should not pass any by-laws without the consent of three of
the chief officers of state.[*] They were prohibited from imposing tolls
at their [**] The cities of Glocester and Worcester had even imposed
tolls on the Severn, which were abolished.[***]

There is a law of this reign,[****] containing a preamble, by which
it appears, that the company of merchant adventurers in London had, by
their own authority, debarred all the other merchants of the kingdom
from trading to the great marts in the Low Countries, unless each trader
previously paid them the sum of near seventy pounds. It is surprising
that such a by-law (if it deserve the name) could ever be carried into
execution, and that the authority of parliament should be requisite to
abrogate it.

It was during this reign, on the second of August, 1492, a little before
sunset, that Christopher Columbus, a Genoese, set out from Spain on his
memorable voyage for the discovery of the western world; and a few years
after, Vasquez de Gama, a Portuguese, passed the Cape of Good Hope,
and opened a new passage to the East Indies. These great events were
attended with important consequences to all the nations of Europe, even
to such as were not immediately concerned in those naval enterprises.
The enlargement of commerce and navigation increased industry and the
arts every where; the nobles dissipated their fortunes in expensive
pleasures: men of an inferior rank both acquired a share in the landed
property, and created to themselves a considerable property of a new
kind, in stock, commodities, art, credit, and correspondence. In some
nations, the privileges of the commons increased by this increase of
property: in most nations, the kings, finding arms to be dropped by the
barons, who could no longer endure their former rude manner of life,
established standing armies, and subdued the liberties of their
kingdoms: but in all places, the condition of the people, from the
depression of the petty tyrants by whom they had formerly been oppressed
rather than governed, received great improvement, and they acquired, if
not entire liberty, at least the most considerable advantages of it. And
as the general course of events thus tended to depress the nobles and
exalt the people, Henry VII., who also embraced that system of policy,
has acquired more praise than his institutions, strictly speaking, seem
of themselves to deserve on account of any profound wisdom attending
them.

* 1