y to five or six.

The Low Countries have as many ships and vessels as eleven kingdoms of
Christendom have; let England be one. For seventy years together, we had a
great trade to Russia (Narva), and even about fourteen years ago, we sent
stores of goodly ships thither; but three years past we sent out four
thither, and last year but two or three ships; whereas the Hollanders are
now increased to about thirty or forty ships, each as large as two of ours,
chiefly laden with English cloth, herrings, taken in our seas, English
lead, and pewter made of our tin. He adds, that a great loss is suffered by
the kingdom from the undressed and undyed cloths being sent out of the
kingdom, to the amount of 80,000 pieces annually; and that there had been
annually exported, during the last fifty-three years, in baizes, northern
and Devonshire kersies, all white, about 50,000 cloths, counting three
kersies to one cloth.

Although there is undoubtedly much exaggeration in the comparative
statement of the Dutch and English commerce and shipping in the details,
yet it is a curious and interesting document, as exhibiting a general view
of them. Indeed, through the whole of the seventeenth century, the most
celebrated and best informed writers on the commerce of England dwell
strongly on the superior trade of the Dutch, and on their being able, by
the superior advantages they enjoyed from greater capital, industry, and
perseverance, aided by the greater encouragement they gave to foreigners as
well as their own people, to supply the greatest part of Europe with all
their wants, though their own country was small and unfertile. A similar
comparative statement to that of Raleigh is given by Child in 1655; he
asserts that in the preceding year the Dutch had twenty-two sail of great
ships in the Russia trade,--England but one: that in the Greenland whale
fishery, Holland and Hamburgh had annually 400 or 500 sail,--and England
but one last year: that the Dutch have a great trade for salt to France and
Portugal, with which they salt fish caught on our coasts; that in the
Baltic trade, the English have fallen off, and the Dutch increased tenfold.
England has no share in the trade to China and Japan: the Dutch a great
trade to both countries. A great part of the plate trade from Cadiz has
passed from England to Holland. They have even bereaved us of the trade to
Scotland and Ireland. He concludes with pointing out some advantages
England possesses