ABSTRACT
By the beginning of the seventeenth century, shipments of wool, woolfells and leather were sufficiently small for them to be safely ignored in any calculation of broad general trends. The most prominent feature of London's trade in the first half of the seventeenth century was the expansion in the export of what were known to contemporaries as 'the new draperies', fabrics made of combed, long-staple wool and characterized by their light weight and their wide range of patterns. The economic penetration of the central and eastern Mediterranean by London merchants provides the major theme of the Venetian State Papers. The change in the pattern of London's overseas trade was reflected in the decline in the relative prestige and importance of the Merchant Adventurers and the rise in those of the Levant Company. London capital found its way into the African slave trade and into the commerce of the Caribbean.
