rican goods and English goods both are offered for sale. I wished to leave each advertisement entire, just as I found it. I have only further to observe here, reserving my further remarks till by-and-by, that I have not thought it necessary to follow any particular order in placing the several advertisements. They are placed in the order in which they happened to fall under my scissars. They form, as they stand here, an undigested mass of evidence; but, it is evidence of that sort, which is impossible to fail of producing conviction. Attention in the perusal is all that is wanted. I shall number the advertisements for the sake of more easy reference in my subsequent remarks.

war.

I cannot resist the temptation to indulge myself, before I go any further, in a few remarks upon this advertisement. I am here at home. In this Bustleton I lived for some time. My most intimate friends were the principal landowners of the spot. Upon the banks of this Pennepack Creek I have, I verily believe, shot at more Partridges than there were English and Hanoverian soldiers sent against America during the last What was my surprise at seeing (for here I really see it) a Cotton Manufactory upon the Pennepack on the Bustleton Turnpike-road and in a populous neighbourhood! Fifteen years ago, there was not a turnpike-road, and, as far as I can recollect, there were but eleven houses of all sorts within a mile of the spot here described. Bustleton is on the level, after rising the hill from the Creek; and, I believe, the principal part of the land on both sides of the road, was owned by my friend THOMAS PAUL. He was a Quaker, a sensible, active, and most benevolent and public-spirited man. He was about to erect a School-House when I came away; but his town contained only his own house, a tavern which was his, a large house which he had built for a doctor, and, I believe, two or three small houses besides. Yet, we see, not only that there is at this place a cotton manufactory, but a populous neighbourhood, capable of supplying it with hands. Before I have done, I shall show you how towns grow up in America. Thus it is that men flourish and increase in a soil of freedom. Taking it for granted, that you will believe these details about Bustleton and the Pennepack to be true, seeing that, if false, I expose myself to the contempt of all America, I shall now proceed, without interruption, to the insertion of the Advertisements.*

Here, my Lord, I close my extracts. Instead of 39, I could have made the number 100 or more. But, not being necessary to any rational purpose, I have declined making the list any longer. And, now, leaving your Lordship to pause for awhile and to ruminate over these indisputable facts, as they lie heaped up before you, I will, in my next Letter, endeavour to show you how they apply to the subject of our discussion. I am your most obedient servant,

WM. COBBETT.

These Advertisements are 39 in number and take up great space, therefore we omit them. They are sufficiently described, however, in the text.-ED.

FIVE LETTERS

ΤΟ

LORD SHEFFIELD,

ON HIS SPEECH AT LEWES WOOL FAIR, JULY 26, 1815.

(Political Register, August, 1815.)

LETTER IV.

Intended to show, that so extensive is the growth of American Wool, that some of that Wool is exported to England, and that, though the importation of Wool is great in proportion to the whole quantity used, to impose a Tax upon importation would be injurious to the country.

MY LORD,

In proceeding to apply to the subject before us the matter contained in my last Letter, I must beg your Lordship to observe, that it is not only proved, that almost every sort of manufactory was going on in America during the war; but, that, as appears from the date of many of the advertisements, if not from all of them, they were neither dropped, nor likely to be either discontinued, or apparently, to be rendered less active, by the peace; all the advertisements being dated after the peace was proclaimed in America, and many of them in the month of May.

You see, in No. 33, that sugar and indigo are produced on the banks of the Mississippi and in the territory of the United States; you know that cotton is one of the great staple commodities of Carolina and Georgia; that tobacco is the native of Virginia; you see that hemp and flax are largely cultivated and manufactured; you know, that Indian corn, the cultivation of which characterizes the fairest and richest part of Europe, and is the criterion of fertile soil and good climate, is produced in abundance, throughout the whole country, fourteen hundred miles in length; you know that timber is everywhere in abundance; you see that salt, iron, lead, copper and coal mines, are there, and stone and marble and slate quarries; you see, that machinery of every sort, and worked by every kind of power, is in motion; and, have you still the expectation, or the hope, that America is dependent on England for the means of tilling her land, clothing her people, or furnishing her dwellings, or fighting her enemies?

But, the objects more immediately before us are WOOL and WOOLLENS.-I have shown, I think, pretty clearly, that there is no reason to expect your hoped-for extraordinary demand for English Wool from the change of affairs in Europe. And, on what does that hope rest when you look at America? No. II. shows you that Merino Sheep are, in flocks in America. And, observe, that Pennsylvania, a very few years ago, had scarcely

any sheep of any sort. The States to the Northward, according to Mr. Livingstone's account, abound much more in sheep of all sorts. No. XIV. shows you that Wool, in all its varieties, is a great article of commerce; and, No. XVI. shows you, not only that wool is a great article of commerce, but that it is sent from America to be sold in England! You see here that there are merchants, who take consignments of Wool with orders to ship to England; and this is at Boston; not at New York, which State Mr. Livingstone belongs to and resides in. I know, that several cargoes of American fine wool were sent to England more than four years ago. I saw the samples myself. But, this advertisement, which proves the frequency of the thing, is worth the personal observation and testimony of a hundred witnesses sworn upon the Gospels.

Now, my Lord, when I come to treat of the extent to which American manufactures will be carried in peace, and which will depend, perhaps, in a great measure, upon the laws that shall be passed there, I shall speak with great diffidence; because the subject, on the score of foreign policy, as well as on the score of internal prosperity, demands an extent of knowledge as to the whole of the interests of that community, which it would be presumption in me, or in any man not upon the spot, to pretend to possess. But, with regard to the capacity of America to grow wool and export it to England, I can speak with nearly as much confidence as I should upon her capac ty to send us cotton or tobacco.

That the soil of America is fertile is well-known; and, it has now been proved, that it is well adapted to the breeding and keeping of sheep. It has been proved, because such numerous flocks already exist. The only question, then, is, whether the American farmer can grow wool cheaper than the English farmer, and, from that cause, can afford to sell it at a lower price. Lower it must be sold, in order to open a market for it here, because it must come loaded with the charges of freight, and other expenses, from which our wool is exempted. The price, at which the American farmer does sell wool, I have nothing to prove; but, I know, that the price of wheat is the criterion, whereby to judge of the price, at which he can afford to sell wool. Now, we see from No. XXXVIII., that the price of wheat is one dollar and twenty cents a bushel. That is to say, a dollar and a fifth. Call it six shillings of our money. This is at Pittsburgh; but, it must be a pretty fair average. If, then, our farmers are sinking into ruin with wheat at 9s. a bushel, it is clear that the produce of the earth can be raised one-third cheaper there than it can here. A third, or 33 per centum, will, I should suppose, amply meet all charges on a raw-material like wool. So that, at this moment, with our low prices, our ruinous prices, the American farmer can meet us in our own market, even in the infancy of his flocks.

But, we must not stop here. We cannot stop here. Produce must rise in England, or the taxes cannot be paid. Wheat cannot stand at 9s. a bushel. Upon an average of the last ten years, it has been 12s. a bushel; and, to enable us to pay the taxes, it must go even higher than that. Wool, however, must keep an even pace with the wheat, or wool will not be grown; and, how is it to keep that pace, if importations of "untaxed" wool be permitted, without a tax imposed on it here?

"Well," you will say, "and do I not recommend the taxing of foreign wool?" Yes; but what would that effect? Why, just as much evil to the manufacturers of cloth, as good to growers of wool? Indeed, in the end, it would be an evil to the former as well as to the latter.

But, before I proceed to show to what extent your proposed measure would affect the manufactures, it is necessary to make a few observations as to the relative quantity of wool grown and wool imported. You say, that of wool imported, the quantity, in 1789, was 2,660,828 lbs. and that in 1814 it rose up to the appalling quantity of 15,712,517 lbs. I dare say that this statement is correct; because you had the actual account of imports to refer to. As to the quantity of wool grown in the country, it is impossible for any one to state it with any thing like precision. The wool is not taxed; neither the grower, nor the dealer, nor the manufacturer, is compelled to keep or render any account of it. Yet, a writer in the Courier of the 8th inst. says that" your Lordship must be well acquainted with the amount of it, which, so long since as 1800, was 192,000,000 lbs.” Hence he is led to ridicule your alarm at the importation of 15,712,517 lbs. in a year.

If this statement of the quantity of the home growth were correct, your proposed tax, would, indeed, have nothing in it very serious to the manufacturers. But, besides that it is next to impossible that any one should be able to come at the amount of the home growth, this statement is so monstrous as to shock even the credulity that gives a currency to Moore's Almanack. This gentleman has heard of millions so uncountable, that he thinks nothing of hundreds of millions. The average weight of a sheep's fleece is 4 lbs., consequently there must be 48,000,000 of sheep in the country shorn every year, or 4 to every human being, including the cities and towns. Ewes are, on an average, killed at 4 years old, wethers at 3, and lambs at 4 months. They are, then, killed on an average, at 29 months old. They live one year before they yield any wool. Thus, for every sheep that is shorn, there is one killed in every 17 months. So that, including a fraction, there must be killed every year, 34,000,000 of sheep and lambs; or, 3 to each human being, man, woman, and child, paupers, gipsies, felons and all. The average weight of sheep is about 60 lbs. and of lambs about 36 lbs. The number of sheep killed far exceeds that of lambs. But, suppose the average weight to be 50 lbs. Then there is for each human being 175 lbs. of mutton in a year, or very nearly 4lb. a day, for beggars, paupers, babies and all, observe. But this is not all. The neat cattle nearly equal the sheep in amount of meat. The hogs surpass the sheep in this respect. So that here is 1 pounds of meat, besides fish and poultry, every day in the year for every human being, sucking babies and all, when it is well known that millions of even the fathers and mothers do not taste a morsel of animal food from month's end to month's end, and sometimes hardly a morsel of bread, their chief diet being tea and potatoes. What monstrous absurdity!

But, the wool? what shall we do with the wool? Suppose it all to be made into the shape of broadcloth and that each yard in length requires 3 lbs. of wool. It would not require so much, but suppose it did. Here are 64,000,000 of yards in length, and 128,000,000 of square yards of cloth. There are 3,097,600 square yards in a square mile. Leaving out fractions, then, here is cloth enough made in one year, without the wool imported, to cover 40square miles! The very skins of the animals would cover 10 square miles! If this statement were correct, the idea of hiding the sun with a blanket would not be so very absurd.

We have, then, no means of ascertaining, with any degree of exactness, the quantity of the home growth. But, it is rational to suppose, that the

15,000,000 of lbs. imported are not less than a fourth of the whole quantity of wool manufactured in the country. The amount of all the woollens exported last year was 5,600,000/. sterling; and suppose only onefourth of the woollens to have been sent abroad, leaving three-fourths for home consumption, the whole of the manufactured woollens would have amounted to 22,400,000l. sterling. If we allow a third of the cost of the woollens for the raw material, and put the wool upon an average at 3s. sterling a pound, we shall find that the whole amount of wool before it was manufactured amounted to 7,400,000 and some odd pounds sterling, and that the whole quantity of it was 54,000,000 of pounds weight; which is not four times as much as the quantity of wool imported, and which wool, I believe, is nearly all of the fine quality.

Whether I am wrong in my supposition that not less than one-fourth of our woollens are exported, and that the raw material amounts to not more than one third of the price of the manufactured goods, I must leave, as I do with great deference, for the reader to decide; but, I must be very wide indeed of the mark, if the quantity of wool imported does not bear a proportion of, at least, a sixth in value to the wool of home growth.

It is clear, therefore, my Lord, that the importation of wool has a very great effect on the price of wool grown at home. But, lay a tax upon wool imported, and the consequence is, a rise in the price of manufactured woollens; for, to suppose, as you appear to do, that the manufacturer does not now and always, upon an average of transactions, sell at as low a price as he can afford to sell; to suppose that ever-active and all-seeing competition is not sufficient upon an average of years, to apportion with the most scrupulous precision, the profits of unfettered trade, is a notion so well known to belong exclusively, and of Right Divine, to the mob, that for any gentleman to attempt to encroach upon it is to set at open defiance every principle of justice and humanity.

The consequences of a rise in the price of manufactured woollens would be, first, a diminution in the consumption at home, unless you could by some sort of gipsy conjuring trick convey the sums into all our pockets necessary to meet the rise of price. The same would take place as to exports. But much more might take place as to our foreign trade; for, if you were to prohibit the importation of wool altogether, it would be manufactured abroad; and as price is the great and true and everlasting regulator, the moment wool became so cheap elsewhere as to enable other countries to work it up and sell it at a lower price than we, that very moment would the export trade disappear. What is true as to total prohibition is true as to prohibition in part. For though the countries sending wool hither would not, all at once, begin to manufacture their own sufficiently to shut out our woollens entirely, they would do the thing by degrees; and so truly would the prohibition operate as to leave not a fraction of cause unaccounted for in the effect.

From this general view of this part of the subject, I should now proceed to the particular case of America; but, I must postpone that till my next, in which I hope to be able to show, not only that no tax ought to be laid upon imported wool, but that the Corn Bill ought to be repealed. I am your most obedient servant,

Wм. COBBETT.