Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 1.djvu/192

190 and rye, in addition to many which lie burned. This shows that even in the earlier part of the present period Scotland was by no means destitute of trade and shipping. Some of the vessels taken by Umfraville, however, might belong to foreigners; the Lombards, in particular, according to Fordun, already carried on a considerable Scottish trade, and some of the ships in which they resorted to the country were of large burden. The usual staple of the Scottish continental commerce was at Bruges, in Flanders. James I., in 1425, removed it to Middleburgh, in Zealand; but, on an embassy arriving the same year from the Flemings, with concessions on some points as to which the Scottish merchants had felt aggrieved, he agreed to restore the former arrangement. In 'The Libel of English Policy,' however, written nearly twenty years after this, we are informed that the exports of Scotland then consisted only of wool, woolfels, and hides. The Scottish wool, it is added, used to be mixed with the English, and manufactured into cloth, at the towns of Popering and Bell, in Flanders. It seems to have been exported to Flanders in Scottish vessels, which returned home with cargoes of mercery, haberdashery, and other manufactured goods of various kinds, among which are specified cartwheels and barrows. But the most ample information respecting the commerce and manufactures of Scotland during this period is supplied, as in England, by the statute-book. A long succession of enactments relating to this subject commences from the return of James I., in 1424; from which date, it is worthy of remark, the Scottish laws, which had been hitherto in Latin, are written, with a very few exceptions, in the language of the country—an improvement which was not adopted in England till more than sixty years afterwards. We can here, however, only notice, in their chronological order, a few of the more remarkable particulars to be collected from this source. In 1425 it was, among other things, ordained that the merchants returning from foreign countries should always bring back, as part of their returns,