ENGLAND. 



755 



Change in 

 the condi- 

 tion of the 



labourer*. 



Statistics, unimportant or uninteresting, to take a retrospective 

 T*"'' view of what were their condition and habits previous 

 to this invention. 



From the time that the original system in the fustian 

 branch, of buying pieces in the grey from the -weaver, 

 was changed, by delivering them out work, the custom 

 of giving them out weft in the cops, which obtained 

 for a while, grew into disuse, as there was no detect- 

 ing the knavery of spinners till a piece came to be wo- 

 ven ; so that the practice was altered, and wool given 

 with warps, the weaver answering for the spinning. 

 The weavers, in a scarcity of spinning, have sometimes 

 been paid less for the weft than they gave the spinner, 

 but durst not complain, much less abate the spinner, 

 lest their looms should be unemployed : but when spin- 

 ning jennies were introduced, and children could work 

 upon them, the case was reversed. At this period of 

 the cotton manufacture, the cottage of the weaver pre- 

 sented an interesting and amiable picture : while he was 

 engaged at his loom, his children were employed in spin- 

 ning the weft ; the feelings and habits of domestic life 

 were entire ; and that link of affection between a father 

 and his children, which secures each very frequently 

 from vice and misery, and which is closely and inti- 

 mately connected with the best interests of society, was 

 sound and unbroken. Lower wages were obtained 

 than are now got under the factory system, but as me- 

 thod, regularity, economy, and sobriety, prevailed, what 

 they earned procured them more of the necessaries and 

 comforts of life, than they can now obtain with their 

 increased wages. At that period, Lancashire, which 

 has always displayed, in a conspicuous and peculiar 

 manner, the wealth and the vices of the cotton trade, 

 was not disgraced and degraded by those instances and 

 scenes of vice and misery which now spread over its 

 surface. The relationships of parents and children 

 were not then merely a name ; home was not then de- 

 serted for the ale-house, or for places of still greater 

 debauchery and vice ; health was not then so lavishly 

 sacrificed to the cupidity of the master manufacturer, 

 or so much despised and neglected by the manufactu- 

 ring labourer, in the pursuit and indulgence of his. 

 passions. In short, the manufacturing classes were 

 then respectable, comfortable, healthy, and virtuous, 

 because they spent the greatest part of their time in 



their own families, and not in crowded manufactories, Statistics 

 amidst the contagion of ignorance, vice, and misery. ""V"*' 

 But we forget that our subject and inquiries are statis- 

 tical, not moral ; and that our object is to give some 

 historical notices of the state of the cotton trade, as a 

 source of national and individual wealth, at diilerent 

 periods. 



For several years after the commencement of the pre- Value of' 

 sent reign, the whole value of the cotton manufactures * c raan "- 

 of this kingdom, (including Scotland as well as Eng- f "" ure al 

 land,) was estimated to be less than L. 209,000 ; and in 

 the spinning of cotton yarn, for this amount of cotton 

 goods, not above 50,000 spindles were employed. In 

 the year 1781, when, as we have already noticed, mus- 

 lins were first made in this kingdom, only 5,101,920 

 pounds of cotton wool were imported. In 1782, in 

 consequence of the increased demand for muslins, the 

 quantity of cotton wool was more than doubled, and 

 the amount of cotton goods was estimated at nearly 

 L. 4,000,000. During the years 1783 and 1784, there 

 was no increase in the importation of cotton yarn, and 

 consequently no increase in the value of cotton good,-. 

 In the year 1784, the patent which Sir Richard Ark- 

 wright had obtained, for his invention of water ma- 

 chines, expired, and they were immediately erected in 

 all parts of the kingdom ; and although the mode of 

 spinning weft by machinery was yet scarcely known, 

 yet the spinning of it by the hand engines nearly kept 

 proportion with the increased supply of warp. This 

 year, the importation of cotton yarn amounted to 

 11,280,238 pounds, and the estimated value of the cot- 

 ton manufactures was L. 3,950,000. In the following- 

 year, a great increase was visible; the quantity of 

 imported raw material having been L. 1 7,992,888, 

 while the value of the goods had risen to the sum of 

 L. 6,000,000. In 1786, the quantity of cotton wool 

 imported, amounted to 19,151,887 pounds, which was 

 manufactured into goods of the value of L. 6,500,000. 

 And in the year 1787, the quantity of cotton wool was 

 22,176,887 pounds, which produced goods of the value 

 of L. 7,500,000. 



A writer, who investigated the subject of the cotton 

 manufactures at this time, estimates the supply and ex- 

 penditure of cotton in the year 1787, in the following In IT8T. 

 proportions : 



This estimate, however, is not correct, with respect 

 to the quantity imported from the British West India 

 colonies ; since it appears, from the report of the com- 

 mittee of the privy council on the slave trade, that the 

 cotton imported from Jamaica, Grenada, and Barbadoes, 

 in the year 1 783, exceeded the quantity here stated as 

 imported from all the British West India Islands. In 

 order to reconcile this with the estimate of the quantity 

 of cotton, which is stated above, to be used in the ma- 

 nufactures of this kingdom, in the year 1787, viz. 

 22,176,887 pounds, it must be observed!, that there was 

 always a certain proportion re-exported ; so that, pro- 

 bably, tlie quantity actually retained for home consump- 



tion was very near what it is here said to have been. 

 It may be proper to point out the view of the state of 

 the cotton manufacture at this period, which is afforded 

 by the comparative quantities of the cotton wool em- 

 ployed in its different branches. Fustians, as we have 

 seen, were the oldest cotton manufactures in the king- 

 dom, whereas muslins and calicoes had only been intro- 

 duced six years before, viz. in the year 1781 ; and yet, 

 the quantity of cotton wool employed in the latter, in 

 the year 1787, was, according to this statement, very 

 nearly double the quantity employed in the manufac- 

 ture of fustians. The same author gives an estimate of 

 the number of water-mills, or machines for spinning 



