_February, 1701._—Matthew and Daniel Campbell, merchants in Glasgow, designed to set up an additional sugar-work, and, in connection with it, a work ‘for distilling brandy and other spirits from all manner of grain of the growth of this kingdom.’ With this view, they had ‘conduced and engaged several foreigners and other persons eminently skilled in making of sugar and distilling of brandy, &c., whom, with great travel, charges, and expense, they had prevailed with to come to Glasgow.’ All this was in order that ‘the nation may be the more plentifully and easily provided with the said commodities, as good as any that have been in use to be imported from abroad,’ and because ‘the distillery will both be profitable for consumption of the product of the kingdom, and for trade for the coast of Guinea and America, seeing that no trade can be managed to the places foresaid, or the East Indies, without great quantities of the foresaid liquors.’ [Sidenote: 1695.] On their petition, the privileges of a manufactory were granted to them. In the progress of manufacturing enterprise in the west, an additional soap-work connected with a glass-work came to be thought of (February 1701). James Montgomery, younger, merchant in Glasgow, took into consideration ‘how that city and all the country in its neighbourhood, and further west, is furnished with glass bottles.’ The products of the works at Leith and Morison’s Haven ‘cannot be transported but with a vast charge and great hazard.’ He found, moreover, ‘ferns, a most useful material for that work, to be very plenty in that country.’ There was also, in the West Highlands, great abundance of wood-ashes, ‘which serve for little or no other use, and may be manufactured first into good white soap, which is nowhere made in the kingdom to perfection; and the remains of these wood-ashes, after the soap is made, is a most excellent material for making glass.’ He had, therefore, ‘since March last, been with great application and vast charge seeking out the best workmen in England,’ and making all other needful preparations for setting up such a work. On his petition, the Council endowed his work with the privileges of a manufactory, ‘so as the petitioner and his partners may make soap and glass of all kinds not secluded by the Laird of Prestongrange and his act of parliament.’[152] [Sidenote: JULY 7.]