Middlemen in English Business 323 



7'he function of the draper who did a wholesale business arose from 

 the fact that the foreign linens were imported in very large packages, 

 each containing a variety of assortments; the importer kept a ware- 

 house and not a shop and sold these packages as a whole. But the 

 variety and quantity in such a package was greater than any retailer 

 \\ashed; the importer therefore sold to the wholesale hnen-draper who 

 sold, in convenient packages, to the retailers. In case of export, he 

 likewise assembled and packed the large bulks of various linens and 

 sold to the exporter.^ In connection \\'ith the Irish markets a class of 

 "packers" were appointed to serve drapers and others there. - 



The linen-merchants were importers and exporters of cloth. They 

 operated in London, Liverpool, and other large ports of the Isles and 

 Continent. Goods were carried by land and sea; the costs by sea 

 from Dublin were less than by land from Li\"erpool.^ In the rural 

 parts the linen which the drapers procured from the merchants was 

 disposed of to the "countrey-pedlers."^ Such travelling merchants 

 also carried Scotch linen into northern England. The merchants 

 sometimes conducted a clandestine trade with the colonies of other 

 nations.^ The export trade from England was not usually conducted 

 by the same merchants that imported the Unen.'^ 



1 "Letter from ^Merchant," 57-8. 



-Gent. Mag., 1746:657. 



^ Rep. from Com. H. C, II, 291. 



^Surtees, 33: 106. 



' "Letter from Merchant," 70, 72. 



* "Reflections and Considerations," 1738, p. 8. 



