26 SHEEP INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES 



cloth." Caleb Heathcote, in 1708, wrote to the board of trade that the 

 people were so far advanced that three-fourths the linen and woolen 

 they used were made among them. This increase in the woolen manu- 

 facture was not pleasing to the English Government, so when it was 

 proposed to settle upon the waste lands of New York some of the ex- 

 patriated people of the German Palatinate, many of whom were weav- 

 ers, there was an apprehension that expressed itself in the records of 

 August 30, 1709: 



It may be objected should these people (Palatines) be settled on tlie continent of 

 America, they will fall upon woolen and other manufactures to the prejudice of the 

 manufactures of this Kingdom now consumed in these parts. To this we answer 

 that the province of New York, being under Her Majesty's immediate government, 

 such mischievous practice may be discouraged and checqued much easier than under 

 any proprietary governments on the said continent, as has been found by experi- 

 ence ; and as a further provision against any such practice a clause may be inserted 

 in the several patents so as to be passed and the said Palatines declaring the same to 

 be void, if such Palatine shall apply himself to the making the woolen or such like 

 manufactures. 



The suggestion was adopted, as shown by the following : 



That the governor be likewise directed to grant under the seal of that province, 

 without fee or reward, 40 acres per head to each family, after they shall have repaid 

 by the produce of their labor the charges the public shall be at in settling and sub- 

 sisting them there, in the manner as hereinafter proposed; to have and to hold the 

 said lands, to them and their heirs forever, under the usual quit-rent to commence 

 and be payable after seven years from the date of each respective grant ; and further 

 that in every such grant there be an express proviso that the lands so granted shall 

 be seated and planted within a reasonable time, to be therein prefixed, or in failure 

 thereof such grant to be void and revert to the Crown; and for the better preventing 

 those people from falling upon the woolen manufactures, it will be proper that in 

 every such grant a clause be inserted declaring the said grant to be void if such 

 grantee shall apply himself to the making the woolen or such like manufacture. 



In 1715 Governor Hunter recommended the same means as his prede- 

 cessors to divert the people from the manufacture of cloth, of which the 

 country people chiefly wore the product of their own looms; but, as it 

 was well known that imported goods were accounted cheap at an ad- 

 vance of 100 per cent on the cost, to compel them to wear such would 

 be too severe an expedient. He had never known the homespun to be 

 sold in the stores.* 



In 1746 the governor of New YTork reported to the English Govern- 

 ment that the country made and had made their homespun, so termed, 

 of flax and wool, to supply themselves with the necessaries of clothing, 

 and, in 1767, Governor Moore reported, in answer to what manufactures 

 had been carried on since 1734, that it did not appear that there was 

 any established fabric of broadcloth in the province, and that some 

 poor weavers from Yorkshire, who came over lately in expectation of 

 being engaged to make broadcloth, could find no employment. But 

 there was a general manufacture of woolen carried on which consisted 



* Bishop's History of American Manufactures. 



