Middlemen in English Business 229 



required to take turns at loading and to lie at anchor at least ten 

 days.' To effect this latter arrangement there was also an agreement 

 to the same effect with the coal-owners and Hostmen of Sunderland. 



Similar devices for hmiting the vend were in use in 1794 and 1800 

 as those described in the years 1603 and 1616.- 



Neglecting the opportunity that the monopoly of the Hostmen and 

 coal-owners gave for effecting combinations of the sort described, an 

 economic cause must be recognized for their formation in the fact that 

 collieries had to be kept in regular operation or abandoned. The 

 operation of the mines had to be continuous and all fluctuations in the 

 supply reduced to a minimum. Cutthroat competition was par- 

 ticularly damaging. The limitation of the vend by these various 

 combinations undoubtedh' effected an economic good to the trade 

 and the commonwealth. 



Ship-Owner and Ship-Master. 



Until Charles II's Dutch Wars, Ipswich was the great center of 

 collier-shipbuilding. It built colUers that would "reign" for forty 

 or fifty years, as employed in the Newcastle-London coal trade. It 

 was also the town where most of the masters of these ships dwelt. 

 But during the War of 1668 so many Dutch flyboats were captured 

 and entered in the Enghsh register and in the coal trade, for the 

 interests of the Yarmouth and London merchants, that Ipswich lost 

 its pre-eminence.^ 



In 1702-4 nine ports had more ships than Ipswich and three had 

 greater tonnage.'* Yarmouth and London owned the larger number^ 



iSurtees, 105:196, 197. 



2 See very ample description in Surtees, 105: XLIII-XLIV; and in the testi- 

 mony, Rep. from Com. H. C, X, 552; on page 572 is a tabular view of the vend of 

 coals in use in 1800. 



3 Defoe, Tour., I, 32. 



^The following table is made from data in Brand, II, 677: 



A veragc 

 City Ships Chaldrons Tonnage City Ships 



London 168 11,230 67 Haystings 33 



Yarmouth 211 13,272 63 HuU 28 



Whitby 98 6,385 65 Lynn 74 



Ipswich 40 5,774 144 Margett 24 



Ramsgate 42 2,147 51 Scarborough 54 



Newcastle 71 5,567 78 Stockton 27 



Bridlington 48 1,374 28 Sunderland 32 



Brighton 56 1,527 29 Wells 34 



Colchester 25 1,227 48 Other Ports 



1,277 68,219 



