OF COTTON, FOE CLOTHING THE INDIAN ARMY. 1 75 



perspiration, and giving such facts as to cost of production as 

 must have convinced any man but the Chancellor of the 

 Exchequer, especially a manufacturer, that if drill cloth 

 were made from half Kheea at 8cl. per lb., and half Surat 

 cotton, at 16d. per lb., and a contract offered in Lanca- 

 shire for clothing the British army in India, not only 

 would there be a great saving in the first instance, but there 

 could not be a second opinion as to the extra strength of the 

 material, and in addition to that saving, a contract being 

 offered and accepted, the new material would have been 

 forced into the market in opposition to cotton, just as jute got 

 forced into the trade in Dundee in opposition to Flax, and 

 (just as the late Sir W. Brown told me) the foundation 

 of what would start a revolution in the trade of Lancashire 

 would have been accomplished. However, it appears to 

 me, by the cool reply from Mr. Charles L. Ryan, 11, 

 Downing Street, who writes, "I am desired by the Chan- 

 cellor of the Exchequer to say, that the subject to which it 

 refers is a matter not within his province," that Mr. Glad- 

 stone is not unlike his great trumpeter, the editor of the 

 Times, in whose pages we frequently find advertisements for 

 servants, but that " No Irish need apply." I can only 

 account for my samples being returned unopened by Mr. 

 Gladstone knowing right well that I am THOROUGHLY 

 IRISH, and so thoroughly practical on the subject of 

 SPINNING and MANUFACTURING, that if he entered into the 

 subject, I must have come in for a share of the credit, as being 

 the first to discover a cheaper article than cotton for clothing 

 the Indian army, and that he would be obliged to admit that 

 he had assistance from an Irishman, which he could not obtain 

 from any of the talented brothers' in office, not forgetting the 

 President of the Board of Trade ; however, as my letter to 

 Mr. Gladstone (if it is not in the waste paper basket) informs 

 him that the great Irish general, the hero of one hundred 



