82 THE SILK INDUSTRY IN WESSEX. 



especially to Sher borne, where Italian threads were largely 

 worked. Vere says that the weavers were putting down their 

 looms, and prophesies that in six months half of the mills in 

 the kingdom would be standing idle. Other correspondents 

 in London warn the Willmotts not to employ their people 

 on full time, but rather to go slowly in view of the deficiency 

 in raw materials, and Vere adds that 2501bs. to 3001bs. per 

 week of all sorts must be their limit. 



At this point the account books furnish us with a definite 

 statement as to the sums expended in wages. To cite an 

 example it appears that between June, 1789 and the same 

 month in 1790 the payments for wages averaged approxi- 

 mately 46 per week ; the highest amount was 112 and the 

 lowest 22, the latter representing Christmas week. The 

 " neat profit " of the trade during the same twelve months 

 was 863 ; but this was not the high Avater mark, as some years 

 were more prosperous. 



The year 1791 showed a favourable turn of fortune's wheel. 

 The mill at Westbury was working at high pressure, and many 

 new offers of silk were refused. On the margin of an account 

 book for July, 1791, is written Temps trop heureux pour 

 durer longtemps. Two years later there was a collapse of 

 the chief opposition in Sherborne. The correspondence 

 shows that in April, 1793, Mrs. Willmott was asked to help 

 several London firms whose silk remained unfinished at the 

 Abbey mill, or at its outlying silk-houses in Ilchester, Brad- 

 ford, and Tintinhull. Mrs. Smout now disappears from the 

 town, and the scene of her activities was sold to " people who 

 are entire strangers to the business," thus proving that the 

 stipulation in the Act of 1662, to which I have already re- 

 ferred, was still ignored by the Throwsters' Company. John 

 Willmott had intended to buy the vacant workshops ; but 

 they were sold, as he says, at an unreasonable price. I am 

 again indebted to Mr. Wildman for a few details which show 

 how the later history of the Abbey and the School and the 

 mill is interwoven. It appears that a part of the Abbey 

 silk mill formerly occupied the guest house of the monastery ; 



