KAW-SILK. 



xxix 



the old and regular plan of exposing the whole of Report, 

 the Company's importations to sale in the raw 

 state, leaving to individuals engaged in the trade, 

 the choice of applying it to such purposes as the 

 demand of the market might require. But the 

 silk trade being, at the beginning of the year 

 1808, in great want of the means for carrying on its 

 operations in consequence of all European sources 

 of supply being entirely stopped, * the Court, 

 with a view of affording assistance to the manu- 

 facturers, determined to limit, for a time only, the 

 quantity of silk intended to be thrown into 

 organzine, without totally abandoning the prac- 

 tice. It was accordingly continued to a partial 

 extent until 1814, when it was finally relinquished, 

 the Court being of opinion, that the causes which 

 originally rendered it expedient no longer existed, 

 and that consequently a return to the old practice 

 might be safely and beneficially effected. 



From the period when the first attempts were 

 made by the Company, to prove that Bengal silks 

 of the higher qualities might be advantageously 

 thrown into organzine, and used instead of Italian 

 silks in certain brandies of manufacture, the Court 

 was unremitting in enjoining upon the Bengal 



Government, 



* Berlin and Milan Decrees. 



