Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 1.djvu/207

Rh The affair of Perkin Warbeck, and the encouragement given to that adventurer by the Duchess Dowager of Burgundy, had the effect of interrupting for some years of this reign the most important branch of the foreign commerce of England—the trade with the Netherlands. Henry first, in 1493, banished all the Flemings out of England, and ordered all intercourse between the two countries to cease; on which the Archduke Philip, the sovereign of the Netherlands, expelled in like manner all the English subjects resident in his dominions. This state of things continued for nearly three years, when the interruption of trade "began," says Bacon, "to pinch the merchants of both nations very sore, which moved them by all means they could devise to affect and dispose their sovereigns respectively to open the intercourse again. Wherein time favoured them; for the archduke and his council began to see that Perkin would prove but a runagate and a citizen of the world, and that it was the part of children to fall out about babies. And the king, on his part, after the attempts upon Kent and Northumberland, began to have the business of Perkin in less estimation, so as he did not put it to account in any consultation of state. But that that moved him most was, that, being a king that loved wealth and treasure, he could not endure to have trade sick, nor any obstruction to continue in the gate-ein which disperseth that blood." At last, commissioners from both sides met at London, and soon arranged a treaty for the renewal of the trade. "After the intercourse thus restored," adds the historian, "the English merchants came again to their mansion at Antwerp, where they were received with procession and great joy." All the while that the stoppage lasted, the merchant adventurers, he says, "being a strong company at that time, and well under-set with rich men, did hold out bravely; taking off the commodities of the kingdom, though they lay dead upon their hands for want of vent." This they must have done out of a patriotic zeal in the support of the government, or perhaps they may have been in some measure forced by the urgent solicitations or threats of the king to incur the loss they did. The