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ded in a very considerable degree to the English colony in Ireland. After the Reformation there was not much danger of a union between the Catholic Celt and the Protestant Norman. Still another jealousy remained--a commercial jealousy. The colonization of Ireland meant, in the English mind, the complete extirpation of the natives, and the peopling of this island by the adventurers and their descendants; but it is a strange fact, that even had this actually happened, we can, from what we know of the history of the period, assert with truth, that still their commercial prosperity and progress would be watched, and checked, and legislated against, whenever they would even seem to clash, or when there was a possibility of their clashing, with the commercial supremacy of Great Britain. Not to go into all the commercial restraints imposed on Irish manufactures by the English Parliament, let us take what, perhaps, was the most important one--that imposed on the woollen manufacture. For a long period this branch of industry had flourished in Ireland. We not only manufactured what we required for ourselves, but our exports of woollens were very considerable. This manufacture existed in England also, and the Englishmen engaged in it were determined to have the foreign markets to themselves. After many previous efforts, they at length induced both Houses of the English Parliament to address William the Third on what they were pleased to consider a grievance--the grievance of having foreign markets open to Irish woollens equally with their own. To those addresses the King replied that he would do all in his power to "discourage" the woollen trade in Ireland, to encourage the linen trade, and _to promote the trade of England_.[41] Accordingly, a duty equal to a prohibition was imposed upon the exportation of Irish woollens, except, indeed, to England and Wales, where they were not required--England at the time manufacturing more woollens than were necessary for her home consumption. About forty thousand people in Ireland were thrown out of bread by this law, nearly every one of whom were Protestants; for that trade was almost entirely in their hands, so that neither Palesman nor Protestant was spared when their interests seemed opposed to those of England. William's declaration on this occasion about encouraging the linen manufacture in Ireland was regarded as a compact, yet it was violated at a later period by the imposition of duti
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