Part 46
Articles used in clothing in Scotland had hitherto been almost wholly of home manufacture. As in Sweden to this day, the great bulk of the people spun their own wool and flax, each family for itself, and had the yarn woven into cloth by the village webster. There were as yet but the merest attempts at a manufacture of cloths or hosen for general sale and use. We have seen a modest attempt made by certain foreigners in Edinburgh so early as 1609.[281] It is stated that in the reign of Charles I., there were cloth-works on a small scale at Newmills in Haddingtonshire, at Bonnington near Edinburgh, and at Ayr. That at Newmills was in a thriving condition till Dundee was stormed and sacked by Monk in 1651, when a store of its cloth was taken, and the troubles soon after closed the work.[282] Latterly, it could scarcely be said there was any general manufacture of articles of attire except at Aberdeen. There one George Pyper had a number of country-people engaged in working stockings with the needles, paying them at the rate of five groats (equal to 1-2/3d. sterling) a pair for the making; and he raised the working to such a fineness in some instances, ‘that he hath given twenty shillings sterling and upward for the pair.’[283] In this province there was also a manufacture of _plaiden_ stuffs and _fingrams_, which was the more meritorious as the wool was mostly brought by sea-carriage from the southern parts of the kingdom. It is related that a Mr Barnes, ‘a substantious merchant in Edinburgh,’ thought he might make a saving by getting the same stuffs made in his own neighbourhood, and have an advantage over the Aberdeen merchants in sending out his cloth to the Dutch market. But, on trying an experiment with ‘ten sea-packs of plaiden, which might be worth £20,000,’ he found that he had scarcely produced his cloth at as low a rate as that at which the Aberdeen merchants sold theirs. The explanation, which he obtained from Mr Alexander Farquhar, a merchant in Aberdeen, might be worthy of Mr Babbage’s attention for a new edition of his _Economy of Manufactures_. It was, that the people who worked these cloths in the north ‘had not by far such entertainment as his [Mr Barnes’s] servants had--they oftener drank clear spring-water than ale.’ When Mr Barnes heard this, he gave up his manufacture. Of late years, even this frugally conducted manufacture, which had in some years brought a hundred thousand rix-dollars into the country, and greatly facilitated the payment of rents, was much decayed--the goods reduced to half their wonted prices, and yet not the half exported that was--and all from a cause also of much significance in the philosophy of business--namely, ‘deceitful mismanagement,’ leading of course to loss of confidence, and a consequent checking of orders.
The faculties for business which the Duke of York possessed in so respectable a degree, seem to have now begun to tell upon the country in which he found a refuge. While joining in the unhappy severities dictated by the Privy Council against the poor Whigs, he gave attention to the solid interests of the nation at large, and had consultations with such men of mercantile spirit as the country then possessed, with a view to the planting of cloth-factories similar to those which had long been realising good results in England. It was pointed out that the making of the better kinds of cloth within the country was becoming a matter of most serious concernment, because, owing to the great drain of money which was occasioned by the importation of such cloths from the south, ‘English money was not to be had under 6 or 7 per cent., scarce at any rate,’ and exchange between Edinburgh and London had risen against the former place as high as 12 or 15 per cent. ‘Our four-merk pieces,’ it was added, ‘the best coin of our kingdom, were almost wholly exported, and above £20,000 sterling in dollars left the country in the year 1680.’
[Sidenote: 1681.]
The result of the duke’s patriotic deliberations was the passing of acts of Council in March and April, and the passing of an act of parliament in September 1681, for the encouragement of trade and manufactories. Through his personal exertions, a body of men, including Mr Robert Blackwood and several other merchants in Edinburgh, was induced to associate for the setting up of a new work at Newmills, the produce of which was to be disposed of by them under peculiar regulations. It was to be under the care of an enterprising Englishman named Sir James Stanfield, who for some time had been settled there. In August, six _sheermen_ and a foreman having been brought down from England, this work commenced with two looms--soon increased to eight--soon after to twenty-five; and in 1683 it was still extending. ‘We began,’ says the pamphleteer formerly quoted, ‘to make the coarsest of white cloths first, wherein we continued till October 1682; then we turned part of our people to coarse mixed cloth, and so on gradually to finer, and _now we are upon superfine cloths_, and have brought the spinners and rest of the work-people that length, that we hope against May next to have superfine cloths as good as generally are made in England.’ There was also a manufacture of silk-stockings going on at Newmills. The whole work seems to have then been in a hopeful condition, albeit on the unsound footing of a monopoly, all English goods of the same kinds being prohibited under severe penalties.
The act was, indeed, too sweeping in its tendency, for it forbade the importing of a great number of stuffs--as silks, embroideries, gold lace, ribbons, silk fringes, cambrics, and damasks, which it was not in the power of any native manufacturer to supply, and which certain classes of the people were little inclined to dispense with. It was thought necessary by these means to save the money of the country. It led to a strange scene one day on the High Street of Edinburgh. George Fullerton, a merchant of that city, had committed a gross violation of the law, first in smuggling in some packs of English cloth, and afterwards, when they were seized by the authorities, repossessing himself of them by violence. The Privy Council ordered him to be declared fugitive, had the two ‘waiters’ of the West Port scourged for allowing the goods to be introduced, and ordained the cloth itself to be burnt at the Cross by the hand of the hangman. The common people beheld this last spectacle with feelings of their own, for they thought it might have been better to distribute the cloth among the poor: however, says Fountainhall in a whisper, it was only the worst bales that were burned: the best were ‘privily preserved.’
[Sidenote: 1681.]
Absurd as all this procedure may appear, it precisely represents the existing policy of Sweden and some other continental countries in respect of British manufactures.
One natural result of the act very soon appears, in the magistrates of Edinburgh being called before the Privy Council at the suggestion of the Duke of York, and recommended to call up the merchants, in order to discharge them from ‘extortioning the lieges, by taking exorbitant prices for the merchandises now prohibited ... on the pretence that there no more of that kind to be imported within the kingdom.’
In February 1683, General Dalyell, finding ‘that he cannot be provided in this kingdom with as much cloth of one colour as will be clothes to the regiment of dragoons,’ obtained a licence from the Privy Council permitting the cloth-manufacturing company at Newmills ‘to import 2536 ells of stone-gray cloth from England, for clothing the said regiment of dragoons,’ they finding caution under £500 sterling to limit the importation strictly to that quantity. About a month later, the Council made a change in this order, to the effect that the general might appoint a person to import the cloth--not exceeding five shillings sterling the ell--instead of the Newmills company.
In May 1683, Captain John Graham of Claverhouse was permitted by the Privy Council, on petition, to import from England, for the use of his troops, 150 ells of red cloth, 40 ells of white cloth, and 550 dozen of buttons; giving security that no advantage should be taken of this licence to bring in any other cloth.
Of a small cloth-work in Leith it was declared (December 1683) that the partners engaged ‘are excellently skilled in their trade, and can dye and mix wool and cloth, and takes in wool from the merchant or other person, and does dye and mix it; and when they get in yarn, does weave and dress it, and deliver it in broadcloth; and has already made good broadcloth to many of the merchants of Edinburgh.’ ‘Seeing that this is so good a work,’ the Privy Council, on petition, extended to it the privileges proposed in the act for encouraging manufactures.--_P. C. R._
[Sidenote: 1681.]
Still the Council itself does not seem to have been a consistent patron of such native works. The dress of the infantry of the royal army having hitherto been of a plain kind, it was reported as necessary to have coats for them ‘of such a dye as shall be thought fit to distinguish sojors from other skulking and vagrant persons, who have hitherto imitated the livery of the king’s sojors.’ The Newmills Cloth Manufacturing Company offered (August 28, 1684) from their own work, to furnish a suitable cloth ‘of what dye should be desired,’ and as cheaply and expeditiously as it could be had from England. They would shew ‘swatches’ [samples] within a fortnight, and give security for the fulfilment of their undertaking. But the lords decided to use English cloth.
Patrick Graham, ‘captain of his majesty’s company of foot within the town of Edinburgh’ (the Town Guard), was empowered (January 8, 1685) to import ‘three hundred ells of English cloth of a scarlet colour, with wrappings and other necessars’ for the clothing of his corps, this being ‘in regard the manufactories are not able to furnish his majesty’s forces with cloth and other necessars.’ Several other commanders of troops got similar licences. The Newmills Company looked on with outraged feelings, and presented a petition desiring that a stop might be put to the importation of English cloth for the soldiery, as the needful article could be furnished as cheaply and of as good quality from the native factory. In order that they might not be ‘utterly ruined and broke,’ they begged that a committee might be appointed to ascertain that such was the case; and a committee was accordingly appointed, but with no result that appears. Meanwhile, we find the Newmills copartnery trying to protect their monopoly against infractions by private parties.
[Sidenote: 1681.]
It made an attack in April 1684 upon five merchants of Edinburgh who continued, in defiance of the law, to deal in English cloth. It was complained of against Robert Cunningham that ‘he sold a suit of clothes of English cloth to Daniel Lockhart; item, a suit to Boghall; item, a suit to Lord Forfar; item, a suit to William Lockhart; which clothes was made by William Cowan, tailor.’ He had likewise ‘sold ane coat of ... ells to the Laird of Blackadder, made by Hugh Galloway, tailor; to the Marquis of Athole, a suit, made by Lachlan M‘Pherson, tailor; item to Mr Thomas Chalmers, two ells and a half English cloth; item to the Bishop of the Isles, two ells and a half English cloth ... item, a suit to the Marquis of Montrose.’ It was alleged that he had imported and sold in all ‘five hundred ells of prohibite cloth, ane thousand ells of prohibite stuffs and serges, and two hundred pair of English worsted and silk stockings less or more.’ James Weir, Andrew Irving, William Fullerton, and Thomas Smith had all committed delinquencies of the same kind, the enumeration of which would only tire the reader; and all this notwithstanding they had been kindly invited by the Newmills Company to join their concern. What made the matter the more insufferable, a complaint made against them in August last had been graciously superseded in their behalf by royal proclamation; and they, as if to shew ‘their incorrigibleness and obstinacy,’ ‘slighting that so great mark of clemency,’ imported more during the few months since elapsed than they did for two whole years before, ‘in open contempt of his majesty’s laws, _to the destruction of trade and commerce within the kingdom_, to the cheating, abusing, and oppressing of his majesty’s lieges, and manifest endangering of the said manufactory and ruining of the persons therein concerned.’
The offenders, having been oft called before the Privy Council, and having failed to appear, were held as confessing their guilt, and accordingly decerned to deliver up the prohibited cloths and stockings to be burned, and at the same time to recompense his majesty’s cashkeeper for them ‘at twelve shillings sterling for the ell of cloth, two shillings sterling for the ell of stuff, and five pound sterling for ilk dozen of prohibite stockings.’--_P. C. R._
While these strenuous measures were taken for preventing the free importation of English woollen cloth into Scotland, a petition came (December 2, 1684) from persons interested in the linen manufacture of Scotland, complaining of the usage which had lately been experienced by Scotsmen selling their linens in England. Hitherto there had been a free trade for Scotch linen-weavers in the south; and, as ten or twelve thousand persons were employed in such weaving, the results were important not merely to the workers, but to landlords, for the payment of their rents, and to the government, as each of a thousand or twelve hundred packs exported to England paid a custom of three pounds sterling. Latterly, however, the men selling Scotch linen in England had been taken up and whipped as malefactors, and many obliged to give bonds that they would discontinue their traffic.
The Council recommended the secretary of state to interpose with his majesty, that merchants and others might have liberty to sell linen in England as formerly; never once adverting to the fact that they had an act of parliament conceived in the same illiberal spirit towards English woollen manufactures.
[Sidenote: 1681.]
Such were the early struggles of an important branch of industry in Scotland. 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_.’ He adds, however, as a ground of hope: ‘Those who would propagate any new manufacture must lay their account to labour under several disadvantages at first. When soap-manufactures were first set up in this kingdom, the soap was not so good as what we had from abroad by far. These at Glasgow gave it over, as a thing they could not accomplish; these at Leith continued to work, and now they have acquired so much knowledge in that art, that their soap is better than that we have brought from abroad.’[284]
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[Sidenote: MAR. 2.]
Three men, named Gogar, Miller, and Sangster, were hanged in the Grassmarket ‘for disowning the king’s authority, and adhering to Cargill’s covenant, declaration, and excommunication, and thinking it lawful to kill the king and his judges.’--_Foun._ It is to make the rulers of that day somewhat worse than they were, to suppose that they ordered these horrible executions in a purely unfeeling manner, and without any hesitation. It is stated by Fountainhall, a Whig, that the Duke of York sent the Earl of Roscommon to see these men on the scaffold, and try to bring them to such a point as would have allowed of their lives being spared. Had they but pronounced the words, ‘God save the king,’ they would not have been executed. But they refused life on such terms--the more surprising, as there was no want of Scripture texts to warrant them in praying for the reigning sovereign, even supposing him a monster of wickedness. ‘Daniel,’ remarks Fountainhall, ‘wishes Nebuchadnezzar and Darius, heathen kings, to live for ever.’ It would be curious to know what the accomplished Roscommon felt regarding these singular examples of Scottish religious pertinacity.
[Sidenote: 1681.]
On the other hand, it is surprising that when the Duke of York went so far as to offer the poor men their lives on what appear such easy terms, he did not go a little further and see the absurdity of treating such tempers as treasonable. ‘It would have been better,’ says Fountainhall, ‘to have kept them in bonds as madmen, or to have employed physicians to use their skill upon them as on hypochondriac persons.’ One would have thought that the manifest and acknowledged maniacal condition of the Borrowstounness saints might have suggested the true theory as to the obduracy of such men as Gogar, Miller, and Sangster.
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[Sidenote: MAR. 11.]
A process stood at law between Alexander Robertson, laird of Struan, and the Marquis of Athole, arising from a service of Struan as heir to an ancestor who lived two hundred and fifty years before; and amongst the points debated was an alleged superiority of the marquis over some lands held by Struan. These were both Highland chiefs of some importance, but, dwelling near the Lowland Border, might be considered as of those who were most likely to exhibit a tinge of Lowland habits. The marquis was indeed a political character of some figure, holding the office of Lord Privy Seal and a place in the Council.
The Highland laird of those days was acquainted with law, and had often enough occasion to resort to it; but there was an element in his nature which placed him more or less above law. Law-giver and law-executor in his own territory and over his own people, almost without control, it was difficult for him to accommodate himself to the idea of submitting to the formal, pedantic rules and awards of the Session or the Council. So much being premised, we must figure to ourselves the doughty Struan walking about in the Council-chamber on the day noted in the margin, not bearing his ordinary arms, pistol and durk, externally--for that was forbidden--but carrying them in his bosom under his clothes, and no doubt very wrathful at the arrogance of his proud neighbour, the marquis, in claiming any superiority over him.
His business being under consideration, he told the clerk that he was no vassal of the Marquis of Athole. One John Fleming, ‘servitor’ to the marquis--a kind of gentleman dependant--quietly contradicted him, saying that not only did his sasine of the lands of Tulloch clearly shew him as a vassal of the marquis, but there was a mutual contract between him and the marquis, obliging him to hold these lands in that manner, and on this a decreet had been obtained from the Court of Session. The blood of the chief of the Clan Donochy could not brook such an opposition. He broke out upon Fleming with passionate violence, calling him rascal, knave, and villain. He would see the Marquis of Athole hanged before he would be his vassal. And as for the Court of Session, he cared not a snuff for its decreet. Then thrusting his hand under the breast of his upper coat, ‘where his durk and pistol are secretly keeped,’ he said he knew not what held his hand from writing his case on Fleming’s skin.
[Sidenote: 1681.]
This conduct was of course sure to turn to the injury of Struan himself. In a very few days, Fleming had him up by petition before the Privy Council, who, finding the charge proved, sentenced Struan to imprisonment during pleasure in the Tolbooth, to crave pardon first of the Council, and then of the Marquis of Athole, ‘on his knees,’ and to give Fleming security for the expenses (limited to £100 Scots) incurred by the action and by the interruption it had given him in his business.--_P. C. R._
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[Sidenote: APR. 8.]
A case before the Privy Council reveals the treatment of the insane in this age. It was a complaint from Mr Alexander Burton against his brother John for putting him into Hopkirk the surgeon’s hands as a madman. It was alleged, on John Burton’s part, that Alexander was really melancholic and furious; so required restraint: also that he was misusing and dilapidating his fortune; hence a bill had been applied for to put his affairs under curators. Alexander answered that ‘he had only craved his annual rents, and to refuse him his own, and treat him as a fool, would raise pepper and passion in any man’s nose, and then they termed the acts fury.’ To settle the matter, the Duke of York, who was present, desired that the alleged fool might be permitted to speak; whereupon he delivered himself so extravagantly, that the Council found it only right that he should be put under restraint, and his affairs placed in charge of his brother. Fountainhall adds: ‘In Scotland, we, having no Bedlam, commit the better sort of mad people to the care and taming of chirurgeons, and the inferior to the scourge [or] the poor.’
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[Sidenote: MAY 5.]
[Sidenote: 1681.]
M‘Gill of Rankeillour gave in a petition to the Privy Council, craving permission for his son, Sir James M‘Gill, to come to see him, as he was about to depart from this life. The son had about eight years before been so unfortunate as to kill Sir Robert Balfour of Denmill, and the king had granted him a remission, on the condition that, in order to prevent further bloodshed, _he should never again be seen in Fife_. The father, being eighty years of age, anxious to take farewell of his son, begged the Council to relax this condition for a few days. The Council doubted if they had power to grant the petition; but the Duke of York ‘affirming that he believed the king would not refuse this desire of an old dying gentleman, they granted it in thir terms, that he should go with a guard like a prisoner, and stay but twenty-four hours, and then depart out of Fife, where the friends of him that was killed live.’--_Foun._
Sir Robert Balfour was the only surviving son and successor of Sir James Balfour of Denmill, the well-known antiquary. He fell in a duel with Sir James M‘Gill, at a spot closely adjacent to the M‘Duff Cross in the parish of Newburgh in Fife. A cairn of stones raised in commemoration of the sad event, and called _Sir Robert’s Prap_, was in existence a few years ago. This unfortunate gentleman must have fallen in the very morning of life, as he was born in 1652.
[Sidenote: DEC. 8.]
[Sidenote: 1681.]