Do you ever recollect so great distress as there is at present?—Never; I have known the trade these thirty years, but I never knew anything like it.
Your manufactures went to the Continent pretty extensively till the year 1807?—Yes, we sold to the merchants who sent to the Continent.
Can you tell what interrupted that trade?—We had no further trade when the Continent was shut up.
To what is the want of trade owing?—The want of market for our goods.
To what is the want of market owing?—It is impossible for me to say, but I believe if we had an opening in America, we should have sufficient market for our goods; when we lost the Continental trade we had America to depend upon, now we have lost America we have no regular markets to depend upon.
11.—Evidence of the Condition of Children in Factories [Report of Committee on Children in Manufactories, 1816 (III), pp. 89 and 132-133], 1816.
Mr. Robert Owen, again called in, and examined.
Have you anything to add to your evidence of yesterday?—Some questions were put to me yesterday respecting the early age at which children are employed at Stockport; I knew I had made a memorandum at the time, but I could not then put my hand upon it; I have since found it; and I can now reply to the questions regarding those cases. Mr. George Oughton, secretary to the Sunday school in Stockport, informed me about a fortnight ago, in the presence of an individual, who will probably be here in the course of the morning, that he knows a little girl of the name of Hannah Downham, who was employed in a mill at Stockport at the age of four. Mr. Turner, treasurer to the Sunday school, knows a boy that was employed in a mill at Stockport when he was only three years old. Mr. Turner and Mr. Oughton, if they were sent for would, I have no doubt, state these cases before the Committee.
They were mentioned to you as a rare instance?—They were mentioned to me in the midst of a very numerous assembly of very respectable people; I inquired of them whether they knew, as they were surrounded with, I believe, two or three thousand children at the time, what was the age at which children were generally admitted into cotton mills; their answer was, Some at five, many at six, and a greater number at seven. I have also received very important information from a very respectable individual at Manchester, relative to the age at which children are employed, the hours they are kept to work, and a variety of other particulars from very authentic sources.
Name those sources?—Mr. Nathaniel Gould and Mr. George Gould.