of the woollen and flaxen manufactures of the country, as to excite popular feeling against them ; and the Government, yield- ing to the clamour, passed the law, in 1721, which disgraced the statute book for a generation, prohibiting the wear of all printed calicoes whatever. It was modified in 1736 so far that calicoes were allowed to be worn, “ provided the warp thereof was entirely of linen yarn.” Previously to this, in T700, a law had been passed by which all wrought silks, mixed stuffs, and figured calicoes, “ the manufacture of Persia, China, or the East Indies, were for- bidden to be worn or otherwise used in Great Britain.” It was particularly designed for the protection of the Spitalfields silk manufacture, but proved of little or no avail against the prodigious importation and tempting cheapness of Indian piece-goods at that time. Cotton was first manufactured in Scotland in 1676, and in Glasgow in 1738, and in Manchester the manufacture of printed calicoes was regularly established in 1765. Fustians, • dimities, and vermilions from cotton-wool had, however, been made in London and in Manchester from 1641. After the in- vention of Arkwright’s machine, in 1769, the production of Man- chester developed so rapidly as to make it very evident that the protection of manufactures against foreign competition was a violation of the first principles of political economy.
The word ‘‘cotton ” is not used in the English translation of the Bible, but in the passage of the book of Esther, [Area b.c. 450] ch. i, 6 : — “ Where were white, green , and blue hangings,” — the Hebrew word translated “green,” is karpas , the Sanscrit kar - pasa, and Hindu kapas , that is, cotton [in the pod], an aboriginal Indian production. The passage should be translated — “Where were white and blue [striped] cotton hangings ; ” which were pro- bably imitations from, if not actually, Bengal satrangis. The Ramayana frequently mentions colored garments, and the way in which robes are represented colored on the Egyptian monuments in zig-zag stripes of different colours, green, yellow, blue, pink, is one of the most characteristic ways of dyeing cotton cloths in
