The mentioning these factors again here, naturally brings me to observe a new way of buying and selling of corn, as well as malt, which is introduced by these factors; a practice greatly increased of late, though it is an unlawful way of dealing, and many ways prejudicial to the markets; and this is buying of corn by samples only. The case is thus:—
The farmer, who has perhaps twenty load of wheat in his barn, rubs out only a few handfuls of it with his hand, and puts it into a little money-bag; and with this sample, as it is called, in his pocket, away he goes to market.
When he comes thither, he stands with his little bag in his hand, at a particular place where such business is done, and thither the factors or buyers come also; the factor looks on the sample, asks his price, bids, and then buys; and that not a sack or a load, but the whole quantity; and away they go together to the next inn, to adjust the bargain, the manner of delivery, the payment, etc. Thus the whole barn, or stack, or mow of corn, is sold at once; and not only so, but it is odds but the factor deals with him ever after, by coming to his house; and so the farmer troubles the market no more.
This kind of trade is chiefly carried on in those market-towns which are at a small distance from London, or at least from the river Thames; such as Romford, Dartford, Grayes, Rochester, Maidstone, Chelmsford, Malden, Colchester, Ipswich, and so down on both sides the river to the North Foreland, and particularly at Margate and Whitstable, on one side; and to the coast of Suffolk, and along the coast both ways beyond, and likewise up the river. Also,
At these markets you may see, that, besides the market-house, where a small quantity of corn perhaps is seen, the place mentioned above, where the farmers and factors meet, is like a little exchange, where all the rest of the business is transacted, and where a hundred times the quantity of corn is bought and sold, as appears in sacks in the market-house; it is thus, in particular, at Grayes, and at Dartford: and though on a market-day there are very few wagons with corn to be seen in the market, yet the street or market-place, nay, the towns and inns, are thronged with farmers and samples on one hand, and with mealmen, London bakers, millers, and cornfactors, and other buyers, on the other. The rest of the week you see the wagons and carts continually coming all night and all day, laden with corn of all sorts, to be delivered on board the hoys, where the hoymen stand ready to receive it, and generally to pay for it also: and thus a prodigious corn trade is managed in the market, and little or nothing to be seen of it.
4. Defoe's Account of the Coal Trade [D. Defoe, The Complete English Tradesman, Ed. 1841, Vol. II, pp. 172-173], temp. George II.
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 the 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 called a 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 wagon into the said lighters, which carry them to the ships, which I call the first loading upon the water.
5. A Description of Middlemen in the Woollen Industry [J. Smith, The Memoirs of Wool, Vol. II, pp. 310-313, 1747], 1739.