“The effect of a measure of this kind, levelled at the principal article of the commerce of the nation, was necessarily most disastrous.  The profound modification which it introduced into the course of Irish industry was sufficiently shown by the estimate of Sir W. Petty, who declares that before the statute three-fourths of the trade of Ireland was with England, but not one-fourth of it since that time.  In the very year when this Bill was passed another measure was taken not less fatal to the interest of the country.  In the first Navigation Act, Ireland was placed on the same terms as England; but in the Act as amended in 1663 she was omitted, and was thus deprived of the whole Colonial trade.  With the exception of a very few specified articles no European merchandise could be imported into the British Colonies except directly from England, in ships built in England, and manned chiefly by English sailors.  No articles, with a few exceptions, could be brought from the Colonies to Europe without being first unladen in England.  In 1670 this exclusion of Ireland was confirmed, and in 1696 it was rendered more stringent, for it was enacted that no goods of any sort could be imported directly from the Colonies to Ireland.  It will be remembered that at this time the chief British Colonies were those of America, and that Ireland, by her geographical position, was naturally of all countries most fitted for the American trade.

“As far, then, as the Colonial trade was concerned, Ireland at this time gained nothing whatever by her connection with England.  To other countries, however, her ports were still open, and in time of peace a foreign commerce was unrestricted.  When forbidden to export their cattle to England, the Irish turned their land chiefly into sheep-walks, and proceeded energetically to manufacture the wool.  Some faint traces of this manufacture may be detected from an early period, and Lord Strafford, when governing Ireland, had mentioned it with a characteristic comment.  Speaking of the Irish he says, ’There was little or no manufactures amongst them, but some small beginnings towards a cloth trade, which I had and so should still discourage all I could, unless otherwise directed by His Majesty and their Lordships.  It might be feared that they would beat us out of the trade itself by underselling us, which they were able to do.’  With the exception, however, of an abortive effort by this governor, the Irish wool manufacture was in no degree impeded, and was indeed mentioned with special favour in many Acts of Parliament; and it was in a great degree on the faith of this long-continued legislative sanction that it was so greatly expanded.  The poverty of Ireland, the low state of civilization of a large proportion of its inhabitants, the effects of the civil wars which had so recently convulsed it, and the exclusion of its products from the English Colonies, were doubtless great obstacles to manufacturing enterprise; but, on the other hand, Irish wool was