56 



BRITISH WOOL TRADE. 



directed to our deficiences in the machinery of manufao 

 tures. Inventions of great beauty and ingenuity were 

 slowly brought forward to facilitate our commercial ac- 

 quirements. Human labour has thus been lightened 

 and abridged, — a greater number of hands have been 

 profitably employed, and an excellent lesson afforded 

 to the lovers of use and wont, which will not speedily 

 be forgotten. 



By these improved means the cloth is possessed of 

 greater evenness, less injury is sustained in the dress- 

 ing and shearing, and greater beauty is imparted to its 

 appearance. A great advantage is also obtained by 

 the master knowing the exact duration of each process, 

 so that he can time his goods for any hour, or market, 

 and is enabled to circulate his capital with a degree of 

 certainty, and despatch, formerly looked upon as quite 

 impossible. A few years ago the late Sir John Throck- 

 morton sat down to dinner, dressed in a coat, the wool 

 of which, on the same morning, was on the sheep's back 

 The animals were sheared, the wool washed, carded, 

 spun, and woven ; the cloth was scoured, fulled, shear" 

 ed, dyed and dressed, and then made into a coat. All 

 these complex operations were gone through without 

 hurry, and without deducting from the work any part 

 of the time usually devoted to similar fabrics. So 

 great was the advantage derived from this application 

 of machinery, that in the year 1800 the produce was 

 three times larger than in the year 1739, though the 

 number of persons employed was the same in the one 

 year as in the other. 



(58.) Duty imposed on imported Wool. — For three 

 centuries a free importation of foreign wool was per- 



