hats imported from France at the same time is stated at £120,000 per annum. The increase of national wealth is indicated in the advanced value of property. In James the First's time, 1620, lands were generally purchasable at valuations of twelve years; but in George the Second's reign, 1727-1760, they were usually estimated at eighteen to twenty years' value.

The number of woollen mills in the parish, in the latter part of the seventeenth, and the beginning of the eighteenthcentury, never appears to have exceeded thirteen. In addition to those previously named, there seem to have been manufactories of this description at Greenacres and Poden, in Oldham; and Crompton fold and Beal hey, in Crompton. As all the processes of the cotton-linen manufacture were then entirely carried on within the cottages, there were no other mills than woollen mills.

In 1714, an estimate was taken of the number of families in the parish; and as the number of families in the township of Oldham is stated to have been 433, we may infer that at so low a number as 4 per house, the aggregate population of the township would then be 1732. It is probable, however, that the total number of inhabitants within those limits amounted at the period in question to at least 2000. The aggregate of families in the four townships of the parochial chapelry in 1714, was 906; and the probable total number of inhabitants would be about 4530.

I have no means of ascertaining the proportions of the population engaged in the several manufactures of the parish, at the particular period alluded to; but the probability is, that two-thirds of the population would be dependent upon trade for their subsistence.

The celebrated De Foe in his tour through Great Britain, published 1727, thus describes this part of the

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