[Footnote 111: Ogden, _ibid._, pp. 78-79. After referring to various goods produced in Manchester, certainly before 1770, he proceeds: “To these succeeded washing hollands all cotton in the warp which were a good article with the housewives, till yarn was mixed with the warp and ruined their character.” He also refers to the manufacture of cotton goods for the African trade. The statements of the other writers are, of course, based upon the fact that it was difficult to spin a cotton thread suitable for warp with the existing appliances. Even so, cotton goods were made in other countries, and cotton yarn was imported. As regards the use of the word “yarn” in the eighteenth century in England, it was not often used with reference to cotton, but usually to linen yarn. _Cf._ Ogden, _ibid._, p. 92: “If cotton comes down to a reasonable price, the warps made of this twist would be as cheap as those made of yarn, and keep the money here which was sent abroad for that article, there being no comparison between yarn and cotton warps for goodness.”] [Footnote 112: _J.H.C._, xvii., p. 377.] [Footnote 113: _Ibid._, xvi., pp. 311-324, 509-511.] CHAPTER II THE ORGANISATION OF THE COTTON MANUFACTURE I “One writeth that about Anno 1520 there were three famous clothiers living in the North Countrey viz. Cuthbert of Kendal, Hodgkins of Halifax, and Martin Brian, some say Byrom of Manchester. Every one of these kept a greate number of servants at worke, Spinners, Carders, Fullers, Dyers, Shearemen, &c., to the greate admiration of all that came to beehould them.”[114] This reference, and another in a statute of 1543, contain all the information we possess of the organisation of the Lancashire cloth industry, either on its industrial or commercial side, in the first half of the sixteenth century. From the reference in the statute, it appears that Manchester, in the middle of the sixteenth century, was not particularly noted for its wealth, though it was noted for the “good order strayte and true dealing of the inhabitantes.” Consequently “many strangers, as wel of Ireland as of other places within this realme, haue resorted to the saide towne with lynnen yarne, woolles, and other necessary wares for makinge of clothes, to be sold there, and haue used to credit & truste the poor inhabitantes of the same towne, which were not able and had not redy money to paye in hande for the saide yarnes woolles and wares vnto such time the saide credites with their industry labour and peynes myght make clothes of the said wolles yarns and other necessary wares, and solde the same, to contente and paye their creditours, wherein hath consisted much of the common wealth of the saide towne, and many poore folkes had lyunge, and children and seruants there vertuously brought up in honest and true labour, out of all ydlenes.”[115]