128 HISTORY OF BRIDPORT. 



copy of the will of John Clench, made in the year 1313, which 

 is among the Corporation documents, we have several legacies 

 of "bottels of hemp." In the 16th of Edward II. the late 

 sheriff of Dorset petitioned the King and parliament complaining 

 that he had been disallowed 79s. which he had paid for the 

 expenses of 6 ropers proceeding from Bridport to !N"ewcastle-upon- 

 Tyne, sent, perhaps, to instruct the people there in the art of 

 ropemaking. But, however this may be, and whether any rivalry 

 was established there or not, we find that the trade continued in 

 Bridport ; in the Corporation documents land cultivated with 

 hemp and flax is mentioned in the reign of Edward III. more than 

 once, and " Searchers of flax and hemp" are named in the 17th of 

 Richard II. ; and an Act of Parliament of 21 Henry VIII., after 

 " setting forth that they had, time out of mind, used to make 

 within the town, for the most part, all the great cables, ropes, 

 hawsers, and all other tackling for the royal navy, and the most 

 part of other ships within this realm," "enacted that hemp growing 

 within five miles of the town shall be sold there, on forfeiture of the 

 hemp if sold in any other place within that distance ; and that no 

 person but the inhabitants only shall make cables, &c., within the 

 said distance, except for their own use, upon forfeiture of them." 

 This Act was continued by 2 other Acts of Henry VIII., 2 of Edward 

 VI., 1 of Mary, 5 of Elizabeth, 1 of James I., and 1 of Charles 

 I. Such Acts of Parliament would now be out of date, and 

 contrary to our more enlightened ideas and practice, but, notwith- 

 standing the loss of such adventitious aids, the trade remains, and 

 will yet remain, we may hope, for many a long year to come. The 

 intimate connection of the trade with the place in by-gone times 

 is exemplified by the old proverb, with reference to a man's being 

 hanged, that he is stabbed with a Bridport dagger, the metaphorical 

 meaning of which Ldand does not appear to have understood 

 when he said " At Bridporth be made good daggers." And the line, 

 "Ones a yere some taw halters of Burporte," that occurs in Hycke 

 Scorner, an old morality which Dr. Percy supposes was printed 

 early in the reign of Henry VIII, is another proof of the staple 



