CHAPTER V. 



Middlemen in the Textiles and Textile Materials Trades. 



WOOL AND woolens. 



Introduction. 



The boast of Englishmen for centuries was their wool and woolens. 

 Eulogies were profusely sounded, setting forth their paramount 

 importance in the English trade and industry. And not without 

 reason. It was in fact the "Master Wheel of their Trade." Mis- 

 selden was not amiss when he pronounced cloth "to bee a Flower of 

 the Kings Crowne, the Dowry of the Kingdome, the chiefe Revenue 

 of the King. This," he said, "is a bound to fortifie and a Bond to 

 knit the subjects to their societies. This is the Gold of our Ophir, 

 the Milke and Hony of our Canaan, the Indies of England; and there- 

 fore Desire's and Deserves to be had in an everlasting remembrance."^ 

 A century later Defoe declared that "the woolen manufactures of 

 Great Britain are the general wear in all the countries in Europe — go 

 where you will you find it: 'tis in every country, in e\'ery market, in 

 every trading place; all the world wears it, all the world desires it, 

 and all the world almost en\des us the glory and ad\'antage of it."- 

 About 1700 King and Davenant made some calculations to the fol- 

 lowing effect: that the annual income of England was £43,000,000; 

 the yearly rent of the land was £10,000,000; the value of the annual 

 wool clip was £2,000,000; the value of the woolen manufactures was 

 £8,000,000; the value of the woolens exported was £2,000,000. From 

 which it appeared that one-fifth of the rent was paid Ijy wool, one- 

 fifth of the national income was by the woolen manufactures, one- 

 fourth of the woolens was exported and brought in one-twentieth 

 of the national income.^ No other product was so imi)ortant or did 

 so much for the common weal. In wool and woolens the English were 

 in boast and fact the "Nonpareils of the World." 



Corresponding to this predominance accorded wool and woolens 

 was the degree of organization of the trade in these wares. The 



^ Misselden, Free Trade, 40. 



2 Defoe, Plan of Eng. Com., 181, 18.^. 



3 Smith, Memoirs, I. 222. 



255 



