INVENTION AND AMERICAN WEALTH 269 



who said : — ''I would not allow the colonists to make so much 

 as a hobnail for themselves." 



In accordance with this policy, Great Britain enacted 

 laws prohibiting every species of manufactures in the colonies. 

 Even a hat factory in Massachusetts was declared a nuisance, 

 and its existence ordered abated. AVhen the colonists began 

 to make iron and nails for their own use, the house of com- 

 mons resolved that ''none in the plantations should manu- 

 facture iron wares of any kind out of any sows, pigs, or bars 

 whatsoever," and the house of lords added that '*no forge 

 going by water, or other works, should be erected in any of 

 the plantations for the making, working, or converting of any 

 sows, pigs, or cast iron into bar or rod iron." A bill was 

 also mtroduced in parliament which prohibited the erection 

 of any mill for slitting or rolling iron, for the manufacture of 

 spikes or nails, or any plating forge to work with a tilt hammer, 

 or any furnace for making steel, and also proposed to abolish 

 the few which had been built; and by the act of 1750 the 

 further erection of all such was prohibited. 



It was the same with the textile industries. Not only 

 were the colonies prohibited from transporting any manu- 

 factured articles abroad, but also from one colony to another; 

 and to still further cripple the growth of manufactures, an 

 act of parliament forbade, under severe penalties, even to 

 outlawry, the departure from Great Britain of any artificer in 

 any of the various branches, and also the exportation from 

 Great Britain of ''any machine, engine, tool, press, paper, 

 utensil, or implement, or any part thereof, which then was, 

 or thereafter might be, used in the cotton, woollen, silk or 

 manufacture, or any model or plan thereof," under a penalty 

 of forfeiture, a fine of £200, and a year's imprisonment, and 

 the like penalty for anyone "having, collecting, making, ap- 

 plying for, or causing to be made any such machinery;" and 

 when, in 1684, the colony of Virginia passed an act to en- 

 courage the manufacture of textile fabrics, the act was an- 

 nulled by parliament. 



AVhen coal was discovered and began to be used, an act 

 of parliament prohibited any collier or miner from leaving the 

 kingdom under similar penalties. 



