1840.] . SENATE— No. 36. 99 



course of prodigious sums of money from Spain, France, and 

 Italy into America." 



It is further stated by Eliot, in 1702, '• that by a late ac- 

 count from Georgia, it appears that the silk manufactory is in 

 a flourishing way. In the year 1757, the weight of silk balls 

 received at the filature, was only 1,050 ; last year produced 

 7,040, and this year already about 10,000 ; and it is very re- 

 markable that the raw silk exported from Georgia, sells at Lon- 

 don from two to three shillings a pound more than that from 

 any other part of the world."* It is stated by president Stiles, 

 that in 1762 Georgia exported to London 15,000 lbs. cocoons, 

 deemed sufficient to make 1500 lbs. of silk. 



Other remarks of Eliot, considering the time when he wrote, 

 are particularly deserving of attention. He commends espe- 

 cially the cultivation of silk to the northern colonies, " who are 

 destitute of any staple commodity by which they could make 

 an immediate and direct return to England, for such goods as 

 we want, and must always want, more abundantly than we 

 have means at present by which we can refund. This seems 

 to be the state of Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut." 

 The cultivation of the great staple of cotton was not pursued 

 then to any extent in the southern states. 



He goes on to say that, " those among us, who raise silk, 

 say, that it is more profitable than other ordinary business. 

 Some years past, I asked a man of good faith and credit, who 

 had then made the most silk of any among us, what profit 

 might be made of it. His reply was that he could make a 

 yard of silk as cheap as he could make a yard of linen cloth of 

 eight run to the pound. A woman of experience in this busi- 

 ness told me, that, in the short time of feeding the worm and 

 winding the silk balls, she could earn enough to hire a good 

 spinner the whole year. I have not the least scruple of the in- 

 former's veracity, but how far their capacity might serve for an 

 exact calculation, I know not." 



" We labor under such difficulties to make returns for goods 



* Eliot's Essays, p. 154. 



