114 SHEEP INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES 



patriotic cause was anchored to every fireside in the land. While the 

 men fought or toiled in the fields the women kept alive the household 

 industry, sheared the sheep, and made shirts, drawers, and stockings 

 of wool, woolen mittens and tippets, and wool caps with generous ear- 

 tabs. 



Peace had a depressing effect upon the woolen manufactures. The 

 factory industry had languished and almost perished during the long 

 and impoverishing war, and to crown the disaster the English mer- 

 chants poured immense quantities of goods into the American markets, 

 swamping the little American manufacture that had survived and 

 draining the country of its resources to pay for them. And the more 

 certainly to crush the American manufacturer and establish the English 

 goods some of them sold in the markets of Boston and New York 25 

 per cent cheaper than in London. 



During the war increased attention had been given in some quarters 

 to wool- growing and cotton-culture, and the household industry had 

 been preserved and extended. During the same period great improve- 

 ment had also been made by the English in their manufacture by the 

 use of improved machinery. When it was sought to obtain this machin- 

 ery for the American manufacturer the English Parliament set its face 

 against it by reenacting a statute made in 1774 and extending and 

 strengthening it to the effect that any person who packed or put on 

 board any vessel, or caused to be brought to any place in order to be 

 put on a vessel, with a view to exportation, " any machine, engine, 

 tool, press, paper, utensil, or implement, or any part thereof, which 

 now is or hereafter may be used in the woolen, cotton, linen, or silk 

 manufacture of this Kingdom, or goods wherein wool, cotton, linen, or 

 silk are used, or any model or plan thereof," should forfeit every such 

 machine, the goods packed, and 200, and be imprisoned for twelve 

 months. The same penalties were laid against having in custody or 

 power, or collecting, making, applying for, or causing to be made, any 

 such machinery, and the forfeitures were to go to the use of the in- 

 former after the expenses of prosecution were satisfied. This act was 

 passed in 1781, and the next year a similar one was passed against the 

 exportation of machinery or tools used in the manufacture of linen and 

 cotton. 



In 1786 wool or stock cards not exceeding 4s. per pair and spinners' 

 cards not exceeding Is. 6d. per pair, used in the woolen manufacture, 

 were allowed to be exported, a condescension induced from the fact that 

 the Americans were then making very good articles in that line, a manu- 

 facture with which the English manufacturer desired to compete, and, 

 if possible, drive to the wall. The various enterprises now attempted 

 and the efforts made to obtain improved machinery can not be particu- 

 larized in the scope allowed in this report. Suffice it to say that they 

 were numerous, but that the English statutes, vigilantly enforced, along 

 with those against enticing artificers to emigrate, proved obstacles too 



