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 [Illustration] 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. EDINBURGH MERCHANTS AND MERCHANDISE IN OLD TIMES. I do not propose, on this occasion, to carry your minds back to a very remote period, for, truth to tell, Scotland was not distinguished for commerce at an early date. You will not be surprised if I briefly remark that we hear nothing of trade in Leith harbour till the reign of Bruce, and have reason to believe that it hardly had an existence for a century later. Dr Nicolas West, an emissary of Henry VIII., visited Scotland in 1513, just before the battle of Flodden, and he tells us that he then found at Leith only nine or ten small topmen, or ships with rigging, which, from his remarks, we may infer to have all been under sixty tons burden. There was then but a meagre traffic carried on with the Low Countries, France, and Spain—wool, skins, and salmon carried out; and wine, silks, cloth, and miscellaneous articles imported: matters altogether so insignificant, that there are but a few scattered references to them in the acts of the national parliament. One may have some idea of the pettiness of any external trade carried on by Edinburgh in the early part of the sixteenth century, from what we know of the condition of Leith at that time. It was but a village, without quay or pier, and with no approach to the harbour except by an alley—the still existing Burgess Close, which in some parts is not above four feet wide. We must imagine any merchandise then brought to Leith as carried in vessels of the size of small yachts, and borne off to the Edinburgh warehouses slung on horseback, through the narrow defiles of the Burgess Close.