Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 1.djvu/191

Rh in ready money." But now, the act proceeds to complain, the dealers in these wines have, "by subtle and crafty means," so contrived it that the butts of Malmesey lately imported scarcely hold 108 gallons; "and besides," it is added, "they knowing, as it seemeth, what quantity of such wine may serve yearly to be sold within this realm, where they were wont to bring hither yearly great quantity and plenteously of such wine to be sold after the prices aforesaid, of their craftiness use to bring no more hither now in late days but only as will scantily serve this realm a year, wherethrough they have enhanced the price of the same wines to eight marks (5l. 6s. 5d.) a butt, ready money, and no cloth, to the great enriching of themself, and great deceit, loss, hurt, and damage of all the commons of this realm." The plan adopted for reformation of this inconvenience was simply to ordain that the butt of Malmesey should be again of the old measure. It seems to have been thought that the old measure was the cause of the old price, and that, the one being restored, the other would follow of course.

Little, it is plain, can be said in commendation of the enlightened wisdom of any part of this system of commercial policy. The various facts and statements that have been quoted, however, all go to attest the actual commercial advancement of the country in despite of vicious legislation. The subject of trade is seen filling a constantly enlarging space in the public eye; and even the misdirected efforts of the law show how strongly and generally men's minds were now set upon the cultivation of that great field of national industry.

In Scotland also, as well as in England, the manufactures and commerce of the country appear, on the whole, to have made considerable advances in the course of the fifteenth century. It is recorded that the English vice-admiral. Sir Robert Umfraville, in an expedition upon which he sailed to the Frith of Forth in 1410, besides plundering the country on both coasts of that arm of the sea, carried off as prizes fourteen "good ships " laden with woollen and linen cloth, pitch, tar, woad, meal, wheat,