If it be demanded what proportion that part of the town properly
called the City of London bears to the rest, I answer that,
according to the last calculations, there are in the city 12,000
houses; in the parishes without the walls, 36,320; in the parishes
of Middlesex and Surrey, which make part of the town, 46,300; and in
the city and liberties of Westminster, 28,330; in which are included
the precincts of the Tower, Norton Folgate, the Rolls, Whitefriars,
the Inns of Court and Chancery, the King's palaces, and all other
extra-parochial places.

As to the number of inhabitants in each of these four grand
divisions, if we multiply the number of houses in the City of London
by eight and a half, there must be 102,000 people there, according
to this estimate. By the same rule, there must be 308,720 people in
the seventeen parishes without the walls; 393,550 in the twenty-one
out-parishes of Middlesex and Surrey; and 240,805 in the city and
liberties of Westminster, all which compose the sum-total of
1,045,075 people.

Let me now proceed to inquire into the state of the several great
trading companies in London. The first, in point of time, I find to
be the Hamburg Company, originally styled "Merchants of the Staple"
(that is, of the staple of wool), and afterwards Merchant
Adventurers. They were first incorporated in the reign of King
Edward I., anno 1296, and obtained leave of John, Duke of Brabant,
to make Antwerp their staple or mart for the Low Countries, where
the woollen manufactures then flourished more than in any country in
Europe. The business of this company at first seems to be chiefly,
if not altogether, the vending of English wool unwrought.