90.

so. There is hardly a field in Lancashire in which you do not see built or building, a cluster of four, five, or six manufacturers houses; land round their towns lets at L. 4 or L. 5 per acre; and a general appearance of wealth and plenty diffuses itself where ever the cotton business is carried on. Favoured as the India cotton is, the parliament will not hesitate to impose duties, and even prohibitions, on such articles as we are able to furnish for ourselves. Not only the British market is open to us, but all Europe calls for our Manchester and cotton goods. Some states admit them freely, others, under higher duties; and the rest in a contraband way contrive to obtain them. The consumption in France, by the way ofHolland, is immense. Considering how much we have got the start of other nations, considering our liberty, our industry, our capital, it is hard to say when they will be able to, vie with us. It is believed there would be full employment for them all, if every parish in Scotland contained a spinning machine, five times as big as its parish kirk. The five already erected in Scotland go on with a degree of succefs which cannot fail to produce more.

Prudence requires us to forbear entering upon one of the most important considerations relative to this subject. I mean the proper way to proceed in order to introduce this branch most speedily into Scotland. There are certainly difficulties in the way, which would be increased by discoursing about them. The more quietly this is undertaken the better chance it has to succeed. Little should be said till we are fully possessed of every machine, whether for weaving

169 or spinning that is known and used any where else., I must observe, however, that the present seems to, be the fittest time for the undertaking. While the profits are higher than on any other branch of businefs, there is wherewithal to compensate the expence of so new an undertaking, and to allow for the blunders and awkwardness of our artificers, weavers, and spinners. By and by this will not be the case. It is hardly to be doubted the profits will be gradually lefsened by competition. Mr Arkwright has lowered his yarn 20 per cent. within this month. It will at last be reduced to the general average of the profits of trade in a free country, which, if necessary, it would be easy to prove to be equal in every branch of trade, where novelty and monopoly are excluded. The adoption of the cotton trade is not, therefore, proposed as a means which will long produce superior and extraordinary profits to those concerned in it; but as a resource for the inhabitants of a country who are likely to be deprived of their present means of earning their livelihood; and as a business which will not only secure to the present linen manufacturers certain bread, even when the linen manufacture fhall be extinguished, but promises fair to be of a more durable and extensive nature than ever the linen manufacture has hitherto been. It is also certain of more and better encouragement from parliament, which, on account of the woollen trade, has treated foreign linens with more gentleness than any other manufacture that stood in comptition with our own; besides, the Irish cannot import it as they do their linen into Great Britain. It would be a matter of

curious speculation to consider whether the cotton or linen manufacture merits best to be encouraged.To consider the subject in a public and national view, would lead to very extensive discussions, and somes what foreign to the present subject, which proceeds on a supposition that, whether the cotton manufact ture be most eligible for our country or not, it will infallibly establish itself. Suffice it to say, our West India islands will be greatly benefitted by it; our shipping and navigation to the West Indies must increase by the transportation of so bulky a commodity, and the proportionable exports to the West Indies; the heavy balance against us with the Baltic for flax will be lefsened; and, fhould the growth of flax at home be thereby discouraged, it is a matter of some doubt if flax be a production altogether.congenial to our soil and climate; and also whether the land of Scotland can be better employed than in bearing food for its people. The high price of meal for many years gives room to believe it would not. The law of the present sefsion, lowering the duties on our home distillery, to an alarming degree, promises to be favourable to the farmer at least, if not to the health, and morals, and industry of the people at large. G. D.

A

N. B. Some of the spinning mills are worked by water, raised by means of a fire engine. There is one at Manchester, the fire engine of which costs upwards of L. 1200 a year, and raises about goop gallons of water in a minute,-about 216,000 hogfheads, of 79,000 tons per day.

Cotton stockings have supplanted linen thread stockings completely, and begin to be worn by many people who wore only silk before. This alone is a vast branch for which the twisted yarn of the machines is remarkably fit: some of it for stockings is made as fine as ninety hanks to the pound weight.

The African trade is supplied with a great deal of coarse British cotton goods made to imitate the Indian.

Yarn of various kinds are spun with the water machines: a pound of some thread requires eighty days to be spun with one spindle, and a pound of the coarser kinds only three days. But the most profit is gotten from spinning the middling kinds.

It is to be observed, that cotton cloth can be bleached at a fourth of the expence and time required for bleaching linen of the same fineness.

Written in the year 1784.

I

SIR,

ON MATHEMATICS..

To the Editor of the Bee.

ENJOY much pleasure in perusing your papers, and would long before this have attempted to contribute my aid in promoting the success of your laudable undertaking, but besides being much employed, I was very diffident of any thing I wifhed to communicate : this prevented me from testifying my approbation, or uniting my feeble efforts to vary the entertain-ment and add utility to the performance.

The design of rendering the Bee useful to the clergy, for the reasons afsigned, makes it a channel of

Aug. 8. information to them and others, and may convey to many, in quest of literature, subjects suited to please or to inform. My reason for writing to you is chiefly because the clergy are the only set of men that are to be supposed acquainted with those who pursue learning in any profession, particularly those who have the same studies in view: and such being the case, they are always considered by the Tiroes in science, as the directors of their studies, and their patrons in the pursuit of it; they are consulted in every difficulty, they are advised of every plan,—it is then in their power to administer an advice that may prove beneficial. There is one particular branch of their study I mean to recommend, a branch which is least of all attended to, and which I think principally demands attention, that is the science of mathematics, and all the collateral branches. It is certain that to such a piece of learning they must partly attend as a necefsary preparation for their admission to sacred studies; but it is too certain that such a science is termed dry and insipid, treated with carelessness, and reckoned useless. To those who have entered fully into the study, this conduct appears foolish in the highest degree. Natural philosophy, without previous acquaintance with mathematics, is partly lost to those who attend it, and will seem as insipid as the principles calculated to illustrate it. Eminent teachers are often blamed by ignorant hearers as abstruse; and the utility of the wise is depreciated by unfkilful critics, which sometimes has been the case with the science last mentioned; but when all acknowledge the value of philosophy, why trifle with