What a bustle is there to be made in several parts of the world, before a fine scarlet or crimson cloth can be produced; what multiplicity of trades and artificers must be employed! Not only such as are obvious, as woolcombers, spinners, the weaver, the cloth worker, the scourer, the dyer, the setter, the drawer, and the packer; but others that are more remote, and might seem foreign to it; as the mill-wright, the pewterer, and the chemist, which yet are all necessary, as well as a great number of other handicrafts, to have the tools, utensils, and other implements belonging to the trades already named: But all these things are done at home, and may be performed without extraordinary fatigue or danger; the most frightful prospect is left behind, when we reflect on the toil and hazard that are to be undergone abroad, the vast seas we are to go over, the different climates we are to endure, and the several nations we must be obliged to for their assistance. Spain alone, it is true, might furnish us with wool to make the finest cloth; but what skill and pains, what experience and ingenuity, are required to dye it of those beautiful colours! How widely are the drugs, and other ingredients, dispersed through the universe that are to meet in one kettle! Allum, indeed, we have of our own; argol we might have from the Rhine, and vitriol from Hungary; all this is in Europe; but then for saltpetre in quantity, we are forced to go as far as the East Indies. Cocheneal, unknown to the ancients, is not much nearer to us, though in a quite different part of the earth: we buy it, it is true, from the Spaniards; but not being their product, they are forced to fetch it for us from the remotest corner of the new world in the East Indies. While so many sailors are broiling in the sun, and sweltered with heat in the east and west of us, another set of them are freezing in the north, to fetch potashes from Russia. When we are thoroughly acquainted with all the variety of toil and labour, the hardships and calamities that must be undergone to compass the end I speak of, and we consider the vast risks and perils that are run in those voyages, and that few of them are ever made but at the expence, not only of the health and welfare, but even the lives of many: When we are acquainted with, I say, and duly consider the things I named, it is scarce possible to conceive a tyrant so inhuman, and void of shame, that, beholding things in the same view, he should exact such terrible services from his innocent slaves; and, at the same time, dare to own, that he did it for no other reason, than the satisfaction a man receives from having a garment made of scarlet or crimson cloth. But to what height of luxury must a nation be arrived, where not only the king's officers, but likewise the guards, even the private soldiers, should have such impudent desires!