frequent showers of hail, snow, rain, &c.
I can find no person in this quarter who remembers to have ever seen the luminous appearance mentioned above, before this season,—or such a quantity of lightning darting across the heavens,—nor who have heard so much thunder at that season of the year.
This country being all stocked with sheep, and the herds having frequent occasion to pay attention to the state of the weather, it is not to be thought that such an appearance can have been at all frequent, and none of them to have observed it.
Leadhills, 3d May 1817.
ON THE EXPORTATION OF COTTON YARN.
MR EDITOR,
I know not whether you be that dignified and determinate sort of man which ordinary people, like me, in their extreme simplicity, are apt to set down for the conductor of a literary journal. But if power, and the love of sway consequent on the possession of it, have not yet wholly corrupted your understanding, bear with me, for hinting to you, that among the many improvements as to mere arrangement, and the other far more essential ones in point of spirit and talent, of which, above all others, your young work exhibits so many proofs,—I think it is still much deficient in what relates to the financial and commercial concerns of the country. Let me draw your notice to them as, in every direction, and at all periods, deserving of your best attention. It is to them, next to the more pressing matters of personal security and civil liberty, that the anxious curiosity of that part of your readers which best deserves to be pleased is drawn at this moment. Thither it must be drawn for a long time, while we hardly know into what channels our commercial relations with other countries shall settle down, or how we shall recover from the agitation consequent on our deep-drawn and breathless contests, or the stunnings of our sudden success. To understand these relations well, and to estimate fairly the phenomena which will still be emerging under altered circumstances and new connexions, your readers should be furnished, too, with as much as possible of succinct and tastefully arranged fact, concerning all the countries and colonies with which we are connected. I intreat you humbly to keep these things in view; and to lay under contribution, for these purposes, such able and well-provided correspondents, as the personal influence of yourself and your Publisher, and the internal attractions of your Work, may have brought about you.
From an account[1] printed by the House of Commons, 20th March last, it appears, that for the years 1815-16-17, the official value of cotton yarn exported abroad was, in each of these years respectively,—£2,907,276,—£1,781,077,—£2,707,384. I find from the Annual Finance Books, published for the use of Parliament in 1812 and 13, that the official value of the same article, in the four years proceeding 1814, stood as follows:—1810, £1,097,536—1811, £1,075,237—1812, £545,237—1813, £966,007[2] While an alarming decrease, therefore, has taken place in the demand for our cotton fabrics, occasioned by the other countries of Europe becoming, as well as America, manufacturers for themselves, an increase in the foreign purchase of our cotton twist has, from the same cause, been made apparent. England, as well as the other countries of Europe, must remain dependent on America for a supply of the raw material of cotton; and if America continues to work up such immense quantities of that article, it is highly probable, that large supplies of spun cotton will find their way from thence to Russia and France, and other countries of the European Continent, with which the Americans have a direct trade. England, however, is a coal country, and has excellent machinery in abundance; and though nothing can work a charm against the effects of excessive taxation, there may be grounds for hoping that, in the process of time, she may be able to enter into effectual competition, at the best markets of Europe, with the manufacturers of Rouen and Prague, with her
