Slave Trade in England.—­In England it was very common, even after the conquest, to export slaves to Ireland; till, in the reign of Henry II., the Irish came to a non-importation agreement, which put a stop to the practice.  William of Malmesbury accuses the Anglo-Saxon nobility of selling their female servants as slaves to foreigners.  In the canons of a council at London, in 1102, we read—­“Let no one from henceforth presume to carry on that wicked traffic, by which men of England have hitherto been sold like brute animals.”  And Giraldus Cambrensis says that the English, before the conquest, were generally in the habit of selling their children and other relations, to be slaves in Ireland, without having even the pretext of distress or famine, till the Irish, in a national synod, agreed to emancipate all the English slaves in the kingdom.

Opulent English Merchants.—­Some idea of the ancient commercial wealth of Great Britain may be gathered from a glance at the rapid increase of English trade from about the middle of the fourteenth century.  Thus, in 1363, Ricard, who had been lord mayor, some years before, entertained Edward III. and the Black Prince, the Kings of France, Scotland, and Cyprus, with many of the nobility, at his own house in the Vintry, and presented them with handsome gifts.  This eclipses the costliest entertainments of our times, at the public expense.  Philpot, another eminent citizen in Richard II.’s time, when the trade of England was considerably annoyed by privateers, hired one thousand armed men, and dispatched them to sea, where they took fifteen Spanish vessels with their prizes.  We find Richard obtaining a great deal from private merchants and trading towns.  In 1379, he got 5,000_l._ from London, 1,000 marks from Bristol, and in proportion from smaller places.  In 1386 London gave 4,000_l._ more, and 10,000 marks in 1397.  The latter sum was obtained also for the coronation of Henry VI.  Nor were the contributions of individuals contemptible, considering the high value of money.  Hinde, a citizen of London, lent to Henry IV. 2,000_l._ in 1407, and Whittington one half of that sum.  The merchants of the staple advanced 4,000_l._ at the same time.  Our commerce continued to be regularly and rapidly progressive during the fifteenth century.  The famous Canynges, of Bristol, under Henry VI. and Edward IV. had ships of 900 tons burden.

Gold-beating.—­Reaumur asserts, that in an experiment he made, one grain of gold was extended to rather more than forty-two square inches of leaf-gold; and that an ounce of gold, which in the form of a cube, is not half an inch either high, broad, or long, is beat under the hammer into a surface of 150 square feet.  The process is as follows:—­The gold is melted in a crucible, and taken to the flattening mills, where it is rolled out till it becomes of the consistence of tin; it is then cut into small square pieces, and each piece is laid between a leaf of skin