300 Textiles and Textile Materials Trades 



wool, etc., and by that means, made them answer in Trade almost as 

 well as cash itself. The factors thus stripped of the most valuable 

 part of their business, immediately concerted such measures as ren- 

 dered the whole Act ineffectual — This was done, by tampering with 

 those of the Trade whose circimistances were most precarious who, 

 induced by the Promise of speedy Sale for their Goods, prior to those 

 of any other Maker, were easily prevailed upon to forego the Advan- 

 tage of the Notes granted them by Parliament. This fatal Precedent 

 being once set, the Factors instantly exacted a like Compromise from 

 all the rest; and if any refused not one Piece of their Cloth was sold. 

 This important Point carried .... they again allowed the 

 Drapers such unreasonable Credit, that it was impossible for the most 

 substantial Clothier to carry on the Trade, while the Returns were so 

 slow and precarious. On an universal Complaint therefore of this 

 grievance, they graciously condescended to insure the Debt to be 

 paid twelve Months after it was contracted; but in Return of so great 

 a favor, insisted on two and a half per cent as a Reward; and if any 

 was rash or stubborn enough to disrelish or oppose this new Imposi- 

 tion, he had the Mortification to wait six months longer for his money, 

 that is to say, a year and a half in all."^ Though this quotation 

 savors of hostihty it is testimony sufficient that the credit practices 

 of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were akin and alike, and 

 were in part used to press the clothier and merchant into alignment 

 with the factor; and though subject to obvious abuses the credit sys- 

 tem operated to the distinct advancement of the cloth and wool trade 

 by synchronizing the times of payment. 



Each of the factors in the Hall served many clothiers and merchants. 

 They truckled to the wealthier to the end of a larger business but the 

 exactions they could levy upon the smaller clothier made him quite as 

 profitable a principal. Each clothier dealt regularly through one or 

 more factors: he consigned his cloths to and drew inland bills of ex- 

 change upon his factor or factors for the proceeds; if the draft appeared 

 before sale had been made the factor used his discretion in advancing 

 money to his clothier.- The clothier might act as his own carrier; 

 but as early as 1706 a very extensi\'e system of common carriers had 



^ "Case of the Clothiers and Weavers," quoted in Smith, Memoirs, II, 310-11; 

 tliis was written by one who signed himself Trowbridge and first published in a 

 paper called "Old Common Sense" from which it was copied in the Gentleman's 

 Magazine, q. v. 1739:89-90, 126. 



- For the advantages and disadvantages of this system of consignment and 

 exchange as then operated, see Defoe, Com. Eng. Tr., I, 280 ct seq. 



