Furthermore, Sir, if it please your mastership for to understand that the shipman be content and paid of their freight.'[50] The Celys write in the same strain too: 'This day the 16th of August the wool fleet came to Calais both of London and Ipswich in safety, thanked be God, and this same day was part landed and it riseth fair yet, thanked be God.'[51] Their letters tell us too what danger it was that they feared.

'I pray Jesu send you safe hither and soon,' writes Richard to his 'right well beloved brother George', on June 6, 1482.

'Robert Eryke was chased with Scots between Calais and Dover.

They scaped narrow.'[52] There are many such chases recorded, and we hear too of wool burnt under hatches or cast overboard in a storm.[53] [Footnote N: I.e.Shrove Thursday.] Thomas Betson and the Celys travelled very often across the Channel in these ships, which carried passengers and letters, and they were almost as much at home in Calais as in London.

When in Calais English merchants were not allowed to live anywhere they liked, all over the town.