blood of five martyrs ; to which number we may add a sixth, James Duke, who belonged to Bristol, but suffered in Kent. About the beginning of autumn 1559 " the church wardens of all the churches of Bristow," says an unpub lished chronicle noticed below, " and some of the ministers, brought forth their roods and other images, which were in
their churches, to the High Cross where they were burnt."The detachment of the castle from the county of Glou cester, and its grant to and incorporation with the town of Bristol by Charles I. (1629) at the request of Henrietta Maria, was another important surrender from the Crown, but the charter cost the city 949, and the castle was to be holden at a fine of 40 yearly. As London was called the King s Royal Chamber, so Bristol was called the Queen s Royal Chamber; but courtly favours were all practi cally cancelled by the infliction of the ship-money tax. By the king s writ (of October 20, 1634), 6500 was charged on Bristol for this impost, and there were further taxations in successive years. The payment of these assessments became at length so dilatory as to draw down (1638) a sharp reprimand from Government upon the mayor, with the threat, " if you give not his majesty better satisfac tion we shall take a course to make you sensible of your duty" (Cat. State Papers).
The hurtful interference with the trade of the place (such as the limitation in the manufacture of soap to 600 tons yearly, which article had been from the 12th century, and is even now, one of the chief of Bristol productions) prepared the way for the easy admission of Col. Essex and his troops, when in 1643 he presented himself before the gates of the city. The Parliament held the place from 5th December 1642 to 26th July in the following year, when Prince Rupert, with his cavaliers, surrounded the walls, and storm ing at all points frightened the governor, Col. Fiennes, who had succeeded Essex, into capitulation. In August 1645 the city was assaulted by Fairfax and Cromwell, and on the 20th day of the siege, it having been heard that the king was in full march upon the west, a storm was decided upon, and after a sharp assault on the llth of September, Rupert surrendered. " We had not killed of ours iii the storm," says Cromwell, " nor in all this siege, two hundred men. He who runs may read that all this is none other than the work of God. He must be a very atheist that doth not acknowledge it." Ten years later the castle was demolished by order of the Protector. The history during the next century and a half is unmarked by any very striking events. The rise of Non conformity ; the persecution of the Quakers, of whom 103 were in Bristol prisons at the accession of Charles II.; the visit of the sanguinary Jefferies on his famous western assizes, when six persons were condemned and executed on Redcliff hill, are some of the chief phases and incidents during this period, in 1684 was given the charter granting that "the citizens and inhabitants of Bristol arid their suc cessors hereafter for ever may and shall be a body corporate in deed, fact, and name, by the name of the Mayor, Bur gesses, and Commonalty of the City of Bristol, with a com mon seal." In 1685 James II. stopped here on his way to Sedgemoor ; and he again visited Bristol in the following year, and was handsomely entertained. The bishop of Bristol at the time was Lake, one of the historical seven, who was succeeded by Trelawny, another of the seven. The greatest merchant in Bristol at this period was Edward Colston, whose profuse benevolence has made his name splendid among the citizens. In the foundation of schools and almshouses, repairs of churches, &c., he gave 70,695, a vast sum in these days. He died in 1721. Three influen tial societies instituted to his memory yearly assemble at public dinners, where they collect alms for lying-in women, for apprenticing boys,&c. Up to the end of 1874 the amounts collected from their commencement by these the Dolphin, Anchor, and Grateful societies have attained an aggregate of 118,013. At the election of 1774 Bristol was repre sented in the person of the famous Edmund Burke, but his policy did not please all his constituents, and he con sequently lost his seat here for the next Parliament. His defensive speech on the hustings of Bristol " is one of the most convincing pieces of popular oratory on record," The Bridge Riots of 1793 and the Reform Riots of 1831 are dark spots on the history of Bright-stoiv, or Bright-place, as old Fuller interpreted the name. The former were the result of opposition to the prolonged impost of toll which it was prevalently understood was to cease by a certain day. About forty persons lost their lives by a charge of the military on this occasion. The Reform Riots have been called " The Bristol Revolution," but were simply a revolt of the lowest stratum of society, in whom mania for plunder superseded all political principle. Forty-five houses, the bishop s palace, and the prisons were burnt to the ground ; twelve of the rioters were killed by the soldiers, several perished in their own fires, four were hanged, thirty were imprisoned ; the colonel of the troops committed suicide, and the city was mulcted in 68,208 damages. The next year the cholera visited the people, when 626 died of the malady.
The nautical enterprise of Bristol has been worthy of a place that " seems to swim on the waters " and struck the eye of Pope the poet as having its streets full of ships. Some remarkable voyages from the port are recorded, but perhaps none more memorable than that of Sebastian Cabot in 1497, who was the first Englishman (for he was born in Bristol) who landed in America, and the earliest to discover that portion of the continent now called the United States, and thereby to secure its English colonization. The notice in a hitherto unpublished local chronicle is as follows : "This year (1497), on St John the Baptist s day, the land of America was found by the merchants of Bristowe in a ship of Bristol called the Matthew, the which said ship departed from the port of Bristowe the 2d of May, and came home again 6th August following."[1] A Bristol privateer brought home from Juan Fernandez the real Robinson Crusoe. The saucy" Arethusa" frigate, celebrated for naval daring by Dibdin in song and by Capt. Chamicr in romance, was built at and belonged to Bristol. The first steamboat built and fitted at the same port was the " Wye," in 1827. Bristol was the first city in the kingdom that established regular steam communication with the United States, the first voyage having been made by the " Great Western" in 1838. This vessel was built at Bristol at a cost of 60,000. The " Great Britain " and the ill- fated " Demerara " were also built here, the former costing 120,000.
The creation of Bristol a free port in 1848 lias resulted in great increase of trade. The tonnage of foreign vessels (exclusive of Ireland) with cargoes entering the town, was in 1846, 100,722 ; in 1873, 411,014; in 1874, 432,940.- The quantity of. grain of all kinds imported between April 1874 and April 1875 was 1,062,007 quarters; of wine, 7459 pipes; of timber, 34,740 tons; of sugar, 83,858 tons. With respect to the shoe manufacture, in January 1657, leave was given by Government to Mr Ellis of Bristol, to send 1000 dozen of shoes to Barbadoes, and another 1000 dozen in Decem ber. The combined shoe trade now employs 5000 hands, one firm, Derham s, alone paying in wages 50,000 per annum. Fry s choco late and cocoa works occupy between 500 and 600 hands. The soap trade engages about 400 hands. In the Great Western Cotton Works about 1500 are employed ; in the stay trade 2000 people.
Bristol stands fourth of all the seaport English towns_ in the amount of customs revenue received. The gross amount in 1864
- ↑ These important dates have not (at least the two latter) till now been published. They are from an ancient manuscript for several generations in possession of the Fust family of Hill Court, Gloucester shire, the " collations " of which are now (1876) in the keeping of Mr William George, bookseller, Bristol.
