Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 2.djvu/55

Rh insolent in its tone, so arbitrary and absurd in its exactions, enables us to measure the distance between the sixteenth and the nineteenth century,—between English freedom as it existed before the civil wars and as it now exists. Two years later the first mention of the licensing of hackney coaches occurs, in a commission directed to the Marquess of Hamilton, the master of the horse, in which his majesty admits that he finds it very requisite for his nobility and gentry, as well as for foreign ambassadors, strangers, and others, that there should be a competent number of such vehicles allowed for their use; and empowers the marquess to license fifty hackney coachmen for London and Westminster, each to keep no more than twelve horses a-piece, and so many in other cities and towns of the kingdom as in his wisdom he should think to be necessary, all other persons being prohibited to keep any hackney coach to let or hire, either in London or elsewhere. In 1634, also, sedan chairs had been brought into use by Sir Sanders Duncomb, to whom the king granted the sole privilege of letting them to hire for fourteen years, the patent declaring that the streets of London and Westminster and their suburbs had been of late so much encumbered with the unnecessary multitude of coaches, that many of his majesty's subjects were thereby exposed to great danger, and the necessary use of carts and carriages for provisions was much hindered; whereas Sir Sanders had represented that in many parts beyond sea people were much carried about in covered chairs, whereby few coaches were used amongst them. If the inditer of this description of the terrors of the London streets from the crowd of coaches in the year 1634 could be brought back out of his grave, it would be amusing to see how he would look when he found himself in the midst of the torrent and tumult of Regent Street or Piccadilly in the present day. Another of the patents of the same year deserves notice,—that granting to John Day, citizen and sworn broker of London, the sole privilege of vending for fourteen years a certain weekly bill of the several rates or prices of all commodities in the principal cities of