Thus the last sacrifice was consummated, which had been long demanded by Sir Thomas Gresham and his friends, and which the now flourishing condition of English trade required. In order that the English merchant might thrive unchecked, he had to drive away from his midst his old masters, the Hansa, the men who had taught him how to trade, a lesson the pupil had learnt too well. Such was the mournful end of the German Guildhall on the banks of the Thames; an institution older than the Hanseatic League itself; the most honourable monument which Germany could point to abroad of her strength and enterprise. Yet it is, perhaps, rather the fact that it endured so long, than that it perished, that should surprise us. It is certainly wonderful, and much to the credit of the English, that musty parchments sealed with the seals of the Plantagenets, should have been honoured so late, honoured when England's commerce and navy could boast men such as Sir Thomas Gresham, Sir Francis Drake, and Sir Walter Raleigh. Of course the Hanseatic League did not at once give up all for lost. They intrigued, they negotiated, they even flattered themselves with hopes of success. Then suddenly the news of Elizabeth's death broke up a congress held with this end in view. The Hanseatics at once cast glances full of hope at her successor. They trusted he might prove less inexorable. Experience had often shown them that with a change of ruler came a change of policy. But they proved greatly mistaken. The reply received by the first embassy they addressed to James I. rudely shattered all their hopes. They resumed their intrigues at home, trying to stir up the emperor to hinder the export of wool from Germany, and to encourage the manufacture of woollen goods at home. It was the great De Witt who wisely said that the one weak point in the German Hansa was that it was not backed by manufacturing interests. They were merely carriers and intermediaries, and this made itself felt in the days of their decline. Negotiations, entreaties leading to nothing, and the Germans being impotent to hinder, the English soon found their way again into the empire with their persons and their goods, and once more Hamburg was the first to receive them formally and to conclude a treaty with them. This time neither the emperor nor the League protested. It is true the Steelyard in London was ultimately restored to the Germans, but the old privileges enjoyed with it were gone for ever. Nor was it, when restored, regarded any longer as the property of the Hanseatic League such as we have known it--a compact body, willing and able to defend its rights. It was rather the property of the Germans living in England, and this it remained. In 1853 the Steelyard property was sold to an English company for building purposes for the sum of £72,500, by the cities of Lübeck, Bremen, and Hamburg, the sole heirs of the once powerful Hanseatic League. The present Cannon Street Station stands on part of the site.