Now if these large sheep yield fleeces of four
pounds and a half of wool, we may be supposed to allow the Irish sheep,
take them one with another, to yield three pounds of wool to a fleece, or
to a sheep, out of which must be deducted the fell wool, most of which is
of a shorter growth, and therefore cannot be reckoned so much by at least
a pound to a sheep. Begin then to account for the wool, and we may make
some calculation from thence of the number of sheep.

1. If of the Romney marsh fleeces, weighing four pounds and a half each,
fifty-six fleeces make one pack of wool; then seventy fleeces Irish wool,
weighing three pounds each fleece, make a pack.

2. If we import from Ireland one hundred thousand packs of wool, as well
in the fleece as in the yarn, then we import the wool of seven millions of
sheep fed in Ireland every year.

Come we next to the gross quantity of wool; as the Irish make all their
own manufactures, that is to say, all the woollen manufactures, needful
for their own use, such as for wearing apparel, house furniture, &c., we
cannot suppose but that they use much more than the quantity exported to
England, besides that, it is too well known, that notwithstanding the
prohibition of exportation, they do daily ship off great quantities of
woollen goods, not only to the West Indies, but also to France, to Spain,
and Italy; and we have had frequent complaints of our merchants from
Lisbon and Oporto, of the great quantity of Irish woollen manufactures
that are brought thither, as well broadcloth as serges, druggets, duroys,
frieze, long-ells, and all the other sorts of goods which are usually
exported from England; add these clandestine exportations to the necessary
clothing, furniture, and equipages, of that whole nation, in which are
reckoned two millions and a half of people, and we cannot suppose they
make use of less than two hundred thousand packs of wool yearly among
themselves, which is the wool of fourteen millions of sheep more.

We must, then, allow all the rest of the wool to be run or smuggled, call
it what you please, to France, which must be at least a hundred to a
hundred and twenty thousand packs more: for it seems the Irish tell us
that they feed thirty millions of sheep in the whole kingdom of Ireland.

If, then, they run over to France a hundred thousand packs of wool yearly,
which I take to be the least, all this amounts to twenty-eight millions of
fleeces together; the other two m