SEVENTEENTH CENTURY TO 1660 19
English cloth across the Channel. Monopolists they
were beyond question, and complaints of their mono-
poly caused them for 2 moment to be supplanted by a
rival company, which however was wholly unable to
carry out its undertakings. It was in Bacon’s © Letter
of Advice to the King upon the Breach with the New
Company > that the above wotds occur. Whatever
may have been the charges against them, it can hardly
be doubted that the Merchant Adventurers had done
the work of the nation; they had built up a great
national export trade in a manner and to an extent
which could not have been accomplished by © free
ot loose’ trading. Still less would ‘free or loose’
trading have met the case when it became a matter of
traffic not across the narrow sea, but across the ocean.
All the coming history of the oversea dealings of
England was to prove the truth of Bacon’s words
that © trading in companies is most agreeable to the
English nature.’
No one was more alive than Bacon to © the vantage
of strength at sea (which is one of the principal dowries
of this Kingdom of Great Britain).” © The wealth of
both Indies,” he continues in this same essay, © Of the
True Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates,” ‘ seems in
great part but an accessory to the command of the
seas.’ 1 Similarly in ¢ Considerations touching a War
with Spain,” he writes of the Spaniards, ¢ Their great-
ness consisteth in their treasure, their treasure in
their Indies ; and their Indies (if it be well weighed) ate
indeed but an accession to such as are masters by sea.’ 2
1 The Works of Francis Bacon (1870), by James Spedding, vol. vi,
2 2 Life of Francis Bacon (1874), ut sup., vol. vii, pp. 499-500.