



WOOL. 53 



trade ; foreigners were treated with jealousy and injustice ; 

 and restrictions were extended to every branch of the manu- 

 facture. Still, the woollen manufactures of the country con- 

 tinued to extend ; but it was not until the more settled times 

 of Henry VII. that cloth began to be exported in any quan- 

 tity. But how little of this advancement was due to the wis- 

 dom of the laws, may be seen from the statutes which were 

 before and afterwards enacted. Certain towns and districts 

 were frequently allowed the exclusive privilege of manufac- 

 turing and selling certain kinds of goods. An act of Henry 

 VIII. declares, that worsted yarn is the " private commoditie" 

 of the city of Norwich, and county of Norfolk ; and therefore 

 enacts " that none shall be transported, nor shipped to be 

 transported, nor bought, nor caused to be bought, by any but 

 weavers in the said city or county." Another act recites, 

 that " the city of York afore this time hath been upholden 

 principally by making and weaving coverlets, and that the 

 same have not been made elsewhere in the said county till of 

 late, and that this manufacture had spread itself into other 

 parts of the county, and was thereby debased and discredited ;" 

 and therefore ordains, " That none shall make coverlets in 

 Yorkshire but inhabitants of the city of York." An act of 

 the same prince revives certain older laws against enclosures, 

 and another limits the number of Sheep which any one shall 

 keep, on account, it is stated, of the rise in the price of 

 victual and clothing. By an act of William and Mary, it is 

 ordained that no clothier out of a burgh, market town, or 

 corporate town, shall have above one loom ; that no weaver 

 dwelling out of a city shall have above two looms ; that no 

 weaver shall be either tucker, fuller, or dyer ; that no fuller 

 or tucker shall keep a loom ; that no person shall cause any 

 white broad woollen cloths to be made but in a city, or where 

 such cloths have been made for the space of ten years before ; 

 that no weaver dwelling out of a city shall have above two 

 apprentices at one time ; and that none shall set up weaving 

 unless he have been apprentice to, or have exercised the 



