Selected quad for the lemma: england_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A36822
|
Dum spiro spero an humble representation of the state of our woollen manufacturers.
|
|
1700
(1700)
|
Wing D2519; ESTC R235
|
9,146
|
18
|
5 That no Person that was not a natural born Subject of England should be excused the Payment of Aliens Duties if naturaliz'd by Act of Parliament During this time the Affairs of England were in a flourishing Condition a plentiful Imployment to the Poor which was one great Occasion of the Reconciliation of the Houses of York and Lancaster During such time that there is full Imployment for the Poor the Designs of Great Persons are no way to be executed which is a Matter of Moment to be consider'd at this time And the Stop of the Exportation of our Wool will thoroughly effect the Matter The good Effect of this Settlement of Trade fully appear'd at the Death of this King who left in the Treasury One million eight hundred thousand Pounds which made above Three Millions of our Money In the last Year of this King's Reign there was a Change of Affairs and the Merchants of the Stilliard obtain'd footing again as appears by two Laws then made in their Favour The two last Laws except one that pass'd in this Reign Calice was at this time the grand Mart of English Goods Anno Decimo Nono Hen. VII Cap. 22 and there was a Law made in favour of the English Merchants prohibiting the Men of Calice to be Factors for Merchant-Strangers living in England Which Law was at this time repeal'd and all Laws made in Derogation of the Merchants of the Stilliard were repeal'd In the beginning of the Reign of Henry VIII Cap. 23 they got leave to Custom one Man 's Goods in the Name of another and indeed were favour'd this whole Reign Aliens Duties were taken off by the King's Proclamation which produc'd the like Effect that we feel at this time Anno 32. Hen. VIII Cap. 15 They got the whole Trade into their hands and it was with great difficulty recover'd in the Year 1552 the Fifth and Sixth Years of Edw. VI. in whose Journals it thus appears That the Merchants of the Stilliard shipp'd off Forty thousand Cloaths and our English Merchants not Four thousand and all was exported and imported in Foreign Bottoms The English Merchants being at this low ebb put in their Complaint to the King and Council against these Merchants of the Stilliard or Tutonicorum And they gave in their Answer to the said Complaint upon the 18th Day of January and upon the 25th their Answer was deliver'd to some Learned Council to peruse it Upon the 18th Day of February the Merchant-Adventurers put in their Replication to the said Answer and upon the 23d a Decree was made by the Board That upon Knowledge and Information of their Charters they had found first That they were no sufficient Corporation secondly That their Names Numbers and Nations were unknown thirdly When Edw. IV. did restore them to their Privileges it was upon the Condition they should cover no Foreigners Goods which they had done For these Considerations Sentence was given That they had forfeited their Liberties and were to be no more than Strangers Upon the 28th Day came Embassadors from Hamburgh Lubeck and the Regent of Flanders to speak upon the Behalf of these Merchants of the Stilliard and upon the 2d of March the Answer was committed to the Lord Chancellor the two Secretaries Sir Robert Bows and Sir John Baker Judge Mountague Griffith Sollicitors Gosnald Goodrick and Brooks It remained under Consideration until the 1st Day of May and then the Merchants of the Stilliard receiv'd their full Answer confirming the former Judgment of the Council This gave Incouragement to a great many English Merchants to come into this Company and in October 3. following they shipp'd off Forty thousand Cloaths At this time our Woollen Manufactures came again under the Consideration of the good Samaritane being miserably debas'd by these Merchants of the Stilliard as appears by the Preamble of the Statute Anno 5. 6. Edw. VI. cap. 6 and several discreet and sage Knights and Burghesses undertook the Matter by consulting divers honest Clothiers Woollen-Drapers c. a Law was made with great Caution to suppress Wool-broggers who were got to a great heighth And upon this Foundation Trade was carried on the whole Reign of Queen Elizabeth and never wholly thrown open until the Year 1663. What is here asserted is Matter of Fact and I appeal to the nicest Historian whether the Affairs of England were not in a much more flourishing Condition from Edward IV. to the End of Henry VII and from Edward VI. to the End of Queen Elizabeth than it hath been during such time that Trade was laid open to Merchant-Aliens Never was greater Marks of Kindness shewn by any Prince than ours by repeated Recommendations of the Care of Trade nay at last in Words at length by a Bill to incourage the fair Merchant our Manufactures and discourage clandestine Trading And the Hardships which have been undergone by our Poor through the Neglect thereof had never been born but from the entire Satisfaction and Confidence in His Majesty's Favour England is said to be a mighty Animal that will never die unless it destroy it self No Age can produce more unnatural Instances than ours nor was ever the true Interest of England in point of Trade more in danger of being supplanted by her own Sons And thus I leave our Woollen Manufactures Queen Elizabeth's Mines and the Indies of England to Consideration under the unfortunate Circumstances of poor Belisarus Date obolum Belisario quem invidia non culpa caecavit and with the like Inscription as he had wrote upon his Breast Dum Spiro Spero
DVM SPIRO SPERO An Humble Representation OF THE STATE OF OUR WOOLLEN MANUFACTURES LONDON Printed in the Year 1700. 1. IT 's evident to most Thinking People That the utmost Endeavours are still used by the French King to obtain that in a Peace which he could not procure by a WAR By Supplanting us in our Woollen Manufactures And if some Extraordinary Care be not taken he is in a likelier way to succeed having the chiefest of our Allies as hearty on his side in carrying on this Design as they were on ours in carrying on the War The Advantages obtained by a French Interest in the beginning of the Reign of King Charles the Second in invading the Right of the Ancient and long-establisht Company of Merchant-Adventurers of England and putting the French Merchant upon an Equal Foot in Trade with the English by taking off Aliens-Duties the Ancient Revenue of the Crown being corroborated by a Law made in the beginning of the Reign of His Present Majesty King William which in the Heat of Friendship gave away our Merchandize to gratifie our Neighbours hath prevailed to an alteration of the Guardianship and Care of our Woollen Manufactures for Flanders Germany Holland and the East-Country in point of Inspection Merchandize and Navigation to which Parts Two Thirds of our Woollen Manufactures are Exported The Good Genius of this Present Time the beginning of the New Century tending to a Consideration of this Notable Commodity of ours the which there is not the like in any Foreign Parts as is exprest in the Statute of Edward the Sixth of Blessed Memory I will endeavour to the best of my Judgment to represent the true State of our Woollen Manufactures as they now stand and the Discouragements they labour under by which the good or bad effect of this alteration to the Publick may somewhat appear And instead of Improvement under this Foreign Guardianship I find the case of our Woollen Manufactures to be much alike to the Man in the Parable that went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among Thieves that robb'd him of his raiment wounded him and left him half dead c. II. It is manifest That as these Merchant-Aliens increase in England the Woollen Manufactures increast in a like proportion in Foreign Parts and the French became considerable Merchants with our Woollen Manufactures in Spain Turky and other parts Good Proof was made before a Committee of Parliament by the Inspection of two Frenchmens Books That the Exportation of our Wooll was carried on by these men Printed Tickets were given out in Holland to give notice of the Sale of considerable quantities of English Wooll and reported by some that the Dutch Men-of-War that came out to fight the French were assisting in carrying over Fullers-Earth and returned home not empty-handed of a little resemblance if so to the Woman in the Fable that was afflicted with a Dimness in her Sight and agreed with a famous Occulist that anointed her Eyes with a certain Material that took away her sight wholly for a time and then robb'd her of a good piece of Houshold-stuff This Practice comes up to the Letter of my Simile To ascertain the loss to our Poor in this particular I will here set down a Calculation made by the Honourable Sir Matthew Hale of the distinct value of the Wooll and the Workmanship In a Course Medley Cloth containing 32 Yards long to the making this Cloth 90 pound of Wooll 54 of ab 34 of warp 2 of mixture at one Shilling per pound l. s. d. 4 10  1. Parting and Picking 00 03 00 2. Colouring 00 16 00 3. Breaking and Spinning the Ab 01 07 09 4. Breaking and Spinning the Warp 00 18 06 5. Cards and Oil 01 00 00 6. Weaving Spooling and Warping 01 01 03 7. Milling and Burling 00 12 00 8. Shearing and Dressing 00 18 00 9. Drawing 00 01 06 10. Carriage and Factorage 00 07 00  11 15 00 Out of which deducting the Materials of Wooll Cards and Oil 05 10 00 There remains for Expence of Workmanship 06 05 00 In our Finest Manufactures a Calculation is thus made viz. One Pack of our finest Kemb'd Wooll containing twelve Score I compute to be worth at this time l. s. d. 30 00 00 The Spinning of this into the Finest Worsted cost 5 s. per Pound 60 00 00 Four Ounces thus spun will make a pair of Hose worth 5 s. the Knitting 240 00 00 This Pack so knit will make 80 dozen of Hose which pay Custom 7½ per dozen 02 10 00  302 10 00 The Medium in our Woollen-Manufactures I take to be one Third Wooll two Thirds Workmanship III. Since this alteration of the Merchandize of our Woollen Manufactures greater quantities have been Exported White and not fully manufactured which has sunk the imployment of many Occupations and hindred the consumption of many of our Native Materials which are used in Dying c. IV. The Reputation of our English Manufactures which in former time was famous at all Foreign Markets has been wounded by these Foreign Interlopers When extraordinary care has been taken in France of late years to improve their own The Price has been always beat down and extraordinary Measure required which has forc'd the Maker upon slight making and extraordinary straining Cloth of an ordinary quality has been mark'd by these Foreign Buyers with Marks of our best Makers of Cloth and sent over as Cloth made by them and the most fallacious ways us'd to ruine the Reputation of our Goods and supplant the English Merchants Seals Tillets Coats of Arms Numbers all counterfeited by a foreign Interloper as was prov'd in Westminster-Hall by Mr. Banks and hereby an Odium has bin brought upon English Goods when no consumer of Cloth either at home or abroad when he finds himself abus'd and cheated but does resent the fact The Hudsons-Bay Company as is credibly told sold a parcel of Strained Cloth to the Indians with whom they Traffick for the Skins of Wild Beasts and the next time they came the Indians told them they had sold them thieving-Cloth and stole it from them again and would never permit the like abuse we read of Christians in the Primitive times in the Skins of wild beasts lo wild Beasts here in the Skins of Christians cheating of Indians A Burgher-woman at Hamburg bought some of this Strained Cloth to make her Children Garments which shrunk so abominably that her Children appear'd in a New Fashion and she brought them for a Sight to the Shop where she bought the Cloth the Man that sold it perceiving the matter broke out into the highest admiration and blest himself at the miraculous growth of the Children and hereby took off the edge of the Womans Passion A Welch Woman bought of a Clothier in Hereford Fair as much Broad-Cloth as would make her a Wastcoat and it was apply'd to that use and all well but afterwards meeting with some wet the Wastcoat