Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 1.djvu/113

Rh Boston, in Lincolnshire. The other towns in the list are Lynn, Yarmouth, and Norwich, in Norfolk; Dunwich, Orford, and Ipswich, in Suffolk; Colchester in Essex; Sandwich and Dover in Kent; Rye, Winchelsea, Pevensey, Seaford, and Shoreham, in Sussex ; Southampton in Hampshire; Exmouth and Dartmouth in Devonshire; Esse (now Saltash) and Fowey, in Cornwall; and London. It will be observed, however, that these are all coast towns, or places having a river communication with the sea; and it surely cannot be supposed that there were not at this time some trading towns in the interior of the country. Either the quinziéme was not a duty payable, as has been asserted, by "all persons who made a business of buying and selling, however trifling their dealings might be," or this is not a complete list of the places from which it was collected. Besides, not a single place on the western coast of the kingdom is mentioned, not even Bristol or Chester. We should be disposed to conjecture that the quinziéme was only an impost upon foreign commerce, and even perhaps only upon some particular branch or branches of that. This supposition would make somewhat more intelligible the proportions of the whole amount collected which are set down as received from particular towns. It appears that the whole tax at this time yielded about 5000l. per annum; while of this total Lynn paid 651l., Southampton 712l., Boston 780l,, and London only 836l. It cannot for a moment be believed that in their general mercantile wealth London and Boston stood in this relation to each other. To add to the perplexity, we find that three years after this time the merchants of London purchased from the king an entire exemption from paying the quinziéme for the small sum of 200 marks, that is to say, for less than a sixth part of the amount of the tax for one year. We must, in these circumstances, suppose the exemption to have been accorded as a mark of royal favour to the city, and the 200 marks to have been paid merely as an acknowledgment. Newcastle is the only other town