Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 2.djvu/99

Rh for which he presents from the Custom-house books an abstract of the exports and imports between England and all foreign countries, it appears that the exports regularly exceeded the imports in a very high degree; "and I believe," he says, "it has been the same from 1688 to the time the books of my office began: however, it can hardly be affirmed, and the merchants upon the Exchange will scarce agree, that during this time England has carried on a profitable trade; at least there appears no over-balance returned to us in bullion, to set the Mint at work; contrariwise, our specie of gold and silver, since that time, is by degrees visibly diminished." In fine, from these and various other considerations, Davenant is led to have strong doubts whether the popular notion of England having been a loser in her trade with France from the Restoration to the Revolution, or to the passing of the prohibitory act in 1678, be not a mere popular delusion. "Great Britain at that time," he observes, "had no marks upon it of a nation declining in wealth and commerce: the interest of money was low, the species of gold and silver abounded; the middle ranks of men had a large proportion of plate among them; after a general conflagration the city was rebuilt in a few years, magnificent public edifices were erected, the farm-houses everywhere were in good repair." He adds that the tonnage of mercantile shipping infinitely exceeded what it was when he wrote, in 1711; and that even at the low duties then in force the customs for the year ending Michaelmas, 1677, produced no less than 828,200l. All this he justly considers to have been the fruits and the evidence, not of a decaying, but of a prosperous and extending, trade.

In 1685 occurred an event which was followed by important consequences to the industry both of France and England, the flight from the former country of a large portion of its manufacturing population on the revocation of the law passed by Henry IV. in 1598 for the protection of his Protestant subjects, called, from the place of its