Middlemen in English Business 137 



E. Carrier. 



The other corn-buyer mentioned in the statute against ingrossers 

 was the carrier. There are recorded references of common carriers from 

 the last decade of the fourteenth century.^ At first they were engaged 

 to carry cloth from towns, whose gilds produced surplus supplies, to 

 colleges, etc. Their vocation gradually extended with the rising 

 commerce of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to other commodi- 

 ties, and by this statute they were carrying corn. By the beginning 

 of the eighteenth centur}' it had become the general practice among 

 the carriers to deal in the commodity as well as carry. A critic of the 

 time (1718) said 



It is also common, though a ver}- ill custom, foi Waggoners, Carriers, and others 

 employed in conveying Provisions to London, by any sort of Carriage, not to con- 

 tent themselves with the reasonable Profit arising by such an Employ, but to 

 turn Hucksters and Dealers in any kind of those Provisions, which it should be 

 their sole Business to convey to the ^larket; they having by their quick and fre- 

 quent passing and repassing between Town and Country, a better opportunity of 

 knowing how the Markets are like to rise and fall; and by these means they easily 

 draw off a considerable, though a \ery unjust gain, out of all Provisions of this 

 kind.- 



In the days when the means of communication were so poor that 

 the dispatcher knew less of the market than the carrier, every oppor- 

 tunity was open to the latter to supplant his employer; he visited the 

 markets, he carried the letters and reports of markets, sales and 

 orders, he had the vehicles, and knew the routes: these conditions 

 facilitated his rise to dealer. The steps were private-carrier, common- 

 carrier, and dealer-carrier, successively. It was this quality of dealer 

 that was condemned by the above-mentioned statute and critic. 



LICENSE. 



Before tracing farther the course of the corn in the market, it is fit- 

 ting to view the general policy of internal commerce of corn and the 

 restrictions laid on the corn-buyers. The laws, in this respect, that 

 were in existence and service at the opening of the century to which 

 especial attention is given in this study were the laws of 1552 and 1562, 

 of Edward VI and Elizabeth respectively, against ingrossers, re- 

 graters and forestallers. The legislative ideal of the day was 'from 

 farm and shop to consumer.' The legislator sought to eliminate 



1 Rogers, Ag. and Pr., 1, 660. 



• "Essay against Forestallers," 17-18. 



