(which immediately preceded
the year in which the address above-mentioned was transmitted to the
king) the total value of Irish woollen exports, of all sorts, was only
_L23,614 9s. 6d._, and in 1687, when they were at the highest, they
did not exceed _L70,521 14s. 0d._ It moreover appears, that the
greater part of these exports were of a sort which did not interfere
with the trade of England, _L56,415 16s. 0d._ was in friezes, and
_L2,520 18s. 0d._ coarse stockings, the rest consisted in serges and
other stuffs of the new drapery, which affected not the trade of England
generally, but only the particular interests of Exeter and its
neighbourhood, and a very few other inconsiderable towns.

"But, whatever injury was intended, little prejudice was done to
Ireland, except what followed immediately after the passing of this Act.
It appears from Mr. Dobbs's pamphlet, that, a few years after, four
times the quantity of woollen goods were shipped in each year,
clandestinely, than had ever been exported, legally, before: moreover,
the Irish vastly increased their manufactures for home consumption, and
learned to make fine cloth from Spanish wool: it was only to England
itself that any disadvantage redounded; many manufacturers who were
unsettled by this measure, passed over to Germany, Spain, and to Rouen
and other parts of France, 'from these beginnings they have, in many
branches, so much improved the woollen manufactures of France, as to vie
with the English in foreign markets.--Upon the whole, those nations may
be justly said to have deprived Britain of millions since that time,
instead of the thousands Ireland might possibly have made.'--What Mr.
Dobbs has here asserted, relative to the removal of the manufacturers,
has been confirmed by another tract, 'Letter from a Clothier a Member of
Parliament,' printed in 1731, which informs us that, for some years
after, the English seemed to engross all the woollen trade, 'but this
appearance of benefit abated, as the foreign factories, raised on the
ruin of the Irish, acquired strength': he shows too, that the
importation of unmanufactured wool from Ireland to England had been
gradually decreasing since that time, which was probably on account of
the increase of the illicit trade to foreign parts, towards the
encouragement of which the duties, or legal transportation, served to
act as a bounty of 36 per cent. 'So true it is, that England can never
fall into measures for unreasonab