To the Right Honourable, and Right Worshipfull, the Knights and Burgesses of the Lower Howse of Parliament:
The humble Petition of the Artizan Cloth-workers of London.

HVmbly shewing to this Honorable House, That whereas in formes times there were many good Lawes and Ordinances made for the dressing of Cloth in this Land, namely in the 33th of Henry 8. it doth appoynt that all Clothes aboue foure pounds price should be dressed before they be transported; which Law is not yet abrogated. And since in the 8th of Elizabeth: That the tenth white should be rowed, barbed and shorne, before it be sent ouer: And all Clothes died in the Wooll should haue their full Manufacture. Also since those sayd Acts, it pleased his Maiestie to make Proclamation, That all Cloth should be dressed and died before it was transported; which was begun to be put in execution: And had there not con­tentions arisen among the Merchants, we doubt not, but it would haue gone for­wards, to the great benefit of the whole Land in generall. And when the Merchants Aduenturers had procured the trade of White Cloth againe, they promised his Ma­iestie that they would dresse all the Westerne Plonkets, which they transported: And that they would visit all their Whites before they sent them away, by wetting two of the skore, and by new foulding the rest; whereby we should haue some imployment. But now we haue not onely lost the benefit of the former Statutes, for all Whites to be drest and died, and the two in the skore, but the Plonkets also; and for their Whites, few are visited.

Wherefore we humbly beseech this Honourable House, that free leaue may be giuen to all men that will dresse and dye Cloth, or set others on worke in dressing and dying of Cloth, or any other new Manufacture, made of Wooll, or part of Wooll, or Cotton Wooll: That they may haue free libertie to export the same beyond the Seas, there to sell them: But not to export any white Cloth, but that to bee left to the Merchants aduen­turers. The reason wherefore we intreate for this, is not onely for the sup­plying of our owne necessities, although they be very great (we being thou­sands) but that wee are perswaded it will be profitable to the whole Com­mon-Wealth, to his Maiesty in Customes, to the Wooll-growers in sales of their Wooll, to the Clothier in sale of his Cloth and stuffes of all sorts, and to innumerable poore people which are workers. If therefore, it shall please this honourable House well to consider of the premises, and so to grant our requests, not onely wee poore Petitioners, but also (we are perswaded) many thousands more shall be bound to praise God for you, and daily pray, &c.

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