Of the total importations of all kinds of coal to Hamburg, that of British coal, particularly from Northumberland and Durham, occupies the first place, and despite some falling off in late years, owing to the competition made by Westphalian coal, amounts to more than half the total import.
It is important as the centre of the flourishing cotton-spinning and weaving industries of the Twente district; while by the railway via Gronau and Koesfeld to Dortmund it is in direct communication with the Westphalian coalfields.
The first of his original pieces performed was Der y politiske Kandestober (The Pewterer turned Politician); he wrote other comedies with miraculous rapidity, and before 1722 was closed, there had been performed in succession, and with immense success, Den Vaegelsindede (The Waverer), Jean de France, Jeppe paa Bjerget, and Gert the Westphalian.
Cologne and the Westphalian towns, the most important of which were Dortmund, Soest and Munster, had long controlled this commerce but now began to feel the competition of the active traders of the Baltic, opening up that direct communication by sea from the Baltic to western Europe which became the essential feature in the history of the League.
In 1293 the Saxon and Wendish merchants at Rostock decided that all appeals from Novgorod be taken to Lubeck instead of to Wisby, and six years later the Wendish and Westphalian towns, meeting at Lubeck, ordered that the Gothland association should no longer use a common seal.