The immediate effect of direct communication with the East by sea was the lowering of the prices of Indian produce. Commerce naturally sought the cheapest market. The trade of Venice was annihilated, and the stream of wealth that had flowed to her treasury was dried at its source. The merchandize of India was shipped from the most convenient ports, and conveyed cheaply, safely, and directly to Lisbon, and thence was distributed through Europe. A plentiful supply of Indian goods at reasonable rates caused a rapid increase in the demand for them, and amongst the trades to which this gave an impetus was that in cotton. Up to this period no cotton was woven in England; the small quantity that was used for candle-wicks, &c., came either from Italy or the Levant. Linen was first woven in England in 1253, by Flemish hands; but for nearly a century afterwards almost all the cotton, woollen and linen fabrics consumed there were manufactured on the continent, and a great quantity of British wool was exported to Flanders and Holland. Edward III., however, gave encouragement to foreign skill, and in 1328 some Flemings settled in Manchester, and commenced the weaving of certain cloths, which, though composed of wool, were known as “Manchester cottons,” and thus paved the way for the great cotton manufacture for which that part of Lancashire is now famous. In 1560, England imported, through Antwerp, cotton brought from Italy and the Levant, as well as that carried from India to Lisbon by the Portuguese, and showed some anxiety to compete in its manufacture with foreign countries. An impulse was given to this ambition in 1585 by a fresh influx of Flemish workpeople, who, driven from their own country to escape the cruelties of the Duke of Alba during the religious persecution of the Low Countries by the Spaniards, found an asylum in England, and brought with them the skill in workmanship which adjoining States had long envied. India, however, continued far in advance of every European country in the spinning and weaving of cotton to nearly the middle of the eighteenth century. The activity of the trade in her piece goods was looked upon as ruinous to the home manufacturer, though most profitable to the merchant, and we find Daniel Defoe, in 1708, thus lamenting, in his ‘Weekly Review,’ the preference for Indian chintz, calico, &c. “It crept,” he says, “into our houses, our closets, our bedchambers; curtains, cushions, chairs, and, at last beds themselves were nothing but calicoes and Indian stuffs, and, in short, almost everything that used to be made of wool or silk, relating either to the dress of the women or the furniture of our houses, was supplied by the Indian trade.... The several goods brought from India are made five parts in six under our price, and, being imported and sold at an extravagant advantage, are yet capable of underselling the cheapest thing we can set about.”