Carolina, drawn up in Charleston, in 1731, "flax 

 and Cotton" are said to "thrive admirably."* — 

 On the journal of Mrs. Pinckney, tlie mother 

 of Gen. Thomas and Gen. Charles C. Pinckney, t 

 — "who. as Mi.ss Lucas, when only eighteen years 

 of aire, was entrusted with the management of 

 the planning interest of her father, the Governor 

 of Antigua — is the following memorandum : — 

 " .July 1, 1739 — Wrote to my father, today, a 

 very long letter on his plantation affiiir.s — on the 

 pains I had taken to bring the indigo, ginger, 

 Cotton, lucerne and casada to perfection, and 

 that I had greater hopes from the indigo than 

 any other." "June, 1741 — Wrote again to my 

 father on the subject of indigo and Cotton." It 

 is a well-authenticated fact that, in 1736, as far 

 north as the 39th degree. Cotton on " the gar- 

 den scale" xvas raised in the vicinity of Easton. 

 in the County of Talbot, on the Eastern Shore of 

 the Chesapeake Bay. I About forty years after- 

 wards, it \vas cultivated in St. Mary's County, 

 Maryland, and in the northern County of Cape 

 May, in New-Jersey ; also in the County of Sus- 

 sex, in Dolavs'are. Mr. Jefferson, in his Notes 

 on Virginia, v^Titten in 1781, says: — "During 

 this time we have manufactured within our 

 fimilies the most necessary articles of clothing. 

 Those of Cotton will bear some comparison with 

 the same kinds of manufticture in Europe; but 

 those of flax, hemp and vs'ool are very coarse, 

 unsightly and unpleasant." A short time before 

 the Revolution, a few of our planters, by gro\v- 

 ing patches of Cotton, some of Whicljr-was of the 

 black seed kind, succeeded in clotliing not onfy 

 their families, to which they had been accus- 

 tomed, but also their slaves. The neces.sities of 

 tlie War, and the state of things existmg for 

 some time after it, greatly increased the number 

 of the dome-stic fabricators of the wool, until 

 about the year 1791), when the practice of using 

 homespun for plantation pui-poses became verj' 

 common in the districts and upper parishei*-r- 

 The yarn ^vas spun at home, and sent to the 

 nearest weaver. Among the manufacturing es- 

 tablishments, the one in the vicinity of Murray's 

 ferry in Williamsburg, owned by Irish settlers, 

 supplied the adjacent country. The Cotton for 

 the spinning process was prepared in general 

 by the field laborers, v.ho, in addition to their 

 ordinarj' work, picked the seed from the wool, 

 at the rate of 4 lbs. per week. 



At the Convention at Annapolis, in 1786, Mr. 

 Madison, in a conversation with Tench Coxe, 

 concerning the Cotton husbandry, remarked 

 that, " from the garden practice in Talbot, and 

 the circumstances of the same kind abounding 

 in Virginia, there vs-as no reason to doubt that 

 the United States would one day become a great 

 Cfttton-producing country." The evidence then 

 existintr on this ■'Jubject — e.specially the interest- 

 ing fiict that, during our struggle for Independ- 

 ence, Philadelphia had been fumi.shed with na- 



* Idem. vol. ii. p. 13.3. VoXer Puny wa.s a native of 

 Switzerland, and the founder of Purryehurg. In the 

 reign of (ieoree I. he presented a memorial to tlie 

 Doke of Newcastle, then Secretary of State, in which 

 he sets out with this postulate, that " there is a cer- 

 tiiin laiilude on our globe, so happily tempered be- 

 tween the extremes of he.it and cold, as to l)e more 

 peculiarly adiiviled than any other for cei-tain rich 

 productions of the earth," among which he enumer- 

 ates silk. Cotton, indigo, <S:c. ; and he tixes on the lat- 

 itude or.3:i'^, whether North or South, as the identical 

 one for that peculiar character. 



{Rces's Enctjdopadia, VOL'S. — Article Cotton. 



t See Notes, p. 176. 



{ American Farmer, vol. ii. p. 67. 

 (3?1) 13 



tive Cotton, worth two shillings sterling per 

 pound, enough for the limited home consump- 

 tion ; and the infoiTnation communicated to Gen. 

 Thomas Proctor, of that city, by Richard Leake, 

 of Georgia — removed all doubt in reference to 

 the practicability of raising the gos.sypium, as a 

 crop, on a large extent of the Atlantic coast. — 

 This conviction of the public mind soon insensi- 

 bly led to the belief that the United States could 

 also card and spin its fleece, and, probably, 

 vi'cave it by water power. The result was a 

 mis.<ion to Great Britain, at the expense of 

 Tench Coxe, to obtain the machinery, and all 

 the information which it was important the par- 

 ties should possess. The influence of a manu- 

 facturing .society, established in Philadelphia in 

 1787, and the prevalent opinion that the raw 

 material might be made a profitable source of 

 revenue, induced Congress, at the first reforma- 

 tion of the Tariff; to impose a duty of three cents 

 a pound on foreign Cottons,* with which the 

 United States were at that time supplied from 

 the W^est Indies and the Brazils. 



That, in 1799, the growth of Cotton in this 

 country was unknown to Mr. Jay, or that, as a 

 commercial article, it was deemed of little value, 

 is obvious from the fact that, in the treaty nego- 

 tiated by him, it was .stipulated that no Cotton 

 should be imported fi-om America ; the object 

 of that diplomatist beinar to .secure to the Eng- 

 lish the carriage of the West India Cotton to its 

 market in Europe. This is the reason why the 

 Senate refused to ratify the 12th article of that 

 treaty. In half a century how wonderful has 

 been the revolution effected in the Cotton hus- 

 bandry of the United States! In 1792. the en- 

 tire crop was 138,328 Ib.s.; in 1842, 785,221,800 

 lbs. were produced.t The first Provincial Con- 

 gress in this State, held in January-, 1775, recom- 

 mended to the inhabitants to plant Cotton, but 

 their recommendation was almost entirely dis- 

 regarded. The whole quantity of that commod- 

 ity, prior to 1795, exported from the United 

 States was inconsiderable, but in that year it 

 amounted to 6,276,300 lbs. 4 of this, the propor- 

 tion contributed by South-Carolina w^as 1,109,- 

 653 lbs.9 



Among the exports of " Charles-Town" from 

 November, 1747, to November, 1748, are includ- 

 ed 7 bags of Cotton wool, valued at £3 lis. r-id. 

 per bag. II In 1754, "some Cotton" %^-as again 

 exported from South Carolina.** In 1770, there 

 were shipped to Livei^pool. three bales from 

 Ne\v-York, four bales from Virginia and Mary- 

 land, and three ban-els from Noilh-Carolina.tl' 

 Before the Revolutionary War, Virginia ex- 

 ported, commvnibus annis, hemp, flaxseed, and 

 Cotton, to the value of $8,000. In 1784, an 

 American vessel that carried eight bags to Liv- 



* Niles's Register, vol. xxxii. p. 332. 



t Of the imports of Cotton into Europe from North 

 America, Egjpt, South America, the East and West 

 Indies, in 1842, amoimting, in the a<;:i;re2ate to 2,924,- 

 463 bales, this countrj- furnished 2,379.460 bales, or 

 more than three-fourths. (See note A and table 4 

 in the Appendix.) 



% The year 1795 includes some foreign Cotton in 

 the export. 



§ In Ramsay's History of North Cai'olina, the 

 amount exported is erroneously valued at "1,109,653 

 pounds sterling." 



II AmericMi Husbandry, containing an account of 

 the .soil, climate, productions and agriculture of the 

 Britiah Colonies in North America and the West In- 

 dies ; published in London in 1775. Vol. i., p. 4.37. 



** Drayton's Memoirs of South-Carolina, 



tt Smither's Liverpool, p. 155. 



