estimating the value of the cleaned cotton at
eight cents per pound, the worth of an acre of
cotton is four pounds three shillings and four-
pence. It is difficult, however, to frame an
estimate of the value of a cotton estate, since
cotton varies in price from a few pence to
many shillings. Thus, while Bengal cotton of
inferior quality can be raised and delivered in
England with profit to the grower at two-
pence half-penny per pound, Sea Island cotton
(so called from the circumstance of its having
been first cultivated in the low, sandy islands
on the American coast, between Chariestown
and Savannah) fetches from ten to twenty-two
pence per pound. The value of cotton
necessarily depends upon the care with which it is
cultivated, and the land from which it draws
its sustenance.

If we turn to the past, experience tells us
that the best cotton can be cultivated in our
own colonies. It was undoubtedly first
transplanted from Anguilla to the Bahamas,
whence seeds were sent in 1786 from Georgia.
From this date we have gradually allowed
our former sources of supply to fall into
disrepute, and to place ourselves altogether
in the hands of Americans. In 1786, our
total imports of cotton amounted to twenty
million pounds, no part of which, it is important
to remember, was furnished by North
America. We find that our West India
colonies sent us a third of the above quantity,
that about another third came from foreign
western colonies, while two millions of pounds
came from Brazil, and five millions of pounds
from the Levant. Yet only nineteen years
afterwards, out of the fifty-nine millions of
pounds which entered our ports in the course
of one year, the United States—that had but
a handful of seed in 1786—sent us upwards of
thirty-two millions.

One of the wisest steps taken by the
Americans after the conclusion of the peace
which established their independence, was to
beg a few pods of cotton-seed from the
Bahamas. The astounding fact that last year
we paid the Americans upwards of fourteen
millions sterling for the produce of those few
pods, is a convincing proof of the sagacity
which prompted the planters of Georgia to
sow them in their adopted soil. It remains
to be proved whether or not a few of our
own colonists may be induced, even after
this lapse of time and the advance which
the Americans have made, to turn
unprofitable lands into productive and valuable
cotton-fields.

For whatever is to be done in this important
matter, we must look to Manchester. Already
the House of Cotton Lords—the Manchester
Chamber of Commerce—but a glance at the
foregone connexion of Manchester with Cotton
will show what we may expect from that
quarter for the future.

The present greatness of Manchester as a
manufacturing town was, in all probability,
founded by the band of Flemish manufacturers
who fled to this country on the
reduction of Antwerp by the Duke of Parma in
1583. It is conjectured that these refugees
introduced the manufacture of cotton into this
country. Lewis Roberts, writing in 1641,
of the industry of the Manchester folk, tells
us that "they buy cotton wool in London,
that comes first from Cyprus and Smyrna,
and at home worke the same, and perfect
it into fustians, vermillions, dimities, and
other such stuffes, and then return it to
London, where the same is vented, and sold,
and not seldom sent into forrain parts, who
have means, at far easier termes, to
provide themselves of the said first materials."
Under the vigorous stewardship of the
Chethams cotton manufacture grew rapidly
in importance. At this period cotton yarn
was generally used as weft, and flax as
warp. The cotton yarn was spun by the
peasantry, and travelling chapmen from the
manufacturing houses went with packhorses
from cottage to cottage to gather the produce
of the poor folk's wheels. Passing from the
seventeenth century to the eighteenth, we
find, about the year 1739, according to the
"Gentleman's Magazine," that the manufacture
of cotton had arrived" at so great
perfection" that the manufacturers were
beginning systematically to export cotton goods
to the colonies. The gradual introduction of
machinery, the cheapening of transit, the
progressive freedom of commerce, have at last
evolved, from the small beginnings here
chronicled, that stupendous mass of machinery
which now helps to clothe the large proportion
of the family of man. We are told that
the cotton yarn annually spun in England
would, in a single thread, encompass the
earth two hundred and three thousand, seven
hundred and seventy-five times—that our
wrought cotton fabric exported annually
would girdle the equatorial circumference of
the globe seven times; at the same time it is
reported that the cotton plant has so
precarious an existence that "in the morning it
is green and flourishing; and in the evening,
withered and decayed."

The evils of this fluctuating uncertainty
now encompass us. We have only to recur
to the yield of the Last few years to
demonstrate the unsettled and perilous
condition in which our cotton manufacturers
exist. In one year we find the crop
estimated at one million seven hundred thousand
bags; in another at two millions one
hundred thousand; in another at two millions
four hundred thousand; in another at two
millions seven hundred thousand; and in
another we find that it dropped to two million
bales—differing in two years as much as
twenty-five per cent. The Fugitive Slave Bill,
which has made a deep sensation throughout
the States, and exasperated the three million
slaves upon whom we depend for our cotton
supply, has increased the danger of dependence
upon America. Mr. Bright said very well, at