134 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Acadeniij. 



Eough Book. ' ' It contains the minutes of a body called the Committee 

 of Merchants, apparently a sort of Council of the Guild of Merchants, 

 which appears to have taken charge of the commercial interests of 

 Dublin -dui'ing a considerable portion of the eighteenth century. The 

 entries in this volume cover a period of fifteen years, viz. from 10th 

 February, 1768, to 10th February, 1783; and the importance of this 

 record in relation to the history of our capital may be measured by 

 the fact that it opens with a statement of the circumstances in which the 

 fine building, long known as the Koyal Exchange, and now familiar to 

 us as the City Hall, originated, and closes with a ' ' Plan for instituting 

 a Chamber of Commerce in this city," which was the direct origin of 

 the flourishing mercantile association so well known to us now under 

 that name. Incidentally the volume covers a number of topics of 

 interest touching on the development of Dublin, as, for instance, the 

 building of the present Custom House — a project vehemently opposed 

 by the merchants of the day, on the ground that it tended to shift the 

 commercial centre of gravity in Dublin from Essex-bridge and 

 Dame-street, the neighbourhood of the old Custom House, to the 

 inconvenient and then scarcely accessible slobland of the North 

 Lotts. 



As in the case of the Ballast Committee's minutes, so in this, the 

 wiiter has been enabled to consult the minutes of the modern body to 

 whose chronicles the book relates, and has ascertained that though 

 the minutes of the Chamber of Commerce are extant for ten years 

 immediately succeeding its institution in 1783, no document sur- 

 vives to indicate in what manner the Chamber came into existence. 

 The Rough Minute Book is therefore valuable as containing an 

 authentic statement of the cii'cumstances in which one of the 

 most important of our Dublin coi-porate bodies came to be formed. 

 Advantage has been taken of this acquisition of volumes bearing 

 so directly on two important Dublin institutions which date from 

 the eighteenth century, not only to give a brief description of 

 the natui-e of their contents, but to offer some account of the 

 origin of those well-known corporations, the Port and Docks Board, 

 formerly known as the Ballast Board, and the Dublin Chamber of 

 Commerce. The history of both institutions throws considerable 

 light on the commercial development of Dublin ; and a valuable 

 sidelight is thrown on the same topic by the story of the Ouzel 

 Galley Society, which is also included in the present paper in con- 

 nexion with one of the Society's Gold Medals, lately added to 

 the Academy's collection. 



