to have addressed another woman in the language of gallantry.*

The Duchess of Hamilton, however, did not remain long a widow. In the course of a few months she was engaged to, and afterwards married, John Campbell, subsequently Duke of Argyll. Horace Walpole, writing of the affair to Marshal Conway, January 28th, 1759, says: "You and M. de Bareil do not exchange prisoners with half as much alacrity as Jack Campbell and the Duchess of Hamilton have exchanged hearts. It is the prettiest match in the world since yours, and everybody likes it but the Duke of Bridgewater and Lord Conway. What an extraordinary fate is attached to these two women! Who could have believed that a Gunning would unite the two great houses of Campbell and Hamilton? For my part, I expect to see my Lady Coventry Queen of Prussia. I would not venture to marry either of them these thirty years, for fear of being shuffled out of the world prematurely to make room for the rest of their adventures."

The Duke, like a wise man, sought consolation for his disappointment by entering into active and useful occupation. Instead of retiring to his beautiful seat at Ashridge, we find him straightway proceeding to his estate at Worsley, on the borders of Chat Moss, in Lancashire, and conferring with John Gilbert, his land-steward, as to the practicability of cutting a canal by which the coals found upon his Worsley estate might be readily conveyed to market at Manchester.

Manchester and Liverpool at that time were improving towns, gradually rising in importance and increasing in population. The former place had long been noted for its manufacture of coarse cottons, or "coatings," made of wool,

* Chalmers, in his 'Biographical Dictionary,' vol. xiii., 94, gives another account of the rumoured cause of the Duke's subsequent antipathy to women; but the above

statement of the late Earl of Ellesmere, confirmed as it is by certain passages in Walpole's Letters, is more likely to be the correct one.

in imitation of the goods known on the Continent by that name. The Manchester people also made fustians, mixed stuffs, and small wares, amongst which leather-laces for women's bodices, shoe-ties, and points were the more important. But the operations of manufacture were still carried on in a clumsy way, entirely by hand. The wool was spun into yarn by means of the common spinning wheel, for the spinning-jenny had not yet been invented, and the yarn was woven into cloth by the common handloom. There was no whirr of engine-wheels then to be heard; for Watt's steam-engine had not yet come into existence. The air was free from smoke, except that which arose from household fires, and there was not a single factory-chimney in Manchester.

66

In 1724, Dr. Stukeley says Manchester contained no fewer than 2400 families, and that their trade was 'incredibly large" in tapes, ticking, girth-webb, and fustians. In 1757 the united population of Manchester and Salford was only 20,000; it is now, after the lapse of a century, 460,000! The Manchester manufacturer was then a very humble personage compared with his modern representative. He was part chapman, part weaver, and part merchant—working hard, living frugally, principally on oatmeal, and usually contriving to save a little money.

Dr. Aikin, writing in 1795, thus described the Manchester manufacturer in the first half of the eighteenth century: "An eminent manufacturer in that age," said he, "used to be in his warehouse before six in the morning, accompanied by his children and apprentices. At seven they all came in to breakfast, which consisted of one large dish of water-pottage, made of oatmeal, water, and a little salt, boiled thick, and poured into a dish. At the side was a pan or basin of milk, and the master and apprentices, each with a wooden spoon in his hand, without loss of time,

* Aikin's 'Description of the | Miles round Manchester.' London, Country from Thirty to Forty | 1795.

CHAP. VIII.

MANCHESTER IN 1740.

161

dipped into the same dish, and thence into the milk-pan, and as soon as it was finished they all returned to their work." What a contrast to the "eminent manufacturer" of our own day!

As trade increased, its operations became more subdivided, and special classes and ranks began to spring into import

ance.

View of Manchester in 1740.

[Fac-simile of an Engraving of the period.]

The manufacturers sent out riders to take orders, and gangs of chapmen with pack-horses to distribute the goods and bring back wool, which they either used up themselves, or sold to makers of worsted yarn at Manchester, or to the clothiers of Rochdale, Saddleworth, or the West Riding of Yorkshire. Mr. Walker, author of the 'Original,' left the following interesting reminiscence of the dealings of Manchester men with the inhabitants of the Fen districts:-"I have by tradition," said he, "the following particulars of the mode of carrying on the home trade by one of the principal merchants of Manchester, who was born at the commencement of the last century, and who realised a sufficient fortune to keep a carriage when not half a dozen were kept in the town by persons connected with business. He sent the manufactures of the place into

J. B.

M

Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, and the intervening counties, and principally took in exchange feathers from Lincolnshire, and malt from Cambridgeshire and Nottinghamshire. All his commodities were conveyed on pack-horses, and he was from home the greater part of every year, performing his journeys entirely on horseback. His balances were received in guineas, and were carried with him in his saddle-bags. He was exposed to the vicissitudes of the weather, to great labour and fatigue, and to constant danger. In Lincolnshire he travelled chiefly along bridle-ways through fields where frequent gibbets warned him of his perils, and where flocks of wild fowl continually darkened the air. Business carried on in this manner required a combination of personal attention, courage, and physical strength, not to be hoped for in a deputy; and a merchant then led a much more severe and irksome life than a bagman after wards, and still more than a traveller of the present day. In the earlier days of the merchant abovementioned, the wine merchant who supplied Manchester, resided at Preston, then always called Proud Preston, because exclusively inhabited by gentry. The wine was carried on horses, and a gallon was considered a large order. Men in business confined themselves generally to punch and ale, using wine only as a medicine, or on extraordinary occasions; so that a considerable tradesman somewhat injured his credit amongst his neighbours by being so extravagant as to send to a tavern for wine, to entertain a London customer." *

The roads out of Manchester in different directions, like those in most districts throughout the kingdom, were in a very neglected state, being for the most part altogether impracticable for waggons. Hence the use of pack-horses was an absolute necessity; and the roads were but ill

*Thomas Walker: The Original, No. xi. Article entitled "Change in Commerce,"