OE COTTON, FOR CLOTHING THE INDIAN ARMY, 1 75 



perspiration, and giving such facts as to cost of production as 

 must have convinced any man but the Chancellor of the 

 Exchequer, especially a manufacturer, that if drill cloth 

 were made from half Rheea at 8d. per lb., and half Surat 

 cotton, at 16d. per lb., and a contract offered in Lanca- 

 shire for clothing the British army in India, not only 

 would there be a great saving in the first instance, but there 

 could not be a second opinion as to the extra strength of the 

 material, and in addition to that saving, a contract being 

 offered and accepted, the new material would have been 

 forced into the market in opposition to cotton , just as jute got 

 forced into the trade in Dundee in opposition to Flax, and 

 (just as the late Sir W. Brown told me) the foundation 

 of what would start a revolution in the trade of Lancashire 

 would have been accomplished. However, it appears to 

 me, by the cool reply from Mr. Charles L. Ryan, 11, 

 Downing Street, who -writes, "I am desired by the Chan- 

 cellor of the Exchequer to say, that the subject to which it 

 refers is a matter not within his province," that Mr. Glad- 

 stone is not unlike his great trumpeter, the editor of the 

 Times, in whose pages we frequently find advertisements for 

 servants, but that " No Irish need apply." I can only 

 account for my samples being returned unopened by Mr. 

 Gladstone knowing right well that I am thoroughly 

 Irish, and so thoroughly practical on the subject of 

 SPINNING and manufacturing, that if he entered into the 

 subject, I must have come in for a share of the credit, as being 

 the first to discover a cheaper article than cotton for clothing 

 the Indian army, and that he would be obliged to admit that 

 he had assistance from an Irishman 5 which he could not obtain 

 from any of the talented brothers'' in office, not forgetting the 

 President of the Board of Trade ; however, as my letter to 

 Mr. Gladstone (if it is not in the waste paper basket) informs 

 him that the great Irish general, the hero of one hundred 



