48 



BRITISH WOOL TRAD£. 



as well as that company, may transport everywhere 

 northern and western kersies, and new draperies." 



2dly. *' That other merchants, besides the Merchant; 

 Adventurers' Company, may freely trade with dyed 

 and dressed cloths, and all sorts of coloured cloths, into 

 Germany and the Low Countries." Much annoyance 

 appears to have resulted to this island, from the pro- 

 gress which the manufacturers in Holland still con- 

 tinued to make, and some curious speculations were of 

 course formed in the minds of the ingenious. In 1651, 

 a scheme was laid before the English commonwealth, 

 for obtaining from the court of Spain an exclusive right 

 to purchase all the Spanish wool ; or, in other words, 

 to ruin the Holland market, by stopping the supplies. 

 The projector observed, " That this proposed pre- 

 emption would totally dissolve the woollen manufacture 

 of Holland, which, by means of that wool (Spanish), 

 hath of late years mightily increased, to the destruc- 

 tion of the vent of all fine cloths, of English manufac- 

 ture, in Holland, France, and the east country ; and 

 hath drawn from us considerable numbers of weavers, 

 dyers, and cloth workers, now settled at Ley den, and 

 other towns in Holland, by whose help they have very 

 much improved their skill in cloth, and have made in 

 that one province (one year with another) 24,000 or 

 26,000 cloths yearly. That the Hollanders have of 

 late years bought and exported from Biscay, four-fifth 

 parts at least of all their wools, and have sold there 

 proportionally of their own country stuffs." This was 

 certainly a novel method of accomplishing an end by a 

 sweeping monopoly ; but the theory was too fine-spun ^ 

 ever to be reducible to practice. 



