EDINBURGH PAPERS
BY
ROBERT CHAMBERS, F.R.S.E.,
F.S.A.Sc., F.G.S., F.L.S., &c.
AUTHOR OF ‘TRADITIONS OF EDINBURGH.’
EDINBURGH MERCHANTS
AND
MERCHANDISE IN OLD TIMES
WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS,
LONDON AND EDINBURGH.
1859.
EDINBURGH
MERCHANTS AND MERCHANDISE
IN OLD TIMES.
TO THE
MERCHANT COMPANY OF EDINBURGH,
THIS LECTURE, DELIVERED AT THEIR REQUEST,
FEBRUARY 14, 1859,
IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED.
I do not propose, on this occasion, to carry your minds backto a very remote period, for, truth to tell, Scotland was notdistinguished for commerce at an early date. You will not besurprised if I briefly remark that we hear nothing of trade inLeith harbour till the reign of Bruce, and have reason to believethat it hardly had an existence for a century later. Dr NicolasWest, an emissary of Henry VIII., visited Scotland in 1513, justbefore the battle of Flodden, and he tells us that he then found atLeith only nine or ten small topmen, or ships with rigging, which,from his remarks, we may infer to have all been under sixty tonsburden. There was then but a meagre traffic carried on with theLow Countries, France, and Spain—wool, skins, and salmoncarried out; and wine, silks, cloth, and miscellaneous articlesimported: matters altogether so insignificant, that there are buta few scattered references to them in the acts of the nationalparliament. One may have some idea of the pettiness of anyexternal trade carried on by Edinburgh in the early part of thesixteenth century, from what we know of the condition of Leithat that time. It was but a village, without quay or pier, and withno approach to the harbour except by an alley—the still existingBurgess Close, which in some parts is not above four feet wide.We must imagine any merchandise then brought to Leith ascarried in vessels of the size of small yachts, and borne off to theEdinburgh warehouses slung on horseback, through the narrowdefiles of the Burgess Close.
It chances that we possess, in our General Register House,a very distinct memorial of the traffic carried on between Scotlandand the Netherlands at the close of the fifteenth century. Itconsists in the ledger of Andrew Halyburton, a Scottish merchantconducting commission business for his countrymen at Middleburg,{2}and conservator of the Scotch privileges there. It extends fromthe year 1493 to 1505. Andrew acted as agent for a number ofeminent persons, churchmen as well as laymen, besides merchants,receiving and selling for a commission the raw products of thecountry, chiefly those just named—wool, hides, and salmon—andsending home in return nearly every kind of manufactured articlewhich we could suppose to have then been in use. It appearsthat even salt was then imported. Wheel-barrows were sent fromFlanders to assist in building King’s College, Aberdeen. Therewere cloths of silk, linen, and woollen; fruits, spiceries, anddrugs; plate and jewellery; four kinds of wine—clar