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Title: Edinburgh Papers. Edinburgh Merchants and Merchandise in Old Times

Author: Robert Chambers

Release date: April 26, 2020 [eBook #61947]
                Most recently updated: October 17, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EDINBURGH PAPERS. EDINBURGH MERCHANTS AND MERCHANDISE IN OLD TIMES ***

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 EDINBURGH PAPERS. EDINBURGH MERCHANTS AND MERCHANDISE IN OLD TIMES ***


    

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