brought to the court of the county in which he resided, a yard of woollen cloth or linsey-woolsey three-quarters of a yard wide, the same to be examined in the manner required in the case of linen. The fact that it was of the growth and manufacture of the person delivering it, was also to be shown and embodied in the certificate to be presented to the Assembly to ensure the payment of the reward. Under the provisions of the same law, ten pounds of tobacco were granted to every one in the Colony who made a fur or woollen hat, and twelve pounds to the maker of every dozen pair of worsted hose for men and women.[1]
The rewards offered by these statutes had a strong influence in directing the attention of the planters to local woollen manufactures. In 1684, Ralph Wormeley produced before the court of Middlesex, fourteen yards of woollen cloth woven on his estate. Christopher Wormeley, on the same occasion, presented ninety-five yards, Captain Henry Creyk sixty-one, John Farrell fifty-five, and Richard Parrott thirty-four. Forty-five yards were brought in by different planters at subsequent meetings of the same court.[2] There is reason to think that persons in other counties took advantage of the same public inducements to manufacture woollen cloth.
As far as possible, the English authorities discouraged the manufacture of every form of cloth in Virginia, and it is, therefore, not surprising to find that the statute prohibiting the exportation of wool and woolfels, and the statute passed to encourage woollen and linen production, should have been regarded with the strongest disapproval by the English Government.[3] In 1683, both measures
