The produce of our factories has preceded even our most enterprising
travellers. Captain Clapperton saw at the court of the Sultan Bello, in
the interior of Africa, pewter dishes with the London stamp, and had at
the royal table a piece of meat served up on a white wash-hand basin of
English manufacture. The cotton of India is conveyed by British ships
round half our planet, to be woven by British skill in the factories of
Lancashire. It is again set in motion by British capital, and
transported to the very plains whereon it grew; and is repurchased by
the lords of the soil which gave it birth, at a cheaper price than that
at which their coarser machinery enables them to manufacture it
themselves. At Calicut, (in the East Indies,) whence the cotton cloth
called calico derives its name, the price of labour is a fraction of
that in England, yet the market is supplied from British looms.
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