These companies, though arbitrarily erected, had carried their privileges so far, that almost all the commerce of England was centred in London; and it appears that the customs of that port amounted to one hundred and ten thousand pounds a year, while those of all the kingdom beside yielded only seventeen thousand.[*] Nay, the whole trade of London was confined to about two hundred citizens,[**] who were easily enabled, by combining among themselves, to fix whatever price they pleased both to the exports and imports of the nation.

The committee appointed to consider this enormous grievance, one of the greatest which we read of in English story, insist on it as a fact well known and avowed, however contrary to present received opinion, that shipping and seamen had insensibly decayed during all the preceding reign.[***] And though nothing be more common than complaints of the decay of trade, even during the most flourishing periods, yet is this a consequence which might naturally result from such arbitrary establishments, at a time when the commerce of all the other nations of Europe, except that of Scotland, enjoyed full liberty and indulgence.
While the commons were thus attempting to give liberty to the trading part of the nation, they also endeavored to free the landed property from the burden of wardships,[****] and to remove those remains of the feudal tenures under which the nation still labored.

A just regard was shown to the crown in the conduct of this affair; nor was the remedy sought for considered as a matter of right, but merely of grace and favor.

The profit which the king reaped, both from wards and from respite of homage, was estimated; and it was intended to compound for these prerogatives by a secure and independent revenue.

But after some debates in the house, and some conferences with the lords, the affair was found to contain more difficulties than could easily, at that time, be surmounted; and it was not then brought to any conclusion.
The same fate attended an attempt of a like nature, to free the nation from the burden of purveyance.