Falkiner — lllif.sf rations of Commercial Risfori/ of Dub/in. 139 



the Rough Minute-Book of the Committee of Merchants recently 

 acquired by the Academy, those circumstances cannot now be traced. 

 For although the Chamber of Commerce still possesses among its 

 records the first miniite-book of the Chamber, that volume throws no 

 light upon the mode in which the Chamber of Commerce was first 

 constituted. It begins with an entry dated March 18, 1783, which 

 records the calling of a meeting for March 22 ensuing to elect a 

 President, two Vice-Presidents, and a Treasurer, and to determine on 

 the duties of a Secretary. And the next entry duly announces the 

 election of those officers and the appointment of one William Shannon 

 as Secretary at an annual salary of £30. But of the circumstances 

 leading up to these proceedings no trace remains. The minute-book of 

 the Committee of Merchants not only unexpectedly supplies the lost 

 details, but incidentally gives us a very interesting chapter in the 

 history of the mercantile development of Dublin. 



In the account given by Sir John Gilbert in his History of Dublin 

 of the origin of the Boyal Exchange (now the City Hall), mention is 

 made of an association of merchants formed to resist the exactions of 

 one Thomas Allen, who, having been appointed in the year 1763 to 

 the office of Taster of Wines, endeavoured to enforce for his own advantage 

 a fee of two shillings per tun on all wines and other liquors imported into 

 Ireland. The struggle against this arbitrary tax did not, according 

 to the authority quoted by Gilbert, last long ; ' ' and turning their 

 thoughts to the best mode of applying the redundant subscriptions 

 raised to conduct the opposition," the members unanimously adopted 

 the idea of building a commodious building for the meeting of 

 merchants and traders. A situation having been fixed upon, the 

 purchase-money, £13,000, was obtained from Parliament by the 

 zeal and activity of Dr. Lucas, then one of the city representatives. 

 The building so erected was the Koyal Exchange, of which the foun- 

 dation stone was laid in 1769, which was opened ten years later. ^ 

 It is to the proceedings of the Committee of Merchants, by whom the 

 building of the Exchange was promoted and conducted, that this Rough 

 Minute Book relates ; and the record shows that the committee not only 

 performed for many years many of the functions now discharged by the 

 Chamber of Commerce, but was the actual parent of that institution. 



The minute-book opens with the record of a resolution "that the 

 ground for building an Exchange be conveyed to the Corporation of 

 the Guild of Merchants, and the planning of the building and carry- 



^ Gilbert's History of Dublin, ii. 56. 



