Linnen for Service is called House Wife’s Cloth, here then is no need of the Broad Seal, or Joint-Stock to establish the Methods for the good Wife’s weeding her Flax-garden, or how soon her Maid shall sit to her Wheel after washing her Dishes; the good Woman is Lady of the Soil, and holds a Court within herself, throws the Seed into the Ground, and works it till she brings it there again, I mean her Web to the bleaching Ground.... To appropriate this which the poorest Family may by Labour arrive unto, that is, finish and bring to Market a Piece of Cloth, to me seems an infallible Expedient to discourage universal Industry.... The Linnen Manufactory above any Trade I know, if (which I must confess I doubt) it be for the Good of the Nation, requires more Charity than Grandeur to carry it on, the poor Spinner comes as often to her Master for Charity to a sick Child, or a Plaister for a Sore, as for Wages; and this she cannot have of a Company, but rather less for her labour, when they have beat all private Undertakers out. These poor Spinners can now come to their Master’s Doors at a good time, and eat of their good tho’ poor master’s Chear; they can reason with him, if any mistake, or hardship be put upon them, and this poor People love to do, and not be at the Dispose of Servants, as they must be where their Access can only be by Doorkeepers, Clerks, etc., to the Governors of the Company.”[253] Footnote 253: Linnen and Woollen Manufactory, p. 4-8, 1691. On the other side it was urged that “All the Arguments that can be offer’d for Encouraging the woollen manufacture in _England_ conclude as strongly in proportion for Encouraging the linnen manufacture in _Scotland_. ’Tis the ancient Staple Commodity there, as the Woollen is here.”[254] Footnote 254: _True case of the Scots Linen Manufacture._ The part taken by women in the production of linen resembled their share in woollen manufactures. Some were weavers; thus Oliver Heywood says that his brother-in-law, who afterwards traded in fustians, was brought up in Halifax with Elizabeth Roberts, a linen weaver.[255] Entries in the Foulis Account Book show that they were sometimes employed in bleaching but spinning was the only process which depended exclusively on their labour. Footnote 255: Heywood (Rev. Oliver) _Autobiography_, Vol. I., p. 36.