e exported; under
which, had England acquiesced, I am persuaded it would have been better
for the kingdom in general. But the false notion of a possible monopoly,
made the English deaf to all other terms of accommodation; by which
means they lost the horse rather than quit the stable' ('Memoirs of
Wool,' vol. ii., p. 30). The duties imposed by the Irish parliament, at
this time, upon the export of manufactured wool, was four shillings on
the value of twenty shillings of the old drapery, and two shillings upon
the like value of the new, except friezes. But this concurrence of the
people of Ireland seemed rather to heighten the jealousy between the two
nations, by making the people of England imagine the manufactures of
Ireland were arrived at a dangerous pitch of improvement, since they
could be supposed capable of bearing so extravagant a duty: accordingly,
in the next following year, the English parliament passed an Act (10-11
William III: cap. 10), that no person should export from Ireland wool or
woollen goods, except to England or Wales, under high penalties, such
goods to be shipped only from certain ports in Ireland, and to certain
ports in England: But this was not the whole grievance; the old duties
upon the import of those commodities, whether raw or manufactured, into
Great Britain, were left in the same state as before, which amounted
nearly to a prohibition; thus did the English, although they had not
themselves any occasion for those commodities, prohibit, nevertheless,
their being sent to any other nation.

"The discouragement of the woollen manufacture of Ireland, affected
particularly the English settlers there, for the linen was entirely in
the hands of the Scotch, who were established in Ulster, and the Irish
natives had no share in either. It is stated in a pamphlet, entitled, 'A
Discourse concerning Ireland, etc. in answer to the Exon and Barnstaple
petitions,' printed 1697-8, that there were then, in the city and
suburbs of Dublin, 12,000 English families, and throughout the nation,
50,000, who were bred to trades connected with the manufacture of wool,
'who could no more get their bread in the linen manufacture, than a
London taylor by shoe-making.'

"Mr. Walter Scott says ('Life of Swift,' p. 278) that the Irish woollen
manufacture produced an annual million, but this is not the fact; Mr.
Dobbs in his 'Essay on the Trade of Ireland,' informs us, from the
custom-house books, that in the year 1697