Note 30b — PART I. INTRODUCTION.

Hence we hear of manufacturers of Bays, Dyers, Dyehouses, Falling-mills, Button-makers, and worsted-weavers at Lynn, with some thousands employed in knitting stockings, &c.—In behalf of the latter, a petition against the worsted-weavers was presented to parliament in 1689.—See Town Book, No. 10.—Mackerell, about 70 years ago, makes the population of Lynn to amount to upwards of 20,000—if his estimate was right, even within 5 or 6,000, (and he published it under the auspices of the Corporation) the town must have been far more populous than it is at present. See Mackerell, p. 93.—From the great, and increasing number of empty houses now in the town, it may be concluded, that its population is at this time decreasing. The rapid decay of trade, the prospect of an endless war, and the daily increase of the public burdens, are doubtless among the causes of this depopulation. Neither the paving, nor yet the new poor’s rate laws, are likely to realize the vast benefits promised or held out by the promoters of them, and fondly expected by many of the inhabitants. On the contrary, those very Acts are said to be severely felt by a large portion of the householders, many of whom, it seems, have already broken up housekeeping, and many more are expected to take the same course. Upon the whole, it does not seem to appear, either from the Registers of Births and Burials, or from any other known circumstances or sources of information, that the population of Lynn, within the last twenty or thirty years (as generally supposed) has exceeded that of former periods. This subject, however, shall be reserved for future consideration.