, such as wool, hides, leather, tallow, etc.
These prohibitions of exportation were derived from the prerogative, and
were very injudicious. The queen once, on the commencement of her reign,
had tried a contrary practice, and with good success. From the same
author we learn, that the complaints renewed in our time were then very
common, concerning the high prices of every thing.[****]

* History of the World, vol. ii. p. 222.

** Anderson, vol. i. p. 421.

*** Anderson, voL i. p. 424.

**** A compendious or brief Examination of certain ordinary
Complaints of divers of our Countrymen. The author says,
that in twenty or thirty years before 1581, commodities had
in general risen fifty per cent.; some more. "Cannot you,
neighbor, remember," say she "that, indeed, to have been two
periods, in which prices rose remarkably in England;" namely,
that in Queen Elizabeth's reign, when they are computed to
have doubled, and that in the present age. Between the two,
there seems to have been a stagnation. It would appear, that
industry, during that intermediate period, increased as fast
as gold and silver, and kept commodities nearly at a par
with money.

There were two attempts made in this reign to settle colonies in
America; one by Sir Humphrey Gilbert in Newfoundland, another by
Sir Walter Raleigh in Virginia: but neither of these projects proved
successful. All those noble settlements were made in the following
reigns. The current specie of the kingdom, in the end of this reign, is
computed at four millions.[*]

The earl of Leicester desired Sir Francis Walsingham, then ambassador in
France, to provide him with a riding master in that country, to whom
he promises a hundred pounds a year, besides maintaining himself and
servant and a couple of horses. "I know," adds the earl, "that such a
man as I want may receive higher wages in France: but let him consider,
that a shilling in England goes as far as two shillings in France." [**]
It is known that every thing is much changed since that time.

The nobility in this age still supported, in some degree, the ancient
magnificence in their hospitality, and in the numbers of their
retainers; and the queen found it prudent to retrench, by proclamation,
their expenses in this last particular.[***] The expense of hospitality
she somewhat encouraged, by the frequent visits she paid her nobility,
and the sumpt