in England; for that is the sense, and the only sense, of living cheaper.  If, in truth and fact, our artificer fares as well in all these respects as one in the same state in France,—­how stands the matter in point of opinion and prejudice, the springs by which people in that class of life are chiefly actuated?  The idea of our common people concerning French living is dreadful; altogether as dreadful as our author’s can possibly be of the state of his own country; a way of thinking that will hardly ever prevail on them to desert to France.[61]

But, leaving the author’s speculations, the fact is, that they have not deserted; and of course the manufacture cannot be departed, or departing, with them.  I am not indeed able to get at all the details of our manufactures; though, I think, I have taken full as much pains for that purpose as our author.  Some I have by me; and they do not hitherto, thank God, support the author’s complaint, unless a vast increase of the quantity of goods manufactured be a proof of losing the manufacture.  On a view of the registers in the West Riding of Yorkshire, for three years before the war, and for the three last, it appears, that the quantities of cloths entered were as follows: 

Pieces broad.     Pieces narrow.
1752           60,724           72,442
1753           55,358           71,618
1754           56,070           72,394
-------          -------
172,152          216,454

Pieces broad.     Pieces narrow.
1765           54,660           77,419
1766           72,575           78,893
1767          102,428           78,819
-------          -------
3 years, ending 1767          229,663          235,131
3 years, ending 1754          172,152          216,464
-------          -------
Increase      57,511           18,677

In this manner this capital branch of manufacture has increased, under the increase of taxes; and this not from a declining, but from a greatly flourishing period of commerce.  I may say the same on the best authority of the fabric of thin goods at Halifax; of the bays at Rochdale; and of that infinite variety of admirable manufactures that grow and extend every year among the spirited, inventive, and enterprising traders of Manchester.

A trade sometimes seems to perish when it only assumes a different form.  Thus the coarsest woollens were formerly exported in great quantities to Russia.  The Russians now supply themselves with these goods.  But the export thither of finer cloths has increased in proportion as the other has declined.  Possibly some parts of the kingdom may have felt something like a languor in business.  Objects like trade and manufacture, which the very attempt to confine would certainly destroy, frequently change their place; and thereby, far from being lost, are often highly improved.  Thus some manufactures have decayed in the west and south, which have made new and more vigorous shoots when transplanted into the north.