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And the merchants pass by the kingdom of Persia, and go to a city that is Clept Hermes, for Hermes the philosopher founded it. And after that they pass an arm of the sea, and then they go to another city that is clept Golbache. And there they find merchandises, and of popinjays, as great plenty as men find here of geese. And if they will pass further, they may go sikerly enough.

And they be rich of all manner merchandises and chaffer, and generally fair and seemly of face, mild of will, and fair of speech, sad of bearing, honest of clothing, peaceable to their own neighbours, true and trusty to strangers, passing witty in wool craft, by their crafty working a great part of the world is succoured and holpen in woollen clothes.

He despaired of making any permanent establishment in the empire, and sought only to leave behind him a wasted desert, whilst he transported into Persia the people and the treasures of the provinces. At the time when the East trembled at the name of Sapor, he received a present not unworthy of the greatest kings; a long train of camels, laden with the most rare and valuable merchandises.

Item, that no inferior minister shall take upon him to make any bargain or sale of any wares, merchandises, or goods, but by the commission and warranties of the said agents under their hands; and he not to transgress his commission by any way, pretence, or colour.

I am loath to leave the piazza and palace without finding some word or two to suggest their antique majesty, in the sunshine and the shadow; and how fit it seemed, notwithstanding their venerableness, that there should be a busy crowd filling up the great, hollow amphitheatre, and crying their fruit and little merchandises, so that all the curved line of stately old edifices helped to reverberate the noise.

Upon the knowledge of the embargo laid by the king of Spain in 1585, upon the English ships, men, and goods found in his country, having no means to relieve her subjects by friendly treaty, her majesty authorised such as had sustained loss by that order of embargo to right themselves by making reprisals upon the subjects of the king of Spain; for which she gave them her letters of reprisal, to take and arrest all ships and merchandises they might find at sea or elsewhere, belonging to the subjects of that King.

Upon the boat they laded great part of the merchandises they had found in the ship, together with some slaves they had taken in the said islands. With this purchase they returned to Panama, something better satisfied of their voyage, yet withal much discontented they could not meet with the galleon....

He confessed, he said, it was not a place for merchants, except that at some certain times they had a kind of a fair there, when the merchants from Japan came over thither to buy the Chinese merchandises.

I replied to them that I had compassion for their condition, & that I would do all that was in my power to relieve them; but that it was much more reasonable that they made me some presents rather than I to them, because that I came from a country very far more removed than they to carry to them excellent merchandise; that I spared them the trouble of going to Quebec; & as to the difference in the trade of the English at the bottom of the Bay with ours, I told them that each was the master of that which belonged to him, & at liberty to dispose of it according to his pleasure; that it mattered very little of trading with them, since I had for my friends all the other nations; that those there were the masters of my merchandises who yielded themselves to my generosity for it; that there were 30 years that I had been their brother, & that I would be in the future their father if they continued to love me, but that if they were of other sentiments, I was very easy about the future; that I would cause all the nations around to be called, to carry to them my merchandises; that the gain that they would receive by the succour rendered them powerful & placed them in a condition to dispute the passage to all the savages who dwelt in the lands; that by this means they would reduce themselves to lead a languishing life, & to see their wives & children die by war or by famine, of which their allies, although powerful, could not guarantee them of it, because I was informed that they had neither knives nor guns.

He refers to a method which he calls the enigmatical, which has an affinity with it, 'used in some cases by the discretion of the ancients, but disgraced since, 'by the impostures of persons, who have made it as a false light for their counterfeit merchandises. The purpose of this latter style is, as he defines it, 'to remove the secrets of knowledge from the penetration of the more vulgar capacities, and to reserve them to selected auditors, or to wits of such sharpness as can pierce the veil. And that is a method, he tells us, which philosophy can by no means dispense with in his time, and 'whoever would let in new light upon the human understanding must still have recourse to it. But the method of delivery and tradition in those ancient schools, appears to have been too much of the dictatorial kind to suit this proposer of advancement; its tendency was to arrest knowledge instead of promoting its growth.