Sugar

Sugar.

IV. 2. Letter from the Board of Green Cloth to the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen. Upon complaint made to the Board of the bardness and ill-condition of the sugar supplied to His Majesty's house, they had examined Mr. Barrett, the King's grocer, as to the cause, who had stated his opinion that it was the fault of the Refiners, and that many grocers in and about the City could testify the same. They therefore requested the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen to call Mr. Barrett and others before them, and take such steps for the making of better sugars as in their judgement might be fitting.
2nd November, 1615.

IV. 3. The answer of the Sugar Refiners to the complaint of Mr. Barrett, the King's grocer. It alleges that the Refiners made the sugar of good wholesome sugar, and that in making large quantities of sugar some few loaves of necessity did not run clear, or were stained; such loaves were sold as a second quality, and at a penny per pound cheaper, but they were made of the same substance as the best. The best refined sugar coming from the Low Countries was much worse than their second sort, and caused much false imputation upon their sugars. Mr. Barrett and others had been very forward in setting up strangers in the City to supplant them in their trade. The sugar complained of was not of their making, but provided purposely to bring their produce into disgrace.
(Circa 1615.)

VII. 184. Letter from Lord Keeper Coventry to the Lord Mayor. Having made stay at the request of the City and sundry merchants of the grant of Mr. Brook for the taring of sugar chests, Mr. Brook now pressed fo ra hearing of the master. He therefore requestered that two or three persons interested, and who understood the business, might attend him at Copthall on Tuesday, when Mr. Brook would also attend. Some of the farmers of the Customs had been written to to certify whether the passing of the Grant would be prejudicial or serviceable to the King and Kingdom.
Copthall, (fn. 1) 24th November, 1636.

A foot-note states that Sir Nicholas Rainton, (fn. 2) Mr. Moss, and other merchants attended, and that upon debate the Lord Keeper thought fit that Mr. Brook's Grant should not pass.

VII. 198. Reasons exhibited by the Merchants of London trading in sugar to Lord Keeper Coventry against the intended Patent to Mr. Brook for the weighing and taring of sugar-chests.
(Circa 1637.)

VIII. 113. Order in Council, upon the complaint of certain freemen of the City, merchants and refiners of sugar, that John Gibbs, John Therry, and James Therry, sons of strangers, had set up a refining-house without Bishopsgate, contrary to the Order of Council of the 12th April last, prohibiting all strangers and sons of strangers from carrying on the trade of refiners of sugar, and that with a view to elude the Order they had brought from abroad a younger brother, named Stephen, who they pretended was born after their father was made a freeman, and had got him made free of the Weavers' Company. The Council require the Lord Mayor to prevent the said Stephen being admitted to the freedom of the City, and to enjoin the others not to attempt the erecting of any sugar-house or to carry on the trade of sugar refiners.
21st June, 1633.