Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 2.djvu/54

52 with them." Of some other branches of our commerce he gives merely a naked enumeration; thinking it unnecessary "to insist upon the reliques of that famous Barbary trade," or to mention "the petty adventures of the English to Guinea and Beny (or Benin);" "neither," says he in conclusion, "need I nominate the homeland commerce of this kingdom to Scotland and Ireland; neither go about to particularise the large traffic of this island to their late plantations of Newfoundland, Somers Islands, Virginia, Barbadoes, and New England, and to other places which rightly challenge an interest in the present trade and traffic of this kingdom."

The comparative activity and prosperity of the national industry at this time is also indicated by various improvements that were now introduced. Hackney coaches are said to have made their first appearance in London in the year 1625. They were then only twenty in number for the whole of the capital and contiguous parts, and they did not ply in the streets, but were sent for by those who wanted them to the stables of certain inns, where they stood. Ten years later, however, we find the king publishing a proclamation, in which he declares that the great numbers of hackney coaches of late time seen and kept in London, Westminster, and their suburbs, and the general and promiscuous use of coaches there, were not only a great disturbance to his majesty, his dearest consort the queen, the nobility, and others of place and degree, in their passage through the streets; but the streets themselves were so pestered, and the pavements so broken up, that the common passages were hindered and made dangerous, and besides the prices of hay and provender made exceeding dear. "Wherefore," concludes the proclamation, "we expressly command and forbid that no hackney or hired coaches be used or suffered in London, Westminster, or the suburbs thereof, except they be to travel at least three miles out of the same. And also that no person shall go in a coach in the said streets, except the owner of the coach shall constantly keep up four able horses for our service when required." Such an edict as this, so