62 History of Inland Transport 



petition to the House of Commons. This petition of " the 

 Overseers and Rulers of the Company of Watermen, together 

 with their whole society," declared that their " trade or art 

 of rowing on the water hath been long reputed very useful 

 to the Commonwealth"; that the Company had, "ever since 

 their incorporation, been a nursery to breed up seamen " ; 

 that, after serving " the Commonwealth's special service at 

 sea," they found that " the art affordeth but a small livelihood 

 to them, and that with hard labour " ; and 



" That of late your petitioners' art is rendered more con- 

 temptible than formerly, and their employment much lessened 

 and impoverished, by reason of the strange increase of hackney 

 coaches, which have multiplied from about three hundred 

 to a thousand, in eleven years last past, whereby people are 

 discouraged from binding their sons apprentice to the trade 

 of a waterman, and if remedy be not speedily had, there will 

 not be a sufficient number of watermen to supply the service 

 of the Commonwealth at sea, 1 and also your petitioners and 

 families utterly ruined. 



" That of late some rich men about the city, keep very many 

 hackney coaches to the great prejudice, as your petitioners 

 humbly conceive, of the Commonwealth, in that they make 

 leather dear, and their horses devour so much hay and corn ; 

 and also they do so fester the streets as that by sad experience 

 divers persons are in danger of their lives, by reason of the 

 unskilfulness of some of them that drive them, besides many 

 other inconveniences which are too large to be here inserted." 



Therefore the petitioners humbly prayed that Parliament 

 would limit the number of such coaches. 



No immediate action seems to have been taken ; but, 

 continuous complaints being made as to the obstructions 

 caused by the hackney coaches, a proclamation was issued 

 on November 7, 1660, by Charles II., to the effect that hackney 

 coaches should no longer come into the streets to be hired. 

 The proclamation had so little effect that on July 20, 1662, 

 the watermen sent a petition to the House of Lords, once more 

 recounting their grievances. The House named certain Lords 

 who were to consider the matter and report ; but Henry 



1 So numerous were or had been the Thames watermen and lighter- 

 men that, according to Stow, they could at any time have furnished 20,000 

 men for the fleet. 



