The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous ... - Cd3wd.com

THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 347
Surat is the port. Besides all these, there is an endless variety
of fabrics, many of which are known in the markets of Europe,
Asia, and Africa.
The commerce of the Indians in these fabrics has been ex-
tensive, from the Christian era to the end of the last century.
For many hundred years, Persia, Arabia, Syria, Egypt, Abys-
sinia, and all the eastern parts of Africa, were supplied with a
considerable portion of their cottons and muslins, and Avith all
which they consumed of the finest qualities, from the marts of
India. This commerce existed in the last age, and is described
by the Abbe Raynal* and Legoux de Flaix. The blue calicoes
of Guzerat were long bought by the English and Dutch for
their trade with Guinea. The great marts of this commerce
on the west coast of India were Surat and Cahcut, the former
of which is near to Baroche, the manufacturing capital of Gu-
zerat, in which province a considerable part of the exported cot-
tons of India were made ;
and on the east coast, Masulipatam,
Madras, and St. Thome, whence the varied and extensive
products of the Coromandel coast are exported.
Owing to the beauty and cheapness of Indian muslins,
chintzes, and cahcoes, there was a period when the manufac-
turers of all the countries of Europe were apprehensive of be-
ing ruined by their competition. In the seventeenth century,
the Dutch and English East India Companies imported these
goods in large quantities ; they became highly fashionable for
ladies' and children's dresses, as well as for drapery and furniture,
and the coarse cahcoes were used to hne garments. To
such an extent did this proceed, that as early as 1678 a loud
outcry was made in England against the admission of Indian
goods, which, it was maintained, were ruining the woollen
manufacture,—a branch of industry which for centuries was
regarded with an almost superstitious veneration, as a kind of
palladium of the national prosperity, and which was incompa-
rably the most extensive branch of manufactures till the close
of the eighteenth century. A few extracts from pamphlets
• Hisloire Philosophique et Politique des Etablissements du Commerce des Eu-
ropeans dans les deux Indes, torn. ii. liv. iv. ch. 4.