[Footnote 210: _Life and Correspondence of Samuel Hibbert Ware_, pp. 99-101. The Bill was introduced in August, 1784, and was quickly passed. It was resolved to repeal it in June, 1785. For the agitation, see _Manchester Mercury_ and pamphlets published during these months. Details of the tax are given by Baines, _ibid._, p. 328.] Before the proposal had taken the form of a Bill the manufacturers of Manchester entered a vigorous protest against it, as they did on other occasions after the Bill had become an Act.[211] For four years petitions and counter-petitions rained upon the House of Commons from all parts of the country, occupying a considerable portion of its _Journals_ until 1789, when the shop-tax was repealed, and the Act relating to hawkers and pedlars amended.[212] The chief arguments of the shopkeepers against the itinerant tradesmen do not require recapitulation as they are still vigorously maintained. The minor arguments, that they dealt in smuggled and stolen goods and that they corrupted the minds and morals of the younger part of the community, may be attributed to the shopkeepers’ zeal in controversy.[213] What the hawkers and pedlars--or petty chapmen--did, in fact, was to perform the useful function of linking up the country districts with the manufacturing and trading centres. In the first Manchester petition the chapmen were described as carrying goods from house to house in the country villages and districts remote from towns. It also referred to their great number in Lancashire, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Yorkshire and Cheshire, and stated that their purchases were more considerable than had been apprehended, which no doubt was true. The manufacturers of Glasgow attributed to the chapmen no small part in the extension of manufactures in England and Scotland, through their introducing goods into places where otherwise they would not have been sent.[214] The best witness to their importance at this time is the multitude of petitions presented in their favour from the manufacturers and traders in every considerable town. [Footnote 211: _J.H.C._, xl., p. 1001; xli., p. 283; xliv., p. 295.] [Footnote 212: _Ibid._, xliv., pp. 276, 422.] [Footnote 213: _Ibid._, xl., pp. 1107, 1109.] [Footnote 214: _Ibid._, p. 1039.] From these petitions the organisation of the trade can be clearly visualised. The custom was for the chapmen to obtain their goods from manufacturers and traders on credit, and then to sell them on credit. In this way a considerable amount of capital was used in the trade. The hawkers and pedlars of Halifax and neighbourhood asserted that they had outstanding debts to the amount of £40,000, and that they again were indebted for large sums to merchants and manufacturers in London, Glasgow, Manchester, Leicester, Nottingham, Carlisle, etc.[215] But there were also capitalist traders in some parts of the country who, apparently, were solely engaged in supplying the chapmen with goods on credit.