The prosperity of the country was shown by the contemporary writers to have been advancing steadily and rapidly, in spite of the civil wars, the Dutch wars, the pestilence which on five separate occasions devastated the country and the City, and the Great Fire which destroyed all the “Stock” of the merchants. Sir William Petty (1676) observes that the number of houses in London was double that of 1636, and that there had been a great increase of houses in many towns of the United Kingdom, that the Royal Navy was four times as powerful as in later years, that the coal trade of Newcastle had quadrupled, the Customs yielded three times their former value, that more than 40,000 tons of shipping were employed in the Guinea and American trade, that the King’s revenue was trebled, and that the postage of letters had increased from one to twenty. Davenant also (1698) speaks twenty years later to the same effect. He shows that the value of land had risen from twelve years’ purchase in former times to fourteen, sixteen, and twenty years’ purchase in 1666; and by the end of the century to twenty-six or even more; that great quantities of waste land had been enclosed and cultivated; that the merchant marine had doubled between 1666 and 1688; that many noble buildings had been erected; that the Customs duties had increased in twenty years by a third; that the standard of comfort among the working-classes was greatly improved; and that property in cattle, stock-in-trade, and personal effects had risen from £17,000,000 in 1600 to £88,000,000 in 1688. As already mentioned, the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes brought to this country some 70,000 of the most highly skilled artificers. Many thousands settled in the suburbs of London, especially in Bethnal Green, Spitalfields, and St. Giles. Among the things they made or prepared were “light woollens, silk, linen, writing-paper, glass, hats, lute-string, silks, brocades, satins, velvets, watches, cutlery, clocks, jacks, locks, surgeons’ instruments, hardware, and toys” (_Capper_, p. 103). These refugees gave the country a large and valuable industry in silk-weaving; it is also supposed that the manufacture of fine paper was due to the French immigrants. In 1670 the Duke of Buckingham brought Venetians over here who introduced the manufacture of fine glass. The making of linen cloth and tapestry was encouraged by an Act of 1666, which offered special advantages to those who set up the trade of hemp dressing. In 1669 certain French Protestants settled at Ipswich and engaged in this trade. The old industry of woollen cloth was protected by the prohibition to export wool. In 1666 a law was passed directing that every one should be buried in wool, and the clergy were required to take an affidavit to that effect at every interment.