ii 



INTRODUCTION. 



supplied, that could not, with propriety, be blended with the practical 

 intelligence, which he has endeavoured to collect and to concentrate. 



It is obvious to the most common observer, that not a few indispen- 

 sable articles in the rigging of vessels are manufactured from Hemp ; and 

 since the naval power of Britain has risen to an extent unparallelled in 

 the records of history, her consumption has so far exceeded the - amount 

 of her growth, that it is only by annual importations, proportionably 

 great, that she has hitherto been able to supply the progressive demands 

 of her navy. 



The rated value of imported Hemp (as stated in the account of im- 

 ports printed by order of the House of Commons), was, at the com- 

 mencement of 1807, about ,,£600,000 per annum, which amount, Mr. 

 Arthur Young remarks, indicates 60,000 acres, at ^lO per acre. This 

 supply has hitherto been derived principally from Russia ; whose cultiva- 

 tors have been enabled to furnish British merchants with Hemp at a price 

 so moderate, that, after the expences of freight and charges of merchan- 

 dize had been defrayed, it came to the consumer at a cheaper rate than 

 if it had been grown in Britain. The cause of this superior cheapness has, 

 in a respectable periodical work,* been well assigned, viz. that lands in 

 Russia are not " so fully occupied, either by inhabitants or by superior 

 te crops, as to be raised in value above what this commodity would repay 

 ? to the cultivator;" while, in Britain, "the rent of land, with the 

 ? c price of labour, and the operation of taxes of various descriptions, 

 <e when added together, raised the price of the native production to more 

 " than an equality with that of the imported commodity," — notwith- 

 standing the legislature have offered a liberal bounty (3d. per stone) with 

 the view of increasing its cultivation. 



* The Literary Panorama, Vol. III. p. 907. 



But, 



