As usual Cologne was one of the most restive and obstructive of all the towns. It actually proposed to pay a lump sum of a hundred guilders annually, and so be free from all custom duties of whatever kind. By the time the dispute was at last decided, and a sum fixed upon by all the towns together, the dominion of Bruges had hopelessly passed away from the Hansa, and the League was busy with the thought of removing its factory to Antwerp. For they finally admitted that they must cut loose from the old moorings; that it was necessary to quit the ancient factory, where disunion and grave disorders had crept in. The merchants who had deserted had many of them become naturalized citizens of Amsterdam, or Antwerp, where they quietly continued their commercial relations with the confederated towns, without taking notice either of the confederation or of its factories. Under these changed circumstances what could be done? There were only two courses possible to the League: to afford free trade to the Netherlands, and so renounce its ancient methods, or to maintain the old system, and make an attempt to apply its principles in a new locality. The first course would have been the most rational, and the most in keeping with the spirit of the time. But the Hanseatics, as we have frequently had occasion to see in the course of our story, were not men easily to lose hold of prey, or to break spontaneously with a past that had been glorious and lucrative. They decided in favour of the second course, and at once set about seeking for the spot which would best secure their interests. Various places offered themselves for their choice, such as Bergen-op-Zoom, Middlebourg, Haarlem, all of which promised the Hansa considerable advantages, in order to attract it to themselves. It would, perhaps, have most inclined to Amsterdam, but it could not forget that this town had often fought in the ranks of its enemies, and had put forth in the Baltic a special activity very prejudicial to its monopoly. Antwerp was finally decided upon, for it was manifest already in 1513 that the great commercial movement of the epoch seemed inclined to tend towards that spot. The story of the rise of the city into importance is most interesting. Formerly its houses had been all thatched with straw. Its inhabitants lived on the results of agricultural labour and fishing. Since the English merchant adventurers had patronized the town, wretched habitations had given place to fine solid houses; ease and wealth had taken up their abode among the burghers. As an instance of this, it may be mentioned that houses which fifty years previously let for forty to sixty dollars of annual rent, now fetched four to eight hundred dollars a year. The Hansa asked themselves, very naturally, were not some of those good things to fall to their share.