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DICKSON ON THE HISTORY 



Anketell enumerated the various manufacturers in which 

 England excels the world, and remarked the amount of per- 

 severance, exertion, and patriotism, which had been exerted 

 to bring them to their present pitch of glory. He compared 

 England's present greatness, resulting from her manufactures, 

 with the poverty and meanness of her condition before her 

 manufactures were known or cultivated, and concluded by 

 asserting that whether England was considered as supplying 

 the wants of her people at home through the medium of inex- 

 haustible divisions of labour, or exporting her commodities 

 abroad, it should be concluded that the glory to which she had 

 arrived was owing principally to her manufactures, which 

 employed forty-four per cent, of her people, thus enabling her 

 to stand without a rival among the nations. Mr. Anketel 

 having concluded this part of his subject, proceeded to the 

 consideration of the effects of manufactures on the prosperity 

 of Scotland. He described the agricultural condition of 

 Scotland as being declared, on authority, to have been truly 

 wretched previous to the period of the Union. Even fifty years 

 ago it was far behind that of England. The woollen trade was 

 never remarkable in Scotland, yet, in the article called tweeds, 

 it has become famous ; and the town of Dundee owes its 

 prosperity to their manufacture. 



However much I feel pleased to agree with Mr. Anketel 

 respecting the cause of England's prosperity, I am obliged to 

 differ from hi in when he says, — " The town of Dundee owes 

 its prosperity to the manufacture of tweeds, as by the fol- 

 lowing statistics of that town it is evident that the Flax- 

 spinning and weaving has been the chief cause of its pros- 

 perity, all of which has taken place from the year 1823, as in 

 1824 and 1825 there were only thirteen Flax-spinning mills 

 in Dundee, and in 1851 there were forty-four mills. 



Statistics of Dundee. 

 Since the establishment of the old company, the population, 



