THE COMMERCIAL RESTRAINTS OF IRELAND CONSIDERED.

First Letter.

Dublin, 20th Aug., 1779.

My Lord,

You desire my thoughts on the affairs of Ireland, a subject little considered, and consequently not understood in England. The Lords and Commons of Great Britain have addressed his Majesty to take the distressed and impoverished state of this country into consideration; have called for information and resolved to pursue effectual methods for promoting the common strength, wealth, and commerce of both kingdoms, and his Majesty has been pleased to express in his speech from the throne his entire approbation of their attention to the present state of Ireland.

The occasion calls for the assistance of every friend of the British Empire, and those who can give material information are bound to communicate it. The attempt, however, is full of difficulty; it will require more than ordinary caution to write with such moderation as not to offend the prejudices of one country and with such freedom as not to wound the feelings of the other.

The present state of Ireland teems with every circumstance of national poverty. Whatever the land produces is greatly reduced in its value: wool is fallen one-half in its usual price, wheat one-third, black cattle of all kinds in the same proportion, and hides in a much greater. Buyers are not had without difficulty at those low rates, and from the principal fairs men commonly return with the commodities they brought there; rents are everywhere reduced—in many places it is impossible to collect them;—the farmers are all distressed, and many of them have failed; when leases expire tenants are not easily found; the landlord is often obliged to take his lands into his own hands for want of bidders at reasonable rents, and finds his estate fallen one-fourth in its value. The merchant justly complains that all business is at a stand, that he cannot discount his bills, and that neither money nor paper circulates. In this and the last year above twenty thousand manufacturers in this metropolis were reduced to beggary for want of employment, they were for a considerable length of time supported by alms, a part of the contribution came from England and this assistance was much wanting from the general distress of all ranks of people in this country. Public and private credit are annihilated, Parliament, that always raises money in Ireland on easy terms, when there is any to be borrowed in the country, in 1778, gave £7½ per cent. in annuities, which, in 1773 and 1775, were earnestly sought after at £6, then thought to be a very high rate. The expenses of a country nearly bankrupt must be inconsiderable; almost every branch of the revenue has fallen, and the receipts in the Treasury for the two years ending Lady-day, 1779, were less than those for the two years ending Lady-day, 1777, deducting the sums received on account of loans in each period, in a sum of £334,900 18s. 9½d. There was due on the 25th of March last, on the establishments, and for extraordinary expenses, an arrear amounting to £373,706 13s. 6½d.; a sum of £600,000 will probably be now wanting to supply the deficiencies on the establishments and extraordinary charges of government, and an annual sum of between £50,000 and £60,000 yearly to pay interest and annuities. In the last session £466,000 was borrowed. If the sum wanting could now be raised, the debt would be increased in a sum of above £1,000,000 in less than three years; and if the expenses and the revenues should continue the same as in the last two years, there is a probability of an annual deficiency of £300,000. The nation in the last two years has not been able to pay for its own defence: a militia law passed in the last session could not be carried into execution for want of money. Instead of paying forces abroad,[123] Ireland has not been able in this year to pay the forces kept in the kingdom: it has again relapsed into its ancient state of imbecility, and Great Britain has been lately obliged to send over money to pay the army[124] which defends this impoverished country.

Our distress and poverty are of the utmost notoriety; the proof does not depend solely upon calculation or estimate, it is palpable in every public and private transaction, and is deeply felt among all orders of our people.

This kingdom has been long declining. The annual deficiency of its revenues for the payment of the public expenses has been for many years supplied by borrowing. The American rebellion, which considerably diminished the demand for our linens; an embargo on provisions continued for three years,[125] and highly injurious to our victualling trade; the increasing drain of remittances to England for rents, salaries, profits of offices, pensions and interest, and for the payment of forces abroad, have made the decline more rapid, but have not occasioned it.

If we are determined to investigate the truth we must assign a more radical cause; when the human or political body is unsound or infirm it is in vain to inquire what accidental circumstances appear to have occasioned those maladies which arise from the constitution itself.

If in a period of fourscore years of profound internal peace any country shall appear to have often experienced the extremes of poverty and distress; if at the times of her greatest supposed affluence and prosperity the slightest causes have been sufficient to obstruct her progress, to annihilate her credit, and to spread dejection and dismay among all ranks of her people; and if such a country is blessed with a temperate climate and fruitful soil, abounds with excellent harbours and great rivers, with the necessaries of life and materials of manufacture, and is inhabited by a race of men, brave, active, and intelligent, some permanent cause of such disastrous effects must be sought for.

If your vessel is frequently in danger of foundering in the midst of a calm, if by the smallest addition of sail she is near oversetting, let the gale be ever so steady, you would neither reproach the crew nor accuse the pilot or the master; you would look to the construction of the vessel and see how she had been originally framed and whether any new works had been added to her that retard or endanger her course.

But for such an examination more time and attention are necessary than have been usually bestowed upon this subject in Great Britain, and as I have now the honour to address a person of rank and station in that kingdom on the affairs of Ireland I should be brief in my first audience, or I may happen never to obtain the favour of a second.

I have the honour to be, my Lord, &c.

Second Letter.

Dublin, 23rd August, 1779.

My Lord,

If there is any such permanent cause from which the frequent distresses of so considerable a part of the British Empire have arisen, it is of the utmost consequence that it should be fully explained and generally understood. Let us endeavour to trace it by its effects; these will manifestly appear by an attentive review of the state of Ireland at different periods.

From the time that King James the First had established a regular administration of justice in every part of the kingdom, until the rebellion of 1641, which takes in a period of between thirty and forty years, the growth of Ireland was considerable.[126] In the Act recognising the title of King James, the Lords and Commons acknowledge, “that many blessings and benefits had, within these few years past, been poured upon this realm;”[127] and at the end of the Parliament, in 1615, the Commons return thanks for the extraordinary pains taken for the good of this republic, whereby they say: “We all of us sit under our own vines, and the whole realm reapeth the happy fruits of peace.”[128] In his reign the little that could be given by the people was given with general consent,[129] and received with extraordinary marks of royal favour. He desires the Lord Deputy to return them thanks for their subsidy, and for their granting it with universal consent,[130] and to assure them that he holds his subjects of that kingdom in equal favour with those of his other kingdoms, and that he will be as careful to provide for their prosperous and flourishing state as for his own person.

Davis, who had served him in great stations in this kingdom, and had visited every province of it, mentions the prosperous state of the country, and that the revenue of the Crown, both certain and casual, had been raised to a double proportion. He takes notice how this was effected “by the encouragement given to the maritime towns and cities, as well to increase the trade of merchandize as to cherish mechanical arts;” and mentions the consequence, “that the strings of this Irish harp were all in tune.”[131]

In the succeeding reign, Ireland, for fourteen or fifteen years, appears to have greatly advanced in prosperity. The Commons granted in the session of 1634 six entire subsidies, which they agreed should amount in the collection to £250,000,[132] and the free gifts previously given to King Charles the First at different times amounted to £310,000.[133] In the session of 1639 they gave four entire subsidies, and the clergy eight; the customs, which had been farmed at £500 yearly in the beginning of this reign, were in the progress of it set for £54,000.[134]

The commodities exported were twice as much in value as the foreign merchandize imported, and shipping is said to have increased an hundred-fold.[135] Their Parliament was encouraged to frame laws conducive to the happiness of themselves and their posterities, for the enacting and “consummating” whereof the king passes his royal word, and assures his subjects of Ireland that they were equally of as much respect and dearness to him as any others.[136]

In the Speaker’s speech in 1639, when he was offered for approbation to the Lord Deputy, he mentions the free and happy condition of the people of Ireland, sets forth the particulars, and in enumerating the national blessings, mentions as one “that our in-gates and out-gates do stand open for trade and traffic;”[137] and as the Lord Chancellor declared his Excellency’s “high liking of this oration,” it may be considered as a fair account of the condition of Ireland at that time. When the Commons had afterwards caught the infection of the times, and were little disposed to pay compliments, they acknowledge that this kingdom, when the Earl of Strafford obtained the government, “was in a flourishing, wealthy, and happy estate.”[138]

After the Restoration, from the time that the acts of settlement and explanation had been fully carried into execution to the year 1688, Ireland made great advances, and continued for several years in a most prosperous condition.[139] Lands were everywhere improved; rents were doubled; the kingdom abounded with money; trade flourished to the envy of our neighbours; cities increased exceedingly; many places of the kingdom equalled the improvements of England; the king’s revenue increased proportionably to the advance of the kingdom, which was every day growing, and was well established in plenty and wealth;[140] manufactures were set on foot in divers parts; the meanest inhabitants were at once enriched and civilized; and this kingdom is then represented to be the most improved and improving spot of ground in Europe. I repeat the words of persons of high rank, great character, and superior knowledge, who could not be deceived themselves, and were incapable of deceiving others.

In the former of these periods Parliaments were seldom convened in Ireland; in the latter, they were suspended for the space of twenty-six years; during that time the English ministers frequently showed dispositions unfavourable to the prosperity of this kingdom; and in the interval between those two periods it had been laid waste, and almost depopulated by civil rage and religious fury. And yet, after being blessed with an internal peace of ninety years, and with a succession of five excellent sovereigns, who were most justly the objects of our affection and gratitude, and to whom the people of this country were deservedly dear; after so long and happy an intercourse of protection, grace, and favour from the Crown, and of duty and loyalty from the subjects, it would be difficult to find any subsequent period where so flattering a view has been given of the industry and prosperity of Ireland.

The cause of this prosperity should be mentioned. James, the first Duke of Ormond, whose memory should be ever revered by every friend of Ireland, to heal the wound that this country had received by the prohibition of the export of her cattle to England, obtained from Charles the Second a letter[141] dated the 23rd of March, 1667, by which he directed that all restraints upon the exportation of commodities of the growth or manufacture of Ireland to foreign parts should be taken off, but not to interfere with the plantation laws, or the charters to the trading companies, and that this should be notified to his subjects of this kingdom, which was accordingly done by a proclamation from the Lord Lieutenant and Council; and at the same time, by his Majesty’s permission, they prohibited the importation from Scotland of linen, woollen, and other manufactures and commodities, as drawing large sums of money out of Ireland, and a great hindrance to its manufactures. His Grace successfully executed his schemes of national improvement, having by his own constant attention, the exertion of his extensive influence, and the most princely munificence, greatly advanced the woollen and revived[142] the linen manufactures, which England then encouraged in this kingdom as a compensation for the loss of that trade of which she had deprived it, and this encouragement from that time to the Revolution had greatly increased the wealth and promoted the improvement of Ireland.

The tyranny and persecuting policy of James the Second,[143] after his arrival in Ireland, ruined its trade and revenue; the many great oppressions which the people suffered during the revolution had occasioned almost the utter desolation of the country.[144] But the nation must have been restored in the reign of William to a considerable degree of strength and vigour; their exertions in raising supplies to a great amount, from the year 1692 to the year 1698, are some proof of it. They taxed their goods, their lands, their persons, in support of a prince whom they justly called their deliverer and defender, and of a government on which their own preservation depended. Those sums were granted,[145] not only without murmur, but with the utmost cheerfulness, and without any complaint of the inability, or representation of the distressed state of the country.

The money brought in for the army at the revolution gave life to all business, and much sooner than could have been expected retrieved the affairs of Ireland. This money furnished capitals for carrying on the manufactures of the kingdom. Our exports increased in ’96, ’97, and ’98, and our imports did not rise in proportion, which occasioned a great balance in our favour; and this increase was owing principally to the woollen manufacture. In the last of those years the balance in favour of Ireland in the account of exports and imports was £419,442.[146]

But in the latter end of this reign the political horizon was overcast, the national growth was checked, and the national vigour and industry impaired by the law made in England restraining, in fact prohibiting, the exportation of all woollen manufactures from Ireland. From the time of this prohibition no parliament was held in Ireland until the year 1703. Five years were suffered to pass before any opportunity was given to apply a remedy to the many evils which such a prohibition must necessarily have occasioned. The linen trade was then not thoroughly established in Ireland; the woollen manufacture was the staple trade, and wool the principal material of that kingdom. The consequences of this prohibition appear in the session of 1703.[147] The Commons[148] lay before Queen Anne a most affecting representation, containing, to use their own words, “a true state of our deplorable condition,” protesting that no groundless discontent was the motive for that application, but a deep sense of the evil state of their country, and of the farther mischiefs they have reason to fear will fall upon it if not timely prevented. They set forth the vast decay and loss of its trade, its being almost exhausted of coin, that they are hindered from earning their livelihoods and from maintaining their own manufactures, that their poor have thereby become very numerous; that great numbers of Protestant families have been constrained to remove out of the kingdom, as well into Scotland as into the dominions of foreign princes and states, and that their foreign trade and its returns are under such restrictions and discouragements as to be then become in a manner impracticable, although that kingdom had by its blood and treasure contributed to secure the plantation trade to the people of England.

In a further address to the Queen,[149] laid before the Duke of Ormond, then Lord Lieutenant, by the House, with its Speaker, they mention the distressed condition of that kingdom, and more especially of the industrious Protestants, by the almost total loss of trade and decay of their manufactures, and, to preserve the country from utter ruin, apply for liberty to export their linen manufactures to the plantations.

In a subsequent part of this session[150] the Commons resolve that, by reason of the great decay of trade and discouragement of the manufactures of this kingdom, many poor tradesmen were reduced to extreme want and beggary. This resolution was nem. con., and the Speaker, Mr. Broderick, then his Majesty’s Solicitor-General, and afterwards Lord Chancellor, in his speech at the end of the session[151] informs the Lord Lieutenant, that the representation of the Commons was, as to the matters contained in it, the unanimous voice and consent of a very full house, and that the soft and gentle terms used by the Commons in laying the distressed condition of the kingdom before his Majesty, showed that their complaints proceeded not from querulousness, but from a necessity of seeking redress, He adds: “It is to be hoped they may be allowed such a proportion of trade that they may recover from the great poverty they now lie under;” and in presenting the bill of supply says, the Commons have granted it “in time of extreme poverty.” The impoverished state of Ireland, at that time, appears in the speech from the throne at the conclusion of the session, in which it is mentioned that the Commons could not then provide for what was owing to the civil and military lists.[152]

The supply given for two years, commencing at Michaelmas, 1703,[153] was a sum not exceeding £150,000, which, considering that no Parliament was held in Ireland since the year 1698, is at the rate of £30,000 yearly, commencing in 1699, and ending in the year 1705.

The great distress of Ireland, from the year 1699 to the year 1703, and the cause of that distress, cannot be doubted.

Let it now be considered, whether the same cause has operated since the year 1703. In the year 1704[154] it appears, that the Commons were not able, from the circumstances of the nation at that time, to make provision for repairing the necessary fortifications; or for arms and ammunition for the public safety: and the difficulties which the kingdom then laboured under, and the decay of trade appear by the addresses of the Commons[155] to the Queen, and to the Duke of Ormond, then Lord Lieutenant, who was well acquainted with the state of this country; by the Queen’s answer,[156] and the address of thanks for it.

In the year 1707,[157] the revenue was deficient for payment of the army and defraying the charges of government, and the Commons promise to supply the deficiency “as far as the present circumstances of the nation will allow.”

In 1709, it appears,[158] by the unanimous address of the Commons to the Lord Lieutenant, that the kingdom was in an impoverished and exhausted state: in 1711,[159] they express their approbation of the frugality of the Queen’s administration, by which their expenses were lessened, and by that means the kingdom preserved from taxes, which might have proved too weighty and burdensome. In their address to the Lord Lieutenant at, the close of the session, they request that he should represent to her Majesty, that they had given all the supplies which her Majesty desired, and which they, in their present condition, were able to grant:[160] and yet those supplies amounted, for two years, to a sum not exceeding £167,023 8s. 5d.;[161] though powder magazines, the council chamber, the treasury office, and other offices were then to be built.

From the Short Parliament of 1713, nothing can be collected, but that the House was inflamed and divided by party dissensions, and that the fear of danger to the succession of the present illustrious family, excluded every other consideration from the minds of the majority.

This last period, from the year 1699 to the death of Queen Anne, is marked with the strongest circumstances of national distress and despondency. The representatives of the people, who were the best judges, and several of whom were members of the House of Commons before and after these restraints, have assigned the reason. No other can be assigned.

That the woollen manufactures were the great source of industry in Ireland, appears from the Irish statute of the 17th and 18th of Charles II., ch. 15;[162] from the resolutions of the Commons, in 1695,[163] for regulating those manufactures, the resolutions of the Committee of Supply in that session;[164] and from the preamble to the English statute of the 10th and 11th of William III., ch. 10; in which it is recited, that great quantities of those manufactures were made, and were daily increasing in Ireland, and were exported from thence to foreign markets.

Of the exportation of all those manufactures the Irish were at once totally deprived: the linen manufacture, proposed as a substitute, must have required the attention of many years before it could be thoroughly established. What must have been the consequences to Ireland in the meantime the journals of the Commons in Queen Anne’s reign have informed us. Compare this period with the three former, and you will prove this melancholy truth: that a country will sooner recover from the miseries and devastation occasioned by war, invasion, rebellion, massacre, than from laws restraining the commerce, discouraging the manufactures, fettering the industry, and above all breaking the spirits of the people.

It would be injustice not to acknowledge that Great Britain has, for a long series of years, made great exertions to repair the evils arising from these restraints. She has opened her great markets to part of the linen manufacture of Ireland; she has encouraged it by granting, for a great length of time, large sums of her own money[165] on the exportation of it; and under her protection, and by the persevering industry of our people, this manufacture has attained to a great degree of perfection and prosperity, in some parts of this country. If the kind and constant attention of that great kingdom with which we are connected, to this important object; or if the lenient course of time had at length healed those wounds, which commercial jealousy had given to the trade and industry of this country, it would not be a friendly hand to either kingdom that would attempt to open them: but, if upon every accident they bleed anew, they should be carefully examined, and searched to the bottom. If the cause of the poverty and distress of Ireland in the reign of Queen Anne has since continued to operate, though not always in so great a degree, yet sufficient frequently to reduce to misery, and constantly to check the growth and impair the strength of that kingdom, and to weaken the force and to reduce the resources of Great Britain; that man ought to be considered as a friend to the British Empire who endeavours to establish this important truth, and to explain a subject so little understood. If in this attempt there shall appear no intention to raise jealousies, inflame discontents, or agitate constitutional questions, it is hoped that those letters may be read without prejudice on one side of the water, and without passion or resentment on the other.

I have the honour to be, my Lord, &c.

Third Letter.

Dublin, 25th August, 1779.

My Lord,

To an inquirer after truth, history, since the year 1699 furnishes very imperfect and often partial views of the affairs of Great Britain and Ireland. The latter has no professed historian of its own since that era, and is so slightly mentioned in the histories of the former kingdom, that it seems to be introduced rather to show the accuracy of the accomptant, than as an article to be read and examined; pamphlets are often written to serve occasional purposes, and with an intention to misrepresent; and party writers are not worthy of any regard. We must then endeavour to find some other guide, and look into the best materials for history, by considering the facts as recorded in the journals of Parliament; these have evinced the poverty of Ireland for the first fourteen years of this century. That this poverty continued in the year 1716, appears by the unanimous address of the House of Commons to George the First.[166] This address was to congratulate his Majesty on his success in extinguishing the rebellion, an occasion most joyful to them, and on which no disagreeable circumstance would have been stated, had not truth and the necessities of their country extorted it from them. A small debt of £16,106 11s. 0½d.,[167] due at Michaelmas, 1715, was, by their exertions to strengthen the hands of Government in that year, increased at midsummer, 1717, to a sum of £91,537 17s. 1⅝d.,[168] which was considered as such an augmentation of the national debt, that the Lord Lieutenant, the Duke of Bolton, thought it necessary to take notice in his speech from the throne, that the debt was considerably augmented, and to declare at the same time that his Majesty had ordered reductions in the military, and had thought proper to lessen the civil list.

There cannot be a stronger proof of the want of resources in any country, than that a debt of so small an amount should alarm the persons entrusted with the government of it. That those apprehensions were well founded, will appear from the repeated distresses of Ireland, from time to time, for many years afterwards. In 1721, the speech from the throne,[169] and the addresses to the king and to the Lord Lieutenant, state, in the strongest terms, the great decay of her trade, and the very low and impoverished state to which she was reduced.

That this proceeded, in some measure, from calamities and misfortunes which affected the neighbouring kingdoms, is true: but their effects on Ireland, little interested in the South Sea project, could not be considerable. The poverty under which she laboured arose principally from her own situation. The Lord Lieutenant says there is ground to hope that in this session such remedies may be applied as will restore the nation to a flourishing condition; and the Commons return the king thanks for giving them that opportunity to consider of the best methods for reviving their decayed trade and making them a flourishing and happy people.

But it is a melancholy proof of the desponding state of this kingdom, that no law whatever was then proposed for encouraging trade or manufactures, or to follow the words of the address, for reviving trade, or making us a flourishing people, unless that for amending the laws as to butter and tallow casks deserves to be so called. And why? Because it was well understood by both Houses of Parliament that they had no power to remove those restraints which prohibited trade and discouraged manufactures, and that any application for that purpose would at that time have only offended the people on one side of the channel without bringing any relief to those on the other. The remedy proposed by Government, and partly executed, by directing a commission under the Great Seal for receiving voluntary subscriptions[170] in order to establish a bank, was a scheme to circulate paper without money; and considering that it came so soon after the South Sea Bubble had burst, it is more surprising that it should have been at first applauded,[171] than that it was, in the same session, disliked, censured, and abandoned.[172] The total inefficacy of the remedy proved however the inveteracy of the disease, and furnishes a farther proof of the desperate situation of Ireland, when nothing could be thought of for its relief, but that paper should circulate without money, trade, or manufactures.[173]

In the following session of 1723, it appears that the condition of our manufacturers, and of the lowest classes of our people, must have been distressed, as the Duke of Grafton, in his speech from the throne, particularly recommends to their consideration the finding out of some method for the better employing of the poor;[174] and though the debt of the nation was no more than £66,318 8s. 3¼d.,[175] and was less than in the last session,[176] yet the Commons thought it necessary to present an address to the king, to give such directions as he, in his great goodness, should think proper, to prevent the increase of the debt of the nation. This address was presented[177] by the House, with its Speaker, and passed nem. con., and was occasioned by the distressed state of the country, and by their apprehensions that it might be further exhausted by the project of Wood’s halfpence: it could not be meant as any want of respect to their Lord Lieutenant, as they had not long since returned him thanks for his wise conduct and frugality in not increasing the debt of the nation.[178] This address of the Commons, and the Lord Lieutenant’s recommendation for the better employing the poor, seems to be explained by a petition of the woollen drapers, weavers, and clothiers of the city of Dublin (the principal seat of the woollen manufacture of Ireland) in behalf of themselves and the other drapers, weavers, and clothiers of this kingdom, praying relief in relation to the great decay of trade in the woollen manufacture.[179]

But this address had no effect; the debt of the nation in the ensuing session of 1725, was nearly doubled.[180] In the speeches from the throne, in 1727, Lord Carteret takes notice of our success in the linen trade, and yet observes, in 1729, that the revenue had fallen short, and that thereby a considerable arrear was due to the establishment.

But notwithstanding the success of the linen manufacture,[181] Ireland was in a most miserable condition. The great scarcity of corn had been so universal in this kingdom in the years 1728 and 1729, as to expose thousands of families to the utmost necessities, and even to the danger of famine; many artificers and housekeepers having been obliged to beg for bread in the streets of Dublin. It appeared before the House of Commons that the import of corn for one year and six months, ending the 29th day of September, 1729, amounted in value to the sum of £274,000, an amazing sum compared with the circumstances of the kingdom at that time! and the Commons resolved that public granaries would greatly contribute to the increasing of tillage, and providing against such wants as have frequently befallen the people of this kingdom, and hereafter may befall them, unless proper precautions shall be taken against so great a calamity.

The great scarcity which happened in the years ’28 and ’29, and frequently before and since, is a decisive proof that the distresses of this kingdom have been occasioned by the discouragement of manufactures. If the manufacturers have not sufficient employment, they cannot buy the superfluous produce of the land; the farmers will be discouraged from tilling, and general distress and poverty must ensue. The consequences of the want of employment among manufacturers and labourers must be more fatal in Ireland than in most other countries; of the numbers of her people it has been computed that 1,887,220 live in houses with but one hearth, and may therefore be reasonably presumed to belong for the most part to those classes.

In the year 1731[182] there was a great deficiency in the public revenue, and the national debt had considerably increased. The exhausted kingdom lay under great difficulties by the decay of trade, the scarcity of money, and the universal poverty of the country, which the Speaker represents[183] in very affecting terms, in offering the money bills for the royal assent, and adds, “that the Commons hope, from his Majesty’s goodness, and his Grace’s free and impartial representation of the state and condition of this kingdom, that they may enjoy a share of the blessings of public tranquillity by the increase of their trade, and the encouragement of their manufactures.”

But in the next session, of 1733, they are told in the speech from the throne, what this share was to be. The Lord Lieutenant informs them that the peace cannot fail of contributing to their welfare, by enabling them to improve those branches of trade and manufactures[184] which are properly their own, meaning the trade and manufacture of linen. Whether this idea of property has been preserved inviolate will hereafter appear.

The years ’40 and ’41 were seasons of great scarcity, and in consequence of the want of wholesome provisions great numbers of our people perished miserably, and the speech from the throne recommends it to both Houses to consider of proper measures to prevent the like calamity for the future. The employment of the poor and the encouragement of tillage are the remedies proposed[185] by the Lord Lieutenant and approved of by the Commons, but no laws for those purposes were introduced, and why they were not affords matter for melancholy conjecture. They could not have been insensible of the miseries of their fellow-creatures, many thousands of whom were lost in those years, some from absolute want, and many from disorders occasioned by bad provisions. Why was no attempt made for their relief? Because the Commons knew that the evil was out of their reach, that the poor were not employed because they were discouraged by restrictive laws from working up the materials of their own country, and that agriculture could not be encouraged where the lower classes of the people were not enabled by their industry to purchase the produce of the farmer’s labour.

For above forty years after making those restrictive laws[186] Ireland was always poor and often in great want, distress, and misery,[187] though the linen manufacture had made great progress during that time. In the war before the last, she was not able to give any assistance. The Duke of Devonshire, in the year 1741, takes notice from the throne, that during a war for the protection of the trade of all his Majesty’s dominions there had been no increase of the charge of the establishment; and in the year 1745, the country was so little able to bear expense, that lord Chesterfield discouraged and prevented any augmentation of the army, though much desired by many gentlemen of the House of Commons, from a sense of the great danger that then impended. An influx of money after the peace, and the further success of the linen trade, increased our wealth, and enabled us to reduce by degrees, and afterwards to discharge the national debt. This was not effected until the first of March, 1754.[188] This debt was occasioned principally by the expenses incurred by the rebellion in Great Britain in the year 1715; an unlimited vote of credit was then given.[189] From the lowness of the revenue, and the want of resources, not from any further exertions on the part of the kingdom in point of expense, the debt of £16,106 11s. 0½d., due in 1715, was increased at Lady-day,[190] 1733, to £371,312 12s. 2½d. That Government and the House of Commons should for such a length of time have considered the reduction and discharge of this debt as an object of so great importance, and that nearly forty years should have passed before the constant attention and strictest economy of both could have accomplished that purpose, is a strong proof of the weakness and poverty of this country, during that period.

After the payment of this debt, the wealth and ability of Ireland were greatly overrated, both here and in Great Britain. The consequences of this mistaken opinion were increased expenses on the part of government and of the country, more than it was able to bear. The strict economy of old times was no longer practised. The representatives of the people set the example of profusion and the ministers of the Crown were not backward in following it. A large redundancy of money in the Treasury, gave a delusive appearance of national wealth. At Lady-day, 1755, the sum in credit to the nation was £471,404 5s. 6⅜d.,[191] and the money remaining in the Treasury of the ordinary unappropriated revenue on the 29th day of September, 1755,[192] £457,959 12s. 7⅛d. But this great increase of revenue arose from an increase of imports, particularly in the year 1754, by which the kingdom was greatly over-stocked, and which raised the revenue in that year £208,309 19s. 2¼d. higher than it was in the year 1748, when the revenue first began to rise considerably;[193] and though what a nation spends is one method of estimating its wealth, yet a nation, like an individual, may live beyond its means, and spend on credit which may far exceed its income. This was the fact as to Ireland in the year 1754, for some years before and for many years after; it appeared in an inquiry before the House of Commons in the session of 1755, that many persons had circulated paper to a very great amount, far exceeding not only their own capitals,[194] but that just proportion which the quantity of paper ought to bear to the national specie.[195] This gave credit to many individuals, who without property became merchant importers, and at the same time increased the receipts of the Treasury and lessened the wealth of the kingdom. At the very time that so great a balance was in the Treasury, public credit was in a very low way, and the House of Commons was employed in preparing a law to restore it. In ’54 and ’55 three principal banks[196] failed, and the legislature took up much time in inquiring into their affairs, and in framing laws for the relief of their creditors.[197] Yet in this session, the liberality of the House of Commons was excessive. The redundancy in the Treasury had, in the session of 1753, occasioned a dispute between the Crown and the House of Commons on the question whether the king’s previous consent was necessary for the application of it. They wished to avoid any future contest of that kind, and were flattered to grant the public money from enlarged views of national improvements. The making rivers navigable, the making and improving harbours, and the improvement of husbandry and other useful arts, were objects worthy of the representatives of the people; and had the faithfulness of the execution answered the goodness of the intention in many instances, the public in general might have had no great reason to complain. Many of those grants prove the poverty of the country. There were not private stocks to carry on the projects of individuals, nor funds sufficient for incorporating and supporting companies, nor profits to be had by the undertakings sufficient to reimburse the money necessary to be expended. The Commons therefore advanced the money, for the benefit of the public; and it can never be supposed that they would have continued to do so for above twenty years, if they were not convinced that there were not funds in the hands of individuals sufficient to carry on those useful undertakings, nor trade enough in the kingdom to make adequate returns to the adventurers.

Having gone through more than half the century, it is time to pause. In this long gloomy period, the poverty of Ireland appears to have been misery and desolation, and her wealth a symptom of decline and a prelude to poverty; the low retiring ebb from the spring-tide of deceitful prosperity, has left our shores bare, and has opened a waste and desolate prospect of barren sand, and uncultivated country.

I have the honour to be, my Lord, &c.

Fourth Letter.

Dublin, 27th August, 1779.

My Lord,

The revenue, for the reasons already given, decreased in 1755,[198] fell lower in 1756, and still lower in ’57. In the last year the vaunted prosperity of Ireland was changed into misery and distress; the lower classes of our people wanted food;[199] the money arising from the extravagance of the rich was freely applied to alleviate the sufferings of the poor.[200] One of the first steps of the late Duke of Bedford’s administration—and which reflects honour on his memory—was obtaining a king’s letter, dated 31st March, 1757, for £20,000, to be laid out as his Grace should think the most likely to afford the most speedy and effectual relief to his Majesty’s poor subjects of this kingdom. His Grace, in his speech from the throne, humanely expresses his wish, that some method might be found out to prevent the calamities that are the consequences of a want of corn, which had been in part felt the last year, and to which this country had been too often exposed; the Commons acknowledge that those calamities had been frequently and were too sensibly and fatally experienced in the course of the last year, thank his Grace for his early and charitable attention to the necessities of the poor of this country in their late distresses, and make use of those remarkable expressions,—“that they will most cheerfully embrace[201] every practicable method to promote tillage.”[202] They knew that the encouragement of manufactures were the effectual means, and that these means were not in their power.

The ability of the nation was estimated by the money in the Treasury, and the pensions on the civil establishment, exclusive of French, which at Lady-Day, 1755, were £38,003 15s., amounted at Lady-Day, ’57, to £49,293 15s.[203]

The same ideas were entertained of the resources of this country in the session of 1759. Great Britain had made extraordinary efforts, and engaged in enormous expenses for the protection of the whole empire. This country was in immediate danger of an invasion. Every Irishman was agreed that she should assist Great Britain to the utmost of her ability, but this ability was too highly estimated. The nation abounded rather in loyalty than in wealth.[204] Our brethren in Great Britain, had, however, formed a different opinion, and, surveying their own strength, were incomplete judges of our weakness. A Lord Lieutenant of too much virtue and magnanimity to speak what he did not think, takes notice from the throne, “of the prosperous state of this country, improving daily in its manufactures and commerce.”[205] His Grace had done much to bring it to that state, by obtaining for us some of the best laws[206] in our books of statutes. But this part of the speech was not taken notice of, either in the address to his Majesty or to his Grace, from a House of Commons well disposed to give every mark of duty and respect, and to pay every compliment consistent with truth. The event proved the wisdom of their reserve. The public expenses were greatly increased, the pensions on the civil establishment exclusive of French, at Lady-Day, 1759, amounted to £55,497 5s.;[207] there was, at the same time a great augmentation of military expense.[208] Six new regiments and a troop were raised in a very short space of time. An unanimous and unlimited address of confidence to his Grace,[209] a specific vote of credit for £150,000,[210] which was afterwards provided for in the Loan Bill[211] of that session, a second vote of credit in the same session for £300,000,[212] the raising the rate of interest paid by Government, one per cent., and the payment out of the Treasury[213] in little more than one year of £703,957 3s. 1½d.,[214] were the consequences of those increased expenses. The effects of these exertions were immediately and severely felt by the kingdom. These loans could not be supplied by a poor country, without draining the bankers of their cash; three of the principal houses,[215] among them stopped payment; the three remaining banks in Dublin discounted no paper, and, in fact, did no business. Public and private credit, that had been drooping since the year 1754, had now fallen prostrate. At a general meeting of the merchants of Dublin, in April, 1860, with several members of the House of Commons, the inability of the former to carry on business was universally acknowledged, not from the want of capital, but from the stoppage of all paper circulation, and the refusal of the remaining bankers to discount the bills even of the first houses. The merchants and traders of Dublin, in their petition[216] to the House of Commons, represent “the low state to which public and private credit had been of late reduced in this kingdom, and particularly in this city, of which the successive failures of so many banks, and of private traders in different parts of this kingdom, in so short a time as since October last, were incontestable proofs. The petitioners, sensible that the necessary consequences of these misfortunes must be the loss of foreign trade, the diminution of his Majesty’s revenue, and what is still more fatal, the decay of the manufactures of this kingdom, have in vain repeatedly attempted to support the sinking credit of the nation by associations and otherwise; and are satisfied that no resource is now left but what may be expected from the wisdom of parliament, to avert the calamities with which this kingdom is at present threatened.”

The committee, to whom it was referred, resolve[217] that they had proved the several matters alleged in their petition; that the quantity of paper circulating was not near sufficient for supporting the trade and manufactures of this kingdom; and that the house should engage, to the first of May, ’62, for each of the then subsisting banks in Dublin, to the amount of £50,000 for each bank; and that an address should be presented to the Lord Lieutenant, to thank his Grace for having given directions that bankers’ notes should be received as cash from the several subscribers to the loan, and that he would be pleased to give directions that their notes should be taken as cash in all payments at the Treasury, and by the several collectors for the city and county of Dublin. The house agreed to those resolutions and to that for giving credit to the banks, nem. con.

The speech from the throne takes notice of the care the House of Commons had taken for establishing public credit, which the Lord Lieutenant says he flatters himself will answer the end proposed, and effect that circulation so necessary for carrying on the commerce of the country.[218]

Those facts are not stated as any imputation on the then chief governor: the vigour of his mind incited him to make the Crown as useful as possible to the subject, and the subject to the Crown. He succeeded in both, but in the latter part of the experiment, the weakness of the country was shown. The great law which we owe to his interposition, I speak of that which gives a bounty on the land carriage of corn and flour to Dublin,[219] has saved this country from utter destruction; this law, which reflects the highest honour on the author and promoter, is still a proof of the poverty of that country where such a law is necessary. Its true principle is to bring the market of Dublin to the door of the farmer, and that was done in the year ending the 25th of March, 1777, at the expense of £61,789 18s. 6d., to the public; a large but a most useful and necessary expenditure.[220] The adoption of this principle proves, what we in this country know to be a certain truth, that there is no other market in Ireland on which the farmer can rely for the certain sale of his corn and flour; a decisive circumstance to show the wretched state of the manufactures of this kingdom.

In the beginning of the next parliament the rupture with Spain occasioned a new augmentation of military expense. The ever loyal Commons return an address of thanks to the message mentioning the addition of five new battalions[221] and unanimously promise to provide for them; and with the same unanimity pass a vote of credit for £200,000.[222] The amount of pensions on the civil establishment, exclusive of French, had for one year ending the 25th of March, 1761, amounted to £64,127 5s.,[223] and our manufacturers were then distressed by the expense and havoc of a burdensome war.[224]

In the year 1762 a national evil made its appearance, which all the exertions of the Government and of the legislature have not since been able to eradicate; I mean the risings of the White Boys. They appear in those parts of the kingdom where manufactures are not established, and are a proof of the poverty and want of employment of the lower classes of our people. Lord Northumberland mentions, in his speech from the throne[225] in 1763, that the means of industry would be the remedy; from whence it seems to follow that the want of those means must be the cause. To attain this great end the Commons promise their attention to the Protestant charter schools and linen manufacture.[226] The wretched men who were guilty of those violations of the law, were too mature for the first, and totally ignorant of the second; but long established usage had given those words a privilege in speeches and addresses to stand for everything that related to the improvement of Ireland.

The state of pensions remained nearly the same[227] by the peace the military expenses were considerably reduced; of the military establishment to be provided for in the session 1763, compared with the military establishment as it stood on the 31st of March, 1763, the net decrease was £119,037 0s. 10d. per annum; but as a peace establishment it was high, and compared with that of the 31st of March, 1756[228] being the year preceding the last war, the annual increase was £110,422 9s. 5¼d. The debt of the nation at Lady Day, 1763, and which was entirely incurred in the last war, was £521,161 16s. 6⅞d.,[229] and would have been much greater if the several Lord Lieutenants had not used with great economy the power of borrowing, which the House of Commons had from session to session given them.

That this debt should have been contracted in an expensive war, in which Ireland was called upon for the first time to contribute, is not to be wondered at, but the continual increase of this debt, in sixteen years of peace, should be accounted for.

The same mistaken estimate of the ability of Ireland that occasioned our being called upon to bear part of the British burden during the war, produced similar effects at the time of the peace, and after it. The heavy peace establishment was increased by an augmentation of our army in 1769, which induced an additional charge, taking in the expenses of exchange and remittance of £54,118 12s. 6d. yearly, for the first year; but this charge was afterwards considerably increased, and amounted, from the year 1769 to Christmas, 1778, when it was discontinued, to the sum of £620,824 0s. 9¼d., and this increased expense was more felt, because it was for the purpose of paying forces out of this kingdom.

As our expenses increased our income diminished; the revenue for the two years, ending the 25th of March, 1771,[230] was far short of former years, and not nearly sufficient to pay the charges of Government, and the sums payable for bounties and public works.[231] The debt of the nation at Lady-Day, 1771, was increased to £782,320 0s. 0¼d.[232] The want of income was endeavoured to be supplied by a loan. In the money bill of the October Session, 1771, there was a clause empowering Government to borrow £200,000. Immediately after the linen trade declined rapidly; in 1772, 1773, and 1774, the decay in that trade was general in every part of the kingdom where it was established; the quantity manufactured was not above two-thirds of what used formerly to be made, and that quantity did not sell for above three-fourths of its former price. The linen and linen yarn exported for one year, ending the 25th of March, 1773,[233] fell short of the exports of one year, ending the 25th of March, 1771, to the amount in value of £788,821 1s. 3d. At Lady-day, 1773,[234] the debt increased to £994,890 10s. 10⅛d. The attempt in the Session of 1773,[235] to equalise the annual income and expenses failed, and borrowing on tontine in the Sessions of 1773, 1775, and 1777, added greatly to the annual expense, and to the sums of money remitted out of the kingdom. The debt now bearing interest amounts to the sum of £1,017,600, besides a sum of £740,000 raised on annuities, which amount to £48,900 yearly, with some incidental expenses. The great increase of those national burdens, likely to take place in the approaching Session, has been already mentioned.

The debt of Ireland has arisen from the following causes: the expenses of the late war, the heavy peace establishment in the year 1763, the increase of that establishment in the year 1769, the sums paid from 1759 to forces out of the kingdom, the great increase of pensions and other additional charges on the civil establishment, which, however considerable, bears but a small proportion to the increased military expenses, the falling of the revenue, and the sums paid for bounties and public works; these are mentioned last, because it is apprehended that they have not operated to increase this debt in so great a degree as some persons have imagined; for, though the amount is large, yet no part of the money was sent out of the kingdom, and several of the grants were for useful purposes, some of which made returns to the public and to the Treasury exceeding the amount of those grants.

When those facts are considered, no doubt can be entertained but that the supposed wealth of Ireland has led to real poverty; and when it is known, that from the year 1751 to Christmas, 1778, the sums remitted by Ireland to pay troops serving abroad, amounted to the sum of £1,401,925 19s. 4d., it will be equally clear from whence this poverty has principally arisen.

In those seasons of expense and borrowing the lower classes were equally subject to poverty and distress, as in the period of national economy. In 1762, Lord Halifax, in his speech from the throne,[236] acknowledges that our manufactures were distressed by the war. In 1763, the corporation of weavers, by a petition to the House of Commons, complain that, notwithstanding the great increase both in number and wealth of the inhabitants of the metropolis, they found a very great decay of several branches of trade and manufactures[237] of this city, particularly in the silken and woollen.

In 1765 there was a scarcity caused by the failure of potatoes in general throughout the kingdom, which distressed the common people; the spring corn had also failed, and grain was so high, that it was thought necessary to appoint a committee[238] to inquire what may be the best method to reduce it; and to prevent a great dearth, two acts were passed early in that session, to stop the distillery, and to prevent the exportation of corn, for a limited time. In Spring, 1766, those fears appear to have been well-founded; several towns were in great distress for corn; and by the humanity of the Lord Lieutenant, Lord Hertford, money was issued out of the Treasury to buy corn for such places as applied to his lordship for that relief.

The years 1770 and 1771 were seasons of great distress in Ireland, and in the month of February, in the latter year, the high price of corn is mentioned from the throne[239] as an object of the first importance, which demanded the utmost attention.

In 1778 and 1779 there was great plenty of corn, but the manufacturers were not able to buy, and many thousands of them were supported by charity; the consequence was that corn fell to so low a price that the farmers in many places were unable to pay their rents, and everywhere were under great difficulties.

That the linen manufacture has been of the utmost consequence to this country, that it has greatly prospered, that it has been long encouraged by the protection of Great Britain, that whatever wealth Ireland is possessed of arises, for the most part, from that trade, is freely acknowledged; but in far the greatest part of the kingdom it has not yet been established, and many attempts to introduce it have, after long perseverance and great expense, proved fruitless.

Though that manufacture made great advances from 1727 to 1758,[240] yet the tillage of this kingdom declined during the whole of that period, and we have not since been free from scarcity.

Notwithstanding the success of that manufacture, the bulk of our people have always continued poor, and in a great many seasons have wanted food. Can the history of any other fruitful country on the globe, enjoying peace for fourscore years, and not visited by plague or pestilence, produce so many recorded instances of the poverty and wretchedness, and of the reiterated want and misery of the lower orders of the people? There is no such example in ancient or modern story. If the ineffectual endeavours by the representatives of those poor people to give them employment and food, had not left sufficient memorials of their wretchedness; if their habitations, apparel, and food, were not sufficient proofs, I should appeal to the human countenance for my voucher, and rest the evidence on that hopeless despondency that hangs on the brow of unemployed industry.

That, since the success of the linen manufacture, the money and the rents of Ireland have been greatly increased, is acknowledged; but it is affirmed, and the fact is of notoriety, that the lower orders, not of that trade, are not less wretched. Those employed in the favourite manufacture generally buy from that country to which they principally sell; and the rise in lands is a misfortune to the poor, where their wages do not rise proportionably, which will not happen where manufactures and agriculture are not sufficiently encouraged. Give premiums by land or by water, arrange your exports and imports in what manner you will; if you discourage the people from working up the principal materials of their country, the bulk of that people must ever continue miserable, the growth of the nation will be checked, and the sinews of the State enfeebled.

I have stated a tedious detail of instances, to show that the sufferings of the lower classes of our people have continued the same (with an exception only of those employed in the linen trade) since the time of Queen Anne, as they were during her reign; that the cause remains the same, namely, that our manufacturers have not sufficient employment, and cannot afford to buy from the farmer, and that therefore manufactures and agriculture must both be prejudiced.

After revolving those repeated instances, and almost continued chain of distress, for such a series of years, among the inhabitants of a temperate climate, surrounded by the bounties of Providence and the means of abundance, and being unable to discover any accidental or natural causes for those evils, we are led to inquire whether they have arisen from the mistaken policy of man.

I have the honour to be, my Lord, &c.

Fifth Letter.

Dublin, 30th Aug., 1779.

My Lord,

Every man of discernment, who attends to the facts which have been stated, would conclude, that there must be some political institutions in this country counteracting the natural course of things, and obstructing the prosperity of the people. Those institutions should be considered, that as from the effects the cause has been traced, this also should be examined, to show that such consequences are necessarily deducible from it. For several years the exportation of live cattle to England[241] was the principal trade of Ireland. This was thought, most erroneously,[242] as has since been acknowledged,[243] to lower the rents of lands in England. From this, and perhaps from some less worthy motive[244] a law passed in England,[245] to restrain and afterwards to prohibit the exportation of cattle from Ireland. The Irish, deprived of their principal trade, and reduced to the utmost distress by this prohibition, had no resource but to work up their own commodities, to which they applied themselves with great ardour.[246] After this prohibition they increased their number of sheep, and at the Revolution were possessed of very numerous flocks. They had good reasons to think that this object of industry was not only left open, but recommended to them. The ineffectual attempt by Lord Strafford, in 1639, to prevent the making of broadcloths in Ireland,[247] the relinquishment of that scheme by never afterwards reviving it, the encouragement given to their woollen manufactures by many English Acts of Parliament from the reign of Edward III.[248] to the 12th of Charles II., and several of them for the express purpose of exportation; the letter of Charles II., in 1667, with the advice of his Privy Council in England, and the proclamation in pursuance of that letter, encouraging the exportation of their manufactures to foreign countries; by the Irish statutes of the 13th Henry VIII. ch. 2; 28th Henry VIII. ch. 17; of the 11th Elizabeth, ch. 10, and 17th and 18th Charles II., ch. 15 (all of which, the Act of 28th Henry VIII. excepted, received the approbation of the Privy Council of England, having been returned under the Great Seal of that kingdom) afforded as strong grounds of assurance as any country could possess for the continuance of any trade or manufacture.

Great numbers of their flocks had been destroyed at the time of the Revolution, but they were replaced, at great expense, and became more numerous and flourishing than before. The woollen manufacture was cultivated in Ireland for ages before, and for several years after the Revolution, without any appearance of jealousy from England, the attempt by Lord Strafford excepted. No discouragement is intimated in any speech from the throne until the year 1698; Lord Sydney’s, in 1692, imparts the contrary. “Their Majesties,” says he,[249] “being in their own royal judgments satisfied that a country so fertile by nature, and so advantageously situated for trade and navigation, can want nothing but the blessing of peace, and the help of some good laws to make it as rich and flourishing as most of its neighbours; I am ordered to assure you that nothing shall be wanting on their parts that may contribute to your perfect and lasting happiness.”

Several laws had been made[250] in England to prevent the exportation of wool, yarn made of wool, fuller’s earth, or any kind of scouring earth or fulling clay from England or Ireland, into any places out of the kingdoms of England or Ireland. But those laws were equally restrictive on both kingdoms.

In the first year[251] of William and Mary certain ports were mentioned in Ireland, from which only wool should be shipped from that kingdom, and certain ports in England into which only it should be imported; and a register was directed to be kept in the Custom House of London of all the wool from time to time imported from Ireland. By a subsequent Act in this reign,[252] passed in 1696, the Commissioners or Farmers of the Customs in Ireland are directed, once in every six months, to transmit to the Commissioners of Customs in England, an account of all wool exported from Ireland to England, and this last Act, in its title, professes the intention of encouraging the importation of wool from Ireland. The prohibition of exporting the materials from either kingdom, except to the other, and the encouragement to export it from Ireland to England, mentioned in the title of the last-mentioned Act, but for which no provision seems to be made, unless the designation of particular ports may be so called, was the system that then seemed to be settled, for preventing the wool of Ireland from being prejudicial to England; but the prevention of the exportation of the manufacture was an idea that seemed never to have been entertained until the year 1697, when a bill for that purpose was brought into the English House of Commons,[253] and passed that house; but after great consideration was not passed by the Lords in that parliament.[254] There does not appear to have been any increase at that time in the woollen manufacture of Ireland sufficient to have raised any jealousy in England.

By a report from the Commissioners of Trade in that kingdom, dated on the 23rd of December, 1697, and laid before the House of Commons, in 1698, they find that the woollen manufacture in Ireland had increased since the year 1665, as follows:

Years. New draperies. Pieces. Old draperies. Pieces. Frieze. Yards.

1665 224 32 444,381

1687 11,360 103 1,129,716

1696 4,413 34¾ 104,167

The bill for restraining the exportation of woollen manufactures from Ireland was brought into the English House of Commons on the 23rd of February, 1697, but the law did not pass until the year 1699, in the first session of the new parliament. I have not been able to obtain an account of the exportation of woollen manufactures for the year 1697,[255] but from the 25th of December, 1697, to the 25th of December, 1698, being the first year in which the exports in books extant are registered in the Custom House at Dublin, the amount appears to be of

New draperies. Pieces. Old draperies. Pieces. Frieze. Yards.

23,285½ 281½ 666,901

though this increase of export shows that the trade was advancing in Ireland, yet the total amount or the comparative increase since 1687 could scarcely “sink the value of lands and tend to the ruin of the trade and woollen manufactures of England.”[256]

The apprehensions of England seem rather to have arisen from the fears of future, than from the experience of any past rivalship in this trade. I have more than once heard Lord Bowes, the late chancellor of this kingdom, mention a conversation that he had with Sir Robert Walpole on this subject, who assured him that the jealousies entertained in England of the woollen trade in Ireland, and the restraints of that trade had at first taken their rise from the boasts of some of our countrymen in London, of the great success of that manufacture here. Whatever was the cause, both houses of parliament in England addressed King William, in very strong terms, on this subject; but on considering those addresses they seem to be founded, not on the state at that time of that manufacture here, but the probability of its further increase. As those proceedings are of great importance to two of the principal manufactures of this country, it is thought necessary to state them particularly. The lords represent, “that the growing manufacture of cloth in Ireland[257] both by the cheapness of all sorts of necessaries for life, and goodness of materials for making all manner of cloth, doth invite your subjects of England, with their families and servants, to leave their habitations to settle there, to the increase of the woollen manufacture in Ireland, which makes your loyal subjects in this kingdom very apprehensive that the further growth of it may greatly prejudice the said manufacture here; by which the trade of the nation and the value of lands will very much decrease, and the numbers of your people be much lessened here.” They then beseech his majesty “in the most public and effectual way, that may be, to declare to all your subjects of Ireland, that the growth and increase of the woollen manufacture hath long, and will ever be looked upon with jealousy by all your subjects of this kingdom; and if not timely remedied, may occasion very strict laws, totally to prohibit and suppress the same; and, on the other hand, if they turn their industry and skill to the settling and improving the linen manufacture, for which generally the lands of that kingdom are very proper, they shall receive all countenance, favour, and protection from your royal influence, for the encouragement and promoting of the said linen manufacture, to all the advantage and profit that kingdom can be capable of.”

King William in his answer says, “His Majesty will take care to do what their lordships have desired;” and the lords direct that the Lord Chancellor should order that the address and answer be forthwith printed and published.[258]

In the address of the Commons[259] they say, that “being sensible that the wealth and peace of this kingdom do, in a great measure, depend on preserving the woollen manufacture, as much as possible, entire to this realm, they think it becomes them, like their ancestors, to be jealous of the establishment and increase thereof elsewhere; and to use their utmost endeavours to prevent it, and therefore, they cannot without trouble observe, that Ireland, dependent on, and protected by England in the enjoyment of all they have, and which is so proper for the linen manufacture, the establishment and growth of which there would be so enriching to themselves, and so profitable to England, should of late apply itself to the woollen manufacture, to the great prejudice of the trade of this kingdom, and so unwillingly promote the linen trade, which would benefit both them and us.

“The consequence whereof will necessitate your parliament of England to interpose, to prevent the mischief that threatens us, unless your Majesty, by your authority and great wisdom, shall find means to secure the trade of England by making your subjects of Ireland to pursue the joint interest of both kingdoms.

“And we do most humbly implore your Majesty’s protection and favour in this matter; and that you will make it your royal care, and enjoin all those you employ in Ireland, to make it their care, and use their utmost diligence, to hinder the exportation of wool from Ireland, except to be imported hither, and for the discouraging the woollen manufactures, and encouraging the linen manufactures in Ireland, to which we shall be always ready to give our utmost assistance.”

This address was presented to his Majesty by the house: The answer is explicit: “I shall do all that in me lies to discourage the woollen trade in Ireland, and encourage the linen manufacture there; and to promote the trade of England.”

He soon after wrote a letter[260] to Lord Galway, then one of the lord’s justices of this kingdom, in which he tells him, “that it was never of such importance to have at present a good session of parliament, not only in regard to my affairs of that kingdom, but especially of this here. The chief thing that must be tried to be prevented is, that the Irish parliament takes no notice of what has passed in this here,[261] and that you make effectual laws for the linen manufacture, and discourage as far as possible the woollen.” It would be unjust to infer from any of those proceedings that this great prince wanted affection for this country. They were times of party. He was often under the necessity of complying against his own opinion and wishes, and about this time was obliged to send away his favourite guards, in compliance with the desire of the Commons.

The houses of parliament in England originally intended, that the business should be done in the parliament of Ireland by the exertion of that great and just influence which King William had acquired in that kingdom. On the first day of the following session[262] the lords justices, in their speech, mention a bill transmitted for the encouragement of the linen and hempen manufactures, which they recommend in the following words: “The settlement of this manufacture will contribute much to people the country, and will be found much more advantageous to this kingdom than the woollen manufacture, which being the settled staple trade of England, from whence all foreign markets are supplied, can never be encouraged here for that purpose; whereas the linen and hempen manufactures will not only be encouraged as consistent with the trade of England, but will render the trade of this kingdom both useful and necessary to England.”

The Commons in their address[263] promise their hearty endeavours to establish a linen and hempen manufacture in Ireland, and say that they hoped to find such a temperament in respect to the woollen trade here, that the same may not be injurious to England. They referred the consideration of that subject to the committee of supply, who resolved that an additional duty be laid on old and new drapery of the manufacture of this kingdom,[264] that shall be exported, friezes excepted; to which the House agreed.[265] But there were petitions presented against this duty, and relative to the quantity of it, and the committee appointed to consider of this duty were not it seems so expeditious in their proceedings as the impatience of the times required.[266]

On the 2nd of October the lords justices made a quickening speech to both houses, taking notice, that the progress which they expected was not made, in the business of the session, and use those remarkable words: “The matters we recommended to you are so necessary, and the prosperity of this kingdom depends so much on the good success of this session, that since we know his Majesty’s affairs cannot permit your sitting very long, we thought the greatest mark we could give of our kindness and concern for you, was to come hither, and desire you to hasten the despatch of the matters under your consideration; in which we are the more earnest, because we must be sensible, that if the present opportunity his majesty’s affection to you hath put into your hands be lost, it seems hardly to be recovered.[267]

On the 2nd of January, 1698, O. S. the House resolved that the report from the committee of the whole House, appointed to consider of a duty to be laid on the woollen manufactures of this kingdom, should be made on the next day, and nothing to intervene. But on that day a message was delivered from the lords justices in the following words: “We have received his majesty’s commands[268] to send unto you a bill, entitled an act for laying an additional duty upon woollen manufactures exported out of this kingdom; the passing of which in this session his majesty recommended to you, as what may be of great advantage for the preservation of the trade of this kingdom.”

The bill which accompanied this message was presented, and a question for receiving it was carried in the affirmative, by 74 against 34. This bill must have been transmitted from the Council of Ireland. Whilst the Commons were proceeding with the utmost temper and moderation, were exerting great firmness in restraining all attempts to inflame the minds of the people,[269] and were deliberating on the most important subject that could arise, it was taken out of their hands; but the bill passed, though not without opposition,[270] and received the royal assent on the 29th day of January, 1698.

By this act an additional duty was imposed of 4s. for every 20s. in value of broadcloth exported out of Ireland, and 2s. on every 20s. in value of new drapery, friezes only excepted, from the 25th of March, 1699, to the 25th of March, 1702;[271] the only woollen manufacture excepted was one of which Ireland had been in possession before the reign of Edward III., and in which she had been always distinguished.[272] This law has every appearance of having been framed on the part of the Administration.[273]

But it did not satisfy the English parliament, where a perpetual law was made, prohibiting, from the 20th of June, 1699,[274] the exportation from Ireland of all goods made or mixed with wool, except to England and Wales, and with the licence of the Commissioners of the Revenue; duties[275] had been before aid on the importation into England equal to a prohibition, therefore this Act has operated as a total prohibition of the exportation.

Before these laws the Irish were under great disadvantages in the woollen trade, by not being allowed to export their woollen manufactures to the English colonies,[276] or to import dye stuffs directly from thence; and the English in this respect, and in having those exclusive markets, possessed considerable advantages.

Let it now be considered what are the usual means taken to promote the prosperity of any country in respect of trade and manufactures? She is encouraged to work up her own materials, to export her manufactures to other nations, to import from them the material for manufacture, and to export none of her own that she is able to work up; not to buy what she is capable of selling to others, and to promote the carrying trade and ship-building. If these are the most obvious means by which a nation may advance in strength and riches, institutions counteracting those means must necessarily tend to reduce it to weakness and poverty; and, therefore, the advocates for the continuance of those institutions will find it difficult to satisfy the world that such a system of policy is either reasonable or just.

The cheapness of labour, the excellence of materials, and the success of the manufacture in the excluded country,[277] may appear to an unprejudiced man to be rather reasons for the encouragement than for the prohibition. But the preamble of the English Act of the 10th and 11th of William III. affirms, that the exportation from Ireland and the English plantations in America to foreign markets, heretofore supplied from England, would inevitably sink the value of lands, and tend to the ruin of the trade and manufactures of that realm. I shall only consider this assertion as relative to Ireland. A fact upon which the happiness of a great and ancient kingdom, and of millions of people depends, ought to have been supported by the most incontestable evidence, and should never be suffered to rest in speculation, or to be taken from the mere suggestion or distant apprehension of commercial jealousy. Those fears for the future were not founded on any experience of the past. From what market had the woollen manufactures of Ireland ever excluded England? What part of her trade, and which of her manufactures had been ruined; and where did any of her lands fall by the woollen exports of Ireland? Were any of those facts attempted to be proved at the time of the prohibition? The amount of the Irish export proves it to have been impossible that those facts could have then existed. The consequences mentioned as likely to arise to England from the supposed increase of those manufactures in Ireland, had no other foundation but the apprehensions of rivalship among trading people, who, in excluding their fellow-citizens, have opened the gates for the admission of the enemy.

Whether those apprehensions are now well-founded, should be carefully considered. Justice, sound policy, and the general good of the British Empire require it. The arguments in support of those restraints are principally these:—That labour is cheaper, and taxes lower, in Ireland than in England, and that the former would be able to undersell the latter in all foreign markets.

Spinning is now certainly cheaper in Ireland, because the persons employed in it live on food[278] with which the English would not be content; but the wages of spinners would soon rise if the trade was opened. At the loom, I am informed, that the same quantity of work is done cheaper in England than in Ireland; and we have the misfortune of daily experience to convince us that the English, notwithstanding the supposed advantages of the Irish in this trade, undersell them at their own markets in every branch of the woollen manufacture. A decisive proof that they cannot undersell the English in foreign markets.

With the increase of manufactures, agriculture, and commerce in Ireland, the demand for labour, and consequently its price, would increase.[279] That price would be soon higher in Ireland than in England. It is not in the richest countries, but in those that are growing rich the fastest, that the wages of labour are highest,[280] though the price of provisions is much lower in the latter; this, before the present rebellion, was in both respects the case of England and North America. Any difference in the price of labour is more than balanced by the difference in the price of material, which has been for many years past higher in Ireland than in England, and would become more valuable if the export of the manufacture was allowed. The English have also great advantages in this trade from their habits of diligence, superior skill, and large capital. From these circumstances, though the Scotch have full liberty to export their woollen manufactures, the English work up their wool,[281] and the Scotch make only some kind of coarse cloths for the lower classes of their people; and this is said to be for want of a capital to manufacture it at home.[282] If the woollen trade was now open to Ireland, it would be for the most part carried on by English capitals, and by merchants resident there. Nearly one-half of the stock which carried on the foreign trade of Ireland in 1672, inconsiderable as it then was, belonged to those who lived out of Ireland.[283] The greater part of the exportation and coasting trade of British America was carried on by the capitals of merchants who resided in Great Britain; even many of the stores and warehouses from which goods were retailed in some of their principal provinces, particularly in Virginia and Maryland, belonged to merchants who resided in Great Britain, and the retail trade was carried on by those who were not resident in the country.[284] It is said that in ancient Egypt, China, and Indostan, the greater part of their exportation trade was carried on by foreigners.[285] The same thing happened formerly in Ireland, where the whole commerce of the country was carried on by the Dutch;[286] and at present, in the victualling trade of Ireland, the Irish are but factors to the English. This is not without example in Great Britain, where there are many little manufacturing towns, the inhabitants of which have not capitals sufficient to transport the produce of their own industry to those distant markets where there is demand and consumption for it, and their merchants are properly only the agents of wealthier merchants, who reside in some of the great commercial cities.[287] The Irish are deficient in all kinds of stock, they have not sufficient for the cultivation of their lands, and are deficient in the stocks of master manufacturers, wholesale merchants, and even of retailers.

Of what Ireland gains, it is computed that one-third centres in Great Britain.[288] Of our woollen manufacture the greatest part of the profit would go directly there. But the manufacturers of Ireland would be employed, would be enabled to buy from the farmers the superfluous produce of their labour, the people would become industrious, their numbers would greatly increase, the British State would be strengthened, though probably, this country would not for many years find any great influx of wealth; it would be, however, more equally distributed, from which the people and the Government would derive many important advantages.

Whatever wealth might be gained by Ireland would be, in every respect, an accession to Great Britain. Not only a considerable part of it would flow to the seat of government, and of final judicature, and to the centre of commerce; but when Ireland should be able she would be found willing, as in justice she ought to be, to bear her part of those expenses which Great Britain may hereafter incur, in her efforts for the protection of the whole British empire. If Ireland cheerfully and spontaneously, but when she was ill able, contributed, particularly in the years 1759, 1761, 1769, and continued to do so in the midst of distress and poverty, without murmur, to the end of the year 1778, when Great Britain thought proper to relieve her from a burden which she was no longer able to bear, no doubt can be entertained of her contributing, in a much greater proportion, when the means of acquiring shall be open to her.

I form this opinion, not only from the proofs which the experience of many years, and in many signal instances has given, but the nature of the Irish Constitution, which requires that the laws of Ireland should be certified under the Great Seal of England, and the superintending protection of Great Britain, necessary to the existence of Ireland, would make it her interest to cultivate, at all times, a good understanding with her sister kingdom.

The lowness of taxes in Ireland seems to fall within the objection arising from the cheapness of labour. But the disproportion between the taxes of the two kingdoms is much overrated in Great Britain. Hearth-money in Ireland amounts to about £59,000 yearly, the sums raised by Grand Juries are said to exceed the annual sum of £140,000, and the duties on beef, butter, pork, and tallow exported, at a medium from 1772 to 1778, amount to £26,577 11s. yearly. These are payable out of lands, or their immediate produce, and may well be considered as a land-tax. These, with the many other taxes payable in Ireland, compared either with the annual amount of the sums which the inhabitants can earn or expend, with the rental of the lands, the amount of the circulating specie, of personal property, or of the trade of Ireland, it is apprehended would appear not to be inferior in proportion to the taxes of England compared with any of those objects in that country.[289] The sums remitted to absentees[290] are worse than so much paid in taxes, because a large proportion of these is usually expended in the country. If this reasoning is admitted, it will require no calculation to show that Ireland pays more taxes in proportion to its small income than England does in proportion to its great one.

Of excisable commodities, the consumption by each manufacturer is not so considerable as to make the great difference commonly imagined in the price of labour. It is an acknowledged fact that Ireland pays in excises as much as she is able to bear, and that her inability to bear more arises from those very restraints. But supposing the disproportion to be as great as is erroneously imagined in Great Britain, it will not conclude in favour of the prohibition. The land-tax is nearly four times as high in some counties of England as in others, and provisions are much cheaper in some parts of that kingdom than in others, and yet they have all sufficient employment, and go to market upon equal terms. But a monopoly and not an equal market was plainly the object in 1698; it was not to prevent the Irish from underselling at foreign markets, but to prevent their selling there at all. The consequences to the excluded country have been mentioned. England has also been a great sufferer by this mistaken policy.

Mr. Dobbs, who wrote in 1729,[291] affirms that by this law of 1699, our woollen manufacturers were forced away into France, Germany, and Spain; that they had in many branches so much improved the woollen manufacture of France, as not only to supply themselves, but to vie with the English in foreign markets, and that by their correspondence, they had laid the foundation for the running of wool thither both from England and Ireland. He says that those nations were then so improved, as in a great measure to supply themselves with many sorts they formerly had from England, and since that time have deprived Britain of millions, instead of thousands that Ireland might have made.

It is now acknowledged that the French undersell the English; and as far as they are supplied with Irish wool, the loss to the British empire is double what it would be, if the Irish exported their goods manufactured. This is mentioned by Sir Matthew Decker[292] as the cause of the decline of the English, and the increase of the French woollen manufactures; and he asserts that the Irish can recover that trade out of their hands. England, since the passing of this law, has got much less of our wool than before.[293] In 1698, the export of our wool to England amounted to 377,520¾ stone; at a medium of eight years, to Lady-day, 1728, it was only 227,049 stone, which is 148,000 stone less than in 1698, and was a loss of more than half a million yearly to England. In the last ten years the quantity exported has been so greatly reduced, that in one of these years[294] it amounted only to 1007 st. 11 lb., and in the last year did not exceed 1665 st. 12 lb.[295] The price of wool under an absolute prohibition, is £50 or £60 per cent. under the market price of Europe, which will always defeat the prohibition.[296]

The impracticability of preventing the pernicious practice of running wool is now well understood. Of the thirty-two counties in Ireland nineteen are maritime, and the rest are washed by a number of fine rivers that empty themselves into the sea. Can such an extent of ocean, such a range of coasts, such a multitude of harbours, bays, and creeks, be effectually guarded?

The prohibition of the export of live cattle forced the Irish into the re-establishment of their woollen manufacture; and the restraint of the woollen manufacture was a strong temptation to the running of wool. The severest penalties were enacted, the British legislature, the Government, and House of Commons in Ireland, exerted all possible efforts to remove this growing evil, but in vain, until the law was made in Great Britain[297] in 1739 to take off the duties from woollen or bay yarn exported from Ireland, excepting worsted yarn of two or more threads, which has certainly given a considerable check to the running of wool, and has shown that the policy of opening is far more efficacious than that of restraining. The world is become a great commercial society; exclude trade from one channel, and it seldom fails to find another.

To show the absolute necessity of Great Britain’s opening to Ireland some new means of acquiring, let the annual balance of exports and imports returned from the entries in the different custom houses, in favour of Ireland, on all her trade with the whole world, in every year from 1768 to 1778, be compared with the remittances made from Ireland to England in each of those years, it will evidently appear that those remittances could not be made out of that balance. The entries of exports made at custom houses are well known to exceed the real amount of those exports in all countries, and this excess is greater in times of diffidence, when merchants wish to acquire credit by giving themselves the appearance of being great traders.

This balance in favour of Ireland on her general trade, appears by those returns to have been, in 1776, £606,190 11s. 0¼d.; in 1777, £24,203 3s. 10¼d.; in 1778, £386,384 3s. 7d.; and, taken at a medium of eleven years, from 1768 to 1778, both inclusive, it amounts to the sum of £605,083 7s. 5d. The sums remitted from Ireland to Great Britain for rents, interest of money, pensions, salaries, and profits of offices, amounted, at the lowest computation, from 1768 to 1773, to £1,100,000 yearly;[298] and from 1773, when the tontines were introduced, from which period large sums were borrowed from England, those remittances were considerably increased, and are now not less than between 12 and £13,000 yearly. Ireland then pays to Great Britain double the sum that she collects from the whole world in all the trade which Great Britain allows her. It will be difficult to find a similar instance in the history of mankind.

Those great and constant issues of her wealth without any return, not felt by any other country in such a degree, are reasons for granting advantages to Ireland to supply this consuming waste, instead of depriving her of any which Nature has bestowed.

If any of the resources which have hitherto enabled her to hear this prodigious drain are injurious to the manufactures both of England and Ireland, and highly advantageous to the rivals and enemies of both, is it wise in Great Britain by persevering in an inpracticable system of commercial policy, repugnant to the natural course and order of things, to suffer so very considerable a part of the empire to remain in such a situation?

The experiment of an equal and reasonable system of commerce is worth making; that which has been found the best conductor in philosophy is the surest guide in commerce.

Would you consult persons employed in the trade? They have in one respect an interest opposite to that of the public. To narrow the competition is advantageous to the dealers,[299] but prejudicial to the public. If Edward I. had not preferred the general welfare of his subjects to the interested opinions and petitions of the traders, all merchant traders (who were then mostly strangers) would have been sent away from London,[300] for which purpose the Commons offered him the fiftieth part of their movables.[301]

What was the information given by the trading towns in 1697 and 1698 on the subject of the woollen manufacture of Ireland? Several of their[302] petitions state that the woollen manufacture was set-up in Ireland, as if it had been lately introduced there; and one of them goes so far as to represent the particular time and manner of introducing it. “Many of the poor of that kingdom,” says this extraordinary petition, “during the late rebellion there, fled into the west of England, where they were put to work in the woollen manufacture to learn that trade; and since the reduction of Ireland endeavours were used to set up those manufactures there.[303]

Would any man suppose that this could relate to a manufacture in which this kingdom excelled before the time of Edward III., which had been the subject of so many laws in both kingdoms, and which was always cultivated here, and before this rebellion with more success than after it? The trading towns gave accounts totally inconsistent of the state of this manufacture at that time in England: from Exeter it is represented as greatly decayed and discouraged[304] in those parts, and diminished in England. But a petition from Leeds represents this manufacture as having very much increased[305] since the revolution in all its several branches, to the general interest of England; and yet, in two days after the clothiers from three towns in Gloucestershire assert that the trade has decayed, and that the poor are almost starved.[306] The Commissioners of Trade differ in opinion from them and by their report it appears that the woollen manufacture was then very much increased and improved.[307] The traders have sometimes mistaken their own interests on those subjects. In 1698 a petition for prohibiting the importation from Ireland of all worsted and woollen yarn, represents that the poor of England are ready to perish by this importation;[308] and in 1739 several petitions were preferred against taking off the duties[309] from worsted and bay yarn exported from Ireland to England. But this has been done in the manner before mentioned, and is now acknowledged to be highly useful to England. Trading people have ever aimed at exclusive privileges. Of this there are two extraordinary instances: in the year 1698 two petitions were preferred from Folkstone and Aldborough, stating a singular grievance that they suffered from Ireland, “by the Irish catching herrings at Waterford and Wexford,[310] and sending them to the Streights, and thereby forestalling and ruining petitioners’ markets;” but these petitioners had the hard lot of having motions in their favour rejected.