oduce was unequal to the demand. It
became necessary to import yarn, as well as wool, and the consumption of
bay yarn from Ireland was very great. The neighbouring Counties and
Scotland also contributed something considerable. At this meridian of
prosperity, the trade, from the capriciousness of fashion, began again to
decay, and the disastrous war breaking out, dissolved its continental
connections, depressed the spirit of enterprise, and paralized the hand
of industry.

The author of the Tour through the Island of Great Britain, in 1724,
gives a statement which was furnished by a manufacturer, whereby it
appears 120,000 persons were employed in the various branches of the
Norwich manufactory. Arthur Young considers the interval from the year
1743, till the unfortunate dispute with the American colonies, to have
been a flourishing era; the number of looms were then found to be 12,000,
and it was calculated that each loom, with its attendant preparation,
produced work to the value of 100 pounds per annum; and that every loom
employed five hands besides the weaver, in the various processes before
and after the weaving, so that the whole number of persons employed, many
of which were old women and children, amounted to 72,000, and the money
earned by them to 1,200,000 pounds.

At present, the merchants being shut out of foreign markets by war, and
from our own by fashion, the number of hands employed must be
considerably reduced. The principal articles of this manufactory, are
bombazines and broad camblets, for the latter, of which the East India
Company, have annually given large orders, and it is much to be lamented
that the benefits, which formerly accrued from this manufacture, should
within the last few years have been in a great measure dissipated by a
narrow jealousy and want of unanimity amongst the manufacturers. This
discordance has created a baneful competition, for the favours of the
East India Company, which are consequently distributed, in the greatest
proportion, to that quarter, where the labours of the poor must
necessarily be the most depreciated. A good understanding between them
would not only have preserved their consequence with the company, but
would certainly have rendered their connection with that body much more
advantageous, the Company finding their account in the goods; and not
being able to procure them at any other market. However, during the
failure of a continental trade, it certa