Towns > Dundee > 1822 - Dundee delineated; or, A history and description of that town, its institutions, manufactures and commerce

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sive monopolies (the bane of all trade), which drove
foreign vessels from the ports, at a time when the
shipping of the country was inadequate for an ex- •
tensive foreign commerce. For when the foreign-
ers arrived with their cargoes, they found that a
few only of the Guild-brethren were entitled to
purchase them, who could fix on them what price
they thought proper ; and as these same persons
alone could sell, they imposed their own price on
the goods taken in return. This abominable prac-
tice, which was profitable to a few individuals only,
and destructive to commerce in general, was not
peculiar to the town of Dundee, in those days of
ignorance of political and commercial economy.
From the name " Bucklemaker wynd," there
would appear to have been a manufactory of that
kind in the place ; though it has now completely
disappeared. There is not even the remains of any
particular spofe where such merchandise could have
been prepared, — all the houses now built in the
wynd being of a very different description.
In the Bonnet-hill of Dundee, the manufacture
of bonnets was long practised ; and afforded con-
stant employment to the young and old of both
sexes, — who were to be seen on a warm day sitting
on the stairs, which were on the outside of the
houses, all busily engaged in some part or other of
the work, from morning till night-fall. In the be-
ginning of the last century the manufacture had ar-
rived to such a state of perfection, that Lord Sea-
forth sent the son of his own chaplain to Dundee
to learn the business, for the purpose of introducing
it into the North of Scotland. The Dundee boi>