| Description | In the main, the entries refer to the trade in slates from the Quay and contain draft correspondence with individuals and firms to whom they were exported. These were found all over the country - such was the reputations of Penrhyn slate - and extended to Hamburg and Magdeburg in Germany, Trieste in Italy, Boston and New orleans in the U.S.A. Gradually one gets accustomed to the names of the biggest customers - Dawbarn in Liverpool, Cooper in London, Shelton in Birmingham, Montgomery in belfast. There was a very large trade with Southern Ireland as well, though the captains of vessels were not a bit enthusiastic about taking freights to the west north of Limerick. Great care had to be taken with new customers to sift their financial stability, and much inconvenience was caused by hearing of the absconding of Murphy from Killarney after a shipment of slates had been sent to him. There were occasional accidents to boats with loss of cargo, and trouble with the underwriters. It was impossible to obviate fractures of slates in transit (for letters on this vexed subject, see pp.196,217,239,304.
Fluctuation in freught rates was another problem. There are some interesting matters touched on outside the slate trade: the building of the Llandegai tunnels, the difficulties of tenants whose holdings were severed by the railway, and the constant difficulty to force the contractors to observe their agreements (pp.56-57, 73-74,200,265,417,420, 662); the buying of the Ysbytty estate in the fifties, the negociations, and the endless questions that cropped up afterwards (776 et seq.); the granting of land to build the Normal College at Bangor in 1857 (p.854). There are occasional references to Continental politics, more especially in the very troublous year 1848 (pp.193,432). |