Much of this is made in and about Honyton, and weekly returned to London. Some will have it called Lace, _à Lacinia_, used as a fringe on the borders of cloathes. Bone-lace it is named, because first made with bone (since wooden) bobbins ... Modern the use thereof in England, and not exceeding the middle of the Raign of Queen Elizabeth. Let it not be condemned for a superfluous wearing, because it doth neither hide nor heat; seeing it doth adorn. Besides, though private persons pay for it, it stands the State in nothing; not expensive of Bullion, like other lace, costing nothing save a little thread descanted on by art and industry. Hereby many children who otherwise would be burthensome to the Parish prove beneficial to their Parents. Yea, many lame in their limbs, and impotent in their arms, if able in their fingers, gain a livelyhood thereby; not to say that it saveth some thousands of pounds yearly, formerly sent over Seas to fetch Lace from Flanders. ----- Footnote 19: _Worthies_, 1662. ----- The English were always ready to protect their own trades and manufactures, and various were the Acts passed to prohibit the importation of foreign lace, for the encouragement of home workers. In 1698 it was proposed to repeal the last Prohibition, and from the text of a Petition sent to the House of Commons, some interesting light is thrown on the extent of the trade at that date. The making Bonelace has been an ancient Manufacture of England and the Wisdom of our Parliaments all along thought it the interest of this Kingdom to prohibit its Importation from Foreign Parts.... This has revived the said Languishing Manufacture and there are now above one hundred thousand People in England who get their living by it and Earn by meer Labour £500,000 a year, according to the lowest computation that can be made; and the Persons employed in it, are for the most part Women and children who have no other means of Subsistence. The English are now arrived to make as good Lace in Fineness and all other respects, as any that is wrought in Flanders; and particularly since the late Act so great an improvement is made that way that in _Buckinghamshire_ the highest prized lace they used to make was about eight shillings per yard, and now they make lace there of above thirty shillings per yard and in Dorsetshire and Devonshire they now make lace worth Six pound per yard and in other Places proportionable. The Laws formerly made not proving effectual, one more strict passed 36 Years since in the 14th of King Charles II. which said Act recites “That great numbers of the Inhabitants of this Kingdom were then employed in making the said manufacture. Since that time the same has encreased to a great Degree, till of late Years the Art of Smuggling being grown to greater Perfection than formerly, larger quantities of _Flanders_-lace have been clandestinely imported, which occasioned the