Glasgow—which in 1556 stood eleventh in the roll of the Scottish burghs, contributing but £202, while Edinburgh afforded £2650—appears, in the list now made up for a monthly cess to defray the expenses of the war, as _second_, Edinburgh giving £3880; Glasgow, £1800; Aberdeen, £726; Dundee, [Sidenote: 1695.] £560; Perth, £360; Kirkcaldy, £288, &c. ‘To account for this comparative superiority of the wealth of Glasgow at this time, I must take notice that since before the Restoration the inhabitants had been in possession of the sale of both refined and raw sugars for the greater part of Scotland; they had a privilege of distilling spirits from their molasses, free from all duty and excise; the herring-fishery was also carried on to what was, at that time, thought a considerable extent; they were the only people in Scotland who made soap; and they sent annually some hides, linen, &c., to Bristol, from whence they brought back, in return, a little tobacco—which they manufactured into snuff and otherwise—sugars, and goods of the manufacture of England, with which they supplied a considerable part of the whole kingdom.’—_Gibson’s History of Glasgow_, 1777. It is probable that the population did not then exceed twelve thousand; yet the seeds of that wonderful system of industry, which now makes Glasgow so interesting a study to every liberal onlooker, were already sown, and, even before the extension of English mercantile privileges to Scotland at the Union, there was a face of business about the place—a preparation of power and aptitude for what was in time to come. This cannot be better illustrated than by a few entries in the Privy Council Record regarding the fresh industrial enterprises which were from time to time arising in the west.