| 244 | cabinets. |
| 655 | tops for stands. |
| 6,580 | tea-tables. |
| 818 | lacquered boards. |
| 428 | chests. |
| 597 | sconces. |
| 70 | trunks. |
| 589 | looking-glasses. |
| 52 | screens. |
| 4,120 | dressing, comb and powder-boxes. |
The Japanners also brought their grievances before the authorities in 1710. The taste for japanned goods had forced them to endeavour to make worthy imitations for home consumption, and they thought they were entitled to patronage and tariff protection. The evils are fully indicated in the preamble to their petition:
“Many of the artificers (cabinet-makers, turners, goldbeaters and coppersmiths) have brought (the curious and ingenious art and mystery of japanning, so much improved in England of late years) to so great perfection as to exceed all manner of Indian lacquer, and to equal the right japan itself, by enduring the fire in the boiling of liquors.
“Also it will, if encouraged, vastly improve both the wood and iron trades for cisterns, monteiths, punch-bowls, tea-tables and several sorts of ironware, which would be useless if not improved by our English lacquer.
“But the merchants, sending over English patterns and models to India, and bringing such quantities of Indian lacquered wares (especially within the last two years), great numbers of families are by that means reduced to miserable poverty.”
The trade with the Indies thus encountered bitter opposition, and many tracts were published calling attention to the alleged grievances of native workmen from its prosecution. In 1700, Reasons, a tract, tells us: “The charter of the East India Company was confirmed by King Charles II in the thirteenth year of his reign, and the law for permitting bullion to be exported was made soon after. In 1672 or 1673, several artificers were sent over by the Company with great quantity of English patterns to teach the Indians how to manufacture goods to make them vendible in England and the rest of the European markets. After which began the trade in manufactured goods from the Indies.”
In 1699, also, a bitter wail went up in a broadside entitled Prince Butler’s Tale:
When first the India trade began,
And ships beyond the tropics ran
In quest of various drugs and spices,