and Extension of the Merino Breed of Sheep. 383 



addressed to Oliver Cromwell, for the purpose of indiicin.c; liim to monopolize all 

 ihc wools of Spain. This pre-emption would, according to the author, '-'toially 

 " dissolve the clothing of Holland, which, by means of these wools, hath of late 

 " years mightily increased, to the destruction of the vent of all fine cloths of 

 " English manufacture in Holland, France, and the east country. The Hollanders 

 *•' have of late years bought and exported from Biscay four-fifth parts, at least, of 

 " all their wools. The French have also considerable quantities of wool from 

 " Biscay, which they work up into cloth at Rouen, and other parts." The author 

 adds, that " scarcely one cloth of the Hollanders was made of other than Spanish 

 " wool ; and surely not one but by a mixture of the most part of it ;" and " that fine 

 " Spanish wool costs three times as much as our ordinary English wool."* 



Still were we not convinced. The writer of the work called the " Golden 

 " Fleece," in 1656, perseveres in the assertion, that " though the wools of Spain 

 " are finer than any other part of the world, yet neither by itself, nor by incorpo- 

 " ration with the wools of any other nation, will it be wrought into any cloth, 

 *' without the help and mixture of English wool." t 



I have observed above, that the inhabitants of the North of Europe were not, at 

 first, able to manufacture fine Spanish wool without the assistance of that which wajs 

 longer and coarser. But what, in the beginning, was a matter of necessity, became 

 afterwards an object of choice; and the more skilful clothiers, whether in Holland 

 or elsewhere, either carding the finer and dearer Spanish with the coarser and 

 cheaper English, or forming the warp of the latter, which they covered with a woof 

 of the former, contrived to make a cheap and serviceable cloth, which pleased the 

 eye equally well with the more costly fabrics of entire Spanish wool. This, though 

 at the time generally with great care concealed, yet is afterwards candidly acknow- 

 ledged by writers actually engaged in the commerce of wool ; and sufficiently re- 

 futes the prejudices which had here prevailed from the middle of the i6th to the 

 middle of the 17th century. Hence it appears, that our wool; when placed in con- 

 nection with Spanish, was chiefly valuable from being well calculated, not to im- 

 prove, but to adulterate U.X 



A treaty between France and Spain, in 1659, enabled the former freely to obtain 

 the wool of the latter, and thus to gain great advantage over us in the Levant trade. 5 



* Smith, I. 131. note. Anderson, 1651. f Smith, I. 140. 



t Smith, I. 238, &c. &c. § Anderson, 1659. 



