the people, or had his character been above suspicion, it is more than likely that some similar disaster might have had to be recorded on the pages of English history. Sir Walter Raleigh has enlightened us,(1) as regards the condition of commerce and of the English mercantile marine shortly before the union of the crown of England and Scotland, in a remarkable paper, “which contains,” says a competent authority, “many remarkable commercial principles far in advance of the age in which the author lived.” He states that the ships of England were not to be compared with those of the Dutch, and that while an English ship of one hundred tons required a crew of thirty men, the Dutch would sail such a vessel with one-third that number. Holland became the depôt of numerous articles, “not one hundredth part of which were consumed by the Dutch,” while she gave “free custom inwards and outwards for the better maintenance of navigation and encouragement of the people to that business.” Sir Walter tells us that France offered to the vessels of all nations free customs twice and sometimes three times each year when she laid in her annual stock of provisions, and also in such raw materials as were not possessed by herself in equal abundance. Denmark granted free customs the year through, excepting only one month. The Dutch were the great carriers by sea, in consequence of the facilities granted them at home, “and yet the situation of England lieth far better for a storehouse to serve the south-east and the north-east kingdoms than theirs do; and we have far the better means to do it if we apply ourselves to do it.” He complained that although the greatest fishery in the world is on the coasts of England, Scotland, and Ireland, Holland despatched to the Baltic and up the Rhine more than a million pounds sterling worth of herrings, where we did not export one. He states that Holland trafficked in “every city and port of Britain with five or six hundred ships yearly, and we chiefly to three towns in their country and with forty ships; the Dutch trade to every port and town in France, and we only to five or six,” and that the Dutch were even ruining our Russian trade. In spite of probable exaggerations in Raleigh’s statements as laid before the King, it is evident that with the laws as they stood, the Dutch must have had, as regards their commercial marine, very much the best of it.