ous at first, were at last offset by the
discovery that sheep might be made a greater source of profit at home,
than when shipped to England. There was an increasing demand in Europe
for Irish wool, and skilled manufacturers of woollen goods from abroad
had come and started factories, thus giving employment to thousands of
people.

When it was realized in England that a profitable Irish industry had
actually been established, there was a panic. The traders demanded
legislative protection from Irish competition, which came in this form.
In 1699 an Act was passed prohibiting the export of Irish woollen
goods, not alone to England, but to all other countries. The factories
were closed. The manufacturers left the country, never to return, and
a whole population was thrown out of employment. A tide of emigration
then commenced which has never ceased; such as could, fleeing from the
inevitable famine which in a land always {229} so perilously near
starvation must surely come.

There was no market now for the wool which the factories would have
consumed. At home it brought 5d. a pound, but in France a half crown!
The long, deeply indented coast-line was well adapted for smuggling.
French vessels were hovering about, waiting an opportunity to get it;
the people were hungry, and might be hungrier, for there was a famine
in the land! Is it strange that they were converted into law-breakers,
and that wool was packed in caves all along the coast; and that a vast
contraband trade carried on by stealth, took the place of a legitimate
one which was made impossible?

So it became apparent that any efforts to establish profitable
enterprises in Ireland would be put down with a strong hand. The
colonists who had been placed there by England felt bitterly at finding
themselves thus involved in the pre-determined ruin of the country with
which they had identified their own fortunes. Their love of the
parent-country waned, some even turning to and adopting the persecuted
creed. The voice of {230} the native people, utterly stifled, was
never heard in Parliament, and struggles which occurred there were
between Protestants and Protestants; between those who did, and those
who did not, uphold the policy of the Government. Such was the
condition which remained practically unchanged until the middle of the
eighteenth century; a small discontented upper class, chiefly aliens;
below them the peasantry, the mass of the people, whose b