was brought from India and China by the East India Company.