which is shown in the fact that, from some cause not easily explained, the Glasgow weavers, in respect of the above quality, are unable to cope with those of Manchester. It must be admitted, therefore, that without doubt the men of Lancashire have as much gone a-head of their swarthy and all other predecessors in the manufacture of cotton as the American planters have excelled past generations in the cultivation of the raw material.
As we descend down the stream of time, looking out all the way for striking exhibitions of skill in handling cotton, we arrive at the peninsula of Spain, which during the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries was renowned all the world over for abundance and excellence in the manufacture in question. This arose doubtless from the conquests by the Moors, who in subjecting the Spaniards to the evils of a foreign and unchristian yoke, to some extent redeemed these evils by the importation of much useful knowledge. At about this time the ladies of South Italy very commonly occupied their leisure in the fashionable employment of spinning into thread and knitting into stockings the cotton which was grown in their lords’ gardens. It is a remarkable fact that the Mexicans, when under circumstances to them so unpleasant, they first made the acquaintance of Europeans, were found to possess a thorough knowledge of the applications of cotton, which was reared by this extraordinary people in profusion, and its manufacturing capabilities turned by them to good account. The Peruvians, too, at the epoch of the Spanish invasion carried on the same industry with similar advantage. It was not, however, until the end of the 16th century that the interests of cotton made much progress in Europe. The Dutch were the originators of this movement, and in what they did you may be sure they contemplated the advancement of trade, rather than providing for the trifling occupation of the idle and the fair. In the middle of the following century Manchester commenced her career of quick and unprecedented progress. The cotton with which she originally tried her timid hand, on work strange it is true at first, but destined at no far-off period to fructify in such immense results, came from Cyprus and Smyrna. Her chief rival, when she grew bold and daring enough to compete for a place among the experienced and famed, appeared to be Bengal. The Indian looms, rude as they were, and rude as they would have revealed themselves in any other but Indian hands, accomplished incredible feats. Zephyrs, the breath of the mountains, the wings of light, were reproduced in vegetable tissues so exquisitely fine and transparent that the Indian princess could never cover her naked charms by any possible multiplication of folded repetitions. Diapers were coveted by all the world, and purchased by a large part of it. Whilst they exported the finer goods, the coarser ones were fabricated on their own account. There were cotton shrubs, the fruit of nature, and cotton wool, that of art, in plenty for themselves and for us, nay, for all the spinners and weavers in existence. Lancashire might engage in an innumerable succession of trials without fear of exhausting the resources. Porto Rico, the West Indies generally, Peru,
Egypt, Arabia, Syria, the Cape of Good Hope, the Isle of France, the Celebes, the East Indies, China, Persia, Ispahan, Aleppo, the Grecian Archipelago, Macedonia, Natolia, the coasts of the Caspian Sea, the Province of Bari, Calabria, and more places in the Levant besides than it were easy to enumerate, have each and all, in different degrees of perfection, reared this widely-diffused and much-requested plant. And nothing has yet been said of the vast plantations[1] in later times so profitably conducted in the Southern States of what I will still call the American Union. This grand step constituted a revolution in cotton husbandry, and of course affected with proportionate force every branch of its corresponding trade. The quality the most highly esteemed at this period of dearness and scarcity was that brought from the Island of Bourbon, and Smyrna used to send us annually no less than seven million pounds. There was not much to find fault with in the cotton of Bourbon, excepting its price, and this in 1786 rose in England to ten shillings the pound. In a minute we shall know more about prices, and then the above quotation will stand out in its proper exorbitancy.
Manchester is the first town on record that won a reputation for the fabrics she produced from cotton, as she had long previously done for those woollen articles which were destined in time to be so generally superseded by her subsequent innovations. The germs of mighty results were gradually developed by capital, industry, and science. The growth of the cotton interest was steady and irrepressible; moreover, it was rapid and on a scale of magnificence. The old factories devoted to the fabrication of woollen goods, which since the reign of Edward III. had been established at Bolton and Manchester, served as a preparatory school for acquiring the arts of the new manufacture. This traces back our obligations to the Flemings, who had been invited by that monarch on the occasion of his marriage with the daughter of the Earl of Hainault, to settle in this country, and import their skill in weaving to the good folks of these towns. Speaking of this latter city, as it impressed one in the time of Henry VIII., Leland says of it even then, “It is the fairest, quickest, and most populous town in Lancashire;” and in reward for the distinction it had earned, its royal master conferred upon it, in 1540, the privilege of sanctuary, a species of favour it is well for us we have long ceased to receive or appreciate. This celebrity was recognised in an act passed in the reign of Edward VI., in which its cloths are alluded to in complimentary terms. In the middle of the 17th century Levant cottons were worked into fustians, vermillians, dimities, and velvets, and linen from Irish thread was woven into cloth by the Lancashire artisans. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, drove multitudes of weavers out of France in search of a safe asylum, and as England has- ↑ The area of the States appropriated mainly to the cultivation of cotton, exceeds four times that of Great Britain; or, to give another idea of its extensiveness, fancy twice that portion of the Russian Empire comprised in Europe, covered with cotton-fields; not forgetting, all this while, that, enormous as is the produce of such a domain, many large tracts of country in other regions contribute to meet the unappeasable consumption.
