ABSTRACT
The Company appeared to have prospered 1 and so stirred up jealousy in mercantile circles. At least one petition is extant 2 wherein it is shown that the Company is not altogether an unmixed blessing. “The profit they reap and take is grown so great that they are jealous of it and refuse to licence any one to import small fruit called currants or raisins of Corinth at less than £5 a ton.” But more than that. One reason, so the petition proceeds, that moved the Queen to grant a charter to the company was the intolerable impost on Englishmen and English ships which the Venetians levied. But the English merchants, says the petition, know how to avoid the Venetian imposts. For they bring goods into Venice from the islands where they buy them, and then ship the goods from Venice to England. Accordingly, since one of the chief causes for a charter exists no longer, the charter ought to be withdrawn, and it is this that the petitioners ask for, more especially as the continuance of the charter means a great loss to the customs. For strangers pay double customs, and if strangers were allowed to import Levant goods, the customs on currants alone would be £1,900. 3 Nor was it overlooked that these goods tended to become a monopoly in the hands of the Company. “The engrossing of this traffic into these few men’s hands increases the price of these kinds of wines, raisins and commodities, the benefit whereof goeth but to a few.” 4
