illions of fleeces may justly be deducted
for the difference between the quantity of wool taken from the sheep that
are killed, which we call fell wool, and the fleece wool shorn.

Upon the foot of this calculation, there are a hundred thousand packs of
wool produced in Ireland every year, which we ought to take off, and
which, for want of our taking it off, is carried away to France, where it
is wholly employed to mimick our manufactures and abuse our trade;
lessening thereby the demand of our own goods abroad, and even in France
itself. This, therefore, is a just reproach to our nation, and they are
certainly guilty of a great neglect in not taking off that wool, and more
effectually preventing it being carried away to France.

It must be confessed, that unless we do find some way to take off this
wool from the Irish, we cannot so reasonably blame them for selling it to
the French, or to anybody else that will buy, for what else can they do
with it, seeing you shut up all their ports against the manufacturers; at
least you shut them up as far as you are able; and if you will neither let
them manufacture it, for not letting them transport the manufacture when
made is in effect forbidding to make them; I say, if you will neither let
them manufacture their wool nor take it off their hands, what must they do
with it?

But I come next to the grand objection; namely, that we cannot take it
off, that we do take off as much as we can use, and a very great quantity
it is too; that we are not able to take more, that is to say, we know not
what to do with it if we take it; that we cannot manufacture it, or if we
do, we cannot sell the goods; and so, according to the known rule in
trade, that what cannot be done with profit or without loss, we may say of
it that it cannot be done; so in the sense of trade, we cannot take their
wool off, and if they must run it over to France, they must, we cannot
help it.

This, I say, is a very great mistake; and I do affirm, that as we ought to
take off the whole quantity of the Irish wool, so we may and are able to
do it. That our manufacture is capable of being so increased, and the
consumption of it increased also, as well at home as abroad; that it would
in the ordinary course of trade call for all the wool of Ireland, if it
were much more than it is, and employ it profitably; besides employing
many thousands of poor people more than are now employed, and who indeed
want employment.

U