History of the cotton manufacture in Great Britain: with a notice of its early history in the East, and in all the quarters of the globe ... and a view of the present state of the manufacture / By Edward Baines, jun.

  • Baines, Edward, Sir, 1800-1890.
Date:
[1835]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: History of the cotton manufacture in Great Britain: with a notice of its early history in the East, and in all the quarters of the globe ... and a view of the present state of the manufacture / By Edward Baines, jun. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    56/606 (page 36)
    CHAPTER IV. THE MANUFACTURE IN EUROPE. The Cotton Manufacture introduced late into Europe.—First introduced by the Moors into Spain, in the tenth century.—Flourished in Andalusia; in Cata- lonia.—Cotton Paper.—The Cotton Manufacture introduced into Italy, in the fourteenth century.—Never flourished in that country.—Carried on in Flanders and Germany.—Much cotton grown and manufactured in Turkey. Having thus noticed the existence and progress of the cotton manufacture in three quarters of the globe, Asia, Africa, and America, I am now to shew its introduction into Europe, where, though its entrance was later than in the other three, it has received, from the inventive genius of Englishmen, a new and nobler existence. In Asia, the spirit of invention, so early developed, has lain nearly dormant for thousands of years ; the rich soil has degenerated into poverty, from the perpetual sameness of the crops raised upon it; whilst the intel- lect of Europe, as though invigorated by the fallow of centuries, has received the seeds of Oriental arts and sciences, and brought them to far higher perfection than their native earth. It is customary to look to Italy as the country where the arts, sciences, and manufactures first reappeared after the night of the middle ages, and from whence