ms against the King, but that he would go where man
should never see him more.

Such was the condition of the nobles, greater and less. That of the
people could not well be worse. Famine reigned in the land. Emigration,
caused not by over population, but by persecution, was fast weakening the
country. It was no wonder that not only, foreign merchants should be
scared from the great commercial cities by the approaching disorders; but
that every industrious artisan who could find the means of escape should
seek refuge among strangers, wherever an asylum could be found. That
asylum was afforded by Protestant England, who received these intelligent
and unfortunate wanderers with cordiality, and learned with eagerness the
lessons in mechanical skill which they had to teach. Already thirty
thousand emigrant Netherlanders were established in Sandwich, Norwich,
and other places, assigned to them by Elizabeth. It had always, however,
been made a condition of the liberty granted to these foreigners for
practising their handiwork, that each house should employ at least one
English apprentice. "Thus," said a Walloon historian, splenetically, "by
this regulation, and by means of heavy duties on foreign manufactures,
have the English built up their own fabrics and prohibited those of the
Netherlands. Thus have they drawn over to their own country our skilful
artisans to practise their industry, not at home but abroad, and our poor
people are thus losing the means of earning their livelihood. Thus has
clothmaking, silk-making and the art of dyeing declined in this country,
and would have been quite extinguished but by our wise countervailing
edicts." The writer, who derived most of his materials and his wisdom
from the papers of Councillor d'Assonleville, could hardly doubt that the
persecution to which these industrious artisans, whose sufferings he
affected to deplore, had been subjected, must have had something to do
with their expatriation; but he preferred to ascribe it wholly to the
protective system adopted by England. In this he followed the opinion of
his preceptor. "For a long time," said Assonleville, "the Netherlands
have been the Indies to England; and as long as she has them, she needs
no other. The French try to surprise our fortresses and cities: the
English make war upon our wealth and upon the purses of the people."
Whatever the cause, however, the current of trade was already turned. The
cloth-making of England was a