Series 1 > Records of a Scottish cloth manufactory at New Mills, Haddingtonshire, 1681-1703

232 MINUTE BOOK OF THE MANAGERS OF
Commission f<
tenn baggs
teassells from
London.
To advance the
porter } sellary,
accounts of dyeing ought to be six moneths runn after the
dyeing be dew be the Company.
As alsoe to discharge the dyeing of any more reid cloath
untill ane express ward be given for that effect.
Orders tenn baggs teassells to be wryten for from London
in all heast.
Orders William Blackwood to clear with Mr. Cample and
David Foullis anent the assignments made to seaverall bonds
for the payment of loans lent by the Englis partners.
Orders to proceed in dilligence against Sir William Hamil¬
ton of Silvertounhill.
Orders A. Weir to give to Mr. William Black,1 advocate, a
guinay and to his man a doller for the draught of ane petitione
and act was presented by the Company to the parliament.
Orders A. Weir to clear John Hunter, officer to the hall for
proceedings and to give him for ane quarter in advance.
This and all former Sederunts mony paid.
Geo: Clark.
Edinburgh, 12th February 1701.
Orders to wryt to James Foullis for 12 baggs best teassells
to be sent for Leith or Prestounpanns.
Orders Alexander Herreot to enter the folloueing articles
in the books viz:—To give cridet to Mr. Drumond and partner
for the folloueing articles conteaned in ane account current
sent by them to September last.
1 William Black was himself a woollen manufacturer. He owned a factory
known as Gordon’s Mill or Northmills, near Aberdeen. The method on which
the undertaking was conducted is worth quoting : ‘ By the constitution thereof
the servants are bound to work for any of the country who shall happen to
employ them in any sort of manufacture, and work only for the petitioner when
they have nothing else to do—yea, when any work comes from the country his
is laid aside.’ It is not surprising to learn that Black was sole owner of his
factory, ‘since,’ as he quaintly expresses it, ‘a society would not so unani¬
mously agree in running such hazard’ [Acts of Pari. xi. p. 81). Black was the
author of The Privileges of the Royal Burrows, Edinburgh, 1707.
Possibly the Act referred to in the text was that summarised in the Introduc¬
tion, Part iv., which recapitulated certain proclamations of the Privy Council
prohibiting the importation of foreign cloth.