Middlemen in English Business 251 



One Gabriel Jars' statement at that time was that "the usage estab- 

 lished in all the mines" was "to give out the extraction of the metal 

 to entrepreneurs" who "employ(ed) workmen at wages" to ''work 

 according to their orders," and for some entrepreneurs to work them- 

 selves. The entrepreneurs bought the contracts at auction; the 

 adventures were sold by the "pitch." The workmen provided their 

 own tools, light and powder; the adventurers provided machinery 

 and ropes. Seven, eight or nine workmen were engaged for six 

 months per pitch. The contractors received a third, fourth, or fifth, 

 or .other fraction of the output.^ There was in this system a division 

 of risk between adventurer and entrepreneur; the former was a 

 capitalistic owner, the latter a capitalistic employer. 



The distribution of the ore and bar-tin derived its peculiarities from 

 the mining organization, the collection of the government excise on 

 tin, and the control of the trade by the London pewterers. At no 

 time did the miners form gilds or unions; they, also, preferred the 

 independence afforded by the tribute system, to the wage-system pure 

 and simple: both these facts made them poor bargainers with the 

 tin-buyers. They lacked unity of action as well as the means of 

 supporting themselves till the best market. As a result the merchants 

 acquired considerable control of the tin business by making advances 

 of capital to them and by acquiring doals. The Cornish miner stated 

 the necessity under which his class labored in 1677 with respect to the 

 regrating and ingrossing tin-merchants as follows: "We cannot sell, 

 or dispose of any Tinn until it be Coin'd, and we have not above two 

 Coinages a year; and there is such shuffling and dealing betwixt some 

 men that have been late in Great power and others of our Country, 

 with some Merchants in London, that it makes our Commodity of no 

 value, and we the poor labourers very miserable, and the Mine lye 

 unwrought for want of Monies or Credits ... to pay Workmen 

 and maintain our Families, . . . they (merchants) have so linkt 

 themselves together, that if I should offend one of them, all the rest 

 will be my Enemies, and then I and my family may starve."- 



Certain towns were "specially priviledged for the Coynages;" in 

 1602, for instance, they were Helston, Truro, Lostwithiel, and Liskerd. 

 The two coinages were held about Midsummer and Michaelmas. The 

 "coynage" was in the hands of special officers who maintained a 

 special room, assayed the tin, weighed and stamped it, and collected 



1 Jars, III, 202; cf. Pryce, 173-90. 

 * "Dialogue," 128. 



