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I hae been as far as Muscovia in my sma' trading way, as a travelling merchant; and I hae been through France, and the Low Countries, and a' Poland, and maist feck o' Germany; and oh! it would grieve your honour's soul to see the murmuring, and the singing, and massing, that's in the kirk, and the piping that's in the quire, and the heathenish dancing and dicing upon the Sabbath!

I hae been as far as Muscovia in my sma' trading way, as a travelling merchant, and I hae been through France, and the Low Countries, and a' Poland, and maist feck o' Germany, and O! it would grieve your honour's soul to see the murmuring and the singing and massing that's in the kirk, and the piping that's in the quire, and the heathenish dancing and dicing upon the Sabbath!

Whereby it appeareth that he went the very way that we now do yearly trade by S. Nicholas into Muscovia, which way no man in our age knew for certainty to be sea, until it was since discovered by our Englishmen in the time of King Edward I., but thought before that time that Greenland had joined to Normoria Byarmia, and therefore was accounted a new discovery, being nothing so indeed, as by this discourse of Ochther's it appeareth.

II. chap. 46, a small duty of only 1d. the pound was imposed upon the importation of foreign brown linen yarn, instead of much higher duties, to which it had been subjected before, viz. of 6d. the pound upon sail yarn, of 1s. the pound upon all French and Dutch yarn, and of £2:13:4 upon the hundred weight of all spruce or Muscovia yarn.

Hereupon it followeth that, although the wise and better-minded do either forsake the realm for altogether, and seek to live in other countries, as France, Germany, Barbary, India, Muscovia, and very Calcutta, complaining of no room to be left for them at home, do so behave themselves that they are worthily to be accounted among the second sort, yet the greater part, commonly having nothing to stay upon, are wilful, and thereupon do either prove idle beggars or else continue stark thieves till the gallows do eat them up, which is a lamentable case.

Post tot promissa after so many promises made, to entice me from the Court of the magnificent Matthias, where Hun and Turk, Christian and Infidel, the Czar of Muscovia and the Cham of Tartary themselves, contended to load me with gifts doth he think I am to abide in this old castle like a bullfinch in a cage, fain to sing as oft as he chooses to whistle, and all for seed and water?

I hae been as far as Muscovia in my sma' trading way, as a travelling merchant, and I hae been through France, and the Low Countries, and a' Poland, and maist feck o' Germany, and O! it would grieve your honour's soul to see the murmuring and the singing and massing that's in the kirk, and the piping that's in the quire, and the heathenish dancing and dicing upon the Sabbath!

The Russians having conquered Narva, in Livonia in 1558, the first place they possessed in the Baltic, and having established it as a staple port, the following year, according to Milton, in his brief history of Muscovia, the English began to trade to it, "the Lubeckers and Dantzickers having till then concealed that trade from other nations."

I hae been as far as Muscovia in my sma' trading way, as a travelling merchant, and I hae been through France, and the Low Countries, and a' Poland, and maist feck o' Germany, and O! it would grieve your honour's soul to see the murmuring and the singing and massing that's in the kirk, and the piping that's in the quire, and the heathenish dancing and dicing upon the Sabbath!