Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 1.djvu/195

Rh intended to discriminate the several ranks of the community by so many different colours, like the enchanted fish in the Eastern tale, while merchants were prohibited from wearing scarlet, all hues except grey or white were interdicted to labourers on working days, and on holidays all except red, green, or light blue. So much may serve for sample sufficient of this fantastic piece of legislation. Meanwhile, the growth of the trade of the country is indicated by occasional notices of commercial treaties with foreign governments,—with England, with Denmark, with Flanders, and other continental states. In 1467 various new restrictions were imposed, with what view it is not easy to imagine, upon the pursuit of foreign commerce. It was ordained that no persons should go abroad as merchants except free burgesses, resident within burgh, or their factors and servants; and that even no burgess should have that liberty unless he was "a famous and worshipful man," having at the least half a last of goods in property or trust. Handicraftsmen or artisans, in particular, were debarred from engaging in trade unless they obtained special licences, and renounced their crafts without colour or dissimulation. These prohibitions look very much as if they had been obtained by the influence of the mercantile body, wishing to preserve the monopoly of the foreign trade in their own hands. By another regulation all vessels were prohibited from sailing to any foreign country between the end of October and the beginning of February. Rochelle, Bordeaux, and the ports of France and Norway, are all mentioned in this act as places to which the Scottish merchants were then accustomed to resort. The regulation requiring every merchant to be a burgess made an exception in favour of the nobility and clergy, who were permitted to export their own goods, and import what they had occasion for, by the agency of their servants. In Scotland as well as in England many, both of the nobility and the bishops, had long been accustomed openly to pursue trade as a source of gain. In the beginning of this century, for instance, mention is made of a vessel carrying two surpercargoes and a crew of twenty men, which was freighted by the