The efforts that had been made by the English Council to benefit native commerce had caused much apprehension amongst the Flemish merchants, who had for many years practically monopolised the English export trade. The English Company of Merchant-Adventurers had agitated and petitioned the Queen and Council to discountenance the foreign merchants; and as a result, a series of enactments was passed which gave considerable trade advantages to Englishmen. Differential duties, compulsory priority given to English bottoms for the export trade, the imposition of harassing disabilities and penalties on foreign merchants established in London, together with the great increase of piracy owing to the extensive shipbuilding of recent years in England, had greatly disorganised Flemish trade. During 1563 and early in 1564, several envoys had been sent from Spanish Flanders to endeavour to obtain a reversal of the new commercial policy, but without effect. This caused reprisals on the part of the Spanish Government, which prohibited the introduction of English cloth into Flanders and the exportation of raw material from Flanders to England, as well as the employment of English ships for Flemish exports. In retaliation, a more stringent order was issued in England forbidding trade with Flanders altogether, and the establishment of a new staple at Embden. The seizure of English goods and subjects in Spain itself was the answer to this. Naturally, people on both sides suffered severely by this commercial warfare.[196] Emissaries went backwards and forwards between Flanders and England, partial relaxations were temporarily arranged, conferences were held; but the main difficulty continued until Antwerp was well-nigh ruined, and the Spaniards were obliged to humble themselves in order to prevent a commercial catastrophe. The day, indeed, had gone by now for hectoring England. The old Bishop of Aquila had died bankrupt, abandoned, and broken-hearted—Cecil’s object-lesson of the impotence of Spain—and a very different Ambassador had been sent, whose main duty it was to keep Elizabeth friendly, and to end, at almost any cost, the commercial war which was ruining Flanders.