creek in Brittany and Spain.

Doubtless, as may be noticed in passing, much of the tendency on the
part of our shipmen in this period to self-help in offence as well as
in defence, was due to the fact that the mercantile navy was frequently
employed in expeditions of war, vessels and men being at times seized
or impressed for the purpose by order of the Crown. On one of these
occasions the port of Dartmouth, whence Chaucer at a venture ("for
aught I wot") makes his "Shipman" hail, is found contributing a larger
total of ships and men than any other port in England. For the rest,
Flanders was certainly still far ahead of her future rival in wealth,
and in mercantile and industrial activity; as a manufacturing country
she had no equal, and in trade the rival she chiefly feared was still
the German Hansa. Chaucer's "Merchant" characteristically wears a
"Flandrish beaver hat;" and it is no accident that the scene of the
"Pardoner's Tale," which begins with a description of "superfluity
abominable," is laid in Flanders. In England, indeed the towns never
came to domineer as they did in the Netherlands. Yet, since no trading
country will long submit to be ruled by the landed interest only, so in
proportion as the English towns, and London especially, grew richer,
their voices were listened to in the settlement of the affairs of the
nation. It might be very well for Chaucer to close the description of
his "Merchant" with what looks very much like a fashionable writer's
half sneer:--

Forsooth, he was a worthy man withal;
But, truly, I wot not how men him call.

Yet not only was high political and social rank reached by individual
"merchant princes," such as the wealthy William de la Pole, a
descendant of whom is said (though on unsatisfactory evidence) to have
been Chaucer's grand-daughter, but the government of the country came
to be very perceptibly influenced by the class from which they sprang.
On the accession of Richard II, two London citizens were appointed
controllers of the war-subsidies granted to the Crown; and in the
Parliament of 1382 a committee of fourteen merchants refused to
entertain the question of a merchants' loan to the king. The
importance and self-consciousness of the smaller tradesmen and
handicraftsmen increased with that of the great merchants. When in
1393 King Richard II marked the termination of his quarrel with the
City of London by a stately procession through "new Troy," he was
w