THE TRADE OF ABERDEEN IOI 
the keenest hostility among the native merchants. In France, partly 
through the Franco-Scottish Alliance, which lasted from the reign of 
John Baliol in 1295 to the Reformation, Scotsmen were everywhere— 
students, professors in the universities, mercenaries in the French armies 
and traders in the towns and country districts. As regards the nature 
of the trade carried on by these merchants, Parson Gordon, writing in 
1661, says: ‘ Many of the citizens of Aberdeen trade in merchandize. 
The commodityes and staple wair which they carie out for the most pairt 
are salmond, coarse woolen-cloath called playding, linning cloth, stockines, 
skins, hydes, and all that the country yields.’ The staple fish export 
from Aberdeen in these days was salmon, and records show that the 
army of Edward I of England was partly fed on dried fish from Aberdeen, 
the fish referred to being, it is thought, river fish, salmon and grilse, as 
no sea fish was then exported; but authorities differ as to this. The 
earliest information regarding shipbuilding in Aberdeen is of date 1606, 
when a barque, christened the Bon-Accord, was built of timber from the 
.woods of Drum. The Scottish traders of this time had a representative 
in the Low Countries, Andrew Halyburton of Middleburg, and his 
business ledger, which is still preserved, shows that among those who 
exported through Halyburton were various Provosts and well-known 
business men of Aberdeen, notably Bishop William Elphinstone, who 
was then engaged in building the new King’s College of Aberdeen. 
Elphinstone’s exports consisted of wool, salmon and trout. His imports 
were carts, wheelbarrows and gunpowder, cloths, spices and comfits 
for the table. At this time the chief exports consisted of plaiding and 
woolskins. As regards the inland trade of Aberdeen in the fourteenth 
century Aberdeen stood actually as the commercial capital of Scotland, 
and it was not until after 1350 that Edinburgh, now the capital of 
Scotland, took the first place. In the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries the trade and population of Aberdeen languished, but in the 
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there was an amazing recovery, 
and the middle of the last century may well be classed as the golden days 
of Aberdeen prosperity, when a large number of important commercial 
undertakings were founded, such as the Aberdeen, the North and the 
Town and County Banks, the Northern and Scottish Provincial Insurance 
Companies, followed later on by the Scottish Employers’ Insurance 
Company. Then the trading companies, the Lime Co., the Commercial 
Co., the Northern Agricultural Co., and other commercial concerns 
were founded. At the same time shipping in Aberdeen progressed 
exceedingly and the Aberdeen clipper became world-famous. 
MoperRN ABERDEEN INDUSTRIES. 
Other than Agriculture, Fishing, Granite-working and Paper-making, 
which are dealt with separately, the following are the main industries : 
Box AND BarrEL Makinc.—This industry is a comparatively recent 
one in Aberdeen, but with the growth of the fishing industry, the manu- 
facture of boxes and barrels has grown to a great extent. In Aberdeen 
there are some of the most progressive and efficient concerns in the 
country, where one can see the process of manufacture from the round 
