Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/457

 Edward's lieutenant in Gascony granted the owner of the ship and his heirs licence, to be in force for five years, to seize the property of the Portuguese, and especially of the inhabitants of Lisbon, to the extent of the loss he had sustained and of the expenses of recovery.

It was likewise during the reign of Edward (10th Oct., 1283) that parliament passed the famous "statute of merchants," which gave a remedy for the due recovery of debts, "as for want of such a law many merchants were impoverished, and many foreign merchants desisted from trading with England." It is remarkable that, in the required process, the debtor was supposed incapable of writing, and was, therefore, required to put his seal to a bill drawn by the mayor's clerk, who thereupon affixed the royal seal prepared for that purpose. If, on judgment against him, the debtor was proved to have no property, he was imprisoned and fed on bread and water until the just demands of the creditors were satisfied.

Nor were Edward's commercial enactments confined to those we have thus briefly noticed; for, understanding that certain citizens of London, together with other merchants of England, Ireland, Gascony, and Wales, were in the habit of compelling the barons of the Cinque Ports and others to pay an average on articles which ought to have been exempted, as in the case of goods thrown overboard in storms, he ordained that the vessel with her apparel, provisions, and cooking utensils, "the master's ring, necklace, sash, and silver cup," as well as the freight for the goods brought into port, should be free of all such