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TO THE NORTHERN PARTS OF RUSSIA AND SIBERIA. 45
Grace did bid us go in health, and come to dinner, again, and we dined in his pre-
fence, and were fet with our faces towards His Grace, and none in the chamber fat with
their backs towards him, being I think near a hundred at dinner then, and all ferved
with gold, as platters, chargers, pots, cups, and all not flender but very maffy, and yet
a great number of platters of gold, ftanding ftill on the cupboard not moved: and
divers times in the dinner time His Grace fent us meat and drink from his own table, and
when we had dined we went up to His Grace, and received a cup with drink at his own
hand, and the fame night His Grace fent certain gentlemen to us with divers forts of
wine and meat, to whom we gave a reward, and afterward we were by divers Italians
counfelled to take heed whom we did truft to make the copy of the pnivileges that we
would defire to have, for fear it fhould not be written in the Ruffian tongue, as we did
mean. So firft a Ruffian did write for us a breviat to the Emperor, the tenor whereof
was, that we did defire a ftronger privilege: and when the fecretary faw it, he did deliver
it to His Grace, and when we came again, His Grace willed us to write our minds, and he
would fee it, andfo we did. And His Grace is fo troubled with preparations to wars,
that as yet we have hadno anfwer: but we have been required of his fecretary, and of
the under chancellor, to know what wares we had brought into the realm, and what
wares we do intend to have, that are, or may be had in this realm: and we fhewed
them, and they fhewed the Emperor thereof. And then they faid His Grace’s pleafure
was, that his beft merchants of the Mofco fhould be fpoken to, to meet and talk with
us. And fo a day wasappointed, and we met in the fecretary his office, and there was
the under chancellor, who was not paft two years fince the Emperor’s merchant, and
not his chancellor: and then the conclufion of our talk was, that the chancellor willed
us to bethink us, where we would defire to have a houfe or houfes, that we might
come to them as to our own houfe, and for merchandife to be made preparation
for us, and they would know our prices of our wares and frife: and we an-
fwered that for our prices they muft fee the wares before we could make any price
thereof, forthe like in goodnefs hath not been brought into the realm, and we did
look for an example of all forts of our wares to come from Vologda, with the firft
fled way, and then they fhould fee them, and then we would fhew them the prices of
them : and likewife we could not tell them what we would give them jultly, till we did
know as well their juft weights as their meafures: for in all places where we did come,
all weights and meafures did vary. ‘Then the fecretary (who had made promife unto us
before) faid, that we fhould have all the juft meafures under feal, and he that was found
faulty in the contrary, to buy or fell with any other meafure than that, the law was, that
he fhould be punifhed : he faid moreover, that if it fo happen that any of our merchants
do promife by covenant at any time to deliver you any certain fum of wares in fuch a
place, and of fuch like goodnefs, at fuch a day, for fuch a certain price, that then be-
caufe of variance, we fhould caufe it to be written, according as the bargain is, before
a juftice or the next ruler to the place: if he did not keep covenant and promife in all
points, according to his covenant, that then look what lofs or hindrance we could juftly
prove that we have thereby, he fhould make it good if he be worth fo much: and in
like cafe we muft do to them: and to that we did agree, fave only if it were to come
over the fea, then if any fuch fortune fhould be (as God forbid) that the fhip fhould
mifchance or be robbed, and the proof to be made that fuch kind of wares were laden,
the Englifh merchants to bear no lofs to the other merchant. Then the chancellor
faid, methinks you fhall do beft to have your houfe at Colmogro, which is but one
hundred miles from the right difcharge of the fhips, and yet I tru{t the fhips fhall come
nearer
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