Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/478

 In consequence of these changes in the laws, the merchants of Genoa, Venice, Catalonia, Aragon, and of other western countries, brought their carracks, galleys, and vessels of various descriptions to the ports of England, where, disposing freely of their merchandise, they received in exchange, wool, tin, lead, and other articles the produce of that country: Southampton proved so convenient and favourite a port of resort, that a Genoese merchant of great opulence offered to raise it to a pre-eminence above any other port of Western Europe, as the depôt for the Oriental goods the Genoese had hitherto conveyed to Flanders, Normandy, and Bretagne, provided the king would allow him to store his goods in the castle of Southampton. We cannot doubt that had this offer been accepted, this port would have become, to the great advantage of England, the entrepôt for the supply of the northern markets of Europe. The foul murder of this enterprising stranger, in the streets of London, put an end to his wisely-imagined scheme, English merchants ignorantly supposing that their own trade would prosper the more by the prevention of his plan.

From the accident of a Catalan ship, bound from Genoa to Sluys, the port of Bruges in Flanders, having been wrecked at Dunster in Somersetshire, an insight is obtained into the nature of the cargoes shipped at that period from Italy to Flanders. The merchants, in claiming the restoration of her cargo, enumerate its contents, viz., sulphur, wood, ginger, green and cured with lemon juice; raisins, writing paper, flax, white sugar, prunes, cinnamon, pepper,