Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/512

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an application for the appointment of an English consul at Pisa, who should have the power of hearing and of summarily determining all disputes between English subjects resident in Italy or belonging to ships frequenting the ports of that country. Lorenzo Strozzi, a merchant of Florence, was, consequently, at the request of the English merchants then in Italy, appointed the first commercial representative of the English nation in the ports of the Mediterranean.[1]

From this time the trade of England with the Mediterranean, conducted in her own ships, steadily though slowly, increased. Five years afterwards, a treaty with Florence enabled the English to resort freely to all her territories, and carry thither any kind of lawful merchandise, whether the produce of England or of other countries, not even excepting those countries which might be at war with Florence. On the other hand, the Florentines agreed not to admit any wool produced in the English dominions, if imported in any vessels but those belonging to subjects of England; while the English bound themselves to carry every year to Pisa, the appointed staple port, as much wool as used to be imported annually, on an average of former years, to all the states of Italy, except Venice, unless circumstances, of which the king should be judge, rendered this impracticable. Privileges, similar to those which had been granted to the merchants of the Steelyard, were also then allowed to an association of English