WHereas His most Excellent Majesty is informed of much decay in the Trade of Cloth, and other Woollen Manufactures of this Kingdom, and that great quantities of Woollen Clothes do at present lie dead on the hands of many poor Clothiers: His Majesty therefore out of His Princely clemency, and tender compassion to the Neces­sities of His poor Subjects, doth by the Advice of His Privy Council, and with the free Consent of the Company of Merchant Adventurers of England, hereby give free Liberty and Licence to all His loving Subjects, from the Twentieth day of May in­stant, until the Five and twentieth day of December next, to transport and carry out of this Kingdom, all Woollen Manufactures whatsoever, to any Port or place beyond the Seas, lying within the Limits and Bounds of the said Merchant Adventurers Patent, except the Mart Towns of Dort and Hamburgh. Yet His Majesty would not hereby be thought to have a light esteem of the services of that Company to Himself, and the Crown in former times; nor of their usefulness towards the advance and increase of the Trade of this Kingdom; nor doth His Majesty by this temporary dispensation, in­tend to lessen the Authority of their Charter, as to the Government of that Society, either at home or abroad. And His Majesty doth hereby require and command, That during the time of this Licence and Dispensation, due Payment be made of all Duties for Licensing the Exportation of white Clothes to the said Company, being Lessees to His Majesties Farmers thereof.

Given at Our Court at Whitehal, the Fourteenth day of May, 1662. In the Fourteenth year of Our Reign.

God save the King.