Crass I. SALE PE BG ie: 
granted to the weavers in London, directed that if 
any cloth was found made of a mixture of Spanifh 
wool, it fhould be~ burnt by the mayor*: yet 
fo little did the weaving bufinels advance, that 
Edward the third was obliged to permit the im- 
portation of foreign cloth in the beginning of 
his reign ; but foon after, by encouraging foreign 
artificers to fettle in England, and inftruct the 
natives in their trade, the manufacture increafed 
fo greatly as to enable him to prohibit the wear of 
foreign cloth. Yet, to fhew the uncommercial ge- 
nius of the people, the effects of this prohibition 
were checked by another law, as prejudicial to trade 
as the former was falutary; this was an act of the 
fame reign, againft exporting woollen goods ma- 
nufactured at home, under heavy penalties; while 
the exportation of wool was not only allowed but 
encouraged. ‘This overfight was not foon recti- 
fied, for it appears that, on the alliance that Ed- 
ward the fourth made with the king of Arragon, he 
prefented the latter with fome ewes and rams of 
the Cote/wold kind; which is a proof of their ex- 
cellency, fince they were thought acceptable to a 
monarch, whofe dominions were fo noted for the 
finenefs of their fleeces +. 
In the firft year of Richard the third, and in the 
two fucceeding reigns, our woollen manufactures 
* Stow 419. 
t Rapin i, 605. in thenote, Stow’s Annales, 696. 
received 
