34 SHEEP. Class I. 



ness lay for a considerable time in foreign hands, 

 and we were obliged to import the cloth manu- 

 factured from our own materials. There seems 

 indeed to have been many unavailing efforts 

 made by our monarchs to preserve both the 

 wool and the manufacture of it among our- 

 selves : Henry IL by a patent granted to 

 the weavers in London, directed that if any 

 cloth vvas found made of a mixture of Spanish 

 wool, it should be burnt by the mayor :* yet so 

 little did the weaving business advance, that 

 Edzvard III. was obliged to permit the im- 

 portation of foreign cloth in the beginning of 

 his reign ; but soon after, by encouraging 

 foreign artificers to settle in England, and in- 

 struct the natives in tlieir trade, the manufac- 

 ture increased so greatly as to enable him to 

 prohibit the Vv-earing foreign cloth. Still to 

 shew the uncommercial genius of the people, 

 the effects of this prohibition were checked by 

 another law, as prejudicial to trade as the for- 

 mer was salutary; this was an act of the same 

 reicjn, against exporting vvoollen goods manu- 

 factured at liomc, under heavy penalties, while 

 the exportation of wool was not only allov*ed 

 but encouraged. This oversio;ht was not soon 



* Sf.oiv 419» 



