Series 5 > British Linen Company, 1745-1775

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THE BRITISH LINEN COMPANY
Sir Alexander McKenzie of Coull Bart, writes the Company that a small
experiment he had made in his country last year with between two and three
tons flax was now completed, he having got all that quantity made into yam.
That he is so sensible of the benefit of industries being brought into the country
that he would engage to spin up twenty tons of flax this year provided the
Company will allow him the same price as was given before the reduction was
made by the Board of Trustees, and without that or some such indemnifica¬
tion, it will be not possible for him to effectuate it. The Company has already
lost very considerably by introducing spinning at Orkney, Tain, Cromarty
and Inverness, not only in the value of utensils given away and in the value of
their flax in teaching the people of the country to heckle, and in salaries to
master hecklers and agents for spinning, but in taking back bad for good all
the ill-spun yam that must necessarily be made for the first 12 or 18 months,
the last of which tho’ not valued or brought to immediate account of
immediate loss in their books, is by much a more considerable loss than the
first, as it is thereby reduced the value of goods when made into cloth. The
Company had sundry instances of persons whom they have taught to carry on
the heckling and spinning in the North, their taking advantage of a rising
market to sell their yams for even a triffle more than was proposed by the
Company to be paid on contract.
The Company cannot therefore continue to launch out their stock in
teaching the Kingdom the different branches of the linen manufacture, seeing
the benefits of the instruction being reaped equally by others who contribute
nothing to the expence. Wherefore this memorial is humbly presented to your
Board, desiring their assistance & advice how this spirit for promoting industry
in the Highlands and Northern parts may be best preserved without hurting
the particular adventurers.
To Gilbert Barclay, Cromarty
1 November 1750
When you was here, we signified the misfortune of the George and Jane,
Captain Cuff, her having been put ashore on a desert island in the Baltic, and
that she could not be put off again, or could such part of the cargo as was saved
be transported this season to Cromarty, concerning the delivery of which
cargo we had sent you instructions. We have now now other method left for
supplying the undertakers for spinning with you, than by ordering the cargo
of the ship the Blagedon, Captain Timothy Whinny, which will be about 70