That the public authorities of state and town thought they had a right to exercise pressure of this kind is evident, and many incidental sayings show us that the employers considered they had a duty in the matter. Thus at Norwich the hosiers, finding that they cannot sell their stocks, tell the town rulers that though they have not yet dismissed their men their money is exhausted and they find it is impossible for them to go on much longer[565]. They thus intimate that it was their interest to have dismissed their men sooner but that they held on as long as they could. In another case an employer writes to Nicholas about some payment, and hopes he will be used well by the Council because during a bad time, when most men stopped work, he continued his manufacture and kept nearly one thousand people at work, although he lost heavily by so doing[566]. [565] Norwich Court Books, 22nd Feb. 1630/1, f. 326, Vol. 16. [566] _Dom. S. Papers_, Chas. I., Vol. 184, 65. All this shows that the employers recognised some sort of responsibility for the men whom they usually employed. The continuance of business would save much hardship if the cause of distress was merely a temporary fluctuation in trade. In the cloth-manufacture this was often the case, and therefore the pressure brought to bear on employers in this direction must be considered a real method of helping the poor. But there was another way in which pressure was put on employers. We occasionally find that the town, instead of providing a stock of materials to set the poor to work, reported that the inhabitants found employment for them or that the inhabitants provided hemp and tow and flax and set the poor to work themselves[567]. This not improbably points to some plan like that of the roundsman system of later days. A man in want of work, on applying to the parish authorities, was sent round to different employers and was set to work by each of them for a short period. This plan does not seem to have been much used, for in most cases the justices mention that the overseers had raised stocks of money in order to provide work for the ablebodied, and thus imply their intention of giving direct employment. [567] Eastwicke. "The poore are set on worke by the inhabitants." Hundred of Braughing, 4th April, 1631. "Noe stoeke to sett the poore on worke but they are sett on worke by the inhabitants to spinn towe at iiii_d._ the pound." _Dom. S. P._, Charles I., Vol. 189, No. 80. See Appendix. [Sidenote: 7 _g_. Advancement of capital without interest.] Perhaps the charity which was most peculiar to the seventeenth century was that of lending sums of money to set young tradesmen and artificers up in business for themselves. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries capital was growing a more and more important factor in production and it was becoming an increasingly difficult thing for the young journeyman to become a master.