XVIII GROWTH OF TRADE FROM THE SEVENTEENTH TO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY N the seventeenth century Britain worked as she had never worked before, and pushed her trade toward every point of the compass. She increased the efficiency of her strong and growing East India Company, and ooked to her Eastland and Muscovy and her Turkey and Levant Companies trading in the Near East as enterprises of great importance. Of the Turkey Company Lewis Roberts wrote in 1638: "Not yearly but monthly, nay, almost weekly, their ships are observed to go to and fro, exporting hence the cloths of Suffolk, Gloucester, Worcester and Coventry, dyed and dressed, kerseys of Hampshire and Yorkshire, lead, tin, and a great quantity of Indian spices, indigo and calicoes; and in return thereof they import from Turkey the raw silks of Persia, Damascus and Tripoli; cottons and cotton yarn of Cyprus and Smyrna, and sometimes the gems of India, the drugs of Egypt and Arabia, the muscatels of Candia, and the currants and oils of Zante Cephalonia and Morea." Other merchant-adventurers, acting independently, traded nearer home in such centres as Hamburg, Rotterdam, Antwerp and Bruges. They shipped their cloths and bought in return such merchandise as crockery and soap. We are fortunate in being able to reproduce a remarkably fine portrait of Henry Voguell, an eminent merchant of Nicholas Lane, Lombard Street, noted for many acts of generosity and kindness, who traded chiefly with Hamburg, and died in Bremen in 1746 aged 65. The portrait of this most distinguished looking man, by a French artist, Pesne, was twice engraved, in mezzotint by Faber and in line by G. F. Schmidt. A noteworthy feature of it is the view of the Tower of London in the right-hand background. Perhaps here we may also be allowed to refer to a later portrait, this time of a notable grocer and tea-dealer, Robert Orchard, whose shop, No. 34 Greek Street, Soho, is still standing, and was until recent years still a grocery, while he had another establishment at Sawbridgeworth in Hertfordshire. Orchard, who was also the publisher of the mezzotint (in 1803), declares himself in the inscription to be the manufacturer of Chocolate and Cocoa on a new and improved Principle, Wholesale, Retail and for Exportation. He is said to have been a scion of the Orchard family, after whom Orchard Street is named, and, as shown in the print, he bore the same canting arms, on a field azure, a chevron argent between three pears proper. But this is a digression. Other merchants again sent England's products into Italy and brought back velvets, damasks and other things which Italy had to offer, while already the new colonies across the Atlantic were stretching out their arms toward the Mother Country and tempting the plucky merchants to come to them and trade. Of these colonies Virginia was the oldest and tobacco her greatest product, while Maryland, situated just north of Virginia, was second only to her in importance in this respect. The importation of tobacco, however, met with considerable opposition in England. James I. requested the colonies to breed silkworms and establish silk works, silk being "a rich and solid commodity preferable to tobacco"; and in 1631 Charles I., becoming more peremptory, ordered |