102 SHEEP INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES 



the floor of every farmhouse within thein, and i.'mbodiod the despotic will of a solf- 

 ishness known only to highly civilized life. As yet, the owners of land wore not suf- 

 ficiently pledged to the colonial system. Wool was the great staple of England, an<l 

 its growers and manufacturers envied the colonies the possession of a flock of sheep, 

 a spindle, or a loom. The preamble to an act of Parliament avows the motive for a 

 restraining law in the conviction that colonial industry would " inevitably sink the 

 value of lands " in England. The mother country could esteem the present interest 

 of its landowners paramount to natural justice. The clause which I am about to 

 cite is a memorial of a delusion which once pervaded all western Europe, and which 

 has already so passed away that men grow incredulous of its former existence : " After 

 the first day of December, 1699, no wool, or manufacture made or mixed with wool, 

 being the produce or manufacture of any of the English plantations in America, 

 shall be loaded in any ship or vessel, upon any pretense whatsoever — ^nor loaded upon 

 any horse, cart, or other carriage — to be carried out of the English plantations to 

 any other of the said plantations or to any other place whatsoever." The fabrics of 

 Connecticut might not seek a market in Massachusetts, or be carried to Albany for 

 traffic with the Indians. An English sailor finding himself in want of clothes in an 

 American harbor, might buy there forty shillings' worth of woolens, but not more ; 

 and this small concession was soon repealed. Did a colonial assembly show favor to 

 manufactures, the board of trade was sure to interfere. Error, like a cloud, must be 

 seen from a distance to be measured. Somers and Locke saw no wrong in this legis- 

 lation, as Jeremy Taylor and Berkeley had seen none in that which established the 

 Anglican church in Ireland. England sought with foreign states a convenient tariff; 

 in the colonies it prohibited industry. The interests of landlords and manufac- 

 turers, jointly fostered by artificial legislation, so corrupted the public judgment that 

 the intolerable injustice of the mercantile system was not surmised. 



In Virginia, the poverty of the people compelled them to attempt coarse manxifac- 

 tures, or to go unclad; yet Nicholson, the royal governor, advised that Parliament 

 should forbid the Virginians to make their own clothing. Spottswood repeats the 

 complaint: " The people, more of necessity than of inclination, attempt to clothe 

 themselves with their own manufactures;'' adding that "it is certainly necessary to 

 divert their application to some commodity less prejudicial to the trade of Great 

 Britain." In 1701, the charter colonies were reproached by the lords of trade " with 

 promoting and propagating woolen and other manufactures proper to Eno-land." 

 The English need not fear to conquer Canada; such was the reasoning of an Ameri- 

 can agent; for in Canada, " where the cold is extreme, and snow lies so lono- on the 

 ground, sheep will never thrive so as to make the woolen manufactures possible 

 ivhich is the only thing that can make a plantation unprofitable to the crown." The 

 policy was continued by every administration. 



The companion to share this restriction in the trade and manufacture 

 of wool was Ireland. The English manufacturer had become jealous of 

 that long-suffering oppressed country, and an act was passed this same 

 year of 1699 prohibiting the exportation of woolen goods from Ireland 

 to foreign parts : 



It was acknowledged that the same intended not only to suppress all exportation 

 of woolens from Ireland, but utterly to discourage the ]u-ogres8 of their manufacture 

 there, lest in time they should be able to work up all their own, an.l ICngland be de- 

 prived of its usual supply from thence; that this was but an act of self-preservation 

 in England, the mother country, which, therefore, as such, had a right to ilictate 

 not only in that particular, but some others, and moreoAer to command a monopoly 

 of their raw wools.* 



' Bishop's History of Woolen Manufactures. 



