The growth of the country in wealth during the first half of the reign of Henry III. made this plan of raising revenue the most convenient and the easiest. As there were few foreign expeditions there was little opportunity of asking for scutage, and nearly all the regular taxation was raised from movables, or, as we should now say, personal property. On each occasion on which such a grant was demanded, the barons and bishops tried to obtain some compensation in the shape of a re-issue of the charters or an amendment of the law. The many confirmations of the charters during that long reign were, it may be said, purchased from the crown in this way. But Henry could not obtain grants sufficient to meet the requirements of his greedy and extravagant court. He exacted, contrary to the letter and spirit of the charter, large sums from the citizens of London, under the name of gifts; from the Jews, whom he looked upon very much as if they were part of the farming stock of his realm; and from every class of persons whom he could draw within the meshes of his legal nets, he exacted money by fine or composition for real or imaginary offences. [Sidenote: The customs revenue. Imports and exports. ] But besides the land and the personal property of its inhabitants there was another source of income which ultimately was to become most lucrative--the taxation of merchandize, imported and exported, and especially the wool, wool-fells, and leather, which were, if not exactly the chief produce of the land, at least the most profitable, the least easy to conceal, and the most easy for the king’s ministers to confiscate. These two branches of indirect taxation, although distinct in themselves, were managed by the same machinery--that of the customs; and they have to be treated together. But the taxes on imported merchandize had their origin in the licenses to trade or to introduce particular sorts of goods, which it was one of the ancient rights of the king to grant, whilst the taxes on exported produce were primarily a part of the general system of taxing movables. Both had been long in requisition; the privileges of the foreign merchants had been a source of profit even before the Conquest; the wool of the Cistercian monks and other great sheep-farmers had been demanded for Richard’s ransom, and both classes had suffered under John and Henry III. Magna Carta had contained, in its 41st article, a distinct provision in favor of free trade, which would have obviated the evils of mismanagement in this department, if it could have been carried out. All merchants were to have safe ingress and egress to and from England, and to pay only the right and ancient customs. But such a provision did not forbid separate negotiations between the king and traders, by which both made a profit to be wrung from the consumers. One part of Edward’s financial policy was to bring the customs into order and make