with little change of system, save that in 1809
their number was increased from twenty-one to
twenty-eight, and out of that number the Crown
was empowered to appoint seven to be Commissioners
for the Herring Fishery j and from that
time the Fishery Board and the Board of Manufactures
have virtually been separate bodies.
Regarding the Royal Institution, in which it now
has chambers, Lord Cockburn says :-? Strictly, it
ought to have been named after the old historical
THE ROYAL INSTITUTION AS IT WAS IN 1829. (From a Drawkg ay S h @ M )
mental art, and also in taste and design -in manufacture.
In the same year Sir John Shaw Lefevre
was sent down by Government to report on the
constitutionand management of the Board and the
erection of the Galleries of Art in Edinburgh.
Since the Board began to give premiums for the
encouragement of the .linen trade, that branch of
business has made giant strides in Scotland. ?It
takes about six months,? says David Bremner,
?? from the purchase cif the raw material before the
board of trustees, because it was by their money
and for their accommodation chiefly it was made,
and ?the Trustees? Hall? had been the title ever
since the Union, of the place in the old town where
they had met.?
In 1828 new letters patent were issued, giving to
the trustees a wider discretion; and empowering
them to apply their funds to the encouragement not
only of manufactures, but also of such other undertakings
in Scotland as should most conduce to the
general welfare of the United Kingdom.
In 1847 an Act was passed by which the
Treasury was enabled to direct the appropriation
of their funds towards the purposes of education in
the fine arts generaliy, in decorative and ornagoods
can be manufactured and the proceeds drawn,
so that the stock-in-trade of manufacturers and
merchants will amount to ~t;5,ooo,ooo. It would
thus appear that a capital of ~ ~ z , o o o , o o o is required
for carrying on the linen trade of Scotland.?
It was under this Board of Manufactures that
the quality of Scottish linen was improved. One
of their earliest acts was to propose to Nicholas
d?Assaville, a cambric weaver of St. Quintin, in
France, to bring over ten experienced weavers in
cambric, with their families, to settle in Scotland
and teach their art to others. The proposal was
accepted, and the trustees purchased from the
governors of Heriot?s Hospital five acres of ground
eastward of Broughton Loan, whereon were built
-
The Mound.] THE EQUIVALENT MONEY. 85
houses for the French weavers, who, in memory of
their native land, named the colony Little Picardy,
.and thereon now stands Picardy Place. This was
in 1729. The men taught weaving, their wives
and daughters the art of spinning cambric yarn ;
and by the trustees a man well skilled in all the
branches of the linen trade was at the same time
brought from Ireland, and appointed to travel the
country and instruct the weavers and others in the
best modes of making cloth.
'' Secondly, to indemnify for any losses they
might sustain by reducing the coin of Scotland to
the standard and value of England ; and thirdly, in
bribing a majority of the Scottish Parliament when
matters came to the Zasf push.
" Of the whole equivalent, therefore, ono
~40,000 was left for national purposes ; and so lost
to public spirit and to all sense of honour were the
representatives of Scotland, three gr four noblemen
alone excepted, that this balance was supposed to
THE ROYAL INSTITUTION.
Before proceeding further, we shall here quote the
comprehensive statement concerning the Board ot
Trustees which appears in Knox's "View of the
British Empire," London, 17Sg :-
" By the Treaty of Union it was stipulated that
;6398,085 should be paid to the Scots as an
equivalent for the customs, taxes, and excises to be
levied upon that kingdom in consequence of the
English debt, jC~o,ooo,ooo, though estimated at
~17,000,000. This equivalent, if it may be so
called, was applied in the following manner :-
"Firstly, to pay off the capital of the Scottish
India Company, which was to be abolished in
favour of the English Company trading to the East
Indies.
be useless in the English Treasury till the year
1727, when the royal burghs began to wake from
their stupor, and to apply the interest of the
~40,000 towards raising a little fund for improving
the manufactures and fisheries of the country."
'' An Act of Parliament " (the Act quoted before)
'' now directed the application of the funds to the
several purposes for which they were designed, and
appointed twenty-one commissioners, who were
entrusted with the management of the same and
other matters relative thereto."
In Lefevre's Report of July zoth, 1850, it is stated
that "having regard to the origin of this Board as
connected with the existence of Scotland as a
separate kingdom, and to the unbroken series of
