Restricted as merchandise was in the reign of King William, we then find a general acknowledgment of the importance of the mercantile class in Edinburgh, in the practice of receiving the Lord Provost of the city as a member of the Privy Council, which was substantially the government of the country. These provosts, too, were generally knighted. Amongst them we find Sir John Hall, ancestor of the baronets of Dunglass, and of the late ingenious writer, Captain Basil Hall. Sir William Binning and Sir Thomas Kennedy, who had been provosts in the late Stuart reigns, continued in that of King William to be engaged in large undertakings, such as government contracts and farmings of customs. So, also, was an eminent member of our Company, Bailie Alexander Brand, who finally acquired the honour of knighthood. We find Brand, for instance, along with Binning and Kennedy, engaging to import five thousand stand of arms for the state, at one pound sterling each, and getting into trouble from making public in a law-court that he contemplated a donative of two hundred and fifty guineas, with other articles, to some of the principal state-officers with whom the bargain had been made. A certain Sir Robert Dickson, who, with Binning and Kennedy, farmed the customs and foreign excise for five years from 1693, at twenty thousand three hundred pounds a year, got into a worse scrape still with the state-officers; for, in squaring accounts, he found upwards of two thousand pounds unexpectedly on the debit side, for wines given as gratuities to those nobles, and, seeking the king’s protection from this oppression, he found himself liable to a charge, under an old statute, against murmuring at judges, and was glad to buy himself off by craving pardon on his knees. The gratuities, in the latter case, were declared to be according to use and wont; if so, it seems hard that Brand should have been harassed for announcing a compliance with the custom in the other case; but, of course, quietness is everything in these matters.
It was in this reign that the bearing of the national mind towards commerce first found effectual gratification. A company, headed by John Holland, a London merchant, started in 1695 the Bank of Scotland, the first institution of the kind in the country. Its paid-up capital was at first no more than ten thousand pounds. It tried branches at Aberdeen, Dundee, and Glasgow; but they did not succeed, or were not found to be wanted, and the money was all brought home again on horses’ backs. Under the prompting and guidance of an ingenious native, William Paterson, the African Company was formed in the ensuing year, with about a quarter of a million of paid-up capital, and the design of planting a great entrepôt for the commerce of the world on the Isthmus of Darien. As is well known, this company, through English jealousy, proved a disastrous failure. It was a sore blow for a poor country to suffer at the very opening of a mercantile career, and it was long before our people forgot it, or overcame its effects. When the Union, however, happily settled that English exclusivism was no longer exclusive for Scotland—when Scotland was so far allowed to have that fair-play for her industry which we are now seeking to establish as the right of all, as it is for the good of all—then did her enterprise find safer channels and a more fitting reward. Owing, indeed, to the lack of capital and other causes, the progress was for a long time rather slow, and especially on our side of the island. As a proof of this, take the contrast between the shipping of Leith in 1692—twenty-nine vessels of an average of fifty-nine tons (the value £7100)—and that of 1740, when it exhibited forty-seven vessels of an average of only fifty-six tons, and not one above 180. The increase of the next twelve years to sixty-eight vessels, of an average of 102 tons—several being as high as 300, and one of 350 tons—shews a great acceleration of progress after the first difficulties were got over. In 1844, there belonged to Leith 210 vessels of an aggregate of 25,427 tons, or an average of 121 tons. On the west side of the island, owing to the development of the American colonies, the progress was greater; and yet it was not till eleven years after the Union that Glasgow sent her first ship across the Atlantic. The smallness of all mercantile matters there at first is most remarkable. It is alleged that four young men, with ten thousand pounds amongst them, commenced the mercantile glory of our western capital. And one cannot without a smile read, in the diary of serious Mr Wodrow, under 1709, of Glasgow losing no less than ten thousand pounds by the capture of a fleet going to Holland. ‘I am sure,’ he says, ‘the Lord is remarkably frowning upon our trade in more respects than one, since it was put in place of our religion, in the late alteration of our constitution.’ Leaving these more general matters, I must devote the remainder of my brief space to the history of the Merchant Company of Edinburgh.
It was amidst some of the most distressing things in our national history—hangings of the poor ‘hill-folk’ in the Grassmarket, trying of the patriot Argyle for taking the test with an explanation, and so forth—that this Company came into being. Its nativity was further heralded by sundry other things of a troublous kind, more immediately affecting merchandise and its practitioners.
The superior woollen cloth which was woven in England so early as the reign of Henry VIII., made its way into Scotland before the end of the sixteenth century; but it was very grudgingly looked upon by our native economists. The ‘hame-bringing of English claith’ was denounced in an act of 1597 as an unprofitable trade, ‘the same claith having only for the maist part an outward show, wanting that substance and strength whilk ofttimes it appears to have,’ and being, moreover, the chief cause of the ‘transporting of all gold and silver furth of this realm, and, consequently, of the present dearth of the cunyie.’ Soon after this, seven Flemings were brought to Edinburgh, to instruct the people how to make seys and broadcloth at home, and to save this pernicious outflow of coin into England; but there were many impediments in the way. We do not hear that the seven Flemings were ever fairly set to work. In 1620, a second attempt of the same kind was made with four Fleming cloth-makers, in a place on the outskirts of the city called Paul’s Work; but the days were still evil. The first really energetic or hopeful effort at a woollen-cloth manufacture amongst us was not made till the year 1681, when a work of that kind was set up at Newmills, near Haddington, under the care of an Englishman named Stanfield, and with several English workmen to instruct the natives. As what was thought a needful encouragement to this and other enterprises for the production of articles of attire within the country, and so saving money from being sent out of it, an act of parliament was passed, forbidding the importation of all kinds of cloth of wool or lint, all silk goods, and, generally, articles of personal finery; also the exporting of any linen or woollen yarn, or of any coarse cloth. It was called an act for encouraging trade and manufactures; but while it could not very readily bring manufactures into being, it was in reality calculated to extinguish no small amount of trade. Very amusingly, too, the act recites that these arrangements were arrived at by the Privy Council ‘after long and serious deliberation, and advice of the most judicious and knowing merchants of the kingdom.’ It is scarce conceivable to us how such an act came to be passed, seeing that it forbade the use of foreign articles before any corresponding ones were made at home; before even the machinery for making them was set up or existed; but the truth is, the governments of those days had much greater dependence upon the use of force than we have—force to make people like bishops or give up popery—force to direct what they were to eat, and what they were to wear. And with all this dependence on force, no means of really enforcing anything: at least, we never hear of any such enactments in those days, but we soon after hear of their being everywhere broken through and disregarded. For my part, I feel at a loss to understand the drift of the government on this occasion, for, little more than two months after a parliamentary prohibition of foreign cloth, we find the king giving the Company of the Merchants of Edinburgh their Patent, describing them as invectores et panni tam rasi quam villosi, importers of both fine and coarse cloth. Probably it was expected that they would almost instantly cease to be so, and remain only liable to the rest of the description given to them of vendors of wearing stuffs. If so, the hope was a bootless one, for, notwithstanding sundry burnings of the forbidden foreign stuffs on the streets of Edinburgh, no manufacture either of fine woollen cloth, or of silks, or fine linen, took hearty root in our country for many years thereafter. Most likely, the act fell speedily into contempt as impracticable.
It was on the 1st of December 1681 that eighty-two merchants of Edinburgh, so called, but in truth specially concerned in the business of cloth or clothing alone, met the magistrates in the High Council-house, to hear read the royal letters-patent, erecting them into a company or society for the promotion of commerce and sundry other useful purposes. Each member was to pay at entry three pounds Scots—that is, ten shillings sterling—and six shillings Scots, or an English sixpence, yearly, while in trade, for the purpose of constituting a fund for decayed members and their widows and children. It will be observed that these were very moderate contributions, even for the reign of Charles II.; but the tradition of the Company is, that its whole scheme was at first of a humble nature. The constituent members adopted as their symbol a Stock of Broom—a modest shrub, but with a great tendency to increase. As such they regarded their society and plan of charity; and ever since, ‘the Stock of Broom’ has been the first toast at all the convivial meetings of the Company. I regret to remark, that, while such laudable views and ideas prevailed amongst our predecessors, the universal taint of exclusiveness had also an ascendency over them. It was ruled in their very constitution, that none who had not entered their Company should be permitted to practise merchandise in the city. And they were entitled to poind goods which were exposed to sale in contravention of their bye-laws.
One of the Company’s first proceedings was to ask the Dean of Edinburgh (Very Reverend William Annand) to compose a prayer to be said by the clerk at all their meetings. It was as follows: ‘Almighty and eternal God, we thy servants now assembled, implore, according to thy gracious promises, the pardon of all our offences, and thy holy spirit to deliver us from falling into the snares of sin and Satan. Keep us, O Lord, in peace, unity, brotherly love, and concord, by removing pride, prejudice, passion, covetousness, and whatever may offend thy gracious majesty. Bless our king and all the royal family, the magistrates, and all the incorporations of this city, the Masters and all the members of this society, that we may have fellowship with thee. The sea is thine, and thy hands formed the dry land: prosper us in our present undertaking with the fruits of both; above all, with the fruits of thy holy Spirit, through Jesus Christ our Lord.’ It was thought proper to make some requital to the dean for this service; but it seems to have been rather long before the Stock of Broom spread sufficiently to allow of this being done. It was not till August 1686 that the Company ordained Hugh Blair, one of their number, to furnish the reverend gentleman with ‘six ells fine black cloth for a gown,’ for which ‘the said Hugh Blair is to have from the Company twenty shillings sterling the ell, if it be paid within twelve months; but if it happen to be any longer resting, the price is to be augmented at the discretion of the Company conform to the time.’ On the 9th of January 1688 the Company realised £36, 13s. Scots, or rather more than three pounds sterling, by poindings of certain small quantities of fustian, mohair, and serge, which had been exposed in the market contrary to law; and, now believing themselves to be in a good way, they ordered that Hugh Blair be paid for the dean’s gown out of the first and readiest of the treasurer’s intromissions, but still to be allowed interest till payment was actually made. We may presume that Blair was paid not long after this, for, in the ensuing September, the twelve pounds Scots realised from the fustian was ordered to be given to James Tait, an indigent member of the Company. It may be remarked that Hugh Blair was a grandson of Robert Blair, one of the Covenanting ministers who have reached a historical fame, and he was at the same time grandfather to his namesake the admired minister of the High Kirk, and author of the Sermons and Lectures on Belles-Lettres. Hugh was Master of the Company in the year 1692. It may also be worth while to recall that Dean Annand was the clergyman officially appointed to attend the unfortunate Earl of Argyle on the scaffold. He was a man of considerable learning, and, as we learn from his communications with Argyle, a hearty opponent of popery.
One of the Company’s earliest movements of any importance was the acquiring of a hall; but I regret to say this was not, as might be supposed, a movement of a purely dignified nature—the great object was to get a place of their own, in which they could deposit the goods taken from unfreemen, it having been found hitherto, that such goods taken to private houses were often disposed of clandestinely: in short, the Company got little good of them. In 1691, the Master, Bailie Robert Blackwood, intimated that there was a suitable house to be had in the Cowgate—namely, a large lodging belonging to Viscount Oxenford, and the price would be about twelve thousand merks, or six hundred and seventy pounds sterling. A subscription was immediately entered into to defray the cost, and the house was purchased. It was a large quadrangular building, surrounding a court-yard, and had been the residence of the celebrated lawyer of a hundred years before, who finally became the first Earl of Haddington—popularly called, from his locality, Tam o’ the Cowgate. Even now, the widow of the cavalier Sir Thomas Dalyell of Binns, and one or two other persons of quality, had lodgment in some of its apartments. There was one large room which was to be devoted to the purposes of a hall; but it was sadly out of order. Presently comes forward a liberal member of the Company, Bailie Alexander Brand, who had some time before established a manufactory of what was called Spanish leather, for the ornamenting of rooms—namely, skins stamped with gold. It was a pretty style of hangings, once in great favour in Scotland; a few examples may still be seen in old country-houses; one I remember in the house of Gartsherrie in Lanarkshire. The bailie undertook to hang the hall in this manner, and only charge what was due over and above his own contribution of a hundred and fifty pounds Scots. Ten years afterwards, when accounts came to be settled with the then Sir Alexander Brand—for it will be observed prompt settlements were by no means among the commercial virtues of our predecessors—it appeared that a hundred and nineteen skins of gold leather, with a black ground, had been used, at a total expense of two hundred and fifty-three pounds Scots, including the manufacturer’s contribution. There was also much concernment about a piece of waste ground behind; but the happy thought occurred of converting it into a bowling-green, for the use of the members in the first place, and the public in the second. Many years after, we find Allan Ramsay making joyous Horatian allusions to this place of recreation, telling us that now, in winter, douce folk were no longer seen wysing ajee the biassed bowls on Tamson’s Green (Thomson being a subsequent tenant). It is not unworthy of notice that, from the low state of the arts in Scotland, the bowls required for this green had to be brought from abroad. It is gravely reported to the Company on the 6th of March 1693, that the bowls are ‘upon the sea homeward.’ Ten pair cost £6, 4s. 3d. Scots. It is scarcely necessary to add that the Company’s connection with the Cowgate was dissolved long ago, and even the house has for thirty years ceased to exist, having been taken down to make way for George the Fourth’s Bridge. The only remaining memorial of the Company at that spot is to be found in the name, Merchant Street, applied to a half-extinguished line of buildings behind the Cowgate, and our title to the ground-rents of that part of the city.
By and by, the Company became engaged in matters more amiable than the seizing of goods of unfreemen. Wealthy members died, leaving mortifications (in the happy Scottish sense) to the Company, for the succour of decayed brethren. It is remarkable that, on the first such occasion, in 1693, when three thousand five hundred pounds, accruing from a legacy left by Patrick Aikenhead, a Scotch merchant at Dantzig, for pious uses in Edinburgh, came into possession of the Merchant Company, they had not a decayed member requiring the benefit. Not long after the last date, the Company became engaged in the erection of a hospital for the nurture and education of the female children of their less prosperous members. Though originated by a certain Mrs Hare, widow of an Edinburgh apothecary, but a scion of the noble house of Marr, the principal labour and expense attending this foundation fell upon the Merchant Company of Edinburgh. Their zeal in the affair is amply shewn in their books, where the entries of contributions for ‘the Lasses’ are for some years incessant. Twenty-eight years later, when George Watson died, leaving no less than twelve thousand pounds sterling for the benefit of children of the other sex, the Merchant Company came to have the management of a second foundation of the same kind. I believe its administration in both hospitals has, generally speaking, been unexceptionable. It is, however, worthy of observation, that the Company itself has never supplied a sufficiency of children requiring the benefits. It has conducted these institutions to a considerable extent on the principle of Vos non vobis.
It is foreign to my purpose to trace the history of Edinburgh merchants and merchandise during the time following upon the Union, when the national industry and enterprise, being allowed a fair field, were producing those results of wealth and civilisation which we now see smiling around us. I may remark, however, that the first two Georges were inurned before the merchants of this or any other British city had ceased in any degree to depend on prohibitions of this and that, and exclusive rights to deal and be dealt with. The introduction of Indian damasks, padasoys, and taffetas was, so lately as 1730, spoken of by our Merchant Company as ‘destructive.’ In England, ‘Bury in woollen if you have any bowels for your country,’ was a general feeling, and, indeed, a matter of law. The late Bailie Robert Johnston once shewed me a curious document, drawn up and extensively signed by the Edinburgh mercers and drapers, about the year 1760, covenanting that henceforth they would wholly cease to traffic with that generation of men called ‘English riders.’ So long is it before an enlightened sense of interests, even among a shrewd and tolerably well-educated people, supersedes the first stringent emotions of human selfishness. How different the spirit of the Merchant Company, and its offshoot the Chamber of Commerce, has been in recent times, patronising and promoting every liberal measure, need not be dwelt upon. Another particular of the last century may be adverted to—namely, that there continued to be a very great infusion among our merchants of what may be called an aristocratic element. On this subject I am aided by the recollections of the late venerable clerk of the Company, Mr James Jollie, extending nearly a century back from the present time. To take the leading firms among the silk-mercers. Of John Hope and Company, the said John Hope was a younger son of Hope of Rankeillour in Fife. Of Stewart and Lindsay, the former was the son of Charles Stewart of Ballechen, and the latter a younger son of Lindsay of Wormiston. Among the leading drapers: in the firm of Lindsay and Douglas, the former was a younger son of Lindsay of Eaglescairney, and the latter of Douglas of Garvaldfoot. Of Dundas, Inglis, and Callander, the first was son to Dundas of Fingask in Stirlingshire, the family from which the Earl of Zetland and Baron Amesbury are descended; the second was a younger son of Sir John Inglis of Cramond, and succeeded to that baronetage, which, it may be remarked, took its rise in an Edinburgh merchant of the seventeenth century. Another eminent cloth-dealing firm, Hamilton and Dalrymple, comprehended John Dalrymple, a younger brother of the well-known Lord Hailes, and a great grandson of the first Lord Stair: he was at one time Master of the Merchant Company. In a fourth firm, Stewart, Wallace, and Stoddart, the leading partner was a son of Stewart of Dunearn. The leading wine-merchants and bankers of those days were also men of family; but this, of course, is the less worthy of remark, as it continues in some degree to be the case at the present day.
That so many landed families amongst us have descended from Edinburgh merchants is no singular fact, for trade efflorescing into nobility is an old phenomenon in the south. There we have a Duke of Leeds descended from the apprentice of Sir William Hewit the goldsmith; the Wentworth Fitzwilliams, from a worthy London merchant knighted by Henry VIII. From the nautical adventurer Phipps, of the time of Charles II., come the Earls of Mulgrave. Cornwallis is from a London merchant; Coventry, from a mercer; Radnor, from a silk-manufacturer; Warwick, from a wool-stapler; Pomfret, from a Calais merchant. Essex, Dartmouth, Craven, Tankerville, Darnley, Cowper, and Romney, have all had a similar origin. More recently ennobled families—the Dacres, the Dormers, the Dudley Wards, the Hills, the Caringtons, have in like manner taken their rise from successful trade. It is an origin surely as honourable as dexterous courtiership, gifts of church-lands, or mediæval robbery and plunder.