Annot.
If the Ports of England were as free as those of the Ʋnited Netherlands, Hamburg, or Gottenburg, can any man believe the world would pass Falmouth, (the most excellent Port of the world, and the most convenient for the Southern, Western, South-Eastern and South-western Trades) the noble Ports of Plymouth, Dartmouth, Exmouth, Falmouth, the famous Ports of Portsmouth and Harwich, (equal to any other, and of all others the most convenient for the Trade of the East and North-East parts of the World) to encounter the Sands upon Zea∣land, or the Rocks before Gottenburg, or to be conveyed through the Vly and Texel into the Zuyder-Sea, where they are so far from safety, that 500 Sail have been stranded by one nights Tempest? Our Ports and always as open for any Forrein Trade, especially to the South or West, as safe for Ships to come in. Theirs are dangerous in the approach, are unsafe within, and commonly frozen up three or four Moneths in the year. We have no need of the Mould of Genoua, nor take care to draw our Ships over any Pampus, to secure them from Storms in the Winter. Though Hamburg be a mighty Town of Trade; yet we have neither Gluestadt, or Stoad, to give Laws to our Trade in any of our Ports, as both those do to Hamburg. We have nothing to say for our selves, but though God and Nature never did any thing in vain, yet we have made our Ports vain to all the World, and almost to our selves.
The King was pleased about the beginning of the late