ABSTRACT
England’s Almanac, published immediately after the Bill passed, speaks of great rejoicings in several places. “A gentleman concerned in Trade” who publishes his impressions on the Act in 1708, dwells at great length on “the most beneficial effect” of the Act, and tells how London, Canterbury and Norwich had rapidly come to a state of real prosperity within eighteen months after the Bill became law. “In London,” he says, “the maker has a market for his goods and artists and workmen are returned from their places of dispersion.” “The empty streets and houses are again inhabited.” As for Canterbury, men who fled returned “in shoals and companies, and their homes and their bellies are full, and they rather want hands than work.” John Haynes wrote in 1706 that “greater quantities of Calicoes had been printed and worn in England annually since the importing of it was prohibited than ever was brought from India.”
