vi 



INTRODUCTION. 



tant, this national object : and it is with peculiar pleasure that we record 

 he very recent liberality of several public spirited individuals of North 

 Wales, who have subscribed considerable sums towards defraying the 

 expense of raising Hemp-crops on some of the Welch waste lands. If 

 the limits, necessarily prescribed to a Preface, would admit, we could 

 add many cogent arguments for attempting the native growth of Hemp : 

 but we forbear to multiply needless proofs, convinced that every principle 

 of patriotism and of interest (often a more powerful incentive to duty 

 than the love of one's country) combines most imperiously to require, 

 that Britons should, in this instance at least, concur in their efforts to 

 render " Britain independent of commerce." 



II. With respect to the probability of obtaining from India supplies 

 of Hemp, or of vegetables whose fibres may be advantageously employed 

 as substitutes for Hemp, it may be proper to state, for the reader's infor- 

 mation, that, in a letter to the Court of Directors of the East-India Com- 

 pany,* the Lords of his Majesty's most Honorable Privy Council for Trade 

 and Foreign Plantations, recommended to the Court to encourage, as 

 much as possible, the growth of strong Hemp in such parts of their de- 

 pendencies in India, as might be best suited to the production of that ar- 

 ticle : in reply to which, the Court, on the 23d of the same month, in- 

 formed their Lordships, that they would take the needful measures for ac- 

 complishing the object of their Lordships' wishes. 



Hemp is not altogether unknown in India ; but its properties are not 

 sufficiently understood. It is at present cultivated for the purpose of ob- 

 taining an intoxicating drug. The substance of which the Natives make 

 their cordage, fishing-nets, &c. is obtained from a plant called by the 

 Country name of Sunn (the Crotolaria Juncea of Linnaeus), and is prepar- 

 ed 



* Dated February 4, 1803. 



