their mediaeval character
had evidently come to an end.

*42. The Growth of Native Commerce.*--The most distinctive
characteristic of English foreign trade down to the middle of the
fifteenth century consisted in the fact that it had been entirely in
the hands of foreigners. The period under discussion saw it
transferred with quite as great completeness to the hands of
Englishmen. Even before 1450 trading vessels had occasionally been
sent out from the English seaport towns on more or less extensive
voyages, carrying out English goods, and bringing back those of other
countries or of other parts of England. These vessels sometimes
belonged to the town governments, sometimes to individual merchants.
This kind of enterprise became more and more common. Individual
merchants grew famous for the number and size of their ships and the
extent of their trade; as for instance, William Canynges of Bristol,
who in 1461 had ten vessels at sea, or Sturmys of the same town, who
at about the same time sent the first English vessel to trade with the
eastern Mediterranean, or John Taverner of Hull, who built in 1449 a
new type of vessel modelled on the carracks of Genoa and the galleys
of Venice. In the middle of the fourteenth century the longest list of
merchants of any substance that could be drawn up contained only 169
names. At the beginning of the sixteenth century there were at least
3000 merchants engaged in foreign trade, and in 1601 there were about
3500 trading to the Netherlands alone. These merchants exported the
old articles of English production and to a still greater extent
textile goods, the manufacture of which was growing so rapidly in
England. The export of wool came to an end during the reign of Queen
Elizabeth, but the export of woven cloth was more than enough to take
its place. There was not so much cloth now imported, but a much
greater variety and quantity of food-stuffs and wines, of articles of
fine manufacture, and of the special products of the countries to
which English trade extended.

The entrance of English vessels into ports of towns or countries
whose own vessels had been accustomed to the control of the trade with
England, or where the old commercial towns of the Hanseatic League, of
Flanders, or of Italy had valuable trading concessions, was not
obtained without difficulty, and there was a constant succession of
conflicts more or less violent, and of disputes between English and
foreign sailo