Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/635

1688.] It was too early in the history of endeavour to educate and employ the poor for these recommendations to receive any general attention; but there were some individuals who set themselves zealously to work to convert the swarming paupers into profitable workers and respectable members of society. The most eminent of these were two shopkeepers of London, Andrew Yarranton and Thomas Firmin. Yaranton was a linendraper; and, being employed by "twelve gentlemen of England" to bring over men from Saxony and Bohemia who understood the art of tinning sheet-iron, he there made close observation of the manufacture of linen, and conceived the idea of introducing the linen manufacture, and employing the unemployed poor upon it and the manufacture of iron. He went to Ipswich, to see whether the linen manufacture could not be established there; but he found the poor already so well employed in the stuff and say and Colchester trade, that he did not think it a suitable place. He calculated the paupers of England at that time at a hundred thousand; that by employing this number at fourpence a day each, would occasion a profitable outlay amongst them of upwards of six hundred thousand pounds: by which means almost the whole of the poor-rates would be saved. In 1677 he published a book containing his views on these heads, called "England's Improvement by Sea and Land:" how to set at work all the poor of England with the growth of our own lands; to prevent unnecessary suits at law, with the benefits of a voluntary register, where to procure vast quantities of timber for the building of ships, with the advantage of making the great rivers of England navigable. He gave rules for the prevention of fires in London and the great cities, and informed the several companies of handicraftsmen how they might always have cheap bread and drink. In short, Mr. Yarranton was a regularly speculative man, but one who had a good share of calculating common sense in the midst of his manufacturing and philanthropic schemes. He seems to have travelled the kingdom well, and made careful observations as to the best localities for carrying on his proposed trades; and he seems to have come to the conclusion that the midland counties would be the best for the linen manufactures, and that most people might be employed on it. The midland counties he regarded as admirably adapted for the growth of the flax from the fertility of the land, and for the trade, because of the easy conveyance of goods by water on the rivers Trent, Soar, Avon, and Thames, from the counties of Nottingham, Leicester, Warwick, Northampton, and Oxford. He found many parts of England already so well supplied with manufactures, that he did not think the poor required more work there; and his descriptions of the manufactures going on in different parts of the island give a lively view of the manufacturing industry of the time. " In the west of England, he says, "clothing of all sorts, as in Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, and a small portion of Warwickshire; in Derby, Nottingham, and Yorkshire, the iron and woollen manufactures; in Suffolk, Norfolk, and Essex, the woollen manufacture; in Kent, Sussex, and Surrey, some cloth, iron, and materials for shipping. Then the counties to raise provisions and to vend them at London, to feed that great mouth, are Cambridge, Huntingdon, Buckingham, Hertford, Middlesex, and Berks."



He is very copious in his descriptions of the iron works, showing the material benefit to employers and employed, as well as the public at large, by their existence. "I will begin," he says, "in Monmouthshire, and go through the forest of Dean, and there take notice what infinite quantities of sow iron is there made with bar iron and wire; and