426 Tradesman and Merchant — Commercial Popidation 



1685-1700 1700-1760 



Bristol 29,000= 95,0003 



48,0001 100,0003 



Liverpool 4,000* 30,0005 



6.000* 35, 0005 



25,787" 



Dublin 69.0001 94,000« 



The provincial manufacturing towns of the north were making 

 very rapid progress after 1700. The estimates of the population 

 indicate that they grew much faster than the old manufacturing 

 towns like Norwich. • 



1685-1700 1700-1760 



Manchester 6,000^ 40,000» 



50,0008 

 40,0009 

 45,0009 



Leeds 7,OOOio 



Sheffield 4,000i^' 40,0009 



Birmingham 4,0001" 30,0009 



Norwich 28,000^ 56,000* 



29,0008 58,0008 



()0,0009 



Bristol had long enjoyed the second position among the British 

 cities with respect to trade. In 1760 it had about one-seventh the 

 population and trade of the metropolis. ^^ It was the most independent 

 and developed entrepot, except London.^- The consumption by its 

 large population and extensive commerce to the interior rendered it a 

 port where merchants could dispose of their whole cargoes in bulk; all 

 other ports, Liverpool excepted, had to divide the return cargoes 

 of their merchants with London, and make up part of their export 

 cargoes there.^^ The shopkeepers of Bristol did a great wholesale 

 trade among the western counties and Wales. They distributed over 

 a region extending from Southampton to the Trent, and including 



1 Anderson, Origin, II, 578: IV, 690. 



2 Macaulay, I, 314. 



3 Macpherson, III, 322. 



* Macaulay, I, 320; Lecky, I, 324. 



" Lecky, I, 214; Macpherson, III, 323. 



^ Macpherson, III, 323. 



7 Bourne, Eng. Mer., 331. 



8 Lecky, I, 214. 



9 Macpherson, III, 322-3. 



10 Macaulay, I, 315, 318, 319. 



11 Compare Owen, Br. Depict., 141 with the above tables of population. 

 . 12 "Atlas Mar. et Com.," 14. 



13 Defoe. Tour, II, 249. 



