AT Swalwell, and at the adjacent villages of Winlaton, and Winlaton Mills, is carried on an iron manufactory, conducted in a very singular manner. These places form a kind of independent republic, that, without violating the laws, exists almost without their assistance-a species of imperium in imperio, of which Ambrose Crowley, about the beginning of this century, was, at once, the founder and the legislator. From the profession of a common smith, he raised himself to the importance I have mentioned. The works which he established have descended with increasing prosperity to his heirs, and his laws still continue to regu

heir operations, under the auspices of Crowley, Millington, and Co.

These gentlemen principally reside in London, where their great warehouse in Thames-street still exhibits for its sign the leathern doublet of Ambrose Crowley.

This and the rest of our information we collected from one who had

VOL. VIII. NO. LI.

served the company for forty years, being the oldest master workman in the place. The business, he informed us, was conducted by agents or clerks, who were the repositories and administrators of the laws of Crowley. To transact the business of the company, they hold a general council every Thursday, and a select committee every Monday; and, for the double purpose of issuing general orders to the artificers, and of deciding the differences which arise between the workmen, they are erected into a court, which is held at Winlaton once in every period of ten weeks.

The bench is composed of the principal clerks, assisted by the clergyman of Winlaton, which is a chapel of ease to the neighbouring parish of Whickham, and where duty is performed at the expence of the company. To these are added four governors, or popular magistrates; two of whom are elected by the workmen of Winlaton, and the other two respectively

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by those of Swalwell and Winlaton Mills.

It is by virtue of a summons from one of these officers that a defendant appears with his witnesses to answer the attested allegations of a plaintiff. But whether the testimony is received upon oath, we could not learn; nor, what is much more extraordinary, could our host inform us if causes were heard and determined immediately by the bench, or by the intervention of a jury; for, by that species of negligence, which is the ruin of political constitutions, this man had wrought for forty years under the company, and had never once had the curiosity to attend a court before which he was every day liable to be called. In this space of time, however, if there had been a jury, he would have found the information which he did not seek; for it is very improbable that he should never have been summoned to perform that duty, or that he should never have heard of those who were, especially as he was a man of considerable property, and could even boast of having been offered a governorship, a place not only of honour and emolument, but perpetual, for which the candidate, according to his expression, canvassed like a parlament-man. But however this be, the sentence of the court, pronounced by the president or chief clerk, is decisive in cases of debt, assault, peculation, abusive language, &c., and probably in all cases where the uncalled interference of the laws of the realm does not supersede the jurisdiction of this bench; for Crowley, aware of the ruinous expences and fraudulent prolongation of suits at law, punished with an absolute discharge those litigious spirits who would not acquiesce in the equity of their own courts.

Thus careful to protect his men again. extortion from without, he was no less vigilant in securing them from the arts of each other. A publican, therefore, in the court of Crowley, could have no remedy for debt, because he might be sus

pected of having lent the money, not through any impulse of benevolence, but of having offered it in the moment of indiscretion, and in the hope of seeing it employed in the purchase of his commodities; and if he prosecuted the suit at common law, he was immediately discharged.

Other debts, and the amercements awarded by the court, are levied by a tax upon the wages. By the trifling contribution, too, of a farthing upon every shilling earned by the workmen, the old and the disabled, the widow and the orphan, are preserved from want; and this is one of the few manufac tories in Britain that is not regarded by its parish with an eye of malignancy. Economy, however, is well observed in the administration of this eleemosinary fund; for when those who were wont to be exercised in laborious employment are disabled by accident, or rendered incapable by age, they are appointed by the agents to the performance of less arduous functions, where they enjoy repose, without the reflection of dependance; nor is age rendered only comfortable in itself, but happy in the prospect of its instructed offspring, who are taught reading, writing, and accounts, at the expence of the company.

Here, however, I cannot help remarking an error in the conduct of the proprietors, who suffer their pedagogue to make terms with the parents of children that belong not to the works; and thus, at the time we visited the factory, his attention was divided among more than a hundred pupils, This number no longer appeared extraordinary when we were informed that not less than a thousand men were employed in this manufactory; of this number, excepting those who were employed at the founderies, the forges, and the warehouses, each pursued his own avocation at his own home; for here every separate article of manufacture is sufficient to afford exclusive employment to one, and often to many

men. By this means they acquire a celerity and adroitness far surpassing the dexterity of those whose attention is divided by a multiplicity of objects; and, as the workmen are paid by the piece, this power of execution is always preserved in activity. A boy, whom we saw fabricating a chain, made a link from a bar of iron, and added it to the rest, in less than one minute; for even boys here are urged to sedulity by an equitable recompence for their labours.

Corporation tyranny has not yet taught the successors of Crowley to exact from a man the labour of his youth, for teaching him an art that may be learnt in his infancy. Here boys work for some time before they are bound to an apprenticeship; but when engaged, either to the company or an individual, they receive a regular stipend, and at the end of their term either commence business themselves, or engage as journey men with others. Indeed, what they call apprentices, seem to be only journeymen, engaged for a particular term: thus our informant had a man about 25 years of age, whom he had instructed in his business of hammer-mak. ing, and had afterwards engaged, under the name of an apprentice, to serve him for seven years, at a salary of 10s. 6d. per week. He employed several others at the same salary, he discharging to the company their poors'-farthings, and the company paying him for their work by the piece.

Our informant, like many other mastermen, frequently suffered his account with the company to remain unsettled for some months, only depositing his work in a general warehouse, where a regular ac count is kept, and an order on the pay-office is given according to the claims of each. But this order is not the only certificate which is requisite to the passing an account at that office. A shop is kept by the company, where workmen may be supplied with common necessaries on the credit of their labour and the

surety of their friends. Though the commodities here are as good in their kind and as cheap as at other places of sale, the resort of the dependants is entirely a matter of choice. The institution seems to have been calculated to preserve those who were destitute of ready money from the fraud of the pawnbroker and the extortion of the shopkeeper. It is, probably, the knowledge of this circumstance, which induces the more substantial artificers to buy in other markets, and which made our host solicitous to inform us that he never frequented the shop. As no one, however, is excluded from the advantage, no account can be passed at the pay-office till signed by the agent at the shop.

We were enabled to form some idea of the importance of this extensive manufacture, when we were informed that not less than five and sometimes 600l. are issued from this office every week. Within the limits of our informant's recollection, which comprised a period of at least forty years, the price of articles to the workmen had neither increased nor diminished, except in a very few particulars. The number of manufacturers too was not supposed to have altered, though the demand for the goods of the factory had increased. That the demand for labour should increase, whilst the number of hands remained the same, and the prices unaugmented, was a paradox that appeared to subvert every principle of economics, till we reflected, that the equilibrium might have been preserved by the increase of improvement of machinery, and the skill acquired by subdivisions of labour. A tilt hammer, in particular, we were told, had been lately erected at Winlaton Mills, of which the strokes were 520 in one minute.

The machinery at this place, as well as at the forging hammers and slitting mill at Swalwell, are amply supplied with water by the river Derwent; nor are they but very rarely impeded by the tide,