[567] Eastwicke. "The poore are set on worke by the inhabitants."
Hundred of Braughing, 4th April, 1631. "Noe stoeke to sett the poore on worke but they are sett on worke by the inhabitants to spinn towe at iiii_d._ the pound." _Dom. S. P._, Charles I., Vol. 189, No. 80. See Appendix.
[Sidenote: 7 _g_. Advancement of capital without interest.]
Perhaps the charity which was most peculiar to the seventeenth century was that of lending sums of money to set young tradesmen and artificers up in business for themselves.
During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries capital was growing a more and more important factor in production and it was becoming an increasingly difficult thing for the young journeyman to become a master.
We must remember that six to twelve per cent. was the ordinary rate of interest at the time. The difficulty of paying so much probably prevented many poor young men from starting business. Moreover all through the Middle Ages lending money for interest was considered contrary to Christian morality, and many men still held to the old opinion. In great numbers of places therefore funds were bequeathed to what have been termed "Lending Cash Charities." Sums were lent to young men, or sometimes to older men who had lost their capital, either for no return or at what was then a low rate of interest, and the borrowers had to find security for the repayment of the original sum. Many of the City Companies are responsible for the administration of very considerable sums of this kind. The Haberdashers' Company alone possesses £2510 which ought to be lent gratis and which was bequeathed by many different donors between the years 1569 and 1638. The Mercers' Company possesses at least twenty-one gifts of this kind. One of the most considerable of these is that of Lady Campbell, who in 1642 bequeathed £1000 which was to be lent gratis on good security to eight young men of the Mercers' Company; shopkeepers of the mercery were to be preferred, and next to them silkmen[568].
[568] _Haberdashers' Company Char. Com. Rep._ X. p. 230. _Mercers' Company Char. Com. Rep._ VI., pp. 285, 291, 307.
David Appowell, 1508. £100 to be lent to two young men for seven years in consideration of four cart-loads of coal every year.