415.
The company of merchant adventurers, by their patent, possessed the sole commerce of woollen goods, though the staple commodity of the kingdom.
An attempt made during the reign of Elizabeth to lay open this important trade, had been attended with bad consequences for a time, by a conspiracy of the merchant adventurers not to make any purchases of cloth; and the queen immediately restored them their patent.
It was the groundless fear of a like accident, that enslaved the nation to those exclusive companies which confined so much every branch of commerce and industry.

The parliament, however, annulled, in the third of the king, the patent of the Spanish company; and the trade to Spain, which was at first very insignificant, soon became the most considerable in the kingdom.

It is strange that they were not thence encouraged to abolish all the other companies, and that they went no further than obliging them to enlarge their bottom, and to facilitate the admission of new adventurers.
A board of trade was erected by the king in 1622.[*] One of the reasons assigned in the commission is, to remedy the low price of wool, which begat complaints of the decay of the woollen manufactory.

It is more probable, however, that this fall of prices proceeded from the increase of wool.

The king likewise recommends it to the commissioners to inquire and examine, whether a greater freedom of trade, and an exemption from the restraint of exclusive companies, would not be beneficial.