England's Advocate EUROPE'S MONITOR BEING An Intreaty FOR HELP In Behalf of the English Silk-Weavers AND Silk-Throsters SHEWING Their Misery and the Cause thereof And what will only Cure both Them and the Evils England's Trade groans under and other English Manufacturers from the like Desolation In a LETTER to a Member of the Honourable House of Commons LONDON Printed by George Larkin Jun. and are to be Sold by J. Nut near Stationers Hall 1699. ENGLAND's Advocate c. In a LETTER to an Honourable Member of the House of Commons SIR 1. YOurs of the 20th past acquaints me that you have lately receâ—ved a dismal Account of the Decay of Trade and particâ—larly of the Silk Manufacture of England and the Deplorable Poverty of the generality of Persons concerned in it and related to it which you say is so startling and amazing that you cannot but call in question the Sincerity of the Relator and the Truth of his Narration And therefore you earnestly desire me of whose Integrity and Experience you are pleased to say you make no doubt that I wou'd deal fully and freely with you in declaring what Truth there is in it and if any then what may be the Causes thereof and what Remedies I think may be proper for it Now though I question my own Ability for so great an Undertaking yet I cannot altogether deny so good a Friend and if I shou'd fail in giving you the expected Satisfaction yet I will never deceive you with Falshood but according to the best of my knowledge and skill shall act impartially as one who has only the Common and True Interest of his Countrey in his Eye And herein I shall restrain my self chiefly to the Weaving Trades in and about the Cities of London and Canterbury of which my many years Experience will not suffer me to be ignorant not doubting but that Norwich Bristol and other Trading Places will speak loudly for themselves as having too just Cause And I heartily thank both you and all those worthy Members who you say are willing to Relieve us but heartily sorry that it cannot be done at present the state of Affairs being such at this instant time that if the Petition of the Weaver's Company had been Received it could have done them no present kindness But since you tell me That if I can give you convincing Satisfaction you will communicate it to others who may be capable of doing us some good Service ere long I will adventure to try what can be done 2. The Weavers and Silk and Mohair Throsters of London are so very Numerous a Company that according as they flourish or fail most other Trades feel the good or ill Effects of it and they are of two sorts either the Masters or Fabricators or else the Workmen and Servants being far the greater Number and in which are to be included multitudes of Women and Children for they are Trades which employ variety of hands and enables even Children at least in part to get their Livelihood to the great Relief Ease and Comfort of their poor Parents And here if I cou'd without sighing remember the Blessings of Peace and good Management I should tell you That from the Restoration of King Charles the Second to the beginning of the present Revolution this profitable and necessary Broad-Weaving Trade was increased 19 parts in 20 to what it was before And altho the Foundation of our Desolation which was before as 't is said by Br y attain'd began its Effects towards the end of that Kings Reign and that vast quantities of India Wrought Silks were brought over it was chiefly to the prejudice of the Woollen Manufacture for then the better sort of Women scorn'd them and they were mostly used instead of Serges Tammies and Norwich Stuffs But that produc'd such dismal Effects that the Growth of several Years Wooll lay to Moth-eat till that happy and Ingenious Invention of both Silk and Worsted Crapes gave new Life both to the Wooll and Silk Manufactory for Burying in Woollen would not do it and rendered the Indian Silks and Stuffs contemptible to all sorts of People and to the Advantage of all parts and places where it was setled whereby great multitudes of other Trades and People who had their dependance thereon prospered and lived well many Fields were turned into Streets and Houses Let before they could be finished and multitudes of Strangers were entertained and had full Employment in the Weaving-Trade the Brewer the Baker the Butcher the Victualler were well paid and that I am sure could be no damage to the Landlord and the Nation abounded with Men and Money in which two things with God's Blessing the main Strength of a Kingdom consists 3. But alas we may now say with the Brazen Head Time Was For Now there is such an utter Decay of Trade especially of the Weaving Part and its Dependancies that a Master who formerly employed Twenty Thirty or more cannot now employ Four nor find them full work The rest are put to miserable shifts and at best they are forced to take up with spare Diet and the worst of Provisions and that many times not very wholesome and to purchase This they are fain to strip their Houses and sell the Furniture by degrees till from one thing after another it comes to the very Bed they lie on and they are reduc'd to a wad of straw for their Lodging and a few shavings for a necessary fire to boyl a little Water-gruel or a Beasts Liver and when all is spent then the upper Garments if worth any thing goe to the Broker for a small pittance of Money to get a little Recruits for Belly-Timber and thus starved inside and outside they spin out a miserable Life faintly walking all Tatter'd and Torn more like Ghosts and Shadows than Living Men and Women till being able no longer to hold out against Weakness and Want they drop into their Graves And tho' the Weekly Bills may call it Consumptions Convulsions or by other such Artificial Names yet if the Searchers wou'd speak out or your Worship wou'd summon a Jury of Church-Wardens and Overseers of the Poor from Algate Bishopsgate Cripple-gate Shoreditch Stepny S. Georges and Southwark with the Precincts and Hamlets thereunto belonging I am confident they would bring in their Verdict That no small number of them dyed of a Disease in plain English called Starving And this is the more to be lamented because it befalls the better and honester sort of them for those whose modesty will not let them beg nor their honesty suffer them to steal when they can find nothing to set their Industry at work their hearts sink they hide their heads for grief and shame and so pine away with want And thus those Men are lost who wou'd improve Trade and be exceeding profitable to the Commonwealth 4. To this you may add the Consideration of the many Houses which stand empty in these and such-like Places which formerly were
crowded with two or three Families And as for many Houses which are inhabited they are suffered so to be rather to prevent the heavy payment of three or four shillings Tax in the pound falling on the Landlord than for any hope of more Rent he hath from the Tenant Nay I know some who would gladly lose their Houses would the grand Landlord accept and acquit them Perhaps you will think it strange if I should say I know the Men that are Ruin'd and Undone by having whole Ranges of Houses given them only for being become bound to pay some Ground-Rent that was covenanted for before the Building and yet of this kind you may easily be inform'd of divers instances in the Tower-Hamâ—lets and New Town and notwithstanding all this Loss and Desolation yet within a few years in those places they have been forced to double their Rates for the Poor and when that would not do then to add an Additional Rate of Six Months to the year and some Parishes that were hundreds of pounds before-hand some years since are now run deep in debt with endeavouring to support their Poor and to prevent this miserable Poverty growing upon us and all to no purpose for never did the Poor swarm at that rate as now and still daily increase so that no Man can have a spare Faâ—thing to give away but once in an hour he shall have three or four assaulting his house with doleful complaints to beg it and things grow daily so from bad to worse that in a little time we may fear to see begging and stealing to become the two most general Professions or Employments in the Nation and if there be no remedy for these things or none will be taken we shall certainly ere long from the most flourishing Kingdom of Europe become the most despicable People under the Cope of Heaven 5. I fear I have surfeited you with Complaints but that I may now afford you a handle whereby you may do your Country some good service of which I know you so zealously desirous that you never spared any honest Pains which might tend to produce that Effect I shall now lay before you what I apprehend to be the principal Causes of this daily encreasing Poverty and Misery and that consideration in course will direct to the Remedies But before I come to the standing Causes among our selves I shall take notice of one thing which I take to be an accidental Cause and yet a great present furtherance of this Mischief and that is the free Admission of so many French Walloons and other Foreigners amongst us Not that I against all Foreigners much less against the Relief of Men in distress of which I am confident you will bear me witness but I think our Charity to others might be so managed as not to be uncharitable to our selves For many complain that they enjoy several Immunities and Priviledges more than the Natives themselves which is grating provoking and uneasie And they also urge the large Contributions from time to time made to them which I should never grudge but that I find this use to be made of them by the help thereof to work under the Heads of their own Party at lower Rates than the English could at the rate Provisions now are and by this means they got the Work out of their Hands and the Bread out of their Mouths And so long as those Contributions lasted they did and would hold it but now they fail I am informed that several of them think of transplanting themselves into other Countries and so doubtless will the English too rather than starve at home but I fear Europe cannot afford them Relief for Trade will run thither where it meets with encouragement and sits easie and at this rate the Nation will be in danger to be much dispeopled as well as impoverished which can bode no good if not wisely prevented 6. But that we may come more close to the matter the Design of Trade is to supply our want and encrease our wealth and therefore ought to be managed to those ends But if it multiply our Inconveniences or exhaust our Riches such Trading is riding Post to ruine and therefore a speedy stop ought to be put to it For this reason let Men talk what they please of a free Trade and leaving it uncircumscribed they must at last allow it to be limited by such Rules and Maximes as may make it beneficial and not hurtful to a Nation but to set them so as to make them obligatory and effectual belongs to Authority where I leave them and proceed to make good my Promise 7. And here I cannot but take notice of one mistake which multitudes of well-meaning Persons make for whereas it hath been wisely provided that our own Commodities should be manufactured at home many have thought that by wearing fine English Cloth they were the great Consumers of English VVool which is a great Errour For it hath been proved more than once before the Parliament that no Cloth of above 10 s. per Yard white or 13 s. per Yard in mixt Colours sold at Blackwell-Hall hath one Drachm of English VVool therein unless by Accident and so all the better sort become only the Consumers of the Socove or Spanish VVool and by this means Hair-Camblets Prunello's Callaminco's Velvets Silks and such like wearing hath been and is much disused for the purchasing the Materials whereof they were here made our own Cloth-Manufactures were in great quantities exported and to which a great stop by that means is made so that hereby a double Manufacture is discouraged and a double Gain to the Nation lost For he that wears a Hair-camblet Coat or Cloak or Prunello-gown or any sort of Hair or Silk Velvet or Shag is in the effect a more true Consumer of English Wooll than he that wears Cloth Grograin or Mohair Yarn of which the aforesaid Commodities are made being generally the Product or Exchange of our Coursest English Woollen Cloth by which Vend the Clothier is encouraged and the preparing the Yarn which comes in for it gives a great and comfortable Employment to vast Numbers of People in the several Manufactures thereof And before this War we had attained to that Perfection as not only to serve our selves in Hair-Camblets which before used to be sent us from Brussels and Holland but had gained such a Preference as to serve the wisest Paris and French Merchants where and to other parts we had a very profitable Trade in the former times I could not say less to undeceive many who did not understand how by this means the Silk and Mohair-Yarn-Trade is much impaired and English Cloathing it self damnified which is one tho' no great cause of this Deplorable Poverty Nor wou'd I be thought by informing of this Mistake to undervalue the home Consumption of our own Woollen Manufacture 8. As to what you hint in relation to the War the late ill State of our Coin and the
in order to their Relief to request 1. That the Company would put their By-Laws in execution 2. That they would give them leave to prosecute according to the Laws of England those that had not served seven years an Apprentiship to the Trade 3. That they would admit no more Foreigners to work on the Trade To all which the Company gave all those that appeared full satisfaction That they lay under an Obligation neither to do nor to abet or suffer any thing to be done contrary to the Agreement made with their Church but that they would endeavour so to represent their case that there might be Relief both for them and the Strangers also but for acting thus the Company is sharply upbraided and warmly reflected upon by the poor mistaken Multitude For tho' this hath been some small cause of their Poverty by accident as hath been before mentioned yet cannot cure the Evil they labour under But if I might I would Advise or Perswade for it is unreasonable in this case to talk of Forcing or Prohibiting People of all Qualities Age or Sex to the wearing of Garments and Ornaments of Silk or Grograin Yarn of English make for this is the return of English Woollen Cloth and nothing could conduce more to the advantage of the English Merchants Trading to Turkey Spain Italy and other European Parts and is double advantage to England The truth of which may be further demonstrated in one small but fresh instance by which I believe more than one Merchant have been no small Sufferers I mean the great and sudden disuse of Mohair Fringes together with the decay of the Weaving and Button-making Trade by which means some thousand pounds worth of Mohair Yarn which otherwise might have been sold for ready Money at a Price so sunk and fell in its value that it is since sold for one third of what might then have been had for it and I believe that reckoning the decay by the Worm eating into it and the loss of Interest even that third part was likewise consumed which had otherwise been laid out again in Cloth and Tin and sent to Turkey as the Proprietor can tell by woful Experience And I am sure that our Womens great esteem for Thread Fringes was a great occasion thereof and a great kindness to the Dutch And therefore I intreat and beg of you that you will use your utmost Interest and Rhetorick to perswade and prevail that Camblet Cloaks Coats and Gowns Silk Mohair and Mohair Fringes and Buttons and Manufactures here made of Silk and Grograin Yarn may be the Wearing preferr'd and encourag'd For this is the true Interest of the Turkey Trade and in it the great Interest of England 27. From what hath been said I think it may plainly appear That no less than a Prohibition or stop of the Home-Consumption of all sorts of East-India Silks and Stuffs except plain Persian Taffaties and such-like of plain make can preserve the Silk-Weavers and Throsters of England and those great Numbers that depend upon them the good consequence whereof hath been already fully demonstrated For if this be not granted those Trades must utterly decay and sink for as matters now stand by reason of the fore-mentioned Dangers few Men that had an Estate would for the three years last past adventure it the loss being so certain and as for such as have and do trade upon Credit they are forc'd to such miserable shifts as at last ends in extream Poverty And the cause it self I mean England's Interest is almost totally yielded up deep despair together with disability having so dis-spirited and sunk the Minds of the English Silk Manufacturers that there is not Silk provided to supply the Mercers Shops tho' they should be willing to buy all stand at gaze and are only concern'd to see what the Parliament would do with them they are falling into extream despair in vain contriving to find out New Employments And therefore I beg of and beseech you good Sir for GOD's â—ake for your Countrey 's sake and for the sake of those Numberless Multitudes of Poor before menrioned that you would employ all your Interest to gain some effectual Prohibition of wearing any flower'd spotted or strip'a Silk of Indian Make and then I doubt not but such a good Act with example would not only gain the preferrence at home but also afford an opportunity not only to our own Plantations but also to many Neighbouring Countreys to follow the Example our Factors in most places commonly sending their orders for such Commodities as our selves most prefer and use Nor let any think that such a Prohibition would be impracticable if resolved upon for the firm Resolution of an English Parliament is of force sufficient to prevail in any good Cause which they shall heartily espouse as may be seen in the Business of Burying in Woollen and the French Al-a-modes and Lustrings which I believe to be totally supprest And I am confident the East-India Company themselves would not attempt the breach of such a Law if it were once obtain'd and the Interlopers or private Traders might be easily prevented and such Rules propos'd as might deter any other parts from imposing them upon us under the notion of their own Manufactures But if the greatest Evils must meet with no good Endeavours of Redress we must be of all People most miserable Therefore Dear Sir endeavour that something may be done by the Parliament before they Rise that may at least give hopes that their Cause shall in due time be throughly Consider'd Such a Promise or Vote wou'd give New Life to as many as can struggle out another season and hopes of good in time to the rest but the contrary Vtter Despair For I think I may truly say what looks like a Prophecy in one of their Papers about three years since when contending for this Bill in Parliament That if it were granted is wou'd in a small time so invigorate the Minds of all Fabricators both in Silk Wooll and Grograin Yarn that they would contend with all other Difficulties tho' Money shou'd continue as scarce as at present and that the contrary wou'd discourage those of greatest Ability to that degree that the Out-Parishes of London the Tower Hamblets and the Wool-Manufacturing Towns of England would not be able to support their Poor And whether the Truth of this last part hath not been verified to purpose I dare appeal to the Ministers Church-VVardens and Overseers of the Poor And I am sure all the Inhabitants of those Places must and will give a sad Testimony both to the Truth of this and what will be the only Remedy we can hope for and that is the Prohibition requested For had that Act then passed it had saved the Lives of many who have since perished and preserved the Trade both of Weavers and Throsters above double the Number they now are 28. And for your further Conviction it may not be unseasonable here
and fall so desperately in love with them that no other form or manner of Silk than what they last brought must be the Standard of our Mode and Fashion so that when our London and Canterbury Weavers against the Spring-trade have provided many Thousand pounds worth of Lustrings Tabby's and other as good Silks as the World can afford in comes an East-India Ship freight with Dammask and Sattins which being exposed on their Stage makes the Mode for that Spring and the English Fabricators must keep that years Goods or sell them to vast loss and then are constrained with vast Costs and Charges to alter their Fashion for the next year when in comes more East-India Ships with Goods of quite another form and all the Weavers are in the dirt again And thus for several years have the London and Canterbury Weavers been disappointed and Numbers of them undone to the utmost Degree of Poverty and many of them not getting any Sale for their Goods thus provided at so little as 25 or 30 or more per Cent loss have left off and fallen into the wâ—rsted Weavers and I doubt not but that famous Corporation and City of Norwich has and will feel the ill Effects of it For the London Weavers not being tyed to those Rules and Methods which the Norwich Weavers for the Credit of the Kingdom and themselves had obliged their Members to for making Goods free from Deceit as the Colobester Bays-makers do have in part justled them out of their Trade by being thus at their liberty But now Norwich for its own preservation having taken off that restraint which otherwise had been commendably kept on Spittle-fields will not be able to maintain that Trade which at best here is but a starving one to the poor Workmen and therefore Norwich having set her Members at liberty Spittle-fields Workmen must in a short time beg starve or be kept by the Parish 12. This is a sad but true History of the decay and misery of the weaving Trade which is partly caused by the self-endedness and pernicious Trading of some particular Merchants partly by the vain and fond I am unwilling to say vitious Humour of the Females For the Mercers dare not buy any thing considerable but what is Indian or what he must pretend to be so and who can blame him for dealing therein when otherwise the Draper as things stand would deprive him of his Trade And now they cannot but confess that their great care is how to provide good store of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an East-India Sale and if in the Intervals they spare any it is to buy the Labour and Pains of the Weaver for little or nothing and sometimes part of the Silk into the bargain And I assure you Sir it almost makes my Blood chill to think that the best of our Fabricator's business that little they now do is so to counterfeit the Indians that the Mercer may vouch it for such with confidence 13. But this matter is accounted nothing with many and they commonly say That the Silk Weaving and Throwing with all its Dependants had better be destroyed than the East India Trade obstructed or Prejudic'd For say they though they do send great store of Money away to purchase the Indian Silks and Toys yet they bring great Profit to the Nation by returning back Money from most other European Countreys and so the Nation is by them enriched In answer hereto though I have much to say against the Truth of this yet at present I will not quarrel with any of their Importations or Exportations as such let their Trade be as great as they can desire though I am sure in the end it will prove much to the Prejudice of Europe in general and more especially to us but that which I now complain of is the home consumption of those Manufactures which will inevitably destroy not only our Silk but our VVoollen Manufactures And that I may commend you to a compleat Judge in this Case Pray read the Essay upon the Indian Trade whom I take to be the best Advocate for that Company this Age hath afforded and I suppose he may have been as well paid for it It is pity so fine a Pen shou'd be employ'd in so bad a Cause but for his ingenious Confession of that Truth which if rightly considered gives it up we may forgive him And thus saith he p. 12. As to the East-India Trade in general if all would by common Consent agree to have no further dealing to those Parts this side of the World by such Resolution would certainly save a great and continual expence of Treasure for that Europe draws from thence nothing of solid Vse Materials to supply Luxury and only perishable Commodities and sends thither Gold and Silver which is buried there and never returns And then p. 13. concludes I cannot find what is become of the 800 Millions digg'd out of the Earth unless 150 Millions of it be carry'd away and sunk in the East Indies A very fair Confession of the true matter of Fact And who are the Fools As for Spain and other Countries who manufacture not what they use they may with some colour of Reason be indifferent in their Preference but for us to do it and set the World an Example so to do is no better than Folly if not Madness who for the love of India Manufactured Silks Tinder Calico's and Muslins throw away our Gold and Silver never to be recovered when we might have good Cambrick and Lawns and other German Linnen and Raw Silk to employ our People in exchange for our Woollen Manufactures which because we will not we lose both our Trade and our Money which we might keep at home or send abroad to better purpose 15. O but says this and other East-India Advocates Money is but a Commodity and Trade must not be circumscribed but free That by their bringing East-India Silks and Stuffs cheap for our own use we may find other Markets for our Manufactures abroad But why then such a bustle and flourish at other Times when contending for the Ballance of Trade with the European Countries But I grant that Gold and Silver is but a Commodity which we ought to be willing to part with when there is a good cause for it But then it ought to be consider'd what kind of Commodity it is it is the Sinews of War the Glory of Peace and the Life of Trade without which Workmen cannot well be employ'd the more any Nation hath of it the more Wealthy and more Powerful it is the less they have so much the more mean and inconsiderable they are so that to let our Money go from us is to part not only with our Wealth but our Strength Besides Gold and Silver is not a Commodity of English Growth if we make the Fleece into Cloth and send it away the Sheep affords us another Fleece the next year but send our Money away and none comes up here in the room
of their Numbers and Poverty they have secur'd them in their Trade and that much to the Advantage of the Turkey Merchants And though their numbers at Macklesfield and Sherbourn and the adjacent Countrey are great yet I am confident I could name one Parish in London wherein not many years since before this sad decay of Trade the Weavers Throsters and their dependents exceeded them all How Numerous then would they be if computed in all places But the Button-makers may thank God that they had not an East-India Company to cope with and I am perswaded that could the Weavers be secured against only the English consumption of Figur'd Stich'd and Strip'd East-India Silks and Stuffs they would be contented and might be a Happy Prosperous People again and both the Turkey and Italian Merchants Twenty times more benefitted than by the Button Bill and the Blessing would go round for the Woollen Manufacture would feel the good effects of it and less than this can never preserve them from total Ruine in a short time 21 And to say the Truth our Weavers some years since were but little beholding to some back Friends who when they found they had too good a cause and the Prohibiting Bill had pass'd the House of Commons perswaded some to gain a total Prohibition of all European Foreign-wrought Silks for not having cause good enough fairly to Try it out with them they devised this way to hug them to Death with that pretended kindness and destroyed the Bill by insisting on what is Unreasonable For if the English VVeaver cannot vie in Frugal Living and Cheap Working with those Countreys that purchase their Raw Silks and Necessaries of Living much at the same Rate themselves do they will then deservedly suffer but to oblige them to contend with a numerous multitude of Salvages that have their Silk to work upon for almost nothing and want neither Fire nor Cloathing while Two pence in Rice will sustain a Family of four or five for a week is very hard measure and unmerciful doings unless such methods are taken as may reduce the value of Lands and all its Productions to such low Rates here that they may work on an equal foot But how cheap soever the East-India Company may buy these Goods England and all its Ladies shall and will pay dear enough for them rather than go without them so that unless they are by some means or other effectually Restrain'd England must be Vndone to gratify a humour of vanity and enrich a few who care not who nor how many they Ruine so they may but Grasp all into their own hands for otherwise one would think that the Productions of the Growth and Soil of India such as Pepper Salt-Peter Rice Cotton-wool and Yarn and numbers more together with what Wrought Silks they may export might be sufficient Gain to content Reasonable Men and as for Persian Taffaties and Plain Silks the Weavers would not contend the matter 22 But to Prohibit the Wearing any thing that may be Cheap Bought which if the East-India Company do the Gain is to England though they sell never so dear to those who Wear and Consume it which I take to be in the Body Politick like overgorging with Meat and Drink in the Natural Body which is weak and languid and thrives not with it unless in some great Wen Excressency or other Deformity and if this be all we are to regard it may as well hold good in other instances and then let us suppose that when our India-Sbips freight Bullion from Holland or Spain they should also there take in a good quantity of Spanish Wooll and so save the Charge of bringing it to England and then be sure not to forget to take along with them a few Worcester-shire Cloth-weavers and Cloth-workers to instruct and all sorts of Work and Labour being performed in India twelve times as Cheap as in England and four Shillings worth of Spanish-wool making a yard of Cloth worth Fifteen Shillings which at this Rate will stand them but in Five Shillings then there will be Ten Shilling saved for their Navigation and Profits and so England's the Gainer and the Silver they may send to Bengal and Persia for Raw Silk to employ the Mogul's Subjects in other parts to work up as they already do and so return back both the Cargoes of Silk and Cloth together and at once disband all both our Needless Clothiers and Silk Weavers this will do the work effectually and leave us nothing to do at home which must certainly make us a Rich and Industrious People or no People at all considerable in a very little time For I am sure the project is not more ridiculous nor less pernicious in one respect than the other And where we are likely to find this Market they talk of for our own Manufactures is little less than a Miracle and looks more like what the Vulgar call a Vertuoso-fancy than any possibility For can we be so besotted as to imagine that the World should be become so fond of us who are so Careless of our selves that in spight of our Teeths they should be studiers of and industriously provide for our Good by becoming Customers for our Manufactures which we our selves slight and contâ—mn or can it be thought reasonable to believe that when we have brought our own Plantations the Spaniards and other Places to the use of East-India Silks Cotten Cloths and Stuffs which our own great Preference and Esteem not only tends to but effects we shall still have the better Markers abroad in some Newfound-Lands or Countreys to be found out where we may vend our Silks Cloths Bays Serges Perpetuana's Norwich-Stuffs and the like Commodities and it would be worth any Mans while to get Information what Market in this World is not already fully stored and cloy'd with these Commodities whether those prepar'd by the East-India Traders must go to the Prejudice of other more Excellent and Beneficial Merchants unless they know how to carry them to the World in the Moon 23. And if our Common Prints do not Prevaricate Flanders and Venice have lately declared their sense of this Evil by a Prohibition of Indian Manufactures and though the French King for many years past hath driven away so many thousands of his poor Subjects to seek their Bread in other Countreys of which England hath entertained the greatest part and the most of those that were Manufacturers were no other way capable of earning their Living but by the Weaving Trade yet he hath manifested his constant care to support and afford a good Maintenance to those that remain as may appear by his Edict of October 26. 1686. whereby he not only Prohibits the wearing of all sorts of East-India Silks and Callico's but also under a severe Mulct Prohibits the Imitation of their own made figured and flowred Silks by Printing and commands their Prints and Tools to be Broke and Vtterly Destroy'd And in the last War when they