412 Tradesman and Merchant — Commercial Population 



It appears that during the last quarter of the seventeenth century 

 four-fifths of the apprentices were recruited outside the Newcastle 

 population, and two-fifths during the eighteenth century. This is 

 teUing evidence of the process of urbanization. The rural folk of 

 Durham, Northumbria and York were entering largely into mercantile 

 life. Mantoux has shown also that in the Industrial Revolution after 

 1760 the capitalist-manufacturer class was likcAvise recruited, not 

 particularly from the " industriels" of the first half of the century, 

 but from these rural people and gentry.^ 



The conclusion is that the trading population was not only differ- 

 entiating from the crafts and within itself, but was being recruited in 

 numbers, capital, energy and respect by increments of the best EngHsh 

 stock — ^the freeholders of the country. 



THE COMMERCIAL POPULATION — ITS NUMBERS. 



It appears that the commercial population of England was increas- 

 ing both relatively and absolutely during the century preceding the 

 Industrial Revolution. Although the Mercantile Theory and PoKcy 

 emphasized the importance of a large population to the national 

 strength, there was no consensus of opinion as to whether it was 

 desirable or not to have a relative increase in the commercial popula- 

 tion. Coke in 1671 set it down as the thirty-sixth of his prefatory 

 petitions that the retail trade of England was managed by many 

 more persons than were necessary.^ He claimed that though the trade 

 of Amsterdam handled ten times the value of goods that the trade of 

 London did, yet the retailers of London were twenty times more 

 numerous.' Somewhat the same con\dction was expressed by another 

 observer who said there were in 1673 "five times as many of most 

 trades as were . . . twenty or thirty years agoe . . . and 

 thereby . . . trade . . . [was] more diffused."^ Apparently 

 the Civil War and Revolution had shaken up the whole industrial 

 order and broken tne restraints of trade. 



Fifty years later the same phenomena were noticed and commented 

 upon. A writer in 1721 declared that In his opinion England had two- 



1 Mantoux, 380-2. 



- Coke, Treatise, (Preface). 



^ Coke, Treatise, 69. Coke cited Sir Charles Harbord as authority, but further 

 said: "I . . . am content to make good all which is said hereon, before any 

 legal Judicature," 112. The statement appears to be an exaggeration; but shows 

 the conviction of a contemporary observer. 



■* "Grand Concern of England," 50. 



