The following calculation of the shipping of Europe in 1690, is given by Sir William Petty.  England, 500,000 tons; the United Provinces, 900,000; France, 100,000; Hamburgh, Denmark, Sweden, Dantzic, 250,000; Spain, Portugal, Italy, 250,000:  total 2,000,000.  But that this calculation is exceeding loose, so far as regards England at least, is evident from the returns made to circular letters of the commissioners of customs:  according to these returns, there belonged to all the ports of England, in January 1701-2., 3281 vessels, measuring 261,222 tons, and carrying 27,196 men, and 5660 guns.  As we wish to be minute and enter into detail, while our commerce and shipping were yet in their infancy, in order to mark more decidedly its progress, we shall subjoin the particulars of this return.

Ports.  Vessels.  Tons.  Men.

London 560 84,882 10,065
Bristol 165 17,338 2,359
Yarmouth 143 9,914 668
Exeter 121 7,107 978
Hull 115 7,564 187
Whitby 110 8,292 571
Liverpool 102 8,619 1,101
Scarborough 100 6,860 606

None of the other ports had 100 vessels:  Newcastle had sixty-three, measuring 11,000 tons; and Ipswich thirty-nine, measuring 11,170; but there certainly is some mistake in these two instances, either in the number of the ships, or the tonnage.  The small number of men employed at Hull arose from eighty of their ships being at that time laid up.

III.  During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the great rivals of the English in their commerce were the Dutch:  they had preceded the English to most countries; and, even where the latter had preceded them, they soon insinuated themselves and became formidable rivals:  this was the case particularly with respect to the trade to Archangel.  Some curious and interesting particulars of this rivalry are given by Sir Walter Raleigh, in his Observations concerning the Trade and Commerce of England with the Dutch and other foreign Nations, which he had laid before King James.  In this work he maintains that the Dutch have the advantage over the English by reason of the privileges they gave to foreigners, by making their country the storehouse of all foreign commodities; by the lowness of their customs; by the structure of their ships, which hold more, and require fewer hands than the English; and by their fishery.  He contends that England is better situated for a general storehouse for the rest of Europe than Holland:  yet no sooner does a dearth of corn, wine, fish, &c. happen in England, than forthwith the Hollanders, Embedners, or Humburghers, load 50 or 100 ships, and bring their articles to England.  Amsterdam, he observes, is never without 700,000 quarters of corn, none of it the growth of