ABSTRACT
John Holker, Catholic, Jacobite, political and industrial spy, administrator and industrialist, had a long career, much of which seems more likely material for the historical novelist than the historian. The text must not call the ventures the 'Fabrique Angloise de Rouen', and Daniel-Charles Trudaine doubted if Holker should be explicitly named because of diplomatic relations with England. The travel expenses of the workers should be paid by the Government, and they should be contracted with for so much a month for one or two years, on the basis that French firms would take them over on the conditions which had been fixed with them in England. The French cotton industry had started to gain momentum at the end of the seventeenth century, particularly in Rouen. In the large French towns merchants were not so timid, and the local merchants could follow suit, providing they chose their foreign representatives carefully.
