Middlemen in English Business '" 283 



of the spinning wheel and loom.^ Pococke found that Cornwall and 

 Devon as late as 1750 had "few wheel carriages by reason of the 

 steep hills, but everything is carried either on hooks on each side 

 of the horses" or by "drags for drawing up the steep fields."- Like- 

 wise Kynder in 1663 found "noe highwaies or postwaies" in Derby- 

 shire and "the roads which existed were fit only for horses, not for 

 carriages, and for these they were impassable during the winter 

 months."^ 



The roads were improved during the seventeenth and eighteenth 

 centuries and wagon trains became more general. Market days were 

 characterized by the "whole array of packhorses and wUgons just 

 starting from or returning to the yard.""* Late in the eighteenth 

 century the west country train was described as follows: "Se\en 

 wagons at a time would leave Frome ... for London . 

 laden with bales. The clothiers of Mells and other adjacent villages 

 brought their goods to this centre, whence they were despatched to 

 town. Each wagon carried 140 pieces of cloth each valued at £14."^ 

 Such a train carrying about S70,000 worth of cloth was no inconsid- 

 erable traffic. 



Common carriers arose pari passu with the clothing trade. The 

 earliest records of common carriers are of the last decade of the four- 

 teenth century. They carried cloth between Oxford and London, 

 Winchester, and even distant Newcastle. The rate of charge for 

 carrying a pannier of about twenty-four pounds weight from Win- 

 chester to Oxford at this time was 4.25d.'' By the opening of the 

 eighteenth century a distinct class of public carriers had arisen. In 

 1637 the "Water Poet" described the conditions of carriage to and 

 from London. The carriers from very many and distant parts of 

 England had regular schedules of coming to London and leaving; 

 some had coaches and wagons. They lodged at regular places.'^ In 

 the cloth trade they had become differentiated from the clothiers.^ 

 Common carriers were defined in 1706 as "such as travel constantly 

 from their respecti\-e Counties to London and so back ; who are gener- 



1 V. C. H., Somers. II, 413; Hants, V, 429; Stevens, St. Mar>- Bourne, 11-12. 

 - Pococke, I, 135. 

 ' V. C. H., Derby, II, 185. 



'As at Tonedale, Wellington, Somerset; Humphreys, Hist. Wellington, 213; 

 V. C. H., Somers., II, 413. 



*Univ. Brit. Dir. (1793), III, 133. 



«^ Roger, Agr. and Pr., I, 660; II, 605, I. 



"The whole system is related in Taylor's Carriers Cosmography, 1637. 



^ Inference from an .^ct of Common Coimcil, 1678, given in !Maitland, II, 463. 



