Exploring Expedition into England. 95 



Up to this time the business had been confined, 

 with few exceptions, to goods from the home potteries. 

 This laid them under great disadvantage, from their 

 not having the variety of English goods which some 

 competing firms were able to offer. Though their 

 trade was limited to the commoner class of goods, 

 their dealings were in a great measure wholesale, 

 supplying the small shops and itinerant dealers. As 

 with the growth of their trade they felt the want of 

 English goods more and more, and as the new 

 alliance made the absence of one or other of the 

 partners feasible, it was now resolved that Robertson 

 should go to the Staffordshire potteries. He did not 

 know much about the goods that he was to purchase, 

 further than what he had seen in other places of 

 business in Glasgow. They had, moreover, very little 

 capital to spare from the immediate requirements of 

 their trade at home. But, as it was only a few odd 

 leading things that they wanted, and a few samples 

 of anything new, that they could order from if they 

 saw they were likely to take, it was not much money 

 that was required. The chief object was to find out 

 where and by whom such and such things were made 

 so that they could order when needed. Accordingly 

 the senior partner left home with twenty pounds. 



In 1841, the year of this expedition, trains were 

 not yet running from Scotland to England, and the 

 passage from Glasgow to Liverpool was commonly 

 by steamer. The boat that Robertson went by left 

 on a Saturday, at 8 p.m. The night turned out to be 

 rather stormy, and, as he had never been on the sea 

 further than from Glasgow to Millport, about forty 



