“1. Here there are two very handsome sugar-baking houses, carried on by skilful persons, with large stocks, and to very great perfection. Here is likewise a large distillery for distilling spirits from the molasses drawn from sugars, by which they enjoyed a vast advantage for a time, by a reserved article in the Union, freeing them from English duties.
“2. Here is a manufacture of plaiding, a stuff crossed with yellow, red, and other mixtures, for the plaids or veils worn by the women of Scotland.
“3. Here is a manufacture of muslins, which they make so good and fine that great quantities of them are sent into England, and to the British plantations, where they sell at a good price. They are generally striped, and are very much used for aprons by the ladies, and sometimes in head-clothes by the meaner sort of Englishwomen.
“4. Here is also a linen manufacture; but as that is in common with all parts of Scotland, which improve in it daily, I will not insist upon it as a peculiar here, though they make a very great quantity of it, and send it to the plantations as their principal merchandise. Nor are the Scots without a supply of goods for sorting their cargoes to the English colonies, without sending to England for them; and it is necessary to mention it here, because it has been objected by some that the Scots could not send a sortable cargo to America without buying from England, which, coming through many hands, and by a long carriage, must consequently be so dear, that the English merchants can undersell them.
“It is very probable, indeed, that some things cannot be had here so well as from England, so as to make out such a sortable cargo as the Virginia merchants in London ship off, whose entries at the custom-house consist sometimes of two hundred particulars, as tin, turnery, millinery, upholstery, cutlery, and other Crooked-Lane wares—in short, somewhat of everything, either for wearing or house furniture, building houses or ships.
“But though the Scots cannot do all this, we may reckon up what they can furnish, which they have not only in sufficient quantities, but some in greater perfection than England itself.
“1. They have woollen manufactories of their own,—such as Stirling serges, Musselburgh stuffs, Aberdeen stockens, Edinburgh shalloons, blankets, etc.
“2. Their trade with England being open, they have now all the Manchester, Sheffield, and Birmingham wares, and likewise the cloths, kerseys, half-thicks, duffels, stockens and coarse manufactures of the north of England, brought as cheap or cheaper to them by horse-packs as they are carried to London, it being at a less distance.
“3. They have linens of most kinds, especially diapers and table-linens, damasks, and many other sorts not known in England, and cheaper than there, because made at their own doors.
“4. What linens they want from Holland or Hamburgh, they import from thence as cheap as the English can do; and for muslins, their own are very acceptable, and cheaper than in England.