Survey of London

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1903 Excerpt: ...and that the postage of letters had increased from one to twenty. Davenant also (1698) speaks twenty years later to the same effect. He shows that the value of land had risen from twelve years' purchase in former times to fourteen, sixteen, and twenty years' purchase in 1666; and by the end of the century to twenty-six or even more; that great quantities of waste land had been enclosed and cultivated; that the merchant marine had doubled between 1666 and 1688; that many noble buildings had been erected; that the Customs duties had increased in twenty years by a third; that the standard of comfort among the working-classes was greatly improved; and that property in cattle, stock-in-trade, and personal effects had risen from,£17,000,000 in 1600 to,£88,000,000 in 1688. As already mentioned, the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes brought to this country some 70,000 of the most highly skilled artificers. Many thousands settled in the suburbs of London, especially in Bethnal Green, Spitalfields, and St. Giles. Among the things they made or prepared were "light woollens, silk, linen, writingpaper, glass, hats, lute-string, silks, brocades, satins, velvets, watches, cutlery, clocks, jacks, locks, surgeons' instruments, hardware, and toys" Capper, p. 103). These refugees gave the country a large and valuable industry in silk-weaving; it is also supposed that the manufacture of fine paper was due to the French immigrants. In 1670 the Duke of Buckingham brought Venetians over here who introduced the manufacture of fine glass. The making of linen cloth and tapestry was encouraged by an Act of 1666, which offered special advantages to those who set up the trade of hemp dressing. In 1669 certain French Protestants settled at Ipswich and engaged in this...