upon as the head of the League:  in it the assemblies met, and the archives were preserved.  Inland commerce, the protection of which had given rise to the League, was still attended to; but the maritime commerce of the Baltic, as affording greater facilities and wealth, was that with which the League chiefly occupied itself.  The confederated cities were the medium of exchange between the productions of Germany, Flanders, France, and Spain; and the timber, metals, fish, furs, &c. of the countries on this sea.

The conquest and conversion of the pagan countries between the Vistula and the Gulf of Finland, by the Teutonic knights, was favourable to the commercial views of the confederated cities; for the conquerors obliged the natives to confine their attention and labour exclusively to agriculture, permitting Germans alone to carry on commerce, and engage in trade.  Hence Germans emigrated to these countries; and the League, always quicksighted to their own interests, soon connected themselves with the new settlers, and formed commercial alliances, which were recognized and protected by the Teutonic knights.  Elbing, Dantzic, Revel, and Riga, were thus added to the League—­cities, which, from their situation, were admirably calculated to obtain and forward the produce of the interior parts of Poland and Russia.

The northern countries of the Baltic shore, in a great measure inattentive to commerce, and distracted by wars, were supplied by the League with money, on condition that they should assign to them the sources of wealth which their mines supplied, and moreover grant them commercial privileges, immunities, and establishments.  Lubeck was chiefly benefited and enriched by the treaties thus formed; for she obtained the working of the mines of Sweden and Norway, which do not seem to have been known, and were certainly not productively and effectively worked before this time.  The League also obtained, by various means, the exclusive herring fishery of the Sound, which became a source of so much wealth, that the “fishermen were superintended, during the season, with as much jealousy as if they had been employed in a diamond mine.”

Towards the close of the thirteenth century, the king of Norway permitted the League to establish a factory and the staple of their northern trade at Bergen.  A singular establishment seems soon to have been formed here:  at first the merchants of the League were permitted to trade to Bergen only in the summer months; but they afterwards were allowed to reside here permanently, and they formed twenty-one large factories, all the members of which were unmarried, and lived together in messes within their factories.  Each factory was capable of accommodating about one hundred merchants, with their servants.  Their importations consisted of flax, corn, biscuit, flour, malt, ale, cloth, wine, spirituous liquors, copper, silver, &c.; and they exported ship-timber, masts, furs, butter, salmon, dried cod, fish-oil, &c.