A HISTORY OF CORNWALL the one purchasing the ore from the miner, 1 and having it blown at one of the houses, or perhaps himself a smelter ; the other purchasing and re- selling the tin when smelted. 2 The presence of these men gave rise to an interesting system of money advances, which has left traces even at the present day. 3 Let us begin by a review of the conditions as they are depicted by Carew. ' When a western gentleman,' says the latter, 'wants money to defray his expenses at London, he goes to a tin ^merchant for a loan. Usually he has to give bond for a thousand-weight of tin for every 20 he borrows, the said tin to be delivered at the next coinage. 4 But the business goes still farther. The merchant, that he may be sure to have tin for his money at the time of coinage, lays out great sums beforehand unto owners of tin works, who are bound to deliver for the same so many thousands of tin as the money shall amount to after the price agreed upon at the coinage. To them resorts the poor labourer desiring some money before the time of his payment at the coinage time. The other at first says he has none . . . and in the end ... he delivers to him wares instead of money, and the labourer is under bond to deliver tin at the coinage. And this extreme dealing of the London merchants and country chapmen in white tin is imitated by the wealthier sort of dealers in black tin. 8 ' The wealthier tinners, laying out part of their money beforehand, buy black tin from the poor labourers at so much per mark, i.e., look how many marks there are in the price made at the coinage for the thousand-weight, so many two- pence halfpenny, threepence, or fourpence, partly after the goodness, and partly according to the hard conscience of the one and the necessity of the other, shall he have for the foot, as if the price 26 13*. ifd. per thousand- weight, therein are forty marks, then shall the poor tinner get of him who deals most friendly, per foot of black tin, forty times fourpence, or 20 per thousand- weight, and less for the worst.' 8 These facts, besides being recognized by stannary law itself, 7 receive confirmation from other writers of the same period. Beare, who wrote in 1586, corroborates the account, 8 and further particulars even have been added by a manuscript of the year I595- 9 The result of the system under which the merchants at the top drove hard bargains with the dealers in black tin, 1 Harl. MS. 6380, fol. 35. ' S.P. Dora. Eliz. ccliii, 46.
- ' West Barbary,' by L. L. Price, Journ. Roy. Statist.
Soc.li, 532, 533. 4 Carew, Survey of Cornwall (ed. 181 1), 48. 5 Carew, Survey of Cornwall (ed. 1 8 1 1), 49. 6 Ibid. 50. 7 Smirke, Vice . Thomas, App. 58. Presentment of Customs, Tywarnhail, 1 604. 8 Harl. MS. 6380, fol. 109. ' Lansd. MS. 76, fol. 34. S.P. Dom. Eliz. ccliii, 46. or directly with the gentlemen ad venturers or small independent miners, and the adventurers repeated the operation upon their dependents, was the de- pression of the labourer. 10 Thus in 1 5 86 the wage worker received but 3 a year for the working of a dole, from which he was obliged to support himself and family. 11 Raleigh, a few years later, according to his own claims, was instrumental in getting this raised from 2s. to 41. per week. 12 In 1602 Carew mentions the wages of the 'hireling as 8d. per day, or from 4. to 6 per annum.' 1! In 1 667, coincident with the gradual rise in wages throughout England, we find that the pickman received Js. per week, where formerly he had had four, the common tinner 5*. in place of three, and others 45. instead of two and a half. 14 Already the evils of this system of tin purchase had become so notorious that the preemption monopolies then projected were actuated largely by the humane motive of freeing the miners from the London merchants by supplying them with a permanent market. Pursued intelligently, this plan might have borne good fruit ; but, as it was frequently interrupted, it subjected the stannary system to repeated and violent wrenches, causing the tinners to forfeit their bonds 16 to the dealers, and giving them much hardship in other ways. The terms, besides, under which the monopolists purchased the miners' product were rarely generous, 16 although in many cases pro- vision was made for a loan fund, upon which the stannary workers might draw in advance upon security of tin. 17 The weight, of course, which bore the tinners down, was the fact that they could not sell their product save twice a year, at the coinages ; and this becomes apparent during the brief period of the Commonwealth, when the coinage system fell into disuse. 18 The removal of all restriction 10 The plight of the tin-mine owners, caught, as it were, between the exactions of the dealers and the difficulties in mine drainage, was like that of the colliery owners at the same period (Galloway, Annals of Coal Mining and the Coal Trade, 151; Cal. S. P. Dom. 1637-1638, 387). The lead smelters in Yorkshire similarly preyed upon the lead miners (Malynes, Lex Mercatoria (ed. 1622), 269). 11 Harl. MS. 6380, fol. 57. 11 Dewes, Parliamentary Debates, 299. 13 Carew, Survey of Cornwall (ed. 1811), 34. This would be about the wage of unskilled labour (Rogers, History of Agriculture and Prices in England, vi, 623). 14 From an old manuscript volume in the Duchy of Cornwall Office. See also Westcote, View of Devon, 52, 53 ; Norden, Sfeculi Britanniae Pars, 12. 15 S. P. Dom. Mary, iv, 5. Cotton MS. Titus B. v, fol. 402. S. P. Dom. Jas. I, viii, 136. 16 Lansd. MS. 1,215, fol - 226-230. S. P. Dom. Eliz. cclxxiii, 74 ; cclxxxvi, 26. Receivers' Rolls, 1 1 & 1 3 Jas. I, 9 Chas. I. 17 Lansd. MS. 24, fols. 44, 47, 48, 50. S. P. Dom. Eliz. cclxxxvi, 26. Add. MS. 6713, fol. 437- 442. Treas. Papers, ccviii, 30. 18 The Tinners' Grievance. 558
