A HISTORY OF CORNWALL 



the one purchasing the ore from the miner, 1 and 

 having it blown at one of the houses, or perhaps 

 himself a smelter ; the other purchasing and re- 

 selling the tin when smelted. 2 The presence 

 of these men gave rise to an interesting system 

 of money advances, which has left traces even at 

 the present day. 3 



Let us begin by a review of the conditions as 

 they are depicted by Carew. ' When a western 

 gentleman,' says the latter, 'wants money to 

 defray his expenses at London, he goes to a tin 

 ^merchant for a loan. Usually he has to give 

 bond for a thousand-weight of tin for every 20 

 he borrows, the said tin to be delivered at the 

 next coinage. 4 But the business goes still farther. 

 The merchant, that he may be sure to have tin 

 for his money at the time of coinage, lays out 

 great sums beforehand unto owners of tin works, 

 who are bound to deliver for the same so many 

 thousands of tin as the money shall amount to 

 after the price agreed upon at the coinage. To 

 them resorts the poor labourer desiring some 

 money before the time of his payment at the 

 coinage time. The other at first says he has 

 none . . . and in the end ... he delivers to 

 him wares instead of money, and the labourer is 

 under bond to deliver tin at the coinage. And 

 this extreme dealing of the London merchants 

 and country chapmen in white tin is imitated by 

 the wealthier sort of dealers in black tin. 8 



' The wealthier tinners, laying out part of their 

 money beforehand, buy black tin from the poor 

 labourers at so much per mark, i.e., look how 

 many marks there are in the price made at the 

 coinage for the thousand-weight, so many two- 

 pence halfpenny, threepence, or fourpence, partly 

 after the goodness, and partly according to the 

 hard conscience of the one and the necessity of 

 the other, shall he have for the foot, as if the 

 price 26 13*. ifd. per thousand- weight, therein 

 are forty marks, then shall the poor tinner get of 

 him who deals most friendly, per foot of black 

 tin, forty times fourpence, or 20 per thousand- 

 weight, and less for the worst.' 8 



These facts, besides being recognized by 

 stannary law itself, 7 receive confirmation from 

 other writers of the same period. Beare, who 

 wrote in 1586, corroborates the account, 8 and 

 further particulars even have been added by a 

 manuscript of the year I595- 9 The result of the 

 system under which the merchants at the top 

 drove hard bargains with the dealers in black tin, 



1 Harl. MS. 6380, fol. 35. 

 ' S.P. Dora. Eliz. ccliii, 46. 



* ' West Barbary,' by L. L. Price, Journ. Roy. Statist. 

 Soc.li, 532, 533. 



4 Carew, Survey of Cornwall (ed. 181 1), 48. 



5 Carew, Survey of Cornwall (ed. 1 8 1 1), 49. 



6 Ibid. 50. 



7 Smirke, Vice \. Thomas, App. 58. Presentment 

 of Customs, Tywarnhail, 1 604. 



8 Harl. MS. 6380, fol. 109. 



' Lansd. MS. 76, fol. 34. S.P. Dom. Eliz. ccliii, 46. 



or directly with the gentlemen ad venturers or small 

 independent miners, and the adventurers repeated 

 the operation upon their dependents, was the de- 

 pression of the labourer. 10 Thus in 1 5 86 the wage 

 worker received but 3 a year for the working 

 of a dole, from which he was obliged to support 

 himself and family. 11 Raleigh, a few years later, 

 according to his own claims, was instrumental in 

 getting this raised from 2s. to 41. per week. 12 In 

 1602 Carew mentions the wages of the 'hireling 

 as 8d. per day, or from 4. to 6 per annum.' 1! 

 In 1 667, coincident with the gradual rise in wages 

 throughout England, we find that the pickman 

 received Js. per week, where formerly he had 

 had four, the common tinner 5*. in place of three, 

 and others 45. instead of two and a half. 14 



Already the evils of this system of tin purchase 

 had become so notorious that the preemption 

 monopolies then projected were actuated largely 

 by the humane motive of freeing the miners 

 from the London merchants by supplying them 

 with a permanent market. Pursued intelligently, 

 this plan might have borne good fruit ; but, as it 

 was frequently interrupted, it subjected the 

 stannary system to repeated and violent wrenches, 

 causing the tinners to forfeit their bonds 16 to the 

 dealers, and giving them much hardship in other 

 ways. The terms, besides, under which the 

 monopolists purchased the miners' product were 

 rarely generous, 16 although in many cases pro- 

 vision was made for a loan fund, upon which the 

 stannary workers might draw in advance upon 

 security of tin. 17 



The weight, of course, which bore the tinners 

 down, was the fact that they could not sell their 

 product save twice a year, at the coinages ; and 

 this becomes apparent during the brief period of 

 the Commonwealth, when the coinage system 

 fell into disuse. 18 The removal of all restriction 



10 The plight of the tin-mine owners, caught, as it 

 were, between the exactions of the dealers and the 

 difficulties in mine drainage, was like that of the 

 colliery owners at the same period (Galloway, Annals of 

 Coal Mining and the Coal Trade, 151; Cal. S. P. Dom. 

 1637-1638, 387). The lead smelters in Yorkshire 

 similarly preyed upon the lead miners (Malynes, Lex 

 Mercatoria (ed. 1622), 269). 



11 Harl. MS. 6380, fol. 57. 



11 Dewes, Parliamentary Debates, 299. 



13 Carew, Survey of Cornwall (ed. 1811), 34. This 

 would be about the wage of unskilled labour (Rogers, 

 History of Agriculture and Prices in England, vi, 623). 



14 From an old manuscript volume in the Duchy of 

 Cornwall Office. See also Westcote, View of Devon, 

 52, 53 ; Norden, Sfeculi Britanniae Pars, 12. 



15 S. P. Dom. Mary, iv, 5. Cotton MS. Titus B. v, 

 fol. 402. S. P. Dom. Jas. I, viii, 136. 



16 Lansd. MS. 1,215, fol - 226-230. S. P. Dom. 

 Eliz. cclxxiii, 74 ; cclxxxvi, 26. Receivers' Rolls, 

 1 1 & 1 3 Jas. I, 9 Chas. I. 



17 Lansd. MS. 24, fols. 44, 47, 48, 50. S. P. 

 Dom. Eliz. cclxxxvi, 26. Add. MS. 6713, fol. 437- 

 442. Treas. Papers, ccviii, 30. 



18 The Tinners' Grievance. 



558 



