388 Tradesman and Merchant — Commercial Population 



London from the first was the center of exchange with respect to 

 the Isles.^ During the last century under study the financial center 

 of Europe tended to shift from Amsterdam to London, but at the close 

 of the eighteenth century Amsterdam was still paramount.- Many 

 Dutch Jews had migrated to London and brought along their business 

 of exporting and importing specie and of exchange.^ 



The banks of London took care of all bills made payable at the 

 banks, or in London and indorsed to the banks and deposited with 

 them.^ This relieved the merchants from much business detail. 

 Another agency, which antedated the banks,^ and which was of marked 

 assistance to the merchants in procuring and selling exchange, was 

 the brokers.^ Brokers of merchandise contrived, made and con- 

 cluded bargains and contracts between the merchants English and 

 merchants strangers. In the early seventeenth century they began 

 to negotiate exchanges.'^ The Lombards and goldsmiths did likewise. 

 Brokers of exchange . were defined by Scarlett as "Persons . . . 

 to inquire of Persons that have any monyes to remit or to draw, and 

 to agree such persons concerning the Conditions."** Because they 

 lent themselves to usurious bargaining they were at first rather dis- 

 reputable, but by the middle of the eighteenth century they had 

 estabHshed themselves as a "considerable Body of Men and of vast 

 Credit" and the word of some would "pass upon the 'Change for some 

 Hundreds of Thousands."^ Their particular service to commerce 

 was to reduce the rate of exchange below what it would be if mer- 

 chants were to transact the business directly with one another; for, 

 being interested in concealing their transactions from one another, 

 they could not so well understand the situation of the market.^*' The 

 number of brokers on the Royal Exchange was unlimited and their 



1 Roberts, Map, 256; Scarlett, Stile, 363; Justice, Gen. Tr., 90; Browne, Appeal, 

 15; La Touche, Letters, 5; "Interest of Scot," 100; Defoe, Com. Eng. Tr., I. 282- 

 5; Bisschop, Rise, 31-6, 43, 68-138, 139-40. 



2 Ricard, I, 199. 



^ "Further Considerations," 47-8. 

 ^ Beawes, Lex Mer. Red., 363-4. 

 ^ 2 Jas. I, Cap. 21. 



^ -A.t the opening of the fifteenth century ordinances were laid against fraudulent 

 brokers of exchange. Lib. Alb., I, 368. 



' 2 Jas. I, Cap. 21, Sec. 1; Roberts, Map, 47. 

 ^ Scarlett, Stile, 8. 



' Cf. Liber Albus, III, 145 with Campbell, 296, for social position of brokers. 

 10 AUdridge, Uni. :\ler., 93, 125-6, 199-200; Lawson, 28. 



