Appendix the greatest contempt imaginable for all their proceedings. III. Military force. Henry VIII., in order to fit out a navy, was obliged to hire ships from Hamburgh, Lubec, Dantzic, Genoa, and Venice; but Elizabeth, very early in her reign, put affairs upon a better footing, both by building some ships of her own, and by encouraging the merchants to build large trading vessels, which, on occasion, were converted into ships of war. In the year 1582, the seamen in England were found to be fourteen thousand two hundred and ninety-five men"; the number of vessels twelve hundred and thirty-two, of which there were only two hundred and seventeen above eighty tons. Monson pretends, that though navigation decayed in the first years of James I. by the practice of the merchants, who carried on their trade in foreign bottoms, yet, before the year 1640, this number of seamen was tripled in England'. The navy which the queen left at her decease appears considerable, when we reflect only on the number of vessels, which were forty-two: but when we consider that none of these ships carried above forty guns; that four only came up to that number; that there were but two ships of a thousand tons, and twenty-three below five hundred, some of fifty; and some even of twenty tons; and that the whole number of guns belonging to the fleet was seven hundred and seventy-four; we must entertain a contemptible idea of the English navy, compared to the force which it has now attained". In the year 1588, there were not above five vessels fitted out by the noblemen and seaports which exceeded two hundred tons'. In the year 1599, an alarm was given of an invasion by the Spaniards, and the queen equipped a fleet and levied an army in a fortnight to oppose them. Nothing gave foreigners a higher idea of the power of England than this sudden armament. In the year 1575, all the militia in the kingdom were computed at a hundred b Lives of the Admirals, vol. i. p. 470. e Ibid. p. 300. c Camden, p. 388. f Ibid. p. 210. 256. 8 Monson, p. 196. The English navy at present carries about fourteen thousand guns. h See note [X], at the end of the volume. i Monson, p. 300. III. and eighty-two thousand nine hundred and twenty-nine*. Appendix A distribution was made, in the year 1595, of a hundred and forty thousand men, besides those which Wales could supply'. These armies were formidable by their numbers, but their discipline and experience were not proportionate. Small bodies from Dunkirk and Newport frequently ran over and plundered the east coast; so unfit was the militia, as it was then constituted, for the defence of the kingdom. The lord lieutenants were first appointed to the counties in this reign. m Mr. Murden has published, from the Salisbury collections, a paper which contains the military force of the nation at the time of the Spanish Armada, and which is somewhat different from the account given by our ordinary historians. It makes all the able-bodied men of the kingdom amount to a hundred and eleven thousand five hundred and thirteen; those armed, to eighty thousand eight hundred and seventy-five; of whom forty-four thousand seven hundred and twentyseven were trained. It must be supposed, that these able-bodied men consisted of such only as were registered, otherwise the small number is not to be accounted for. Yet Sir Edward Coke" said in the House of Commons, that he was employed about the same time, together with Popham, chief justice, to take a survey of all the people of England, and that they found them to be nine hundred thousand of all sorts. This number, by the ordinary rules of computation, supposes that there were above two hundred thousand men able to bear arms. Yet even this number is surprisingly small. Can we suppose that the kingdom is six or seven times more populous at present? and that Murden's was the real number of men, excluding Catholics, and children, and infirm persons? Harrison says, that in the musters taken in the years 1574 and 1575, the men fit for service amounted to one million one hundred and seventy-two thousand six hundred and seventy-four; yet it was believed that a full third was omitted: such uncertainty and contradiction are there in all these accounts. Notwithstanding the 1 Strype, vol. iv. p. 221. k Lives of the Admirals, vol. i. p. 432. m P. 608. VOL. IV. n Journ. 25th April, 1621. P III. Appendix greatness of this number, the same author complains much of the decay of populousness: a vulgar complaint in all places and all ages. Guicciardini makes the inhabitants of England in this reign amount to two millions. Whatever opinion we may form of the comparative populousness of England in different periods, it must be allowed that, abstracting from the national debt, there is a prodigious increase of power in that, more perhaps than in any other European state since the beginning of the last century. It would be no paradox to affirm, that Ireland alone could, at present, exert a greater force than all the three kingdoms were capable of, at the death of Queen Elizabeth. And we might go farther, and assert, that one good county in England is able to make, at least to support, a greater effort than the whole kingdom was capable of, in the reign of Harry V.; when the maintenance of a garrison, in a small town like Calais, formed more than a third of the ordinary national expense. Such are the effects of liberty, industry, and good government! The state of the English manufactures was, at this time, very low, and foreign wares of almost all kinds had the preference. About the year 1590, there were, in London, four persons only rated in the subsidy-books so high as four hundred pounds. This computation is not, indeed, to be deemed an exact estimate of their wealth. In 1567, there were found, on inquiry, to be four thousand eight hundred and fifty-one strangers of all nations in London; of whom three thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight were Flemings, and only fifty-eight Scots. The persecutions in France and the Low Countries drove afterwards a greater number of foreigners into England; and the commerce, as well as manufactures of that kingdom, was very much improved by them'. It was then that Sir Thomas Gresham built, at his own charge, the magnificent fabric of the Exchange for the reception of the merchants: the queen visited it, and gave it the appellation of the Royal Exchange. By a lucky accident in language, which has a great effect on men's ideas, the invidious word usury, which • D'Ewes, p. 505. 9 Haynes, p. 461, 462. p Ibid. p. 497. III. formerly meant the taking of any interest for money, Appendix came now to express only the taking of exorbitant and illegal interest. An act, passed in 1571, violently condemns all usury, but permits ten per cent. interest to be paid. Henry IV. of France reduced interest to six and a half per cent.: an indication of the great advance of France above England in commerce. Dr. Howel says, that Queen Elizabeth, in the third of her reign, was presented with a pair of black silk knit stockings by her silk-woman, and never wore cloth hose any more. The author of the present state of England says, that about 1577, pocket watches were first brought into England from Germany. They are thought to have been invented at Nuremburgh. About 1580, the use of coaches was introduced by the Earl of Arundel'. Before that time, the queen, on public occasions, rode behind her chamberlain. Camden says, that in 1581, Randolph, so much employed by the queen in foreign embassies, possessed the office of postmaster-general of England. It appears, therefore, that posts were then established; though, from Charles I.'s regulations in 1635, it would seem that few posthouses were erected before that time. In a remonstrance of the Hanse towns to the diet of the empire in 1582, it is affirmed that England exported annually about two hundred thousand pieces of cloth ". This number seems to be much exaggerated. In the fifth of this reign was enacted the first law for the relief of the poor. A judicious author of that age confirms the vulgar observation, that the kingdom was depopulating from the increase of inclosures and decay of tillage; and he ascribes the reason very justly to the restraints put on the exportation of corn, while full liberty was allowed to export all the produce of pasturage, such as wool, hides, leather, tallow, &c. These prohibitions of exportation were derived from the prerogative, and were very injudicious. The queen, once, on the commencement of her reign, had tried a contrary practice, and with good success. From the same author we learn, that the complaints, res History of the World, vol. ii. t Anderson, vol. i. p. p. 421. III. Appendix newed in our time, were then very common, concerning the high prices of every thing". There seems, indeed, to have been two periods in which prices rose remarkably in England, namely, that in Queen Elizabeth's reign, when they are computed to have doubled, and that in the present age. Between the two there seems to have been a stagnation. It would appear that industry, during that intermediate period, increased as fast as gold and silver, and kept commodities nearly at a par with money. Manners. There were two attempts made in this reign to settle colonies in America; one by Sir Humphrey Gilbert in Newfoundland, another by Sir Walter Raleigh in Virginia; but neither of these projects proved successful. All those noble settlements were made in the following reigns. The current specie of the kingdom in the end of this reign is computed at four millions *. The Earl of Leicester desired Sir Francis Walsingham, then ambassador in France, to provide him with a ridingmaster in that country, to whom he promises a hundred pounds a-year, besides maintaining himself and servant, and a couple of horses. "I know," adds the earl, "that such a man as I want may receive higher wages in France but let him consider, that a shilling in England goes as far as two shillings in France "." It is known that every thing is much changed since that time. The nobility in this age still supported, in some degree, the ancient magnificence in their hospitality, and in the numbers of their retainers; and the queen found it prudent to retrench, by proclamation, their expenses in this last particular'. The expense of hospitality she somewhat encouraged by the frequent visits she paid her nobility, and the sumptuous feasts which she received from them. The Earl of Leicester gave her an enter w A compendious or brief examination of certain ordinary complaints of divers of our countrymen. The author says, that in twenty or thirty years before 1581, commodities had in general risen fifty per cent. ; some more. Cannot you, neighbour, remember, says he, that, within these thirty years, I could in this town buy the best pig or goose I could lay my hands on for four-pence, which now costeth twelve-pence; a good capon for three-pence or four-pence, a chicken for a penny, a hen for two-pence? p. 35. Yet the price of ordinary labour was then eightpence a day, p. 31. x Lives of the Admirals, vol. i. p. 475. z Strype, vol. iii. Appendix, p. 54. a Harrison, after enumerating the queen's palaces, adds: "But what shall I need to take upon me to repeat all, and tell what houses the queen's majesty hath? Sith all is hers; and when it pleaseth her in the summer season to recreate |