e seen that
fact very fully established, last year, from the registers kept in the
West Riding of Yorkshire. This year, in the West of England, I received
a similar account, on the authority of a respectable clothier in that
quarter, whose testimony can less be questioned, because, in his
political opinions, he is adverse, as I understand, to the continuance
of the war. The principal articles of female dress for some time past
have been muslins and calicoes.[44] These elegant fabrics of our own
looms in the East, which serve for the remittance of our own revenues,
have lately been imitated at home, with improving success, by the
ingenious and enterprising manufacturers of Manchester, Paisley, and
Glasgow. At the same time the importation from Bengal has kept pace with
the extension of our own dexterity and industry; while the sale of our
printed goods,[45] of both kinds, has been with equal steadiness
advanced by the taste and execution of our designers and artists. Our
woollens and cottons, it is true, are not all for the home market. They
do not distinctly prove, what is my present point, our own wealth by our
own expense. I admit it: we export them in great and growing quantities:
and they who croak themselves hoarse about the decay of our trade may
put as much of this account as they choose to the creditor side of money
received from other countries in payment for British skill and labor.
They may settle the items to their own liking, where all goes to
demonstrate our riches. I shall be contented here with whatever they
will have the goodness to leave me, and pass to another entry, which is
less ambiguous,--I mean that of silk.[46] The manufactory itself is a
forced plant. We have been obliged to guard it from foreign competition
by very strict prohibitory laws. What we import is the raw and prepared
material, which is worked up in various ways, and worn in various shapes
by both sexes. After what we have just seen, you will probably be
surprised to learn that the quantity of silk imported during the war has
been much greater than it was previously in peace; and yet we must all
remember, to our mortification, that several of our silk ships fell a
prey to Citizen Admiral Richery. You will hardly expect me to go through
the tape and thread, and all the other small wares of haberdashery and
millinery to be gleaned up among our imports. But I shall make one
observation, and with great satisfaction, respecting them. They