HE commercial greatness of Liverpool is hardly more than a hundred years old. This quondam village,' said Erskine, on a famous Liverpool trial in 1791, 'which is now fit to be a proud capital for any empire in the world, has started up like an enchanted palace even in the memory of living men.' Liverpool is now nearly six times greater than it was when Erskine spoke; but it had ceased to be a village' long before the birth of any living in his day. It was a town, guarded by a strong castle, under William the Conqueror. In 1229, Henry III. made it a free borough, with a merchants' guild and hanse, and like liberties of tollage, passage, stallage, and customs to those possessed by the burgesses of London, Bristol, Hull, and other ports. At that time, however, and long afterwards, it was one of the smallest of English towns, the largest being small enough. In 1338, when all England furnished seven hundred vessels for the prosecution of the third Edward's war with France, only a single ship-if ship it could be called-and half a dozen sailors came from Liverpool. When Stow wrote his Annals,' the shipping was twelve times as great, but the town contained only 690 inhabitants, dispersed over seven streets. In 1524, however, before Stow was born, Leland declared that there was 'good merchandise at Lyrpole; much Irish yarn that Manchester men do buy is there, and Irish merchants come much thither as to a good haven.' In former times, Chester had been the principal market for Irish traders. Thither came the merchants of Dublin, Drogheda, Dundalk, and Waterford, with little shiploads of flax and provisions, to be exchanged for English and foreign manufactures.

But as the ships grew larger and more numerous, the Dee became less navigable. Therefore the Chester merchants began to use Liverpool as their port, and in consideration of the benefits derived from their patronage, soon claimed a sort of lordship over it. This relationship, at first helpful to the new town, soon proved irksome. Endless disputes arose between the traders of the two ports, and step by step the younger obtained its coveted freedom, the last victory being gained in 1626, when a new charter making it a city, with James Strange, Lord Stanley, for its first mayor, was confirmed by Charles I. Thenceforth it became one of the most promising towns in England. The Irish rebellion of 1641 led to the settling in it of a useful colony of Irish Protestants, and the plague and fire of London in 1665 and 1666 brought it further and greater assistance, by encouraging many influential merchants, driven out of the metropolis, to plant their capital and experience at the mouth of the Mersey. It was soon known as the chief market for the woollen, linen and cotton goods brought from Manchester, Bolton, Bury, Rochdale, and other towns in the South Lancashire districts, from Kendal, in Westmoreland, and from Wakefield, Halifax, Bradford, and Leeds, in Yorkshire. Good stores of cutlery and hardware were brought to it from Gloucester, Sheffield, and Birmingham, with a large proportion of the little iron at that time procured from English mines. Larger quantities of iron were imported from Spain, the staple import of Liverpool was Irish flax. But the Liverpool of two centuries ago, as a sketch made at that time shows, did not cover one fiftieth of the area of the modern town, and in that fiftieth there was room for

pleasant gardens and wide straggling fields. At the left-hand corner, looking at it from the banks of the Mersey, was the venerable chapel of our Lady and St. Nicholas, serving as parish church. On the extreme right was the ancient castle, long since destroyed, and at some distance inland, adjoining Dale Street, stood Crosse Hall, the abode of one of the oldest and worthiest Liverpool families. the other end of Dale Street, by the river's side and in the centre of the picture, were the only two other large buildings then existing-the old Custom House on the righthand side, and the old Tower on the left.

At

That was the Liverpool in which Thomas Johnson was born, about the year 1655, his father having gone thither from Bedford a little while before. In 1689 he held the office of bailiff, and by 1695, when he was mayor, he had come to be one of the leading merchants of the town, conspicuous among a little company of men famous and influential in their day, Richard Percival, William Clayton, and the Norrises, names yet familiar in Liverpool, being the chief. In 1701 he was chosen M. P. for his native town, and he held his seat in three successive parliaments, until the year 1721. A good patriot, but a better townsman, he steadily used his opportunities for promoting the commercial and municipal importance of Liverpool.

In

In Parliament his chief business of all was the protection of the tobacco merchants' interests, tobacco having come to be, since the opening of the West Indian and Virginian trade, the most important item in Liverpool commerce. the ten years from 1700 to 1709, the average annual importation of this article amounted to 12,880 tons, 7,857 tons for re-shipment to other countries, and 5,023 tons (about two-thirds of the quantity now used by a population more than thrice as large) for home consumption. Half the shipping, and a great deal more than half the wealth, of Liverpool were engaged in the trade. No other town in England had so large

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a share in it; while perhaps no other merchant was as energetic and influential as Thomas Johnson. He used his influence and showed his energy in ways very characteristic of the times. Great jealousy, it seems, was felt by the traders of other ports at the rapid growth of Liverpool. This jealousy led to the careful showing up of practices that would be very blameworthy were they not almost universally adopted a century and a half ago. now-a-days tender-conscienced and strictly honourable people see no harm in smuggling. Under Queen Anne and the early Georges, nobody, save ministers and statesmen, and they only where private interests did not clash with public duties, had any scruples about it. The commercial classes resented the determination of men like Robert Walpole to lay the whole burden of taxation upon manufactured and imported goods, to the relief of land and agricultural produce. Hence, the merchants of Liverpool united in a wholesale system of smuggling, and thereby mulcted the Exchequer of very large sums of money. Johnson made no secret, among friends, at any rate, of his share in the business. It was the cause of frequent dispute between him and his fellow M. P. for Liverpool, William Clayton, who, though as great a smuggler as the rest, decried it for the sake of gaining influence with the ministry. He was especially anxious to have all casks of tobacco intended for the foreign market, nearly two-thirds of the whole supply, exported just as they were imported, without alteration in the cask, mark, or number,' so as to prevent any tampering with the contents, or any fictitious claiming of abatement on account of damage. 'I told him,' says Johnson in a letter to a friend, all our allowances were at an end, if one such practice was on foot; and then where was our trade? We might have one such as the country would admit of; but we could not expect to supply those parts we now do.' Here Johnson was in error. Liverpool merchants have since found that they lose nothing by honest

compliance with the laws of the land, and that real success is to be secured, not by fraud of any kind, but steady adoption of every enlightened measure for the promotion of free trade.

In what was perhaps the most enlightened measure of all in Liverpool history, Johnson was a prime mover. The insufficiency of the Mersey as a harbour for shipping, was a chief cause of the insignificance of Liverpool down to his day. The Thames, without any artificial appliances, afforded a safe restingplace for all the ships that needed to come to London, while Bristol had the junction of the Avon and the Frome, and Plymouth, its excellent bay; Hull, the basin of the Humber and the Hull, and Newcastle the bed of the Tyne. These were the chief ports of England, until Johnson and his friends determined to provide Liverpool with a better artificial harbour than came to any of them through natural causes. The project had been under discussion for some years before the autumn of 1708, when the municipal authorities ordered that Sir Thomas Johnson and Richard Norris, esquires, the representatives in Parliament of the Corporation, be desired and empowered to treat with and agree for a person to come to the town and view the ground and plan of the intended dock.' There was great opposition in Parliament and out of it, as great as that which a hundred years before had harassed Sir Hugh Myddelton in his project for constructing the New River; but Johnson and the Corporation of Liverpool persevered, and in 1709 an Act was passed, authorising the work, and the collection of dock dues to partly pay for it. The Old Dock-the oldest dock in England-was begun early in 1710, and completed, at a total cost of about 15,000l., in 1718. It soon became too small for the wants of the town. Other docks were built one after another, to become the wonder of modern travellers; and the Old Dock, falling into disuse, was at length filled up and made the site for the new Custom House of Liverpool. But this was

the enchanter's wand that converted 'the quondam village' into a city, 'fit to be the proud capital of any empire in the world.' A tourist, writing in 1727, declared that 'in his first visit to Liverpool, in 1680, it was a large, handsome, and thriving town; at his second visit, ten years later, it was become much bigger; but at his third visit, in 1726, it was more than double its bigness of the said second visit; and it is still increasing in people, buildings, wealth, and business.'

But Johnson did not increase in wealth or business. Too much of a patriot to pay proper heed to his own concerns, he seems never to have been very rich, and to have grown poorer as he advanced in years. In 1707, in consideration of his great services in Liverpool, he had been knighted by Queen Anne, but it was sorely against his will. 'God knows,' he wrote to one of his best friends, I knelt to kiss the queen's hand, and to my great surprise the other followed. I am under great concern about it, knowing I no way desired that I had, and must undergo a great many censures; but the Lord forgive them as I do.' In 1707 he was too poor to desire the honour of knighthood, or to know how to support it with dignity; and in 1722, after faithful work for Liverpool in three successive Parliaments, his re-election was quashed in consequence of a petition showing that, not being a landowner worth 300l. a year, he did not possess the requisite qualification. He left Liverpool and England in the following spring. He went to take a custom-house officer's place on the Rappahannoch in Virginia, at a salary of 50l. a year; and there, or somewhere in the New World, he died a short time previous to May, 1729. Liverpool, just beginning the full enjoyment of the good influences that he had exerted on its behalf, had almost forgotten him in his lifetime, and in later days his memory has been so slighted, even by the special historians who have attempted to trace the origin and growth of the town, that his name is hardly ever mentioned.

But Liverpool has not been able

to forget the name of another of its early benefactors, a generation younger than Sir Thomas Johnson. Bryan Blundell was born somewhere near the year 1685. Left an orphan at an early age, he had to fight his own way in the world; and by 1709 he had won for himself a position of some influence. He was master of a ship engaged in foreign trade, which either was his own property, or afforded him opportunities of engaging in occasional business for himself, and so of getting together a little heap of money. In that year, the year when the Old Dock began to be built, he agreed with the Rev. Robert Stithe, one of the clergymen of the parish church, to found a charity school, partly with their own money, partly by help of subscriptions from their friends. Setting to work at once, they collected enough to form a fund yielding 60l. or 70l. a year. That done, they built a schoolhouse for 351. and placed therein fifty children, whom they clothed and taught during the day-time, leaving them to be kept by their parents. Stithe was appointed treasurer; and I,' says Blundell, in a charming sketch of his work in this cause, 'went to sea on my employment, telling Mr. Stithe that I hoped to be giving him something every voyage for the school.' In four years he did give 250l. Then, in 1713, good Mr. Stithe died, and his successor in the church showed no inclination to carry on his charitable work; which gave me much concern,' writes Blundell. I therefore determined to leave off the sea and undertake the care of the school, and was chosen treasurer in 1714; at which time there was 200l. at interest, which was all the stock the school had. In a little time I saw some of the children begging about the streets, their parents being so poor as not to have bread for them; which gave me great concern, insomuch that I thought to use my best endeavours to make provision for them, so as to take them wholly from their parents, which I hoped might be promoted by a subscription. I therefore got an instrument drawn out for that

purpose on parchment, went about with it to most persons of ability, and many subscribed handsomely. On the strength of which I went to work and got the present charity school built, which has cost between 2000l. and 3000l. and was finished in 1718, at which time I gave for the encouragement of the charity 750l., being one-tenth of what it pleased God to bless me with, and did then purpose to give the same proportion of whatever He should indulge me with in time to come, for the benefit and encouragement of the said charity. So great has been the mercy and providence of God in prospering me in business that I have made up the 750l.,' he said, writing in 1751, 'to 2000l., which I have paid to the use of the school, and my children, six in number, the youngest of them now near thirty years of age, are so far from wanting or being worse for what I have given to the school, that they are all benefactors to it, some of them more than rool. at a .time; I may truly say, whilst I have been doing for the children of the school, the good providence of God hath been doing for mine.'

It was certainly a happy thought that led honest Bryan Blundell to abandon the sea and settle down as a Liverpool merchant. Not only was he thus able to establish the most important local charity to be found in the borough, but he thus, securing the double blessing attendant on the quality of mercy, made for himself and his offspring an honourable place among the great men of Liverpool. He became a large and enterprising merchant, an influential townsman, and a great promoter of every sort of good work. He was mayor in 1721, and again in 1728. He had stately ships of his own trading with Africa, with North Carolina, Jamaica, and Nevis, as well as other parts of North America and the West Indies. But he never forgot his charity school. In 1726 he procured its enlargement, so as to admit ten more children, and in 1735, all the sixty, hitherto only partially boarded, were taken altogether out of their parents' hands. In 1742,

ten more were added, and in 1748 the number was raised to a hundred, seventy of them being boys and thirty girls. The charge is now,' he said, three years later, 700l. per annum, towards which we have, by the blessing of God, attained to a stock or income of 400l. a year. The other 300l. comes in by gifts and legacies, so that we have never yet wanted at the year's end, but always continue increasing a little. I have now been treasurer thirtyseven years, in which time more than four hundred children have been put out apprentices, mostly to sea, in which business many of them are masters and some mates of ships. Several of them are become benefactors to the school and useful members of society. We take the children into the school at eight years of age, and put them apprentice at fourteen, and give 40s. apprentice fee with each. The method observed with the children in the school is as follows:-One half of the day the boys are employed in picking oakum, by which they raise 50l. a year; the girls are employed in spinning cotton, and earn about 20l. per annum; the other half their time is applied for their instruction in reading, writing, and common arithmetic. It is so useful a charity that I have frequently wished to see as many charity schools as we have churches in the town, which are four, and I yet hope the good providence of God may bring it to pass in the next generation.' Liverpool still has only one Blue Coat School; but that has grown immensely since the death of its founder, and the Blundells have continued to be champions of good works to this day.

Bryan Blundell died in 1756. He was followed, two years later, by another man of mark in the history of Liverpool, his partner in many acts of benevolence, though more conspicuous for his commercial and municipal energy than for his philanthropy. This was Foster Cunliffe. Sprung from an ancient Lancashire family that had lands granted to it at Billington, near Whalley, somewhere before the close of the thirteenth century, the Cunliffes

were long famous both in commercial and political history. Under the year 1282 we find an Adam Cunliffe named as one of the twelve principal persons in Manchester; and four hundred years later Nicholas and Robert Cunliffe were leaders of the Commonwealth cause in Lancashire. Nicholas's grandson was Ellis Cunliffe, a notable Cambridge divine who settled in the north, and became the father of Foster Cunliffe, the next great merchant patriot of Liverpool after Johnson-'a merchant whose ho'nesty, diligence, and knowledge in mercantile affairs procured wealth and credit to himself and his country; a magistrate who administered justice with discernment, candour, and impartiality; a Christian, devout and exemplary in the exercise of every private duty; a friend to merit; a patron to distress; an enemy only to vice and sloth.'

This model man, according to the judgment of many who knew him well, was born in 1685. He was chosen mayor of Liverpool in 1716, in 1729, and again in 1735. In the latter year he was prevented from entering Parliament owing to his inability to show the prescribed qualification, just as Johnson had been unseated thirteen years before; but for a time long before and long after that date he was the leading man in Liverpool affairs. Political opponents regarded him as a tyrannical ruler of both the corporation and the town during a third of a century; those of his own party honoured him as an exemplary promoter of their cause. At any rate he was a great promoter of Liverpool commerce. When he began work as a merchant, the traffic of Liverpool was chiefly with Ireland and the English coast towns, while the Virginian tobacco trade was just rising into importance. At the time of his death, in 1758, that trade, still vigorous, as it is vigorous to this day, had become insignificant in comparison with the newer African trade. In 1709 this African trade employed one ship of thirty tons. In 1760 it found work for seventy-four vessels, with an aggregate burthen of 8,178 tons, and enriched upwards of a