Sir Thomas Smythe
(1560-1625)

The richest and most influential London merchant in the reign of James I.—richer, and by reason of the nature of his trade, more influential than Sir William Herrick—was Sir Thomas Smythe. His father, also a Thomas Smythe, was an enterprising and prosperous trader, contemporary with Sir Thomas Gresham, in the days of Queen Elizabeth. To a trade very similar to Gresham*s he added the lucrative business of Customer to the Queen; that is, he undertook to collect all the duties upon goods brought into London, or exported thence to foreign parts. Queen Elizabeth's "customers," however, were very different from modern custom-house officers. They chose their own way of levying the duties, and made their profit out of so much as they could collect over and above a fixed sum which they paid every year to the Crown. Old Thomas Smythe's annual payment was £14,000; and we may be sure that the surplus which fell to his share was considerable, probably more than another sum of £14,000.

His son succeeded him in the office of Customer, apparently in 1590. But the foreign trade of England had by that time so increased, that instead of paying £14,000 a year, as his father had done, he was able to pay just thrice as much, or £42,000; and that amount was raised, a few years afterwards, to £50,000 a year. Yet he made a handsome profit, which helped him to share in other profitable undertakings.

Of the private life of Thomas Smythe, the son, we know very little. He was born about 1560, and was a member of the Skinners' Guild. He must have been nearly forty when, in 1600, he began to take a leading share in the management of the great East India Company.

Nearly twenty years before there had been talk of sending English ships to India, there to compete with the Portuguese and Spaniards in the prosperous trade which they had been carrying on for some time past. Great vessels, known as carracks, had gone out, two or three or more together, every year, for the purpose of buying the spices and other costly commodities, or of seizing them by force of arms, and thus great wealth had come to Portugal and Spain. The English merchants coveted a share of this wealth, and, during the war between England and Spain, they had occasionally possessed some of it by waylaying the carracks as they proceeded homewards and capturing their contents. But, until the defeat of the Great Armada and other deeds of prowess proved to all the world that England was more than a match for Spain, they did not dare to enter upon a regular course of trade with India. Sir Edward Osborne and the Turkey Company had procured some East Indian merchandise through the Levant, and had sent Fitch and others to pave the way for an overland commerce. It was reserved for Sir Thomas Smythe and the East India Company to begin the commerce by help of ships, rivalling the Spanish carracks in size and strength, which sailed to India round the Cape of Good Hope.

AN EAST INDIAN CARRACK OF THE 16TH CENTURY.

This was begun in 1591, when three large vessels were despatched to the East. One of them was wrecked on the way; and another was sent home with invalids; but the third, commanded by Captain James Lancaster, reached its destination, and there laid the foundations of future trade. Terrible troubles befell Lancaster and his crew on their homeward voyage. Their ship and most of its people were lost, and the few survivors, rescued by a French vessel, did not reach England till 1594. The report which they brought home concerning the wealth of the East Indies and the prospects of a wonderful trade with them, however, encouraged the London merchants to make preparations for further enterprise in the same direction. In this, as was well, they proceeded cautiously. Six years were spent in deliberations and arrangements. On the 31st of December 1600, a charter was conferred by Queen Elizabeth upon the East India Company, consisting of two hundred and fifteen members, who included some noblemen and courtiers, as well as all the leading merchants of London.

Of this company Thomas Smythe, having been one of the most active in its formation, was appointed governor. Through a curious adventure, however, he was removed from the office in the following April. In the autumn of 1600 he had been made Sheriff of London, and as Sheriff he had had to take account of a strange episode in London history. The famous Earl of Essex, having for many years been the principal favourite of Queen Elizabeth, had in 1599 been made by her Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. He had misused the powers committed to him, had been recalled and thrown into prison as a traitor, and, though soon released, had not succeeded in winning back the favour of the Queen. In despair thereat, he conceived a foolish plan of insurrection in February 1601, one inducement being a pretended message from Sheriff Smythe to the effect, that, if he would come into the city, a thousand trained-band men would be ready to meet him and enable him to seize the Tower, whence he could dictate terms to the Queen.

Accordingly, on the morning of Sunday the 8th of January, the earl, attended by a few crazy friends, and a silly crowd, proceeded from his house in the Strand into the city, and made his way to Smythe's house at the corner of Fenchurch Street There he found none of the trained-band whose support he counted on, and learned that Smythe himself, on hearing of his approach, had given information to the Lord Mayor. He therefore went home disconsolate, to be speedily taken prisoner, brought to trial, and executed for high treason on the 2Sth of February.

There is nothing to show that Sheriff Smythe was in any way an accomplice in this foolish plot. His name appears to have been used for a wicked hoax, intended to tempt the Earl of Essex to his own ruin. But a certain amount of suspicion fell upon him. He was committed to the Tower, and there detained for about five months before the case could be fully investigated and he be honourably acquitted.

In the meanwhile, the young East India Company could not get on without a governor. On the 11th of April it was decided "that the election of another governor be proceeded with, because the company cannot endure the delay and expectation of Thomas Smythe's being discharged from his imprisonment," and Alderman Watts was chosen in his place. As some compensation, it would seem, for the hard uage to which he had been exposed. Queen Elizabeth sent the sheriff on a diplomatic mission to Russia. But his connexion with the East India Company does not seem to have been resumed for more than two years.

In 1603, immediately after the accession of James I., he was summoned to Court, and knighted by the new King. In 1604 he was again appointed Governor of the East India Company, and the appointment was renewed in 1605, and, with a gap of a year, in 1607, when he consented to take off "with the promise that the company expect no further of him at courts or otherwise than his other affairs will permit." He was again chosen in 1608, and in 1609, when he was chiefly instrumental in procuring from King James a new and improved charter for the company. For that service, and for all the services that preceded it, he was gratified with; £500 as a token of his friends' esteem. But in princely way, he objected to take this gift, and at length only consented to receive half the amount "The residue," it is said, "his worship kindly yielded to take." Except during two or three years, when "his other affairs" forced him to decline the honour, he seems to have held the office steadily until his final retirement from commercial life.

During his lifetime, indeed, and whether in actual office or not. Sir Thomas Smythe was the real master of the East India Company. All its members regarded him as their head and champion; all its enemies considered him their great opponent; and all its successes were mainly attributed to his wisdom and energy.

These successes were great. The first expedition was composed of four stout ships, containing nearly five hundred men, which sailed out of Torbay on the 20th of April, under the leadership of Captain Lancaster. He took with him several copies of a letter from Queen Elizabeth, one of which was to be delivered to each of the various kings and potentates whom he might visit in the East. Therein the Queen represented that, God having ordained that no place should enjoy all the things appertaining to man's use, but that one country should have need of another, and that thus there should be commerce and interchange of friendship between the people of remote districts, she had sent out these her subjects, to visit the territories of the East, and to offer trade according to the usage of merchants. She promised that they should behave honourably, and therefore asked that they might be kindly entertained, and be allowed, both to buy and sell in the various countries and to learn the languages and follow the fashions of each.

The incidents of this first expedition of the great East India Company are curious. Lancaster sailed easily, though very slowly as compared with modern rates of travelling, down to the Equator. There he was becalmed for some weeks, and the crew would have been short of provisions had they not, on the 21st of June, fallen in with a Portuguese carrack, which was soon captured and despoiled of a goodly store of wine, oil, and meal. Much sickness befell them as they slowly sailed towards the Cape, and they were obliged to put in at Saldanha Bay early in August. There Lancaster built huts for the sick, and conversed with the people in "the cattle's tongue, which," he says, "was never changed at the confusion of Babel;" that is, he shouted "moo" and "baa," to show that he wanted to buy cows and sheep. Keeping on good terms with the Caffres, he procured more than a thousand sheep and about fifty oxen, a piece of iron six inches long being the price paid for each of the former, and one eight inches long for each of the latter. The Caffres were anxious to sell him land as well, and to induce him to settle among them; but two months' careful management served to restore the sick men to health, and, on the 29th of October, he put to sea again.

The Cape of Good Hope was doubled on the 1st of November, and the stormy seas to the east of it were traversed without damage. Fresh sickness among the crews made necessary another and longer delay, apparently on the coast of Madagascar. Thence they sailed across the Indian Ocean, leaving India considerably to the north. Halting at an island near Sumatra, they saw what they supposed to be a religious service of the natives, in which the priests, wearing horns and tails like devils, appeared to be worshipping the prince of the devils. They also reported that they saw a wonderful tree, growing from a worm which gradually dies as the tree grows, the branches of the tree itself, when cut off and dried, being turned into white coral!

Sumatra was reached on the 2nd of June 1602, more than thirteen months after the departure from England. Lancaster was generously received by the king of the island, who sent a guard of honour, including six elephants, to conduct him to court. He presented Queen Elizabeth's letter and presents of looking-glasses and other articles, and was entertained at a feast, in which all the dishes used were of gold and other costly metal. After that he bought a good deal of pepper, cinnamon, and cloves, the chief produce of the island. Then he passed on to Bantam, and formed an alliance with its king, and exchanged English goods for the pepper and spices of the natives. Some of these natives proved thievish, but Lancaster was authorised to kill any one he might find about his house at night-time, and, it is said, "after thus killing four or five, they lived in peace."

At Bantam the ships were loaded with the commodities they were sent out to buy, and Lancaster, having made treaties with the people of two large islands of the East Indies, started on his homeward voyage on the 20th of February. This was attended with considerable trouble, though hardly greater than was usual to the unwieldy vessels of those times. A furious storm did damage, near to Sumatra, which could never be repaired; and two months afterwards, when they were near the Cape of Good Hope, Lancaster's own ship was nearly wrecked by another storm that caused much delay, as they had to push slowly on to St Helena before the injuries could be repaired. They entered the English Channel, having been absent nearly two years and a half, on the nth of September 1603, bringing home a rich store of wealth for their employers, including a ruby ring and two dresses embroidered with gold, and placed in a box of purple china, as a present from the king of Sumatra to Queen Elizabeth, who had died in the interval.

That first voyage may be taken as an illustration of the character of all the early expeditions of the East India Company. These expeditions followed one another in quick succession; in each some fresh part of the East Indies was visited and brought into commercial relations with England; and, in spite of occasional shipwrecks and other misfortunes, nearly all the expeditions were very profitable. Brave sailors laid the small foundations of the vast trade that has subsequently been established; and Sir Thomas Smythe and his fellow-merchants put their wits to good use in devising ways and means for promoting the great work.

At first the East India Company, hardly a company at all, according to the modern acceptation of the word, was little more than a gathering of independent traders, who speculated as much or as little as they chose on each separate voyage, and only clubbed to together, under the direction of managers chosen from themselves, in order that the expeditions might be large enough, and sufficiently protected, to be conducted safely and with profit. A step in advance of this was made in May 1609, when, chiefly through Sir Thomas Smythe's influence, in lieu of the privileges conferred by Queen Elizabeth, a new charter was obtained from James I., conferring upon the company "the whole entire and only trade and traffic to the East Indies" forever and a day, no one being allowed to have any share in that branch of commerce without licence from the company, and all the members being bound by oath "to be good and true to the King, and faithful and assistant to the company, having no singular regard to themselves in hurt or prejudice of the said fellowship."

Encouraged by this, the company resolved on a larger enterprise than had yet been undertaken. At its first public dinner, suggested by a present of a brace of bucks from the Earl of Southampton, "to make merry withal," as he said, "in regard of their kindness in accepting him of their company," and given at Sir Thomas Smythe's great house in Philpot Lane, it was resolved that two new ships should be built of a sort specially adapted for the business, and they were ready in less than six months.

The larger of the two was the largest Eng English merchant ship yet built, its burthen being, according to different accounts, either ten, eleven, or twelve hundred pounds. It was launched at Deptford on the 39th of December, in the presence of James I., Queen Anne, and the young Prince Henry, the amiable heir to the throne who died before his father. After inspecting the fine vessel, the royal family were royally banqueted in the chief cabin, while the courtiers were entertained at a long table on the half-deck, "plentifully served with delicacies served in fine china dishes"—among the rarest and most prized of the company's importations—"all which were freely permitted to be carried away by all persons." The feast being over, the great ship was launched. King James christened her by the name of The Traders Increase and, while the salutes were being fired, says an eyewitness, "graced Sir Thomas Smythe with a chain, in manner of a collar, worth better than £200, with his picture hanging at it, and put it about his neck with his own hands."

That done, and £2,000 having been expended in cargoes and shipping expenses, the big ship, attended by two smaller ones, set out in March 1610, under the command of Sir Henry Middleton, who, after Sir James Lancaster, was the first great naval commander of the East India Company's fleets. Hitherto the expeditions tions had been to Sumatra and the other great islands lying north-east of the Indian continent. Middleton was now instructed to find his chief business in trading with the people on the coasts of the Red Sea, in Arabia, along the Persian Gulf, and on the north-western part of India itself.

A prosperous voyage was made round the Cape, and up the eastern coast of Africa, as far as Mocha, which Middleton reached early in November. Great show of friendship came from the governor of the Arabian town, and the only difficulty which the English felt was in the want of a table on which to exhibit the cloths and other commodities that they had brought for sale, until Middleton had been enticed to take up his residence in Mocha, and bring with him a quantity of his most valuable goods. No sooner was he on shore, however, than his deputies on shipboard began to misconduct themselves, and give some excuse for the rough conduct that the natives had been treacherously contriving. "One grief on the neck of another," wrote Middleton, "makes a burden of my life, and therefore makes me write I scarce know what" He and fifty-one companions who were with him had plenty of time for writing during the six months, from November 1610 to May 1611, of their captivity among the Moslems. One of the number, William Pemberton, managed to run away, "having taken a surfeit of captivity under these heathen tyrants," as he said. Wandering about on the shore, he found an old canoe, tied his shirt to a pole by help of his garters, and so, between paddling and sailing, made his way to the ship, half dead from toil and wet and want of food. Several times he wrote to his master, urging him to procure some native clothing, cut off his hair, besmear his face, and steal out of the town with a burden on his back. If he would do that, said Pemberton, they would bring a boat and rescue him. But Middleton did not like the trick, especially as it would have left his comrades in the lurch. He would neither listen to Pemberton's assurance that "in this heathenish and barbarous place they were void of all gentle kind of humanity," and therefore must be met by subterfuge, nor consent to the proposal of his chief deputy, Captain Downton, that the English should make a forcible entry into Mocha, and so set him free. At last, however, he adopted both expedients. He made his escape, and, partly by threatening to attack the town, partly by promising that neither he nor any other Englishman should in future visit those parts, he then succeeded in procuring the release of his companions.

These troubles caused to the English, besides the deaths, by actual murder or cruel captivity, of several good men, a loss of £26,000, and a waste of eleven months' time. Then came a tide of better fortune. Quitting the Red Sea, Middleton made for Surat, and, reaching it in October, found a Portuguese squadron of twenty armed vessels stationed at the mouth of the river, on purpose to prevent the landing of any rival traders. The Portuguese admiral sent to say that, if the English had authority from their sovereign, they might enter; otherwise, the sooner they went away the better would be their chance of life. Sir Henry answered that he bore credentials from the King of England to the great Mogul, whose territory was free to all people, and who owed no vassalage to the Portuguese; that he meant no harm to the merchants of other nations, but that he certainly intended to maintain the rights of his own. For a time he did his best to carry on a peaceful traffic with the natives; but finding himself thwarted therein, he boldly set his three vessels to attack the enemy's twenty. He had such success that one of the Portuguese ships was sunk, another fell into his hands with a rich store of Indian goods, and the others were put to flight. The coast being thus clear, he proceeded to make a treaty with the natives, and to buy from them all the useful commodities that he could find in the place.

Good fortune, however, was not to remain with the ill-named Trades Increase or her commander. Meeting some other ships sent out from England by the East India Company, Middleton returned to Mocha, and in excusable violation of his promise to its treacherous governor and people, set himself to punish them for the cruelties to which he and his men had been subjected a year before. Then he re-crossed the Indian Ocean, with a view of finishing his trading exploits at Bantam. That he did, though far otherwise than he intended. The Trades Increase struck on a rock during the voyage, and was hardly able to reach its destination, and the two smaller vessels were considerably the worse for two years' tossing about. One of them was sent to England in the spring of 1613, while Middleton and the rest took up their residence in what is called "his little new-built village of PuUopenjaun," not far from Bantam. "He that escapes disease," Downton had written, "from that stinking stew of the Chinese part of Bantam must be of a strong constitution of body." Middleton's men died, one by one, and he himself sank under a sickness that had been oppressing him for months, somewhere near the end of 1613. Shortly before that, the Trades Increase which he had been waiting to repair with material from England, had been beaten to pieces by the waves,—"which is a great pity," said a gossiping letter-writer of the time, "being the goodliest ship of England, and never made voyage before."

Far better would it have been, however, for a score of such goodly ships to have been wasted, than that England and the East India Company should lose, in the prime of life, a man so valiant and skilful as Sir Henry Middleton, "the thrice-worthy general," as he was termed by a contemporary statesman, "who laid the foundation of our long-desired Cambaya trade."

Yet the Cambaya, or Indian, trade continued to thrive famously. A good beginning had been made in several parts of the East Indies. Sir Thomas Smythe tried hard to extend it to a quarter which is only now commencing to be open to English commerce. His coadjutor in this was William Adams, famous as the first Englishman who went to Japan. Adams accompanied a Dutch expedition as pilot-major in 1598. After two years of wonderful adventure on the sea, he reached Japan in 1600. He was favoured by its emperor, for whom he built ships, and to whom he gave instruction in mathematics and other branches of European knowledge.

In 1611 Adams wrote a letter to his "unknown friends and countrymen." which found its way to Sir Thomas Smythe, as Governor of the East India Company, who, in 1612, wrote to Adams, offering to send ships to trade with Japan. Adams answered, that in Japan Englishmen would be "as welcome and free as in the river of London," and that they would find immense profit from trading thither. In the same letter he thanked Sir Thomas Smythe "for lending his wife; £20." Dealings with Japan were accordingly attempted; but the arrogance of the English gave offence to the haughty Japanese, and they were banished from the island.

In the East Indies proper, however, there was no such mischance. Great success attended the company's enterprises, the merit of which must be partly assigned to Sir Thomas Smythe. Nothing seems to have been done without his advice, and that advice appears to have been wonderfully sensible and comprehensive. He was consulted as to the things to be bought, and the things to be sold, the men to be admitted into the company as traders, and the men to be employed as agents; and in the character and conduct of these agents, he took a fatherly interest.

In February 1614, for instance, we find him assembling all the company's factors, then in London, and about to proceed to the East, and exhorting them conscientiously to discharge their duties. He besought them to avoid the example of some tyrannical and self-seeking persons who had lately been in India, and urged them "to be the more respective, and shun all sin and evil behaviour, that the heathen might take no advantage to blaspheme our religion by the abuses and ungodly behaviour of our men." He begged them to abstain from all frauds upon the natives, or anything that could damage the company, "by making the people hate and detest us before we be settled amongst them," and assured them of the company's desire to furnish them with everything needful to their spiritual comfort and the health of their bodies, " also books of divinity for the soul, and history to instruct the mind."

Not content with establishing trading relations with the people of the East Indian islands and the coast towns or the mainland of India, Sir Thomas Smythe determined to make a formal treaty with the great Mogul. With that view he sent one William Edwardes on a diplomatic mission to Persia in 1614. Edwardes took with him a curious token of the great merchant's favour.

"I presented the Mogul with your worship's picture," he wrote, "which he esteemed so well for the workmanship, that the day after, he sent for all his painters in public to see the same, who did admire it, and confessed that none of them could anything near imitate it, which makes him prize it above all the rest, and esteem it for a jewel."

FIRST EAST INDIA HOUSE.

Edwardes so far succeeded with the great Mogul, that Sir Thomas Smythe induced King James to send a famous ambassador to the great Mogul, in the person of Sir Thomas Roe, "he being a gentleman of pregnant understanding, well-spoken, learned, industrious, of comely personage, and one of whom there were great hopes that he might work much good for the company." Sir Thomas Roe did work much good. He formed an alliance with the great Mohammedan emperor of the East, one of the race of mighty potentates who ruled all the north of India, and the vast districts on the other side of the Himalayas, and thus surely laid the foundations of that intercourse between England and India which was to end after two centuries of trading and fighting, in India becoming the property of England.

For all this, not a little of the praise belongs to Sir Thomas Smythe. To the end of his life he was the great champion and promoter of the East India Company's interests, his house in Philpot Lane being the chief office of the association, until it was powerful enough, after his death, to set up the quaint East India House in Leadenhall Street, which was its place of business until 1726, when a new building was erected, to be itself replaced in 1799 7 the more imposing structure which was pulled down in 1862, when the government of India passed from the East India Company to the English Crown.

The success of the company had a wonderful effect on English trade, causing all sorts of new commodities to be brought into English use, and provoking much jealousy in other trades and trading companies, which fancied that thus their own callings were being injured. The jealousy was uttered in sober treatises, as well as in such street ballads as this:—

"Our ladies all were set a-gadding; After these toys they ran a-madding; And nothing then would please their fancies, Nor dolls, nor Joans, nor lovely Nancies, Unless it was of India's making; And if 'twas so, 'twas wondrous taking. "Tell 'em the following of such fashion Would beggar and undo the nation, And ruin all our neighbouring poor, That must, or starve, or beg at door. They 'd not all regard your story, But in their painted garments glory."

Among all the rest of his work Sir Thomas Smythe had at Court, in Parliament, among merchants, and among gentlefolk, to defend the East India Company from such charges, and to prove that, instead of ruining the nation, and reducing the poor to beggary and starvation, it was contributing mightily to the wealth of England, and the well-being of all classes of its people. To the last he worked zealously for the company, and interested himself in little things as well as great. In 1618 occurred a curious illustration of the way in which he made good use of his position. Two boys having stolen a hat worth six shillings, were, according to the barbarous law of that time, sentenced to be hanged for their offence. The chief culprit was accordingly executed. His accomplice was pardoned at Sir Thomas Smythe's intercession, and on his promise to put him in the way of reformation by sending him to India; and this he did.

In taking the lead in the wonderful trading movement from which our vast Indian empire has been developed, however. Sir Thomas Smythe only did part of the work for which posterity must honour him as almost the greatest of all the great merchant princes who have done so much for the prosperity of England. He also took the lead, under James I., in another wonderful trading movement, out of which the establishment of our North American and West Indian colonies, and of the stupendous empire of the United States has resulted.

This movement had been begun in Queen Elizabeth's reign. Before India was thought of as a resort of English commerce, efforts had been made by Englishmen to plant trade and government in America. Sir Humphrey Gilbert had died in nobly trying, though without success, to found a colony in Newfoundland; and Sir Walter Raleigh had spent many years in attempting to build up his colony of Virginia, in the district now known as North Carolina.

Raleigh's project, in his own hands, led only to the loss of many lives and of much money. But in 1606 it was taken up by others, who sent out a small party of adventurers under Captain Newport. Of these adventurers the most notable was a John Smith, who had proved his wild valour and endless resource in previous fighting with the Turks. He showed his countrymen how to build and sow and hunt in Virginia. On one occasion, having wandered in a canoe far up the Chichahominy, he was taken prisoner by the Indians, and ordered to execution by their chief, Powhatan. But Powhatan's little daughter, Pocahontas, took a strange fancy to the white man. She threw her arms round his neck, and made it impossible to kill him without first taking her life. Thereby her father s heart was touched. Smith was spared. His quick wit and good-nature soon made the Indians very friendly to him, and in this way the first solid settlement of the English in America was greatly helped.

THE LAST EAST INDIA HOUSE.

It is not known what share Sir Thomas Smythe had in sending out the expedition under Captain Newport; but it must have been considerable, as for the next twelve years he was known as the governor and absolute master of the Virginian colony. His government was by deputy, he himself having more important and more congenial work in following his merchant's calling at home. In 1609, when a new and more extended Virginia Company was formed, he was its treasurer and, guiding spirit. A code of stringent rules—called by his enemies "tyrannical laws"—for the government of the colony was drawn up by him. The money required for sending out, nearly every year, fresh ship-loads of colonists and goods was furnished by him. The articles sent out were chosen by him; and the articles sent home, of which tobacco was chief, were disposed of under his directions. Every Thursday—during part of the twelve years at any rate, and in the few subsequent years in which he continued to live and work—there was a meeting at his house in Philpot Lane, to consider the progress of events, and to decide upon any fresh action that had to be taken.

Concerning his management of Virginia and its affairs, great complaints were made by some of the colonists and their friends at home. For some years an endless series of quarrels were referred to King James and his Council. A writer of the time said that both Court and City were divided into Guelph and Ghibelline factions respecting Virginia; and it is not easy now to say how far each party was in the right. But all that we know of Sir Thomas Smythe's conduct in other relations shows him to have been wise and generous; and it is clear that, either through him or in spite of him, the first English colony in America throve famously. In 1616 it was reported to be "in great prosperity and peace," likely to become "one of the goodliest and richest kingdoms of the world."

It did become, though not a kingdom, part of the goodliest and richest democratic confederation in the world. Virginia being prosperous, other colonies, destined to become members of the United States, were founded one after another: New England in 1620, Maryland in 1632, New York in 1667, Pennsylvania in 1681, and the others in quick succession. Sir Thomas Smythe was one of the parents of all this prosperity.

His Virginian and East Indian business, however, did not take up all his time and thoughts. When he gave up the employment, which he inherited from his father, as Farmer of the Customs, does not appear. He carried on to the last the general trade with the Continent, which had been his father s chief occupation. In 1617, for instance, we find him joining some other merchants trading with France, in a petition to be allowed to import French playing cards, which had been prohibited through the influence of some of James I.s advisers.

Of Sir Thomas Smythe's many famous contemporaries in the world of commerce, none were more eminent than the brothers Myddelton. Sir Thomas Myddelton, the eldest, was a member of the Grocers' Company, and his younger brother Robert belonged to the Skinners' Guild. Both were influential shareholders in the East India Company. Sir Hugh Myddelton, the most illustrious of the family, a member of the Goldsmiths' Guild, did not concern himself in East Indian trade, but he worked zealously with Smythe in the advancement of commerce with the new colony of Virginia.

Sir Hugh Myddelton was more than a goldsmith and an American merchant His fame chiefly rests upon the engineering skill and indomitable perseverance with which he constructed the New River which still supplies London with most of its water.

"If those," says quaint old Fuller, "be recounted amongst David's worthies who, breaking through the army of the Philistines, fetched water from the well of Bethlehem to satisfy the longing of David—founded more in fancy than necessity— iiow meritorious a work did this worthy man perform who, to quench the thirst of thousands in the populous city of London, fetched water at his own cost more than four-and-twenty miles, encountering all the way an army of opposition, grappling with hills, struggling with rocks, fighting with forests, till, in defiance of difficulties, he had brought his project to perfection."

SIR HUGH MYDDELTON.

That was the nature of the work done by Myddelton between the spring of 1609, when the business was fairly entered upon, and the autumn of 1613, when it was happily completed. On Michaelmas-day the New River was formally opened at Islington by the Lord Mayor and a goodly company of Londoners. A curious picture of the ceremony has been preserved, as well as a precise narrative of its circumstances. A speech in verse was made by one of the company:—

"Long have we laboured, long desired and pray'd. For this great work's perfection; and by th' aid Of heaven and good men's wishes, 'tis at length Happily conquered by cost, wit, and strength. After five years of dear expense in days. Travail and pains, besides the infinite ways Of malice, envy, false suggestions. Able to daunt the spirit of mighty ones In wealth and courage, this, a work so rare. Only by one man's industry, cost, and care, Is brought to blest effect, so much withstood; His only aim, the citys general good. "Then worthy magistrates, to whose content. Next to the State, all this great care was bent. And for the public good which grace requires. Your loves and furtherance chiefly he desires To cherish these proceedings, which may give Courage to some that may hereafter live To practise deeds of goodness and of fame, And gladly light their actions by his name."

Then followed a description of the laoourcrs employed upon the work:—

"First here's the overseer, this tried man An ancient soldier and an artisan; The clerk; next him the mathematician; The master of the timber-work takes place Next after these; the measurer in like case; Bricklayer; and engineer; and after those, The borer; and the pavier; then it shows The labourers next; keeper of Amwell head; The walkers last; so all their names are read. Yet these but parcels of six hundred more, That at one time have been employ'd before; Yet these in sight, and all the rest will say. That every week they had their royal pay I —Now for the fruits then. Flow forth, precious spring, So long and dearly sought for, and now bring Comfort to all that love thee; loudly sing, And with thy crystal murmur struck together, Bid all thy true well-wishers welcome hither!"

"At which words," the narrative concludes, "the floodgates were opened, the stream was let into the cistern, drums and trumpets giving it triumphant welcomes, and, for the close of this their honourable entertainment, a peal of chambers."

Sir Hugh Myddelton lived on till 1631, six years longer than Sir Thomas Smythe; and the famous goldsmith and the famous skinner did much good work in common for London and English commerce during the ensuing years. Sir Thomas Smythe continued to the last a busy man, the richest and shrewdest merchant in England. Besides all his trade, he was employed by James I. as a navy commissioner, and a sound adviser on all matters affecting the well-being of the country. He was as rich as he was useful. In 1619 a great house at Deptford, in which he had resided, was burned down; but in the same year his house in Philpot Lane was found large enough to lodge and entertain in sumptuous style a French ambassador, with a hundred and twenty persons in his train.

He also had a great house at Tunbridge, in Kent, and there he died in 1625, about sixty-five years old. Besides many charities in London and elsewhere, he endowed Tunbridge school. Among his numerous bequests, he left funds for providing a fourpenny loaf a-piece every week to thirty-six poor persons, and the same number of pieces of cloth, worth twenty shillings each, to be made into winter garments for the recipients of his charity.