A Proclamation Discharging Merchants and Other Traffickers to Sell..

1635. Edinburgh, 1683. 13-1/2" x 11.. Edinburgh, 1683. 13-1/2" x 11." Rare Broadside Recording a Proclamation of Charles II Enacted to Protect the Textile Industry [Broadside]. Charles I [1600-1649], King of England. A Proclamation Discharging Merchants and Other Traffickers to Sell or Exchange any Prohibite Commodities, With Themselves, Or Amongst Others. Edinburgh: Printed by the Heir of [Andrew Anderson, Printer to His Most Sacred Majesty, 1683]. 13-1/2" x 11" (34.3 x 28 cm) broadside removed from volume with loss of most of imprint statement at foot, text in single column below headline and large woodcut royal arms, eight-line woodcut initial. Moderate toning, lightly soiled horizontal fold line through center, some edgewear along left margin, "94" and "August 1683" in early hand along right margin. $750. * Only edition, one of two issues, the other published in London. Intended to support domestic textile production, this broadside was sent to sheriffs and other law enforcement officials throughout Scotland. (The salutation line in our copy is blank.) An act from September 1681 and a proclamation from the year before prohibited the importation and sale of certain fabrics. However, it permitted merchants to sell any imported stock that remained. By 1683 sufficient time had elapsed to liquidate this stock, but it was apparent that many were continuing to import textiles in violation the law. The present broadside decrees that merchants cannot buy or sell any "Cloaths, Stuff, Sarges [serges], Holland, Cambridge, Silk-stockings, or any Goods made of Wool, or Lint" unless they can prove they were either made in the kingdom or lawfully imported before the prohibition. As for any remaining imported stock, permission is granted to the Merchants Burgesses of Edinburgh to sell it until November 1. Afterwards, it will be "Confiscat, Burnt, and Destroyed, and the Persons guilty otherwise punished." Both issues of this broadside are rare. OCLC, Steele and the English Short Title Catalogue locate four copies of ours (National Archives of Scotland, National Library of Scotland, Harvard Business School, two copies). Steele, A Bibliography of Royal Proclamations of the Tudor and Stuart Sovereigns III:2552. English Short-Title Catalogue R183441.