Middlemen in English Business 133 



population of England.^ This remarkable urbanization had a marked 

 effect upon the marketing of corn and the government policy relating 

 to the corn trade. London practically ceased exporting corn and 

 began importing, especially in times of dearth.- A corn-importing 

 middleman organization was developed. The metropolitan consump- 

 tion necessitated the development of a coastwise corn-supply and a 

 foreign corn-supply business. The former sources of supply by way 

 of the Thames and Ware and by land-transport proved insufficient.' 

 Coastwise vessels at first came chiefly from Kent, but by the middle 

 of the seventeenth century large numbers were listed in the London 

 Port Books from Essex, Suffolk, Yarmouth, Lynn, Hull and New- 

 castle-upon-Tyne, on the east coast, and from Southants, Devon, 

 Cornwall and South Wales, on the south coast. The total number of 

 shipments more than quadrupled meanwhile. This abnormal devel- 

 opment of London caused a most important shift in the internal trade 

 and markets. Metropolitan prices became highest; prices on sur- 

 rounding markets tended to \^ary inversely as the distance from Lon- 

 don.^ The more localized markets tended to yield to the metropoli- 

 tan influence. Those counties with better facilities of transport to 

 London found their prices rising and conforming to the London scale; 

 as prices rose and as the means of carriage were improved the London 

 market area was extended. 



The Restoration period, 1660 to 1689, witnessed a reversal in the 

 direction of foreign corn trade. The necessity of importing corn for 

 London's consumption ceased. Instead, London became an exporting 

 port. The organization of importing merchants and distributors was 

 supplanted by an organization of exporters. The operations of ex- 

 porters and importers are described under the head " Corn Merchant," 

 below. To whatever market or port the corn came it appears to have 

 passed through practically the same series of middlemen; but, by 

 reason of the larger volume of traffic, the middleman organization in 

 connection with the London market was more extensive, clear-cut 

 and specialized. So for various reasons it will be more satisfactory to 

 trace out with more detail the refinements of the system whereby 

 London was supplied. 



1 See Estimates in Chap. VII; also, Blackwoods Mag. 1891: 495. 



^ Stow, Survey, 368. 



3 Rep. XVIII, 75b (17 Sept. 1573). 



*This is evident by even casual glances at Haughton's prices 1691-1702 and 

 might be statistically computed from these data, as Young did from data gathered 

 some decades later: see Chap. \'II on "Location" of the commercial classes. 



