"Important denique sexies mille vel circiter centenarios salis, quorum
singuli constant centenis modiis, ducentenas ut minimum & vicenas
quinas, vel & tricenas, pro salis ipsius candore puritateque, libras
pondo pendentibus, sena igitur libras centenariorum millia, computatis
in singulos aureis nummis tricenis, centum & octoginta reserunt aureorum
millia."--_Belguae Descrtptio_, a Lud. Gvicciardino, Amstelodami, 1652,
p. 244.

TRANSLATION.--They import in fine 6000 centenarii of salt, each one of
which contains 100 bushels, weighing at least 225 or 230 pounds,
according to the purity and whiteness of the salt; therefore six
thousand centenarii, computing each at thirty golden nummi, amount to
180,000 aurei.

It may not be easy to determine the value of this importation in money,
since the value of gold is constantly changing, but the quantity
imported may be readily determined, which was according to the above
statement, 67,500 tons.

A treaty of April 30, 1527, between Francis I. of France and Henry VIII.
of England, provided as follows:--"And, besides, should furnish unto the
said _Henry_, as long as hee lived, yearly, of the Salt of _Brouage_,
the value of fifteene thousand Crownes."--_Life and Raigne of Henry
VIII._, by Lord Herbert of Cherbury, London, 1649, p. 206.

Saintonge continued for a long time to be the source of large exports of
salt. De Witt, writing about the year 1658, says they received in
Holland of "salt, yearly, the lading of 500 or 600 ships, exported from
Rochel, Maran, Brouage, the Island of Oleron, and Ree."--_Republick of
Holland_, by John De Witt, London, 1702, p. 271. But it no longer holds