\paperw3360 \margr0\margl0\ATXph16380 \plain \fs20 \f1 \fs22 During the 1700s, textile production remained the major British manufacturing interest. The output of woollen goods
was increasingly geared towards the European market for new draperies. Linen was widely produced in Lancashire, as well as being the major manufacture and domestic export of \b \cf4 \ATXht10150000 Scotland\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 and Ireland. However, in Lanc
ashire cotton was gradually taking over as the main textile product. Indeed, during the reign of \b \cf4 \ATXht13201000 George III\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 (1760-1820), the great inventions, the new methods, and problems pertaining to labour recruitment and cap
ital were pioneered in textiles, particularly cotton. Thus England was paradoxically rising to economic predominance by manipulating a foreign raw material and increasingly distributing the finished product in the shape of cotton textiles to all areas o
f the globe. This was very much a reversal of her industrial beginnings. By 1820, instead of buying up Indian calico for import to Britain, the British agency houses in Calcutta were largely trading in raw cotton, indigo and opium. \b \cf4 \ATXht10741000 Control of Indian resources\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 thus helped the British to balance their trade with the whole of East Asia. This was clearly at the expense of Indian textile production, which had practically collapsed by the 1820s. British textile manuf
acturers and merchants thus found fresh markets for their own products in Asia.\par
