Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/458

 payments: on the other hand, that all other things in the vessel, not excepting even the seamen's bedding, should bear a proportion of the loss incurred, and that the master should not be permitted to claim freight for goods so thrown overboard.

In Scotland, as might have been expected, commerce was of even slower growth than in England, nor was it till the reign of Alexander III. that there was any real maritime force; and although the vassals of Scotland, as, for instance, the king of Man, were required to contribute ships for the use of the state in proportion to their lands, the king does not appear to have considered that such merchant vessels as these were of much value, as he passed a law whereby his merchants were prohibited for a limited period from exporting any goods in their own vessels, "because some of them had been captured by pirates, and others lost by shipwreck and by arrestments in foreign ports." Of course, the inevitable result followed that, for a time, the merchant vessels of Scotland were totally extinguished. The enactment, however, for some unaccountable reason, seems to have given satisfaction, as the historians of the period remark that—"in consequence of these laws the kingdom abounded in a few years with corn, money, cattle, sheep, and all kinds of merchandise, and the arts flourished." It is, indeed, possible that Scotland may have imbibed the spirit of extreme liberality in its maritime policy which then prevailed throughout England, where it was evidently supposed that foreign merchants brought wealth which England could not otherwise have obtained. It is,