not only spun linen from flax, but also wove cloth of wool. In the list of his employees there appear a number of artisans for this purpose.[1] In 1656, the authority was given to Northampton County to pass laws to promote and govern its own manufactures, among which the woollen were probably of importance.[2]
In 1659, a regulation was adopted prohibiting the exportation of wool, among other articles.[3] Seven years later, the difficulty of obtaining clothing from England to supply the needs of the people became so great that the General Assembly determined to take more active steps for the encouragement of domestic woollen manufactures. What could be accomplished in this direction had already been illustrated in Governor Berkeley’s success in furnishing his own household. The Assembly estimated that five women, or the same number of children of ages not exceeding thirteen years, could provide clothing for thirty persons. In order to remove the objection that there were no looms in the Colony, the court of each county was instructed to set up one of these machines and to employ a weaver to work it. A failure to comply with this order exposed the court derelict to a fine of two thousand pounds of tobacco.[4] In 1668, the scope of this law was enlarged
- ↑ New Description of Virginia, pp. 14, 15, Force’s Historical Tracts, vol. II. It is stated by Aubrey that Davenant, the poet, when at Paris during the time of the Protectorate, “laid an ingenuous design to carry a considerable number of artificers, chiefly weavers, from thence to Virginia, and by Mary, the Queen Mother’s, means he got favour from the King of France to go into the Prisons and pick and choose . . . he took thirty-six, as I remember, and not more, and shipped them, and as he was on his voyage to Virginia, he and his weavers were all taken by the ships then belonging to the Parliament of England.”
- ↑ Hening’s Statutes, vol. I, p. 396.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 488.
- ↑ Ibid., vol. II, p. 238. One of the charges against Sir William Berkeley in the Charles City Grievances, 1676 (Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vol. III), was that he misappropriated the tobacco levied for the encouragement of weavers.
