History, Wonder Tales, Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends The Flemish | Page 152

When Elizabeth borrowed to avoid summoning Parliament, she borrowed not only
from native merchants, but from the numerous and wealthy Dutch merchants living in
London, whose enjoyment both of the ‘Intercourse’, or favourable conditions of trade
established by an old treaty with the Netherlands, and of freedom of conscience,
seemed to give the Queen a right to demand loans of substantial amount and without
interest. This she declared to be the more justifiable, since the produce of these loans
would go in good part to the expenses of her troops in the Netherlands. In 1600 a list
of 114 Dutch merchants was drawn up from whom the loan of sums from £2,000
downward could be expected. The Goldsmiths also lent her money. Some of them
were English, while others were resident aliens who were getting ever more and more
control of this business. In 1622 the Goldsmiths' Company complained that there were
no fewer than 184 aliens engaged in their business of banking. One of these merchant
strangers, Gerard Malynes, who wrote many pamphlets on financial subjects, has
given us a full description of the methods of continental bankers before 1600, and
even if the system was not so fully developed in London at the time, there is reason to
believe that it did not lag far behind. After the failure of Alva's administration Antwerp
declined rapidly and London came to be more and more an important monetary and
trading centre. At this time Erasmus Vanderpere brought out a proposal for the
establishment of a bank of money in London.
During the early years of Elizabeth's reign there was a great recoinage of the debased
silver, and the chief refiner employed was Daniel Wolstat of Antwerp, who was
engaged by Sir Thomas Gresham on the understanding that he would receive five per
cent. of the value of the reissued coinage.
Under the Stuarts London was a growing commercial centre which was becoming
once more a resort for merchants from continental towns. There were considerable
opportunities for the remunerative employment of capital, and large sums belonging to
moneyed men in Amsterdam and other Netherland towns were transmitted to England
for investment. It was stated before the Commission on Trade in 1669 that a great part
of the money employed in rebuilding London after the Great Fire was Dutch. A large
part of the capital of the Bank of England came from the same source. These wealthy
Netherlanders not only sent their money, but frequently came to settle themselves
and, judging by the number of applications for naturalization, continued to flourish in
the reigns of James I and Charles I.
The traditional system of taxation had proved inadequate under Charles I, and so the
Parliamentary army and the government of the Commonwealth were financed on new
principles and on methods borrowed from the practice of the Dutch. It was in national
finance that the policy of imitating the Dutch was most observable, and it is at least
tempting to connect this important fact with the existence of a class of wealthy men of
alien extraction who were in close business relations with persons in authority.
Pawn (for the Sc. form pand, first recorded in a non-Eng. context in a Charter of David
I, c. 1145), a pledge, surety; pawn is ad. OF. pan, rarely pand, pant, pledge, security,
apparently the same word as M.Du. pant, pand (Du. pand); O.E.D. says that the Sc.
form pand came in probably from Du., LG., or Flem.
Makrelty (1495), brokerage; a metathetic alteration of M.Du. makelardie, from
makelare, broker.

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