The State Protection of Agriculture. 1 9 1 



E1iz. c. 7 attempted to create small holdings ; those of 2 and 

 3 Ph. & M. c. 3, 22 Car. II. c. 13, and 3 Will. & Mary c. 8, 

 encouraged cattle-breeding and tillage, with, of course, the 

 ulterior object of discouraging sheep-herding and pasturage. 

 By a long series of Acts ^ the exportation either of sheep or 

 wool was prohibited ; and by 1 Will. & M. c. 12, that of corn 

 encouraged. When we add to all these legislative attempts to 

 hamper the sheep proprietor, what has been already said in an 

 earlier portion of this work regarding the excessive calls on the 

 flock-master's profits, such as are evidenced by wool grants 

 and the institution of the staple,^ we may well wonder at the 

 results which we have now to record. According to Davenant, 

 one year's fleeces, shorn in England only, were worth at the 

 beginning of the eighteenth century £2,000,000, but when 

 converted into goods, four times that amount ; ^ so that out of 

 a total valuation of £6,788,166 for all exports in 1699, he esti- 

 mated that the wool alone accounted for £2,934,292.* In cor- 

 roboration of Davenant's valuation was the following episode. 

 Complaints only the preceding year had been directed in 

 Parliament against the evasion of enactments prohibiting the 

 exportation of wool in the raw, not this time so much on 

 account of any political animus against the flock-master, but 

 because, as the bill of the following year records, the wool and 

 manufactures of cloth, serge, baise, kerseys, and other stuffs 

 made or mixed with wool are the greatest and most profitable 

 commodities of this kingdom, in which the value of lands and 

 the trade of the nation do chiefly depend ; ^ and that the ex- 

 portation of such goods from Ireland and the English planta- 

 tions into foreign markets, heretofore supplied by England, 

 tended to sink the value of land and ruin trade. The Act 

 therefore proceeded to prohibit any exportation from such 



^ 11 Ed. III. c. 1 ; 8 Hen. VI. c. 22; 3 Hen. VI. c. 2 ; 22 Hen. VIII. c. 7 ; 

 8 Eliz. c. 3 ; 12 Car. II. c. 32; 13 and 14 Car. II. c. 18, etc., etc. 



2 Compare 27 Ed. III. st. ii. c. 1 ; 38 Ed. III. st. i. c. 7 and 13 ; 43 Ed. 

 III. c. 1 ; 14 R. II. c. 1 and 5 ; 2 Hen. VI. c. 4 and 5 ; 8 Hen. VI. c. 17, etc. 



^ Disconrats on the East India Trade. Works, ii. 14(J. 



* 2nd Report to Commissioners of Public Accounts. Works, v. 400. 



' 10 and 11 Will. III. c. 10. 



