It will be observed that this list contains only the natural produce of the country; and had any attempt been made to introduce or encourage manufactures, some mention would have been made of them.  The silver and gold mines of the country are alluded to further on, and the writer very sensibly observes, that if “we [the English] had the peace and good-will of the wild Irish, the metal might be worked to our advantage.”  In the sixteenth century the Irish sent raw and tanned hides, furs, and woollens to Antwerp,[522] taking in exchange sugar, spices, and mercery.  The trade with France and Spain for wines was very considerable; fish was the commodity exchanged for this luxury; and even in 1553, Philip II. of Spain paid[523] L1,000 yearly—­a large sum for that period—­to obtain liberty for his subjects to fish upon the north coast of Ireland.  Stafford, in speaking of the capture of Dunboy Castle, says that O’Sullivan made L500 a-year by the duties which were paid to him by foreign fishermen, “although the duties they paid were very little."[524]

Stanihurst has described a fair in Dublin, and another in Waterford, where he says the wares were “dog-cheap.”  These fairs continued for six days, and merchants came to them from Flanders and France, as well as from England.  He gives the Waterford people the palm for commerce, declares they are “addicted to thieving,” that they distil the best aqua vitae, and spin the choicest rugs in Ireland.  A friend of his, who took a fancy to one of these “choice rugs,” being “demurrant in London, and the weather, by reason of a hard hoar frost, being somewhat nipping, repaired to Paris Garden, clad in one of the Waterford rugs.  The mastiffs had no sooner espied him, but deeming he had been a bear, would fain have baited him; and were it not that the dogs were partly muzzled and partly chained, he doubted not he should have been well tugged in this Irish rug.”

After the plantation of Ulster, Irish commerce was allowed to flourish for a while; the revenue of the crown doubled; and statesmen should have been convinced that an unselfish policy was the best for both countries.  But there will always be persons whose private interests clash with the public good, and who have influence enough to secure their own advantage at the expense of the multitude.  Curiously enough, the temporary prosperity of Ireland was made a reason for forbidding the exports which had produced it.  A declaration was issued by the English Government in 1637, which expressly states this, and places every possible bar to its continuance.  The Cromwellian settlement, however, acted more effectually than any amount of prohibitions or Acts of Parliament, and trade was entirely ruined by it for a time.  When it again revived, and live cattle began to be exported in quantities to England, the exportation was strictly forbidden.  The Duke of Ormonde, who possessed immense tracts of land in Ireland, presented a petition, with his own