Chapter XXX (4)

Though the mining operations of Scotland were not as yet on a great scale, they added to the slowly advancing progress of the nation. In the first part of the century the coal works of Culross were worked some distance under the sea. But it appears from a petition to the Privy Council in 1621, that the proprietors of collieries were not making fortunes, as it was then stated that some of the owners of coal-haughs were ten thousand pounds, and even twenty thousand, out of pocket. The Master of Elphinstone’s coal mine of Little Fawside had been on fire for several years, and another mine of his had entailed an outlay of eight thousand pounds. The pits of Sir James Richardson of Smeaton for some years had been so unproductive as scarcely to supply his own house; the coal of Mickle Fawside had undone the late laird’s estate, and caused him to sell a part of his old heritage. The coal of Pencaitland was wasted and decayed, and past hope of recovery, except at a cost far greater than it was worth. The Council appointed a commission to make inquiry, and to report what prices should be fixed for coal. Upon this report it was ordered that the price of coal “at the hill” should be seven shillings and eightpence per load――that is, ♦about sevenpence three-farthings sterling. It should, however, be mentioned that in these days a load meant a horse’s burden.¹

♦ duplicate word “about” removed

¹ _Register of the Privy Council._

The Privy Council passed an act in 1621, in favour of Mr. Johnston, the laird of Elphinstone, because he had expended twenty thousand merks on his coal works, “to his great hurt and apparent ruin.” It was stated that he sustained forty families at the work, that their weekly wages exceeded two hundred merks; and that his coal would be lost, and all his workers thrown out of employment, if something was not done to assist him, as he was unable any longer to struggle with the adverse circumstances in which he found himself. According to his statement, the average weekly wages of a collier’s family reached about five shillings and sixpence sterling.¹

¹ Chambers’ _Domestic Annals of Scotland_, Volume I., page 516.

As noticed in the preceding volume, the Privy Council from time to time had made regulations for fixing the price of coal, and prohibiting the export of it until all the people of the kingdom were supplied. A duty of six shillings was imposed in 1644 on coal exported in Scotch or English vessels of the value of twelve pounds, but if it was exported in foreign ships the duty was twelve shillings. In 1655 and 1656 the custom on Scotch coal was fixed at four shillings per ton in British ships, but eight shillings if exported in foreign vessels. Small coal was only charged at half the above rates. According to a Parliamentary return of Richard, the Lord Protector, in April, 1659, the annual value of the custom on the export of Scotch coal amounted to £2216 sterling. The Ayr coal fields began to assume importance in the latter part of the century.

Prior to the eighteenth century the quantity of iron produced in Scotland was comparatively small; but there were several lead mines worked. In 1641, Sir James Hope of Hopetoun obtained a grant of the lead mines in Waterhead and Glengonar; and in 1649 an Act of Parliament was passed, which enacted that any one fraudulently intromitting with his lead ore should be punished as resetters of stolen goods. The same year Parliament exempted Sir James Hope’s mines from the valuation of the sheriffdom, because they were the only ones of that kind in the kingdom, and ought to be specially favoured. In 1661 Parliament ratified the former Acts in favour of Sir James Hope; at that time the family possessed the lead mines in Crawford Moor, and also the copper mines in Airthrey, and the Binnie silver mines.

In 1698, Hope of Hopetoun had a party of men constantly employed at his lead mines far up one of the vales of Lanarkshire. As it was extremely inconvenient for every man to go several miles for his food, and the proprietor was anxious to make an arrangement that one should go and purchase necessaries for himself and the rest; but under a recent Act against forestalling, no one could venture to sell to any single person so much victual as the miners needed. Hope, therefore, applied to the Privy Council for permission to his baillie to purchase the quantities of victual required, with the assurance that none of it would be stored or sold out to any other person except his own workmen, and that it should be sold to them at the price which it was bought for in the market. On these grounds the Council granted Hope a license to supply food to his workmen. At the same time licenses were granted to the chamberlain of the Earl of Mar, for the benefit of the workmen engaged in his Lordship’s coal mines; to the Duke of Queensberry, for the workmen at his lead mines; to the Earl of Annandale, for his servants and workmen; and to Alexander Inglis, factor for the collieries on the estate of Clackmannan.¹

¹ _Register of the Privy Council_; _Acts of the Parliaments of
Scotland_, Volumes V., VI., and VII. All these noblemen were
members of the Privy Council.

Means of intercourse, as roads, bridges, communication by sea, and postal arrangements, are closely connected with trade and national progress. Roads in the order of development naturally precede other modes of transit, and are followed by ferry-boats, canals, improved harbours, and a regular postal system. As civilisation advances, these are rapidly improved, and by and by partly superseded by better expedients and arrangements, as steamships, railways, telegraphic and telephonic communication, all which evince the resources of the human mind. But merely to state results leaves the steps of progress unexplained, and gives no conception of the many difficulties and obstacles which had to be encountered and overcome ere the desired aim was reached; accordingly it is necessary to enter into details in order to render the development of social organisation intelligible, as well as to indicate the obstacles which impede the progress of civilisation.

By an Act of Parliament passed in 1617, Justices of Peace were empowered to give orders for repairing the roads and passages to market towns and seaports, when they deemed it necessary. Those who refused to assist at this work might be punished at the discretion of the Justices; but the arrangement had not proved effective. In 1669, another Act was passed authorising the Sheriff of the county and the Justices of Peace to meet at the head burgh of the shire on the first Tuesday of May every year, and frame measures for repairing the roads, bridges, and ferries within their bounds. They were enjoined to appoint some of their number as overseers of such parts of the roads as were nearest to their residence; and also to appoint some of themselves to survey the roads, the bridges, and the ferries, and then report to the rest, and continue to meet from time to time till the survey was completed. They were authorised to convene all the tenants, their servants, and the cottars within their district, by intimation at the parish churches on Sunday, warning them to have in readiness their horses and carts, sledges, spades, shovels, picks, mallets, and all implements required for repairing the highways. Some of the more expert men should be appointed to direct the rest, at a fixed rate of wages. According to the Act, these parties had to work on the roads, “man and horse,” six days every year for the first three years, and afterwards four days. The Justices of Peace and the overseers were empowered to fine those who absented themselves, twenty shillings for each day a man was absent, and thirty shillings if a man and horse were absent, which money was applied to hire others in their place. It was well understood that this arrangement would not be sufficient for keeping the roads in repair, accordingly all proprietors of each county were authorised to meet once a year, and consider what was necessary for repairing the highways, and for making and repairing bridges and ferries. For this purpose they were empowered to impose a tax not exceeding ten shillings on every hundred pounds of valued rental; and they were authorised to levy moderate custom or toll at bridges and ferries. The Justices were empowered to punish all who injured the roads, by ploughing up, laying stones, rubbish or dung upon them; and where cultivated land lay alongside of the roads it should be fenced with dykes, ditches, or hedging. Where it was necessary to change the line of the road, they were to appoint three of their number to mark the direction of the new road, and upon oath to estimate the damage to the parties whose properties were encroached upon. By this Act the time appointed for repairing the roads was between seed-time and harvest; but on the ground that other seasons of the year were more convenient for working at the roads, Parliament passed another Act in 1670, authorising the Sheriffs and Justices of Peace to convene those liable for this work at any time of the year which they thought fit, excepting always seed-time and harvest.¹

¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume IV.; Volume
VII., pages 574‒576; Volume VIII., page 18.

With the aim of making these Acts still more effective, Parliament in 1686 passed an additional Act touching the highways and bridges. It enjoined the Commissioners of Supply to meet with the Justices of Peace, and to act together in their several counties according to the tenor of the preceding Acts. They were directed to meet every year in the month of June, five to form a quorum, and if a quorum should not assemble, then the Sheriff was empowered to fine each of those who were absent twenty merks, which sum was to be applied for repairing of the roads and bridges.¹

¹ _Ibid._, Volume VIII., page 590.

According to a series of Acts reaching back to the twelfth century, all the common highways between market towns had to be twenty feet broad at the least, and where they happened to be broader, they were to remain so. Those who put any obstruction upon the highways could be put under caution by the Court of Session not to commit the like again, under a severe ♦penalty.¹ Notwithstanding all this minute legislation, the roads in Scotland, even at the end of the seventeenth century, were in a wretched condition, and it was not till the latter half of the eighteenth century that the roads throughout the country were put in a proper state for traffic.

♦ “penality” replaced with “penalty”

¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume I.; Volume II.

A single illustration of the actual condition of the roads near the capital of the kingdom in 1680 may suffice on this point. The first four miles of the road from Edinburgh to London, the part from the Clockmill Bridge to Magdalen Bridge, was in such a ruinous state that passengers were in danger of their lives, “either by their coaches overturning, their horses falling, or their carts breaking, their loads casting, and horses stumbling; and the poor people with their burdens upon their backs sorely grieved and discouraged. Also, strangers do often exclaim thereat.” The Council authorised a toll of a half-penny for a loaded cart, and a sixth of a penny for a loaded horse, for the purpose of keeping this portion of the road in repair.¹

¹ _Register of the Privy Council._

Turning to the means of communication by post, it appears that the arrangements were of the most primitive description. In the sixteenth century there was no regular system for the transmission of letters in Scotland. When anything was unusually pressing and important, a special messenger was dispatched. About the end of the century, Aberdeen had an officer called the common post, and in 1595, the magistrates ordered that he should have a distinctive livery of blue, with the town’s arms on it. In the early part of the seventeenth century there were a kind of posts at certain intervals or places, where horses could be had for travelling, and these were occasionally used for conveying public letters; but such arrangements were limited and very imperfect. Till 1635 there had been no constant intercourse between England and Scotland; but then the King’s postmaster of England, for foreign parts, commanded that there should be “one running post or two, to run day and night between Edinburgh and London, to go thither and come back again in six days, and to take with them all such letters as should be directed to any post town on the said road, and the posts to be placed in several places out of the road, to run, and bring, and carry out of the said road the letters, as there shall ♦be occasion, and to pay twopence for every single letter under eighty miles, and if one hundred and forty miles, fourpence, and if above, then sixpence. The like rule the King is pleased to order to be observed to West Chester, Holyhead, and thence to Ireland, and also to observe the same rule from London to Plymouth, Exeter, and other places on that road; the same for Oxford, Bristol, Colchester, Norwich, and other places. The King commands that no other messenger or foot-posts shall take up, carry, receive, or deliver any letters whatsoever, other than the messengers appointed by Thomas Witherings, Esquire, except common carriers, or a particular messenger purposely sent with a letter to a friend.” The post between London and Edinburgh was conducted on horseback; it commonly went twice a week, but sometimes only once. During the Covenanting struggle, communication became irregular.¹

♦ “he” replaced with “be”

¹ _Register of the Privy Council_; _Burgh Records of Aberdeen_,
Volume II.; _Burgh Records of Glasgow_, pages 327‒347;
Rushworth’s _Collections_.

In 1649, John Mean, the postmaster of Edinburgh, stated that “the benefit arising from letters sent from the capital to London, and coming thence hither by the ordinary post, amounted to four hundred pounds sterling yearly or thereby, all charges being deducted for payment of the postmaster from Newcastle to Edinburgh inclusive, and no proportion thereof laid upon the Berwick packet.” In recompense for his expenses, he was allowed to retain the eighth penny upon all the letters sent from Edinburgh to London, and the fourth upon all those coming from London to Edinburgh.¹

¹ Chambers’ _Domestic Annals of Scotland_, Volume II., page
187.

During the rule of Cromwell, intercourse between Scotland and London was largely increased; in 1658, a fortnightly stage-coach was running between the two capitals.

After the Restoration, some improvement of the postal system was effected. In 1662, it was ordered that posts should be established between Edinburgh and Portpatrick, the intermediate stations to be Linlithgow, Kilsyth, Glasgow, Kilmarnock, Ayr, and Ballantrae. The charge for each letter from Edinburgh to Glasgow was twopence sterling, thence to any part of the kingdom threepence, and all letters to Ireland sixpence. All other posts, either foot or horse, were prohibited. But this mode of horse-post had not been long in operation, when several persons were found carrying letters along the same line on foot, to the injury of the postmaster, and at his request a warrant was granted against all such persons. Till 1669, there was no regular postal communication between Aberdeen and Edinburgh; and in the former city this had long been felt as a serious want, “not only to the city, but also to the nobility, the gentry, and others in the northern parts of the kingdom.” There had been miscarriage of missives, as well as untimeous delivery and receiving of the same. It was therefore arranged, with the consent of the King’s postmaster-general, that Lieutenant John Wales should establish a regular foot-post carrying letters from Aberdeen to Edinburgh twice a week, and returning every Tuesday and Thursday in the afternoon. Each single letter was to be charged twopence, each double one fourpence, and every packet fivepence per ounce sterling. All other common foot-posts were prohibited from carrying any letters to or from Edinburgh, save those employed by Lieutenant Wales, the postmaster of the city. In 1669, a foot-post was established between Edinburgh and Inverness to go and return twice a week to Aberdeen, and once to Inverness, “if wind and weather served.”¹

¹ _Burgh Records of Aberdeen_, Volume IV., pages 134‒138.

But at the date of the Revolution, the postal system of Scotland was still extremely imperfect. The postmastership was sold by auction to John Blair in 1689, who undertook to carry on the whole business at various rates for letters, and to pay the government an annual sum of five hundred and fifty pounds for seven years. The charges for single letters were:――to Dumfries, Ayr, Kelso, Jedburgh, Dundee, and Perth, twopence; to Carlisle, Portpatrick, Dunkeld, and Aberdeen, threepence; and to Inverness fourpence.¹ In 1695, Parliament passed an Act for establishing a general post-office in Edinburgh, under a postmaster-general. He was invested with the exclusive privilege of receiving and of dispatching letters; but on roads where there were no regular posts, the common carriers were permitted to convey letters until posts should be established. This system had only one centre, the capital, and letters coming from London to Glasgow arrived first in Edinburgh, and thence sent westward at the earliest opportunity. The Privy Council were enjoined to see that branches were established in the most convenient places all over the kingdom, and the hours of dispatching the posts settled and published. According to this Act, the charges for letters were these:――All single letters to Berwick or to any part of the kingdom within fifty miles of Edinburgh, twopence――double letters, fourpence, and so on proportionally; (declaring, nevertheless, that all single letters with bills of lading or exchange, invoices, or other merchants’ accounts, may be enclosed and sent to any part of the kingdom as single letters).²

¹ _Register of the Privy Council_; Chambers’ _Domestic Annals
of Scotland_, Volume III., page 21.

² _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume IX., pages
517‒419.

It appears that the posts were sometimes attacked and the letters and packets seized. In 1690, Parliament enacted that the robbing or seizing of the mails should be punished with death and the confiscation of goods; and by the Act of 1695, any person that molested or impeded the posts in the execution of their duty by night or by day, were liable to a penalty of one thousand pounds Scots, besides reparation and damages.¹

¹ _Ibid._, Volume IX., pages 241, 418.

We have seen that the roads were not in a fitting condition for wheeled vehicles, indeed carriages or coaches were not used in England or in Scotland till the latter part of the sixteenth century. It was said that coaches were first used in England during the reign of Elizabeth. In 1610, the King granted a licence to Henry Anderson to bring a number of coaches and waggons into Scotland for the purpose of driving his Majesty’s subjects between Edinburgh and Leith. He also obtained for himself and his heirs an exclusive right of this business for fifteen years, on the condition that he should be always ready to serve the people, and charge only the sum of twopence for conveying each passenger between Edinburgh and Leith.¹ As already mentioned, stage-coaches ran from Edinburgh to London during the Commonwealth, and the fare was four pounds ten shillings, “in all cases with good coaches and fresh horses on the roads.” Street carriages did not come into use in Scotland till the latter part of the seventeenth century, and even then they were little used. In Edinburgh sedan-chairs were employed instead of wheeled vehicles down to near the end of the eighteenth century. In 1678, the Privy Council granted an exclusive privilege to three men in Haddington to run a stage-coach between that place and Edinburgh for five years. The same year, William Hume, a merchant in Edinburgh, established a stage-coach between the capital and Glasgow. He proposed that his coach should only carry six passengers, at a fare of six shillings each in summer and nine in winter. The Privy Council granted him an exclusive privilege for seven years, and also assured him that his coach horses would not be pressed for any kind of public service.²

¹ _Royal Letters_; Chambers’ _Domestic Annals of Scotland_,
Volume I., page 427.

² _Register of the Privy Council._

But it seems doubtful if any of these schemes of stage-coaching were really successful. A writer who travelled through Scotland in 1688 has stated: “Stage-coaches they have none.... The truth is, the roads will hardly allow them these conveniences, which is the reason that their gentry, men and women, choose rather to ride on their horses. However, their great gentlemen travel with a coach and six, but with so much caution, that besides their other attendants, they have a lusty running footman on each side of the coach, to manage and keep it up in rough places.” The traveller further remarks: “This carriage of persons from place to place might be better spared were there opportunities and means for the speedier conveyance of business by letters. They have no horse-posts besides those which ply between Berwick and Edinburgh, and from thence to Portpatrick, for the sake of the Irish packet.... From Edinburgh to Perth, and so to other places, they use foot-posts and carriers, which, though a slow way of communicating our concerns to one another, yet it is such as they acquiesce in till they have a better.” But in 1697 the stage-coach from York to London required a week to accomplish its journey. This fact was noted in the _Diary_ of George Home; the truth is, travelling was very slow everywhere throughout Britain at that period, and for long after.¹

¹ _A Short Account of Scotland_, 1702.

Turning to the shipping of the kingdom, some information may be drawn from the report of Thomas Tucker――one of Cromwell’s officials, upon the settlement of the revenues of excise and customs in Scotland in 1656; and from a Register containing notices of the state of every burgh in the kingdom in the year 1692.¹ For fiscal purposes the Government of the Commonwealth arranged the ports of Scotland into eight groups, and at the head port of each group a custom office was established. Leith, the chief port of Scotland, and the ports attached to its district (of which the most important were Dunbar, Eyemouth, and Musselburgh) had fourteen vessels, of which a few of the largest were of three and two hundred tons burden. Speaking of Leith, Tucker said:――“Leith itself is a pretty small town, having a convenient dry harbour, into which the Firth ebbs and flows every tide; and a convenient quay on the one side thereof, of good length, for the landing of goods. Leith was, and is, indeed, a storehouse, not only for her own traders, but also for the merchants of the city of Edinburgh, and did not that city, jealous of her own safety, obstruct and impede the growing of this place, it would from her slave, in a few years become her rival.”

¹ Both of these Reports were printed for the Scottish Burgh
Record Society in 1881.

The next head port was Borrowstounness, to which was attached a number of small ports, but the number of their vessels was not stated; their trade, however, was chiefly in coal and salt. The third head port was Bruntisland, on the north side of the Firth opposite to Leith, and its district extended from Inverkeithing along the shore of Fife to the banks of the Tay. The trade of this district inwards was with Norway, the East, and France, and the outward trade was mostly in coal and salt. This group of ports had fifty vessels, but the greater part of them were small, only three reached up to one hundred tons burden, two of which belonged to Kirkcaldy.

The fourth head port was Dundee, to which was attached Perth, Arbroath, and Montrose. The trade of Dundee inwards, as generally all over Scotland, was with Norway, the East, Holland, and France; and the outward trade consisted mainly of plaiding and salmon. Dundee had ten ships, two of one hundred and twenty tons each, one of ninety tons, one of sixty, and the rest smaller. Tucker said that Perth――“is a handsome walled town, where there is an officer always attending, not so much because of any great treading there, as to prevent the carrying out of wool, skins, and hides, of which commodities great quantities are brought thither out of the Highlands, and there bought up and engrossed by the Londonmen.”

Aberdeen was the fifth head port, and those connected with it were Stonehaven, Peterhead, Fraserburgh, Banff, and a few other small ports. Tucker described the harbour of Aberdeen minutely, and said――“But the wideness of the place, from the inlet of the sea coming in with a narrow winding gut, and beating in store of sand with its waves, has rendered it somewhat shallow in the greater part of it, and so less useful than formerly. But the inhabitants are remedying this by lengthening their quay, and bringing it up close to a neck of land, which jutting out eastwards towards a headland before it, makes the coming in so straight.” He stated that the trade outwards was “with salmon and plaiding, commodities which are caught, and made here in greater quantities than any other place of the nation whatsoever.” Aberdeen had nine ships belonging to her port, one of eighty tons, one of seventy, another of sixty, and the rest smaller; while Peterhead had one small vessel, and Fraserburgh four.

The sixth head port was Inverness, which included in its district the ports of the counties of Moray, Ross, Sutherland, Caithness, and the Orkney Islands; but in these regions there were few ships. Inverness had only one, Garmouth one, Cromarty one, and Thurso two, while the Orkney Islands had three; but it was stated that “lately there were other nine barks belonging to the Islands which had been taken or lost by storm, this and the last year.”

Glasgow was the seventh head port, which appeared according to Tucker’s view, to have been even then taking the lead in trade amongst the Scotch ports. “This town, seated in a pleasant and fruitful soil, consists of four streets, handsomely built in the form of a cross, is one of the most considerable burghs of Scotland, as well for its structure as for its trade. Its inhabitants, all save the students of the College, are traders and dealers: Some go to Ireland with small smiddy coals, in open boats of from four to ten tons burden, whence they bring home hoops, barrel staves, meal, corn, and butter; some to France with plaiding, coals, and herrings, of which there is a great fishing yearly in the western sea; some to Norway for wood; and everyone with their neighbours, the Highlanders, who come hither from the Isles and the Western parts, in summer by the Mull of Cantyre, and in winter by Torban, to the head of Loch Fyne, usually drawing their boats over the small neck of sandy land and into the Firth of Dumbarton, and so pass up the Clyde with plaiding, dry hides, goat, kid, and deer skins, which they sell, and purchase with their price such commodities and provisions as they need from time to time.” Tucker thought that Glasgow was likely to become a great commercial city, owing to the energy of her citizens; but the chief obstacle to her rapid growth appeared to be the shallowness of the Clyde, on which only very small barks could pass up to the town. Glasgow had twelve ships, three of one hundred and fifty tons burden each, one of a hundred and forty tons, two of one hundred tons, and the rest smaller. The other ports associated with Glasgow were noticed in the report thus:――“Dumbarton, a small and very poor burgh, which sometimes gives shelter to a vessel of sixteen tons. Greenock, a small place, the inhabitants being all seamen or fisherman, trading to Ireland or to the Isles in open boats. Saltcoats has only a few houses inhabited by fishermen.”

Ayr was the eighth and last head port, and its district embraced “all the shore which bounds Kyle, Carrick, and Galloway, places fuller of moors and mosses than good towns and people, or trading.” Yet Ayr had three ships and a few small barks. But Tucker stated that this district of ports would scarcely yield any more revenue than would pay the necessary outlay of the Government.

The materials and figures for comparing the shipping at the dates of 1656 and 1692 are very incomplete, as the information of a definite character for the later is imperfect, and only admit of a comparison of the shipping of a few of the chief ports. But the figures in the following table may be taken as approximately correct:――

1656. 1692.
────────────────── ──────────────────
Vessels. Tonnage. Vessels. Tonnage.
──────── ──────── ──────── ────────
Leith 12 1000 29 1700
Dundee 10 498 21 1191
Glasgow 12 830 15 1172
Kirkcaldy 12 592 14 1213
Montrose 12 220 18 629
── ──── ── ────
58 3140 97 5905

It appears from the above figures that the shipping of these five ports had increased considerably between the two dates. It may also be stated that at the later period, various parties in Glasgow were part-owners of several other ships besides these in the table; while only about one half of the Kirkcaldy vessels belonged to parties in that town: and the vessels belonging to Montrose were all small barks.

The mode of agriculture practised in Scotland was extremely rude; and in no field of industry is there a more striking contrast than between the husbandry of the seventeenth century and that of the ♦nineteenth. In the seventeenth century only a small portion of the land was under tillage, there was no regular rotation of crops, and no improved grasses, such as clover and ryegrass; and though the chief wealth of the farmers consisted of cattle, no efforts were made to improve the breeds, which were all of a small class, and as yet there was no stall-feeding.

♦ “ninteenth” replaced with “nineteenth”

The general system of farming was this. The land which was manured extended to only about a fourth of the farm, or sometimes a fifth or sixth of it. The remaining portion, called the outfields, was never manured, but a certain part of it, after having been pastured on for seven or eight years, was then ploughed up, and after yielding a poor crop or two of oats, by which it was exhausted, it was again rested and pastured on as before, and another portion ploughed, cropped, exhausted, and rested in its turn. Under this system, which kept only the part of the land nearest to the farmyard in a state fit for tillage, the whole arable land of the country could have yielded but little, compared with what it was capable of producing. Several parts of the south, now celebrated as grain-producing districts, were at the end of the seventeenth century merely stony moors and bogs. Although parliament had passed acts touching fences, hedges, and ditches, there were few enclosed fields anywhere in Scotland, and the practice of improving the soil by a regular system of drainage was quite unknown. In 1686 it was enacted that all proprietors, life-renters, tenants, and cottars should cause their cattle, horses, sheep, goats, and swine to be herded the whole year; and during the night to keep them in houses or folds, that they might not eat and destroy other people’s crops, grass, woods, planting, and hedges. Those found contravening the act were to be liable to a penalty of half a merk for each of the animals found upon their neighbours’ grounds, “over and above the damage done to the grass or the planting.”¹

¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume VII., page 595.

Agricultural implements were rough and clumsy. The plough was made of timber, save the clathing, the coulter, and sock; while the ploughing itself was of the most wretched description. The entire economy of the farm was in a backward state: the manure was carried to the fields on horseback and by manual labour, while the grain was conveyed to the mills and to the markets on horseback, carts being as yet very little used. Three or four returns was considered to be a good crop, and the difficulty of finding food for cattle throughout winter was often extreme. Animals intended for human food were slaughtered before Martinmas, and salted, to supply the family with meat during the winter. The trade in beef was then on a limited scale in Scotland; probably there is more beef sold in one week at the present time than was sold in a year at the end of the seventeenth century.

The state of the tenants and labourers of the land was not a comfortable and happy one. Farmers themselves were poor, and part of their rents was still paid in produce and in services to landlords. Farm-steadings were merely clusters of hovels, without proper accommodation even for cattle, far less for human beings.

A strong desire for exclusive privileges in trade and industry still prevailed. Early in the seventeenth century, attempts were made to introduce into Scotland an improved mode of tanning leather. Twelve tanners from England, under royal patronage, came to instruct the barkers and tanners of Scotland in the perfect mode of making leather. They were invested with special privileges, and were located in several parts of ♦the country, the object being to retain at home the money which had been usually spent on foreign leather. But a tax was put on the improved leather, at the rate of four shillings Scots per hide, for the first twenty-one years. This caused discontent among the shoemakers who everywhere exerted themselves to thwart the King’s purpose. They raised the prices of their boots and shoes, twenty shillings on the pair of boots, and six shillings on the shoes, which stirred up the people against the tax, and a clamour arose that the nation was oppressed, the poorer classes especially. In 1622, a complaint was lodged with the Privy Council, that many of the tanners throughout the kingdom still continued the old mode of letting their leather remain only a short time in the pits, and then brought it to market in a raw state, quite regardless of the obvious advantages of the new way of tanning. The Council therefore ordered that a number of the old tanners should be proclaimed rebels. The grievances of the leather-workers came before the Estates in 1625, and again in 1633, when the tanners and barkers of the kingdom petitioned Parliament, “to be freed and relieved of the burden and imposition imposed upon them for tanning and barking of hides; and that this impost should be discharged, because it does great damage to the whole country.” Subsequently the matter was often before the Estates;¹ but down to the present time, the tanners of Scotland have not succeeded in producing leather of equal quality to the best English and French. The Scotch croops, or sole leather, is much inferior to the English, and the Scotch calf and upper leather is also inferior both to French and English.

♦ duplicate word “the” removed

¹ _Register of the Privy Council_; _Acts of the Parliaments
of Scotland_, Volume V., pages 48, 185, 264. About this time
gilded and ornamented leather was fashionable for covering
the walls of rooms in the better class of houses though,
of course, it was imported. But in 1681, Alexander Brand,
a merchant in Edinburgh, stated that he had brought workmen
and materials into Scotland, and proposed to erect a work
to produce this kind of leather as cheap as it could be
imported. The Privy Council granted him an exclusive right
of manufacturing it for nineteen years.

In the preceding volumes I referred to the making of cloth, which branch of industry was still in a comparatively rude stage, and various attempts were begun in the seventeenth century to introduce improvements. In 1601, Commissioners, deputed by the burghs, engaged seven Flemishmen to settle in Scotland and assist in setting the work in operation; six of them being intended for making serge stuff, and one for broadcloth. On arriving in Edinburgh, they had expected to be immediately employed; but a debate arose as to whether they should be dispersed among the chief towns, and thus diffuse their instructions more widely among the Scots. While this was pending, the foreigners complained to the Privy Council that they were neither entertained nor sent to work, and that it was proposed to separate them, which would greatly retard the perfecting of the work. The Council ordered that they should all be allowed to remain in Edinburgh, and work according to the conditions on which they had agreed with the commissioners; and that till they began their work, they should be properly supplied with food and drink. But six weeks later, the burghs had done nothing; and the Council then informed them that, unless they made a beginning by the month of November, the royal privilege would be withdrawn. Eight years later a company of these foreigners, under the special protection of the King, was established in the Canongate, Edinburgh, and made cloth of various kinds. The business was managed by John Sutherland and Joan Van Headen, and it was stated that they were diffusing much light and knowledge of their calling amongst the Scots. In spite, however, of the King’s letters, which invested these industrious men with special privileges, and exemptions from local burdens, the magistrates of the Canongate began to molest them, with the object of forcing them to become burgesses and freemen in the regular form; on their appeal to the Privy Council, their exemption was affirmed.¹

¹ _Register of the Privy Council_; _Acts of the Parliaments of
Scotland_, Volume V., page 49.

The bulk of the clothing then used in Scotland was home made, the people supplying themselves with clothes from their own wool and flax; each family spinning for itself the yarn, and sending it to the village weaver to be woven. In some parts of Scotland the children were regularly taught to spin by a mistress. The magistrates of Peebles resolved in 1633――“to convene all the persons and parents of those bairns given up in a roll, to be bound for a year to the small wheel in the house to be erected to learn the young ones to spin.” And, “the whole council have referred the taking of a house for the mistress and bairns of the little wheel to be erected for learning the young ones to spin, to the provost and the two bailies.”¹ It was not till towards the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth centuries that successful efforts were made to manufacture this class of goods for general sale; although in the reign of Charles I. there were cloth manufactories on a small scale at Newmills in Haddingtonshire, at Bonnington near Edinburgh, and at Ayr; while in Aberdeen there was a manufactory of plaiden goods and ginghams. In 1641, parliament passed an act to encourage and facilitate the erection of manufactories. This act promised the following immunities to all who had or should erect such works:――“All Spanish and foreign fine wool for making fine cloth shall be custom free, all dye stuffs, oil, and other materials necessary for such works, shall be free of all custom and impost; all parcels of cloth made by any who have erected, or shall erect such works, shall be custom free for the space of fifteen years from the date of their erection. The managers of such works shall be free of any taxation to be imposed on the kingdom for any occasion bygone or to come; and it shall not be lawful for anyone to engage, reset, or entertain, any of the servants of these works without the consent of the masters thereof.” By another Act passed in 1645, the masters and all the workers of manufactories were freed from military service and the quartering of troops upon them; and it was again declared that such works were to be free of all taxation.²

¹ _Burgh Records of Peebles_, pages 372, 373.

² _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume V., page 497;
Volume VI., page 174.

In 1661, Parliament passed two Acts concerning manufactories, one recommending the establishment of companies and societies for making linen and cloth stuffs, and the other for erecting manufactories; while it also ratified former Acts of Parliament and of Council which had similar ends in view. These proposed companies were authorised to incorporate themselves, and to elect a certain number of their members to act as a committee or council of managers, to frame rules and regulations for the management of the manufactory, and conducting the business of the company. For their encouragement, materials imported for use in their manufactures, and whatever goods they produced and exported, were to be free of custom and impost for nineteen years; the stock invested in their works was exempted from public and local taxes; and they themselves were to be free from quartering of soldiers. Every encouragement was given to skilled workmen from other countries to come and settle in Scotland, and instruct the Scots in their respective kinds of work. The point touching foreigners was thus stated:――“If any stranger shall come or be brought into this kingdom by natives to set up work and teach his art in making cloth stuffs, stockings, or any other kind of manufacture, he shall enjoy the benefit of the law and all other privileges that a native does enjoy; with power to erect manufactories either in burgh or landward as they shall think fit: and there to dwell and exercise their trade without any stop or trouble.” The managers and heads of the company were enjoined to appoint an expert man to visit and examine the work, and to put a mark or seal upon it, distinguishing what was sufficient and what not. The Privy Council, or others whom the King might appoint, were empowered to do whatever was found to be hereafter necessary for promoting the manufactures.¹

¹ _Ibid._, Volume VII., pages 255, 261.

At the same time other Acts were passed with the aim of promoting home manufactures. The export of all kinds of hides, of woollen yarn, of raw and unwaxed cloth, excepting plaiding, all linen yarn, broken copper, brass or pewter, was prohibited under the penalty of confiscation of the goods. An Act was also passed in 1661, authorising and recommending the establishment of fishing companies for promoting the fishings. This Act contained many proposals and elaborate provisions for prosecuting the herring fishing and white fishing in the various seas, channels, firths, and lochs, “in his Majesty’s ancient kingdom of Scotland.” An Act for encouraging shipping and navigation was passed; and also an Act appointing a council of trade, which was empowered to do whatever was necessary for regulating, improving, and advancing of trade, navigation, and manufactures; and this was to endure until discharged by the King.¹

¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume VII., pages
257, 259‒261, 273, 283.

In 1681, Parliament passed another Act for encouraging trade and manufactures, which embodied proposals that the Privy Council had issued by proclamation six months before, and ratified all former Acts for the encouragement of manufactures. The most remarkable part of the Act was the long list of articles and goods which were emphatically forbidden to be imported. All gold or silver thread, lace, fringes, or buttons of gold, and all gold or silver worn on clothes, or counterfeits of them, and all embroideries of silk for wearing clothes; all foreign linen, cambric, damask, ticking, and calico; all foreign silk or woollen stockings, silk lace, and gimp thread; all foreign shoes, boots, or slippers, gloves and clothes, and many other things, were forbidden to be imported under the penalties of being “burned and destroyed, and the importers or resetters fined in the value thereof.”¹ By such measures it was thought that more money would be retained at home, and thus enrich the nation. But it was soon discovered that the prohibited foreign goods quickly rose in price; and then the magistrates of Edinburgh were called before the Privy Council, and ordered to assemble the merchants of the city, and forbid them to take such exorbitant prices from the people for the prohibited goods, on the ground that there was no more to be imported into the kingdom. In fact, the prohibitive part of the Act was too extreme, and had to be relaxed.²

¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume VIII., page
348.

² _Register of the Privy Council_; _Acts of the Parliaments of
Scotland_, Volume VIII., page 479.

About this time a company, including some of the Edinburgh merchants, was formed for starting a new work at Newmills. It was to be placed under the direction of James Stanfield, an Englishman, and a foreman and six sheermen were to be brought from England. The work was opened with two looms, which were soon increased to eight, and then to twenty-five; and in 1683 the work was still going on. They began by making white cloth, and next turned a number of their workers to coarse mixed cloth, and so on gradually to fine, “till now we are upon superfine cloths, and have brought the spinners and the best of the workers that length that we hope by May next to have superfine cloths as good as generally are made in England.” In the same place there was a manufactory of silk stockings in operation.¹ There was a small woollen manufactory in Leith; and in 1683, on a petition from the owners, the Privy Council extended to it the privileges of the Act for encouraging manufactures. It was reported that the partners of this undertaking were well skilled in their business, and that it――“can dye and mix wool and cloth; and can take in wool from the merchants and others, and does dye and mix it and deliver it in broadcloth; and has already made good broadcloth to many of the merchants of Edinburgh.”²

¹ _Pamphlet on Woollen Manufactories_, 1683.

² _Register of the Privy Council._

Hitherto the dress of the royal army had been of a plain description, but it was now deemed necessary for the soldiers to have coloured coats, that they might be easily distinguished from other skulking and vagrant persons, who had before imitated the livery of the King’s troops. In 1684, the Newmills manufacturing company offered to furnish from their own works a suitable cloth of any dye that should be desired, as cheaply and promptly as could be done in England; and they offered to show samples and to give security for the fulfilment of the undertaking. But the Privy Council decided to use English cloth. In the beginning of the year 1685, the captain of the town-guard of Edinburgh was empowered to import three hundred yards of scarlet cloth, with trappings and other necessaries, for the clothing of his corps; and some of the other commanders of troops got similar licenses. At this the Newmills company were greatly offended, and petitioned that the importation of English cloth for the army should be stopped, as it could be supplied as good and as cheap from the home factory, and begged that a committee should be appointed to ascertain if this was the case. The petition was received, but nothing resulted from it. The company, however, had resolved to protect their privileges, and directly attacked five of the merchants of Edinburgh, who had been dealing in English cloth contrary to the law. Their complaint contained a minute enumeration of the goods and the quality of the cloth which each of the merchants had sold; and the offenders were many times called before the Privy Council, and failing to appear, they were held to be guilty, and therefore decreed to deliver up the prohibited goods to be burned according to law; while they had to recompense the King’s cash-keeper for the goods, “at the rate of twelve shillings sterling for each yard of cloth, and five shillings for each dozen of the prohibited stockings.”¹

¹ _Register of the Privy Council_; Chambers’ _Domestic Annals
of Scotland_, Volume II., pages 419‒421. “It was not, after
all, to be in this age that good woollen cloth was to be
produced in our northern clime.” A writer, in 1697, says: “We
have tried to make several things, and particularly hats and
broadcloth, and yet we cannot make our ware so good as what
we can have from abroad. Those who would propagate any new
manufacture must lay their account to labour under several
disadvantages at first.”――_Husbandry Anatomised_, Edinburgh,
1697.

From an early period linen cloth was made in Scotland, though for long the trade was on a very limited scale. Parliament enacted, in 1641, that linen at tenpence per yard or upwards should be a yard in breadth, and should be presented in the markets in folds, not in rolls. In 1661, the Act already noticed for establishing companies enumerated linen among the fabrics proposed to be encouraged, and enacted that all yarn must be sold by weight.¹

¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume V.; Volume VII.,
page 257.

But the commercial relations of England and Scotland were of the most unsatisfactory character. In all the trade and commercial legislation of the period it was the leading aim to prevent the importation of everything, which it was thought could be produced or made at home, as it was believed that this course was the only one which would enable the nation to become busy and rich. So in 1663, the Scotch Parliament imposed a scale of duties on all English goods which amounted to prohibition, with the natural result that the English also adopted prohibitory measures. The consequences were ruinous. A petition was presented to the Privy Council in 1684, complaining of the severe treatment which Scotsmen had received when selling their linen goods in England. It was stated that before there had been a free trade for Scotch linen in the South, but that latterly the men selling it in England had been apprehended, and whipped as criminals, and many of them obliged to give security that they would discontinue their traffic. It was affirmed that about twelve thousand persons were then employed at this branch of industry in Scotland; and therefore it was important, not merely to the workers, but also to the landlords and to the government, as every twelve hundred packs exported to England paid a custom of three pounds sterling. The Council recommended the Secretary of State to intercede with the King, that the Scotch merchants and others might have liberty to sell linen in England, without alluding to the fact that there was a Scotch Act which treated English woollen goods in the same exclusive spirit.¹

¹ _Register of the Privy Council_; _Acts of the Parliaments of
Scotland_, Volume VII., pages 465, 466.

Another way of promoting the manufacture of, and trade in linen, was tried in Scotland, when Parliament in 1686 enacted that the bodies of all persons should be buried in plain linen only, spun and made within the kingdom, under a penalty of three hundred pounds Scots, if a nobleman. To render the Act effective, the relatives of deceased persons were enjoined, under severe penalties, to declare upon oath to their parish minister, within eight days of the funeral, that the law had been obeyed. Poor tenants and cottars in the country were exempted from the operation of the Act. This Act was repeated in 1693 and in 1695.