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I.

1665

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the Prayer Book was exceptionally unfortunate in a country in which the expansion of Protestantism was the condition of a settled government. The state of the Church,' wrote the Earl of Clarendon to the Archbishop of Canterbury, after Bramhall and Jeremy Taylor and Leslie of Raphoe, and their brother prelates, had worked their will on the Dissenters, 'is very miserable; most of the fabrics are in ruins; very few of the clergy reside on their cures, but employ pitiful curates, which necessitates the people to look after a Romish priest or Nonconformist preacher, and there are plenty of both. I find it an ordinary thing for a minister to have five or six cures of souls, and to get them supplied by those who will do it cheapest. Some hold five or six ecclesiastical preferments worth 900l. a year, get them all served for 150l. a year, and preach themselves perhaps once a year. When I discourse with my Lords Bishops on these things I confess I have not satisfactory answers, but, with your Grace's help, I do not despair of doing some good, for many things are redressed without any other difficulty than men's doing their duties. Several of the clergy who have been in England have sent to me to renew their leave of absence; and they must return; for absence without leave forfeits the preferment, and none shall be licensed without good grounds. The Archbishop of Tuam,' after three years' absence, is resolved to come over, and I hear is on his way. Down and Connor has been absent six years. wrote to renew his license. I refused.' 3

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3 "The Earl of Clarendon to the Archbishop of Canterbury, May 25, 1686.' State Letters, vol. i.

SECTION III.

III.

1663

THE salt of English Puritanism was driven out of CHAP. Ireland at a time when Puritanism represented the - most genuine element in the English mind. The place of it was taken by speculators seeking their fortunes, solid, hard-hearted men, indifferent to creeds, and well contented with an establishment which left them alone. Toleration of the Catholics was a natural part of the same policy. The penal laws were suspended at the special instance of the King; and once more it was the reign of conciliation. Though half the penalty had been remitted, the Irish had been heavily punished. They would now, it was to be hoped, show themselves duly grateful for the indulgence extended to them.

The rebellion was not, however, to be forgotten. The 23rd of October was set apart, by Act of Parliament, as a solemn anniversary, to be observed with a religious service and a sermon, 'in perpetual memory of a conspiracy so inhuman and cruel as the like was never heard of in any age or kingdom." The new Protestant gentry were shrewd men of business, who meant to incur no more risks than they could help. They had come to Ireland to push their way by English energy and enterprise. Whatever their political opinions, they were well aware that, as the world then was, skill and industry were mainly Protestant virtues; and if Ireland was to become, as they

1 14 & 15 Charles II. cap. 8.

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1663

BOOK intended, a second England, Irish Popery, with its idleness and its faction fights and slatternly habits, could not be allowed to recover the ascendant. With their eyes open to the manufacturing resources of the country, they passed an act to encourage French, Flemish, and Dutch Protestant workmen to come and settle among them. They failed to see, that the cause which was driving out the Independents would serve equally to keep out the foreign Calvinists; but the natural sense of Saxon men of business would probably have soon enlightened them had free trade been continued, and had they felt the absence of skilled labour. Before the days of coal and steam the unlimited water power of Ireland gave her natural advantages in the race of manufactures, which, if she had received fair play, would have attracted thither thousands of skilled immigrants. The Presbyterians held their ground in Ulster with the help of the now rising linen trade. Had other trades been permitted to grow, and an industrial middle class established itself in the southern provinces, they would speedily have wrung adequate toleration from the dominant Church. This one true and real justice to Ireland, unhappily, was precisely what the reconstituted government of England refused to allow her. By the parties now and for another century in the ascendant there, Ireland was regarded as a colony to be administered not for her own benefit, but for the convenience of the mother country.

So rapidly under the Cromwellian despotism had the wealth of Ireland increased, that having been brought to the lowest depth of ruin, she was now able, after defraying all her own expenses, to settle on the King a permanent revenue of 30,000l. a year.

III.

1663

Home jealousy took alarm at a growth so rapid. CHAP. Ireland, if allowed free trade, would, it was feared, undersell England in the world's markets. Profits would fall. The value of real estate would fall. The best artisans would emigrate to a country where land was cheap and living inexpensive. English commerce was about to be ruined for the sake of the unruly island, which was for ever a thorn in her side. Ireland was admitted to the benefit of the first Navigation Act of 1660. English ships possessed no privileges which were not extended to Irish. The export of Irish as well as English wool to foreign countries was prohibited, because it was the best in Europe; the fleeces of France and Spain could not be woven into the finest kinds of cloths without an intermixture of the wool of these islands; and while they retained the material the English and Irish weavers retained the monopoly of the manufacture. Ireland was not injured so long as each country alike might export her own cloths. But the equality of privilege lasted only till the conclusion of the settlement and till the revenue had been assigned to the crown. In the Navigation Act of 1663 Ire

land was left out. She had established an independent trade with New England; it was destroyed. All produce of the colonies sent to Ireland, all Irish produce sent to the colonies, had first to be landed in England and thence reshipped in English bottoms.1 She had established a large and lucrative cattle trade with Bristol, Milford, and Liverpool. It was supposed to lower the value of English farm produce, and was utterly prohibited. Neither cow or bullock,

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I.

BOOK sheep or pig, fat or lean, might be transported from Ireland to England.' Salt beef and bacon, even butter and cheese, lay under the same interdict.2

1663

With the restriction of her chief exports, her shipping interest suffered a simultaneous eclipse. Such direct trade as she retained was with France, Spain, and Portugal, as if England wished to force her, in spite of herself, to feel the Catholic countries to be her best friends.

It was the beginning of a policy which was to be persevered in till it had for ever blighted the hope of Ireland becoming a prosperous Protestant country. Further, however, it was not immediately carried. The woollen manufactures and the linen manufactures were for the present permitted to stand side by side, and to compete with the productions of Ireland's powerful rival. The saffron shirt of the Irish, of native make, had been celebrated from immemorial time. Lord Strafford had encouraged further a form of industry which would give least umbrage in England. He had imported choice kinds of flax-seed, and given bounties on the cultivation. The woollen manufacture, which he had discouraged, had been set on foot again by Cromwell. The prohibition of the export of the raw material was an encouragement to the native weavers, and Irish woollens were acquiring a name in Europe. The two trades were equally thriving; and, had they been allowed to stand, there would have been four Ulsters instead of one. As it was, the reign of Charles the Second, notwithstanding some absurd restrictions, and the more absurd

1 18 Charles II. cap. 2. English Statutes.

232 Charles II. cap. 2. English Statutes.

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