EMPLOYMENT OF CHILDREN. 



91 



there manufactured, where they keep at work infinite quantities 

 of poor people as spinners, carders, weavers, dressers^ and dyers. 

 Yet I have seen two pieces in print, each making great com- 

 plaintj that by the late inclosures in these counties a dog and 

 a boy do manage as much land as formerly employed ten 

 teams, and kept forty persons at work all the year : never con- 

 sidering that the land inclosed is treble the benefit to the 

 owner (after the minister's and poor's part was thrown out) 

 over what it was before it was inclosed ; and that the product 

 of the wool proceeding from the same land does set at work 

 five times the number of people in other places of the kingdom. 

 And so it will be with the linen manufactures if once well 

 settled in these four counties, and encouraged by a public law, 

 then these counties will be as Germany is to Holland and 

 Flanders : there the flax will grow, and be manufactured 

 easily and cheap; part whitened there, and the thread and 

 part of the flax sent down the navigable rivers to the several 

 towns to be woven and spun. And so there will be employ for 

 the greatest part of the poor of England. 



" For this twelve years last past, I having my London road 

 through Warwickshire, made my observations of the land there, 

 and the fitness of it to bear flax ; but more particularly of the 

 Manor of Milcott, being the Earl of Middlesex's, near Stratford- 

 upon-Avon ; which manor is about three thousand acres, and 

 to the value of three thousand pounds a-year, as I am in- 

 formed. The land in this manor is sound, rich, dry, and good, 

 and that is the true land to bear flax. One acre of land will 

 bear three hundredweight of flax. This three hundredweight 

 of flax, well dressed and made fine, will make four hundred ells 

 of cloth, worth three shillings the ell, which will be in value, 

 when manufactured, threescore pounds. You must observe, 

 the finer the thread is, the less flax goeth to make it, and the 

 more cloth it will make. And so there being the labour of 

 three persons to manufacture the flax that comes of this one 

 acre of land, this manor will employ nine thousand persons. 

 Now there are at least ten thousand acres of land beside this 

 very good for flax in Warwickshire, and no less quantity in 

 any of the three other counties, every way as good. Now, 

 reader, I pray answer me, whether here be not work suflScient 



