252 M1STOKY OF FRUITS. 



Soon after the conquest of Constantinople by the Ve- 

 netians in 1204, they attempted the establishment of the 

 silk manufacture in their dominions ; and in a short time 

 the silk fabricks of Venice vied with those of Greece and 

 Sicily ; for a monarch of the latter country, who had tra- 

 velled into Greece, brought back with him people who 

 could nourish silkworms and manufacture silk. Thus it 

 travelled by degrees through all Italy, which, with Constan- 

 tinople, for some ages supplied the northern parts of the 

 world. The Spaniards, laying a heavy tax upon raw silk, 

 were the first cause that induced the French monarch to 

 attempt the manufacture in his country; and we now find 

 that the wealthy families of Italy get their silks from 

 France. England had this manufactory first established 

 through the want of policy and good government of 

 France, whose industrious artizans being driven from their 

 homes through difference in religious opinions, settled 

 themselves in Spitalfields, where to this day many of their 

 posterity continue to manufacture silks. 



In 1661, Evelyn says, " I went to y e wonderfull engine 

 for weaving silk stockings, said to have been y e invention 

 of an Oxford scholler forty years since." 



A machine had been erected in Savoy for weaving silks, 

 of which, notwithstanding the punishment of immediate 

 death decreed against those who should make any de- 

 scription of it, Sir Thomas Lombe contrived to get a 

 model; and in the year 1714, he erected a machine at 

 Derby, for which, in 1718, he obtained a patent. This 

 machine contained 26,726 wheels, and 97,746 movements, 

 which worked 73,726 yards of silk thread every time the 

 water-wheel went round, which it did three times in one 

 minute ; one water-wheel gave motion to all the rest of 

 the wheels and movements, of which any one could be 

 stopped separately ; one fire-engine conveyed warm air 



