Books: London in 1731
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Don Manoel Gonzales >> London in 1731
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The next considerable profession therefore I shall mention in London
is that of the physicians, who are not so numerous as the former;
but those who are eminent amongst them acquire estates equal to the
lawyers, though they seldom arrive at the like honours. It is a
useful observation, indeed, as to English physicians, that they
seldom get their bread till they have no teeth to eat it: though,
when they have acquired a reputation, they are as much followed as
the great lawyers; they take care, however, not to be so much
fatigued. You find them at Batson's or Child's Coffee House usually
in the morning, and they visit their patients in the afternoon.
Those that are men of figure amongst them will not rise out of their
beds or break their rest on every call. The greatest fatigue they
undergo is the going up forty or fifty pair of stairs every day; for
the patient is generally laid pretty near the garret, that he may
not be disturbed.
These physicians are allowed to be men of skill in their profession,
and well versed in other parts of learning. The great grievance
here (as in the law) is that the inferior people are undone by the
exorbitance of their fees; and what is still a greater hardship is,
that if a physician has been employed, he must be continued, however
unable the patient is to bear the expense, as no apothecary may
administer anything to the sick man, if he has been prescribed to
first by a physician: so that the patient is reduced to this
dilemma, either to die of the disease, or starve his family, if his
sickness happens to be of any duration. A physician here scorns to
touch any other metal but gold, and the surgeons are still more
unreasonable; and this may be one reason why the people of this city
have so often recourse to quacks, for they are cheap and easily come
at, and the mob are not judges of their ability; they pretend to
great things; they have cured princes, and persons of the first
quality, as they pretend; and it must be confessed their patients
are as credulous as they can desire, taken with grand pretences, and
the assurance of the impostor, and frequently like things the better
that are offered them out of the common road.
I come in the next place to treat of attorneys' clerks, apprentices,
inferior tradesmen, coachmen, porters, servants, and the lowest
class of men in this town, which are far the most numerous: and
first of the lawyers' clerks and apprentices, I find it a general
complaint that they are under no manner of government; before their
times are half out, they set up for gentlemen; they dress, they
drink, they game, frequent the playhouses, and intrigue with the
women; and it is no uncommon thing with clerks to bully their
masters, and desert their service for whole days and nights whenever
they see fit.
As to the ordinary tradesmen, they live by buying and selling; I
cannot say they are so eminent for their probity as the merchants
and tradesmen of the first rate; they seem to have a wrong bias
given them in their education; many of them have no principles of
honour, no other rule to go by than the fishmonger, namely, to get
what they can, who consider only the weakness or ignorance of the
customer, and make their demands accordingly, taking sometimes half
the price they ask. And I must not forget the numbers of poor
creatures who live and maintain their families by buying provisions
in one part of the town, and retailing them in another, whose stock
perhaps does not amount to more than forty or fifty shillings, and
part of this they take up (many of them) on their clothes at a
pawnbroker's on a Monday morning, which they make shift to redeem on
a Saturday night, that they may appear in a proper habit at their
parish-churches on a Sunday. These are the people that cry fish,
fruit, herbs, roots, news, &c, about town.
As to hackney-coachmen, carmen, porters, chairmen, and watermen,
though they work hard, they generally eat and drink well, and are
decently clothed on holidays; for the wife, if she be industrious,
either by her needle, washing, or other business proper to her sex,
makes no small addition to their gains; and by their united labours
they maintain their families handsomely if they have their healths.
As to the common menial servants, they have great wages, are well
kept and clothed, but are, notwithstanding the plague, of almost
every house in town. They form themselves into societies, or rather
confederacies, contributing to the maintenance of each other when
out of place; and if any of them cannot manage the family where they
are entertained as they please, immediately they give notice they
will be gone. There is no speaking to them; they are above
correction; and if a master should attempt it, he may expect to be
handsomely drubbed by the creature he feeds and harbours, or perhaps
an action brought against him for it. It is become a common saying,
"If my servant ben't a thief, if he be but honest, I can bear with
other things;" and indeed it is very rare in London to meet with an
honest servant.
When I was treating of tradesmen, I had forgot to mention those
nuisances of the town, the itinerant pedlars who deal in toys and
hardware, and those who pretend to sell foreign silks, linen, India
handkerchiefs, and other prohibited and unaccustomed goods. These
we meet at every coffee-house and corner of the streets, and they
visit also every private house; the women have such a gust for
everything that is foreign or prohibited, that these vermin meet
with a good reception everywhere. The ladies will rather buy home
manufactures of these people than of a neighbouring shopkeeper,
under the pretence of buying cheaper, though they frequently buy
damaged goods, and pay a great deal dearer for them than they would
do in a tradesman's shop, which is a great discouragement to the
fair dealer that maintains a family, and is forced to give a large
credit, while these people run away with the ready money. And I am
informed that some needy tradesmen employ fellows to run hawking
about the streets with their goods, and sell pennyworths, in order
to furnish themselves with a little money.
As to the recreations of the citizens, many of them are entertained
in the same manner as the quality are, resorting to the play, park,
music-meetings, &c.; and in the summer they visit Richmond,
Hampstead, Epsom, and other neighbouring towns, where horse-racing,
and all manner of rural sports, as well as other diversions, are
followed in the summer season.
Towards autumn, when the town is thin, many of the citizens who deal
in a wholesale way visit the distant parts of the kingdom to get in
their debts, or procure orders for fresh parcels of goods; and much
about the same time the lawyers are either employed in the several
circuits, or retired to their country seats; so that the Court, the
nobility and gentry, the lawyers, and many of the citizens being
gone into the country, the town resumes another face. The west end
of it appears perfectly deserted; in other parts their trade falls
off; but still in the streets about the Royal Exchange we seldom
fail to meet with crowds of people, and an air of business in the
hottest season.
I have heard it affirmed, however, that many citizens live beyond
their income, which puts them upon tricking and prevaricating in
their dealings, and is the principal occasion of those frequent
bankruptcies seen in the papers; ordinary tradesmen drink as much
wine, and eat as well, as gentlemen of estates; their cloth, their
lace, their linen, are as fine, and they change it as often; and
they frequently imitate the quality in their expensive pleasures.
As to the diversions of the inferior tradesmen and common people on
Sundays and other holidays, they frequently get out of town; the
neighbouring villas are full of them, and the public-houses there
usually provide a dinner in expectation of their city guests; but if
they do not visit them in a morning, they seldom fail of walking out
in the fields in the afternoon; every walk, every public garden and
path near the town are crowded with the common people, and no place
more than the park; for which reason I presume the quality are
seldom seen there on a Sunday, though the meanest of them are so
well dressed at these times that nobody need be ashamed of their
company on that account; for you will see every apprentice, every
porter, and cobbler, in as good cloth and linen as their betters;
and it must be a very poor woman that has not a suit of Mantua silk,
or something equal to it, to appear abroad in on holidays.
And now, if we survey these several inhabitants in one body, it will
be found that there are about a million of souls in the whole town,
of whom there may be 150,000 men and upwards capable of bearing
arms, that is, between eighteen and sixty.
If it be demanded what proportion that part of the town properly
called the City of London bears to the rest, I answer that,
according to the last calculations, there are in the city 12,000
houses; in the parishes without the walls, 36,320; in the parishes
of Middlesex and Surrey, which make part of the town, 46,300; and in
the city and liberties of Westminster, 28,330; in which are included
the precincts of the Tower, Norton Folgate, the Rolls, Whitefriars,
the Inns of Court and Chancery, the King's palaces, and all other
extra-parochial places.
As to the number of inhabitants in each of these four grand
divisions, if we multiply the number of houses in the City of London
by eight and a half, there must be 102,000 people there, according
to this estimate. By the same rule, there must be 308,720 people in
the seventeen parishes without the walls; 393,550 in the twenty-one
out-parishes of Middlesex and Surrey; and 240,805 in the city and
liberties of Westminster, all which compose the sum-total of
1,045,075 people.
Let me now proceed to inquire into the state of the several great
trading companies in London. The first, in point of time, I find to
be the Hamburg Company, originally styled "Merchants of the Staple"
(that is, of the staple of wool), and afterwards Merchant
Adventurers. They were first incorporated in the reign of King
Edward I., anno 1296, and obtained leave of John, Duke of Brabant,
to make Antwerp their staple or mart for the Low Countries, where
the woollen manufactures then flourished more than in any country in
Europe. The business of this company at first seems to be chiefly,
if not altogether, the vending of English wool unwrought.
Queen Elizabeth enlarged the trade of the Company of Adventurers,
and empowered them to treat with the princes and states of Germany
for a place which might be the staple or mart for the woollen
manufactures they exported, which was at length fixed at Hamburg,
from whence they obtained the name of the Hamburg Company. They had
another mart or staple also assigned them for the sale of their
woollen cloths in the Low Countries, viz., Dort, in Holland.
This company consists of a governor, deputy-governor, and
fellowship, or court of assistants, elected annually in June, who
have a power of making bye-laws for the regulation of their trade;
but this trade in a manner lies open, every merchant trading thither
on his own bottom, on paying an inconsiderable sum to the company;
so that though the trade to Germany may be of consequence, yet the
Hamburg Company, as a company, have very little advantage by their
being incorporated.
The Hamburg or German Merchants export from England broad-cloth,
druggets, long-ells, serges, and several sorts of stuffs, tobacco,
sugar, ginger, East India goods, tin, lead, and several other
commodities, the consumption of which is in Lower Germany.
England takes from them prodigious quantities of linen, linen-yarn,
kid-skins, tin-plates, and a great many other commodities.
The next company established was that of the Russia Merchants,
incorporated 1st and 2nd of Philip and Mary, who were empowered to
trade to all lands, ports, and places in the dominions of the
Emperor of Russia, and to all other lands not then discovered or
frequented, lying on the north, north-east, or north-west.
The Russia Company, as a company, are not a very considerable body
at present; the trade thither being carried on by private merchants,
who are admitted into this trade on payment of five pounds for that
privilege.
It consists of a governor, four consuls, and twenty-four assistants,
annually chosen on the 1st of March.
The Russia Merchants export from England some coarse cloth, long-
ells, worsted stuffs, tin, lead, tobacco, and a few other
commodities.
England takes from Russia hemp, flax, linen cloth, linen yarn,
Russia leather, tallow, furs, iron, potashes, &c., to an immense
value.
The next company is the Eastland Company, formerly called Merchants
of Elbing, a town in Polish Prussia, to the eastward of Dantzic,
being the port they principally resorted to in the infancy of their
trade. They were incorporated 21 Elizabeth, and empowered to trade
to all countries within the Sound, Norway, Sweden, Poland, Liefland,
Prussia, and Pomerania, from the river Oder eastward, viz., with
Riga, Revel, Konigsberg, Elbing, Dantzic, Copenhagen, Elsinore,
Finland, Gothland, Eastland, and Bornholm (except Narva, which was
then the only Russian port in the Baltic). And by the said patent
the Eastland Company and Hamburg Company were each of them
authorised to trade separately to Mecklenburg, Gothland, Silesia,
Moravia, Lubeck, Wismar, Restock, and the whole river Oder.
This company consists of a governor, deputy-governor, and twenty-
four assistants, elected annually in October; but either they have
no power to exclude others from trading within their limits, or the
fine for permission is so inconsiderable, that it can never hinder
any merchants trading thither who is inclined to it; and, in fact,
this trade, like the former, is carried on by private merchants, and
the trade to Norway and Sweden is laid open by Act of Parliament.
To Norway and Denmark merchants send guineas, crown-pieces, bullion,
a little tobacco, and a few coarse woollens.
They import from Norway, &c., vast quantities of deal boards,
timber, spars, and iron.
Sweden takes from England gold and silver, and but a small quantity
of the manufactures and production of England.
England imports from Sweden near two-thirds of the iron wrought up
or consumed in the kingdom, copper, boards, plank, &c.
The Turkey or Levant Company was first incorporated in the reign of
Queen Elizabeth, and their privileges were confirmed and enlarged in
the reign of King James I., being empowered to trade to the Levant,
or eastern part of the Mediterranean, particularly to Smyrna,
Aleppo, Constantinople, Cyprus, Grand Cairo, Alexandria, &c. It
consists of a governor, deputy-governor, and eighteen assistants or
directors, chosen annually, &c. This trade is open also to every
merchant paying a small consideration, and carried on accordingly by
private men.
These merchants export to Turkey chiefly broadcloth, long-ells,
tins, lead, and some iron; and the English merchants frequently buy
up French and Lisbon sugars and transport thither, as well as
bullion from Cadiz.
The commodities received from thence are chiefly raw silk, grogram
yarn, dyeing stuffs of sundry kinds, drugs, soap; leather, cotton,
and some fruit, oil, &c.
The East India Company were incorporated about the 42nd of
Elizabeth, anno 1600, and empowered to trade to all countries to the
eastward of the Cape of Good Hope, exclusive of all others.
About the middle of King William's reign it was generally said their
patent was illegal, and that the Crown could not restrain the
English merchants from trading to any country they were disposed to
deal with; and application being made to Parliament for leave to lay
the trade open, the ministry took the hint, and procured an Act of
Parliament (9 and 10 William III., cap. 44) empowering every subject
of England to trade to India who should raise a sum of money for the
supply of the Government in proportion to the sum he should advance,
and each subscriber was to have an annuity after the rate of 8 per
cent. per annum, to commence from Michaelmas, 1698. And his Majesty
was empowered to incorporate the subscribers, as he afterwards did,
and they were usually called the New East India Company, the old
company being allowed a certain time to withdraw their effects. But
the old company being masters of all the towns and forts belonging
to the English on the coast of India, and their members having
subscribed such considerable sums towards the two millions intended
to be raised, that they could not be excluded from the trade, the
new company found it necessary to unite with the old company, and to
trade with one joint stock, and have ever since been styled "The
United Company of Merchants trading to the East Indies."
The company have a governor, deputy-governor, and twenty-four
assistants or directors, elected annually in April.
The East India Company export great quantities of bullion, lead,
English cloth, and some other goods, the product or manufacture of
that kingdom, and import from China and India tea, china ware,
cabinets, raw and wrought silks, coffee, muslins, calicoes, and
other goods.
Bengal raw silk is bought at very low prices there, and is very
useful in carrying on the manufactures of this kingdom.
China silk is of excellent staple, and comes at little above one-
third of the price of Italian Piedmont silk.
The China silk is purchased at Canton, but their fine silk is made
in the provinces of Nankin and Chekiam, where their fine
manufactures are carried on, and where prodigious quantities of raw
silk are made, and the best in all China.
The Royal African Company was incorporated 14 Charles II., and
empowered to trade from Sallee, in South Barbary, to the Cape of
Good Hope, being all the western coast of Africa. It carries no
money out, and not only supplies the English plantations with
servants, but brings in a great deal of bullion for those that are
sold to the Spanish West Indies, besides gold dust and other
commodities, as red wood, elephants' teeth, Guinea grain, &c., some
of which are re-exported. The supplying the plantations with
negroes is of that extraordinary advantage, that the planting sugar
and tobacco and carrying on trade there could not be supported
without them; which plantations are the great causes of the increase
of the riches of the kingdom.
The Canary Company was incorporated in the reign of King Charles
II., anno 1664, being empowered to trade to the Seven Islands,
anciently called the Fortunate, and now the Canary Islands.
They have a governor, deputy-governor, and thirteen assistants or
directors, chosen annually in March. This company exports baize,
kerseys, serges, Norwich stuffs, and other woollen manufactures;
stockings, hats, fustians, haberdashery wares, tin, and hardware; as
also herrings, pilchards, salted flesh, and grain; linens, pipe-
staves, hoops, &c. Importing in return Canary wines, logwood,
hides, indigo, cochineal, and other commodities, the produce of
America and the West Indies.
There is another company I had almost overlooked, called the
Hudson's Bay Company; and though these merchants make but little
noise, I find it is a very advantageous trade. They by charter
trade, exclusively of all other his Britannic Majesty's subjects, to
the north-west; which was granted, as I have been told, on account
that they should attempt a passage by those seas to China, &c.,
though nothing appears now to be less their regard; nay; if all be
true, they are the very people that discourage and impede all
attempts made by others for the opening that passage to the South
Seas. They export some woollen goods and haberdashery wares,
knives, hatchets, arms, and other hardware; and in return bring back
chiefly beaver-skins, and other skins and furs.
The last, and once the most considerable of all the trading
companies, is that of the South Sea, established by Act of
Parliament in the ninth year of the late Queen Anne; but, what by
reason of the mismanagement of its directors in 1720, the
miscarriage of their whale-fishery, and the intrigues of the
Spaniards, their credit is sunk, and their trade has much decreased.
I proceed, in the next place, to inquire what countries the
merchants of London trade to separately, not being incorporated or
subject to the control of any company.
Among which is the trade to Italy, whither are exported broad-cloth,
long-ells, baize, druggets, callimancoes, camlets, and divers other
stuffs; leather, tin, lead, great quantities of fish, as pilchards,
herrings, salmon, Newfoundland cod, &c., pepper, and other East
India goods.
The commodities England takes from them are raw, thrown, and wrought
silk, wine, oil, soap, olives, some dyer's wares, anchovies, &c.
To Spain the merchants export broad-cloth, druggets, callimancoes,
baize, stuff of divers kinds, leather, fish, tin, lead, corn, &c.
The commodities England takes from them are wine, oil, fruit of
divers kinds, wool, indigo, cochineal, and dyeing stuffs.
To Portugal also are exported broad-cloth, druggets, baize, long-
ells, callimancoes, and all other sorts of stuffs; as well as tin,
lead, leather, fish, corn, and other English commodities.
England takes from them great quantities of wine, oil, salt, and
fruit, and gold, both in bullion and specie; though it is forfeited,
if seized in the ports of Portugal.
The French take very little from England in a fair way, dealing
chiefly with owlers, or those that clandestinely export wool and
fuller's-earth, &c. They indeed buy some of our tobacco, sugar,
tin, lead, coals, a few stuffs, serges, flannels, and a small matter
of broad-cloth.
England takes from France wine, brandy, linen, lace, fine cambrics,
and cambric lawns, to a prodigious value; brocades, velvets, and
many other rich silk manufactures, which are either run, or come by
way of Holland; the humour of some of the nobility and gentry being
such, that although they have those manufactures made as good at
home, if not better than abroad, yet they are forced to be called by
the name of French to make them sell. Their linens are run in very
great quantities, as are their wine and brandy, from the Land's End
even to the Downs.
To Flanders are exported serges, a few flannels, a very few stuffs,
sugar, tobacco, tin, and lead.
England takes from them fine lace, fine cambrics, and cambric-lawns,
Flanders whited linens, threads, tapes, incles, and divers other
commodities, to a very great value.
To Holland the merchants export broad-cloth, druggets, long-ells,
stuffs of a great many sorts, leather, corn, coals, and something of
almost every kind that this kingdom produces; besides all sorts of
India and Turkey re-exported goods, sugars, tobacco, rice, ginger,
pitch and tar, and sundry other commodities of the produce of our
American plantations.
England takes from Holland great quantities of fine Holland linen,
threads, tapes, and incles; whale fins, brass battery, madder,
argol, with a large number of other commodities and toys; clapboard,
wainscot, &c.
To Ireland are exported fine broad-cloth, rich silks, ribbons, gold
and silver lace, manufactured iron and cutlery wares, pewter, great
quantities of hops, coals, dyeing wares, tobacco, sugar, East India
goods, raw silk, hollands, and almost everything they use, but
linens, coarse woollens, and eatables.
England takes from Ireland woollen yarn, linen yarn, great
quantities of wool in the fleece, and some tallow.
They have an extraordinary trade for their hides, tallow; beef,
butter, &c., to Holland, Flanders, France, Portugal, and Spain,
which enables them to make large remittances.
To the sugar plantations are exported all sorts of clothing, both
linen, silks, and woollen; wrought iron, brass, copper, all sorts of
household furniture, and a great part of their food.
They return sugar, ginger, and several commodities, and all the
bullion and gold they can meet with, but rarely carry out any.
To the tobacco plantations are exported clothing, household goods,
iron manufactures of all sorts, saddles, bridles, brass and copper
wares; and notwithstanding they dwell among the woods, they take
their very turnery wares, and almost everything else that may be
called the manufacture of England.
England takes from them not only what tobacco is consumed at home,
but very great quantities for re-exportation.
To Carolina are exported the same commodities as to the tobacco
plantations. This country lying between the 32nd and 36th degrees
of northern latitude, the soil is generally fertile. The rice it
produces is said to be the best in the world; and no country affords
better silk than has been brought from thence, though for want of
sufficient encouragement the quantity imported is very small. It is
said both bohea and green tea have been raised there, extraordinary
good of the kind. The olive-tree grows wild, and thrives very well,
and might soon be improved so far as to supply us with large
quantities of oil. It is said the fly from whence the cochineal is
made is found very common, and if care was taken very great
quantities might be made. The indigo plant grows exceedingly well.
The country has plenty of iron mines in it, and would produce
excellent hemp and flax, if encouragement was given for raising it.
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