The New Hampshire Gazette And General Advertiser

PHILADELPHIA, May 14.

Extract of a letter from a gentleman in Scotland, to his friend in this town, dated Nov. 2, 1788.

"We have got a mill to go by water, for spinning flax and hemp; and I am informed, that a mechanic here, has just invented a Jenny or handmill that will spin flax or hemp: It can be made of any number of heads or spindles, from forty to one hundred: A woman and girl will be able to spin twenty spindles of yarn on it every week. Mills to go by water, have also been erected at Glasgow, Derby, Nottingham, &c. for spinning long-wool, commonly called combed-wool. The cotton-mills, with a little alteration, spin short or uncombed wool. Mills have been erected in England for grinding wheat, corn, &c. where little or no water can be had, to go by steam engines: there is one of those mills, worked by steam engines that drives thirty-two mill-stones. These improvements, would certainly be very beneficial in a country thinly peopled, and where wages are high. Models of all new & useful improvements in husbandry, if kept at some town in a central part of the State, where all might have access to see them, might tend to accelerate improvement in the cultivation of the ground; this certainly ought to be done, at the expense of the State. Brewing of malt liquors, will, I think, be providing the best market for your farmers; and protecting duties, on all articles imported from other countries will enable your manufacturers to proceed, with vigor, spirit and success: There cannot be a more certain way of giving encouragement to agriculture, than by providing, a sure, constant and steady market, for the produce of the earth: And undoubtedly manufacturers at home, in this view, are a more sure and steady market than any foreign nation, who may cut off your market with them all at once. It behoves you, therefore, to encourage manufactures; and the government ought, certainly, to lay on heavy duties, and to give bounties upon your home manufactures. But I hope your new government will rectify all these things."