12 - Attempts at reconciliation with Danzig, 1630–5

Summary

The cloth boycott

Despite Roe's best efforts, the situation in Poland promised no early improvement. The Eastland Company persisted in its complaints of losses at sea, war, and the pressure of competition from interlopers and foreigners. Its only remedy was directed primarily at the problem of competition at home and this was to renew and strengthen the Proclamation of 1622. The evident improvement in the English share of England's trade following that act (see table 9.7, pp. 170–1) gave cause for optimism and a belief that a repetition of the act with stricter provisions would have similar effects. The Privy Council set up a committee to study the petition, but it had to consider the matter only briefly and gave its approval. On 7 March 1630, the Proclamation was renewed with slight modifications which ensured that the Eastland Company should have the sole right of export to the Baltic and the sole right of import from that area, by rectifying defects in the original proclamation which did not specifically prohibit import of Baltic commodities by aliens from non-Baltic ports.

The Proclamation was followed by some English complaints on the part of smaller ports, which claimed that the Eastland Company supplied them only poorly with necessary commodities as compared with foreign merchants, or that its monopoly caused high prices. In Danzig, however, the news of the Proclamation was received with profound hostility. The city saw in the act a monopoly which would exclude its merchants from trading to England just as effectively as the city's seal prevented the English from trading anywhere else but to Danzig.