_Written by_ JOHN HASSE _in the year_ 1554.
Forasmuch as it is most necessary for all merchants which seek to have
traffic in any strange regions, first to acquaint themselves with the
coins of those lands with which they do intend to join in traffic, and
how they are called from the valuation of the highest piece to the
lowest, and in what sort they make their payments, as also what their
common weights and measures be. For these causes I have thought good to
write something thereof, according to mine own knowledge and experience,
to the end that the merchants of that new adventure may the better
understand how the wealth of that new frequented trade will arise.
First, it is to be noted that the Emperor of Russia hath no other coins
than silver in all his land which goeth for payment amongst merchants;
yet, notwithstanding, there is a coin of copper, which serveth for the
relief of the poor in Moscow, and nowhere else, and that is but only for
quas, water, and fruit—as nuts, apples, and such like. The name of which
money is called pole or poles, of which poles there go to the least of
the silver coins eighteen. But I will not stand upon this, because it is
no current money amongst merchants.
Of silver coins there be these sorts of pieces: the least is a poledenga;
the second, a denga; the third, nowgrote, which is as much to say in
English, as halfpenny, penny, and twopence; and for other valued money
than this there is none. There are oftentimes there coins of gold, but
they come out of foreign countries; whereof there is no ordinary
valuation, but they pass according to the agreement of merchants.
Their order in summing of money is this: as we say in England, halfpenny,
penny, shilling, and pound, so say they, poledenga, denga, altine, and
rubble (rouble). There goeth two poledengas to a denga, six dengaes to
an altine, and twenty-three altines and two dengaes to a rubble.
Concerning the weights of Russia, they are these. There are two sorts of
pounds in use amongst them—the one great, the other small. The great
pound is just two small pounds; they call the great weight by the name of
beasemar, and the small they call the skallawaight. With this small
weight they weigh their silver coins, of which the Emperor hath commanded
to put to every small pound three rubbles of silver; and with the same
weight they weigh all grocery wares, and almost all other wares, which
come into the land, except those which they weigh by the pode, as hops,
salt, iron, lead, tin, and batrie, with divers others. Notwithstanding,
they used to weigh batrie more often by the small weight than by the
great.
Whensoever you find the prices of your wares rated by the pode, consider
that to be the great weight, and the pound to be small. Also they divide
the small pound into forty-eight parts, and they call the
eight-and-fortieth part a slotnike, by the which slotnike the retailers
sell their wares out of their shops, as goldsmiths, grocers,
silk-sellers, and such other, like as we do use to retail by the ounce.
And as for their great weight, which they call the beasemar, they sell by
pode or ship pound. The pode doth contain of the great weight, forty
pounds; and of the small, eighty. There go ten podes to a ship pound.
Yet you must consider that their great weight is not full with ours; for
I take not their great pound to be full thirteen ounces, but above twelve
I think it be. But for your just proof, weigh six rubbles of Russian
money with our pound weight, and then shall you see what it lacketh; for
six rubbles of Russia is, by the Emperor’s standard, the great pound. So
that I think it the next way to know the just weight as well of the great
pound as of the small.
There is another weight needful to be known, which is the weight of
Wardhouse; for so much as they weigh all their dry fish by weight, which
weight is the basemere as they of Russia do use, notwithstanding there is
another sort in it. The names of those weights are these: the marke
pound, the great pound, the wee and the ship pound. The marke pound is
to be understood as our pound, and their great is twenty-four of their
marke pound; the wee is three great pound; and eight wee is a ship pound.
Now, concerning their measures. As they have two sorts of weights, so
they have also two sorts of measures, wherewith they measure cloth, both
linen and woollen. They call the one an areshine, and the other a locut.
The areshine I take to be as much as the Flanders ell, and their locut
half an English yard. With their areshine they may mete all such sorts
of cloths as cometh into the land, and with the locut all such cloth,
both linen and woollen, as they make themselves. And whereas we used to
give yard and inch, or yard and handfull, they do give nothing but bare
measure.
They have also a measure wherewith they do mete their corn, which they
call a set-forth, and the half of that an osmine. This set-forth I take
to be three bushels of London measure. And as for their drink measure,
they call it a spanne, which is much like a bucket; and of that I never
saw any true rate, but that some was greater than other some. And as for
the measures of Wardhouse, wherewith they mete their cloth, there is no
difference between that and the measure of danske, which in half an
English ell.
Concerning the tolls and customs of Russia, it was reported to me in
Muscovy that the Turks and Armenians pay the tenth penny custom of all
the wares they bring into the Emperor’s land, and above that they pay for
all such goods as they weigh at the Emperor’s beam two pence of the
rouble, which the buyer or seller must make report of to the master of
the beam. They also pay a certain horse toll, which is in divers places
of his realm four pence of a horse.
The Dutch nation are free of this; notwithstanding for certain offences,
they had lost their privileges, which they have recovered this summer, to
their great charge. It was reported to me by a justice of that country,
that they paid for it thirty thousand roubles, and also that Rye, Dorpt,
and Revel, have yielded themselves under the government of the Emperor of
Russia; whether this was a brag of the Russians or not, I know not, but
thus he said, and, indeed, while we were there, there came a great
ambassador out of Liffeland for the assurance of their privileges.
To speak somewhat of the commodities of this country, it is to be
understood that there is a certain place fourscore miles from the sea
called Colmogro; to which place there resort all the sorts of wares that
are in the north parts—as oils, salt, stock-fish, salmon, feathers, and
furs; their salt they make of salt water by the seaside; their oils they
make of seals, whereof they have great store, which is brought out of the
bay where our ships came in; they make it in the spring of the year, and
bring it to Colmogro to sell, and the merchants there carry it to
Novogrod, and so sell it to the Dutch nation. Their stock-fish and
salmon cometh from a place called Mallums, not far from Wardhouse; their
salmon and their salt they carry to Moscow, and their dried fish they
carry to Novogrod, and sell it there to the Leeflanders.
The furs and feathers which come to Colmogro, as sables, beavers, minks,
ermine lettis, graies, wolverins, and white foxes, with deer-skins, they
are brought thither by the men of Penninge, Lampne, and Powstezer, which
fetch them from the Samoydes that are counted savage people, and the
merchants that bring these furs do use to truck with the merchants of
Colmogro for cloth, tin, batrie, and such other like, and the merchants
of Colmogro, carry them to Novogrod, Vologda, or Moscow, and sell them
there. The feathers which come from Penning they do little esteem.
If our merchants do desire to know the meetest place of Russia for their
standing house; in mine opinion I take it to be Vologda, which is a great
town standing in the heart of Russia with many great and good towns about
it. There is great plenty of corn, victuals, and of all such wares as
are raised in Russland (Russia), but specially flax, hemp, tallow, and
bacon; there is also great store of wax, but it cometh from Moscow.
The town of Vologda is meetest for our merchants, because it lieth
amongst all the best towns of Russia, and there is no town in Russia but
trades with it; also the water is a great commodity to it. If they plant
themselves in Moscow or Novogrod their charge will be great and
wonderful, but not so in Vologda, for all things will there be had better
cheap by the one-half; and for their vent, I know no place so meet; it is
likely that some will think the Moscow to be the meetest by the reason of
the court, but by that reason I take it to be worse; for the charge there
would be so great by cravers and expenses that the moiety of the profit
would be wholly consumed, which in the other place will be saved. And
yet, notwithstanding, our merchants may be there in the winter to serve
the Emperor and his Court. The Emperor is a great merchant himself of
wax and sables, which with good foresight may be procured to their hands;
as for other commodities there are little or none in Muscovy besides
those above rehearsed; if there be other it is brought thither by the
Turks, who will be dainty to buy our cloths considering the charges of
carriages overland.
Our merchants may do well to provide for the Russians such wares as the
Dutch nation doth serve them of, as Flanders and Holland cloths, which I
believe they shall serve better with less charge than they of Rye or
Dorpt, or Revel; for it is no small adventure to bring their cloths out
of Flanders to either of these places, and their charge not little to
carry them overland to Novogrod which is from Rye nine hundred Russian
miles.
This Novogrod is a place well furnished with flax, wax, hides, tallow,
and many other things; the best flax in Russia is brought thither, and
there sold by the hundred bundles, which is done also at Vologda, and
they that bring the flax to Novogrod dwell as near Vologda as Novogrod,
and when they hear of the utterance which they may have with our nation,
they will as willingly come to them as go to the other.
They have in Russia two sorts of flax, the one is called great flax, and
the other small; that which they call great flax is better by four
roubles in a hundred bundles than the small. It is much longer than the
other, and cleaner, without wood; and whereas of the small flax there go
twenty-seven or twenty-eight bundles to a ship pound; there goeth not of
the greater sort above twenty-two or twenty-four at the most. There are
many other trifles in Russia, as soap, mats, &c., but I think there will
be no great account made of them.
* * * * *
_Articles conceived and determined for the Commission of the Merchants of
this Company resiant_ (_resident_) _in Russia_, _and at the Wardhouse_,
_for the second voyage_, 1555, _the first of May_, _as followeth_.
First the governor, consuls, assistants, and whole company assembled this
day in open Court committeth and authoriseth Richard Gray and George
Killingworth jointly and severally to be agents, factors, and attorneys,
general and special, for the whole body of this company; to buy, sell,
truck, change, and permute, all and every kind and kinds of wares,
merchandises, and goods, to the said company appertaining, now laden and
shipped in the good ship called the _Edward Bonaventure_, appointed for
Russia, the same to utter and sell to the most commodity, profit, and
advantage of the said corporation, be it for ready money, wares, and
merchandises, or truck, presently, or for time, as occasion and benefit
of the company shall require, and all such wares as they or either of
them shall buy, truck, or provide, or cause to be bought for the company
to lade them homeward in good order and condition, as by prudent course
of merchandises shall, and ought to appertain, which article extendeth
also to John Brooke for the Wardhouse, as in the seventeenth and
eighteenth articles of this commission appeareth.
2. Item, it is also committed, as above, to the said agents, to bind and
charge the said company by debt for wares upon credit, as good
opportunity and occasion shall serve, with power to charge and bind the
said company and their successors for the payments of such things as
shall be taken up for credit, and the said agents to be relieved, _ab
opere satis dandi_.
3. Item, full authority and power is committed to the said first-named
factors, together with Richard Chanceler, grand pilot of this fleet, to
repair to the Emperor’s court, there to present the King and Queen’s
Majesty’s letters, written in Greek, Polish, and Italian, and to give and
exhibit the merchants’ presents at such time and place as shall be
thought most expedient; they, or one of them, to demand, and humbly
desire of the Emperor, such further grants and privileges to be made to
this company as may be beneficial for the same, to continue in traffic
with his subjects, according to such instructions as be in this behalf
devised and delivered to the agents whereunto relation is to be had, and
some one of these persons to attend upon the court for the obtaining of
the same, as to their discretions shall be thought good.
4. Item, that all the said agents do well consider, ponder, and weigh
such articles as be delivered to them, to know the natures, dispositions,
laws, customs, manners, and behaviours of the people of the countries
where they shall traffic, as well of the nobility as of the lawyers,
merchants, mariners, and common people, and to note diligently the
subtleties of their bargaining, buying and selling, making as few debts
as possibly may be; and to be circumspect, that no law, neither of
religion nor positive, be broken or transgressed by them, or any minister
under them, nor yet by any mariner or other person of our nation; and to
foresee that all tolls, customs, and such other rights, be so duly paid,
that no forfeiture or confiscation may ensue to our goods either outward
or inward; and that all things pass with quiet, without breach of the
public peace or common tranquillity of any of the places where they shall
arrive or traffic.
5. Item, that provision be made in Moscow or elsewhere, in one or more
good towns, where good trade shall be found for a house or houses for the
agents and company to inhabit and dwell at your accustomed diets, with
warehouses, cellars, and other houses of offices requisite; and that none
of the inferior ministers, of what place or vocation soever he be, do lie
out of the house of the agents without license to be given; and that
every inferior officer shall be obedient to the orders, rules, and
governments of the said agents; and in case any disobedient person shall
be found among any of them, then such person to be punished for his
misbehaviour at the discretion of the said agents, or of one of them in
the absence of the other.
6. Item, if any person of the said ministers shall be of such pride or
obstinacy, that after one or two honest admonitions he will not be
reformed nor reconciled from his faults, then the said agents to displace
every such person from the place or room to him here committed, and some
other discreet person to occupy the same, as to the said agents by their
discretions shall seem meet.
7. Item, if any person shall be found so arrogant, that he will not be
ordered nor reformed by the said agents, or by one of them in the absence
of the other, then the said person to be delivered to the justice of the
country, to receive such punishment as the laws of the country do
require.
8. Item, that the said agents and factors shall daily one hour in the
morning confer and consult together what shall be most convenient and
beneficial for the company; and such orders as they shall determine, to
be written by the secretary of the company, in a book to be provided for
that purpose; and no inferior person to infringe or break any such order
or device, but to observe the same exactly, upon such reasonable pain as
the agents shall put him to by discretion.
9. Item, that the said agents shall in the end of every week, or
oftener, as occasion shall require, peruse, see, and try, not only the
cashier’s books, reckonings, and accounts, firming the same with their
hands, but also shall receive and take weekly the account of every other
officer, as well of the vendes, as of the empteous, and also of the state
of the household expenses, making thereof a perfect declaration as shall
appertain; the same accounts also to be firmed by the said agents’ hands.
10. 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.
11. Item, that every inferior minister—that is to understand, all clerks
and young merchants being at the order of the said agents—shall ride, go,
sail, and travel to all such place and places as they or he shall be,
appointed unto by the said agents, and effectually to follow and do that
which to him or them shall be committed, well and truly to the most
benefit of the company, according to the charge to him or them committed,
even as by their oaths, duties, and bonds of their masters they be
bounden and charged to do.
12. Item, that at every month’s end all accounts and reckonings shall be
brought into perfect order into the ledger or memorial; and the decrees,
orders, and rules of the agents, together with the privileges and copies
of letters, may and shall be well and truly written by the secretary, in
such form as shall be appointed for it, and that the copies of all their
doings may be sent home with the said ship at her return.
13. Item, that all the agents do diligently learn and observe all kinds
of wares, as well naturals as foreign, that be beneficial for this realm,
to be sold for the benefit of the company; and what kind of our
commodities and other things of these west parts be most vendable in
those realms with profit, giving a perfect advice of all such things
requisite.
14. Item, if the Emperor will enter into bargain with you for the whole
mass of your stock, and will have the trade of it to utter to his own
subjects, then debating the matter prudently among yourselves, set such
high prices of your commodities as you may assure yourselves to be
gainers in your own wares, and yet—to buy theirs at such base prices as
you may here also make a commodity and gain at home, having in your minds
the notable charges that the company have defrayed in advancing this
voyage; and the great charges that they sustain daily in wages, victuals,
and other things, all which must be requited by the wise handling of this
voyage, which, being the first precedent shall be a perpetual precedent
for ever; and therefore all circumspection is to be used; and foreseeing
in this first enterprise, which God bless and prosper under you to His
glory and the public wealth of this realm, whereof the Queen’s majesty
and the Lords of the Council have conceived great hope, whose
expectations are not to be frustrated.
15. Item, it is to be had in mind that you use all ways and means
possible to learn how men may pass from Russia, either by land or by sea,
to Cathaia, and what may be heard of our other ships, and to what
knowledge you may come, by conferring with the learned or well-travelled
persons, either natural or foreign, such as have travelled from the north
to the south.
16. Item, it is committed to the said agents that, if they shall be
certified credibly that any of our said first ships be arrived in any
place whereunto passage is to be had by water or by land, that then
certain of the company, at the discretion of the agents, shall be
appointed to be sent to them to learn their estate and condition, to
visit, refresh, relieve, and furnish them with all necessaries and
requisites at the common charges of the company, and to embrace, accept,
and entreat them as our dear and well-beloved brethren of this our
society to their rejoicing and comfort, advertising Sir Hugh Willoughbie
and others of our carefulness of them and their long absence, with our
desire to hear of them, with all other things done in their absence for
their commodity, no less than if they had been present.
17. Item, it is decreed that, when the ships shall arrive at this going
forth at the Wardhouse, that their agents—with Master Chanceler, grand
pilot; John Brooke, merchant, deputed for the Wardhouse, with John
Backhand, master of the _Edward_; John Howlet, master, and John Robbins,
pilot, of the _Philip and Mary_—shall confer and consult together that is
most profitable to be done therefore for the benefit of the company, and
to consider whether they may bargain with the captain of the _Castle_,
and the inhabitants in that place, or along the coast for a large
quantity of fish—dry or wet—killed by the naturals, or to be taken by our
men at a price reasonable for truck of cloth, meal, salt, or beer, and
what train-oil or other commodity is to be had there at this time, or any
other season of the year; and whether there will be had or found
sufficient lading for both the said ships to be bought there, and how
they may confer with the naturals for a continuance in haunting the
place, if profit will so arise to the company; and to consider whether
the _Edward_ in her return may receive at the Wardhouse any kind of
lading homeward, and what it may amount unto, and whether it shall be
expedient for the _Philip_ to abide at Wardhouse the return of the
_Edward_ out of Russia, or getting that she may return with the first
good wind to England without abiding for the _Edward_; and so to conclude
and accord certainly among themselves upon their arrival that the
certainty may (upon good deliberation) be so ordered and determined
between both ships that the one may be assured of the other; and their
determinations to be put in writing duplicate to remain with each ship,
according to such order as shall be taken between them.
18. Item, that John Brooke, our merchant for the Wardhouse, take good
advice of the rest of our agents how to use himself in all affairs while
the ship shall be at the Wardhouse; he to see good order to be kept, and
make bargains advisedly, not crediting the people until their natures,
dispositions, and fidelities shall be well tried; make no debts, but to
take ware for ware in hand, and rather be trusted than to trust. Note
diligently what be the best wares for those parts, and how the fish
falleth on the coast, and by what means it is to be bought at the most
advantage, what kinds and diversities of sorts in fishes be, and whether
it will keep better in bulk piled or in cask.
19. Item, he to have a diligent eye and circumspection to the beer,
salt, and other liquid wares, and not to suffer any waste to be made by
the company; and he in all contracts to require advice, counsel, and
consent of the master and pilot; the merchant to be our housewife, as our
special trust is in him. He to tender that no laws nor customs of the
country be broken by any of the company, and to render to the prince and
other officers all that which to them doth appertain—the company to be
quiet, void of all quarrelling, fighting, or vexation; abstain from all
excess of drinking as much as may be, and in all to use and behave
themselves as to quiet merchants doth and ought to appertain.
20. Item, it is decreed by the company that the _Edward_ shall return
home this year with as much wares as may be conveniently and profitably
provided, bought and laden in Russia, and the rest to be taken in at the
Wardhouse as by the agents shall be accorded. But by all means it is to
be foreseen and noted that the _Edward_ return home, and not to winter in
any foreign place, but to come home, and bring with her all the whole
advertisements of the merchants, with such further advices for the next
year’s provisions as they shall give.
21. Item, it is further decreed and ordained inviolably to be observed,
that when the good ships, or either of them (by God’s grace) shall return
home to the coast of England, that neither of them shall stay or touch in
any haven or port of England, otherwise than wind and weather shall
serve, but shall directly sail and come to the port of the city of
London, the place of their right discharge; and that no bulk be broken,
hatches open, chest, fardell, truss, barrell, fat, or whatsoever thing it
shall be, be brought out of the ship, until the company shall give order
for the same, and appoint such persons of the company as shall be thought
meet for that purpose, to take view and consider the ship and her lading,
and shall give order for the breaking up of the said bulk, or give
license by discretion, for things to be brought to land. And that every
officer shall show the invoice of his charge to him first committed, and
to examine the wastes and losses, and to deliver the remainder to the use
and benefit of the company, according to such order as shall be appointed
in that behalf.
22. Item, the company exhorteth, willeth, requireth, not only all the
said agents, pilots, masters, merchants, clerks, boatswains, stewards,
skafemasters, and all other officers and ministers of this present
voyage, being put in charge and trust daily to peruse, read, and study,
such instructions as be made, given, and delivered to them for perfect
knowledge of the people of Russia, Muscovy, Wardhouse, and other places;
their dispositions, laws, manners, customs, uses, tolls, carriages,
coins, weights, numbers, measures, wares, merchandises, commodities and
incommodities, the one to be accepted and embraced, the other to be
rejected and utterly abandoned, to the intent that every man taking
charge, may be so well taught, perfected, and readily instructed, in all
the premises, that, by ignorance, no loss or prejudice may grow or chance
to the company, assuring themselves, that forasmuch as the company hath
travailed and laboured so in these their instructions to them given, that
every man may be perfect, and fully learned to eschew all losses, hurts,
and damages, that may ensue by pretence or colour of none knowledge, the
company extendeth not to allow, or accept ignorance for any lawful or
just cause of excuse, in that which shall be misordered by negligence,
the burthen whereof shall light upon the negligent offending person,
especially upon such as of their own heads, or temerity, will take upon
him or them to do or to attempt anything, whereby prejudice may arise,
without the commission of the agents as above is mentioned, whereunto
relation be had.
23. Forasmuch as it is not possible to write and indite such prescribed
orders, rules, and commissions to you the agents and factors, but that
occasion, time, and place, and the pleasures of the princes, together
with the operation or success of fortune, shall change or shift the same,
although not in the whole, yet in part, therefore the said company do
commit to you their dear and entire beloved agents and factors, to do in
this behalf for the commodity and wealth of this company, as by your
discretions, upon good advised deliberations, shall be thought good and
beneficial. Provided always that the honour, good-name, fame, credit,
and estimation of the same company be conserved and preserved; which to
confirm we beseech the living Lord to his glory, the public benefit of
this realm, our common profit, and your praises.
Finally, for the service and due accomplishment of all the premises,
every agent and minister of, and for, this voyage hath not only given a
corporal oath upon the Evangelists to observe, and cause to be observed,
this commission, and every part, clause, and sentence of the same, as
much as in him lieth, as well for his own part as for any other person,
but also have bound themselves and their friends to the company in
several sums of money, expressed in the acts and records of this society,
for the truth and fidelities of them for the better, and also manifester
testification of the truth, and of their oaths, promises, and bands
aforesaid, they have to this commission subscribed particularly their
several hands, and the company also in confirmation of the same, have set
their seal. Given the day, month, and years first above mentioned.