78 



"A Dismal Depression in 1622." 



requiring contributions from various towns for the suppression of 

 pirates, so that the two matters get a good deal mixed up in the 

 replies sent to this circular. 



I think the answer the council got from Bath is curious enough 

 to read to you : — 



" May it please your Lordships. According to your Commandment we have 

 done our best endeavours to further the service of the contribution now required- 

 And we have sent your honours herein a schedule of what we have done, signi- 

 fying hereby that we are a very little poor city, our clothmen much decayed, and 

 many of their workmen amongst us relieved by the city. And indeed that many 

 are unable to give anything, and many that do contribute, unwilling to contribute 

 in this kind. As for strangers and sojourners among us we have no other but the 

 Lady Boothe, who very willingly doth contribute as in the schedule is expressed. 

 So do humbly take our leaves and ever remain 



" At your lordships service 



" Thomas Moobpend, Mayor. 



"Walter Chapman. 



"Rich Gate." * 



The council were not idle while these replies were in preparation. 

 There were two steps especially they took which require our at- 

 tention : — 1st, they appointed a committee to examine and report 

 on the great decay of merchandize within the kingdom and the 

 ff many insufferable inconveniences arising from the inequality of 

 trade " ; 2nd, they caused a return to be made of the cloth on hand 

 in the cloth halls — that is, of the stock which the drapers could not 

 sell. 



I am not without a hope that a little consideration of this rather 

 unpromising return, will, as I said at the beginning, help to form a 

 useful illustration. 



Here is good Master Cooling's report, made the first of any. 



Kindly allow Master Cooling to tell his own story : — 



" A particular note of the number of the pieces of fEriezes, Cottons and Bayes 

 now remaining unsold in the Manchester Hall, in the hands of these several men 

 after named. Taken the 26th March 1622, by Mr. William Cooling clerk of that 

 Hall. 



• Dated 12th May, 1622, State Papers, Domestic Series, James I., vol. 130—61. 



