A HISTORY OF CORNWALL 



say nothing of many others, 1 is one of great 

 antiquity. It certainly existed in 1778, for it 

 is described at that time by Pryce. ' Mining,' 

 he says, ' is so expensive and uncertain that few 

 Cornish mines are carried on at the risk of one 

 or two persons. Many partners are united ; 

 four, ten, sixteen, twenty-four, or thirty-two in 

 number.' 2 He then describes the meetings of 

 these companies, the familiar cost-book system 

 being the one almost invariably employed, and the 

 funds of the adventurers being vested in a purser, 

 as we have seen. ' Deep and chargeable mines 

 are carried on by persons of fortune or great skill, 

 but shallow mines are occupied indifferently by 

 such, or by the labouring miners, and, frequently, 

 by both.' 3 



He then proceeds to speak of the wages system. 

 ' It is a good and customary way 4 for the owners 

 to set their dead ground, either in or out of the 

 lode, to be sunk, driven, sloped, or cut down by 

 the fathom, but if there is no choice in respect to 

 saving the ore drawn, or the like, they set it to 

 be sunk . . . upon tut that is, a piece or part 

 of unmeasured ground by the lump for such price 

 as can be agreed upon ; ' and from the same pas- 

 sage we learn that, as at present, the work was 

 done by a small gang of workmen who supplied 

 their own tools and materials. When the lode 

 had been tapped two methods again might be 

 used. The ore might be broken by the fathom,' 

 or, secondly, by the tribute system, only instead 

 of being simply a matter of bargain between 

 workmen's gangs and the adventurers, it was 

 more complex. First to be noted is the fact that 

 tin works were often given over to a single 

 tributer. 6 ' Adventurers very often lease a mine 

 on tribute. Some miner takes the mine of the 

 adventurers for a determined time that is, for 

 half a year, a whole year, or seven years. If it is 

 a tin mine he articles, first, to pay the lord his 

 share or dole free of all cost. . . This must be 

 such a proportion of all the tin-stuff as shall be 

 raised during the limited time. Of the remainder 

 he pays the adventurers one moiety, or one-fourth 

 part, according to the agreement, it being more 

 or less in proportion to the richness of the mine.' 

 Often also the tributer was associated with several 

 others, who clubbed together to provide the neces- 

 sary capital for machinery and wages. 7 More 

 commonly, especially in the larger works, the 

 mine was divided into pitches, as at present, and 

 auctioned off to small gangs. 8 



We may draw from these facts the conclusion 

 that the entire mining system was undergoing a 

 transition. The gentlemen adventurers were 



1 ' The Economy of Mining,' English's Quart. 

 Mining Rev. iv, 266 ; Babbage, Economy of Machinery 

 and Manufactures (ed. 4), 307. 



2 Pryce, Minerabgia Cornubiensis, 173. 



3 Ibid. 174. Mbid. 1 80. 

 6 Ibid. 175, 180. 6 Ibid. 187. 

 'Ibid. 1 88. 'Ibid. 189. 



gradually ceasing to work their mines, and giving 

 them to small masters on tribute. But the small 

 masters in the following years were ousted from 

 their position by aggregations of working tinners 

 themselves. 



Further information is furnished by Jars, who 

 visited Cornwall in 1765. His words are as 

 follows : ' L'usage 6tabli dans toutes les mines 

 est de donner 1'extraction du mineral par enter- 

 prise, les entrepreneurs ont des ouvriers k leurs 

 gages, qui travaillent sous leurs ordres ; quelques 

 uns sont ouvriers eux-memes.' 9 On a day pre- 

 viously set, the account continues, those interested 

 in a mine assemble, and the contractors make 

 offers, bidding downwards. The workmen find 

 themselves the necessary tools, light, and powder. 

 The adventurers provide for the maintenance of 

 machinery and ropes. The number of work- 

 men who do the work is usually from seven 

 to nine, and the time of contract six months. 

 The contract is determined by a portion of 

 the mineral extracted that is, the contractors 

 receive a third, a fourth, or a fifth of the value 

 raised. 



Here, again, we have the main outlines with 

 some of the details of the system already described. 

 The actual workmen appear for the most part to 

 have been hired for wages, and to be under con- 

 tractors who agree to excavate the ore for a certain 

 proportion of the selling price ; and it is to be 

 noted that although the entrepreneurs are said 

 elsewhere to be compelled to have workmen of 

 all kinds, yet no express mention is made by Jars 

 of the work to be done in preparation for the 

 extraction itself. It will be remembered that the 

 work of extraction, according to the description 

 already given of the work of the present day, was 

 assigned to tributers, and the work of preparation 

 to tut workers, who approach more closely to the 

 ordinary wage earners ; yet Jars, confining his 

 attention to the work of extraction, speaks of the 

 actual workmen as hired for wages. But he also 

 states that in some cases the entrepreneurs are 

 actual workmen, and in other passages says 

 that simple workmen often commence the ex- 

 ploitation of a mine at their own risk. 



Can we trace these systems farther ? Tut 

 work we do not find until 1778, and it seems to 

 have had as predecessor the piece-work system, 

 concomitant with it at that date. But the tribute 

 system is much older. Carew tells us that small 

 undertakings were worked by men single-handed, 

 but that usually the discoverer of a lode took 

 others into association, because 'the charge 

 amounteth mostly verie high for any one man's 

 purse except lined beyond ordinarie.' 10 The ad- 

 venturers were either working miners or capi- 

 talists who put in hired labour. Large works 

 were carried on under the direction of a captain, 

 and toll was paid to the lord of the soil, or the lord 



556 



9 Jars, Voyages Metallurgiques, iii, 202. 



10 Carew, A Survey of Cornwall (ed. 1811), 33, 34. 



