The Rise of Manufactures. 137 



facture of woolens. The members pledged themselves not to 

 import cloth, nor to eat the meat of sheep or lambs.^ 



The interest of Massachusetts in spinning amounted to the 

 enthusiasm of a modern " craze." On the anniversary of the 

 Boston Society for Promoting Industry and Frugality, in 1749, 

 three hundred " young female spinsters spun at their wheels 

 on the Common ; " and the old town-house at Charlestown was 

 turned into a spinning-school that year.- The Court granted 

 £15,000 to erect a spinning-house, and it was proposed that one 

 person should come from each town for instruction.^ In 1757, 

 a tax on carriages was assigned to the benefit of the linen 

 industry.* 



From the above outline of the progress of manufactures in 

 the colonies, it will be seen that no very accurate estimate can 

 be made of the amount of woolen or other manufactures. Quo- 

 tations from odd sources might be multiplied, but those given 

 are samples of the rest. Governors' reports to the Board of 

 Trade cannot be wholly relied upon. One governor, in his 

 righteous zeal for the commercial interest for the mother-coun- 

 try, exaggerated the offenses of the colonists ; while another, 

 with a desire to represent his flock as white sheep and to pro- 

 pitiate the home government, minimizes the extent of the 

 growdng industries and attributes them to the absolute neces- 

 sity of the people, not to their desire to injure the trade of Great 

 Britain. 



A few general conclusions, however, are obvious. The area 

 of manufacture was the north, and not the south. It is inter- 

 esting to note that the only occasions on which the southern col- 

 onies entered into the manufacture of clothing, to any extent 

 worth mentioning, were when their natural staples, either failed 

 to make returns for importation,^ or became a drug in the mar- 



^Bolles, Chapter on "Manufactures." 

 ^Weeden, p. 679. 



"Mass. Archives, LIX, 381, quoted by Weeden. 

 *Mass. Archives, LIX, 247, quoted by Weeden. 

 ^See the case of Maryland in Col. Hart's Report of 1720. B. T. 

 Plants. Gen., Entry Bk., Jan. 23, 1734. 



