Note 99 — Chapter IV

The grievances of Scotland in relation to their trade with England, sent up to the Council, 3 Feb. 1668. See also a paper given in by the Scots Commissioners for adjusting the differences of trade between the two kingdoms, Jan. 21, 1667 (1668), printed in Defoe, App. No. xiii., and in the “Report on the events and circumstances which produced the union of the kingdoms of England and Scotland” (App. No. xxxi.). This report, which was prepared for the private use of the Government, at the request of the Duke of Portland, in 1799, when the Union with Ireland was being discussed, contains most of the papers which passed between the Commissioners on Trade in 1668. The Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1667-1668, published in 1893, throws some light on these transactions. It appears that the coal merchants of Newcastle and the North of England had a grievance in the inequality of the export duties levied on coal in the two countries. English coal paid eight shillings, and Scottish coal only twenty pence. The result was said to be that the customs from coal had fallen in that part of the country, from £20,000 a year to £4000, and that English merchants were suffering from the importation into Scotland, in exchange for coal, of foreign goods which the Scots used to obtain from England. (Memorial of 24th Feb. 1668. Calendar, p. 247.)