390 Df. Parry's Essay on the Nature, Produce, Origin, 



necessarily bring the English breed to the nature of those found in the country to 

 which they were introduced ? This reasoning, if admitted, would be fatal to the 

 whole argument ; because it would prove that English sheep did not come Merinos 

 into Spain, but became Merinos, like their aboriginal neighbours, by long resi- 

 dence there. The fact, however, is otherwise. We know that, at this very time, 

 the final produce of Merino rams with the ewes of Holland is a small breed, 

 yielding short wool altogether as fine as that of their pure sires in their native 

 country. Where then, I repeat, are the fine woolled sheep in Holland, from thi* 

 old and well established English cross? They do not exist. The Friseland and 

 Texel breeds are among the largest sheep in the world, producing, like those of 

 Lincoln, very heavy fleeces of the longest combing wool. 



If, then, among these asserted exportations of English sheep, we admit the only 

 one for which there is any historical authority, or which, if they had all existed 

 could have produced the supposed effect, I should consider the nature of the 

 present sheep of Holland as an evidence, from which, so far as it went, there could 

 be no appeal, that our sheep were a coarse long woolled breed, very different in 

 wool and carcase from the present Merino. 



In reality, writers on this subject take one great and unjustifiable liberty. They 

 assume it is a principle that no people, desirous of our sheep, wanted any others than 

 those which furnished short superfine wool. In former times, before Spanish 

 wool was known among the people of the north, the great object seems to have 

 been to procure cloths, which, with a shewy outside, were remarkable for strength 

 rather than for softness. The only cloths wanted by the Spaniards themselves 

 were of the inferior kind ; and of these they imported large quantities from the 

 Netherlands. Many also of the most valuable manufactures of those ages, as 

 worsteds, and all sorts of stuffs, required long combing wools. For these different 

 purposes, no wools in Europe were, probably, so valuable as those of England. They 

 still maintain the same superiority ; and if the jealousy, with which they were 

 guarded in this country, be considered as an evidence of any particular species of 

 merit, it should be recollected, that the same penal laws against the exportation of 

 sheep exist among us at this day, when few persons will be disposed to imagine 

 that their introduction into Spain, could be intended to improve the fine wool of 

 that country. 



The relative value of our ancient wools was sufficiently shewn by their price in 



