(In March, 1718, the stock stood at 113 per cent., and Mr. Richards's shares were worth £5,650. The crash came, I think, in the 1720s. Let us hope that Mr. R. sold at the

top price.)

The fourth entry is Cash Dr. to Profit and Loss, £500 received of William Rooke, for taking of his son John apprentice."

The days' record is interesting. It shows Mr. Richards living on a very modest scale in the house of Richard Locke, and at the same time spending what represents in the present day about £1,000 on horses and carriages. For a frugal man this was lavish extravagance. One wonders, had Mr. Richards been pricked for Sheriff, and was the admission of John Rooke to the firm suggested by the pleasing thought that his premium would pay for the carriages and horses?

People now-a-days often find it expedient to conceal from their friends the nature of the business which calls them daily to the city. In Mr. Richards's time the motive to do so was greater, because the social gulf between trade and the land was wider than it is now, and, moreover, the absence of railways, telegraphs, and any regular post made concealment easier. Also, I take it, there was a camaraderie among business men of that day. They kept to themselves their knowledge of their friends' affairs; they did in fact as they would be done by. They honoured each other all the more that, as men engaged in making money in an honourable way, they were looked down upon while so doing only. John Rooke, the apprentice of Jan., 1715, apparently succeeded Mr. Richards in 1722, if indeed he had not become partner earlier, for his name occurs in connection with some later recorded transactions. So far as I know, Hutchins is the only authority for the statement or for the belief that William succeeded his father. His name does not appear in the book, nor does John's, except on the one occasion already referred to.

Having two sons of an age to succeed him, why did Mr. Richards take an outside apprentice? Probably because they preferred to be left independent of business, and their

father was in a position to meet their wishes. In selecting for apprentice the son of the dyer to the firm, he had a regard to the sum which he would be willing to put down for the purchase of the business connection.

I have, I think, gone over all the more important points of variance between the hitherto accepted evidence regarding Mr. Richards and his family and the new evidence now brought forward. I know that my attempts to explain the difficulties are largely conjectural, and I am prepared to be set right where my explanations are unsatisfactory by those whose local knowledge is greater than my own. With regard to the vast amount of information contained in this book, I will not attempt to do more than to give a very brief summary under a few heads. To do justice to the subject would require all the skill and the patience of an expert in commerce.

Mr. Richards's largest transactions were in the Spanish trade, and the most important item was Spanish wool, classed as Leonesa, Segovia, Paullars, Santiago, &c., the price varying from ls. 3d. to 2s. 10d. a pound; but Vigonia, a wool of superior fineness used in the manufacture of hats, commanded the price of 4s. 9d. a pound. The bulk of the wool imported was re-exported to Spain and Portugal, as much as 9-10ths of the cloth manufactured in Colchester about 1656 going to those countries. It went in the form of long cloth, serges, bags and sags, hose, &c.

Bags and sags were introduced into the Eastern Counties by the Dutch Strangers who in 1565 fled from the tyranny of the Duke of Alva and were allowed to settle in Colchester for such services as are not usual with us." Their industry went by the name of the "New Draperies," to distinguish it from the "Old Draperies" (broad cloth, kersies, &c.), which had long flourished in Essex. "Bags was a kind of coarse woollen stuff which was exported to Spain, its chief use being for clothing the nuns and friars, and for linings in the Army. Sag" was much the same, but lighter. Perpetuana, in trade p.petts," Spanish for "durable," was also manulactured chiefly for the Spanish market.

66

Before the close of the 16th century the Dutchmen, who were respected for their honest dealing and great industry, had attained to a far greater substance than any of the markets of the town." The trade with Spain was much reduced by the war with that country in 1739, and very soon after the trade had in a great measure moved to the West Country and the North, where living was cheaper and coal plentiful. By 1784 the Dutch workers had all left the trade, many having become merged in the native population. An old Bag and Sag factory-now an almshouse-exists at Dedham, but of "Bag" or Sag" I was told that a sample or two of a few inches square is all that remains in some Museum of the actual old stuff.

66

One shipment by Mr. Richards, of 52 pieces of Colchester Bags, p. "Rose" galley, Abraham Le Mesurier, Master comprised "scarlets in grain, whitened, Emerald greens Reds, Blacks, Yellows, and deep Blews, Scarllet and Striped, and flowered Calamaucos (a glossy woollen stuff much used in the 18th century), comprising some of the very choicest of Norwich.' Other manufactures were women's scarlet and men's short black hose," mixed serges of Exon, men's short knitt Guernsey and women's Jersey hose, and Rowling Guernsey hose, to name only a few of Mr. Richards's dealings in woollen manufactures.

66

Next to wool the most valuable import was that of wine in the various qualities of Sherry or Xeres, Tents, Red Galician, which seems to have been allied to Red Port, Canary, Moinitani Malaga, &c. The Import duties were very heavy, amounting to half and sometimes as much as 2-3rds of the gross selling price on landing. Tavern keepers were large buyers, taking as a rule two to twelve butts at £25. Among the Taverns named are "The Salutation" at Billingsgate, the "Sun," Milk Street, the "Fountaine " in the Strand, the "Dolphin " in Tower Street.

Oil was an important item; one account is for 156 Butts and 73 hhds. and an ullage of Seville Oyle, value £4,540, and 110 gallons, sold to the trade in various quantities from 1

Butt (£21) to 12 Butts. Here again the general charges amounted to one-third of the landing price. Among other items Figgs, 505 cwt. sold for £444. Indigo, 160 barrels, sold at 23s. per cwt., this produce coming from Jamaica, from British Plantations and from S. Domingo. It was "forwarded to me by land carriage from Bristol by Lewis Casamajor." Cochineals-178. 6d. to 24s. 6d. a pound net. Musk-7s. 6d. per oz. Twelve barrels of Dantzig Tar were bought by Peter Hill, of Falmouth, for £15. One thousand quintals (a quintal is 200 pounds) of Merchantable Fish were delivered at Bilbao, in the "Two Friends" of Weymouth, Rd. Sturzaker Master, at a cost of £902, which included £60 for "running the Riske from Newfoundland."

The clock and watch makers of that time in London were Thomas Windmill (would he be the father of Windmill Street, Leicester Square ?) and Daniel Quares. One or the other furnished a large spring repeating clock at £56, and a gold repeating watch at £68. Furniture has the item, "12 armed chairs and 12 without, all blew Japaned and gilt," of Charles Eyre, £65. Quinine went by the name of Jesuits' Bark. Twenty hhds. of Tobacco (7,525 pds.) were bought from Tobias Bowles at 3 p. pound.. From Archangel were imported Candles, Wax and Tallows. Wheat was then an export, as we find a payment "to Jno. Radbourne of my fourth part of what his salt in France cost more than the corne he conveyed out from hence purchased."

The vessels which ran the risks of the voyage to Cadiz and to Bilbao crossing the Bay were mere cockles,-" galleys " very often. We come upon a new vessel to be built of 200 Tunns or thereabouts; of the ship "Union" of 120 Tunns; of the Rosario wrecked on the Lizard from Vigo, in connection with recovery of cargo, a business in which William Fry of Bristol, and Ralph Allen, Postmaster, were concerned.

In conclusion I think that in gratitude for the recovery of this book we may in all reverence end with the words in which the good old 'Squire began his work, "Laus Deo."

Some Unrecorded Deans of Wimborne

Minster.

By the Rev. Canon J. M. J. FLETCHER, M.A., R.D. (Read 11th December, 1917.)

THOSE of us whose privilege it has been to spend some time in "the Eternal City will have noticed that the Egyptian Obelisks, which once graced the entrance of heathen temples, now that they are transplanted in Rome, are surmounted by the Cross, the symbol of our Christian faith. The Pantheon, too, striking in

1

its rooflessness, where, in Rome's heathen days, the hosts of heaven were worshipped, has been transformed into a Christian Church. Similarly, it was by no means an uncommon practice, in olden days, when a nation embraced Christianity, to convert the sites of its former heathen superstition into places of Christian worship.2 An instance of

1. These huge four-sided monoliths, quarried from the red granite of Syene, originally stood in pairs at the entrances of the temples. They were, in a sense, reproduced in the brazen pillars, Boaz and Jachin, which were erected in the porch of Solomon's Temple; and, in all probability, suggested the twin towers which stand at the west end of many of our Gothic Cathedrals.

2. Cf. Gregory's Letter to Mellitus. Bede's Ecclesiastical History, Book I., Chapter 30.