During the economic crisis of the late 1720s and early 1730s the prices of cotton, rice and cotton cloth rose sharply. By the end of the 1730s, however, the prices of cotton and rice had returned nearly to their pre-crisis levels, but the price of cloth continued to remain high. These prices were to last for nearly three decades and during this time weavers in South India may have enjoyed a “Golden Age” as they benefitted from low costs for food and materials and high prices for their manufactures. From the late 1760s, however, the weavers' situation began to deteriorate sharply and their incomes began to decline precipitously. Reports of weaver distress came from several parts of South India. In 1779, weavers in Cuddalore reported that since 1768 their incomes had fallen by 35 percent. This decline in earnings, however, was not due to harvest shortfalls or crises in agriculture; prices for grain, cotton and yarn were stable at Cuddalore through the decade of weaver troubles. In the 1790s, the incomes of weavers in the Baramahal and the Northern Sarkars also fell dramatically, but weavers could not formulate the response which came to them so easily earlier in the century: weavers were unable to push up cloth prices or to reduce the quality of the cloth.