the first sign of the revolution which has transferred
English manufactures and English wealth to the north of the Mersey and
of the Humber in the mention which now meets us of the friezes of
Manchester, the coverlets of York, the cutlery of Sheffield, and the
cloth-trade of Halifax.

[Sidenote: Growth of commerce.]

The growth however of English commerce far outstripped as yet that of
its manufactures. We must not judge of it by any modern standard; for
the whole population of the country can hardly have exceeded five or six
millions, and the burthen of all the vessels engaged in ordinary
commerce was estimated at little more than fifty thousand tons. The size
of the vessels employed in it would nowadays seem insignificant; a
modern collier brig is probably as large as the biggest merchant vessel
which then sailed from the port of London. But it was under Elizabeth
that English commerce began the rapid career of developement which has
made us the carriers of the world. The foundation of the Royal Exchange
at London by Sir Thomas Gresham in 1566 was a mark of the commercial
progress of the time. By far the most important branch of our trade was
the commerce with Flanders. Antwerp and Bruges were in fact the general
marts of the world in the early part of the sixteenth century, and the
annual export of English wool and drapery to their markets was estimated
at a sum of more than two millions in value. But the religious troubles
of the Netherlands were already scaring capital and industry from their
older seats. As early as 1560 Philip's envoy reported to his master that
"ten thousand of your Majesty's servants in the Low Countries are
already in England with their preachers and ministers." Alva's
severities soon raised the number of refugees to fifty thousand; and the
outbreak of war which followed drove trade as well as traders from the
Low Countries. It was with the ruin of Antwerp at the time of its siege
and capture by the Duke of Parma that the commercial supremacy of our
own capital was first established. A third of the merchants and
manufacturers of the ruined city are said to have found a refuge on the
banks of the Thames. The export trade to Flanders died away as London
developed into the general mart of Europe, where the gold and sugar of
the New World were found side by side with the cotton of India, the
silks of the East, and the woollen stuffs of England itself.

[Sidenote: New trade routes.]

Not only w