22 SHEEP INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES 



In 1682 it was found by experience that wool, wool felts, skins, hides, 

 and iron were very necessary and profitable for the support of the 

 country, and that it would be found 



profitable for the setting to work of many men, women, and children which lye 

 idle for want of employment, and for the better setting to work the poorer and 

 weaker sort of people of this country, and to the intent that the full and best use of 

 such principal native commodities may come and redound, and be unto and amongst 

 the inhabitants of the same, it was enacted that neither wool, hides, nor iron should 

 be exported under heavy penalties. 



And it was further enacted that for the " better and further encour- 

 agement for the working up our wool into cloth " that every person 

 making a yard of woolen cloth or lincywoolcy, three-fourths yard wide, 

 should have 6 pounds of tobacco, and for every well- wrought hat made 

 of wool or furs 10 pounds of tobacco, and for every dozen pairs of men's or 

 women's woolen or worsted hose 12 pounds of tobacco. This law was 

 to remain in force until November 10, 1685. About the same time the 

 price of wool was fixed at Sd. per pound, washed before shearing. The 

 act of 1682, giving premium on manufactures of wool, hides, and iron, 

 was repealed in 1684. 



When England imposed an excise on tobacco, Virginia, in 1687, at- 

 tempted to retaliate by passing acts for the encouragement of domestic 

 manufactures, including those from wool, but these acts were disal- 

 lowed by the English king as " hostile to English interests." In April, 

 1691, the assembly put an export duty on wool of sixpence a pound. 



John Clayton, who wrote of Virginia's products in 1688, says : u Their 

 sheep are a middling size, pretty fine fleeced in general, and most persons 

 of estate begin to keep flocks which hitherto has not been much regarded, 

 because of the wolves that destroy them; so that a piece of mutton is a 

 finer treat than .either venison, wild goose, duck, widgeon, or teal." 



Andros, who was governor from 1692 to 1698, was a patron of manu- 

 factures, and in 1692 approved acts for establishing fulling mills, 

 which, however, were rejected by the English government. Governor 

 Nicholson, who succeeded Andros in 1698, was not so favorably in- 

 clined to manufactures of any kind, and it is asserted by Beverly that, 

 instead of encouraging them, "he sent over inhuman and unreasonable 

 memorials against them," and that while he represented their tobacco 

 crops as insufficient, from its low price to produce them clothing, he 

 recommends Parliament li to pass an act forbidding the plantations to 

 make their own clothing," which, in other words, is desiring a chari- 

 table law that the planter shall go naked. 



Beverly, writing early in the eighteenth century, regrets the depend- 

 ence of Virginia upon the mother country for nearly everything, includ- 

 ing clothing, and criticises the indisposition of the assemblies to give 

 that encouragement that it had formerly bestowed. " They have cloth- 

 ing of all sorts from England, as linen, woolen, and silk, hats and 



