United States or Puerto Rico ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I beleve you have considered, for that once alredie with some of you I have reasoned, howe these present warres, impoverishe as well those lordes that overcome, as those that leese: for that if the one leese his estate, the other leeseth his money, and his movables: the whiche in olde time was not, for that the conquerour of the warre, waxed ritche.
"All Christendom is sore decayed and feeblished, whereby the Empire of Constantinople leeseth, and is like to lese," for lack of the "Knights and Squires who were wont to adventure themselves," but who adventure themselves no more.
For their merchants; they are vena porta; and if they flourish not, a kingdom may have good limbs, but will have empty veins, and nourish little. Taxes and imposts upon them, do seldom good to the king's revenue; for that that he wins in the hundred, he leeseth in the shire; the particular rates being increased, but the total bulk of trading, rather decreased.