Tmerce begins with a William

THE history of Glasgow com

Elphinstone, contemporary William Canning of Bristol. About the year 1420 he was famous for his shipments of pickled salmon and dried herrings to France and other parts of Europe, for which he received wine and brandy in exchange. The Bishop Elphinstone who founded the University of Aberdeen was his son, and the proceeds of the old merchant's trade are said to have greatly helped on the good work. Towards the end of the fifteenth century, while the Uni-. versity was being built, Archibald Lyon, youngest son of Lord Glamis, the Earl of Strathmore, settled in Glasgow, and lived with Archbishop Gavin Douglas in old Glasgow Castle. He married a Mistress Margaret Douglas, and became a merchant. He undertook great Voyages and adventures in trading,' according to the old chronicler, to

Poland, France, and Holland. His endeavours were wonderfully blessed with success, so that he acquired considerable lands in and about the city of Glasgow. He built-in 1536, as it is supposed-'a great lodging for himself and family upon the south side of the Gallowgate Street. Thereafter he built four closes of houses and forty-four shops, high and low, on the south side of the Gallowgate, and a part of the east side of the Saltmarket.' He lived to be ninety-five. He had a son named Archibald, whose son George was another famous merchant of Glasgow; and his three daughters were all wedded to merchants, ancestors of other merchants.

Old Archibald Lyon must be considered the father of Glasgow. 'No other nobleman's youngest son in Scotland,' says his first panegyrist, 'can boast of such an opulent offspring.' So important

had Glasgow commerce become during the lifetime of his grandchildren, and so much were they and their fellow-merchants or tradesmen given to quarrelling among themselves, and with the foreigners who now began to settle in the neighbourhood for purposes of commerce, that their relationship with one another, and their position in the town, had to be made subjects of legislation. 'At that time,' we are told, the traders of Glasgow were by far more numerous than the merchants, so as they claimed not only as great a share and interest in the government of the city, but also the right of being equal sharers with the merchants in seafaring trade; to which the merchants were altogether averse, affirming that they were to hold every one to his trade, and not meddle with theirs. Upon which there arose horrible heats, strifes, and animosities betwixt them, which was like to end with shedding of blood; for the trades rose up against the merchants.' In fact, there were as great jealousies among the wholesale and the retail dealers of Glasgow, about the year 1600, as there had been in London a century earlier between the merchant adventurers and the members of the trading guilds who desired to share their commercial advantages. In this case the differences were settled by the establishment, in 1605, of a guildery, for regulating and maintaining the limits of trade and commerce, having at its head a dean, who was to be 'a merchant, a merchant sailor, and a merchant venturer.' He was to be assisted by a provost and bailies, a council and deacons, half of them being merchants, the other half craftsmen; and none but guild brothers were in future to be allowed to trade or traffic in Glasgow.

are told, and four large barns and great gardens at the back thereof." Another and a greater was Walter Gibson, who began life as a brewer and malt-maker, and then proceeded to become a regular merchant. In 1668 he cured and packed 300 lasts of herrings, each containing twelve barrels, and worth 61. of Scottish money, and shipped them to St. Martin's, in France, in a Dutch vessel of 450 tons burthen. For each barrel of herrings, it is recorded, he obtained a barrel of brandy and a crown. Some of the crowns were spent in buying salt; which, with the brandy, had so good a market in Glasgow, that out of the profits Gibson was able to purchase the Dutch ship and two other vessels, almost as large, with which he set to his fellow-citizens an example of extensive traffic to different parts of Europe.' Contemporary with him was a John Anderson, the first importer of French white wines into Glasgow. About this time, too, there was a William Wilson, who went from Flakefield to settle as a merchant in Glasgow, and there, as there were other Wilsons, to be known as William Flakefield. He had a son, William, whom he apprenticed to a weaver. But the lad, not quite liking the business, enlisted, near 1670, in the Cameronians, and afterwards joined the famous regiment of Scotch Guards in France. He lived some years abroad, until, having met with a blue and white check handkerchief, woven in Germany, a novelty in those days, it occurred to him that he would try and make others like it. Therefore, in 1700, he returned to Glasgow, and, improving upon his old apprenticeship, set about the work. 'A few spindles of yarn fit for his purpose," says the old biographer, 'was all, at that time, that William Flakefield could collect, the which was but illbleached, and the blue not very dark. They were, however, the best that could be found in Glasgow. About two dozen of pocket handkerchiefs composed the first web. When the half was woven, he cut out the cloth and took it to the merchants. They were pleased

with the novelty of the blue and white stripes, and especially with the delicate texture of the cloth, which was thin set in comparison with the Hollands that they generally dealt in. The new adventurer asked no more for his web than the net price of the materials, and the ordinary wages for his work. All he asked was readily paid him, and he went home rejoicing that his attempts were not unsuccessful. This dozen of handkerchiefs, the first of the kind ever made in Britain, was disposed of in a few days.' Others were disposed of in abundance as quickly as they could be made. Merchants and weavers from all parts came to learn the trick, and many settled down in Glasgow to practise it with success. "The number of looms daily increased, so that Glasgow became famous for that branch of the linen trade. The checks were followed by the blunks, or linen cloth for printing, and to these,' it was written in 1793, 'is now added the muslin trade.'

William Flakefield should have an honourable place in the commercial history of Glasgow; but he was forgotten even in his lifetime. He died poor and unknown, after earning a meagre subsistence as town drummer of his native place..

While Flakefield was laying the foundations of the manufacturing greatness of Glasgow, however, other enterprising men were doing as much for its strictly mercantile advancement. Hitherto its traders had gone only to continental towns; and having to make a long voyage round, either southwards or northwards, they found it hard to compete with the people of Edinburgh, Dundee, and other earlier haunts of commerce. A great change came with the establishment of the Union in 1707. Scotland was thereby made a sharer in the colonial wealth of England, and henceforth Glasgow, the capital of western Scotland, began to advance from the same causes, and with as much rapidity as Liverpool and Manchester. Its merchants at once began to follow the example of Liverpool and send vessels-at first

they were only hired vessels, Glasgow having no shipping of its own strong enough for crossing the Atlantic-to the American and West Indian ports. These vessels carried out clothing and hardware, and brought back tobacco. A supercargo went out with every vessel,' we are told,' who bartered his goods for tobacco, until such time as he had either sold all his goods, or procured as much tobacco as was sufficient to load his vessel. He then returned immediately, and, if any of his goods remained unsold, he brought them home with him.'

Those were the rude beginnings of Glasgow's trade with America. In 1718 the first home-built ship went out for tobacco; and within a few years so many were on the seas, that great opposition was raised by the rival merchants of Bristol, Liverpool, and Whitehaven.

In

the year 1721, 'a most terrible confederacy was entered into by almost all the tobacco merchants in South Britain.' By them the Glasgow merchants were accused of all sorts of frauds, both upon their neighbours and upon the Exchequer, and accordingly a commission was sent down from the Treasury to make inquiries as to the alleged abuses. This commission reported 'that the complaints of the merchants of London, Liverpool, and Whitehaven were groundless, and that they proceeded from a spirit of envy, and not from a regard to the interest of trade or the king's revenue.' That decision was not at all to the liking of the southern traders. Therefore they made interest with the House of Commons, and procured a new body of commissioners, whose verdict, given in 1723, was against the people of Glasgow. Hence arose lawsuits and quarrels of all sorts without number, very prejudicial for a time to the welfare of the new centre of commerce. In 1723, the Glasgow merchants possessed three-andtwenty tobacco ships. In 1735, they had only twenty-four vessels of all classes, trading with America and the West Indies. But the hindrance was only temporary. In 1735 the entire shipping of Glas

gow amounted to about 5,600 tons. By 1771 it had risen to nearly 60,000 tons.

The trade reports of the latter year are worth analysing. We find that the manufactures of Glasgow at this time comprised linens, calicoes, lawns, and cambrics; cotton and woollen goods in great quantities; leather; soap, hardware, and jewellery, with a net value in all of about 450,000l. The imports consisted of 46,055,139 lbs. of tobacco, and some 50,000 cubic feet of timber, besides skins and other miscellaneous articles from the North American ports of Boston and Falmouth in Philadelphia, Maryland in Virginia, and the North Carolina towns; 179,544 gallons of rum, 47,357 lbs. of sugar, and 59,434 lbs. of cotton from the West Indian islands of Antigua, Granada, Jamaica, Nevis, St. Kitts, St. Vincent, and Honduras; 39,922 bushels of salt, 32,000 gallons of wine, and 32,250 lemons, besides miscellaneous groceries from Italy, Portugal, and the south of Europe; and great quantities of flax linen articles from Germany, Poland, and Russia. Much greater quantities of linen came from Ireland; 731,118 yards from Dublin, 361,502 from Belfast, and 7,671 from other towns, making a total of 1,100,291 yards; to which must be added 4,022 barrels of salt beef, besides hams, butter, and other goods from several other Irish towns, with Cork at their head. In return for these commodities large supplies of ale, rum, carpets, haberdasheries, and tobacco were sent to Ireland. Linen and woollen goods, leather, hardware, and all sorts of English manufactures were despatched to North America and the West Indies; and tobacco was the staple export to the European countries, 20,774,843 lbs. being sent to France, 15,000,000 to Holland, 4,000,000 to Germany, 170,853 to Italy, 140,852 to Minorca, and smaller quantities to Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Russia.

Even then, however, Glasgow commerce, indeed, Scotch commerce altogether, was only in its infancy.

In no country in Europe,' said a merchant of Glasgow, writing in

1777, is the character of a merchant, manufacturer, or trader so despicable as in Scotland. In England, over all the colonies, and, indeed, in almost every country in Europe, the oath of the merchant and the production of his books are held to be sufficient evidence of his accounts, where the particular circumstances attending the transactions are such that a stronger cannot be obtained. In North Britain no faith is given to either him or his books.' Up to the middle of the eighteenth century,' according to another student of Glasgow history, ' commercial concerns, whether for manufactures or for foreign trades, were in general carried on by what might be termed joint-stock companies of credit: six or eight responsible individuals having formed themselves into a company, advanced each into the concern a few hundred pounds, and borrowed on the personal bonds of the company whatever further capital was required for the undertaking. It was not till commercial capital, at a later period, had grown up in the country that individuals, or even companies trading extensively on their own capital, were to be found. The first adventure which went from Glasgow to Virginia, after the trade had been opened to the Scotch by the Union, was sent out under the sole charge of the captain of the vessel, acting also as supercargo. This person, although a shrewd man, knew nothing of accounts; and when, on his return, he was asked by his employers for a statement of how the adventure had turned out, told them he could give them none, but there were its proceeds; and threw down upon the table a large hoggar [stocking] stuffed to the top with coin. The adventure had been a profitable one; and the company conceived that if an uneducated, untrained person had been so successful, their gains would have been still greater had a person versed in accounts been sent with it. Under this impression, they immediately despatched a second adventure, with a supercargo, highly recommended for a knowledge of accounts, who