154 [Assembly 



Cotton Manvfactures. 



The exhibition of goods and yarns made of cottony that great staple 

 of our Southern States, upon which so many foreign countries are 

 dependent for the supplies of what gives subsistence to their needy 

 operatives, and accumulated power of machinery, and which is now 

 an article of such vast consumption by our own manufacturers, was 

 at this fair most highly gratifying to the public, and deserved the 

 high encomiums passed upon it by the judges. 



Now that a new impetus is given to its growth by the discovery 

 of converting it into an explosive engine, surpassing gun powder, 

 and made serviceable in mining, illuminations, fire works, &c., we 

 cannot say too much of its importance. Our foreign rivals in ma- 

 nufacturing would desire no greater boon at our hands, than the pur- 

 chase of all our cotton, and the monopoly of manufacturing it. In 

 payment for this, their protective policy of centuries is now offered 

 up, and a delusive free trade experiment held out, as a lure to us, 

 so that England may have the benefit of all the most profitable la- 

 bor in the world, by which she would soon reduce us to a state of 

 colonial vassalage. But the skill, industry and economy of our 

 northern fabricants of this southern staple, and the commanding in- 

 fluence of a free and enlightened public opinion, are sure to coun- 

 teract all attempts of this sort, come in what shape they will. We 

 have passed the crisis when the privilege of diversified occupations 

 and the right of amassing capital by the free and independent ap- 

 plication of our own labor were looked upon as violating the consti- 

 tution of the country. We doubt not now of protection to our ma- 

 nufacturers, as well as the other home interests, on the principle of 

 national independence, as well as of equal justice to all classes of 

 the community. 



In surveying the proud specimens of progressive industry and 

 ingenuity which our late fair exhibited, we are sure that no retro- 

 grade movements can ever disappoint our present anticipations on 

 this subject. From the coarse but even spun yarn of Georgia, to 

 the sample of No. 150, from the V oxXsmow \\, Jfew-Ham'pshire steam 

 factory, (uhich is fa contain G0,000 spindles,) from the finest and 

 most beautiful fabrics produced at the James steam mill, of Newbu- 

 ryport, and the long celebrated New-York mills, in this State, to 

 the coarse cotton drills in which the British troops in India have 

 been clothed, we have abundant evidence of what skill and perseve- 

 rance can do in this country. Either under the influence of free 



