Page:The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances 2.djvu/390

 ." This prohibition took place by the Act 11 and 12 William III. cap. 10., (1700,) which forbid the introduction of Indian silks and printed calicoes for domestic use, either as apparel or furniture, under a penalty of £200 on the wearer or seller, and as this Act did not prevent the continued use of the goods, which were probably smuggled from the continent of Europe, other Acts for the same purpose were passed at a later date.

A volume published in the year 1728, entitled "A Plan of the English Commerce," shows that the evil of a consumption of Indian manufactures still prevailed, and that it was ascribed to a cause for which the writer saw no remedy, namely, the will of the ladies, or, in his own words, their "passion for their fashion." The other countries of Europe are represented as equally suffering from Indian competition and female perverseness, and as attempting in the same way to find a remedy in legislative prohibition. Holland was an honorable exception. The author says—

"The calicoes are sent from the Indies by land into Turkey, by land and inland seas into Muscovy and Tartary, and about by long-sea into Europe and America, till in general they are become a grievance, and almost all the European nations but the Dutch restrain and prohibit them."—p. 180.

"Two things," says the writer, "among us are too ungovernable, viz. our passions and our fashions.

"Should I ask the ladies whether they would dress by law, or clothe by act of parliament, they would ask me whether they were to he statute fools, and to be made pageants and pictures of?—whether the sex was to be set up for our jest, and the parliament had nothing to do but make Indian queens of them?—that they claim liberty as well as the men, and as they expect to do what they please, and say what they please, so they will wear what they please, and dress how they please.

"It is true that the liberty of the ladies, their passion for their fashion, has been frequently injurious to the manufactures of Great Britain, and is so still in some cases; but I do not see so easy a remedy for that, as for some other things of