Many other companies were founded. There was the Eastland Company or merchants of Ebbing. Their trade was with the Baltic. There was the 'Merchant Adventurers for the discovery of Lands, not before known to, or frequented by, the English.' This afterwards became the Russian Company. They sent out Sir Hugh Willoughby with three ships to find a North-East passage to China. He and all his men were frozen to death on the shores of Russian Lapland. The Company afterwards took to whaling. There was also the Turkey Company, which lasted to well into the present century. There was the Royal African Company, which has been revived. There were the Merchants of Spain: the Merchants of France: the Merchants of Virginia: the East India Company: the Hudson's Bay Company: the South Sea Company: the Guinea Company: the Canary Company. Some of these companies were founded later, but they are all sprung from the spirit of enterprise, first called into existence by Gresham when he built his Exchange and brought the merchants together. [Illustration: SHIPPING IN THE THAMES, CIRCA 1660. (_From Pricke's 'South Prospect of London.'_)] By leaps and bounds the prosperity of the City increased, and has still continued to increase, for the three hundred years that have passed since Queen Elizabeth opened the Royal Exchange. Whether this prosperity will still further advance; whether forces, as yet unnoticed, will bring about the decay of London, no one can venture to prophecy. Antwerp may again become her rival: may perhaps surpass her; the port of Antwerp is rising yearly in importance: and that of Hamburg further north, has, like Liverpool, its miles of quays and wharves and its hundreds of vessels. But the trade of London is still far greater than that of any other port in the world, and for its three hundred years of prosperity we must thank, above all men, that wise merchant Sir Thomas Gresham. [Illustration: SIR FRANCIS DRAKE, IN HIS FORTY-THIRD YEAR. (_From the engraving by Elstracke._)] He did more than give an Exchange to the City. He gave a college: he gave his own house in Broad Street for a college: he endowed it with professorships: he intended it to become for London what Christ Church was to Oxford, or Trinity to Cambridge. It has been converted into a place for the delivery of lectures, but there are signs that the City will once more have such a college as Gresham intended. 46. PLAYS AND PAGEANTS. PART I.