y taking the
merchant-ships and plundering and burning the towns on the sea-coast,
till Edward the Third granted letters of reprisal to the inhabitants of
Dartmouth, Plymouth, and Fowey, which obliged the Duke of Bretaigne to
sue for peace and engage for the future good behaviour of his subjects."

Here we have an example of the advantage of allowing people who possess
the sinews of war to take care of themselves. We may depend on it they
will, in most instances, give a good account of their proceedings.

The same principle may be applied to our larger colonies at the present
day, and we may have little fear that if attacked they will maintain
their independence, and the honour of the British name.

"We trade with Scotland for felts, hides, and wool in the fleece; and
with Prussia, High Germany, and the east countries for beer, bacon,
almond, copper, bow-staves, steel, wax, pelt ware, pitch, tar, peats,
flax, cotton, thread, fustian, canvas, cards, buckram, silver plate,
silver wedges, and metal.

"From Genoa we import most of the articles which we now procure from
Africa, and which come in large ships called carracks, such as cloth of
gold, silk, black pepper, and good gold of _Genne_ (Guinea)."

Our author does not at all approve of the articles which were imported
from Venice and Florence. They were very similar, in some respects, to
those which now come from France, and without which, most undoubtedly,
we could do very well.

"The great gallies of Venice and Florence
Be well laden with things of complacence,
Allspicery and of grocer's ware,
With sweet wines, all manner of chaffare;
Apes and japes, and marmusets tailed,
Nifles and trifles that little have availed,
And things with which they featly blear our eye,
With things not enduring that we buy;
For much of this chaffare that is wastable,
Might be forborne for dear and deceivable."

On the death of his father, August, 1422, the unfortunate Henry the
Sixth, when not a year old, was proclaimed King of England and heir of
France, and when eight years of age he was crowned both in London and
Paris. No improvements in naval affairs were introduced during his
inglorious and disastrous reign. The chief battle at sea was fought by
a fleet under the command of the famous king-maker, the Earl of Warwick.
In the Straits of Dover he encountered a fleet of Genoese and Lubeck
ships laden with Spanish merchandise, and under the convoy of five