Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/485

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occasion pillaging and burning Hastings, Plymouth, and Dartmouth; while the Scots, under Mercer, one of their most daring adventurers, plundered every English vessel that fell in his way, and thereby realised enormous booty. The English government became, at length, seriously alarmed, and were induced, in October 1377, to pass the first law on record, whereby dues were levied on all merchant vessels frequenting English ports, for the purpose of restoring and maintaining an efficient royal navy. The only exceptions made were those in favour of ships bringing merchandise from Flanders to London, and of the traders from London to Calais with wool and hides; every other vessel leaving the Thames was required to pay sixpence per ton; while a similar tax, payable weekly, was levied on boats engaged in the herring-fisheries, and one-third that amount on all other fishing-boats. A monthly duty of 6d. per ton had likewise to be paid by colliers, as well as by all merchant vessels sailing from any port in England to Russia, Norway, or Sweden. In the belief that the Navy thus created would be applied as proposed, this tax was readily voted and as willingly paid by the shipowners; but, in the end, it was appropriated to entirely different purposes. There seems, in those days, to have been a restless desire, scarcely now wholly forgotten, to interfere with the affairs of other