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The navy which the queen left at her decease appears considerable, when we reflect only on the number of vessels, which were forty-two: but when we consider that none of these ships carried above forty guns; that four only came up to that number; that there were but two ships of a thousand tons; and twenty-three below five hundred, some of fifty, and some even of twenty tons; and that the whole number of guns belonging to the fleet was seven hundred and seventy four;[v*] we must entertain a contemptible idea of the English navy, compared to the force which it has now attained.[*] In the year 1588, there were not above five vessels fitted out by the noblemen and seaports, which exceeded two hundred tons.[v**] 40

* Lives of the Admirals, vol. i. p. 470.

** Camden, p. 388.

*** Monson, p. 256.

**** Monson, p. 300.

v Monson, p. 210, 256.

v* Monson, p. 196. The English navy at present carries about
fourteen thousand guns.

v** See note NN, at the end of the volume.
Monson, p. 300. Spaniards; and the queen equipped a
fleet and levied an army in a fortnight to oppose them.
Nothing gave foreigners a higher idea of the power of
England than this sudden armament.

In the year 1575, all the militia in the kingdom were computed at a hundred and eighty-two thousand nine hundred and twenty-nine.[*] A distribution was made, in the year 1595, of a hundred and forty thousand men, besides those which Wales could supply.[**] These armies were formidable by their numbers; but their discipline and experience were not proportionate. Small bodies from Dunkirk and Newport frequently ran over and plundered the east coast: so unfit was the militia, as it was then constituted, for the defence of the kingdom. The lord lieutenants were first appointed to the counties in this reign.

Mr. Murden[***] has published, from the Salisbury collections, a paper which contains the military force of the nation at the time of the Spanish armada, and which is somewhat different from the account given by our ordinary historians. It makes all the able-bodied men of the kingdom amount to a hundred and eleven thousand five hundred and thirteen; those armed, to eighty thousand eight hundred and seventy-five; of whom forty-four thousand seven hundred and twenty-seven were trained. It must be supposed that these able-bodied men consisted of such only as were registered, otherwise the small number is not to be accounted for. Yet Sir Edward Coke[****] said, in the house of commons, that he was employed about the same time, together with Popham, chief justice, to take a survey of all the people of England, and that they found them to be nine hundred thousand of all sorts. This number, by the ordinary rules of computation, supposes that there were above two hundred thousand men able to bear arms. Yet even this number is surprisingly small. Can we suppose that the kingdom is six or seven times more populous at present? and that Murden’s was the real number of men, excluding Catholics, and children, and infirm persons?

* Lives of the Admirals, vol. i. p. 432.

** Strype, vol. iv. p. 221

*** Page 608.

**** Journ. 25 April 1621.

Harrison says, that in the musters taken in the years 1574 and 1575, the men fit for service amounted to one million one hundred and seventy-two thousand six hundred and seventy-four; yet was it believed that a full third was omitted. Such uncertainty and contradiction are there in all these accounts.

Notwithstanding the greatness of this number, the same author complains much of the decay of populousness; a vulgar complaint in all places and all ages. Guicciardini makes the inhabitants of England in this reign amount to two millions.

Whatever opinion we may form of the comparative populousness of England in different periods, it must be allowed that, abstracting from the national debt, there is a prodigious increase of power in that, more perhaps than in any other European state, since the beginning of the last century. It would be no paradox to affirm, that Ireland alone could, at present, exert a greater force than all the three kingdoms were capable of at the death of Queen Elizabeth. And we might go further, and assert, that one good county in England is able to make, at least to support, a greater effort than the whole kingdom was capable of in the reign of Henry V.; when the maintenance of a garrison in a small town like Calais, formed more than a third of the ordinary national expense. Such are the effects of liberty, industry, and good government!

The state of the English manufactures was at this time very low; and foreign wares of almost all kinds had the preference.[*] About the year 1590, there were in London four persons only rated in the subsidy books so high as four hundred pounds.[**] This computation is not indeed to be deemed an exact estimate of their wealth. In 1567, there were found, on inquiry, to be four thousand eight hundred and fifty-one strangers of all nations in London; of whom three thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight were Flemings, and only fifty-eight Scots.[***] The persecutions in France and the Low Countries drove afterwards a greater number of foreigners into England; and the commerce, as well as manufactures of that kingdom, was very much improved by them.[****] It was then that Sir Thomas Gresham built, at his own charge, the magnificent fabric of the Exchange for the reception of the merchants: the queen visited it, and gave it the appellation of the Royal Exchange.

* D’Ewes, p. 505.

** D’Ewes, p. 497.

*** Haynes, p. 461, 462.

**** Stowe, p. 668.

By a lucky accident in language, which has a great effect on men’s ideas, the invidious word usury which formerly meant the taking of any interest for money, came now to express only the taking of exorbitant and illegal interest. An act passed in 1571 violently condemns all usury; but permits ten per cent, interest to be paid. Henry IV. of France reduced Interest to six and a half per cent.; an indication of the great advance of France above England in commerce.

Dr. Howell says,[*] that Queen Elizabeth, in the third of her reign, was presented with a pair of black silk knit stockings by her silk-woman, and never wore cloth hose any more. The author of the Present State of England, says, that about 1577, pocket watches were first brought into England from Germany. They are thought to have been invented at Nurem berg. About 1580, the use of coaches was introduced by the earl of Arundel.[**] Before that time, the queen, on public occasions, rode behind her chamberlain.

Camden says, that in 1581, Randolph, so much employed by the queen in foreign embassies, possessed the office of postmaster-general of England. It appears, therefore, that posts were then established; though from Charles I.‘s regulations in 1635, it would seem that few post-houses were erected before that time.

In a remonstrance of the Hanse Towns to the diet of the empire, in 1582, it is affirmed that England exported annually about two hundred thousand pieces of cloth.[***] This number seems to be much exaggerated.

In the fifth of this reign was enacted the first law for the relief of the poor.

A judicious author of that age confirms the vulgar observation, that the kingdom was depopulating, from the increase of enclosures and decay of tillage; and he ascribes the reason very justly to the restraints put oh the exportation of corn; while full liberty was allowed to export all the produce of pasturage, such as wool, hides, leather, tallow, etc. These prohibitions of exportation were derived from the prerogative, and were very injudicious. The queen once, on the commencement of her reign, had tried a contrary practice, and with good success. From the same author we learn, that the complaints renewed in our time were then very common, concerning the high prices of every thing.[****]