DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.57079#0067
THE LEVANT COMPANY 51
only strangers to suffer, seeing that they were
the only foreigners who imported currants
into England; and very soon they would
retaliate by levying still another imposition
on the English and then there would be an
everlasting tariff war.28
There seems to have been good reason for
the complaint of the English merchants as
to their treatment by the Venetians. The
Venetians were anxious to drive the English
28 Cf. S. P. D. James I. vol. io, No. 32 : “ But if
his majesty should lay a double imposition upon the
Venetian only, intending thereby to help the trade of
his own subjects, let it be considered what the sequel
thereof might be : first, the commodity, viz., the cur-
rants, is a native commodity of the Venetians, growing
in their own dominions. And although for the good
of their own state they have laid an imposition there-
upon, yet have they no otherwise dealt with his majesty’s
subjects than with all other strangers. If therefore
his majesty shall single out them, above all other nations,
to pay a greater rate for their own native commodities
which they shall bring hither in trade of merchandize,
than other merchants do, it will teach them (which are
apt enough) to take occasion to redouble the same im-
position upon English merchants, and give all other
strangers leave to trade the same at better rate, by
which means the English merchants shall be sure to
be utterly worn out of the trade—where they are now
as able to trade as any other nation.”
only strangers to suffer, seeing that they were
the only foreigners who imported currants
into England; and very soon they would
retaliate by levying still another imposition
on the English and then there would be an
everlasting tariff war.28
There seems to have been good reason for
the complaint of the English merchants as
to their treatment by the Venetians. The
Venetians were anxious to drive the English
28 Cf. S. P. D. James I. vol. io, No. 32 : “ But if
his majesty should lay a double imposition upon the
Venetian only, intending thereby to help the trade of
his own subjects, let it be considered what the sequel
thereof might be : first, the commodity, viz., the cur-
rants, is a native commodity of the Venetians, growing
in their own dominions. And although for the good
of their own state they have laid an imposition there-
upon, yet have they no otherwise dealt with his majesty’s
subjects than with all other strangers. If therefore
his majesty shall single out them, above all other nations,
to pay a greater rate for their own native commodities
which they shall bring hither in trade of merchandize,
than other merchants do, it will teach them (which are
apt enough) to take occasion to redouble the same im-
position upon English merchants, and give all other
strangers leave to trade the same at better rate, by
which means the English merchants shall be sure to
be utterly worn out of the trade—where they are now
as able to trade as any other nation.”