The unsatisfactory state of the trade is shown in a petition from the merchants, silk men, and others trading for silk, asking for a charter of incorporation because “the trade of silke is now become great whereby ... customes are increased and many thousands of poore men, women and children sett on worke and mayntayned. And forasmuch as the first beginning of this trade did take its being from women then called silkwomen who brought upp men servants, that since have become free of all or moste of the severall guilds and corporacions of London, whose ordinances beeing for other particular trades, meet not with, nor have power to reprove such abuses and deceipts as either have or are likely still to growe upon the silk trade.”[283] Footnote 283: _S.P.D._, clxxv., 102, Nov. 25, 1630. A petition from the Master, Wardens and Assistants of the Company of Silk Throwers, shows that by this “Trade between Forty and Fifty thousand poor Men, Women and Children, are constantly Imployed and Relieved, in and about the City of _London_ ... divers unskilful Persons, who never were bred as Apprentices to the said Trade of _Silk-throwing_, have of _Late years_ intruded into the said Trade, and have Set up the same; and dwelling in Places beyond the Bounds and Circuit of the Petitioners Search by their Charter, do use Divers Deceits in the _Throwing_ and _Working_ of the Manufacture of Silk, to the great Wrong and Injury of the Commonwealth, and the great Discouragement of the Artists of the said Trade.”[284] Footnote 284: _Humble Petition of the Master, Wardens and Assistants of the Company of Silk Throwers._ An act of Charles II. provided that men, women and children, if native subjects, though not apprentices, might be employed to turn the mill, tie threads, and double and wind silk, “as formerly.”[285] Footnote 285: Statutes 13 and 14, Charles II., c. 15. “There are here and there,” it was said, “a Silk Weaver or two (of late years) crept into some cities and Market Towns in _England_, who do employ such people that were never bound to the Trade ... in all other Trades that do employ the poor, they cannot effect their business without employing such as were never apprentice to the Trade ... the Clothier must employ the Spinner and Stock-carder, that peradventure were never apprentices to any trade, else they could never accomplish their end. And it is the same in making of Buttons and Bone-lace, and the like. But it is not so in this Trade; for they that have been apprentices to the Silk-weaving Trade, are able to make more commodities than can be easily disposed of ... because there hath not been for a long time any other but this, to place forth poor men’s Children, and Parish Boyes unto; by which means the poor of this Trade have been very numerous.”[286] Footnote 286: _Trade of England_, p. 18.