THE EARLY COMMERCE OF PLYMOUTH. 325 
seen besides women and children, the greater part of the men 
living on the sea; that the houses were high, gabled, and many- 
windowed ; and that in the town not only were all the necessaries 
of life to be found—meats, clothes, and stuffs—but many other 
things suited for luxury or pleasure, not omitting plate, watches, 
and jewellery! I don’t think we could say more of Plymouth 
now than that. 
The cloth manufacture is the earliest traceable connected with 
the town. There is no record when it was established ; but it was 
certainly carried on here in the reign of Elizabeth. When Drake 
brought in the water he built four mills in the town; and two of 
these were used, if not from the time of their erection yet very soon 
afterwards, as tucking or fulling mills. These were the mills in 
what is now called Russell Street, but then Horsepool Lane. They 
were known as the Eastern and Western Fulling Mills, and were 
leased by the Corporation with the right of setting up racks for the 
cloth in the lane and on the ‘‘ Great Hill ;” for such two centuries 
and a half since was the name of the ridge overlooking Penny- 
comequick. The first fuller mentioned in the town records is John 
Chare. He had leased the Western Fulling Mill, a moiety of which 
was leased in 1666-7 to Stephen Forstrete. John Chare was the 
father of Abraham Chare, or Cheere, the first recorded pastor of 
the Baptist Church of Plymouth, and Abraham’s life was on the 
mill when the lease was granted to Forstrete. Chare must also 
have had something to do with the Eastern Tucking Mill, a moiety 
of which was leased in the following year to William Bray, of 
Milton Abbot, fuller. This moiety previously belonged to Robert 
Bray, and the life of Elizabeth Laurence, late Elizabeth Chare, 
was on it. Thomas Bowden had the other moiety. Hence Mr. 
Burt was wrong in stating that the woollen manufacture was in- 
troduced here by a Mr. Shepheard, about the beginning of the last 
century, though under the Shepheards it certainly flourished to an 
extent unknown before. A baize manufactory was established by 
them; and less than a hundred years ago the cloth trade of 
Plymouth was at its height. It is now in this immediate locality 
utterly extinct ; and the last textile manufacture that can be said 
to have really thriven here was the sail-cloth factory of Hammett 
and Dove. 
I was very much struck on coming across a detailed account of 
the “ale and beer wyts” for 1624-5 to find that while the amount 
VOL. VI. Y 
