177

alarmed with a serious apprehension even for our home-market.Our coarse woollens would be secure, till the French learnt howto manage their sheep properly ; but our superlines would be beatout of our home-market, or our manufacturers, instead of a mixtureof Spanish and English wool, would be obliged to use nothing butSpanish . He had seen Spanish wool manufactured in England tothe amount of four guineas a yard, but when our cloths should bemade as fine as the French cloths are, they would be sold dearer.He thought not much of their dyes; he had seen as good blackand as good scarlet dyed in England as were ever dyed in France ;but it was the hardness of our cloths, compared with the French cloths, which hindered them from taking so good a dye. Greatquantities of woollens were smuggled into both countries at 14/.per cent.: the duty of 12/. per cent, would prevent smuggling;but he bad no great expectation that France would be a muchgreater market than it was at present for our woollens. At thetreaty of Utrecht , our woollens were prohibited: the French woollen manufactory was then in its infancy; since the year 1760,it has been in very high perfection; it feared not now a competi-tion with the English manufactory; and if there had been theleast apprehension for its safety, the French ministry would neverhave suffered the importation of our woollens upon such an easyduty ; they would sedulously have protected a manufactory whichhad been raised at an immense expense, by government, for abovea century. We had nothing to hope from the extension of ourwoollen trade; they might take a few more coarse goods from us,in order to mix them with their own for the American market,and this, he thought, would be a practice they would follow, andmuch to our detriment in other articles besides our woollens.

A A