SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



petition of 1649, which offers 'A true representation of the present sad and 

 lamentable condition of the county, . . . and particularly of the towns of 

 Wigan, Ashton and the parts adjacent.' ^"^ The petitioners show that 



The hand of God is evidently seen stretched out upon the county, chastening it with a 

 three-corded scourge of Sword, Pestilence and Famine all at once afflicting it. They have 

 borne the heat and burden of a first and second war in an especial manner above other partes 

 of the nation : through them the two great bodies of the late Scottish and English armies 

 passed, and in their very bowels was that great fighting bloodshed and breaking. In this 

 county hath the Plague of Pestilence been ranging these three years and upwards, occasioned 

 manifestly by the Wars. There is a very great scarcity and dearth of all provisions, 

 especially of all sorts of grain, particularly that kind by which that country is most sustained '^° 

 which is sold sixfold the price that of late it hath been. 



All trade (by which they have been much supported) is utterly decayed ; it would 

 melt any good heart to see the numerous swarms of begging poor, and the many families 

 that pine away at home, not having faces to beg. Very many now craving alms at other 

 men's doors who were used to give others alms at their doors ; to see Paleness, nay Death, 

 appear in the cheeks of the poor, and often to hear of some dead found in their houses or 

 highways for want of bread. 



But Particularly the towns of Wigan and Ashton with the neighbouring parts (are) 

 lying at present under some stroke of God in the pestilence : in one whereof are 2,000 poor, 

 who for three months and upwards have been restrained, no relief to be had for them in the 

 ordinary course of law, there being none to act at present as justices of the peace ; the col- 

 lections in the Congregrations (their only supply, hitherto,) being generally very slender, 

 those wanting ability to help who have hearts to pity them. Most men's Estates being much 

 drained by the Wars and now almost quite exhaust by the present scarcity and many other 

 burdens incumbent upon them : there is no bonds to keep in the infected, hunger-starved 

 Poore, whose breaking out jeopardeth all the neighbourhood . . . All which is certified to 

 some of the reverend Ministers of the city of London by the Major (Mayor), Ministers and 

 other persons of Credit, inhabitants or well wishers to and well acquainted with the town 

 of Wigan. 



The Lancashire towns suffered also from the disastrous plundering committed 

 by the soldiery. In Wigan in 1 643 after the entry of the Parliamentary troops 

 we read that ' great heapes of woollen Cloth of the drapers' were laid in the 

 streets,' ^^'' and at the taking of Bolton by the Royalists in the following year, 

 ' the soldiers were greedy of plunder ' and ' being many of them very bare, 

 they carried away abundance of cloth, of all sorts.' *'^ When the ' Black 

 Regiment ' was quartered at Kirkham in 1648 we read that they went over 

 ' most of the Parish, plundering and stealing whatever they could conveniently 

 carry away.' ''' And apart from plunder it is obvious that the marching and 

 countermarching of the bodies of armed men who traversed the Fylde district, 

 Lytham, Rossall, Preston, Lancaster, Wigan, Warrington, Blackburn, Bolton, 

 Liverpool, and Manchester, must have disturbed ordinary commercial pursuits 

 and occupations to an incalculable degree. 



The really remarkable thing was the rapid recovery of Lancashire. The 

 stern repression of the Royalist party, and the peaceful, compromising policy 

 of Charles II, gave the county time for economic recovery. 



Manchester, whose Protestant virtues and great stand for the Parliament 

 had proved her great reward, was in 1654 endowed by Cromwell with Par- 

 liamentary representation,'*" and this dignity, together with the prosperity 

 indicated by the steady pursuits of her weaving industry and cloth trade, 

 enabled her to take the lead in the exhausted county. In the year 1650, 



'^' Petition of 24 May, 1 649. ^^ Probably oats. 



'" J Discourse of the Wars in Lanes. (Chet. See), 36. ''' Ibid. 45. 



«" Ibid. 67. ^ Baines, Hist, of Lanes, i, 324 (ed. 1868). 



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