Middlemen in English Business 179 



man; and (c) the change in kinds of Hquor drunk, \iz., to beer and 

 porter, required storage for a period of time. 



This tendency toward differentiation of employments in the Hquor 

 trade continued, but in the third quarter of the century an integra- 

 tion resembhng the modern method of conducting the trade was well 

 on its way. This was the ownership and estabhshment of retail shops 

 over the Kingdom by the brewers and distillers themselves. It was 

 described by a contemporary as follows: "the common Brewers and 

 Distillers, who, not contented with such Trade and Gain as might 

 fairly and spontaneously arise, are known to buy up paltry Houses 

 and settle Retailes in every little Parish, as well as in every Town and 

 City, and for fear there should be a Place in the Kingdom, exempt 

 from their Advantage, we have scarce a Village without some of their 

 Cottages and Huts . . . "^ This practice indicates that the 

 malt-distillers and brewers had become powerful capitahsts. Their 

 rapidly increasing business and their limited number made possible 

 profits that outran the profits of other trades. And the control of 

 the retailing of their goods, by ownership of the shops, aggrandized 

 their power over the corn, malt and liquor markets.- 



Their purchases of corn were so large that in 1756 and later years 

 during periods of dearth, prohibitions were laid by law^ against 

 making low wines and spirits from wheat, barley, malt, or any other 

 sort of grain, or from meal or flour. These acts were passed for two 

 reasons, first, that the consumption of so necessary an article of food 

 in the form of liquor was harmful because it lessened the food supply, 

 and, secondly, because it increased the number of buyers of corn and, 

 therefore, the price of corn beyond what the poor and needy were 

 able to pay. The distillers usually bought through factors on the 

 Corn Exchange and other markets, and in such large bulks that their 

 purchases had a considerable effect on the prices prevailing there.'' 



From the sixteenth century onward the brewers were considered 

 among the big buyers on the corn markets. In Coventry in 1520 

 some 68 brewers were consuming weekly in their trade 146 quarters 

 of corn, i.e. about 16 bushels each a week.'' Various ones of them 

 were charged with forestalling and regrating barley in 1544. The 



^ ' View of real grievances," 33. 

 ' Considerations on the Present," 10. 



^m Geo. II, Caps. 10 and 15; 31 Geo. II, Cap. 1; 32 Geo. II, Cap. 2; 33 Geo. 

 II, Cap. 4. 



^Gent. Mag., 1759: 631. 



5 Coventr>' Leet Bk. ed. Dormer-Harris, I, 160; V. C. H., Warw., 11, 267. 



