INDUSTRIES 



in the above-quoted memorandum of i6oo, 

 was the ' taking of carriages.' This meant 

 the obligation which the terms of the patents 

 to the gunpowder-makers imposed upon all 

 who were able to comply, to provide carriage 

 for the conveyance of the saltpetre and gun- 

 powder to the king's stores at the rate fixed 

 in the letters patent. This rate was at first 

 settled at ^d. a mile.* John Evelyn and 

 his company in their tender of 1 604 for the 

 office of gunpowder-maker offered to dispense 

 with cart-tjJcing.* Their patent, however, 

 renewed this general exaction, but directed 

 that each load was not to exceed 20 cwt., 

 and the mileage was to be reckoned from 

 the dwelling-house of the owner of the 

 cart.' The king's storehouse for saltpetre was 

 in Southwark, and it became one of the items 

 in the contracts with the powder-maker that 

 the latter should provide this house at his own 

 cost, as well as pay j(^20 a year to the clerk 

 whom the commissioners appointed to weigh 

 the saltpetre brought in.* From the year 

 1 632 the certificates made at intervals usually 

 of half a year by this clerk to the commis- 

 sioners of the total amount of saltpetre received 

 are in existence. When the Chilworth makers 

 secured the gunpowder contracts they seem to 

 have erected a saltpetre house at Kingston- 

 upon-Thames.^ The men of the hundred of 

 Kingston, who had to find carriage for the 

 saltpetre from this town to Croydon, com- 

 plained that the saltpetre men only allowed 

 them to reckon the distance as seven miles, 

 whereas it was really eighteen. The rate 

 which they were now entitled to demand was 

 6d. a mile, but the saltpetre men insisted upon 

 an abatement of iSd. on every load, and 

 moreover subjected them to needless delays 

 and annoyances. 



Such were the difficulties which beset the 

 artificial production of saltpetre in England. 

 It is small wonder that before long the supply 

 should have shown an increasing tendency to 

 become inadequate to the needs of the country. 

 The wonder is that for so long, up to the 

 meeting of the Long Parliament in fact, the 

 authority necessary to secure this supply 

 should have been found not in any parliamen- 

 tary sanction, but solely in the exercise of the 

 royal prerogative as it was understood by the 

 Tudor and Stuart sovereigns. The officers of 

 the Ordnance, who in 164 1 could only quote 

 acts of state and royal proclamations as the 



1 P.-it. 31 Eliz. pt. 8, m. 10 (25). 



2 S. P. Dom. Jas. I. ix. 68. 



» Pat. 2 Jas. I. pt. 7, m. 25. 

 « S. P. Dom. Jas. I. cxx. 102. 

 » Ibid. Chas. I. cccxli. 69, 78. 



authority for the drastic measures which had 

 been put in force in order that the soil of 

 England might produce saltpetre, were very 

 ready to express their assurance that these 

 measures could not have been effected without 

 the consent of Parliament.' Nevertheless the 

 fact remains that up to this year the statutes 

 of the realm are destitute of all reference to 

 the production of saltpetre. 



In December 1625 the question of increas- 

 ing the saltpetre supply of the kingdom was 

 engaging the serious consideration of the 

 Council. Lord Carew, the Master General 

 of the Ordnance, writing to the Privy Council 

 on the 6th of that month" to excuse his 

 attendance at the board on the following day, 

 proposed that English merchants should brmg 

 over considerable quantities of saltpetre from 

 Germany and the east countries, somewhat 

 illogically arguing that, as in those times there 

 was more use of this commodity than for- 

 merly, more would be made in those countries 

 than there were mills enough left by the 

 devastation of the wars to convert into powder. 

 Ireland moreover he thought would prove a 

 fertile field for saltpetre, ' though the wisdom 

 of former times has been careful to keep the 

 manufacture thereof from the knowledge of 

 the Irish.' Mr. Secretary Coke, writing on 

 the same day to his colleague Lord Conway, 

 says : * * The chief care then to be pressed by 

 their lordships is to have as great a quantity of 

 saltpetre to be made as the kingdom will afford 

 without exhausting the mines ... I know 

 that in Italy the mines of saltpetre are improved 

 by art . . . But a sure way were to require 

 our merchants, especially those who trade to 

 the Eastland and to the East Indies, to ballast 

 their ships homeward bound with saltpetre. 

 . . . No doubt many will undertake to pro- 

 vide from Dantzick as the East Indian Com- 

 pany now did, who had one hundred barrels 

 taken out of our ships returning to Elsenor, 

 because they had not his Majesty's licence 

 for it.' 



The incorporation of the East India Com- 

 pany, and the consequent opening out of the 

 trade with India, had indeed furnished a means 

 of importing large quantities of saltpetre with- 

 out any of those economic and political com- 

 plications with the continent of Europe which 

 had in the early years of Elizabeth's reign led 

 to the development of the home manufacture 

 of this commodity. The government was not 

 long in availing itself of this means to such an 

 extent that in October 1629' we find the 

 Council issuing a warrant to allow the Com- 



« Ibid, cccclxxxiii. 

 8 Ibid. xi. 24. 



83- 



' Ibid. xi. 27. 

 9 Ibid. d. 108. 



309 



