The Poor Man of Toggenburg - Autobiography of Ulrich Bräker

completely destroyed. And with that people are of good courage now that profit and earnings rise and our cotton cloth and manufactured goods are again much in demand.

Though of course the good of that has not reached everyone: our dealers and spinners of muslin yarn are alike still held down. The cause is: because much English yarn

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is coming into the country. Yes, many hundredweights are coming to St. Gallen and the Toggenburg, much cheaper than our country yarn. And yet we must on this account sell our yarn to the factories cheaper by the pound, than when no English yarn was coming into the country. On this account this considerable class of people curse and abuse the English machine-yarn and all those who have anything to do with it. And indeed it is true: Factory-owners, master-weavers have much use for this cheap machine-yarn. But where one does well out of it, fifty, yes, up to a hundred others suffer, the poor spinners and middlemen, who earn their painful livings from it, because, while they with their hands prepare a single Schneller, one machine in the same time can prepare thousands." [Voellmy, v 2 pp 260-262]

2nd-3rd July Bräker walks with Pastor Johannes Frank to Frauenfeld, to attend the meeting of the Confederation's parliament. So many men attend that Bräker has trouble finding accommodation. Bräker is moved at the sight of the delegates from the cantons and subject lands and their suites and listens for three hours to the speeches in the hall of the council buildings. [Chronik, p 446]

On 14th-15th August a conference was held at Schwarzenbach between deputies of the Prince-Abbot and the Toggenburg. Concessions were made, but also further demands under the leadership of Gallus Schrumpf, a lawyer from Wattwil.

"The first of this would be the quarrel between the men of Gossau or the so-called Alte Landschaft and the prince of St. Gallen. These disagreements had already lasted for a few years, which though they were laid aside under the prince now lately dead, under the newly elected prince were brought out anew. Whether the people or the prince was responsible for this, I will not presume to decide. I believe both sides of the story, as is usually the case with all quarrels. The prince believed, or may have been so informed by his courtiers, that his predecessor had given away too many of his rights - on the other hand the people not only would not give way in anything, but demanded still more freedom. But among the people there were always two parties, which have been named the Hard and the Soft. The Hard ones are for the country people, the Soft ones for the prince. Now after much negotiation - debate - quarrels and exchange of blows, the matter came at last to Frauenfeld and before the judge of the four protector cities: Zürich, Luzern, Schweiz and Glarus, who had sent their representatives thither, and they also gave out a judgement, which, however, the Hard party found much less than acceptable. Heated debates broke out anew, meetings upon meetings and serious rioting against the monastery of St. Gallen, so that it was feared that it would be overrun, and everyone made preparations to meet force with force. The

English yarn was spun by machine and therefore cheaper. The first spinning machine was invented by James Hargreaves of Blackburn in 1767.