Although there is undoubtedly much exaggeration in the comparative statement of the Dutch and English commerce and shipping in the details, yet it is a curious and interesting document, as exhibiting a general view of them.  Indeed, through the whole of the seventeenth century, the most celebrated and best informed writers on the commerce of England dwell strongly on the superior trade of the Dutch, and on their being able, by the superior advantages they enjoyed from greater capital, industry, and perseverance, aided by the greater encouragement they gave to foreigners as well as their own people, to supply the greatest part of Europe with all their wants, though their own country was small and unfertile.  A similar comparative statement to that of Raleigh is given by Child in 1655; he asserts that in the preceding year the Dutch had twenty-two sail of great ships in the Russia trade,—­England but one:  that in the Greenland whale fishery, Holland and Hamburgh had annually 400 or 500 sail,—­and England but one last year:  that the Dutch have a great trade for salt to France and Portugal, with which they salt fish caught on our coasts; that in the Baltic trade, the English have fallen off, and the Dutch increased tenfold.  England has no share in the trade to China and Japan:  the Dutch a great trade to both countries.  A great part of the plate trade from Cadiz has passed from England to Holland.  They have even bereaved us of the trade to Scotland and Ireland.  He concludes with pointing out some advantages England possesses over Holland:  In the Turkey, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese trades, we have the natural advantage of our wool:—­our provisions and fuel, in country places, are cheaper than with the Dutch;—­our native commodities of lead and tin are great advantages:—­of these, he says, as well as of our manufactures, we ship off one-third more than we did twenty years ago; and he adds, that we have now more than double the number of merchants and shipping that we had twenty years ago.  He mentions a circumstance, which seems to indicate a retrograde motion of commerce, viz., that when he wrote most payments were in ready money; whereas, formerly, there were credit payments at three, six, nine, twelve, and even eighteen months.  From another part of his work, it appears that the tax-money was brought up in waggons from the country.

The gradual advancement of a nation in knowledge and civilization, which is in part the result of commerce, is also in part the cause of it.  But besides this advancement, in which England participated with the rest of Europe, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there were other circumstances peculiar to this country, some of which were favourable, and others unfavourable to the increase of its commerce.