History of the cotton manufacture in Great Britain: with a notice of its early history in the East, and in all the quarters of the globe ... and a view of the present state of the manufacture / By Edward Baines, jun.

  • Baines, Edward, Sir, 1800-1890.
Date:
[1835]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: History of the cotton manufacture in Great Britain: with a notice of its early history in the East, and in all the quarters of the globe ... and a view of the present state of the manufacture / By Edward Baines, jun. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    reason highly esteemed in Europe. They wove their cloths of different figures and colours, representing dif- ferent animals and flowers. Of feathers interwoven with cotton, they made mantles and bed curtains, carpets, gowns, and other things, not less soft than beautiful. With cotton also they interwove the finest hair of the belly of rabbits and hares, after having made and spun it into thread : of this they made most beautiful cloths, and in particular winter waistcoats for the lords.” * Among the presents sent by Cortes, the conqueror of Mexico, to Charles V., were “ cotton mantles, some all white, others mixed with white and black, or red, green, yellow, and blue ; waistcoats, handkerchiefs, counterpanes, tapestries, and carpets of cotton and “ the colours of the cotton were extremely fine,”t as the Mexicans had both indigo and cochineal among their native dyes. They also used cotton in making a spe- cies of paper one of their kinds of money consisted in small cloths of cotton ;§ and their warriors wore cuirasses of cotton, covering the body from the neck to the waist.11 Columbus also found the cotton plant growing wild, and in great abundance, in Hispaniola, and other West India islands, and on the continent of South America, where the inhabitants wore cotton dresses, and made their fishing nets of the same material and when * Clavigero’s History of Mexico, book vii. sect. 57, 66. t Ibid, book vii. sect. 58. J Humboldt’s Researches, vol. i. p. 162. § Clavigero, book vii. sect. 36. l| Humboldt, vol. i. p. 202. ** Sommario dell’ Indie Occidentali del S. Don Pietro Martire, in Ramusio’s Collection, tom. ii. pp. 2, 4, 16, 50.