Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 1.djvu/232

230 passed in 1542 (the 33rd Hen. VIII. c.2), it appears that fish were then commonly imported to England from Newfoundland, or New-land, as it is called in the act, as well as from Iceland, Scotland, the Orkneys, Shetland, and Ireland, and also from the Flemings, the Zealanders, the people of Picardy, and the Normans; from all of whom, however, the act directs that no more fresh fish should be brought, sturgeon, porpoise, and seal excepted, on the alleged ground of many disastrous consequences that followed to the towns by the sea-side in the counties of Kent and Sussex, and to the whole commonwealth, from the fishermen of the said towns abandoning their proper craft, and, instead of filling their boats from their own nets, purchasing the commodity from the fishermen of the opposite coasts. The growing importance of the Newfoundland fishery is attested by an act passed in 1548 (the 2nd and 3rd Edw. VI. c. 6), by which it is enacted, that, whereas for a few years past there had been levied by the officers of the Admiralty, from merchants and fishermen resorting to Iceland, Newfoundland, Ireland, and other places commodious for fishing, "divers great exactions, as sums of money, doles or shares of fish, and other like things, to the great discouragement and hindrance of the same merchants and fishermen, and no little damage to the whole common-weal," all such exactions should henceforth cease.

We are probably to reckon among the religious reforms of the reign of Edward VI., an act which was passed in 1552 (5 and 6 Edw. VI. c. 20), under the title of "A Bill against Usury." In this statute it is declared that the law of the late reign, allowing the taking of interest upon money lent to the amount of ten per cent., "was not meant or intended for maintenance or allowance of usury, as divers persons blinded with inordinate love of themselves have and yet do mistake the same, but rather was made and intended against all sorts and kinds of usury as a thing unlawful; and yet, nevertheless, the same was by the said act permitted for the avoiding of a more ill and inconvenience that before that time was used and exercised." "But, forasmuch," it is