THE COAL TRADE
(Defoe, The Complete English Tradesman, Ed. 1841, Vol. II, p. 172).
The Newcastle coals, brought by sea to London, are bought at the pit, or at the steath or wharf, for under five shillings per chaldron; I suppose I speak with the most; but when they come to London, are not delivered to the consumers, under from twenty-five to thirty shillings per chaldron; and when they are a third time loaded on board the lighters in the Thames, and carried through bridge, then loaded a fourth time into the great west country barges, and carried up the river, perhaps to Oxford or Abingdon, and thence loaded a fifth time in carts or wagons, and carried perhaps ten or fifteen, or twenty miles to the last consumer; by this time they are sometimes sold from forty-five to fifty shillings per chaldron; so that the five shillings first cost, including five shillings tax, is increased to five times the prime cost.
And because I have mentioned the frequent loading and unloading the coals, it is necessary to explain it here once for all, because it may give a light into the nature of this river and coast commerce, not in this thing only, but in many others; these loadings are thus:—
(1) They are dug in the pit a vast depth in the ground, sometimes fifty, sixty to a hundred fathoms; and being loaded (for so the miners call it) into a great basket or tub, are drawn up by a wheel and horse, or horses, to the top of the shaft, or pit mouth, and there thrown out upon a great heap to lie ready against the ships come into the port to demand them.
(2) They are then loaded again into a great machine or wagon; which by the means of an artificial road, called a wagon-way, goes with the help of but one horse, and carries two chaldron, or more, at a time and this, sometimes three or four miles to the nearest river or water carriage they come at; and there they are either thrown into, or from a great storehouse, called a steath, made so artificially, with one part close to, or hanging over the water, that the lighters or keels can come close to, or under it, and the coals be at once shot out of the wagons into the said lighters, which carry them to the ships, which I call the first loading upon the water.