262 
Clerk, Mr. R. Roberts, the day of action being laid subsequent 
to the Plaint, but the Company was afterwards successful and 
Orchard left the city. 
Harford, otherwise Harrup, Reed, Ambrose, Crosby, Joseph 
Cridland, James Garrett, James Conolly, James Pitman, Archi- 
bald Anderson, and Alex. Mason fell under the watchful eye of 
the Company and became freemen or left. Jno. Sherman, Joseph 
Mackdonack and Thos. Fear were also prosecuted. That an eye 
was kept on Nathaniel Needles was only natural. Peter Salmon 
lived as far away as Batheaston, but his offence was proved, and 
in the next year the Company prosecuted Robert Evans, Robert 
Jones, Patrick Butterfield and Robert Nimmo. The prosecution 
against Michael Wade in 1752, and also against Jones failed, they 
having been soldiers in the late war and enabled by Act 22 
George II. to exercise their trades in any place notwithstanding 
the customs and regulations in force therein. ‘The Bath Tailors 
who were not soldiers were not dismayed but fought continually. 
Patrick Judge pulled down his sign in token of defeat in 1756 
and left the city. 
In 1764 James Cosgrave, who had long been working as a tailor 
in Bath, was, after numerous warnings, prosecuted by the Com- 
pany in the Court of Record, Richard Prynne being their 
attorney, and on 4 December, 1764, judgment for £10 3s. 4d in 
all was pronounced against him. Cosgrave having apparently no 
money was put in prison from which he humbly petitions 11 Feb., 
1765, under the Insolvent Debtors’ Act, to be released, the whole 
of his real and personal estate being only £1 15s. 6d. 
The Tailors manfully attacked every offender, but at length 
the evil days came, and they fell, worn out more by their con- 
tinual lawsuits and the muddling of their legal adviser than from 
the want of justice of their case. The causes were two-fold— 
Matthew Evil had been bound apprentice to one Enoch Warren. 
Warren must have been an old man for he had paid his freedom 
fee in 1706. The world had not gone well with him, and about 


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