14 - Conclusion

Summary

Gordon's last years in the Eastland

With the diplomatic rupture between the English and Polish courts, Francis Gordon's activities as English representative in the Polish Commonwealth were severely circumscribed. The agent was no longer accredited to the Polish government and spent the remaining years of his official career as little more than an English observer in the city of Danzig. His reports from the late 1630s and early 1640s present a gloomy picture of declining opportunities, uncertainty and even official harassment.

One form of this harassment was the Polish prohibition on the importation of stretched cloths and the official in charge of enforcing this provision was, of all people, Andrzej Rej, the former Polish ambassador to England denied a royal audience during his mission in 1637. Gordon accused him of ‘venting his spleen’ on the English merchants in return for the treatment which he had received at the hands of Charles I. On the other hand, the agent did concede that abuses in the stretching of English cloth had existed and therefore offered Rej an opportunity to express his malice: ‘I wish our merchants and clothiers of England had a better care of themselves; if any harm come upon them it is their own fault. The abuse was so great that when one bought 100 ells of cloth it did shrink 20 so that the buyer had no more but 80 ells.’