88 



EMPLOYMENT OF CHILDREN. 



and corroded with dew, if it remains long in that situation, 

 must be rotten before the upper part be sufficiently done ; and 

 perhaps the whole may be lost in a rainy season before it can 

 be got up. By that management the silky gloss and green 

 colour of the flax is equally and more effectually preserved. 

 It is a mere deception to suppose that bleaching lint on the 

 field will facilitate the bleaching of the cloth. No cloth is so 

 easily or so uniformly bleached as that made of lint which is 

 fully and equally watered in the canal. 



England^ s Improvement by Sea and Land. To outdo the Dutch 

 icithout Fighting. To Pay Debts without Moneys; to set at 

 Work all the Poor of England icith the Growth of our oivn 

 Lands. By Andrew Yarranton, Gent., ,1677. 



"As to linen cloth of all sorts, what vast quantities are 

 yearly brought into England, and here made use of, and by 

 us sent unto our islands and to many other places, the making 

 of which sets at work abundance of people in other nations ; as 

 also threads, tapes, twine for cordage, and wrought flax ! Now 

 who makes the fine linen cloths, and where have they the 

 materials ? I say the fine linens are made in Holland and 

 Flanders, that is, woven and whitened there, but the thread 

 that makes them comes out of Germany, from Saxony, 

 Bohemia, and other parts thereabouts, and is brought down 

 the Elbe and Rhine in dry fats for Holland and Flanders ; and 

 there the merchants have at this day, and so will ever have, a 

 vast trade in these commodities, unless that trade of linen be 

 advanced in England, and encouraged as I shall set down. 

 But first, observe that the people of Holland eat dear and pay 

 great rents for their houses, and so they do in Flanders; but 

 the weaving and whitening of the cloth is not above the tenth 

 part of the labour. For the great labour is in preparing the 

 flax, as pulling, watering, dressing, spinning, and winding, and 

 all this is done in the upper parts of Germany and thereabouts ; 

 their victuals are cheap, and in all these parts there is no 

 beggar, nor no occasion to beg ; and in all towns there are 



