"In this respect Spain possesses a sensible advantage over other manufacturing nations; since she raises a greater quantity of silk than she is able to consume, and could easily put it through the most advanced and perfect processes; in spite of which she has clung for ages to her faulty method. The present government has attacked this method by the only means efficient to bring about a change; that is, the slow but certain influence of persuasion. In 1781 the Count of Floridablanca contracted with a French merchant settled in Madrid, that he should supply a hundred _tours_ of the Vaucanson pattern for spinning silk, first to the Murcian factories (of which province the Count was a native), next to the Valencian, and subsequently to any others that might wish for them; and with this object he granted to the merchant in question the privilege of exporting, free of duty, six hundred thousand pounds of silk in six years. Nevertheless, it is possible that this measure may yet remain fruitless for many years owing to the apathy of the Spanish manufacturers, who were loth to use a finer, closer quality of silk, because it must be woven with greater care owing to its containing three ends instead of two, the work being greater on this account without a corresponding increase in the gain. It has also been found necessary to employ Frenchmen in the earliest trials made in Spain of this new method. "The success of the Spaniards should not be counted on, if we are to judge of it by a factory, which was founded some years since at _La Milanesa_, a league's distance from Valencia, by an intelligent man named La Payessa.[23] [23] This man, Joseph Lapayese or La Payessa, did not initiate Vaucanson's method in this region. He succeeded a Frenchman named Reboul, who, in 1769, and holding privileges from the Crown, began to work with Vaucanson wheels at Vilanesa, near Valencia--the same place which Bourgoing calls _La Milanesa_. Both the king and his minister of finance, Don Miguel de Muzquiz, were keenly interested in these experiments, and Muzquiz, who owned an estate near the town of Sueca, in the same neighbourhood, imported four more of the new wheels there, under Reboul's direction. This craftsman, however, was not successful. Lapayese, who came after him and enjoyed the same Crown privileges, made considerably better progress, his efforts being seconded by the Royal Junta, the archbishop, and other bodies or individuals of Valencia, who awarded prizes of wheels and money to the best workers in the new style.