garden plants for more than 600 years: nor have they for over a century grown sufficient for their own wants, relying on India and America for supplying their deficiencies, and oftentimes on England for cotton goods. The Mexicans and Peruvians had also reached great skill in the manufacture of cotton; and the discoverers of the other portions of America, except the territory now comprising the Confederate States and that north thereof, found the aborigines employing the same material for wearing apparel. The cultivation and manufacture of cotton began in Italy in the eleventh century; it was subsequently introduced into Spain and other parts of Europe where the climate encouraged its growth.

It is a matter of much surprise that the Hindoos, with their imperfect means, should be able to produce such rare fabrics, unrivalled by those of other nations best skilled in mechanism. This is explained by their remarkably fine sense of touch, by their patience and gentleness, and by the hereditary continuance of a particular kind of work through many generations. Their commerce in cotton fabrics was very large from the beginning of the Christian era to the end of the last century. They had for hundreds of years supplied Persia, Arabia, Syria, Egypt, Abyssinia, and all the eastern parts of Africa, together with Europe, with their muslins. Their chief marts were Surat and Calicut, on the west coast of India, and at Masulipatam, Madras, and St. Thomé, on the east coast. At one time the manufacturers of all Europe apprehended ruin by the cheapness and competition of the cotton fabrics of India. In 1698, the Dutch and English East India Companies imported these goods-muslins, chintzes, and calicoes-in such large quantities, that even the woollen manufacturers made a great outcry against their admission, fearing that they would supersede their branch of industry, as well as that of flax. Indeed, the productions of India became so plentiful, that they were complained of as a great evil' by a host of pamphleteers; and in the year 1700 Parliament passed an Act which forbade the importation of Indian silks and printed calicoes for domestic use, either for apparel or furniture, under a penalty of 2001. on the seller or wearer, in order to avert the ruin of English manufacturers and revive their prosperity.'

Notwithstanding India had held command—almost a mono

poly-of the cotton trade for so long a time, and although England was the last country in Europe to enter into the manufacture of cotton goods, it was left for the ingenuity and enterprise of the Anglo-Saxon race, on both sides of the Atlantic, to develope to its present magnitude this great resource provided by nature, which has contributed so much to the comfort and progress of mankind, and been the chief means of rescuing 4,000,000 of Africans from the depths of their original barbarity -christianising and elevating them to a more respectable position than has ever before been attained by men of their race.

The primary importations of cotton into Great Britain were received from the Levant in the early part of the seventeenth century. The Treasury of Traffic,' by Lewis Roberts, printed in 1641, states:

The towne of Manchester, in Lancashire, must be also herein remembered, and worthily for their encouragement 'commended, who buy the yarne of the Irish in great quantity, ' and, weaving it, returne the same again into Ireland to sell. 'Neither doth their industry rest here; for they buy cotton wool in London that comes first from Cyprus and Smyrna, and at home worke the same, and perfect it into fustians, vermillions, dimities, and other such stuffes, and then returne it to London, where the same is vented and sold, and not 'seldom sent into forrain parts, who have means at far easier terms, to provide themselves of the said first materials.'

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Mention, however, is made by previous writers, and in Acts of the Legislature passed at a much earlier period,* of 'Manchester cottons,' cotton velvets,' ' fustians,' &c.; but it is known that these articles were wholly composed of wool, and had probably been denominated cottons from being prepared in imitation of some of the cotton fabrics imported from India and Italy.

In the first stage of the manufacture of cotton in England, the weavers, who were dispersed in cottages throughout the country, obtained their supplies of the raw materials in the most irregular and uncertain manner, and upon the finishing of their fabrics they carried them to the market towns for sale. About the year 1760 a new system was introduced, which was

In an Act of 5 and 6 Edw. VI. 1552, entitled 'for the true making of woollen cloth,' it is ordered 'That all cottons called Manchester, Lancashire, and Cheshire cottons, full wrought for sale, shall be the length,' &c.

the first step towards lessening the cost of production, and caused the 'manufacturer' of those days to become an 'operative.' The Manchester merchants' then began to send agents into the rural districts, who employed weavers at wages, furnishing them with linen yarn for the warp and raw cotton for the weft; the families of the operatives' assuming the character of "-spinners,' using the common spindle or distaff to turn the latter article into yarn. A second advantage in the reduction of cost was gained in 1764 by the spinning jenny-an invention of James Hargreaves, a carpenter at Standhill near Blackburn, Lancashire,* which machine enabled eight threads to be spun with the same facility as one, and it was subsequently brought to such perfection that a little girl could work from eighty to one hundred and twenty spindles. It was only applicable for the spinning of the weft, being unable to give to the yarn the necessary firmness and hardness required in the warp, which deficiency was soon after supplied by Arkwright's spinning frame, and it was not until 1773 that goods were made wholly of cotton,† the flax of Germany and Ireland having anterior thereto provided the warp. These inventions, along with the

Hargreaves also worked as a weaver, and, being aware of the jealousy and ill-will likely to be directed against the author of any mechanical substitute for hand-labour, conducted his trade in secret. By 1767 he had, however, mounted and sold several of his jennies. His invention was for a long while confined to his family, but, becoming known through the indiscretion of one of its female members, the spinsters and their partisans broke into his house in a riotous manner and destroyed the hated rival of their fingers. Thus finding the fruit of his ingenuity, toils, and privations blasted, and the further prosecution of his plans impossible amidst an enraged populace, who even threatened his life, he migrated to Nottingham in 1768, where he found in Mr. Thomas James, a joiner, a partner willing and able to assist him in erecting a small spinning mill upon the jenny principle. He obtained a patent for his invention in 1770. He died in 1778, leaving a decent provision for his wife and children.

Messrs. Strutt and Need, the partners of Arkwright, were the manufacturers of these goods, and, upon discovering that there was an old law 'for the encouragement of arts,' forbidding that fabrics should be made wholly of cotton, they applied to the Legislature for its repeal, and succeeded after much expense and delay. The following is an account of this Repeal Act, the 14 George III. c. 72: 'Whereas a new manufacture of stuffs made entirely of cotton spun in this kingdom has been lately introduced, and some doubts were expressed whether it was lawful to use it, it was declared by Parliament to be not only a lawful but a laudable manufacture, and therefore permitted to be used, on paying 3d. a square yard, when printed, painted, or stained.'

mule jenny of Crompton, 1774, and the power loom of Cartwright, as well as innumerable other improvements, with the application of steam power to machinery, and the cultivation of cotton in the Southern States of America, have been largely instrumental in placing England on her present proud commercial eminence, and have been the true source of the wonderful prosperity of all the American States.

From the very outset of the settlement of the thirteen American colonies, they were each and all republics in almost everything but name, and continued to be governed pretty much in their original manner until the accession of Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, rail splitter,' on March 4, 1861. The Crown of Great Britain, to be sure, retained the veto power, but the people selected their own legislators, and exercised nearly every other right of sovereignty; there was no titled nobility or any aristocratic attributes of monarchy-Conservative influences so beneficial and necessary in all the old established countries;* hence, when the colonists successfully resisted the encroachments of the mother-country upon their liberties, the 'revolution' made but little practical change in their political affairs from that which had before existed. They were well fitted to govern themselves, which, in truth, was precisely what they had done from the beginning. Two distinct parties, however, arose after the cessation of the conflict; one, the Federalists, desired to consolidate the States, and have a strong central Government; the other, the State Rights men, wished to maintain the sovereignty of their respective commonwealths. The latter party, although successful, finally consented, in eleven of the States, to secede on March 3, 1789, from the Articles of • Confederation' which had been adopted on March 2, 1781, and unite in creating a more efficient central head, or foreign agency,' which was established under the Constitution' that went into operation on April 30, 1789, and which Lord Brougham aptly calls a treaty between the States' that are parties thereto. North Carolina and Rhode Island did not accede to the new arrangement until some time afterwards (November 21, 1789, and May 29, 1790). This treaty' has been lauded as being the cause of the prosperity of the American peoples.

John Locke unsuccessfully attempted to establish titles in Carolina.

That this is a delusion every sound thinker must admit, because the Americans have been governed by State laws, enacted under State constitutions formed long anterior to this boasted Union.' It is true that, through the influence of the scum of Europe,' that had become naturalised citizens, aided by unprincipled politicians of native growth, it assumed frequently, and in the most arrogant manner, to govern the whole world, but, until the accession of the present Administration at Washington, the hand of Federal power was never felt by an American while at home; it was only intended to act as a shield and protection to him when abroad. It is also true that, by an assumption of power not delegated to it, the Government under the Constitution has been made the vehicle for benefiting the North to the detriment of the South, by the imposition of protective tariffs upon European manufactures. The fallacies in reference to the Constitution, which has been absurdly called the noblest form of government ever devised by man,' arose from the unexampled prosperity attending the States, by reason of the cultivation of cotton having been commenced on an important scale a few years after their foreign affairs were entrusted to this general agency,' which likewise established unrestricted free trade between them. Massachusetts and Rhode Island, while members of the old Union under the 'Articles of Confederation,' had inaugurated a system of protective tariffs, charging duties on merchandise imported from the other States as well as from Europe, in order to encourage their local manufactures.

Cotton was introduced into Virginia as a garden plant in 1621. The precise year in which it began to be grown as a crop in the Southern colonies is not known. The quantity produced prior to the 'Revolution' was of very trifling moment; the unrestricted intercourse with the sister possessions in the West Indies gave large importations to the continent in exchange for provisions shipped thither. No manufactories were then permitted in America; such was one of the restraints imposed by the British sovereign when he gave his colonial subjects chartered privileges and other rights to rule themselves. This restriction did not interfere with the manufacture of home-spun ' clothing, which was not much inferior to the ordinary productions of European looms, prior to the improvements in machinery, the