264 Textiles and Textile Materials Trades 



"a general Liberty" to "wind and mix Wool of divers Countries 

 together;" which occasioned "faulty Cloth to be made."^ In these 

 early days when markets were so limited by the various obstacles 

 natural and artificial and when the people as a whole had so small a 

 capital store laid by for bad years, there was sound reason in the gen- 

 eral fear of the possible extortions by the engrosser. 



Provoked by such evils the paternal government interfered freely 

 with the broggers' operations. The act of 1552 aimed at controlling 

 them by the system of license. It made some effort to enforce the 

 act. In 1577 the Justices were ordered to bind over in £100 apiece 

 the "Broggers and buyers of wooll," that "neither they nor their heirs 

 shall at any time hereafter buy or bargain any manner of wools that 

 grow or hath grown within the county of Buckingham, but only such 

 quantity of wools as they buy themselves or their apprentices shall 

 yearly make in his own mansion house."- This was more stringent 

 than the license system and was occasioned by the failure of the license 

 through constant evasion. One common method of evasion was for 

 a brogger who could not get a license to pursue that vocation as 

 nominal agent of the larger wool-growers.^ 



Fortunately for the economic good of the Kingdom the execution 

 of this statute had fallen into abeyance by the time the Stuarts 

 ascended the throne. But James I was urged to revive the force of 

 the act, by the manufacturing interests, and he acceded to their de- 

 mands in 1616, not in total suppression of the wool-dealer, but licensing 

 certain middlemen and carriers who were to fill the stated orders of 

 certain poor and needy clothiers.'' But seven years later the Parha- 

 ment showed its disapproval of the King's policy by repealing^ the 

 Edwardian statute and nullifying the King's orders. This repeal 

 reopened the way for the developing organization of trade. 



During the hard years 1619 to 1623 the government interfered in a 

 different way, by ordering "the wooldealers not to store up wools, 

 thereby to enhance the price, but to sell them on moderate terms," 

 and offering as the justification of the order, that "those who have 

 saived in profitable times must now be content to lose for the pubUc 

 good till the decay of the trade be remedied."® This pointed to the 



1 Jour. H. Com., XII, 150. 



^ S. P. Dom., Eliz. CXV, 8; V. C. H., Bucks, II, 75, 128. 



3 S. P. Dom., Eliz. CXV, 14, 40; V. C. H., Suff. II, 258. 



•• Privy Council Register, 6/23, 1616, p. 321-2; 4/26, 5/12, 6/2. 



5 21 Jas. I., Cap. 28, Sec. 11. 



"Cal. S. P. Dom., 1619-23, 343. 



