throughout the whole Province? According to the ordinary increase in the breed of Sheep, and allowing for the additional quantity of wool, which a little care of them will produce, I think I could make it appear that in five years there will be wool enough raised in the Province to clothe the whole of its inhabitants. Cotton may be imported upon such terms from the West-Indies and Southern Colonies, as to enable us to manufacture thicksets, calicoes, &c., at a much cheaper rate than they can be imported from Britain. Considering how much these stuffs are worn by those classes of people who constitute the majority of the inhabitants of our Country, the encouragement of the Cotton Manufactory appears to be an object of the utmost consequence. I cannot help suggesting in this place, although it may appear foreign to our subject, that the Trade to the West-Indies and Southern Colonies for cotton, would create such a commercial union with the Middle and Northern Colonies, as would tend greatly to strengthen that political union which now subsists between them. I need say nothing of the facility of cultivating flax, nor of the excellent quality of the linens which have been already manufactured among us. I shall only add, that this manufactory may be carried on without lessening the value of that trade which arises from the exportation of our flaxseed to Ireland.

I cannot help laying a good deal of stress upon the publick spirit of my countrymen, which removes the success of these Manufactories beyond a bare possibility, and seems to render it in some measure certain. The Resolves of the Congress have been executed with a fidelity hardly known to laws in any Country, and that too without the assistance of fire and sword, or even of the Civil Magistrate, and in some places in direct opposition to them all. It gives me the utmost pleasure to mention here, that our Province is among the foremost of the Colonies in the peaceable mode of opposition recommended by the Congress. When I reflect upon the temper we have discovered in the present controversy, and compare it with the habitual spirit of industry and economy for which we are celebrated among strangers, I know not how to estimate our virtue high enough. I am sure no objects will appear too difficult, nor no undertakings too expensive for us in the present struggle. The sum of money which has been already subscribed for the purpose of these Manufactories, is a proof that I am not too sanguine in my expectations from this Province.

I now come to point out the advantages we shall derive from establishing the Woollen, Cotton, and Linen Manufactories among us. The first advantage I shall mention is, we shall save a large sum of money annually in our Province. The Province of Pennsylvania is supposed to contain 400,000 inhabitants. Let us suppose that only 50,000 of these are clothed with the woollens, cottons, and linens of Great Britain, and that the price of clothing of each of these persons, upon an average, amounts to Five Pounds sterling a, year. If this computation be just, then the sum annually saved in our Province by the manufactory of our clothes, will amount to £250,000 sterling.

Secondly: Manufactories, next to Agriculture, are the basis of the riches of every Country. Cardinal Ximenes is remembered at this day in Spain, more for the improvement he made in the breed of Sheep, by importing a number of rams from Barbary, than for any other services he rendered his Country. King Edward the Fourth and Queen Elizabeth, of England, are mentioned with gratitude by historians for passing Acts of Parliament to import a number of Sheep from Spain; and to this mixture of Spanish with English Sheep, the wool of the latter owes its peculiar excellence and reputation all over the world. Louis the Fourteenth, King of France, knew the importance of a Woollen Manufactory in his Kingdom, and in order to encourage it allowed several exclusive privileges to the Company of Woollen Traders in Paris. The effects of this Royal patronage of this Manufactory have been too sensibly felt by the English, who have, within these thirty or forty years, had the mortification of seeing the trade up the Levant, for woollen cloths, in some measure monopolized by the French. It is remarkable that the riches and naval power of France have increased in proportion to this very lucrative trade.

Thirdly: By establishing these Manufactories among us, we shall employ a number of poor people in our City, and that too in a way most agreeable to themselves, and least expensive to the Company; for, according to our plan, the principal part of the business will be carried on in their own houses. Travellers through Spain inform us, that in the Town of Segovia, which contains 60,000 inhabitants, there is not a single beggar to be seen. This is attributed entirely to the Woollen Manufactory which is carried on in the most extensive manner in that place, affording constant employment to the whole of their poor people.

Fourthly: By establishing the Woollen, Cotton, and Linen. Manufactories in this Country, we shall invite manufacturers from every part of Europe, particularly from Britain and Ireland, to come and settle among us. To men who want money to purchase lands, and who, from habits of manufacturing, are undisciplined to agriculture, the prospect of meeting with employment as soon as they arrive in this Country, in a way they have been accustomed to, would lessen the difficulties of emigration, and encourage thousands to come and settle in America. If they increased our riches by increasing the value of our property, and if they added to our strength by adding to our numbers only, they would be a great acquisition to us. But there are higher motives which should lead us to invite strangers to settle in this Country. Poverty, with its other evils, has joined with it, in every part of Europe, all the miseries of slavery. America is now the only asylum for liberty in the whole world. The present contest with Great Britain was, perhaps, intended by the Supreme Being, among other wise and benevolent purposes, to show the world this asylum, which, from its remote and unconnected situation with the rest of the globe, might have remained a secret for ages. By establishing manufactories, we stretch forth a hand from the ark to invite the timid manufacturers to come in. It might afford us pleasure to trace the new sources of happiness which would immediately open to our fellow-creatures from their settlement in this Country. Manufactories have been accused of being unfriendly to population. I believe the charge should fall upon slavery. By bringing manufacturers into this land of liberty and plenty, we recover them from the torpid state in which they existed in their own Country, and place them in circumstances which enable them to become husbands and fathers, and thus we add to the general tide of human happiness.

Fifthly: The establishment of Manufactories in this Country, by lessening our imports from Great Britain, will deprive European luxuries and vices of those vehicles in which they have been transported to America. The wisdom of the Congress cannot be too much admired, in putting a check to them both. They have in effect said to them, “Thus far shall ye go, and no farther.”

Sixthly: By establishing Manufactories among us, we erect an additional barrier against the encroachments of tyranny. A people who are entirely dependant on foreigners for food or clothes, must always be subject to them. I need not detain you in setting forth the misery of holding property, liberty and life upon the precarious will of our fellow-subjects in Britain. I beg leave to add a thought in this place which has been but little attended to by the writers upon this subject, and that is, that poverty, confinement, and death are trifling evils when compared with that total depravity of heart which is connected with slavery. By becoming slaves we shall lose every principle of virtue. We shall transfer unlimited obedience from our Maker to a corrupted majority in the British House of Commons, and shall esteem their crimes the certificates of their commission to govern us. We shall cease to look with horrour upon the prostitution of our wives and daughters, by those civil and military harpies who now hover around the liberties of our Country. We shall cheerfully lay them both at their feet. We shall hug our chains. We shall cease to be men. We shall be slaves.

I shall now consider the objections, which have been made to the establishment of Manufactories in this Country.

The first, and most common objection to Manufactories in this Country is, that they will draw off our attention from Agriculture. This objection derives great weight from being made originally by the Duke of Sully, against