Merino-Ryeland Breed of Sheep. 477 



which he was constituted. How loud and eloquent is this determined silence !— 

 A fourth person, a dealer in wool, after having looked at my wool in the yolk, de- 

 clared, in my absence, to a friend, that he would not give a shilling a pound for it. 

 This wool was afterwards, in the same state, sold for between 2 and 3 shillings. 

 Ignorance is always an evil ; but it can never be a crime, except when it is wilful. 



There is still another objection, peculiar indeed as to its nature, but, no doubt, 

 considered by those who advance it, as formidable, and indeed unanswerable. " It 

 •' is true," say they, " you can produce a few pounds, or a few packs of fine wool ; 

 •' but what are these, comparatively with the demands of the trade?" One has- 

 often heard of prophets who accomplish their own predictions. Let the clothier 

 only offer for our wool the same price which he freely gives for Spanish or Ger- 

 man of the same quality, and, in due time, we will engage to supply him with all 

 which the trade requires. 



These are silly and superficial objections. Manufacturers, anxious to preserve 

 the excellence and established reputation of their fabrics, cannot be blamed for 

 doubt and caution in the admission of a new material. But when the value 

 of this material becomes generally known, so that the greatest cncouragers of 

 the breed are now actually clothiers, some of whom profess a determination 

 to keep from 3 to 20 thousand of these sheep, and when some of its chief opposers 

 are men, who, at a great price, and on mere report, have bought German wool, 

 and now constantly use it in their manufactures, it may shrewdly be suspected that 

 the true grounds of objection lie much deeper than they would have us believe, 



Spanish wool has, of late, reached an enormous price. This has been owing to 

 various causes connected with the war. The French have certainly taken great 

 pains to monopolize its sale; and it has been asserted by the acute and nervous 

 •writer of a weekly political journal, that every pound of wool exported from Spain to 

 Great Britain pays a tax to the government of France. Thus are our manufac- 

 tures converted to the support of our most inveterate foes. Spain itself is abso- 

 lutely dependent on France ; and it is worthy of the morals and policy of Napoleon 

 to foment divisions in that nation, as a pretext for his interference, and the virtual 

 annexation of its government to his own. Thus we must depend for 'he basis 

 of our most important manufacture on the will of a Sovereign, who has shewiv 

 us that he will not, even during peace, receive a single article of our fabrics. 

 How far the exportation of the raw material itself is likely to be perroilted, except 



