Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/461

 alongside the wharf. Thence they often proceeded up the river Fleet, as far as Holborn Bridge, to take in their return cargoes, the smaller ones occasionally ascending even as far as Battle Bridge, near the present station of the Great Northern Railway at King's Cross.

Edward III., 1326-7-1377.

The twenty years' reign of Edward II. is not marked by any events worthy of note relating to maritime commerce. Retrogression rather than progress was the result of his policy and of his constant troubles and contentions with neighbouring nations. When, however, he had been deposed, indeed almost immediately after the accession of Edward III., a considerable step in advance was made by the grant of fresh patents and charters to secure for the merchants of England further staples on the Continent. Nearly the whole of the wool trade had been previously carried on by foreigners, but the English now aimed at having "staples" in Brabant and Artois as well as in Flanders, whither they could freely send their own wool and dispose of it themselves from their own entrepôts. And in this they at length succeeded; for with their own capital they bought their wool, and exporting it in their own bottoms to a staple in Holland, Flanders, or France, disposed of it in those countries without the intervention of any second party or foreign merchant. This privilege was considered at the time a great step in advance; but now it is not easy to understand how the laws of any country could have withheld from its merchants the right to trade wherever or whenever other nations did not object.

Such changes in the mode of transacting business