Note 58 — Chapter I

See the petitions from Exeter and Dartmouth, February 24, 1723, vol. xx. pp. 268-9; and those from Taunton, Tiverton, Exeter, and Bristol, March 3 and 7, 1725, vol. xx. pp. 598, 602, 648. In 1729 the Bristol weavers, “while the corporation was at church,” riotously attacked the house of an obnoxious employer, and had to be repulsed by the troops (History of Bristol, p. 261, by J. Evans; Bristol, 1824). In 1738 they forced the clothiers to sign a bond that they would “for ever forward” give fifteen pence a yard for weaving, under penalty of £1000 (Gentlemen’s Magazine, 1738, p. 658; see also “An Essay on Riots, their Causes and Cure,” published in the Gloucester Journal, and reprinted in the Gentlemen’s Magazine, 1739, pp. 7-10). In 1756 there was an extensive and serious uprising (see A State of the Case and Narrative of Facts relating to the late Commotion and Rising of the Weavers in the County of Gloucester, in the Gough Collection, Bodleian Library).