Series 2 > Miscellany of the Scottish History Society

112
THE DIARY OF SIR JAMES HOPE
was living in Edinburgh at the time with his brother or
relative, Isaac Visitella, a painter, to set up glass works
at ‘ the Pans,’ probably Prestonpans. The plan was
examined very carefully, and it was calculated that after
a capital expenditure of about £200 for the erection of
furnaces and purchase of materials, the weekly expenses
would amount to £11 while the estimated sales of 900
wine glasses at 2/ per dozen and as many beer glasses,
or tumblers, at 2/6d. per dozen per week would amount
to £16, 17s. 6d. This seems quite a satisfactory profit,
but the difficulty was to find an outlet for the sale of all
these glasses. There was not, indeed, a market for so
many in Scotland, and Hope shrewdly points out that
they ‘ would make more in one weeke than could possiblie
be vented in a mounth, and in one year than in three.’
It would seem, too, that a certain John Joussie had
already tried the manufacture, but had ultimately been
compelled to give it up with a loss of 20,000 lbs. (Scots)
on account of not getting a wide enough market for his
goods. Whether the scheme proposed by Visitella and
his friends ever came to anything is not recorded, but
probably it was dropped.
In September of this year Hope had a great controversy
with the assessors for Clydesdale as to the valuation of
his Leadhill mines, which had been assessed at 5000 lbs.
(Scots) for the year. He objected to this, but also refused
to be put on oath about it: there was much debate on
the whole subject, which was complicated by a curious
mistake in his statement of accounts, wherein he omitted
to debit himself with 6000 lbs. for workmen’s wages, on
which he naturally did not wish to be assessed. The end
of the matter was that the valuation was put on a fixed
basis of £1000 per annum, whatever might be the profit or
loss in the year. The memorandum is interesting as show¬
ing the amount of wages paid to the workmen annually,