the west. In both cities the League had its quarters, and within them it virtually exercised the right of sovereignty. Its main market was at Bruges in Flanders, which was then a bee-hive of industry and thrift. There the Italian traders came with the products of the east, such as spices, perfumes, oil, sugar, cotton and silk, to exchange them for the raw materials of the north. While taxes and imposts everywhere else harassed merchants, commerce was free in the cities of Flanders, owing to the liberality, or rather shrewdness, of her rulers. In Bruges the members of the Hansa met the merchants of Venice on equal terms, and the exchange of the products of the north for those of the east and south could be effected there to the greatest advantage of both. While it must be admitted that the Hanseatic League developed the resources of Northern Europe, and that, even at the time of its greatest power, there was always competition among its own members, the fact remains that it abused its power by the suppression of all outside competition, and that it usurped rights which belong only to the state, thus often producing abuses as great as those which it was organized to remedy. Its final downfall was caused by the development of national power in the northern kingdoms and the growth of commerce and navigation in Great Britain. A stubborn assertion of antiquated privileges on the part of the Hansa involved it in a feud with the illustrious and lion-hearted Queen Elizabeth of England. In 1589 the Queen caused sixty of their vessels to be captured on the Tagus, and later even took possession of their hall and wharves in London. After this the League's decline was very rapid, though its organization was kept up till 1669, when its delegates held their last session.