[Footnote 40: These facts are borne out in the writings of the apologists for regulation. _Cf._ John May, _A Declaration of the Estate of Clothing now used within this Realme of England_ (1613).] [Footnote 41: 4 Jas. I., c. 2.] At this point this reference is important for our purpose in the evidence it offers that, at this time, cottons were regarded as a species of woollen cloth. All the references in the sixteenth century have the same implication,[42] and even as late as 1700, when all duties, subsidies, etc., imposed by previous Acts were swept away, cottons were still enumerated among “manufactures of wool.”[43] Moreover, the processes mentioned in connection with the making of cottons were those applicable to woollen goods. It appears, therefore, that cottons were not cotton fabrics in the modern sense. The cottons of the sixteenth century were an important manufacture not peculiar to Lancashire alone: they were made in other manufacturing districts. In an account of woollen goods exported between Michaelmas 1594 and Michaelmas 1595 the following figures were given:--baize, 10,976 pieces; cottons, 168,065 pieces; woollen stockings, 34,085 pairs; sayes, 4256 pieces; English Norwich, 339[44]; and, about the same time, Manchester cottons were enumerated among the principal exports of the country.[45] [Footnote 42: At the end of the sixteenth century Camden referred to Manchester as “eminent for its woollen cloth or Manchester cottons” (_Britannia_, Gibson’s edition (1772), ii., p. 143).] [Footnote 43: 11 and 12 Wm. III., c. 20.] [Footnote 44: _S.P.D. Eliz._, vol. ccliii. 122.] [Footnote 45: _Ibid._, vol. cclv. 56. In 1580 the merchants and citizens of Chester petitioned that Chester might be made the only port for Manchester cottons, which petition was ultimately granted (_Ibid._ _Add._, vol. xxvi., 90. _Ibid._, vol. clviii. 2). In 1605 it was stated that “the most part of English cloth transported for France is made up of the coarsest wools as kerseys, cottons, and bays, serving for linings” (_Ibid._ _Add._, vol. xxxvii. 60).]