Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 1.djvu/177

Rh above-mentioned college was suppressed in the reign of Edward VI.; but another foundation of Whytington's, his almshouse near Highgate, still remains a monument of the wealth and munificence of this "worthy and notable merchant, the which while he lived had right liberal and large hands to the needy and poor people," to make use of the terms in which he is described by his executors, in the body of rules established by them for the management of the latter charity. Among the subscribers along with Whytington to the loan to Henry IV., are two other London merchants, John Norbury and John Hende, whose opulence appears to have at this time exceeded his; for they advanced the sum of 2000l. each. Hende was mayor in 1391 and 1404; and both he and Norbury were the founders of several churches, colleges, and other charitable institutions. Another eminent English merchant and mariner of those times was John Taverner of Hull, who, in a royal licence granted in 1449, is said to have, "by the help of God and some of the king's subjects," built a ship as large as a great carrack (that is, one of the first class of the Venetian traders), or even longer, which the king directed should be called the Carrack Grace Dieu—authorising Taverner at the same time to take on board his carrack wool, tin, lamb-skins, woolfels, passelarges, and other hides, raw or tanned, and any other merchandise, in the ports of London, Southampton, Hull, or Sandwich, and, on paying aliens' duty, to carry them direct to Italy, from which he might bring back bow-staves, wax, and other foreign produce necessary for the country, to the great benefit of the revenue and of the nation. "The exemption of an English subject," observes Macpherson, "from the law of the staple, in consideration of the extraordinary size of his ship, is a clear proof that no such vessel had hitherto been built in England." Henry V., thirty or forty years before this time, had built some dromons, or large ships of war, at Southampton, such, according to the author of the 'Libel of English Policy,' as were