Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 1.djvu/48

 These are quoted as examples of the use of the word post. But — to return to the reign of Elizabeth — the passion for governmental interference and for patent offices, led to the creation of the office of Postmaster of Foreigners. We meet with this designation for the first time in July 1568, when Sir William Cecil intimated to the merchant-strangers that Raphael Van den Putte should be appointed to the vacant office. This man had been recommended by the French pastor, Jean Cousin, and by the Italian pastor, Hieronymus Jerlicus. Cousin had called him Du Puitz, so that, perhaps, Mr Secretary Cecil had supposed him to be a Frenchman. On July 25, the merchant-strangers, Italian, Spanish, German, and French, protested, and sent to the Secretary the name of Godefroy Marshall, a Dutchman, to be “the master of our posts.” They recommended him as having lived twenty-two years in the country, and having an English wife. They objected to Van den Putte as a total stranger, and a post of Antwerp, subject to the chief postmaster of the King of Spain, and not to the master of our posts here. Hoping for Cecil’s consent, they promise that they all will “praie to the Lord God for your Honour’s felicious succes and good prosperitie.”

I find no materials to carry on the above narrative. The next topic is the provision of English hosts for Protestant strangers. The two subjects which my readers must master are posts and hosts. The regulations as to hosting (or hostings) were not understood by the refugees, who had usually been tolerated in the exercise of a considerable amount of freedom of trade. The law, however, was declared to be as old as 1495, and even fifty years older than that date. The principle was that foreign traders could be recognised in England only as guests, each of whom must trade in the name of some Englishman, who thus became his host. Or (to put the point into legal language) the law was that all merchants, being strangers, aliens, or denizens, should lodge at the tables of free hosts of the city of London, and other cities and towns in England; that every such merchant should sell through a host to be assigned to him by the Mayor, Sheriffs, bailiffs, or other officers of the city or town, the host to receive a commission per pound sterling on every transaction, and it being always understood that no merchant strangers may hire or occupy houses and cellars of their own.

There is a bundle of curious papers on this subject in our State Paper Office which I have read. The date is conjectural; some are supposed to belong to the year 1575; the date of the creation of a new Patent Office, appointing one host for all the strangers, is 1579. William Tipper obtained the patent of this office, farmed to him for £5 per annum. The refugee merchants protested against this interference, and against the whole principle of hosting, so energetically that the office was suspended. Tipper began a prosecution in the Court of the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, and the refugees had recourse to the Queen.

The lawyers who were consulted were Dr David Lewes and Dr William Awbrey. They gave no consolation to the refugees, but signed an Opinion to the following effect. Although the name of the office of Host of the Merchant Strangers is new, the practical business of the office is as old as the law, by which every stranger must have a host to receive his poundage, and which enacts, that if a stranger makes a bargain without his host, his goods are liable to forfeiture.

The following was the refugees’ petition (I have modernized the spelling):—

“In most humble wise do show unto your gracious Majesty the merchant strangers frequenting the Royal Exchange of London,

“That whereas heretofore, upon the new orders and new impositions lately published touching the exercise of the exchange of merchants, hath [have] been shewed to your Majesty’s Privy Council, and to the Commissioners in that behalf appointed in December last, the most special and evident griefs and inconveniences that would ensue, and grievously endamage not only your orators, but also your Majesty’s revenues in customs, and the very treasures and coins of this your Majesty’s noble realm.

“So it is that for redress therein required your orators, fearing the effects thereof so hard, that (unless one remedy do come from your bounteous Majesty) they are not able to continue in trade and merchandise, chiefly such as be wont to send out much more commodities of this realm than they bring in, to the buying whereof they cannot find here, nor have made over either by exchange beyond the seas, their necessary provision of money, by reason of the impossible orders here to observe, and the excessive charges on both sides growing.

“Beside all these, your orators are credibly informed of a new trouble, heretofore by men’s memory not used, that by certain Letters Patent they should be forced to sell all 