Middlemen in English Business 297 



in 1692 said there were about thirty factors.^ It seems that they 

 grew rapidly into wealth and power, for as early as 1677 instances 

 were given where some had risen from low circumstances to be worth 

 from £5,000 to £10,000 the man,^ and by 1685 some of them were 

 worth £40,000 or £50,000.^ 



The first factors were likely some clothiers or clothworkers with 

 whom other clothiers had left their residue of cloths from one market 

 till a later market. As stated above, the clothier sometimes author- 

 ized the keeper to sell the cloths in the interim, specifying a certain 

 price at which he might sell. This authorization was the wedge by 

 which the factor entered the trade and seized upon his limited func- 

 tion. In order to make sales the keeper would abate the price a few 

 pence per yard below the price specified by the clothier. This dif- 

 ference in price was sufl&cient motive for the preference which the 

 buyer thereafter showed for buying from the keeper. To secure sales 

 the clothier was then forced to sell through the keepers, who set up as 

 regular factors and thus "usurped the sole power of selling the cloth- 

 ier's cloth, both for what price, and for what time, and to whom they 

 pleased."'* 



Several circumstances at once operated to strengthen and establish 

 the factor in this his so-called usurped place. The convenience real- 

 ized by both clothier as seller and by merchant or draper as buyer, 

 through the instrumentahty of this factor made them prone to a 

 passive compliance, for they could then devote themselves to their 

 more proper employments.^ But this separation of clothier and 

 merchant lessened the merchant's judgment of cloth, a judgment 

 which his daily practice of examining cloth in the Hall had heretofore 

 trained and maintained, and consequently the merchant became de- 

 pendent upon the factor as a specialist in judging the qualities of 

 cloth. ^ The factor used his profits sometimes to buy materials and 

 employ woolworkers and became in part a clothier; this gave him an 

 economic advantage by which he could undersell any clothier who 

 persisted in selling his cloth himself and could force himself into the 

 clothier's employ.'^ And further, the factor could make or break a 



' See page 4. 



''"A Treatise of Wool and Cattle," 16; also quoted in Smith, Memoirs, I, 316 

 3 "A Treatise of Wool," 17, 26. 



* "Ancient Trades decayed," 16, quoted in Smith, Memoirs, I, 322. 

 ■ 5 "A Treatise of Wool and Cattle," 17. 

 *" Clothiers Complaint," 6-7. 

 ■> Ibid., 6. 



