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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fe815fe --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #61947 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/61947) diff --git a/old/61947-0.txt b/old/61947-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 3de8ed4..0000000 --- a/old/61947-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1571 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Edinburgh Papers. Edinburgh Merchants and -Merchandise in Old Times, by Robert Chambers - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Edinburgh Papers. Edinburgh Merchants and Merchandise in Old Times - -Author: Robert Chambers - -Release Date: April 26, 2020 [EBook #61947] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EDINBURGH PAPERS *** - - - - -Produced by Susan Skinner and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - -EDINBURGH PAPERS - -BY - -ROBERT CHAMBERS, F.R.S.E., -F.S.A.Sc., F.G.S., F.L.S., &c. - -AUTHOR OF ‘TRADITIONS OF EDINBURGH.’ - - -EDINBURGH MERCHANTS - -AND - -MERCHANDISE IN OLD TIMES - -[Illustration] - -WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, -LONDON AND EDINBURGH. -1859. - - - - -EDINBURGH -MERCHANTS AND MERCHANDISE -IN OLD TIMES. - - - - - TO THE - MERCHANT COMPANY OF EDINBURGH, - THIS LECTURE, DELIVERED AT THEIR REQUEST, - FEBRUARY 14, 1859, - IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED. - - - - -EDINBURGH MERCHANTS AND MERCHANDISE IN OLD TIMES. - - -I do not propose, on this occasion, to carry your minds back to a very -remote period, for, truth to tell, Scotland was not distinguished for -commerce at an early date. You will not be surprised if I briefly -remark that we hear nothing of trade in Leith harbour till the reign -of Bruce, and have reason to believe that it hardly had an existence -for a century later. Dr Nicolas West, an emissary of Henry VIII., -visited Scotland in 1513, just before the battle of Flodden, and he -tells us that he then found at Leith only nine or ten small topmen, -or ships with rigging, which, from his remarks, we may infer to have -all been under sixty tons burden. There was then but a meagre traffic -carried on with the Low Countries, France, and Spain—wool, skins, and -salmon carried out; and wine, silks, cloth, and miscellaneous articles -imported: matters altogether so insignificant, that there are but a few -scattered references to them in the acts of the national parliament. -One may have some idea of the pettiness of any external trade carried -on by Edinburgh in the early part of the sixteenth century, from what -we know of the condition of Leith at that time. It was but a village, -without quay or pier, and with no approach to the harbour except by -an alley—the still existing Burgess Close, which in some parts is not -above four feet wide. We must imagine any merchandise then brought to -Leith as carried in vessels of the size of small yachts, and borne off -to the Edinburgh warehouses slung on horseback, through the narrow -defiles of the Burgess Close. - -It chances that we possess, in our General Register House, a very -distinct memorial of the traffic carried on between Scotland and the -Netherlands at the close of the fifteenth century. It consists in the -ledger of Andrew Halyburton, a Scottish merchant conducting commission -business for his countrymen at Middleburg, and conservator of the -Scotch privileges there. It extends from the year 1493 to 1505. Andrew -acted as agent for a number of eminent persons, churchmen as well as -laymen, besides merchants, receiving and selling for a commission -the raw products of the country, chiefly those just named—wool, -hides, and salmon—and sending home in return nearly every kind of -manufactured article which we could suppose to have then been in -use. It appears that even salt was then imported. Wheel-barrows were -sent from Flanders to assist in building King’s College, Aberdeen. -There were cloths of silk, linen, and woollen; fruits, spiceries, and -drugs; plate and jewellery; four kinds of wine—claret, Gascony claret, -Rhenish, and Malvoisie. Paper is often named; and there is mention of -pestles and mortars, basins of brass, chamber-mats, beds of arras, -feather-beds, down-pillows, vermilion, red and white lead, and pins. -John of Pennycuik imports the image of Thomas-à-Becket, bought from -a painter at Antwerp. More than one tombstone is shipped to a Scotch -order from Middleburg. Once there is a ‘kist of buikis’ for a physician -at Aberdeen. The account between Halyburton and the Abbot of Holyrood -may be cited as an example of its class in this curious tome. For ‘my -lord,’ as Halyburton calls him, he sells the wool of the sheep which -ranged the Abbey’s pastures in Tweeddale, and the skins and hides of -the sheep and cattle which were slaughtered for the table at Holyrood. -He buys in return claret and other wines, apples, olives, oranges, -figs, raisins, almonds, rice, loaf-sugar, ginger, mace, pepper, -saffron, and large quantities of apothecaries’ wares. Amongst other -customers, we find Walter Chapman, the first printer in Scotland, -and John Smollett, the ancestor of the great novelist of the last -century. Halyburton appears to have often visited Edinburgh, settling -old accounts, and arranging new ventures. Each account has the name of -‘JHESUS’ piously superscribed; and where the customer was a trader, -the merchant’s _mark_, which was cut upon his boxes or inscribed upon -his bales, is copied into the ledger. The volume is surprisingly like -a ledger of the present day, even in the particular of binding; but it -gives, on the whole, the idea of a poor and narrow range of traffic—the -traffic of a rude country, producing only raw articles, and few of -them, and dependent for all above the simplest which it consumed, upon -foreign states.[1] - -About the time referred to in this volume, the central line of street -between the West Bow and Nether Bow was the chief place of merchandise -in Edinburgh, the Cowgate and Canongate being more specially the -residence of the nobility, gentry, and great ecclesiastics. There -were two chief classes of goods dealt in, each mainly confined to a -particular section of the street. What was called _Inland Merchandise_, -or _Inland’sh Goods_—namely, yarn, stockings, coarse cloth, and other -such articles made at home—were, by a charter of 1477, ordained to be -sold in the upper part of the street, then without a special name, -but which is subsequently referred to as the _Land-market_—apparently -an abbreviation of _Inland Market_, from the description of goods -sold in it. Down to recent times, such goods continued to be chiefly -sold there, by people occupying _laigh shops_, and on a certain day -exposing their wares by ancient privilege on the open street. The -remainder of the High Street was chiefly devoted to a superior class -of traders, calling themselves _Merchants_, dealers in imported wares -of various kinds, and each occupying a booth or shop, besides whatever -other warehouses in more retired situations. Wholesale and retail -dealers alike passed under this name, as is still, indeed, the case to -a considerable extent in Scotland, where it has always been remarked -that there was a peculiar liberality or courtesy in the distribution of -names and titles. We frequently hear in the journalists and chroniclers -of the old time, of the _Merchants Buithes_, or shops. The only other -kind of shops in those days was the kind called _krames_, generally -very small, made out of mere angles of property, or insinuated between -the buttresses of St Giles’s Kirk, and chiefly devoted to the sale of -toys and other petty articles. We often hear of _krames_, of _kramers_ -(that is, krame-keepers), and _kramery_ (that is, small wares sold -in krames) in the familiar histories of that age, and in old titles. -Dunbar, the early Scottish poet, describes these shops very aptly as - - ‘Hampered in ane honey-kaim,’ - -close to St Giles’s Church. Fixing our attention, meanwhile, on the -class of traders called merchants, we find that their booths were in -general small places, situated behind the open arcade which then ran -along the greater part of the High Street on both sides. The whole -front of one of these booths, consisting of folding boards, was opened -by day—one board being drawn up, another let down, one or more folded -back sideways, so as to display the interior to the passer-by. On a -bench or counter within the front-wall, goods were laid out to attract -attention; in some instances, there were also stands set out for the -display of wares under the shelter of the arcade in front. As the -merchant sat in his open booth, there were sights presented to him -different from what he would now see: amongst others, rival nobles -meeting on the causey, with their respective bands of armed followers, -and fighting out their quarrels with sword and buckler, and the more -deadly hagbut, to quell which our traders were enjoined by civic -statute of 1529, to keep each in his booth ‘ane axe, or twa, or three, -after as they have servants,’ and to be ready to use them. If we are -to believe Dunbar, he saw ‘the gait’ filthy, and full of clamorous -beggars, milk, shell-fish, and puddings sold at the Cross and the Tron, -and vile crafts everywhere more prominent than his own respectable -merchandise. In the town of Berne, in Switzerland, you can see -precisely the same structural arrangements still existing along both -sides of the principal street, which further reminds one of ancient -Edinburgh by its name of _Kramgasse_. - -At length, in the progress of improvement, there were some shops -formed in a certain part of the High Street, having those open arcaded -spaces in front closed up, leaving only a window and a door; and -these places of business, by way of distinction, acquired the name of -_luckenbooths_—that is, closed booths, a term, as you are all aware, -which still gives a name to the portion of street referred to. Berne -is now in exactly the same circumstances in this respect as Edinburgh -was two hundred years ago, for there also we find a few shops of more -ambitious character than their neighbours, with the fronts built up. It -is very interesting thus to trace in continental towns of the present -day a reflex of things long ago prevalent in our own city. I was -amused, at Nuremberg, to find the Frauenkirke barnacled all round with -little shops or _krames_, as I remember St Giles’s to have been, each -petty shop, moreover, having its miniature house above, in one or more -stories, affording a stifling accommodation to the traders, as was the -case with several of the krame-shops of the old Parliament Close. - -In Germany and Scandinavia, we still find traders who, while conducting -a considerable wholesale business, and even a little banking, have -also retail shops, generally placed towards the public street, and -conducted by subalterns. I found such men in Iceland attending the -parties given in the governor’s house, and evidently enjoying the -local consideration due to their wealth and education. In Edinburgh, -in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there were traffickers -of this kind, some planted in the great thoroughfares, and some -in more retired situations. They were, in some instances, men with -pretensions to pedigree—men who took a prominent part in public -affairs, entertained princes and sovereigns, founded families, and -so forth. Thus, a Hamilton of the house of Innerwick, was what was -called a _merchant_ in the West Bow; he acquired lands—he fell as a -gallant gentleman in Pinkie field; his eldest son was the ancestor of -the Earls of Haddington; his second son, a secular priest, was rector -of the University of Paris, and one of the council of the League who -offered the French crown to the king of Spain in 1591. Contemporary -with him, occupying a shop in the middle row of buildings alongside -of St Giles’s Church, was a similar merchant, named Edward Hope; his -father is believed to have been a Frenchman who came to Scotland in the -train of the Princess Magdalen, daughter of Francis I., when she was -wedded to James V. in 1537. While externally but a shopkeeper in the -Luckenbooths, there can be no doubt that Edward Hope carried on foreign -trade upon a considerable scale, and was a man of large means; of which -last fact, his extensive mansion in Tod’s Close, Castlehill, stood a -few years ago as good evidence. This worthy merchant was commissioner -for Edinburgh in the parliament which settled the Reformation, and he -afterwards, for Protestantism’s sake, bore the brunt of the Lady Mary’s -gentle wrath. Through his elder son he was the ancestor of all the -Hopes who have since stood so conspicuous in rank, in wealth, and in -public service in Scotland; while from his younger son are descended -the famous mercantile family of the Hopes of Amsterdam. In the latter -part of the sixteenth century—that is, in the reigns of Mary and James -VI.—notwithstanding the constant civil broils, and the false maxims by -which commerce was to appearance protected or favoured, but in reality -depressed—there appear to have been some considerable merchants in -Edinburgh, and merchants really entitled to the name, being conductors -of foreign traffic and dealers in wholesale. They generally had their -establishments in some comparatively retired situation, in a close or -_wynd_, near the centre of the city. In Riddell’s Close, Lawnmarket, -there still exist the mansion and business premises of one of these -considerable merchants, namely, Bailie John Macmoran. We are told by -the church historian, Calderwood, that he was the greatest merchant -of his day in Edinburgh, but disliked by the clergy, because of his -carrying victual to Spain, thus endangering the souls of the Scottish -mariners by contact with popery. His house is a good and not inelegant -building forming a court, the entrance to which still exhibits the -hooks for the massive gates by which it could be closed up at night -and in times of danger. A stone projection over a window indicates -an arrangement for pulleying up goods into an upper chamber. A large -room or hall in which the queen’s brother, the Duke of Holstein, was -entertained ‘with great solemnity and merriness’ in 1597, shews the -wealthy state in which this merchant lived. John, who had been a -servitor or dependent of the Regent Morton, whose treasures he assisted -to conceal, was cut off in the middle of his prosperous career, by a -pistol bullet fired at him by a High School boy, while he was exerting -his authority as a magistrate in suppressing a barring-out. - -Near to Macmoran’s house, in what was latterly called the Old -Bank Close, there stood till our own time the not less handsome -establishment of a merchant named Robert Gourlay, bearing the date -1569. This was a large and, in some respects, elegant building, such -as could not be constructed in our day for less than two thousand five -hundred pounds. It had a ground-floor directly accessible from the -close, and which we may presume to have been a store for unbroken bales -and packages; then a first floor, which was probably the warehouse for -wholesale and retail traffic—this had a stair-entrance for itself; -next there was a second floor, accessible by its own stair likewise, -and from which there was an inner stair enclosed in a hanging turret, -giving access to two upper floors; these last three floors constituting -the accommodation of the merchant’s family. We find that Gourlay, who -had originally been a dependent of the Duke of Chastelherault, carried -on a large business in the exporting of corn, doubtless importing in -return the many various articles which he distributed from his first -floor. It is to be feared that he and some of his contemporaries -occasionally were indebted for large profits to favour purchased from -the bad and ignorant governments of their day. At least, we find that -Robert, in 1574, bought a licence from the Regent Morton, enabling -him to export grain, while, owing to a dearth, this power was denied -to all others. The kirk, which he served as an elder, challenged him -for this inhumane traffic, and he for some time stood out under the -Regent’s protection, but was at last obliged to succumb, and make -public confession of his offence, standing in the _marriage-place_ -in St Giles’s, clad in a gown made on purpose, and which he had to -bestow thereafter on the poor. Robert lived to accommodate his friend -the Regent, in his house, for two or three days, when the latter was -awaiting the stroke of the Maiden under a hired guard; and a few years -later, when King James deemed Holyrood an unsafe residence, by reason -that the Earl of Bothwell was scouring about in quest of him, he had -up-putting for several days in the house of the rich merchant, Robert -Gourlay. - -I may enumerate a few other considerable merchants of this period, -all of whom had good houses in the city, where they dwelt as well -as carried on business. In what was latterly called Brodie’s Close, -between Macmoran’s and Gourlay’s houses, lived William Little of -Over-Libberton, at one time provost, and the ancestor of the family now -represented by Mr Little Gilmour of the Inch. It connects merchandise -in an interesting manner with professional and literary things, that -Clement, the brother of William, was the commissary of Edinburgh, and -one of the greatest benefactors to the infant university. Provost -Little’s house, dated 1570, was taken down so lately as 1836, having -continued all the time an entailed property of the family. The -_North British Advertiser_ printing-office now stands on its site. -Nicol Udwart, an active and wealthy merchant, had a stately house -surrounding a square court in Niddry’s Wynd; and there King James was -living in February 1591, when the Bonny Earl of Moray was slaughtered -at Dunnibrissle. A neighbour of Udwart, styled Alexander Clark of -Balbirnie, also a wealthy merchant, and at one time provost of the -city, gave accommodation at the same time to the Chancellor Maitland. -On another occasion, a little earlier, we hear of King James living -with William Fowler, who was also a merchant in Edinburgh. The king, it -is stated, went out to hunt, promising to return to dinner in Fowler’s -house at _one o’clock_. Fowler lived in the Anchor Close, and his -house, in which, as we see, he had entertained royalty, was taken down -only three months ago by the Railway Access Company. It stood, indeed, -in a narrow alley; but it had the advantage of a free aspect over the -country to the north of the city. In the index to the state-papers -connected with Scotland, lately published by Mr Thorpe, William Fowler -figures as a partisan of the English protestant interest, continually -engaged in giving information to Sir Francis Walsingham. - -The trades of Edinburgh in those days were generally conducted by men -of small account; but there was one art carried on upon a scale which -raised its practitioners to the grade of merchants. This was the craft -of the goldsmiths. The habits of the upper classes, partaking so much -of an ill-supported ostentation, made this comparatively a great trade. -We have all heard much of George Heriot, who was made goldsmith to the -queen in 1597, and who, afterwards transplanting himself to London, -there completed the fortune which became the means of founding his -celebrated hospital. But there was a contemporary Edinburgh goldsmith -of even greater importance, in the person of Thomas Foulis, who seems -to have been to King James what the Bank of England was to William -Pitt two hundred years later. It was a loan from Thomas which enabled -the king to march against the rebellious Catholic lords at Aberdeen -in 1593. He stood creditor to the king, in the ensuing year, for the -sum of £14,598 Scots, and for this James lodged with him two gold -drinking-cups, amounting in all to the weight of fifteen pounds five -ounces. In May 1601, the royal debt to Thomas amounted to the enormous -sum of £180,000 Scots, and a parliamentary arrangement had to be made -for its payment. One of the benefits which Thomas Foulis derived from -being the king’s creditor to so large an amount, was a grant of the -lead-mines of Lanarkshire, which he worked with good result, and handed -ultimately to his granddaughter, who married James Hope, the ancestor -of the noble family of Hopetoun. Thus, it will be observed, what -constituted, and yet in part constitutes, the fortune of the Earls of -Hopetoun, came originally from one of our Parliament Close goldsmiths. - -The relation of the last resident king of Scots to his mercantile -subjects in Edinburgh was generally a good-humoured one; but there was -one occasion when serious strife stood between them, though for a short -time only. Under some misapprehension about his intentions regarding -the clergy, a mob beset his majesty for an hour or two in the place of -judgment in the Tolbooth. He was, or affected to be, very wroth with -the people of Edinburgh, and returning on Hogmanay day, a fortnight -after the riot, he ordered that the ports and streets should be kept -for his protection by certain Border chiefs on whom he could depend. -A rumour arose that _Kinmont Willie_ and other border thieves were -come to _spulyie_ the town, and immediately there was such a scene as -no Edinburgh merchant then living could ever forget. The principal -men took the goods out of their booths, and transported them to the -strongest house in the town—possibly Macmoran’s—posting themselves and -servants there also, all fully armed, in apprehension of an immediate -attack. In like manner, groups of the craftsmen and commoner sort of -people gathered into strong houses, with their best goods, and with -arms in their hands to defend their property to the last extremity. -An Edinburgh citizen, John Birrel, chronicles this affair, with the -remark—‘Judge, gentle reader, gif this be play.’ After all, the guard -of borderers did our merchants and craftsmen no harm; but when one -reads of such an alarm, it becomes easy to understand how Macmoran -and Gourlay had such strong houses for conducting their business, and -how all the closes in the High Street should have had gates at top and -bottom, as still appears in many cases by the remaining hooks for the -hinges. - -When we pass on to the early part of the seventeenth century, we still -find merchants of considerable importance in Edinburgh. They usually -are either the descendants or the progenitors of good families. As -an example of the former, we may take James Murray, of whose living -locality in our city I can say nothing, but who, at his death in old -age in 1649, was laid in the Greyfriars’ Churchyard. James was a -younger son of Patrick Murray of Philiphaugh, and to each of his three -sons, by Bethia Maule of the Panmure family, he left an estate. Perhaps -I could in no way better describe him than by the quaint words of his -epitaph in the Greyfriars: - - Stay, passenger, and shed a tear, - For good James Murray lieth here; - He was of Philiphaugh descended, - And for his merchandise commended; - He was a man of a good life, - Married Bethia Maule to ’s wife; - He may thank God that e’er he gat her; - She bore him three sons and a daughter; - The first he was a man of might, - For which the king made him a knight; - The second was both wise and wily, - For which the town made him a bailie; - The third, a factor of renown, - Both in Campvere and in this town. - His daughter was both grave and wise, - And married was to James Elies. - -Another of this class was John Trotter, son of Thomas Trotter of -Catchelraw. He acquired by merchandise in Edinburgh the means of -purchasing the estate of Mortonhall, and thus laid the foundation of -a family which still exists in great note and opulence. A third was -John Sinclair, a cadet of the old house of Longformacus. Being bred a -merchant, as Douglas’s _Baronage_ explicitly declares, he realised so -much wealth by his business as to be able, in 1624, to purchase the -estate of Stevenston in Haddingtonshire, to which he afterwards added -other lands, forming in whole a large estate. The king conferred on him -a Nova Scotia baronetcy, which is still enjoyed by his descendants. -We have a fourth instance in George Blair, a second son of Patrick -Blair of Pittendreich. The wealth which this gentleman acquired by -merchandise in Edinburgh, was the means of purchasing the estate of -Lethendy in Perthshire, to which his son added that of Glasclune. -Another may still be added, in James Riddell, of the ancient family -of Riddell of that Ilk. This gentleman, after pursuing a business -career for some time in Poland, where many Scotch youths then found -occupation, returned to Edinburgh about the year 1603, set up business -there, married a lady of means styled Bessie Allan, and died a wealthy -man. His son, who became a merchant in Leith, purchased the estate of -Kinglass, which he left to a line of descendants. I cannot but view -with interest the good sense of our gentry of two and three hundred -years ago, in setting their younger sons to a career of useful and -honourable industry, instead of allowing them idly to loiter at home, -or go into the little better than idleness of a foreign military -service. It was evidently considered no discredit in those days for a -gentleman’s son to become a merchant in Edinburgh. - -In the age which we now have under our notice, the proceedings of -mercantile men were impeded and thwarted, to a degree of which we can -scarcely form an idea, by false political economy. For a merchant -to reserve grain during a scarcity—thus, in the view of Adam Smith, -serving a good public end by equalising consumption over the distressed -period—was then an impious crime condemned by whole legions of laws. -To export almost any article that could be consumed at home was -generally discountenanced, as tending to raise prices upon the home -consumer. Importing foreign articles was looked upon at the best as a -lamentable necessity, because it caused money to be sent out of the -country. We have, for instance, in 1615, a fulmination from the Privy -Council against a ‘most unlawful and pernicious tred of exporting eggs -furth of the kingdom,’ and in 1625, a not less furious denunciation -of the ‘mischeant and wicked tred’ of exporting tallow. In 1634, a -man wanting some Norway timber to build houses at Seaton, required to -use influence with the government to be allowed to send some of his -own East Lothian wheat for it to Bergen. An unenlightened selfishness -put a dead-lock upon nearly everything that an enlightened view of -the interests of all would have counselled to be done. In these -circumstances, to succeed in foreign trade must have required no small -amount of skill and policy, as well as means, because in addition to -all the natural difficulties, there were bad laws to be evaded or -overcome, or privileges and exemptions to be purchased from corrupt -statesmen. There were also in those days sumptuary laws for preventing -the people from injuring themselves by too expensive habits. They are -understood to have not been very effectual for their avowed purpose; -but they now serve a good end in revealing to us the nature of the -business of the mercer in the times to which they refer. We find, for -example, in 1581, when the country was but a few years emerged from -a calamitous civil war, that even people of what was called ‘mean -estate’ were addicted to ‘the wearing of costly cleithing, of silks -of all sorts, laine, cambric, fringes, and passments of gold, silver, -and silk, and woollen claith, made and brocht from foreign countries.’ -Hence, it was stated, the prices of these articles had grown to such a -height ‘as is not longer able to be sustained without the great skaith -and inconvenience of the commonweal’—that is to say, gentles were of -opinion that they would get such articles much cheaper, if there were -no other customers for them. The general inclination for foreign finery -was held all the more indefensible, seeing that ‘God has granted to -this realm sufficient commodities for claithing of the inhabitants -thereof within the self, gif the people were vertuously employed in -working of the same at hame.’ Another such act in 1621 ordained that no -persons but those of the nobility, and others possessing six thousand -merks of free yearly rent, should wear ‘any clothing of gold or silver -cloth, or any gold or silver lace upon their apparel;’ neither should -they use ‘velvet, sattin, or other stuffs of silk.’ Even those who -were privileged by wealth to wear these articles, were forbidden to -have embroidery, lace, or passments upon their clothes, ‘except only a -plain welting lace of silk upon the seams or borders.’ They were also -to observe that ‘the said apparel of silk be no ways cut out upon other -stuffs of silk, except upon a single taffeta.’ By the same act, it was -enjoined that no person of whatsoever degree, except those privileged -as above, should have ‘pearling or ribboning upon their ruffs, sarks, -napkins, and socks;’ and any pearling or ribboning so worn was to be -‘of those made within the kingdom of Scotland,’ under a high penalty. -So, also, castor-hats, feathers for the head, and gold chains with -pearls or stones, were forbidden for all except the privileged classes; -and servants were restricted to home-made fustian, canvas, and other -stuffs, and husbandmen to the common gray, blue, and _self-black_ cloth -of the country. By _self-black_ I presume is meant cloth made of the -wool of black sheep in its natural state. These plain and homely kinds -of cloth were woven by the village websters out of yarn which the -housewives and their maidens had spun by the winter fireside when there -was no more pressing work to do. Such cloths, so made, continued in -use amongst simple rustic people down to the close of the last century, -and partially even a little later. I believe they have now entirely -disappeared. - -Notwithstanding all impediments from bad and simply officious -legislation, we can see that the first third of the seventeenth century -was a time of mercantile prosperity and progress in Scotland generally, -and in Edinburgh in particular. The country was at peace; the laws -were tolerably well executed; and as yet the religious troubles of the -century had not begun. There was a general disposition, encouraged by -the king, to see the useful arts cultivated in our country; and several -were actually now established for the first time. For example, it -was now that leather was first made of good quality in Scotland, the -improved art being introduced by workmen from England. The manufacture -of glass was set up in 1610 at Wemyss in Fife, by the ancestor of the -Earls of Kinnoul, and met with tolerable success. Paper and a superior -kind of cloth were attempted, but unsuccessfully. A great grudge being -entertained regarding the large sums annually sent to Flanders for -soap, there was much interest excited by an effort made at Leith, -in 1619, to manufacture that useful article. The enterpriser was Mr -Nathaniel Udwart, son of the Nicol Udwart who had entertained King -James in his house in Niddry’s Wynd. As an encouragement, he asked a -privilege excluding the foreign article for a number of years, and -the Privy Council took much pains to ascertain if this could be done -without prejudice to the public. Pages after pages of their records -are filled with deliberations on the subject, marginally marked with -the words, ‘Anent the Sape,’ or ‘Mr Nathaniel his sape;’ and finally, -he obtained the desired privilege under certain conditions. In this -matter, however, flesh and blood could not endure the false political -economy. Mr Nathaniel’s soap was pronounced to be of unsatisfactory -quality; and it was shewn to be better for the people in such distant -provinces as Dumfries, to import their soap from Flanders, than to -transport it from Leith by land-carriage. The native soap-factory -appears, therefore, to have had a considerable struggle at first. -Afterwards, it was more successfully carried on, along with the making -of potasses, by Patrick Maule, the ancestor of the Lords Panmure; for -here is another of our wealthy noble families who were beholden to -trade for some part of their fortunes. We really must not be too hard -upon our ancestors for the false commercial maxims by which they made -their own interests so much of a difficulty to themselves, for we ought -to remember how recently we have shaken off some of these very maxims, -and how greatly foreign nations yet suffer from them. I daresay you -will all hear, with something like a smile, that the proceedings of -King James in 1598, regarding the poultrymen of Edinburgh, who tried to -evade an edict for maximum prices, by selling their poultry in secret -to people who would give better prices, were precisely imitated by the -present Emperor of France in 1856, with respect to the butchers of -Paris. - -And in what, it will be asked, did the external commerce of Scotland -at this time consist? First, then, was the exporting of wool, woollen -and linen yarn, hides, tallow, butter, oil, and barrelled flesh, -salmon, and herrings, also plaiden stuff and stockings, to the Low -Countries. This was a trade exclusively confined by strict regulation -to the port of Campvere, where, for many years past, there had been -established a corporation of Scottish merchants, under a chief called -the _Conservator_. It was a body entirely independent of the local -authorities, as well of their High Mightinesses of the Netherlands; -for the Conservator, with a council of six, or at least four, was -entitled to adjudge in every case connected with Scottish merchants -or merchandise. The Scottish merchants had a street and a quay to -themselves, and a minister of their own choice, to whom the native -mayor paid a salary of nine hundred guilders per annum. Second, there -was a considerable trade with Poland, the goods being introduced by -Scottish merchants residing at Dantzig, while the country itself was -said to swarm with pedlers of our nation, by whom, I presume, the -merchandise was diffused. Our townsman, Mr W. F. Skene, tells me that -he lately found at Dantzig abundant records of the Scotch merchandise -formerly carried on there. The imports were wool and coarse cloths; -the exports, corn, tar, and wine—whence the latter was brought to -Dantzig does not appear, but it might be from some countries far to -the south, for through the Vistula there were communications between -this Hanseatic town and districts far removed in that direction. Next, -we must advert to a constant import of wine from France, probably for -the most part in exchange for salmon and herrings. Finally, Scotland -kept a considerable quantity of shipping in the employment of France, -Spain, and even Italy and Barbary. The zealous clergy, in 1592, made -an effort to stop this and every other kind of intercourse of their -countrymen with Spain, from an apprehension, already adverted to, -that they might thus be drawn back to Romanism; but here feelings of -mercantile interest were too much for even clerical zeal, and the -attempt failed miserably. The trade with France was threatened in a -more serious manner in 1615, when, in consequence of an edict against -the importation of goods into England in other than English vessels, -the French king ordered that no goods should be imported from Britain -into France in other than French vessels. A Scotch bark then lading -at a French port was actually stopped, and ordered to go away empty. -It was a most serious affair for Scotland; but the national ingenuity -prevailed. France was reminded of the ancient alliance of King Alpin -of Scotland with Charlemagne—a fable, but as good as a truth, since it -was universally believed—also of the more palpable fact that Scotland, -as apart from England, had issued no edict against French vessels. The -rule was therefore relaxed in favour of Scottish ships. One of the -standing troubles of this Scotch trade lay in the piratical habits of -Algiers. Every now and then a piteous tale came home to Edinburgh of -some little vessel, belonging to Dundee, or Leith, or Borrowstounness, -caught by these rovers, and the crew all lying chained in dungeons, -on the coast of Africa, fed with only bread and water. And then there -would be a kindly collection of half-pence at the kirk-doors for the -unfortunates, who generally were relieved by these means, though -sometimes not till they had endured for a year or two their miserable -captivity. - -When troubles began to arise in consequence of the efforts of the -kings James and Charles to introduce episcopalian arrangements and -ceremonies, there were several eminent merchants of Edinburgh who stood -conspicuously forward against these innovations. We hear much at that -time of William Rig or Ridge, of Athernie in Fife, and of John Mean, -both merchants in Edinburgh, very pious men, who, with John Hamilton, -an apothecary, were banished to distant towns because they would not -agree to accept the communion kneeling. Rig was both rich and liberal, -insomuch that he is stated to have been in the custom of distributing -annually upwards of eight thousand merks (equal to £444 sterling) -for pious and charitable purposes. John Mean, whose wife is believed -to have been the person who threw the stool at the bishop’s head in -St Giles’s, at the reading of the famous _Service-book_, was at one -time post-master of Edinburgh, that important institution having been -set up in 1635: the revenue, in his time, was about four hundred a -year. Another, and still more remarkable Edinburgh merchant, noted -as a friend of the Presbyterian cause, was William Dick, ancestor of -our neighbour Sir William Cunningham Dick of Prestonfield. Coming of -Orkney people, one of his first adventures was the farming of the -crown-rents of that district at three thousand pounds sterling. He -established an active trade with the Baltic and the Mediterranean, -and made a profitable business of negotiating bills of exchange with -Holland. He had ships on every sea, and could ride on his own lands -from North Berwick to near Linlithgow. His wealth, centering in a -warehouse in the Luckenbooths, on the site of that now occupied by John -Clapperton & Co., is estimated to have finally reached the astonishing -sum of two hundred thousand pounds sterling; though I must own to some -incredulity on the subject. That it was, however, very great, fully -appears from the effects of it which appear in history. Sir William, -having been induced to accept the provostship of the city in the year -1638, was easily led by his own religious prepossessions to become a -sort of voluntary exchequer for the friends of the national covenant, -then mustering a resistance to the Service-book and the bishops. -King Charles could not have been faced at Dunse Law but for William -Dick’s cornucopia of dollars. From the same fund came the expenses for -the king’s visit to Edinburgh in 1641. When the Scottish parliament -in the same year mustered ten thousand men to go to Ireland and -suppress the rebel Catholics, the little army could not have marched -without the meal which Sir William Dick furnished. His national loans -afterwards extended to transactions in which the credit of the English -parliament was concerned; and here ruin overtook him. The time came -when such loans were not recognised, or at least met with but slight -reverence; and this Scottish Crœsus—a national creditor to the extent -of sixty-four thousand pounds—actually spent his last days in a jail at -Westminster, under something like a want of the common necessaries of -life. - -While it appears that so many noted merchants stood up for the popular -cause, that of royalty was espoused by at least one eminent trader, -namely, Sir William Gray of Pittendrum, a cadet of the noble house -of Gray, and direct ancestor of the present lord. Sir William, whose -house, with his arms and initials, and the date 1622, may still be seen -in Lady Stair’s Close, Lawnmarket, is said to have conducted foreign -trade upon a large scale, considering the times, and he became, for his -age, extremely rich. For corresponding with the Marquis of Montrose, a -fine of a hundred thousand merks was imposed upon him, and he actually -paid thirty-five thousand, being nearly two thousand pounds sterling. -When one of his sons married the Mistress of Gray, Sir William gave -him the handsome endowment of 232,000 merks. Sir William Dick and Sir -William Gray are perhaps the first commercial men of our city who -reached the character of merchant-princes. - -A little later than these men was James Stuart, a historical personage -of even greater celebrity, and the more worthy of note on the present -occasion, in as far as he made a movement to the formation of a -Merchants’ Company in Edinburgh so early as 1658. Born of the family -of the Stuarts of Allanton in Lanarkshire, he was brought up in a -merchant’s shop in Edinburgh, and in due time became a flourishing -merchant himself. His importance in this capacity, his active talents -and address, made him a conspicuous actor on the popular side in -the affairs of Scotland during the years of the civil war. Family -tradition represents him as the person who brought to the Covenanters -in Edinburgh that doubtful promise of sympathy and assistance from -the English patriots, which is adverted to in all the histories of -the period. It is stated that he was in London on business, when Lord -Saville, hearing of him as a leading citizen of Edinburgh, and a man of -talent and spirit, already noted amongst those who were contemplating a -resistance to the king, sent for him, and after some conversation, bade -him be of good cheer, for his countrymen would not be left to fight the -battle single-handed. Whatever truth there is in this, James Stuart -afterwards became a most distinguished public person. He was provost of -Edinburgh in the trying time when it was invested, and at length taken -possession of, by the troops of Cromwell. He survived the Restoration, -and was a sufferer under Charles II.’s rule, but nevertheless left -considerable realised wealth to his descendants, the Stuarts baronets -of Coltness. His son was lord advocate under King William and Queen -Anne; and the grandson of that personage wrote the first systematic -work on political economy which appeared in this country. - -The unsuccessful efforts made by Scotland first to extend presbytery -into England under the Solemn League and Covenant, and next to save -the old monarchy from the English sectaries and republicans, left it -exhausted and bleeding under the heel of Cromwell. We should vainly, -amidst our present peace and comfort, attempt to form an idea of the -utter bankruptcy of our country during the eight or nine years when it -was kept down by eight thousand English soldiers, whom it was obliged -to pay by a monthly cess for their oppression. Glasgow had then but -twelve vessels, mostly under a hundred tons each; the customs of Leith, -which have in our times touched six hundred thousand pounds, were then -only £2335. We wade through year after year of the domestic annals -of the country at this time, and hear of not one prosperous merchant, -not one attempt at an enlarged system of industry, no new invention -or project, nor even of the continuation of any of those manufactures -which had been introduced during the two preceding reigns. Religious -and political controversy, working itself out in violence fatal to all -real progress, had blighted the whole pith and capacity of the country. - -After the Restoration, things were for a long time not much better, -for still unfortunately the bitterness of religious conflict was kept -up. A Royal Fishery Company, with a capital of £25,000 sterling, was -started, as a rival to the Dutch; but it did not prosper greatly. It -had various privileges; and we rather hear of these proving a detriment -to private enterprise, than of any distinct good done by the company -itself. Amongst the most notable uses for shipping in the reign of -the restored Stuart, were some of a melancholy character—privateering -against the Dutch during the two shameful wars carried on against -Holland, and the transporting of poor people to Barbadoes, and of -discontented west-country Presbyterians to the American colonies. The -former kind of work is said to have enriched two merchants named Baird, -whose descendants have since figured among the Scottish gentry. But all -such work was of small advantage to the country at large, as everything -is, indeed, except that which gives real labour and its products. Here -and there was a speculator like Sir Robert Mylne of Barnton, who made -a little fortune by farming the entire national revenue at ninety -thousand pounds, and ultimately lost it again, as he well might in -that age without any necessary connection of the event with the fact -of his having handed the Covenant to the hangman when it was publicly -burnt after the Restoration. In this age, too, there was at least one -able and successful merchant in our city, namely, Sir James Dick of -Prestonfield, a grandson of the Rothschild of the Covenant. In him -the fortunes of the family were in some measure restored. As provost -of Edinburgh, he acquired the friendship of the Duke of York, when -he lived at Holyrood, and used to be consulted by him about means of -promoting the prosperity of the country. George Watson, the founder -of our hospital, was originally head-clerk or accountant to Dick, at -a salary of £16, 13s. 4d. Rather unexpectedly, I am informed that -a branch of Sir James’s business has continued to be kept up, and -after some changes of situation, now appears under the firm of Craig -Brothers, in the South Bridge. There was, however, in this reign, -little more than a blind groping towards mercantile enterprise. The -contemplation of English prosperity had created a spirit of emulation. -Men of enlarged minds were sadly sensible of the national poverty. -There was a general sense of uneasiness under the knowledge that -perhaps as much as _twenty thousand a year_ went out of this poor -country into fat and comfortable England, to buy superfine cloth and -other fineries for the upper classes. England, too, it was observed, -had those colonies on the other side of the Atlantic, not one of whom -could buy a hat, or a coat, or a sheet of glass, from anybody but an -Englishman, while Scotland had no such outlets for manufactures, even -if the manufactures existed. There was, it appears, in Scotland, the -shrewd head and the willing hand; but how to start, how to get capital, -skill, and experience—how, in short, to realise the ambitious views she -was beginning to cherish! - -Restricted as merchandise was in the reign of King William, we then -find a general acknowledgment of the importance of the mercantile -class in Edinburgh, in the practice of receiving the Lord Provost of -the city as a member of the Privy Council, which was substantially -the government of the country. These provosts, too, were generally -knighted. Amongst them we find Sir John Hall, ancestor of the baronets -of Dunglass, and of the late ingenious writer, Captain Basil Hall. Sir -William Binning and Sir Thomas Kennedy, who had been provosts in the -late Stuart reigns, continued in that of King William to be engaged -in large undertakings, such as government contracts and farmings -of customs. So, also, was an eminent member of our Company, Bailie -Alexander Brand, who finally acquired the honour of knighthood. We -find Brand, for instance, along with Binning and Kennedy, engaging to -import five thousand stand of arms for the state, at one pound sterling -each, and getting into trouble from making public in a law-court that -he contemplated a _donative_ of two hundred and fifty guineas, with -other articles, to some of the principal state-officers with whom the -bargain had been made. A certain Sir Robert Dickson, who, with Binning -and Kennedy, farmed the customs and foreign excise for five years from -1693, at twenty thousand three hundred pounds a year, got into a worse -scrape still with the state-officers; for, in squaring accounts, he -found upwards of two thousand pounds unexpectedly on the debit side, -for wines given as gratuities to those nobles, and, seeking the king’s -protection from this oppression, he found himself liable to a charge, -under an old statute, against murmuring at judges, and was glad to -buy himself off by craving pardon on his knees. The gratuities, in -the latter case, were declared to be according to use and wont; if -so, it seems hard that Brand should have been harassed for announcing -a compliance with the custom in the other case; but, of course, -_quietness_ is everything in these matters. - -It was in this reign that the bearing of the national mind towards -commerce first found effectual gratification. A company, headed by -John Holland, a London merchant, started in 1695 the Bank of Scotland, -the first institution of the kind in the country. Its paid-up capital -was at first no more than ten thousand pounds. It tried branches at -Aberdeen, Dundee, and Glasgow; but they did not succeed, or were -not found to be wanted, and the money was all brought home again on -horses’ backs. Under the prompting and guidance of an ingenious native, -William Paterson, the African Company was formed in the ensuing year, -with about a quarter of a million of paid-up capital, and the design -of planting a great entrepôt for the commerce of the world on the -Isthmus of Darien. As is well known, this company, through English -jealousy, proved a disastrous failure. It was a sore blow for a poor -country to suffer at the very opening of a mercantile career, and it -was long before our people forgot it, or overcame its effects. When the -Union, however, happily settled that English exclusivism was no longer -exclusive for Scotland—when Scotland was so far allowed to have that -fair-play for her industry which we are now seeking to establish as the -right of all, as it is for the good of all—then did her enterprise find -safer channels and a more fitting reward. Owing, indeed, to the lack of -capital and other causes, the progress was for a long time rather slow, -and especially on our side of the island. As a proof of this, take the -contrast between the shipping of Leith in 1692—twenty-nine vessels -of an average of fifty-nine tons (the value £7100)—and that of 1740, -when it exhibited forty-seven vessels of an average of only fifty-six -tons, and not one above 180. The increase of the next twelve years to -sixty-eight vessels, of an average of 102 tons—several being as high -as 300, and one of 350 tons—shews a great acceleration of progress -after the first difficulties were got over. In 1844, there belonged to -Leith 210 vessels of an aggregate of 25,427 tons, or an average of 121 -tons. On the west side of the island, owing to the development of the -American colonies, the progress was greater; and yet it was not till -eleven years after the Union that Glasgow sent her first ship across -the Atlantic. The smallness of all mercantile matters there at first is -most remarkable. It is alleged that four young men, with ten thousand -pounds amongst them, commenced the mercantile glory of our western -capital. And one cannot without a smile read, in the diary of serious -Mr Wodrow, under 1709, of Glasgow losing no less than ten thousand -pounds by the capture of a fleet going to Holland. ‘I am sure,’ he -says, ‘the Lord is remarkably frowning upon our trade in more respects -than one, since it was put in place of our religion, in the late -alteration of our constitution.’ Leaving these more general matters, -I must devote the remainder of my brief space to the history of the -Merchant Company of Edinburgh. - -It was amidst some of the most distressing things in our national -history—hangings of the poor ‘hill-folk’ in the Grassmarket, trying -of the patriot Argyle for taking the test with an explanation, and -so forth—that this Company came into being. Its nativity was further -heralded by sundry other things of a troublous kind, more immediately -affecting merchandise and its practitioners. - -The superior woollen cloth which was woven in England so early as the -reign of Henry VIII., made its way into Scotland before the end of -the sixteenth century; but it was very grudgingly looked upon by our -native economists. The ‘hame-bringing of English claith’ was denounced -in an act of 1597 as an unprofitable trade, ‘the same claith having -only for the maist part an outward show, wanting that substance and -strength whilk ofttimes it appears to have,’ and being, moreover, the -chief cause of the ‘transporting of all gold and silver furth of this -realm, and, consequently, of the present dearth of the cunyie.’ Soon -after this, seven Flemings were brought to Edinburgh, to instruct -the people how to make _seys_ and broadcloth at home, and to save -this pernicious outflow of coin into England; but there were many -impediments in the way. We do not hear that the seven Flemings were -ever fairly set to work. In 1620, a second attempt of the same kind was -made with four Fleming cloth-makers, in a place on the outskirts of the -city called Paul’s Work; but the days were still evil. The first really -energetic or hopeful effort at a woollen-cloth manufacture amongst us -was not made till the year 1681, when a work of that kind was set up -at Newmills, near Haddington, under the care of an Englishman named -Stanfield, and with several English workmen to instruct the natives. As -what was thought a needful encouragement to this and other enterprises -for the production of articles of attire within the country, and so -saving money from being sent out of it, an act of parliament was -passed, forbidding the importation of all kinds of cloth of wool or -lint, all silk goods, and, generally, articles of personal finery; -also the exporting of any linen or woollen yarn, or of any coarse -cloth. It was called an act for encouraging trade and manufactures; -but while it could not very readily bring manufactures into being, it -was in reality calculated to extinguish no small amount of trade. Very -amusingly, too, the act recites that these arrangements were arrived at -by the Privy Council ‘after long and serious deliberation, and advice -of the most judicious and knowing merchants of the kingdom.’ It is -scarce conceivable to us how such an act came to be passed, seeing that -it forbade the use of foreign articles before any corresponding ones -were made at home; before even the machinery for making them was set up -or existed; but the truth is, the governments of those days had much -greater dependence upon the use of force than we have—force to make -people like bishops or give up popery—force to direct what they were -to eat, and what they were to wear. And with all this dependence on -force, no means of really enforcing anything: at least, we never hear -of any such enactments in those days, but we soon after hear of their -being everywhere broken through and disregarded. For my part, I feel -at a loss to understand the drift of the government on this occasion, -for, little more than two months after a parliamentary prohibition of -foreign cloth, we find the king giving the _Company of the Merchants of -Edinburgh_ their Patent, describing them as _invectores et panni tam -rasi quam villosi_, importers of both fine and coarse cloth. Probably -it was expected that they would almost instantly cease to be so, and -remain only liable to the rest of the description given to them of -_vendors of wearing stuffs_. If so, the hope was a bootless one, for, -notwithstanding sundry burnings of the forbidden foreign stuffs on the -streets of Edinburgh, no manufacture either of fine woollen cloth, -or of silks, or fine linen, took hearty root in our country for many -years thereafter. Most likely, the act fell speedily into contempt as -impracticable. - -It was on the 1st of December 1681 that eighty-two merchants of -Edinburgh, so called, but in truth specially concerned in the -business of cloth or clothing alone, met the magistrates in the High -Council-house, to hear read the royal letters-patent, erecting them -into a company or society for the promotion of commerce and sundry -other useful purposes. Each member was to pay at entry three pounds -Scots—that is, ten shillings sterling—and six shillings Scots, or -an English sixpence, yearly, while in trade, for the purpose of -constituting a fund for decayed members and their widows and children. -It will be observed that these were very moderate contributions, even -for the reign of Charles II.; but the tradition of the Company is, -that its whole scheme was at first of a humble nature. The constituent -members adopted as their symbol a _Stock of Broom_—a modest shrub, but -with a great tendency to increase. As such they regarded their society -and plan of charity; and ever since, ‘the Stock of Broom’ has been the -first toast at all the convivial meetings of the Company. I regret to -remark, that, while such laudable views and ideas prevailed amongst -our predecessors, the universal taint of exclusiveness had also an -ascendency over them. It was ruled in their very constitution, that -none who had not entered their Company should be permitted to practise -merchandise in the city. And they were entitled to poind goods which -were exposed to sale in contravention of their bye-laws. - -One of the Company’s first proceedings was to ask the Dean of Edinburgh -(Very Reverend William Annand) to compose a prayer to be said by -the clerk at all their meetings. It was as follows: ‘Almighty and -eternal God, we thy servants now assembled, implore, according to -thy gracious promises, the pardon of all our offences, and thy holy -spirit to deliver us from falling into the snares of sin and Satan. -Keep us, O Lord, in peace, unity, brotherly love, and concord, by -removing pride, prejudice, passion, covetousness, and whatever may -offend thy gracious majesty. Bless our king and all the royal family, -the magistrates, and all the incorporations of this city, the Masters -and all the members of this society, that we may have fellowship with -thee. The sea is thine, and thy hands formed the dry land: prosper us -in our present undertaking with the fruits of both; above all, with -the fruits of thy holy Spirit, through Jesus Christ our Lord.’ It was -thought proper to make some requital to the dean for this service; but -it seems to have been rather long before the Stock of Broom spread -sufficiently to allow of this being done. It was not till August 1686 -that the Company ordained Hugh Blair, one of their number, to furnish -the reverend gentleman with ‘six ells fine black cloth for a gown,’ -for which ‘the said Hugh Blair is to have from the Company twenty -shillings sterling the ell, _if it be paid within twelve months_; but -if it happen to be any longer resting, the price is to be augmented -at the discretion of the Company conform to the time.’ On the 9th of -January 1688 the Company realised £36, 13_s._ Scots, or rather more -than three pounds sterling, by poindings of certain small quantities -of fustian, mohair, and serge, which had been exposed in the market -contrary to law; and, now believing themselves to be in a good way, -they ordered that Hugh Blair be paid for the dean’s gown out of the -first and readiest of the treasurer’s intromissions, but still to be -allowed interest till payment was actually made. We may presume that -Blair was paid not long after this, for, in the ensuing September, the -twelve pounds Scots realised from the fustian was ordered to be given -to James Tait, an indigent member of the Company. It may be remarked -that Hugh Blair was a grandson of Robert Blair, one of the Covenanting -ministers who have reached a historical fame, and he was at the same -time grandfather to his namesake the admired minister of the High Kirk, -and author of the _Sermons_ and _Lectures on Belles-Lettres_. Hugh was -Master of the Company in the year 1692. It may also be worth while -to recall that Dean Annand was the clergyman officially appointed to -attend the unfortunate Earl of Argyle on the scaffold. He was a man of -considerable learning, and, as we learn from his communications with -Argyle, a hearty opponent of popery. - -One of the Company’s earliest movements of any importance was the -acquiring of a hall; but I regret to say this was not, as might be -supposed, a movement of a purely dignified nature—the great object was -to get a place of their own, in which they could deposit the goods -taken from unfreemen, it having been found hitherto, that such goods -taken to private houses were often disposed of clandestinely: in short, -the Company got little good of them. In 1691, the Master, Bailie Robert -Blackwood, intimated that there was a suitable house to be had in the -Cowgate—namely, a large lodging belonging to Viscount Oxenford, and the -price would be about twelve thousand merks, or six hundred and seventy -pounds sterling. A subscription was immediately entered into to defray -the cost, and the house was purchased. It was a large quadrangular -building, surrounding a court-yard, and had been the residence of the -celebrated lawyer of a hundred years before, who finally became the -first Earl of Haddington—popularly called, from his locality, _Tam o’ -the Cowgate_. Even now, the widow of the cavalier Sir Thomas Dalyell of -Binns, and one or two other persons of quality, had lodgment in some -of its apartments. There was one large room which was to be devoted -to the purposes of a hall; but it was sadly out of order. Presently -comes forward a liberal member of the Company, Bailie Alexander Brand, -who had some time before established a manufactory of what was called -_Spanish leather_, for the ornamenting of rooms—namely, skins stamped -with gold. It was a pretty style of hangings, once in great favour -in Scotland; a few examples may still be seen in old country-houses; -one I remember in the house of Gartsherrie in Lanarkshire. The bailie -undertook to hang the hall in this manner, and only charge what was -due over and above his own contribution of a hundred and fifty pounds -Scots. Ten years afterwards, when accounts came to be settled with the -then Sir Alexander Brand—for it will be observed prompt settlements -were by no means among the commercial virtues of our predecessors—it -appeared that a hundred and nineteen skins of gold leather, with a -black ground, had been used, at a total expense of two hundred and -fifty-three pounds Scots, including the manufacturer’s contribution. -There was also much concernment about a piece of waste ground behind; -but the happy thought occurred of converting it into a bowling-green, -for the use of the members in the first place, and the public in -the second. Many years after, we find Allan Ramsay making joyous -Horatian allusions to this place of recreation, telling us that now, -in winter, douce folk were no longer seen wysing ajee the biassed -bowls on Tamson’s Green (Thomson being a subsequent tenant). It is not -unworthy of notice that, from the low state of the arts in Scotland, -the bowls required for this green had to be brought from abroad. It -is gravely reported to the Company on the 6th of March 1693, that -the bowls are ‘upon the sea homeward.’ Ten pair cost £6, 4_s._ 3_d._ -Scots. It is scarcely necessary to add that the Company’s connection -with the Cowgate was dissolved long ago, and even the house has for -thirty years ceased to exist, having been taken down to make way for -George the Fourth’s Bridge. The only remaining memorial of the Company -at that spot is to be found in the name, Merchant Street, applied to a -half-extinguished line of buildings behind the Cowgate, and our title -to the ground-rents of that part of the city. - -By and by, the Company became engaged in matters more amiable than -the seizing of goods of unfreemen. Wealthy members died, leaving -_mortifications_ (in the happy Scottish sense) to the Company, for the -succour of decayed brethren. It is remarkable that, on the first such -occasion, in 1693, when three thousand five hundred pounds, accruing -from a legacy left by Patrick Aikenhead, a Scotch merchant at Dantzig, -for pious uses in Edinburgh, came into possession of the Merchant -Company, they had not a decayed member requiring the benefit. Not long -after the last date, the Company became engaged in the erection of a -hospital for the nurture and education of the female children of their -less prosperous members. Though originated by a certain Mrs Hare, widow -of an Edinburgh apothecary, but a scion of the noble house of Marr, the -principal labour and expense attending this foundation fell upon the -Merchant Company of Edinburgh. Their zeal in the affair is amply shewn -in their books, where the entries of contributions for ‘_the Lasses_’ -are for some years incessant. Twenty-eight years later, when George -Watson died, leaving no less than twelve thousand pounds sterling for -the benefit of children of the other sex, the Merchant Company came -to have the management of a second foundation of the same kind. I -believe its administration in both hospitals has, generally speaking, -been unexceptionable. It is, however, worthy of observation, that the -Company itself has never supplied a sufficiency of children requiring -the benefits. It has conducted these institutions to a considerable -extent on the principle of _Vos non vobis_. - -It is foreign to my purpose to trace the history of Edinburgh merchants -and merchandise during the time following upon the Union, when the -national industry and enterprise, being allowed a fair field, were -producing those results of wealth and civilisation which we now see -smiling around us. I may remark, however, that the first two Georges -were inurned before the merchants of this or any other British city had -ceased in any degree to depend on prohibitions of this and that, and -exclusive rights to deal and be dealt with. The introduction of Indian -damasks, padasoys, and taffetas was, so lately as 1730, spoken of by -our Merchant Company as ‘destructive.’ In England, ‘Bury in woollen -if you have any bowels for your country,’ was a general feeling, -and, indeed, a matter of law. The late Bailie Robert Johnston once -shewed me a curious document, drawn up and extensively signed by the -Edinburgh mercers and drapers, about the year 1760, covenanting that -henceforth they would wholly cease to traffic with that generation -of men called ‘English riders.’ So long is it before an enlightened -sense of interests, even among a shrewd and tolerably well-educated -people, supersedes the first stringent emotions of human selfishness. -How different the spirit of the Merchant Company, and its offshoot -the Chamber of Commerce, has been in recent times, patronising and -promoting every liberal measure, need not be dwelt upon. Another -particular of the last century may be adverted to—namely, that there -continued to be a very great infusion among our merchants of what may -be called an aristocratic element. On this subject I am aided by the -recollections of the late venerable clerk of the Company, Mr James -Jollie, extending nearly a century back from the present time. To take -the leading firms among the silk-mercers. Of John Hope and Company, -the said John Hope was a younger son of Hope of Rankeillour in Fife. -Of Stewart and Lindsay, the former was the son of Charles Stewart of -Ballechen, and the latter a younger son of Lindsay of Wormiston. Among -the leading drapers: in the firm of Lindsay and Douglas, the former was -a younger son of Lindsay of Eaglescairney, and the latter of Douglas -of Garvaldfoot. Of Dundas, Inglis, and Callander, the first was son -to Dundas of Fingask in Stirlingshire, the family from which the Earl -of Zetland and Baron Amesbury are descended; the second was a younger -son of Sir John Inglis of Cramond, and succeeded to that baronetage, -which, it may be remarked, took its rise in an Edinburgh merchant of -the seventeenth century. Another eminent cloth-dealing firm, Hamilton -and Dalrymple, comprehended John Dalrymple, a younger brother of the -well-known Lord Hailes, and a great grandson of the first Lord Stair: -he was at one time Master of the Merchant Company. In a fourth firm, -Stewart, Wallace, and Stoddart, the leading partner was a son of -Stewart of Dunearn. The leading wine-merchants and bankers of those -days were also men of family; but this, of course, is the less worthy -of remark, as it continues in some degree to be the case at the present -day. - -That so many landed families amongst us have descended from Edinburgh -merchants is no singular fact, for trade efflorescing into nobility -is an old phenomenon in the south. There we have a Duke of Leeds -descended from the apprentice of Sir William Hewit the goldsmith; -the Wentworth Fitzwilliams, from a worthy London merchant knighted -by Henry VIII. From the nautical adventurer Phipps, of the time of -Charles II., come the Earls of Mulgrave. Cornwallis is from a London -merchant; Coventry, from a mercer; Radnor, from a silk-manufacturer; -Warwick, from a wool-stapler; Pomfret, from a Calais merchant. Essex, -Dartmouth, Craven, Tankerville, Darnley, Cowper, and Romney, have all -had a similar origin. More recently ennobled families—the Dacres, the -Dormers, the Dudley Wards, the Hills, the Caringtons, have in like -manner taken their rise from successful trade. It is an origin surely -as honourable as dexterous courtiership, gifts of church-lands, or -mediæval robbery and plunder. - -On a retrospect of the whole subject, one must see that, -notwithstanding so many of our merchants of old being gentlefolks, -there is a great improvement in many respects amongst the class. Our -predecessors had not merely to contend with the narrow resources of the -country, and with the want of a thousand conveniences for the transport -of goods by sea and land, which have since come into existence, but, -worst of all, they had to struggle with the dictates of their own -ignorance. Nearly all the principles which they advanced and sought -to realise in legislation, as for the encouragement of trade and -manufactures, were false, and could only operate for the repression -of the industrial energies of the community, and, by consequence, for -the keeping up of poverty in the land. It is a strange thing to say, -but it is true, that breakers of laws have in a great measure been the -means of bringing about a sounder policy. We have happily got above the -greater part of these errors, and daily reap the natural advantages -of our superior light; and yet, as a part of the British community, -I think we ought to feel modest about the faults of our ancestors, -since it is undeniable that the commercial world is still far from -having attained the summit of perfection. It has faults, too, which -are almost peculiar to our own age. The advance by banks of large sums -of deposited money to reckless traders destitute of capital of their -own, and who only hope for some trump to turn up in their favour before -ruin overtakes them, is a mercantile error which our ancestors never -dreamed of. So, also, those consequent disastrous crises of trade, of -which we have just seen an example sweep over the industrial world, -were unknown to our forefathers. The present Company may, however, -be gratified in reflecting that from these errors the old banking -companies of Edinburgh have been comparatively free. The five or six -great banks of old standing amongst us not only came out safe in the -late crisis, but they were able to hold out help to some at a distance -which were less fortunate. As a humble individual of this community, -I must say I feel a pride in the old Edinburgh banks, as an exponent -of business procedure amongst us. If we overlook only the brief civil -war of 1745, when the grandfather of our present sheriff-clerk—being -cashier to the Royal Bank—marched up in his tartans, pistols, and -claymore, to deposit the bank’s money in the castle, that it might -be safe from his less scrupulous countrymen, and when the Bank of -Scotland was but too happy to follow the example—there we see doors -which have never for a day been closed for a hundred and forty-four -years! I was going to have said a hundred and sixty-four years; but -on looking into the history of the Bank of Scotland, I find there was -a brief stoppage of cash-payments in 1704 occasioned by a malicious -run, and another caused by the civil troubles of the year 1715. As -it is, overlooking only the unavoidable cessation of business in the -Forty-five, the doors of the ‘Auld Bank’ have been in the ordinary -condition of those of the temple of Janus at Rome for a hundred and -forty-four years. It cannot have been without consummate prudence that -this glory has been achieved. During the late crisis, moreover, the -number of failures in our city, including Leith, was comparatively -small. It will be said, perhaps, that Edinburgh is not a city of -much business—a saying against which I take leave to reclaim. It is, -for one thing, the centre of monetary business for the kingdom. The -life-assurance companies and societies of Scotland—hitherto, like our -old banks, of untainted character—have, with but little exception, -their headquarters here; and let us just passingly observe, three of -these establishments in St Andrew Square enjoy an annual income of -six hundred and fifty thousand pounds, and have the management of -accumulated funds to the extent of five and a half millions.[2] When -we further consider the legal business of Edinburgh, its agenting of -property throughout the country, its large publishing establishments, -its glass-works and foundries, its merchandise in wine and drysaltery, -it is, even leaving Leith out of view, in reality very much a city of -business. While, then, I acknowledge that we are still everywhere under -more or less of commercial error, I think it may at the same time be -allowable to describe the mercantile community of Edinburgh, as one in -which experience has proved that a more than usually sound and prudent -practice—with happy fruits—has the ascendant. - -FOOTNOTES: - -[1] For these interesting particulars, I am indebted to Joseph -Robertson, Esq., Record Office, Edinburgh. - -[2] The Scottish Widows’ Fund, Scottish Equitable, and Scottish -Provident Offices, are here alluded to. The entire annual income -of the life-assurance offices of Scotland, chiefly centering in -Edinburgh, is stated at £2,082,000, and the sum-total of their funds -at £11,116,000.—_Letter of R. Christie, Esq., Accountant, Courant -newspaper, Feb. 26, 1859._ - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Edinburgh Papers. 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Edinburgh Merchants and -Merchandise in Old Times, by Robert Chambers - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Edinburgh Papers. Edinburgh Merchants and Merchandise in Old Times - -Author: Robert Chambers - -Release Date: April 26, 2020 [EBook #61947] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EDINBURGH PAPERS *** - - - - -Produced by Susan Skinner and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class="figcenter w475"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="475" height="820" alt="Title page" /> -</div> - - -<hr class="full" /> - - -<h1>EDINBURGH PAPERS</h1> - -<p class="center p2"><span class="smalltext">BY</span><br /> -<span class="largetext">ROBERT CHAMBERS, F.R.S.E.,</span><br /> -F.S.A.Sc., F.G.S., F.L.S., &c.</p> - -<p class="center smalltext">AUTHOR OF ‘TRADITIONS OF EDINBURGH.’</p> - - - -<p class="center p4"><b><span class="largetext">EDINBURGH MERCHANTS</span><br /> -<br /> -<span class="smalltext">AND</span><br /> -<br /> -<span class="largetext">MERCHANDISE IN OLD TIMES</span></b></p> - - -<p class="center p4">WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS,<br /> -LONDON AND EDINBURGH.<br /> -1859. -</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - - -<p class="ph3 center"> -EDINBURGH<br /> -MERCHANTS AND MERCHANDISE<br /> -IN OLD TIMES.<br /> -</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - - -<p class="center"> -TO THE<br /> -MERCHANT COMPANY OF EDINBURGH,<br /> -THIS LECTURE, DELIVERED AT THEIR REQUEST,<br /> -FEBRUARY 14, 1859,<br /> -IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED.<br /> -</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_1"></a>{1}</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="EDINBURGH_MERCHANTS_AND_MERCHANDISE">EDINBURGH MERCHANTS AND MERCHANDISE -IN OLD TIMES.</h2> -</div> - - -<p><span class="smcap">I do</span> not propose, on this occasion, to carry your minds back -to a very remote period, for, truth to tell, Scotland was not -distinguished for commerce at an early date. You will not be -surprised if I briefly remark that we hear nothing of trade in -Leith harbour till the reign of Bruce, and have reason to believe -that it hardly had an existence for a century later. Dr Nicolas -West, an emissary of Henry VIII., visited Scotland in 1513, just -before the battle of Flodden, and he tells us that he then found at -Leith only nine or ten small topmen, or ships with rigging, which, -from his remarks, we may infer to have all been under sixty tons -burden. There was then but a meagre traffic carried on with the -Low Countries, France, and Spain—wool, skins, and salmon -carried out; and wine, silks, cloth, and miscellaneous articles -imported: matters altogether so insignificant, that there are but -a few scattered references to them in the acts of the national -parliament. One may have some idea of the pettiness of any -external trade carried on by Edinburgh in the early part of the -sixteenth century, from what we know of the condition of Leith -at that time. It was but a village, without quay or pier, and with -no approach to the harbour except by an alley—the still existing -Burgess Close, which in some parts is not above four feet wide. -We must imagine any merchandise then brought to Leith as -carried in vessels of the size of small yachts, and borne off to the -Edinburgh warehouses slung on horseback, through the narrow -defiles of the Burgess Close.</p> - -<p>It chances that we possess, in our General Register House, -a very distinct memorial of the traffic carried on between Scotland -and the Netherlands at the close of the fifteenth century. It -consists in the ledger of Andrew Halyburton, a Scottish merchant -conducting commission business for his countrymen at Middleburg,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_2"></a>{2}</span> -and conservator of the Scotch privileges there. It extends from -the year 1493 to 1505. Andrew acted as agent for a number of -eminent persons, churchmen as well as laymen, besides merchants, -receiving and selling for a commission the raw products of the -country, chiefly those just named—wool, hides, and salmon—and -sending home in return nearly every kind of manufactured article -which we could suppose to have then been in use. It appears -that even salt was then imported. Wheel-barrows were sent from -Flanders to assist in building King’s College, Aberdeen. There -were cloths of silk, linen, and woollen; fruits, spiceries, and -drugs; plate and jewellery; four kinds of wine—claret, Gascony -claret, Rhenish, and Malvoisie. Paper is often named; and there -is mention of pestles and mortars, basins of brass, chamber-mats, -beds of arras, feather-beds, down-pillows, vermilion, red and white -lead, and pins. John of Pennycuik imports the image of Thomas-à-Becket, -bought from a painter at Antwerp. More than one -tombstone is shipped to a Scotch order from Middleburg. Once -there is a ‘kist of buikis’ for a physician at Aberdeen. The -account between Halyburton and the Abbot of Holyrood may be -cited as an example of its class in this curious tome. For ‘my -lord,’ as Halyburton calls him, he sells the wool of the sheep -which ranged the Abbey’s pastures in Tweeddale, and the skins -and hides of the sheep and cattle which were slaughtered for the -table at Holyrood. He buys in return claret and other wines, -apples, olives, oranges, figs, raisins, almonds, rice, loaf-sugar, ginger, -mace, pepper, saffron, and large quantities of apothecaries’ wares. -Amongst other customers, we find Walter Chapman, the first printer -in Scotland, and John Smollett, the ancestor of the great novelist -of the last century. Halyburton appears to have often visited -Edinburgh, settling old accounts, and arranging new ventures. -Each account has the name of ‘<span class="smcap">Jhesus</span>’ piously superscribed; -and where the customer was a trader, the merchant’s <i>mark</i>, which -was cut upon his boxes or inscribed upon his bales, is copied into -the ledger. The volume is surprisingly like a ledger of the -present day, even in the particular of binding; but it gives, on the -whole, the idea of a poor and narrow range of traffic—the traffic -of a rude country, producing only raw articles, and few of them, -and dependent for all above the simplest which it consumed, upon -foreign states.<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> - -<p>About the time referred to in this volume, the central line of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_3"></a>{3}</span> -street between the West Bow and Nether Bow was the chief place -of merchandise in Edinburgh, the Cowgate and Canongate being -more specially the residence of the nobility, gentry, and great -ecclesiastics. There were two chief classes of goods dealt in, each -mainly confined to a particular section of the street. What was -called <i>Inland Merchandise</i>, or <i>Inland’sh Goods</i>—namely, yarn, -stockings, coarse cloth, and other such articles made at home—were, -by a charter of 1477, ordained to be sold in the upper part -of the street, then without a special name, but which is subsequently -referred to as the <i>Land-market</i>—apparently an abbreviation -of <i>Inland Market</i>, from the description of goods sold in it. -Down to recent times, such goods continued to be chiefly sold -there, by people occupying <i>laigh shops</i>, and on a certain day -exposing their wares by ancient privilege on the open street. The -remainder of the High Street was chiefly devoted to a superior -class of traders, calling themselves <i>Merchants</i>, dealers in imported -wares of various kinds, and each occupying a booth or shop, -besides whatever other warehouses in more retired situations. -Wholesale and retail dealers alike passed under this name, as is -still, indeed, the case to a considerable extent in Scotland, where -it has always been remarked that there was a peculiar liberality -or courtesy in the distribution of names and titles. We frequently -hear in the journalists and chroniclers of the old time, of the -<i>Merchants Buithes</i>, or shops. The only other kind of shops in -those days was the kind called <i>krames</i>, generally very small, made -out of mere angles of property, or insinuated between the -buttresses of St Giles’s Kirk, and chiefly devoted to the sale of -toys and other petty articles. We often hear of <i>krames</i>, of <i>kramers</i> -(that is, krame-keepers), and <i>kramery</i> (that is, small wares sold in -krames) in the familiar histories of that age, and in old titles. -Dunbar, the early Scottish poet, describes these shops very aptly -as</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse indent0">‘Hampered in ane honey-kaim,’</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>close to St Giles’s Church. Fixing our attention, meanwhile, -on the class of traders called merchants, we find that their booths -were in general small places, situated behind the open arcade -which then ran along the greater part of the High Street on both -sides. The whole front of one of these booths, consisting of -folding boards, was opened by day—one board being drawn up, -another let down, one or more folded back sideways, so as to -display the interior to the passer-by. On a bench or counter within -the front-wall, goods were laid out to attract attention; in some<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_4"></a>{4}</span> -instances, there were also stands set out for the display of wares -under the shelter of the arcade in front. As the merchant sat in -his open booth, there were sights presented to him different from -what he would now see: amongst others, rival nobles meeting on -the causey, with their respective bands of armed followers, and -fighting out their quarrels with sword and buckler, and the more -deadly hagbut, to quell which our traders were enjoined by civic -statute of 1529, to keep each in his booth ‘ane axe, or twa, or -three, after as they have servants,’ and to be ready to use them. -If we are to believe Dunbar, he saw ‘the gait’ filthy, and full of -clamorous beggars, milk, shell-fish, and puddings sold at the -Cross and the Tron, and vile crafts everywhere more prominent -than his own respectable merchandise. In the town of Berne, -in Switzerland, you can see precisely the same structural -arrangements still existing along both sides of the principal street, -which further reminds one of ancient Edinburgh by its name of -<i>Kramgasse</i>.</p> - -<p>At length, in the progress of improvement, there were some -shops formed in a certain part of the High Street, having those -open arcaded spaces in front closed up, leaving only a window -and a door; and these places of business, by way of distinction, -acquired the name of <i>luckenbooths</i>—that is, closed booths, a term, -as you are all aware, which still gives a name to the portion of -street referred to. Berne is now in exactly the same circumstances -in this respect as Edinburgh was two hundred years ago, -for there also we find a few shops of more ambitious character -than their neighbours, with the fronts built up. It is very -interesting thus to trace in continental towns of the present day -a reflex of things long ago prevalent in our own city. I was -amused, at Nuremberg, to find the Frauenkirke barnacled all -round with little shops or <i>krames</i>, as I remember St Giles’s to have -been, each petty shop, moreover, having its miniature house -above, in one or more stories, affording a stifling accommodation -to the traders, as was the case with several of the krame-shops -of the old Parliament Close.</p> - -<p>In Germany and Scandinavia, we still find traders who, while -conducting a considerable wholesale business, and even a little -banking, have also retail shops, generally placed towards the public -street, and conducted by subalterns. I found such men in -Iceland attending the parties given in the governor’s house, and -evidently enjoying the local consideration due to their wealth -and education. In Edinburgh, in the sixteenth and seventeenth -centuries, there were traffickers of this kind, some planted in the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_5"></a>{5}</span> -great thoroughfares, and some in more retired situations. They -were, in some instances, men with pretensions to pedigree—men -who took a prominent part in public affairs, entertained princes -and sovereigns, founded families, and so forth. Thus, a Hamilton -of the house of Innerwick, was what was called a <i>merchant</i> in the -West Bow; he acquired lands—he fell as a gallant gentleman in -Pinkie field; his eldest son was the ancestor of the Earls of -Haddington; his second son, a secular priest, was rector of the -University of Paris, and one of the council of the League who -offered the French crown to the king of Spain in 1591. Contemporary -with him, occupying a shop in the middle row of -buildings alongside of St Giles’s Church, was a similar merchant, -named Edward Hope; his father is believed to have been a -Frenchman who came to Scotland in the train of the Princess -Magdalen, daughter of Francis I., when she was wedded to -James V. in 1537. While externally but a shopkeeper in the -Luckenbooths, there can be no doubt that Edward Hope carried -on foreign trade upon a considerable scale, and was a man of -large means; of which last fact, his extensive mansion in Tod’s -Close, Castlehill, stood a few years ago as good evidence. This -worthy merchant was commissioner for Edinburgh in the parliament -which settled the Reformation, and he afterwards, for -Protestantism’s sake, bore the brunt of the Lady Mary’s gentle -wrath. Through his elder son he was the ancestor of all the Hopes -who have since stood so conspicuous in rank, in wealth, and -in public service in Scotland; while from his younger son are -descended the famous mercantile family of the Hopes of Amsterdam. -In the latter part of the sixteenth century—that is, in the -reigns of Mary and James VI.—notwithstanding the constant -civil broils, and the false maxims by which commerce was to -appearance protected or favoured, but in reality depressed—there -appear to have been some considerable merchants in Edinburgh, -and merchants really entitled to the name, being conductors -of foreign traffic and dealers in wholesale. They generally had -their establishments in some comparatively retired situation, in a -close or <i>wynd</i>, near the centre of the city. In Riddell’s Close, -Lawnmarket, there still exist the mansion and business premises -of one of these considerable merchants, namely, Bailie John -Macmoran. We are told by the church historian, Calderwood, -that he was the greatest merchant of his day in Edinburgh, but -disliked by the clergy, because of his carrying victual to Spain, -thus endangering the souls of the Scottish mariners by contact -with popery. His house is a good and not inelegant building<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_6"></a>{6}</span> -forming a court, the entrance to which still exhibits the hooks for -the massive gates by which it could be closed up at night and in -times of danger. A stone projection over a window indicates an -arrangement for pulleying up goods into an upper chamber. A -large room or hall in which the queen’s brother, the Duke of -Holstein, was entertained ‘with great solemnity and merriness’ in -1597, shews the wealthy state in which this merchant lived. -John, who had been a servitor or dependent of the Regent -Morton, whose treasures he assisted to conceal, was cut off in the -middle of his prosperous career, by a pistol bullet fired at him by -a High School boy, while he was exerting his authority as a -magistrate in suppressing a barring-out.</p> - -<p>Near to Macmoran’s house, in what was latterly called the Old -Bank Close, there stood till our own time the not less handsome -establishment of a merchant named Robert Gourlay, bearing the -date 1569. This was a large and, in some respects, elegant -building, such as could not be constructed in our day for less than -two thousand five hundred pounds. It had a ground-floor -directly accessible from the close, and which we may presume to -have been a store for unbroken bales and packages; then a first -floor, which was probably the warehouse for wholesale and retail -traffic—this had a stair-entrance for itself; next there was a -second floor, accessible by its own stair likewise, and from which -there was an inner stair enclosed in a hanging turret, giving -access to two upper floors; these last three floors constituting -the accommodation of the merchant’s family. We find that -Gourlay, who had originally been a dependent of the Duke of -Chastelherault, carried on a large business in the exporting of -corn, doubtless importing in return the many various articles -which he distributed from his first floor. It is to be feared that -he and some of his contemporaries occasionally were indebted for -large profits to favour purchased from the bad and ignorant -governments of their day. At least, we find that Robert, in 1574, -bought a licence from the Regent Morton, enabling him to export -grain, while, owing to a dearth, this power was denied to all others. -The kirk, which he served as an elder, challenged him for this -inhumane traffic, and he for some time stood out under the -Regent’s protection, but was at last obliged to succumb, and make -public confession of his offence, standing in the <i>marriage-place</i> in -St Giles’s, clad in a gown made on purpose, and which he had to -bestow thereafter on the poor. Robert lived to accommodate his -friend the Regent, in his house, for two or three days, when the -latter was awaiting the stroke of the Maiden under a hired guard;<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_7"></a>{7}</span> -and a few years later, when King James deemed Holyrood an -unsafe residence, by reason that the Earl of Bothwell was scouring -about in quest of him, he had up-putting for several days in the -house of the rich merchant, Robert Gourlay.</p> - -<p>I may enumerate a few other considerable merchants of this -period, all of whom had good houses in the city, where they dwelt -as well as carried on business. In what was latterly called -Brodie’s Close, between Macmoran’s and Gourlay’s houses, lived -William Little of Over-Libberton, at one time provost, and the -ancestor of the family now represented by Mr Little Gilmour of -the Inch. It connects merchandise in an interesting manner with -professional and literary things, that Clement, the brother of -William, was the commissary of Edinburgh, and one of the -greatest benefactors to the infant university. Provost Little’s house, -dated 1570, was taken down so lately as 1836, having continued -all the time an entailed property of the family. The <i>North British -Advertiser</i> printing-office now stands on its site. Nicol Udwart, -an active and wealthy merchant, had a stately house surrounding -a square court in Niddry’s Wynd; and there King James was -living in February 1591, when the Bonny Earl of Moray was -slaughtered at Dunnibrissle. A neighbour of Udwart, styled -Alexander Clark of Balbirnie, also a wealthy merchant, and at -one time provost of the city, gave accommodation at the same time -to the Chancellor Maitland. On another occasion, a little earlier, -we hear of King James living with William Fowler, who was also -a merchant in Edinburgh. The king, it is stated, went out to -hunt, promising to return to dinner in Fowler’s house at <i>one o’clock</i>. -Fowler lived in the Anchor Close, and his house, in which, as we -see, he had entertained royalty, was taken down only three months -ago by the Railway Access Company. It stood, indeed, in a narrow -alley; but it had the advantage of a free aspect over the country -to the north of the city. In the index to the state-papers connected -with Scotland, lately published by Mr Thorpe, William Fowler -figures as a partisan of the English protestant interest, continually -engaged in giving information to Sir Francis Walsingham.</p> - -<p>The trades of Edinburgh in those days were generally conducted -by men of small account; but there was one art carried on upon -a scale which raised its practitioners to the grade of merchants. -This was the craft of the goldsmiths. The habits of the upper -classes, partaking so much of an ill-supported ostentation, made this -comparatively a great trade. We have all heard much of George -Heriot, who was made goldsmith to the queen in 1597, and who, -afterwards transplanting himself to London, there completed the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_8"></a>{8}</span> -fortune which became the means of founding his celebrated -hospital. But there was a contemporary Edinburgh goldsmith of -even greater importance, in the person of Thomas Foulis, who -seems to have been to King James what the Bank of England was to -William Pitt two hundred years later. It was a loan from Thomas -which enabled the king to march against the rebellious Catholic -lords at Aberdeen in 1593. He stood creditor to the king, in -the ensuing year, for the sum of £14,598 Scots, and for this -James lodged with him two gold drinking-cups, amounting in -all to the weight of fifteen pounds five ounces. In May -1601, the royal debt to Thomas amounted to the enormous sum -of £180,000 Scots, and a parliamentary arrangement had to be -made for its payment. One of the benefits which Thomas Foulis -derived from being the king’s creditor to so large an amount, was -a grant of the lead-mines of Lanarkshire, which he worked with -good result, and handed ultimately to his granddaughter, who -married James Hope, the ancestor of the noble family of Hopetoun. -Thus, it will be observed, what constituted, and yet in part constitutes, -the fortune of the Earls of Hopetoun, came originally from -one of our Parliament Close goldsmiths.</p> - -<p>The relation of the last resident king of Scots to his mercantile -subjects in Edinburgh was generally a good-humoured one; but -there was one occasion when serious strife stood between them, -though for a short time only. Under some misapprehension -about his intentions regarding the clergy, a mob beset his majesty -for an hour or two in the place of judgment in the Tolbooth. He -was, or affected to be, very wroth with the people of Edinburgh, -and returning on Hogmanay day, a fortnight after the riot, he -ordered that the ports and streets should be kept for his protection -by certain Border chiefs on whom he could depend. A rumour -arose that <i>Kinmont Willie</i> and other border thieves were come to -<i>spulyie</i> the town, and immediately there was such a scene as no -Edinburgh merchant then living could ever forget. The principal -men took the goods out of their booths, and transported them to -the strongest house in the town—possibly Macmoran’s—posting -themselves and servants there also, all fully armed, in apprehension -of an immediate attack. In like manner, groups of the craftsmen -and commoner sort of people gathered into strong houses, with -their best goods, and with arms in their hands to defend their -property to the last extremity. An Edinburgh citizen, John -Birrel, chronicles this affair, with the remark—‘Judge, gentle -reader, gif this be play.’ After all, the guard of borderers did our -merchants and craftsmen no harm; but when one reads of such<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_9"></a>{9}</span> -an alarm, it becomes easy to understand how Macmoran and -Gourlay had such strong houses for conducting their business, and -how all the closes in the High Street should have had gates at -top and bottom, as still appears in many cases by the remaining -hooks for the hinges.</p> - -<p>When we pass on to the early part of the seventeenth century, -we still find merchants of considerable importance in Edinburgh. -They usually are either the descendants or the progenitors of good -families. As an example of the former, we may take James -Murray, of whose living locality in our city I can say nothing, -but who, at his death in old age in 1649, was laid in the -Greyfriars’ Churchyard. James was a younger son of Patrick -Murray of Philiphaugh, and to each of his three sons, by Bethia -Maule of the Panmure family, he left an estate. Perhaps I could -in no way better describe him than by the quaint words of his -epitaph in the Greyfriars:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse indent0">Stay, passenger, and shed a tear,</div> -<div class="verse indent0">For good James Murray lieth here;</div> -<div class="verse indent0">He was of Philiphaugh descended,</div> -<div class="verse indent0">And for his merchandise commended;</div> -<div class="verse indent0">He was a man of a good life,</div> -<div class="verse indent0">Married Bethia Maule to ’s wife;</div> -<div class="verse indent0">He may thank God that e’er he gat her;</div> -<div class="verse indent0">She bore him three sons and a daughter;</div> -<div class="verse indent0">The first he was a man of might,</div> -<div class="verse indent0">For which the king made him a knight;</div> -<div class="verse indent0">The second was both wise and wily,</div> -<div class="verse indent0">For which the town made him a bailie;</div> -<div class="verse indent0">The third, a factor of renown,</div> -<div class="verse indent0">Both in Campvere and in this town.</div> -<div class="verse indent0">His daughter was both grave and wise,</div> -<div class="verse indent0">And married was to James Elies.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Another of this class was John Trotter, son of Thomas Trotter of -Catchelraw. He acquired by merchandise in Edinburgh the -means of purchasing the estate of Mortonhall, and thus laid the -foundation of a family which still exists in great note and opulence. -A third was John Sinclair, a cadet of the old house of Longformacus. -Being bred a merchant, as Douglas’s <i>Baronage</i> -explicitly declares, he realised so much wealth by his business as -to be able, in 1624, to purchase the estate of Stevenston in -Haddingtonshire, to which he afterwards added other lands, -forming in whole a large estate. The king conferred on him a -Nova Scotia baronetcy, which is still enjoyed by his descendants. -We have a fourth instance in George Blair, a second son of -Patrick Blair of Pittendreich. The wealth which this gentleman<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_10"></a>{10}</span> -acquired by merchandise in Edinburgh, was the means of -purchasing the estate of Lethendy in Perthshire, to which his son -added that of Glasclune. Another may still be added, in James -Riddell, of the ancient family of Riddell of that Ilk. This gentleman, -after pursuing a business career for some time in Poland, -where many Scotch youths then found occupation, returned to -Edinburgh about the year 1603, set up business there, married a -lady of means styled Bessie Allan, and died a wealthy man. His -son, who became a merchant in Leith, purchased the estate of -Kinglass, which he left to a line of descendants. I cannot but -view with interest the good sense of our gentry of two and three -hundred years ago, in setting their younger sons to a career of -useful and honourable industry, instead of allowing them idly to -loiter at home, or go into the little better than idleness of a foreign -military service. It was evidently considered no discredit in -those days for a gentleman’s son to become a merchant in -Edinburgh.</p> - -<p>In the age which we now have under our notice, the proceedings -of mercantile men were impeded and thwarted, to a degree of -which we can scarcely form an idea, by false political economy. -For a merchant to reserve grain during a scarcity—thus, in the -view of Adam Smith, serving a good public end by equalising -consumption over the distressed period—was then an impious -crime condemned by whole legions of laws. To export almost -any article that could be consumed at home was generally discountenanced, -as tending to raise prices upon the home consumer. -Importing foreign articles was looked upon at the best as a -lamentable necessity, because it caused money to be sent out of -the country. We have, for instance, in 1615, a fulmination from -the Privy Council against a ‘most unlawful and pernicious tred of -exporting eggs furth of the kingdom,’ and in 1625, a not less -furious denunciation of the ‘mischeant and wicked tred’ of exporting -tallow. In 1634, a man wanting some Norway timber to -build houses at Seaton, required to use influence with the government -to be allowed to send some of his own East Lothian wheat -for it to Bergen. An unenlightened selfishness put a dead-lock -upon nearly everything that an enlightened view of the interests of -all would have counselled to be done. In these circumstances, to -succeed in foreign trade must have required no small amount of -skill and policy, as well as means, because in addition to all the -natural difficulties, there were bad laws to be evaded or overcome, -or privileges and exemptions to be purchased from corrupt -statesmen. There were also in those days sumptuary laws for<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_11"></a>{11}</span> -preventing the people from injuring themselves by too expensive -habits. They are understood to have not been very effectual for -their avowed purpose; but they now serve a good end in revealing -to us the nature of the business of the mercer in the times to -which they refer. We find, for example, in 1581, when the -country was but a few years emerged from a calamitous civil war, -that even people of what was called ‘mean estate’ were addicted -to ‘the wearing of costly cleithing, of silks of all sorts, laine, -cambric, fringes, and passments of gold, silver, and silk, and -woollen claith, made and brocht from foreign countries.’ Hence, it -was stated, the prices of these articles had grown to such a height -‘as is not longer able to be sustained without the great skaith -and inconvenience of the commonweal’—that is to say, gentles -were of opinion that they would get such articles much cheaper, if -there were no other customers for them. The general inclination -for foreign finery was held all the more indefensible, seeing that -‘God has granted to this realm sufficient commodities for claithing -of the inhabitants thereof within the self, gif the people were -vertuously employed in working of the same at hame.’ Another -such act in 1621 ordained that no persons but those of the nobility, -and others possessing six thousand merks of free yearly rent, -should wear ‘any clothing of gold or silver cloth, or any gold or -silver lace upon their apparel;’ neither should they use ‘velvet, -sattin, or other stuffs of silk.’ Even those who were privileged by -wealth to wear these articles, were forbidden to have embroidery, -lace, or passments upon their clothes, ‘except only a plain welting -lace of silk upon the seams or borders.’ They were also to -observe that ‘the said apparel of silk be no ways cut out -upon other stuffs of silk, except upon a single taffeta.’ By -the same act, it was enjoined that no person of whatsoever -degree, except those privileged as above, should have ‘pearling -or ribboning upon their ruffs, sarks, napkins, and socks;’ -and any pearling or ribboning so worn was to be ‘of those made -within the kingdom of Scotland,’ under a high penalty. So, also, -castor-hats, feathers for the head, and gold chains with pearls or -stones, were forbidden for all except the privileged classes; and -servants were restricted to home-made fustian, canvas, and other -stuffs, and husbandmen to the common gray, blue, and <i>self-black</i> -cloth of the country. By <i>self-black</i> I presume is meant cloth made -of the wool of black sheep in its natural state. These plain and -homely kinds of cloth were woven by the village websters out of -yarn which the housewives and their maidens had spun by the -winter fireside when there was no more pressing work to do.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_12"></a>{12}</span> -Such cloths, so made, continued in use amongst simple rustic -people down to the close of the last century, and partially even a -little later. I believe they have now entirely disappeared.</p> - -<p>Notwithstanding all impediments from bad and simply officious -legislation, we can see that the first third of the seventeenth century -was a time of mercantile prosperity and progress in Scotland -generally, and in Edinburgh in particular. The country was at -peace; the laws were tolerably well executed; and as yet the -religious troubles of the century had not begun. There was a -general disposition, encouraged by the king, to see the useful arts -cultivated in our country; and several were actually now established -for the first time. For example, it was now that leather -was first made of good quality in Scotland, the improved art -being introduced by workmen from England. The manufacture -of glass was set up in 1610 at Wemyss in Fife, by the ancestor -of the Earls of Kinnoul, and met with tolerable success. Paper -and a superior kind of cloth were attempted, but unsuccessfully. -A great grudge being entertained regarding the large sums -annually sent to Flanders for soap, there was much interest -excited by an effort made at Leith, in 1619, to manufacture that -useful article. The enterpriser was Mr Nathaniel Udwart, son of -the Nicol Udwart who had entertained King James in his house -in Niddry’s Wynd. As an encouragement, he asked a privilege -excluding the foreign article for a number of years, and the -Privy Council took much pains to ascertain if this could be done -without prejudice to the public. Pages after pages of their -records are filled with deliberations on the subject, marginally -marked with the words, ‘Anent the Sape,’ or ‘Mr Nathaniel his -sape;’ and finally, he obtained the desired privilege under certain -conditions. In this matter, however, flesh and blood could not -endure the false political economy. Mr Nathaniel’s soap was -pronounced to be of unsatisfactory quality; and it was shewn to -be better for the people in such distant provinces as Dumfries, to -import their soap from Flanders, than to transport it from Leith -by land-carriage. The native soap-factory appears, therefore, -to have had a considerable struggle at first. Afterwards, it was -more successfully carried on, along with the making of potasses, -by Patrick Maule, the ancestor of the Lords Panmure; for here -is another of our wealthy noble families who were beholden to -trade for some part of their fortunes. We really must not be -too hard upon our ancestors for the false commercial maxims -by which they made their own interests so much of a difficulty -to themselves, for we ought to remember how recently we<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_13"></a>{13}</span> -have shaken off some of these very maxims, and how greatly -foreign nations yet suffer from them. I daresay you will all -hear, with something like a smile, that the proceedings of King -James in 1598, regarding the poultrymen of Edinburgh, who -tried to evade an edict for maximum prices, by selling their -poultry in secret to people who would give better prices, were -precisely imitated by the present Emperor of France in 1856, -with respect to the butchers of Paris.</p> - -<p>And in what, it will be asked, did the external commerce of -Scotland at this time consist? First, then, was the exporting -of wool, woollen and linen yarn, hides, tallow, butter, oil, and -barrelled flesh, salmon, and herrings, also plaiden stuff and -stockings, to the Low Countries. This was a trade exclusively -confined by strict regulation to the port of Campvere, where, for -many years past, there had been established a corporation of -Scottish merchants, under a chief called the <i>Conservator</i>. It -was a body entirely independent of the local authorities, as well -of their High Mightinesses of the Netherlands; for the Conservator, -with a council of six, or at least four, was entitled to -adjudge in every case connected with Scottish merchants or -merchandise. The Scottish merchants had a street and a quay -to themselves, and a minister of their own choice, to whom the -native mayor paid a salary of nine hundred guilders per annum. -Second, there was a considerable trade with Poland, the goods -being introduced by Scottish merchants residing at Dantzig, while -the country itself was said to swarm with pedlers of our nation, -by whom, I presume, the merchandise was diffused. Our townsman, -Mr W. F. Skene, tells me that he lately found at Dantzig -abundant records of the Scotch merchandise formerly carried -on there. The imports were wool and coarse cloths; the exports, -corn, tar, and wine—whence the latter was brought to Dantzig does -not appear, but it might be from some countries far to the south, -for through the Vistula there were communications between this -Hanseatic town and districts far removed in that direction. Next, -we must advert to a constant import of wine from France, probably -for the most part in exchange for salmon and herrings. -Finally, Scotland kept a considerable quantity of shipping in the -employment of France, Spain, and even Italy and Barbary. -The zealous clergy, in 1592, made an effort to stop this and every -other kind of intercourse of their countrymen with Spain, from an -apprehension, already adverted to, that they might thus be drawn -back to Romanism; but here feelings of mercantile interest were -too much for even clerical zeal, and the attempt failed miserably.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_14"></a>{14}</span> -The trade with France was threatened in a more serious manner -in 1615, when, in consequence of an edict against the importation -of goods into England in other than English vessels, the French -king ordered that no goods should be imported from Britain into -France in other than French vessels. A Scotch bark then lading -at a French port was actually stopped, and ordered to go away -empty. It was a most serious affair for Scotland; but the national -ingenuity prevailed. France was reminded of the ancient alliance -of King Alpin of Scotland with Charlemagne—a fable, but as -good as a truth, since it was universally believed—also of the more -palpable fact that Scotland, as apart from England, had issued no -edict against French vessels. The rule was therefore relaxed in -favour of Scottish ships. One of the standing troubles of this -Scotch trade lay in the piratical habits of Algiers. Every now and -then a piteous tale came home to Edinburgh of some little vessel, -belonging to Dundee, or Leith, or Borrowstounness, caught by -these rovers, and the crew all lying chained in dungeons, on the -coast of Africa, fed with only bread and water. And then there -would be a kindly collection of half-pence at the kirk-doors for the -unfortunates, who generally were relieved by these means, though -sometimes not till they had endured for a year or two their -miserable captivity.</p> - -<p>When troubles began to arise in consequence of the efforts of -the kings James and Charles to introduce episcopalian arrangements -and ceremonies, there were several eminent merchants of -Edinburgh who stood conspicuously forward against these innovations. -We hear much at that time of William Rig or Ridge, of -Athernie in Fife, and of John Mean, both merchants in Edinburgh, -very pious men, who, with John Hamilton, an apothecary, were -banished to distant towns because they would not agree to accept -the communion kneeling. Rig was both rich and liberal, insomuch -that he is stated to have been in the custom of distributing -annually upwards of eight thousand merks (equal to £444 sterling) -for pious and charitable purposes. John Mean, whose wife is -believed to have been the person who threw the stool at the -bishop’s head in St Giles’s, at the reading of the famous <i>Service-book</i>, -was at one time post-master of Edinburgh, that important -institution having been set up in 1635: the revenue, in his time, -was about four hundred a year. Another, and still more remarkable -Edinburgh merchant, noted as a friend of the Presbyterian -cause, was William Dick, ancestor of our neighbour Sir William -Cunningham Dick of Prestonfield. Coming of Orkney people, one -of his first adventures was the farming of the crown-rents of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_15"></a>{15}</span> -that district at three thousand pounds sterling. He established -an active trade with the Baltic and the Mediterranean, and made -a profitable business of negotiating bills of exchange with Holland. -He had ships on every sea, and could ride on his own lands from -North Berwick to near Linlithgow. His wealth, centering in a -warehouse in the Luckenbooths, on the site of that now occupied -by John Clapperton & Co., is estimated to have finally reached -the astonishing sum of two hundred thousand pounds sterling; -though I must own to some incredulity on the subject. That it -was, however, very great, fully appears from the effects of it which -appear in history. Sir William, having been induced to accept the -provostship of the city in the year 1638, was easily led by his own -religious prepossessions to become a sort of voluntary exchequer -for the friends of the national covenant, then mustering a resistance -to the Service-book and the bishops. King Charles could not -have been faced at Dunse Law but for William Dick’s cornucopia -of dollars. From the same fund came the expenses for the king’s -visit to Edinburgh in 1641. When the Scottish parliament in the -same year mustered ten thousand men to go to Ireland and -suppress the rebel Catholics, the little army could not have marched -without the meal which Sir William Dick furnished. His national -loans afterwards extended to transactions in which the credit -of the English parliament was concerned; and here ruin overtook -him. The time came when such loans were not recognised, -or at least met with but slight reverence; and this -Scottish Crœsus—a national creditor to the extent of sixty-four -thousand pounds—actually spent his last days in a jail -at Westminster, under something like a want of the common -necessaries of life.</p> - -<p>While it appears that so many noted merchants stood up for -the popular cause, that of royalty was espoused by at least one -eminent trader, namely, Sir William Gray of Pittendrum, a cadet -of the noble house of Gray, and direct ancestor of the present lord. -Sir William, whose house, with his arms and initials, and the date -1622, may still be seen in Lady Stair’s Close, Lawnmarket, is said -to have conducted foreign trade upon a large scale, considering the -times, and he became, for his age, extremely rich. For corresponding -with the Marquis of Montrose, a fine of a hundred -thousand merks was imposed upon him, and he actually paid -thirty-five thousand, being nearly two thousand pounds sterling. -When one of his sons married the Mistress of Gray, Sir William -gave him the handsome endowment of 232,000 merks. Sir -William Dick and Sir William Gray are perhaps the first<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_16"></a>{16}</span> -commercial men of our city who reached the character of -merchant-princes.</p> - -<p>A little later than these men was James Stuart, a historical -personage of even greater celebrity, and the more worthy of note -on the present occasion, in as far as he made a movement to the -formation of a Merchants’ Company in Edinburgh so early as -1658. Born of the family of the Stuarts of Allanton in Lanarkshire, -he was brought up in a merchant’s shop in Edinburgh, and -in due time became a flourishing merchant himself. His importance -in this capacity, his active talents and address, made him a -conspicuous actor on the popular side in the affairs of Scotland -during the years of the civil war. Family tradition represents -him as the person who brought to the Covenanters in Edinburgh -that doubtful promise of sympathy and assistance from the -English patriots, which is adverted to in all the histories of the -period. It is stated that he was in London on business, when -Lord Saville, hearing of him as a leading citizen of Edinburgh, -and a man of talent and spirit, already noted amongst those who -were contemplating a resistance to the king, sent for him, and -after some conversation, bade him be of good cheer, for his -countrymen would not be left to fight the battle single-handed. -Whatever truth there is in this, James Stuart afterwards became -a most distinguished public person. He was provost of Edinburgh -in the trying time when it was invested, and at length taken -possession of, by the troops of Cromwell. He survived the -Restoration, and was a sufferer under Charles II.’s rule, but -nevertheless left considerable realised wealth to his descendants, -the Stuarts baronets of Coltness. His son was lord advocate -under King William and Queen Anne; and the grandson of that -personage wrote the first systematic work on political economy -which appeared in this country.</p> - -<p>The unsuccessful efforts made by Scotland first to extend -presbytery into England under the Solemn League and Covenant, -and next to save the old monarchy from the English sectaries -and republicans, left it exhausted and bleeding under the heel of -Cromwell. We should vainly, amidst our present peace and -comfort, attempt to form an idea of the utter bankruptcy of our -country during the eight or nine years when it was kept down -by eight thousand English soldiers, whom it was obliged to pay by -a monthly cess for their oppression. Glasgow had then but twelve -vessels, mostly under a hundred tons each; the customs of Leith, -which have in our times touched six hundred thousand pounds, -were then only £2335. We wade through year after year of the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_17"></a>{17}</span> -domestic annals of the country at this time, and hear of not one -prosperous merchant, not one attempt at an enlarged system of -industry, no new invention or project, nor even of the continuation -of any of those manufactures which had been introduced during -the two preceding reigns. Religious and political controversy, -working itself out in violence fatal to all real progress, had blighted -the whole pith and capacity of the country.</p> - -<p>After the Restoration, things were for a long time not much -better, for still unfortunately the bitterness of religious conflict -was kept up. A Royal Fishery Company, with a capital of -£25,000 sterling, was started, as a rival to the Dutch; but it did -not prosper greatly. It had various privileges; and we rather -hear of these proving a detriment to private enterprise, than of -any distinct good done by the company itself. Amongst the most -notable uses for shipping in the reign of the restored Stuart, were -some of a melancholy character—privateering against the Dutch -during the two shameful wars carried on against Holland, and -the transporting of poor people to Barbadoes, and of discontented -west-country Presbyterians to the American colonies. The former -kind of work is said to have enriched two merchants named -Baird, whose descendants have since figured among the Scottish -gentry. But all such work was of small advantage to the country -at large, as everything is, indeed, except that which gives real -labour and its products. Here and there was a speculator like -Sir Robert Mylne of Barnton, who made a little fortune by farming -the entire national revenue at ninety thousand pounds, and -ultimately lost it again, as he well might in that age without any -necessary connection of the event with the fact of his having -handed the Covenant to the hangman when it was publicly burnt -after the Restoration. In this age, too, there was at least one able -and successful merchant in our city, namely, Sir James Dick of -Prestonfield, a grandson of the Rothschild of the Covenant. In -him the fortunes of the family were in some measure restored. -As provost of Edinburgh, he acquired the friendship of the Duke -of York, when he lived at Holyrood, and used to be consulted by -him about means of promoting the prosperity of the country. -George Watson, the founder of our hospital, was originally head-clerk -or accountant to Dick, at a salary of £16, 13s. 4d. Rather -unexpectedly, I am informed that a branch of Sir James’s business -has continued to be kept up, and after some changes of situation, -now appears under the firm of Craig Brothers, in the South -Bridge. There was, however, in this reign, little more than a -blind groping towards mercantile enterprise. The contemplation<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_18"></a>{18}</span> -of English prosperity had created a spirit of emulation. Men of -enlarged minds were sadly sensible of the national poverty. There -was a general sense of uneasiness under the knowledge that -perhaps as much as <i>twenty thousand a year</i> went out of this poor -country into fat and comfortable England, to buy superfine cloth -and other fineries for the upper classes. England, too, it was -observed, had those colonies on the other side of the Atlantic, not -one of whom could buy a hat, or a coat, or a sheet of glass, from -anybody but an Englishman, while Scotland had no such outlets -for manufactures, even if the manufactures existed. There was, -it appears, in Scotland, the shrewd head and the willing hand; -but how to start, how to get capital, skill, and experience—how, -in short, to realise the ambitious views she was beginning to -cherish!</p> - -<p>Restricted as merchandise was in the reign of King William, -we then find a general acknowledgment of the importance of the -mercantile class in Edinburgh, in the practice of receiving the -Lord Provost of the city as a member of the Privy Council, -which was substantially the government of the country. These -provosts, too, were generally knighted. Amongst them we find -Sir John Hall, ancestor of the baronets of Dunglass, and of -the late ingenious writer, Captain Basil Hall. Sir William -Binning and Sir Thomas Kennedy, who had been provosts in -the late Stuart reigns, continued in that of King William to be -engaged in large undertakings, such as government contracts and -farmings of customs. So, also, was an eminent member of our -Company, Bailie Alexander Brand, who finally acquired the -honour of knighthood. We find Brand, for instance, along with -Binning and Kennedy, engaging to import five thousand stand of -arms for the state, at one pound sterling each, and getting into -trouble from making public in a law-court that he contemplated -a <i>donative</i> of two hundred and fifty guineas, with other articles, to -some of the principal state-officers with whom the bargain had -been made. A certain Sir Robert Dickson, who, with Binning -and Kennedy, farmed the customs and foreign excise for five -years from 1693, at twenty thousand three hundred pounds a -year, got into a worse scrape still with the state-officers; for, in -squaring accounts, he found upwards of two thousand pounds -unexpectedly on the debit side, for wines given as gratuities to -those nobles, and, seeking the king’s protection from this -oppression, he found himself liable to a charge, under an old -statute, against murmuring at judges, and was glad to buy -himself off by craving pardon on his knees. The gratuities, in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_19"></a>{19}</span> -the latter case, were declared to be according to use and wont; -if so, it seems hard that Brand should have been harassed for -announcing a compliance with the custom in the other case; but, -of course, <i>quietness</i> is everything in these matters.</p> - -<p>It was in this reign that the bearing of the national mind -towards commerce first found effectual gratification. A company, -headed by John Holland, a London merchant, started in 1695 -the Bank of Scotland, the first institution of the kind in the -country. Its paid-up capital was at first no more than ten -thousand pounds. It tried branches at Aberdeen, Dundee, and -Glasgow; but they did not succeed, or were not found to be -wanted, and the money was all brought home again on horses’ -backs. Under the prompting and guidance of an ingenious native, -William Paterson, the African Company was formed in the ensuing -year, with about a quarter of a million of paid-up capital, and the -design of planting a great entrepôt for the commerce of the world on -the Isthmus of Darien. As is well known, this company, through -English jealousy, proved a disastrous failure. It was a sore blow -for a poor country to suffer at the very opening of a mercantile -career, and it was long before our people forgot it, or overcame -its effects. When the Union, however, happily settled that -English exclusivism was no longer exclusive for Scotland—when -Scotland was so far allowed to have that fair-play for her industry -which we are now seeking to establish as the right of all, as it is -for the good of all—then did her enterprise find safer channels and -a more fitting reward. Owing, indeed, to the lack of capital and -other causes, the progress was for a long time rather slow, and -especially on our side of the island. As a proof of this, take the -contrast between the shipping of Leith in 1692—twenty-nine -vessels of an average of fifty-nine tons (the value £7100)—and -that of 1740, when it exhibited forty-seven vessels of an -average of only fifty-six tons, and not one above 180. The -increase of the next twelve years to sixty-eight vessels, of an -average of 102 tons—several being as high as 300, and one of -350 tons—shews a great acceleration of progress after the first -difficulties were got over. In 1844, there belonged to Leith 210 -vessels of an aggregate of 25,427 tons, or an average of 121 tons. -On the west side of the island, owing to the development of the -American colonies, the progress was greater; and yet it was not -till eleven years after the Union that Glasgow sent her first ship -across the Atlantic. The smallness of all mercantile matters there -at first is most remarkable. It is alleged that four young men, -with ten thousand pounds amongst them, commenced the mercantile<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_20"></a>{20}</span> -glory of our western capital. And one cannot without a -smile read, in the diary of serious Mr Wodrow, under 1709, of -Glasgow losing no less than ten thousand pounds by the capture -of a fleet going to Holland. ‘I am sure,’ he says, ‘the Lord is -remarkably frowning upon our trade in more respects than one, -since it was put in place of our religion, in the late alteration of -our constitution.’ Leaving these more general matters, I must -devote the remainder of my brief space to the history of the -Merchant Company of Edinburgh.</p> - -<p>It was amidst some of the most distressing things in our -national history—hangings of the poor ‘hill-folk’ in the Grassmarket, -trying of the patriot Argyle for taking the test with an -explanation, and so forth—that this Company came into being. -Its nativity was further heralded by sundry other things of a -troublous kind, more immediately affecting merchandise and its -practitioners.</p> - -<p>The superior woollen cloth which was woven in England so -early as the reign of Henry VIII., made its way into Scotland -before the end of the sixteenth century; but it was very grudgingly -looked upon by our native economists. The ‘hame-bringing of -English claith’ was denounced in an act of 1597 as an unprofitable -trade, ‘the same claith having only for the maist part an -outward show, wanting that substance and strength whilk ofttimes -it appears to have,’ and being, moreover, the chief cause of -the ‘transporting of all gold and silver furth of this realm, and, -consequently, of the present dearth of the cunyie.’ Soon after -this, seven Flemings were brought to Edinburgh, to instruct the -people how to make <i>seys</i> and broadcloth at home, and to save this -pernicious outflow of coin into England; but there were many -impediments in the way. We do not hear that the seven -Flemings were ever fairly set to work. In 1620, a second attempt -of the same kind was made with four Fleming cloth-makers, in a -place on the outskirts of the city called Paul’s Work; but the -days were still evil. The first really energetic or hopeful effort at -a woollen-cloth manufacture amongst us was not made till the -year 1681, when a work of that kind was set up at Newmills, -near Haddington, under the care of an Englishman named -Stanfield, and with several English workmen to instruct the -natives. As what was thought a needful encouragement to this -and other enterprises for the production of articles of attire within -the country, and so saving money from being sent out of it, an -act of parliament was passed, forbidding the importation of all -kinds of cloth of wool or lint, all silk goods, and, generally, articles<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_21"></a>{21}</span> -of personal finery; also the exporting of any linen or woollen -yarn, or of any coarse cloth. It was called an act for encouraging -trade and manufactures; but while it could not very readily -bring manufactures into being, it was in reality calculated to -extinguish no small amount of trade. Very amusingly, too, the -act recites that these arrangements were arrived at by the Privy -Council ‘after long and serious deliberation, and advice of the -most judicious and knowing merchants of the kingdom.’ It is -scarce conceivable to us how such an act came to be passed, seeing -that it forbade the use of foreign articles before any corresponding -ones were made at home; before even the machinery for making -them was set up or existed; but the truth is, the governments of -those days had much greater dependence upon the use of force -than we have—force to make people like bishops or give up -popery—force to direct what they were to eat, and what they were -to wear. And with all this dependence on force, no means of -really enforcing anything: at least, we never hear of any such -enactments in those days, but we soon after hear of their being -everywhere broken through and disregarded. For my part, I feel -at a loss to understand the drift of the government on this occasion, -for, little more than two months after a parliamentary prohibition -of foreign cloth, we find the king giving the <i>Company of the -Merchants of Edinburgh</i> their Patent, describing them as <i>invectores -et panni tam rasi quam villosi</i>, importers of both fine and coarse cloth. -Probably it was expected that they would almost instantly cease to -be so, and remain only liable to the rest of the description given to -them of <i>vendors of wearing stuffs</i>. If so, the hope was a bootless -one, for, notwithstanding sundry burnings of the forbidden foreign -stuffs on the streets of Edinburgh, no manufacture either of fine -woollen cloth, or of silks, or fine linen, took hearty root in our -country for many years thereafter. Most likely, the act fell -speedily into contempt as impracticable.</p> - -<p>It was on the 1st of December 1681 that eighty-two merchants -of Edinburgh, so called, but in truth specially concerned in the -business of cloth or clothing alone, met the magistrates in the -High Council-house, to hear read the royal letters-patent, erecting -them into a company or society for the promotion of commerce -and sundry other useful purposes. Each member was to pay at -entry three pounds Scots—that is, ten shillings sterling—and six -shillings Scots, or an English sixpence, yearly, while in trade, for -the purpose of constituting a fund for decayed members and their -widows and children. It will be observed that these were very -moderate contributions, even for the reign of Charles II.; but the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_22"></a>{22}</span> -tradition of the Company is, that its whole scheme was at first of a -humble nature. The constituent members adopted as their symbol -a <i>Stock of Broom</i>—a modest shrub, but with a great tendency to -increase. As such they regarded their society and plan of charity; -and ever since, ‘the Stock of Broom’ has been the first toast at all -the convivial meetings of the Company. I regret to remark, that, -while such laudable views and ideas prevailed amongst our predecessors, -the universal taint of exclusiveness had also an ascendency -over them. It was ruled in their very constitution, that none -who had not entered their Company should be permitted to practise -merchandise in the city. And they were entitled to poind goods -which were exposed to sale in contravention of their bye-laws.</p> - -<p>One of the Company’s first proceedings was to ask the Dean of -Edinburgh (Very Reverend William Annand) to compose a prayer -to be said by the clerk at all their meetings. It was as follows: -‘Almighty and eternal God, we thy servants now assembled, -implore, according to thy gracious promises, the pardon of all our -offences, and thy holy spirit to deliver us from falling into the -snares of sin and Satan. Keep us, O Lord, in peace, unity, -brotherly love, and concord, by removing pride, prejudice, passion, -covetousness, and whatever may offend thy gracious majesty. -Bless our king and all the royal family, the magistrates, and all -the incorporations of this city, the Masters and all the members of -this society, that we may have fellowship with thee. The sea is -thine, and thy hands formed the dry land: prosper us in our -present undertaking with the fruits of both; above all, with the -fruits of thy holy Spirit, through Jesus Christ our Lord.’ It was -thought proper to make some requital to the dean for this service; -but it seems to have been rather long before the Stock of Broom -spread sufficiently to allow of this being done. It was not till -August 1686 that the Company ordained Hugh Blair, one of their -number, to furnish the reverend gentleman with ‘six ells fine -black cloth for a gown,’ for which ‘the said Hugh Blair is to have -from the Company twenty shillings sterling the ell, <i>if it be paid -within twelve months</i>; but if it happen to be any longer resting, the -price is to be augmented at the discretion of the Company conform -to the time.’ On the 9th of January 1688 the Company realised -£36, 13<i>s.</i> Scots, or rather more than three pounds sterling, by -poindings of certain small quantities of fustian, mohair, and serge, -which had been exposed in the market contrary to law; and, now -believing themselves to be in a good way, they ordered that Hugh -Blair be paid for the dean’s gown out of the first and readiest of -the treasurer’s intromissions, but still to be allowed interest till<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_23"></a>{23}</span> -payment was actually made. We may presume that Blair was -paid not long after this, for, in the ensuing September, the twelve -pounds Scots realised from the fustian was ordered to be given to -James Tait, an indigent member of the Company. It may be -remarked that Hugh Blair was a grandson of Robert Blair, one of -the Covenanting ministers who have reached a historical fame, and -he was at the same time grandfather to his namesake the admired -minister of the High Kirk, and author of the <i>Sermons</i> and <i>Lectures -on Belles-Lettres</i>. Hugh was Master of the Company in the year -1692. It may also be worth while to recall that Dean Annand -was the clergyman officially appointed to attend the unfortunate -Earl of Argyle on the scaffold. He was a man of considerable -learning, and, as we learn from his communications with Argyle, -a hearty opponent of popery.</p> - -<p>One of the Company’s earliest movements of any importance -was the acquiring of a hall; but I regret to say this was not, as -might be supposed, a movement of a purely dignified nature—the -great object was to get a place of their own, in which they could -deposit the goods taken from unfreemen, it having been found -hitherto, that such goods taken to private houses were often -disposed of clandestinely: in short, the Company got little -good of them. In 1691, the Master, Bailie Robert Blackwood, -intimated that there was a suitable house to be had in the -Cowgate—namely, a large lodging belonging to Viscount Oxenford, -and the price would be about twelve thousand merks, or six -hundred and seventy pounds sterling. A subscription was -immediately entered into to defray the cost, and the house was -purchased. It was a large quadrangular building, surrounding -a court-yard, and had been the residence of the celebrated lawyer -of a hundred years before, who finally became the first Earl -of Haddington—popularly called, from his locality, <i>Tam o’ the -Cowgate</i>. Even now, the widow of the cavalier Sir Thomas -Dalyell of Binns, and one or two other persons of quality, had -lodgment in some of its apartments. There was one large room -which was to be devoted to the purposes of a hall; but it was -sadly out of order. Presently comes forward a liberal member of -the Company, Bailie Alexander Brand, who had some time before -established a manufactory of what was called <i>Spanish leather</i>, for -the ornamenting of rooms—namely, skins stamped with gold. It -was a pretty style of hangings, once in great favour in Scotland; a -few examples may still be seen in old country-houses; one I -remember in the house of Gartsherrie in Lanarkshire. The bailie -undertook to hang the hall in this manner, and only charge what<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_24"></a>{24}</span> -was due over and above his own contribution of a hundred and -fifty pounds Scots. Ten years afterwards, when accounts came to -be settled with the then Sir Alexander Brand—for it will be -observed prompt settlements were by no means among the -commercial virtues of our predecessors—it appeared that a hundred -and nineteen skins of gold leather, with a black ground, had been -used, at a total expense of two hundred and fifty-three pounds -Scots, including the manufacturer’s contribution. There was also -much concernment about a piece of waste ground behind; but the -happy thought occurred of converting it into a bowling-green, for -the use of the members in the first place, and the public in the -second. Many years after, we find Allan Ramsay making joyous -Horatian allusions to this place of recreation, telling us that -now, in winter, douce folk were no longer seen wysing ajee the -biassed bowls on Tamson’s Green (Thomson being a subsequent -tenant). It is not unworthy of notice that, from the low state of -the arts in Scotland, the bowls required for this green had to be -brought from abroad. It is gravely reported to the Company on -the 6th of March 1693, that the bowls are ‘upon the sea homeward.’ -Ten pair cost £6, 4<i>s.</i> 3<i>d.</i> Scots. It is scarcely necessary -to add that the Company’s connection with the Cowgate was -dissolved long ago, and even the house has for thirty years ceased -to exist, having been taken down to make way for George the -Fourth’s Bridge. The only remaining memorial of the Company -at that spot is to be found in the name, Merchant Street, applied -to a half-extinguished line of buildings behind the Cowgate, and -our title to the ground-rents of that part of the city.</p> - -<p>By and by, the Company became engaged in matters more -amiable than the seizing of goods of unfreemen. Wealthy -members died, leaving <i>mortifications</i> (in the happy Scottish sense) -to the Company, for the succour of decayed brethren. It is -remarkable that, on the first such occasion, in 1693, when three -thousand five hundred pounds, accruing from a legacy left by -Patrick Aikenhead, a Scotch merchant at Dantzig, for pious uses -in Edinburgh, came into possession of the Merchant Company, -they had not a decayed member requiring the benefit. Not long -after the last date, the Company became engaged in the erection -of a hospital for the nurture and education of the female children -of their less prosperous members. Though originated by a certain -Mrs Hare, widow of an Edinburgh apothecary, but a scion of the -noble house of Marr, the principal labour and expense attending -this foundation fell upon the Merchant Company of Edinburgh. -Their zeal in the affair is amply shewn in their books, where the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_25"></a>{25}</span> -entries of contributions for ‘<i>the Lasses</i>’ are for some years -incessant. Twenty-eight years later, when George Watson -died, leaving no less than twelve thousand pounds sterling -for the benefit of children of the other sex, the Merchant -Company came to have the management of a second foundation of -the same kind. I believe its administration in both hospitals has, -generally speaking, been unexceptionable. It is, however, worthy -of observation, that the Company itself has never supplied a -sufficiency of children requiring the benefits. It has conducted -these institutions to a considerable extent on the principle of -<i>Vos non vobis</i>.</p> - -<p>It is foreign to my purpose to trace the history of Edinburgh -merchants and merchandise during the time following upon the -Union, when the national industry and enterprise, being allowed -a fair field, were producing those results of wealth and civilisation -which we now see smiling around us. I may remark, however, -that the first two Georges were inurned before the merchants of -this or any other British city had ceased in any degree to depend -on prohibitions of this and that, and exclusive rights to deal and -be dealt with. The introduction of Indian damasks, padasoys, -and taffetas was, so lately as 1730, spoken of by our Merchant -Company as ‘destructive.’ In England, ‘Bury in woollen if you -have any bowels for your country,’ was a general feeling, and, -indeed, a matter of law. The late Bailie Robert Johnston once -shewed me a curious document, drawn up and extensively signed -by the Edinburgh mercers and drapers, about the year 1760, -covenanting that henceforth they would wholly cease to traffic -with that generation of men called ‘English riders.’ So long is -it before an enlightened sense of interests, even among a shrewd -and tolerably well-educated people, supersedes the first stringent -emotions of human selfishness. How different the spirit of the -Merchant Company, and its offshoot the Chamber of Commerce, -has been in recent times, patronising and promoting every -liberal measure, need not be dwelt upon. Another particular -of the last century may be adverted to—namely, that there continued -to be a very great infusion among our merchants of what -may be called an aristocratic element. On this subject I am -aided by the recollections of the late venerable clerk of the -Company, Mr James Jollie, extending nearly a century back from -the present time. To take the leading firms among the silk-mercers. -Of John Hope and Company, the said John Hope was -a younger son of Hope of Rankeillour in Fife. Of Stewart and -Lindsay, the former was the son of Charles Stewart of Ballechen,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_26"></a>{26}</span> -and the latter a younger son of Lindsay of Wormiston. Among -the leading drapers: in the firm of Lindsay and Douglas, the -former was a younger son of Lindsay of Eaglescairney, and the -latter of Douglas of Garvaldfoot. Of Dundas, Inglis, and Callander, -the first was son to Dundas of Fingask in Stirlingshire, the family -from which the Earl of Zetland and Baron Amesbury are -descended; the second was a younger son of Sir John Inglis of -Cramond, and succeeded to that baronetage, which, it may be -remarked, took its rise in an Edinburgh merchant of the seventeenth -century. Another eminent cloth-dealing firm, Hamilton -and Dalrymple, comprehended John Dalrymple, a younger brother -of the well-known Lord Hailes, and a great grandson of the first -Lord Stair: he was at one time Master of the Merchant Company. -In a fourth firm, Stewart, Wallace, and Stoddart, the leading -partner was a son of Stewart of Dunearn. The leading wine-merchants -and bankers of those days were also men of family; -but this, of course, is the less worthy of remark, as it continues in -some degree to be the case at the present day.</p> - -<p>That so many landed families amongst us have descended from -Edinburgh merchants is no singular fact, for trade efflorescing into -nobility is an old phenomenon in the south. There we have a -Duke of Leeds descended from the apprentice of Sir William -Hewit the goldsmith; the Wentworth Fitzwilliams, from a -worthy London merchant knighted by Henry VIII. From the -nautical adventurer Phipps, of the time of Charles II., come the -Earls of Mulgrave. Cornwallis is from a London merchant; -Coventry, from a mercer; Radnor, from a silk-manufacturer; -Warwick, from a wool-stapler; Pomfret, from a Calais merchant. -Essex, Dartmouth, Craven, Tankerville, Darnley, Cowper, and -Romney, have all had a similar origin. More recently ennobled -families—the Dacres, the Dormers, the Dudley Wards, the -Hills, the Caringtons, have in like manner taken their rise from -successful trade. It is an origin surely as honourable as dexterous -courtiership, gifts of church-lands, or mediæval robbery and -plunder.</p> - -<p>On a retrospect of the whole subject, one must see that, notwithstanding -so many of our merchants of old being gentlefolks, there -is a great improvement in many respects amongst the class. Our -predecessors had not merely to contend with the narrow resources -of the country, and with the want of a thousand conveniences for -the transport of goods by sea and land, which have since come into -existence, but, worst of all, they had to struggle with the dictates -of their own ignorance. Nearly all the principles which they<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_27"></a>{27}</span> -advanced and sought to realise in legislation, as for the encouragement -of trade and manufactures, were false, and could only operate -for the repression of the industrial energies of the community, and, -by consequence, for the keeping up of poverty in the land. It is a -strange thing to say, but it is true, that breakers of laws have in a -great measure been the means of bringing about a sounder policy. -We have happily got above the greater part of these errors, and -daily reap the natural advantages of our superior light; and yet, -as a part of the British community, I think we ought to feel -modest about the faults of our ancestors, since it is undeniable -that the commercial world is still far from having attained -the summit of perfection. It has faults, too, which are almost -peculiar to our own age. The advance by banks of large sums of -deposited money to reckless traders destitute of capital of their -own, and who only hope for some trump to turn up in their favour -before ruin overtakes them, is a mercantile error which our ancestors -never dreamed of. So, also, those consequent disastrous crises -of trade, of which we have just seen an example sweep over -the industrial world, were unknown to our forefathers. The -present Company may, however, be gratified in reflecting that -from these errors the old banking companies of Edinburgh have -been comparatively free. The five or six great banks of old -standing amongst us not only came out safe in the late crisis, -but they were able to hold out help to some at a distance which -were less fortunate. As a humble individual of this community, -I must say I feel a pride in the old Edinburgh banks, as an -exponent of business procedure amongst us. If we overlook only -the brief civil war of 1745, when the grandfather of our present -sheriff-clerk—being cashier to the Royal Bank—marched up in -his tartans, pistols, and claymore, to deposit the bank’s money in -the castle, that it might be safe from his less scrupulous countrymen, -and when the Bank of Scotland was but too happy to follow -the example—there we see doors which have never for a day been -closed for a hundred and forty-four years! I was going to have -said a hundred and sixty-four years; but on looking into the -history of the Bank of Scotland, I find there was a brief stoppage -of cash-payments in 1704 occasioned by a malicious run, and -another caused by the civil troubles of the year 1715. As it is, -overlooking only the unavoidable cessation of business in the -Forty-five, the doors of the ‘Auld Bank’ have been in the ordinary -condition of those of the temple of Janus at Rome for a hundred -and forty-four years. It cannot have been without consummate -prudence that this glory has been achieved. During the late<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_28"></a>{28}</span> -crisis, moreover, the number of failures in our city, including -Leith, was comparatively small. It will be said, perhaps, that -Edinburgh is not a city of much business—a saying against which -I take leave to reclaim. It is, for one thing, the centre of -monetary business for the kingdom. The life-assurance companies -and societies of Scotland—hitherto, like our old banks, -of untainted character—have, with but little exception, their headquarters -here; and let us just passingly observe, three of these -establishments in St Andrew Square enjoy an annual income of -six hundred and fifty thousand pounds, and have the management -of accumulated funds to the extent of five and a half millions.<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> -When we further consider the legal business of Edinburgh, its -agenting of property throughout the country, its large publishing -establishments, its glass-works and foundries, its merchandise in -wine and drysaltery, it is, even leaving Leith out of view, in -reality very much a city of business. While, then, I acknowledge -that we are still everywhere under more or less of commercial -error, I think it may at the same time be allowable to describe -the mercantile community of Edinburgh, as one in which -experience has proved that a more than usually sound and prudent -practice—with happy fruits—has the ascendant.</p> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<div class="footnotes"><p class="ph3">FOOTNOTES:</p> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> For these interesting particulars, I am indebted to Joseph Robertson, Esq., -Record Office, Edinburgh.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> The Scottish Widows’ Fund, Scottish Equitable, and Scottish Provident -Offices, are here alluded to. The entire annual income of the life-assurance -offices of Scotland, chiefly centering in Edinburgh, is stated at £2,082,000, and -the sum-total of their funds at £11,116,000.—<i>Letter of R. Christie, Esq., -Accountant, Courant newspaper, Feb. 26, 1859.</i></p></div></div> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Edinburgh Papers. 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