was passed by the unreasoning Royalist Houses, absolutely prohibiting the importation of Irish cattle, sheep, swine, salt meat, or bacon; and declaring such importation to be a common nuisance:" and so violent was their ignorant ill temper, that a contribution of Irish cattle generously offered by the Irish gentry for the relief of the citizens of London who had been ruined by the great fire was ungraciously denounced as an attempt to undersell the English growers.

In the year 1663 Ireland was carefully omitted from the "Act for the encouragement of trade," which amended the Navigation Act of 1660, the consequence of which was that all the carrying trade in Irish-built ships with any part of his Majesty's dominions was forbidden, under the penalty of forfeiture of ship and cargo. And in 1696 all direct import trade with the British colonies was absolutely prohibited, and all colonial produce was first obliged to pass through, and pay duty in, England.†

Now that on the return of peace to the distracted island, trade had rapidly revived, and the Irish, unable by reason of the English laws to make a profit out of the growing of cattle, had turned their pasture into sheepwalks, it was found that the woollen manufactures were showing signs of increased vitality, and the English traders fell into a selfish panic, lest Irish competition. should reduce their gains, and clamoured for legislative protection. The ruin of the Irish woollen trade, almost

* English Statutes, 15 Car. II., c. 7.

English Statutes, 7 and 8 Will. III., c. 22.

wholly, be it remembered, in the hands of the Protestant English colony, was decreed, and remorselessly effected. The servile Irish legislature was compelled to pass an Act "in grateful acknowledgment of his majesty's royal care, favour, and protection," putting a prohibitive export duty on all broadcloths, kerseys, serges, and flannels; while the English Parliament passed an Act† prohibiting the export of either Irish wool or woollen goods to any port in the world except to Milford, Chester, Liverpool, and certain ports in the Bristol Channel, under a penalty of £500, and the forfeiture of both ship and cargo; and forbade its shipment from any Irish port except Cork, Drogheda, Dublin, Kinsale, Waterford and Youghal.

English and Irish wool was the best in the world. England was by English law the only market for Irish wool, and she could take it at her own price, otherwise Ireland had no purchaser. The English manufacturer therefore had a monopoly of the best wool at a low price. But what put money into the pockets of the English traders was the ruin of the Irish manufacturer and the Irish grower; and the hands who had been employed in the manufacture of woollen stuffs were thrown out of employment, and streamed away to America and the Continent never to return. Wool was a drug in the legitimate market. And woollen goods had no market at all but the home market; of the briskness of which we may judge, when we find an Act ‡ passed in 1733 "to encourage the home consumption of wool," obliging

10 Will. III., c. 5.

† English Statutes, 10 and 11 Will. III., c. 10.

7 Geo. II., c. 13.

every corpse to be buried in a woollen shroud, under a penalty of £5, to be recovered from the executors. Thrown back on the growth of the raw material, which, as there was but one customer legally available, was now smuggled largely to continental buyers, the whole island had rapidly been converted into pasture. Not only was there a large contraband trade in wool, but there was also a large business done in salted meat. As the trade in salt meat increased, so again did the demand for pasture; and the quantity of cultivable land grew narrower and narrower. Farm after farm was laid down in grass, and tenant after tenant evicted to make way for the grazier. An estate which had supported twenty or thirty farmers with their labourers, came to be easily managed by one or two herdsmen. Depopulation was the result. The stream of emigration increased, and so did the shoals of beggars who wandered about the country.

An attempt was made in 1716 to encourage agriculture, and the Irish Parliament sent over heads of a bill to authorize the breaking up of five out of every hundred acres held by tenants who were (and this was the case in the majority of holdings) forbidden by their leases from so doing, and giving a small bounty on the export of corn. But even at this innocent proposition the interests of England took alarm. Not in horror at the introduction of a false economic nostrum, but for fear the Irish should undersell the English farmer; and notwithstanding the fact that for years the large proportion of grain consumed in Ireland was imported from England. Ireland's

commercial interests, or what were believed to be her interests, were sacrificed to those of England; and the attempted legislation came to nothing. It was only after a potato famine eight years later, in which thousands of the peasantry in Ulster died of starvation, that tardy permission was given to cancel these severe clauses in leases, and a small portion of the land suffered to be given up to tillage.*

The inevitable consequence of putting prohibitive duties on the great staple of Irish trade was a wholesale system of smuggling. Fleece wool in Ireland cost 5d. a pound, and combed wool Is. In France the prices were respectively 2s. 6d. and 4s. 6d. a pound. French and Spanish wool, if mixed with a portion of Irish wool, would produce as good cloth as the best that could be made in England; and one sack of Irish wool would work up three sacks of French wool. The coast of Ireland, honeycombed with bays and fiords, gave the most convenient shelter to the fast-sailing French vessels. The revenue officers were helpless in a country where the whole population sympathized with and profited by the contraband trade, and pocketed a handsome price for their inactivity. The Government cruisers were overmatched by the smugglers' sloops, and as they received no encouragement from the authorities, never left their stations at the important harbours. Wool was stored in caves at the mouth of every little river in Cork and Kerry, shipped on board the French vessels, and swiftly borne to Brest and Rochelles. Cargoes of brandy,

"The Tillage Act," 1 Geo. II., c. 10.

claret, and silk came over in payment on the return journey, with an occasional Irish exile to recruit "wild geese" for the brigade, or the Pretender. The Government were powerless to watch such a hopeless and extensive coast line; and equally so to put the law in force upon the land side. For the whole countryside, squires, magistrates, clergy, were in league with the smugglers, on whom depended for an outlet the whole financial wellbeing of the landed interest. When the judges came circuit the grand jury threw out the bills, or the petty jury acquitted the prisoners. One common bond of sympathy, resistance to a code of unjust laws, was cementing together in the south-west Protestants and Roman Catholics; Irish and English; as a common religion had united the Celts and the Anglo-Normans in the days of the Desmonds.