Queen Elizabeth enlarged the trade of the Company of Adventurers,
and empowered them to treat with the princes and states of Germany
for a place which might be the staple or mart for the woollen
manufactures they exported, which was at length fixed at Hamburg,
from whence they obtained the name of the Hamburg Company. They had
another mart or staple also assigned them for the sale of their
woollen cloths in the Low Countries, viz., Dort, in Holland.

This company consists of a governor, deputy-governor, and
fellowship, or court of assistants, elected annually in June, who
have a power of making bye-laws for the regulation of their trade;
but this trade in a manner lies open, every merchant trading thither
on his own bottom, on paying an inconsiderable sum to the company;
so that though the trade to Germany may be of consequence, yet the
Hamburg Company, as a company, have very little advantage by their
being incorporated.

The Hamburg or German Merchants export from England broad-cloth,
druggets, long-ells, serges, and several sorts of stuffs, tobacco,
sugar, ginger, East India goods, tin, lead, and several other
commodities, the consumption of which is in Lower Germany.

England takes from them prodigious quantities of linen, linen-yarn,
kid-skins, tin-plates, and a great many other commodities.

The next company established was that of the Russia Merchants,
incorporated 1st and 2nd of Philip and Mary, who were empowered to
trade to all lands, ports, and places in the dominions of the
Emperor of Russia, and to all other lands not then discovered or
frequented, lying on the north, north-east, or north-west.