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1em  HANSARD, (1752–1828), English printer, whose nime is familiar in connexion with the parliamentary re- ports, was bora July 5, 1752, in St Mary’s parish, Norwich. Reverses in business compelled his father, a manufacturer there, to apprentice him to Mr Stephen White, printer. Immediately on the expiry of his apprenticeship Hansard started for London with only a guinea in his pocket, and obtained there in 1772 a situation as compositor in the office of Mr Hazhs, printer tu the House of Commons. There his ability and energy commended him so well to his master that in two years’ time he was made a partner, and under- took alinost the entire conduct of the business, which in 1800 was resignel completely into his hands, through the retirement of Mr Hughs. Among those whose acquaintance Hansard made in the exercise of his profession and retained by his amiable private qualities, were Orme, Burke, and Dr Johnson; while Porson eulogized him as the most accurate printer of Greek. The promptitude and accuracy with which Hansird printed parliamentary papers were often of the greatest service to Government,—notably on one occasion when the proof-sheets of the report of the Secret Committee on the French Revolution were submitted to Pitt twenty-four hours after the draft had left his hands. On the union with Ireland in 1801, the increase of parlia- mentary printing was so great that Hansard was forced to give up all private printing except when parliament was not sitting. He devised numerous expedients for reducing the expense of publishing the reports; and in 1805, when his workmen struck at a time of great pressure, he and his sons did not scruple themselves to work as compositors, and to instruct the new hands they had procured. Shortly after printing the report of the session that rose in July 1828, Hansird’s health, which had been failing, completely gave way, and he died on October 29th of the same year. See the Gentleman's Magazine for December 1828.  HANSEATIC LEAGUE. The word “hansa,” when we find it first in the Gothic Bible of Ulfila, signifies a military assemblage or troop. From this comes the gene- ral sense of union, ani especially in the Middle Ages of union for mercantile purposes. A later but less important meaning is that of a tax paid by traders for the right of forming such an union. The Hansa, the league which ultimately overshadowed all rivals and usurped the name for itself, was no inten- tional creation, and we can fix no exact date for its origin. It arose gradually from two elements, the union of German merchants abroad, and the union of German towns at home. The first impulse to mercantile union came from the dangers of travelling in the early Middle Ages. In those days mariners had neither chart nor compass to guide their course, and were forced to creep timidly along the shore and to avoid as much as possible the open sea. The merchant had also to dread more positive dangers than those of storm and wreck. The coasts of northern Germany harboured numbers of rovers and pirates, who regarded the peaceful trader as their natural prey. ‘To increase their powers of resistance, it was usual for merchants to under- take their voyages in more or less numerous companies. The union thus begun on sca was still further cemented on land, In those days law was personal and not tern- torial. The foreign merchant had no share in the law of the land where he sojourned ; he brought with him bis own law, and administered it as best he could. ‘The legal customs of northern Germany were substantially alike ; and this similarity strengthened the bonds of union among the merchants who found themselves for a time settled in a foreign land. Moreover, the state of trade frequently required a long stay, and sometimes a depositing of goods among strangers. This led in time to the acquisition of common possessions abroad, lodgings, storehouses, &c. This common depot, or ‘‘factory,” became the central point of the union or Hansa formed by the merchants. The union soon received a corporative constitution. At its head stool the elders, whose chief functions were to administer justice and to represent the society in its relations to the natives of the country. It was by means of these orderly unions that the German merchants obtained their important privileges, chiefly advantages in trade and taxes, from the people among whom they sojourned. The most important German mercantile settlements were founded in Wisby, the capital of Gothland, in London, Novgorod, Bergen, and Bruges. Wisby was the central point of the Baltic trade; the other towns represent the four extreme points of North-German commerce. It was not unnatural that the mercantile settlements should exer- cise great influence on the towns from which they sprang. In those towns the municipal government was wholly in the hands of merchants. There was no feudal aristocracy as in the Italian cities, and the artisan was always jealously excluded from political power. It is obvious therefore that the policy of the town-councils would often be influ- enced by the exigencies of foreign commerce. But the influence of the foreign factories was not exercised by all in an equal degree. Wisby differed from the other settle- ments in the fact that the Germans there were not merchants making a temporary visit, but were real settlers living side by side with the native population. Novgorod was a mere colony of the German settlement in Wisby, and never held an independent position. Bergen was compara- tively unimportant, and the German “ counter” in Bruges was not formed until some amount of union had been at- tained at home. But in the German colony in London the majority of the members were merely passing traders, who remained citizens of their native towns. It was therefore the London Hansa which exercised the greatest influence on the growth of the town league. In the reign of Edgar we find the “people of the emperor” occupying a prominent position in London trade, and joined in a lasting league. The members of this league came mostly from Cologne, the first German town which obtained great importance both at home and abroad. Its citizens possessed at an early date a guild-hall of their own, and all Germans who wished to trade with England had to join their guild. This soon included merchants from Dortmund, Soest, and Miinster, in Westpkalia ; from Utrecht, Stavern, and Groningen, in the Netherlands ; and from Bremen and Hamburg on the North Sea. But when, at the beginning of the 13th century, the rapidly rising town of Liibeck wished to be admitted into the guild, every effort wes made to keep her out. The intervention of the emperor Frederick II. was powerless to overcome the dread felt by Cologne towards a possible rival to its supre- macy. But this obstacle to the extension of the league was soon overcome. In a charter of Henry III. assured protection to all German merchants. A few years later Hamburg and Liibeck were allowed to form their own guilds. The Hansa of Cologne, which had long been the only guild, now sinks to the position of a branch Hansa, and has to endure others with equal privileges. Over all the