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