“And for coffee, tea, and chocolate, I know no good they do; only the places where they are sold are convenient for persons to meet in, sit half a day, and discourse with all companies that come in, of state-matters, talking of news, and broaching of lies; arraigning the judgments and discretions of their own governors, censuring all their actions, and insinuating into the people a prejudice against them; extolling and magnifying their own parts, knowledge, and wisdom, and decrying that of their rulers, which, if suffered too long, may prove pernicious and destructive. But say there was nothing of this in the case, yet have these coffee-houses done great mischiefs to the nation, and undone many of the king’s subjects; for they, being very great enemies to diligence and industry, have been the ruin of many serious and hopeful young gentlemen and tradesmen, who, before they frequented these places, were diligent students or shopkeepers, extraordinary husbands of their time as well as money” (see also [p. 292]).
Granted a case against tea and coffee, what can be said against the stage coach? A great deal. Stage coaches destroy the breed of good horses, make men careless of horsemanship, and make them effeminate and afraid of cold, rain, and snow (for further on this subject see [p. 338]).
The crime of crimping—that is, inveigling or forcing young fellows to enter into service in the plantations—became very common in this century. It caused trouble in many ways. First, a man was encouraged to get drunk, and on recovering was told that he had enlisted, or he was knocked on the head and carried aboard, or he voluntarily enlisted and afterwards repented. In all these cases the victims complained on reaching Virginia that they had been betrayed or trapped, and they sent home sworn statements, with instructions to their friends, to indict the merchants for crimping and ensnaring them.
These complaints became so numerous that rules were laid down for the enrolment of these servants, and if the rules were obeyed, the merchants were assured that there should be no prosecution:—
“I. Such servants as are to be taken by Indenture, to be executed by the servant, in the presence of the magistrate or magistrates hereafter appointed: one part thereof signed by such servant, and also underwritten or endorsed with the name and handwriting of such magistrate, which is to remain with the clerk of the Peace to be renewed to the next sessions, there to be filed upon a distinct file, and numbered and kept with the records.
II. The Clerk of the Peace is to keep a fair book, wherein the name of the person so bound, and the magistrate’s name before whom the same was done, and the time and place of doing thereof, and the number of the file shall be entred; and for the more easie finding the same, the entris are to be made alphabetically, according to the first letter of the sirname.
III. All persons above the age of one and twenty years, or who shall, upon view and examination, appear to be so in the judgment of the magistrate, may be bound in the presence of one Justice of the Peace, or of the Mayor or chief Magistrate of the place where they shall go on shipboard, who is to be fully satisfied from him of his free and voluntary agreement to enter into the said service.
IV. If any person be under the age of one and twenty years, or shall appear to be so, he shall be bound in the presence of the Lord Mayor of London, or one of the Judges, or an Alderman of London, being a Justice of the Peace, or the Recorder, or two Justices of the Peace of any other county or place, who shall carefully examine whether the person so to be bound have any parents or masters; and if he be not free they are not to take such indenture, unless the parents or masters give their consents, and some person that knows the said servant to be of the name and addition mentioned in the indenture is to assist his said knowledge upon the said indenture.
V. If the person be under the age of fourteen years, unless his parents shall be present, and consent, he is not to be carried on shipboard till a fortnight at least after he becomes bound, to the intent that if there be any abuse, it may be discovered before he is transported. And where his parents do not appear before the magistrate, notice is to be sent to them; or where they cannot be found, to the churchwardens, overseers of the parish where he was last settled, in such manner as the said magistrates shall think fit and direct.
And because Clerks of the Peace may conceive this not to be any part of the duty of their office, and may therefore exact unreasonable rewards for their trouble and pains therein, his Majesty doth declare that if any merchants or other persons shall be aggrieved thereby, and upon complaint to the Justices cannot obtain relief, his Majesty will take such further care for their ease herein, as in his royal wisdom he shall think meet.
And his Majestie’s further pleasure is, that this order be printed and published, to the end all persons whom it may concern may take notice thereof, and govern themselves accordingly.”
Here is a very curious note concerning a custom long since forgotten. Before the discovery and importation of Indian nitre, saltpetre was manufactured from animal matter. This stuff was piled in heaps, protected from rain, and watered with stable runnings. Men called saltpetre-men were employed in collecting earth thus impregnated, and were by Act of Parliament (1624) authorised to dig up the floors of stables and any other places where this saturated earth might be found. So important was the manufacture that no dove-house or stable was permitted to be paved. The appearance of the saltpetre-man and his asserted right of digging up and carrying off the earth under stables became a grievance, against which remonstrance was in vain so long as the civil wars lasted. In 1656, however, it was enacted that no saltpetre-man should dig without permission of the householder.
During the seventeenth century the ’prentices, as we have seen, became of greater importance than ever; in the eighteenth their power declined. For instance, when in 1643 it was feared that Charles would march on the City, the ’prentices turned out in great force to fortify the entrances and roads all round the City. Four years later they turned out on strike, meeting in Covent Garden, then an open space, in order to compel their masters to give them back the old holidays of which the Puritans had deprived them. These were especially Christmas, with its days of merriment and minstrelsy, Good Friday, Easter Monday, and, I think, Whit Monday. Perhaps the Puritans had also deprived them of Queen Elizabeth’s Day. On Shrove Tuesday the ’prentices demolished, if they could find any, houses of ill fame. Their keepers were locked up in prison during the whole of Lent. This zeal for virtue on the part of the London ’prentice becomes a thing of suspicion when one reads The English Rogue. Perhaps it was a custom ordered and maintained by the masters. I conclude this chapter with the history of one of them. It will be seen that the lot of a ’prentice was not always the happiest or the most desirable. The following notes are taken from the autobiography of one of them, a scrivener’s printer, named F. K. To begin with, he was very fond of reading. While he was still a boy he read The Friar and the Boy, The Seven Wise men of Rome, Fortunatus, Doctor Faustus, Friar Bacon, Montelion Knight of the Oracle, Parismus, Palmerin of England, Amadis de Gaul. The boy procured the latter in French, and for the sake of reading it, taught himself French, and made a French dictionary for himself. As he could not afford to buy paper, he cut pages from the middle of the other boys’ copybooks, and, being found out, received a very sound and well-deserved flogging.
When he was sixteen he was apprenticed to a scrivener for eight years’ servitude, his father paying £30 and giving a bond for £100 as a guarantee of the boy’s honesty.
His master had already two apprentices. It was the custom that the youngest apprentice should do, so to speak, the dirty work; but in this case the master had a son who was shortly afterwards apprenticed, and should, in his turn, have taken the lowest place; but by right of his position in the family he was spared this ignominy, and so the writer continued the drudge of the whole household as long as he remained in the house. Apart from his work in the shop, where he had to write out deeds, conveyances, etc.,—the scrivener’s profession exercising much the same functions as those now undertaken by the solicitor,—he says, “I was to make clean the Shooes, carry out the Ashes and Dust, sweep the Shop, cleanse the Sink, (and a long nasty one it was), draw the Beer, at washing times to fetch up Coals and Kettles; these were the within doors employs, and abroad I was to go of all errands, and carry all burthens. I dispensed with all these matters, being told thereof by my Father and Mother before I came, wherefore I was content, and did undergo all very willingly, till I had served about three years, and then being grown up to some maturity and understanding, I began to grumble. I had Money given me which I always laid out in purchasing of Books, especially such as treated of Knight Errantry, or else in buying somewhat to make me fine, and Money coming in pretty plentiful, I had bought me a very good Suit of Cloaths to wear by the by; and withal, being desirous to appear in everything like a gentleman, I had a Watch for my Pocket; being thus accoutred, I sometimes went abroad with our Neighbour Apprentices and others, and being thus fine, it troubled me that I must still carry Burthens, for whoever went empty, my Mistress would still take care that I had my Load to carry Working-day and Sunday from our London to our Countrey-house, and rather than I should want a Burthen, I was to carry earthen Pots and Pans and Ox Livers, and Bones for the Dog. This I grumbled at, and when I have bin seriously a drawing Writings in the Shop and studying and contriving how to order my Covenants the best way, a greasy Kitchin-wench would come and disturb me with one of her Errants, and tell me I must fetch a farthing worth of Mustard, or a pint of Vinegar, or some such mechanical story; nay, my Mistress hath sent me for a Pint of Purl, which when she hath warmed and tasted of, and not liked, I must carry it again to change it. And I being the youngest Apprentice was to be commanded by every one; the two eldest would appoint what I was to do in the Shop, and the Kitchin-wench would, when she pleased, command me into the Kitchin, so that I must be here and there and everywhere; and above all things, I must humor and please the Maid, or else she would pick Holes in my Coat, and tell Tales of me to my Mistress, who would not let me live a quiet hour” (The Unlucky Citizen, pp. 35–37).
Presently, having served for three years, and being now nineteen years of age, he complained to his father:—