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4½ to a family. The number of shipping cleared out from this port last year will at once give you an idea of the extent of its trade. There were 7840 vessels employed in exporting coal, coal-tar, and cinders; grind-stones, lead in all its forms; iron, wrought and cast; glass, pottery, bricks and tiles, particularly fire-bricks; colours, copperas, soda, butter, bacon, &c. and in importing timber, bar-iron, hemp and flax, seeds, corn, tallow, smelts, port-wine in vast quantities, and brandy; and West-India produce, brought by three or four ships yearly direct from Jamaica.
The manufactures of Newcastle, also, (including some other places on the river) are very numerous; they may be divided into two classes.—First; such as depend chiefly on the cheapness of fuel:
- 1. Glass-works; of these there are twenty-one on the river, at Newcastle, Lemington, and South Shields; where crown and broad window-glass, and flint green and common wine-bottles are made.
- 2. Potteries; of these there are seven employed in the manufactory of Queen's-ware, and some others for coarse and common ditto.
- 3. Iron-works; which divide themselves into, 1st. the extensive wrought-iron work (the largest in the kingdom) called Crawley's, where every thing is made, from the heaviest anchor to the
