The CASE or PETITION of the Corporation of PIN-MAKERS, London.  
THE Corporation of the Pin-Makers of the City of London are a Corporation first incorporated by Charter of King James the First, confirmed afterwards and enlarged by King Charles the First, and now lastly confirmed again by Letters Patents of His Majesty King Charles the Second, and into the Membership, Regulation, and Government of this Company are all the Pin-Makers in England and Wales incorporated.  
This Company consists for the most part of poor and indigent People, who have neither Credit nor money to purchase wire of the Merchant at the best hand, but are forced for want thereof, to buy only small Parcels of the second or third Buyer, as they have occasion to use it, and to sell off the Pins they make of the same from Week to Week, as soon as they are made, for ready money, to feed themselves, their Wives, and Children, whom they are constrained to employ to go up and down every Saturday Night from Shop to Shop to offer their Pins to Sale, otherwise cannot have money to buy Bread.  
And these are daily so exceedingly multiplied and increased by reason of the unlimited Number of Apprentices that some few covetous minded Members of the Company( who have considerable Stocks) do constantly employ and keep, that they are not able to live one by another when they come out of their Times. Besides that, they are exceedingly prejudiced in their Trades, and under-sold by the clandestine Importation of foreign Pins from beyond the Seas, which are daily exposed and put to Sale here under the English Mark, to the great abuse of the King and Queens liege People, the same being slight and unserviceable( and at the best), far worse than those of the English making.  
The Persons that buy the Pins from the Maker, to sell again to other retailing Shop-keepers, taking Advantage of this Necessity of the poor Workman( who are always forced to sell for ready money, or otherwise cannot subsist), have by degrees so beaten down the Price of Pins, that the Workman is not able to live of his Work, and make serviceable wears; and divers of them have been constrained to sell their Pins for less than the wire cost them, to provide Bread for their necessitous Families, which otherwise must perish; whereupon many have been compelled to give over their Trades, and betake themselves to be Porters, Tankard-Bearers, and other Day-Laborours, who formerly lived very well, and many of their Children do daily become Parish-Charges.  
And those who continue, are constrained to make their Pins of weak, insufficient, and defective wire, or otherwise they must sell at loss. The richer sort, who are but few, and perhaps may have some small Stock to buy a quantity of wire at the best hand, are by these means likewise constrained to give longer time to the Buyer than their Stocks will-bear; to balance which ill Convenience, they are forced to make their Pins every day worse and worse; and by this means the Trade decays more and more, and the Credit and Estimation of English Pins is lost in foreign Parts, where they always heretofore were wont to out-sell those of any other Nation( it being then a considerable Manufacture) and the Trade is conveyed into the hands of Foreigners.  
To recover which, and to prevent the Ruin of their Trade, the Company find only one Expedient, which is, to agree with some Person or Persons to raise a Stock for them, which Persons to have always Thirty Thousand Pounds at the least, and with part thereof to furnish as well the poor as the richer sort with wire of all sorts( to be ready laid in at some convenient place to be provided for that purpose) at one and the same certain Rate, as they shall have occasion to use it, and so much in Ready money as will weekly buy off from the Pin-Makers hands all the Pins they shall make of that wire, at one and the same Price both to rich and poor. And the Company have covenanted with William Killigrew, Esquire, and his Partners, to buy and take off from his or their hands Two Hundred Tun of wire yearly, and so much more as they shall have occasion to use at a certain Profit agreed upon between them, and to bring to the Hall to be provided for that purpose, and there weekly sell to the said William Killigrew, and his Partners, Agents, and Assigns, all the Pins they shall make with the same wire, at the Rates and Prices mentioned in a Schedule which they have annexed to their Petition, which Prices do not exceed what they were heretofore sold at, when the Commodity could be afforded to be well and truly made.  
And the said William Killigrew, in consideration of the Profit that he and his Partners are to have upon the wire, hath covenanted with the Pin-Makers to take of weekly from the hands of every Member of the said Company, all the Pins he or they shall so make, and bring at the Rates and Prices so agreed upon, and to sell the same again to the Shop-keepers, and all other their Majesties Subjects, at the same Rates and Prices, without enhancing the same, or making any Profit or Advantage thereupon.  
And the sole End of this Proposal, is to raise up again the Credit, Estimation, and Goodness of the Commodity, both at home and abroad, and to keep themselves from being made a Prey to the Avarice of others, who eat out all the Profit of their Labour.  
But because the said William Killigrew, and his Partners, are unwilling to venture on the said Contract, wherein so great a Stock is to be concerned, without the warrant of an Act of Parliament, to declare the lawfulness thereof, the Contract being on condition that an Act of Parliament do pass. The Pin-Makers are therefore humble Petitioners to Their Majesties and both Houses of Parliament, for a Declaratory Act in that behalf, which they rather hope will not be denied them, for that there is no other way left to preserve the Manufacture.  
And for encouragement of so considerable an English Manufacture, they likewise humbly pray all foreign Pins may by a stricter Law than formerly be prohibited to be imported, and to stop the unreasonable increase and multiplying of Pin-Makers who have little or no Stocks, and are already hardly able to live one by another. They are likewise Petitioners, That no Pin-Makers may be permitted to keep above. Three Apprentices at a time, and those not for less than Seven Years by Indenture bound, as in the Trade of Felt-Making is already Enacted by Parliament, in the First Year of the Reign of King James the First.  
And that all Persons who petitioned against us the last Sessions, may be summoned to appear, and that both parties may be fairly heard.  
Lastly, We most humbly beg, That there may be a Clause inserted in the Act, to mitigate the heavy Tax of fifteen Shillings on every hundred Weight of wire, which amounts to 3000 l. year for five years, on the poorest of People, to their utter ruin, if not mitigated by some Expedient: such as in your Wisdom shall be thought fit. And to this End pray that they have leave to prepare to bring in a Bill accordingly.  

A SCHEDULE of the Names, Weights, and Prices of PINS.    Best. 2d. Sort. 3d. Sort.   l. s. d. l. s. d. l. s. d. Two Pounds Four Ounces   10     9     8 6 Two Pounds Eight Ounces   10 5   9 11   9 5 Two Pounds Twelve Ounces   10 10   10 4   9 10 Three Pounds   11 2   10 8   10 2 Three Pounds Four Ounces   11 8   11 2   10 8 Three Pounds Eight Ounces   12     11 6   11   Three Pounds Twelve Ounces   12 6   12     11 6 Short Whites.                   One Pound   8 2   7 8   7 2 One Pound Six Ounces   8 8   8 2   7 8 One Pound Ten Ounces   9     9 6   7   Lillikins.   9     8 6   8   Middle Whites.                   Two Pounds Four Ounces   10 2   9 8   9 2 Double Long Whites, al. Cawkings.                   Three Pounds Eight Ounces   12 4   11 10   11 4 Four Pounds   13 1   12 7   12 1 Packetts.                   Nine Ounces   16 8   16 2   15 8 Eleven Ounces 1       19 6   19   Thirteen Ounces 1 3 6 1 3   1 2 6 Sixteen Ounces 1 8 10 1 8 2 1 7 10 Twenty Ounces 1 17 6 1 17   1 16 6 Twenty Four Ounces 2 7 2 2 6   2 6   Spanish Pins.                   Six Pounds   16 8   16 2   15 8 Seven Pounds   19     18 6   18   Eight Pounds 1 1   1   6 1