Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 1.djvu/202

200 grace prays you to take into consideration matter of trade, as also the manufactures of the kingdom, and to repress the bastard and barren employment of moneys to usury and unlawful exchanges, that they may be, as their natural use is, turned upon commerce and lawful and royal trading." That is to say, commerce was to be promoted by the destruction of credit; for a chief branch of commercial credit is the lending and borrowing of money on interest, which is what is here called usury. The next of the cardinal's recommendations also partook of the twilight views of the time,—a twilight, however, which the space of three centuries and a half that has since elapsed has not wholly dissipated. After calling upon them to take measures that the "people be set on work in arts and handicrafts, that the realm may subsist more of itself; that idleness be avoided, and the draining out of our treasure for foreign manufactures stopped;" he continued:—"But you are not to rest here only, but to provide further that whatsoever merchandise shall be brought in from beyond the seas may be employed upon the commodities of this land, whereby the kingdom's stock of treasure may be sure to be kept from being diminished by any overtrading of the foreigner." So that the old system of encouraging foreign trade by shutting out foreign merchants and foreign commodities was still the only plan that was thought of, and the sole end and design of all commercial intercourse with other nations was held to be, to take produce and manufactures out of the country and to bring gold into it.

The conclusion of the chancellor's oration is worth quoting for its curious argument, intended to prove how the country would enrich itself by making the king as rich as possible. "And, lastly," said Morton, " because the king is well assured that you would not have him poor that wishes you rich, he doubteth but that you will have care as well to maintain his revenues of customs and all other natures, as also to supply him with your loving aids, if the case shall so require. The rather for that you know the king is a good husband, and but a steward, in effect, for the public; and that what comes