Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 2.djvu/160

Ireland or the plantations.^[1] Finally, in the following session, by the same act which put an end to all duties on the exportation of corn, all subsisting duties upon the exportation of home woollen manufactures were also taken off, on the ground that "the wealth and prosperity of this kingdom doth in a great measure depend upon the improvement of its woollen manufactures, and the profitable trade carried on by the exportation of the same."^[2] The system of artificial protection, however, was not in this case carried to the length of actually stimulating the exportation of either wool or woollens by bounties, as had been done with regard to corn.

In 1697 Davenant estimated the value of the wool yearly shorn in England at about 2,000,000l.^[3] At a general medium he conceives the material to be probably improved about fourfold in the working; so that the entire annual value of our woollen manufactures at this time might be set down at about 8,000,000l. Of all the cloth made he allows a fourth for exportation; there would, therefore, remain for home consumption about 6,000,000l. worth. These inferences, however, are probably considerable exaggerations. More reliance may perhaps be placed upon an account which he says he had procured "from a very skilful hand," and from which it would appear that the quantity of fine cloth manufactured in England from Spanish wool in the year 1688 was about 19,000 pieces, of which about 9000 were exported (8420 from the port of London, 614 from the outports), and 10,000 reserved for home consumption.^[4] "Some

1. 10 Will. III. c. 16 (c. 10 in common editions).
2. 11 Will. III. c. 20.
3. Discourse on the East India Trade, Works, ii. 146. His calculation is, that there were annually shorn about twelve millions of fleeces, of the average value of 3s. 4d. per fleece, somewhat above eight fleeces making a tod of wool, the average price of which was 28s., or 1s.a pound. Gregory King, in his Political Conclusions (1696), estimates the value of the wool yearly shorn at the same sum with Davenant.
4. Works, ii. 149.