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 occupied in extending their own privileges and in securing for themselves the business of any place where they had established themselves, they soon became obnoxious to their rivals, and their counting-houses were frequently exposed to popular fury. When unable to obtain redress for the outrages thus committed against it, the League closed its warehouses, and its members withdrew from the place. They could inflict no more severe punishment for the wrongs they had sustained; indeed, the withdrawal of their trade was often considered so great a calamity to the inhabitants, that large concessions were made and new privileges granted to induce their return. More than once the League transferred their quarters from Bruges to Dordrecht in Holland, and, on each occasion, obtained fresh grants before they agreed to resume business in the former city.

But the League was unable to obtain at Bruges the power and influence it too frequently exercised at other places; for it had there to contend with men of business habits and of considerable wealth, whose firms had long conducted business with distant countries, and who held large stocks of the same description of merchandise from which the League itself derived its chief profits. Moreover, the Flemings of Bruges imported in their own ships, or in those of the nations with whom they were in direct correspondence, the products of the East, the manufactures of Italy, and the wines of the South. At other places, however, and especially in the North, where the League had comparatively few competitors and none whom it could not crush when necessary, it exercised,