dom, the credit of Ireland, through the apprehension of the poverty that it would fall into by the restraint on cattle, was brought so low in London and elsewhere, that the Irish could not be trusted as formerly for commodities; and, what was worse, the English generally called in all at once for their money, to the utter impoverishing of the people of Ireland.

198 To these considerations they added others relating to the interest of England, insinuating that all the trading towns and boroughs in that kingdom would suffer by beef and mutton growing dearer, which would necessarily raise the price of wages; that particularly in Chester and Wales a vast number of families would probably be undone, if the restraint continued, there being hundreds of sail of ships lying in those parts, which had been chiefly built for and employed in carrying the cattle of Ireland (which had no shipping of its own) into England; and this was not the only point by which that country would be prejudiced, since they would not vend the same quantity of Welsh coals as they did formerly; for whereas before the said restraint many English ships brought coals to Ireland all the summer long, that trade had now ceased, and very few could be brought in the winter by reason of the danger of the Irish seas, and the winds being seldom fair for a passage from England thither in that season. In conclusion, they hoped that his majesty, according to the words of his declaration for the settling 319 of Ireland, would not suffer his good subjects to weep in one kingdom whilst they rejoiced in the other, and humbly prayed a remedy in a point whereon the livelihood of his people of Ireland depended in a very high degree.

199

This representation was on Nov. 9, 1664, transmitted by the earl of Ossory and the council to the duke of Ormond, who was then in England, in order to be presented to his majesty. The council in their letter confirmed the substance thereof, and represented further,

that all parts of Ireland were by occasion of that act suddenly sunk into a sad degree of poverty through the scarcity of money, and that poverty daily increasing; that the cattle (the principal means of bringing money into the kingdom) lay on people's hands for want of buyers; that the husbandmen could not continue their tillage for want of money even to pay wages and provide other requisites for it; the tenants were disabled to pay their rents to their landlords, as these were to pay theirs to the king, and that both tenant and landlord were disabled to pay the subsidies and other public taxes; that the trade of the kingdom suffered exceedingly, which would occasion a failure in the customs and excise, and defeat all the measures that had been taken to make Ireland defray its own charge, without being any longer a burden to England; that the misery fallen upon the kingdom by this restraint was too sensibly felt by all persons of all qualities and professions throughout it; so that it was become an occasion of public grief and discontent in the minds of the people, and being in effect the concern of the whole kingdom, they were very apprehensive of the consequences thereof in its present unsettled condition.

200 The duke of Ormond laid this representation before

the king, and enforced it with all the arguments and instances he could use. He had too much reason to insist on the poverty of Ireland, and the cruelty of such a treatment of a colony, which all wise states, especially the Roman, thought it their interest to encourage; that the restraint on their cattle was the greater grievance, because coming so soon after the people of that country had been harassed by the late wars, and before they were in a condition of making improvements on their lands by the settlement of the kingdom being carried to perfection; that their trade was but little at the best, and that little would be now destroyed; that they had no manufac

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tures, and of their native commodities that of cattle was their best; that their sheep and cattle were vendible alive nowhere but in England; and what might be made of them when dead, as hides, tallow, and flesh, which at other times might be vended in France and Holland, could not be made now, because of the war already bewith one of those countries, and of the rupture apgun prehended with the other; by the late acts for encouraging the trade of England, they could not send them to the plantations in America, and the charter going to be granted of a Canary company would prevent their being sent to those islands; and these were the only places where they could propose a tolerable market for those commodities; for their Irish beef was not to be disposed of in all places, being deemed of little value in most parts of Europe, though, after being husbanded in England, it passed for English beef, and was famous over all the world. And as for the produce of sheep, wool, and woolfels, the Irish were expressly restrained by statute from sending them any where but to England, though they might get fifty per cent. more profit by the sale of them in other places, if licensed to send them thither. He put the king in mind how much his own revenue would be impaired, not only in Ireland, where the excise would be lessened, for people could not spend unless they could get, where it would be difficult to find money to pay the 320 subsidies, when they received none for their commodities, and where the customs that used to be paid for the export of cattle to England, and the import of the proceed of them in artificial commodities from thence, would entirely cease for the future; but also in England by the failure of the very same branches of the customs, and the necessarily increased charge he must be at to supply Ireland, when reduced to such a condition as not to be able to support the charge of its own government.

He considered his majesty as the common father of

both his kingdoms, and hoped he would not consent to the utter ruin of one, for the sake of an inconsiderable advantage, or to prevent a small and imaginary detriment to the other. For the value of all the Irish cattle that had come over in three years did not amount to above one hundred and forty thousand pounds a year, one with another, which was not above the sixteenth part of the value of the rents of England, which therefore could lose no more, whereas the rents of Ireland would be sunk one third by the prohibition; and if near seventy thousand cattle had been sent over for three years past, that number would be continually lessening in proportion as Ireland grew more populous, which was naturally to be expected after the settlement, and which, causing a greater consumption at home, would allow the less of that commodity to be sent abroad. Nor were the English averse to every branch of trade relating to Irish cattle; for they desired the hides, tallow, and wool; nothing was excepted against but the flesh, which too was at some times convenient, the Irish cattle, as coming from a coarser pasture, feeding sooner, and keeping their flesh longer than the English, and by that means fit to be sold early in the spring, when the others were not; so that one part of the year their cattle was desirable, and was so at all times to make provisions cheap. And though the breeders in England exclaimed against their importation, it was very agreeable to landlords that had fatting land, who, in case it was stopped, would want stock for their land, and be left at the mercy of the breeders, so that these would thereby become a sort of monopolizers, and might sell their cattle and rent the fatting lands at their own rates. He thought that those who were most violent for the prohibition, and pretended that the rents of England were sunk of late two hundred thousand pounds a year, were much mistaken as to the cause; at least the cattle, which exceeded not the value of one

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hundred and forty thousand pounds, could not be the sole cause: other reasons might be assigned for it; as, the revival of Lent after a long disusage; the excessive drought of the last summers, which hindered cattle from grazing; the retreat of abundance of sectaries to the American plantations; the plague, which had destroyed a multitude of mouths that used to consume provisions; the obstruction given to trade by the war with Holland; the laying aside of the old hospitality used in the country; and the general decay of the English manufactures. But it could not justly be ascribed to Irish cattle, because far greater numbers had been imported before the troubles of England than had been since; and yet at that time there were no complaints of the falling of rents, which were then rather improving.

He was apprehensive that the prohibition would be attended with very unhappy consequences to England; that it would certainly raise the price of victuals, not only of beef, which contributed to the strength of labourers and manufacturers, and consequently to the despatch and cheapness of work, but also of corn, by the encouragement it would give to pasture, and the damage that ploughmen would suffer through the dearness of young cattle; that this dearness of victuals would not only raise the clamours of the poor, but enhance his majesty's charge in victualling his navy, paying his army, and maintaining 321 his court; that if his majesty's charge increased, the taxes of England must increase likewise, and the people would be less able to bear them because of the damage which the dearness of provisions would do their trade, for wages would of course be enhanced, and as the value of commodities depended upon labour, so labour was to be valued according to the rates of victuals and taxes, the raising of which might enable foreigners to undersell the English; that gentlemen would not find their account in it as they proposed, for they must pay dearer for the