30 RKIT18H WOOL TRADE. 



feeding, all the year round, without being shut in 

 folds ; but it cannot be denied, that, though food and 

 climate may have much concern in the matter, the 

 energetic industry and persevering attention with 

 which an Englishman devotes himself to the attain- 

 ment of an object, have tended more than any other 

 circumstance to the advancement of our wools, and 

 woollen manufactures, and to the consequent prosperity 

 of our island. 



The reason of the existence of so many laws relating 

 to wool is, that it continued for ages to be the princi- 

 pal commodity, meeting all demands for the suppor*- 

 of armies, and payment of public revenues, and affur^ 

 ing aids to the crown, which were in general grante,,/ 

 therein. The scarcity of money in England before 

 the discovery of America, rendered it necessary to levy 

 taxes frequently in kind, and as wool was abundant, it 

 often figured as the representative of a more portable 

 currency. Part of the ^300,000 demanded by the 

 Emperor of Germany as the ransom of Richard I., 

 ras raised by a loan of wool. Edward I., the great 

 reformer of our laws, imposed a duty of 6s. 8d. on 

 every sack of wool exported, and tlie like sum on 

 every 300 wool- fells ; but soon after, when his neces- 

 sities demanded a larger income, he laid those addi- 

 tional duties on foreign merchants, which afterwards 

 became the tonnage and poundage, so famous in Eng- 

 land's history. Among these additions, the former 

 taxes on wool and fells were increased by forty pence, 

 while at the same time, like other monarchs of the 

 period, he occasionally received subsidies of wool. 

 In the same way Edward III., in attempting, during 



