386 Dr. Parry's Essay on the Nature, Produce, Origin, 



pretension^ ; because our commercial fame, which was then only rising, was not 

 fully established till the second period. 



Then it was that we boasted of our wool with the greatest insolence of pride. 

 Then, the exportation of our cloth was the largest, and it sold at Antwerp as a 

 commodity rare, and of high price. Then, lastly, we endeavoured to secure the 

 undivided property in this treasure, by punishing with death the introduction of our 

 sheep into foreign countries. To admit, therefore, that the breed of Merino sheep 

 had been lost before, or during this period, would be to acknowledge, that all our 

 claims to pre-eminence were founded on the use of a raw matnial, which, half a 

 century afterwards, the concurrent voice of all Europe determined to be fit only 

 for the manufacture of ordinary, or low-priced cloths. 



Let us then suppose, as we necessarily must, that if the Merino race existed at 

 all in this country, it continued till the reign of James the First. At that period our 

 wool and cloths began to fall into disrepute with foreign nations. If ihis misfortune 

 arose from the deterioration of our wool, that deterioration must, by the supposi- 

 tion itself, as well as by the nature of the case, have been owing to the substitution 

 or admixture of some inferior breed of sheep. But a distinct race of those animalsj 

 sufficient in number to furnish wool to one third of Europe, could not be at once 

 annihilated. Neither could any admixture with a coarser breed have taken place 

 without the knowledge, and even the concurrence, of the proprietors of flocks. 

 Besides, the operation of such causes must have been sufficiently obvious to every 

 man's observation. It was not more than twelve years from the greatest height, to 

 the lowest ebb of our exports of cloth; and only forty-three, or forty-four, from the 

 former period to the year 1651, when the superiority of Spanish to English wool 

 was so acknowledged, as to suggest the scheme already mentioned of monopolizing 

 the whole produce of Spain. All this space of time must have been within the 

 extent of memory of many persons then living ; whereas, according to the 

 hypothesis against which I am contending, not only the whole breed itself, but ihe 

 very recollection of it, must within the short period of twelve years, have utterly 

 perished: for, otherwise, it would have been ridiculous for King James, in 1622, 

 to have convened a solemn assembly of Lords and Commons, in order to discover 

 why wool was fallen in value, when any illiterate shepherd could have told him, 

 *' Increase, or restore your Merino flocks, and then you will have plenty of 



