Davenant (Inspector-General of Exports and Imports). _An account of the trade between Greate Britain, France, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Africa, Newfoundland etc., with the importations and exportations of all Commodities, particularly of the Woollen Manufactures, delivered in his reports made to the Commissioners for Publick Accounts._ 1715, p. 71. Our general exports for the year 1699 are valued at £6,788,166, 17s. 6¼d. Whereof the Woollen Manufacture for the same year are valued at £2,932,292, 17s. 6½d. Historically the Woollen Trade has a further importance, due to the part which it played in the development of capitalism. The manufacture of woollen materials had existed in the remote past as a family industry, and even in the twentieth century this method still survives in the remoter parts of the British Isles; but the manufacture of cloth for Foreign trade was from its beginning organized on Capitalistic lines, and the copious records which have been preserved of its development, illustrate the history of Capitalism itself. It was estimated that about one million men, women and children were exclusively employed in the clothing trade,—“all have their dependence solely and wholly upon the said _Manufacture_, without intermixing themselves in the labours of _Hedging_, _Ditching_, _Quicksetting_, and others the works belonging to Husbandry.”[183] Footnote 183: _Proverb Crossed_, p. 8, 1677. See also _Case of the Woollen Manufacturers of Great Britain_ which states that they are “the subsistance of more than a Million of Poor of both sexes, who are employed therein.” In 1612 eight thousand persons, men, women and children were said to be employed in the clothing trade in Tiverton alone.[184] While giving 933,966 hands as the number properly employed in woollen manufacture, another writer says that women and children (girls and boys) were employed in the proportion of about eight to one man.[185] Footnote 184: Dunsford. _Hist. Tiverton_, p. 408. Footnote 185: _Short Essay upon Trade_, p. 18, 1741. Such figures must be taken with reserve, for the proportions of men and women employed varied according to the quality of the stuff woven, and pamphleteers of the seventeenth century handled figures with little regard to scientific accuracy.[186] But the uncertainty only refers to the exact proportion; there can be no doubt that the Woollen Trade depended chiefly upon women and children for its labour supply. Footnote 186: The following estimates were made by different writers: out of 1187 persons supposed to be employed for one week in making up 1200 lbs. weight of wool, 900 are given as spinners. (_Weavers True Case_, p. 42, 1714.) One pack of short wool finds employment for 63 persons for one week, viz: 28 men and boys: 35 women and girls who are only expected to do the carding and spinning.