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 acquaintances and relations," —a system of piracy which other Channel ports were not slow in adopting. Indeed, between the privateer and the pirate there was then so little distinction that, when Henry attempted to suppress these lawless acts, he found it necessary to hang indiscriminately about thirty of the most guilty.

But piracy, under the plea of retaliation, rapidly spread among the ships of other nations. The Normans, Scotch, Irish, and Welsh fitted out their marauders, pillaging not merely every vessel they could successfully cope with at sea, but also various towns along the coast. The whole Channel swarmed with pirates, and the spoils of rapine were too often preferred to the slower acquisitions of honest industry by those who thought themselves powerful enough to be robbers; a state of things naturally much increased during the long contest between Henry III. and his nobles. During this period, indeed, foreign commerce was almost annihilated. Wines, which used to sell for forty shillings, realized ten marks; wax rose from forty shillings to eight marks, and pepper from six pennies to three shillings a pound; while the scarcity of ordinary merchandise, especially of salt, iron, steel, and cloth, together with the stagnation in all exportable articles, owing to the interruption to navigation, was so great, that the industrial classes and many of the merchants were reduced to want and beggary. Still more stringent measures were therefore found necessary to sweep the seas of these pirates; for the English nation had become seriously alarmed. A great increase was consequently made