Excerpt from The History of the Society of Merchant Venturers of the City of Bristol: With Some Account of the Anterior Merchants Guilds I have endeavoured in the following pages to comply with a desire expressed by the Society of Merchant Venturers, by compiling from their own Records and other sources of information some account of this ancient incorporation. A close study of the archives made between the years 1897 and 1901, during which period, at the request of the Hall, I drew up a Calendar of the transactions of the Society extending over three large volumes, had made me familiar with the subject. But the preparation from the voluminous documents of a formal history of a Corporation forming a connecting link between the Middle Ages and modern times was a formidable task; and I should not have ventured to undertake it but for the assistance promised (and cordially rendered) by the late and present Treasurers and other members of the Society, and but for the large measure of approval that has been bestowed upon my previous efforts to elucidate local history. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.