From the beginning, considerable difficulty was experienced in regulating the manufacture of cloth in Lancashire. In the 1551 Act, the breadth allowed for Manchester cottons and friezes was narrower than for ordinary cloths, and when the Weavers’ Act was modified a provision was introduced which allowed them to be made in half-pieces. By 1566 more serious difficulties had been revealed. In an Act passed in that year,[34] it was stated that clothiers “inordinately seeking their own singular gains” were accustomed to carry away divers cottons, friezes, and rugs, and sell them before the Aulnager had fixed the Queen’s seal on them, and in some instances they had even counterfeited the seal. To meet these difficulties it was enacted that deputy Aulnagers should be appointed, to be situated at Manchester, Rochdale, Bolton, Blackburn and Bury. In view of the fact that, about this time, in addition to these places, the cloths were mentioned in connection with Salford, Leigh and Radcliffe,[35] it is probable that their manufacture was so extensive that, even if the clothiers had been more willing to conform to the regulations, the task of the Aulnager was too large to be efficiently performed. [Footnote 34: 8 Eliz., c. 12.] [Footnote 35: _Vict. County Hist., Lancs._, ii., p. 296.] But there were other difficulties. The clothiers protested that it was impossible for them to conform to the lengths, breadths, and weights laid down in the statutes without the undoing of great numbers of poor people commonly engaged in making the cloths, and further alterations had to be made. The alterations were mainly in the direction of allowing the cloths to be made considerably lighter, but ten years later a writer condemned all kinds of northern cloths for false dyeing, for shortness of weight and for stretching.[36] [Footnote 36: _State Papers Domestic, Eliz._, vol. iii., 38. _Economic Journal_, x., p. 24. According to the 1551 statute, a piece of cottons had to be 22 goads in length, 3/4 yard in breadth and 30 lbs. in weight. In 1566 the length had to be 21 goads or 20 goads at least, the same breadth as before, but only 21 lbs. in weight. In 1551 a piece of frieze had to be 36 yards in length, 3/4 yard in breadth and 48 lbs. in weight. In 1566 the length was 35 to 36 yards, the same breadth as before, but only 44 lbs. in weight.]