43 



BRITISH WOOL TRADE. 



galled by a trifling impost on their sheep, would not, 

 unless under very favourable circumstances, submit to 

 imposts on the fabrics which they wore. 



During the reigns of Henry VII., Henry VIII , 

 and Edward VI., an undue preference was given to 

 grazing. Acts were framed to put a stop to this mis- 

 management, which was fast ruining the country, by 

 driving people from it. Henry VII. exempted Norwich 

 from the penalties of the law, on account of the decay 

 of manufactures from the want of hands ; and shortly 

 after the whole county of Norfolk obtained a like 

 exemption in regard to some branches of the woollen 

 trade. The practice of depopulating the country, by 

 abandoning tillage, and throwing the lands into pastur- 

 age, had run to so great an extent in the time of Henry 

 VIII., that an enactment was made, whereby the king 

 became entitled to half the rents of the land where any 

 farm-houses were allowed to fall to decay. The number 

 of sheep in a flock was at the same time limited to two 

 thousand. Hume conjectures, iu his History of Eng- 

 land, that unskilful husbandry was probably the cause 

 why the proprietors found no profit in tillage ; — thus 

 leading a farmer to keep a flock sometimes of twenty- 

 four thousand as expressed in the statute. This had 

 the effect of increasing the price of mutton, a remark- 

 able coincidence, which parliament attributes to the 

 commodity having gotten into few hands, though Hume 

 ascribes it to the daily increase of money, thinking it 

 almost impossible that such an article could be engros- 

 sed. At the commencement of the reign of Edward 

 V I., the people were still sadly deficient in a knowledge 

 of agriculture— a profession, which, as Hume wisely 



