Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1847 edition. Excerpt: ... minor emeutes. Since the romantic and eventful period of "the Forty-five," Glasgow, with the exception of some minor excitements and disturbances, has locally enjoyed the blessings of peace, like all the rest of the land. The military fever again became strong, upon the outbreak of the American War of Independence, which was then termed the "revolt of the colonists;" and the Glasgow merchants raised a body of 1000 men on that occasion, at an expense of 10,000, which they placed at the disposal of his majesty, for the purpose of bringing the refractory Americans to their senses. It would be too much to assume for this liberality the credit of patriotism; for, by this time, the merchants of St. Mungo had grown fat on the profits of the Virginian tobacco trade, and they feared that the revolutionary spirit of the colonists would spoil their profits. So determined was the spirit evoked, that in 1775, many A truthful chronicler, who writes in the Glasgow Herald, of 18th October, 1843, under the signature of " Senex," narrates the circumstances which led to the erection of the splendid building, now converted into the Royal Exchange; and, as it is connected with the interruption to the tobacco trade by the American war, the narrative may not inappropriately be introduced here. He says: --" It may amuse many of the younger folks who frequent the New Exchange, to hear how that building came originally to be erected. Mr. Cunningham was a junior partner in a Virginia house here, when the first American war broke out. That house then held an immense stock of tobacco, said to have been almost the onehalf of all the tobacco in the United Kingdom. The price of tobacco before the war broke out had been threepence per pound; but immediately upon..."