Ample and full vent of this noble and rich commodity is it that the commonweal of this realm doth require.
Spain now aboundeth with wool, and the same are clothed. Turkey hath wools, and so have divers provinces of Christendom and of heatheners, and cloth is made of the same in divers places.
1. But if England have the most fine and the most excellent wools of the world in all respects (as it cannot be denied but it hath). 2. If there may be added to the same excellent artificial, and true making, and excellent dyeing. 3. Then no doubt but that we shall have vent for our cloths, though the rest of the world did abound much more with wool than it doth....
But if foreign nations turn their wools, inferior to ours, into truer and more excellent made cloth, and shall dye the same in truer, surer, and more excellent and more delectable colours, then shall they sell and make ample vent of their cloths, when the English cloth of better wool shall rest unsold, to the spoil of the merchant, of the clothier, and of the breeder of the wool, and to the turning to bag and wallet of the infinite number of the poor people employed in clothing in several degrees of labour here in England.
Which things weighed, I am to tell you what things I wish you in this realm, and after in Turkey, to endeavour from time to time, as your leisure may permit the same.
Before you out of the realm, that you learn:
1. To know wool, all kinds of cloth made in this realm, and all other employments of wool, home or foreign.... All the deceits in clothmaking ... The faults in weaving. The faults in walking, rowing, burling, and in racking the cloth above measure upon the tenters....
2. Then to learn of the dyers to discern all kinds of colours, as which be good and sure, and which will not hold; which be fair, and which not....
3. Then to take the names of all the materials and substances used in this city or in the realm in dyeing of cloth or silk....
4. These things superficially learned in the realm before you go, you are fitter in foreign parts to serve your country....