to suppose that foreign
merchants coming to the City year after year would find it useful to
have a permanent settlement--a wharf with officers and servants of their
own. Such a settlement was, no doubt, permitted from very early times.
But in the year 1169 was founded a trade association which, for wealth,
success, and importance, might compare with our East India Company. This
was the Hanseatic League (so called from the word _Hansa_, a
convention). In the League were confederated: first, twelve towns in the
Baltic, Luebeck at the head; next, sixty-four--and even eighty--German
towns. They were first associated for protection against pirates: they
speedily became the greatest trading company of the period. In the reign
of Henry III. the League obtained a Royal Charter granting them liberty
of constant residence at a place in London. They were permitted to have
a permanent establishment at a place called the Steelyard--i.e. the
place where the Steelyard or Scales had formerly been kept--under
certain conditions, including the payment of custom dues. They were
called the Merchants of the Steelyard: they at once drew to themselves
the whole trade of England with the northern ports: and they remained
there for nearly 400 years.

There was another association of foreigners called the Merchants of the
Staple. That is to say, they dealed in what was called the 'staples' of
England--in the raw produce, as lead, tin, wool, &c. Gradually, however,
the word Staple came to be applied solely to wool as the most important
export. The Lord Chancellor, to this day, is seated on a Woolsack. The
Merchants of the Staple became merged in the Merchants of the Steelyard.

These foreign merchants were at all times extremely unpopular with the
Londoners, who envied their wealth, which they thought was made at the
expense of the City, not understanding, for a long time, that the same
way of wealth was open to themselves. When they began to put forth
merchant ships on their own account, they at first sought the southern
ports, sailing to Dunquerque, Sluys, Rouen, Havre, Bordeaux, Lisbon, and
even to the Mediterranean ports. Whittington's trade was entirely with
the South. It was not at Luebeck or on the shores of the Baltic that he
found his cloth of gold, his rich velvets, his silks, his gold
embroidery, his scented wood, his wines, his precious stones. And the
reason why he sent his ships to the South was that the trade of the
North was in