[453] A Geographical, Statistical, and Historical Description of Hindostan, by Walter Hamilton, Esq. vol. i. p. 187—(1820.)
“Plain muslins, are distinguished by different names, according to the fineness or closeness of the texture, as well as flowered, striped, or chequered muslins, are fabricated chiefly in this district, where a species of cotton named the banga grows, necessary, although not of a very superior quality, to form the stripes of the finest muslins, for which the city of Dacca has been so long celebrated. The northern parts of Benares furnish both plain and flowered muslins, which are not ill adapted for common use, though incapable of sustaining any competition with the beautiful and inimitable fabrics of Dacca.
“The export of the above staple articles has much decreased, and the art of manufacturing some of the finest species of muslins is in danger of being lost, the orders for them being so few that many of the families who possess by hereditary instruction the art of fabricating them have desisted, on account of the difficulty they afterwards experience in disposing of them. This decline may partly be accounted for from the utter stagnation of demand in the upper provinces since the downfall of the imperial government, prior to which these delicate and beautiful fabrics were in such estimation, not only at the court of Delhi, but among all classes of the high nobility in India, as to render it difficult to supply the demand. Among more recent causes also may be adduced the French revolution, the degree of perfection to which this peculiar manufacture has lately been brought in Great Britain, the great diminution in the Company’s investment, and the advance in the price of cotton.”
With respect to the peculiar species of cotton of which the Dacca muslins are made, the following statement was given to a committee of the House of Commons, in 1830-31, by Mr. John Crawfurd, for many years in the service of the East India Company, and author of the “History of the Indian Archipelago:”
“There is a fine variety of cotton in the neighborhood of Dacca, from which I have reason to believe the fine muslins of Dacca are produced, and probably to the accidental discovery of it is to be attributed the rise of this singular manufacture; it is cultivated by the natives alone, not at all known in the English market, nor, as far as I am aware, in that of Calcutta. Its growth extends about forty miles along the banks of the Megna, and about three miles inland. I consulted Mr. Colebrook respecting the Dacca cotton, and had an opportunity of perusing the manuscripts of the late Dr. Roxburgh, which contain an account of it; he calls it a variety of the common herbaceous annual cotton of India, and states that it is longer in the staple, and affords the material from which the Dacca muslins have been always made.”
The cotton manufacture in India is not carried on in a few large towns, or in one or two districts; it is universal. The growth of cotton is nearly as general as the growth of food; everywhere the women spend a portion of their time in spinning; and almost every village contains its weavers, and supplies its own inhabitants with the scanty clothing they require[454]. Being a domestic manufacture, and carried on with the rudest and cheapest apparatus, it requires neither capital, mills, or an assemblage of various trades. The cotton is separated from the seeds by a small rude hand-mill, or gin, turned by women.
[454] Orme, in his Historical Fragments of the Mogul Empire, says, “On the coast of Coromandel and in the province of Bengal, when at some distance from the high road or a principal town, it is difficult to find a village in which every man, woman, and child is not employed in making a piece of cloth. At present, much the greatest part of the whole provinces are employed in this single manufacture.” (p. 409.) “The progress of the cotton manufacture includes no less than a description of the lives of half the inhabitants of Indostan.” (p. 413.)
The mill consists of two rollers of teak wood, fluted longitudinally with five or six grooves, and revolving nearly in contact. The upper roller is turned by a handle, the lower being carried along with it by means of a perpetual screw at the axis. The cotton is put in at one side, and drawn through by the revolving rollers; but the seeds, being too large to pass through the opening, are torn off and fall down on the opposite side from the cotton[455].
[455] To the efforts of Eli Whitney, America is indebted for the value of her great staple. While the invention of the cotton gin has been the chief source of the prosperity of the Southern planter, the Northern manufacturer comes in for a large share of the benefits derived from this most important offspring of American ingenuity.
Eli Whitney, who may with justice be considered one of the most ingenious and extraordinary men that ever lived, was born in Westborough, Worcester County, Massachusetts, December 8th, 1765. His parents belonged to that respectable class in society, who, by the labors of husbandry, manage, by uniform industry, to provide well for a rising family,—a class from whom have risen most of those who, in New England, have attained to high eminence and usefulness.