The corporation of weavers in the woollen manufacture, who have so often
attended your Grace, and called upon me with their schemes and proposals,
were with me on Thursday last; when he who spoke for the rest, and in the
name of his absent brethren, said, "It was the opinion of the whole body,
that if somewhat was written at this time, by an able hand, to persuade
the people of this kingdom to wear their own woollen manufactures, it
might be of good use to the nation in general, and preserve many hundreds
of their trade from starving."
To which I answered, "That it was hard for any man of common spirit to
turn his thoughts to such speculations, without discovering a resentment,
which people are too delicate to bear." For I will not deny to your Grace,
that I cannot reflect on the singular condition of this country,
different from all others upon the face of the earth, without some
emotion; and without often examining, as I pass the streets, whether those
animals which come in my way, with two legs and human faces, clad and
erect, be of the same species with what I have seen very like them in
England as to the outward shape, but differing in their notions, natures,
and intellectuals, more than any two kinds of brutes in the forest; which
any man of common prudence would immediately discover, by persuading them
to define what they meant by law, liberty, property, courage, reason,
loyalty, or religion.
One thing, my lord, I am very confident of; that if God Almighty, for our
sins, would most justly send us a pestilence, whoever should dare to
discover his grief in public for such a visitation, would certainly be
censured for disaffection to the government; for I solemnly profess that I
do not know one calamity we have undergone these many years, which any
man, whose opinions were not in fashion, dared to lament, without being
openly charged with that imputation. And this is the harder, because
although a mother, when she has corrected her child, may sometimes force
it to kiss the rod, yet she will never give that power to the footboy or
the scullion.
My lord, there are two things for the people of this kingdom to consider;
first, their present evil condition; and secondly, what can be done in
some degree to remedy it.... I am weary of so many abortive projects for
the advancement of trade; of so many crude proposals, in letters sent me
from unknown hands; of so many contradictory speculations, about raising
or sinking the value of gold and silver. I am not in the least sorry to
hear of the great numbers going to America, although very much for the
causes that drive them from us, since the uncontrolled maxim, "That people
are the riches of a nation," is no maxim here under our circumstances. We
have neither manufactures to employ them about, nor food to support them.
If a private gentleman's income be sunk irretrievably for ever, from a
hundred pounds to fifty, and he has no other method to supply the
deficiency; I desire to know, my lord, whether such a person has any other
course to take, than to sink half his expenses in every article of
economy, to save himself from ruin and a gaol.
Is not this more than doubly the case of Ireland, where the want of money,
the irretrievable ruin of trade, with the other evils above-mentioned, and
many more too well known and felt, and too numerous or invidious to be
related, have been gradually sinking us, for above a dozen years past, to
a degree, that we are at least by two-thirds in a worse condition than was
ever known since the Revolution? Therefore, instead of dreams and projects
for the advancing of trade, we have nothing left but to find out some
expedient, whereby we may reduce our expenses to our incomes.
Yet this procedure, allowed so necessary in all private families, and in
its own nature so easy to put in practice, may meet with strong opposition
by the cowardly slavish indulgence of the men, to the intolerable pride,
arrogance, vanity, and luxury of the women; who, strictly adhering to the
rules of modern education, seem to employ their whole stock of invention
in contriving new arts of profusion, faster than the most parsimonious
husband can afford: and, to compass this work the more effectually, their
universal maxim is, to despise and detest everything of the growth of
their own country, and most to value whatever comes from the very remotest
parts of the globe. And I am convinced that if the virtuosi could once
find out a world in the moon, with a passage to it, our women would wear
nothing but what directly came from thence. The prime cost of wine yearly
imported to Ireland is valued at thirty thousand pounds; and the tea
(including coffee and chocolate) at five times that sum. The laces,
silks, calicoes, and all other unnecessary ornaments for women, including
English cloths and stuffs, added to the former articles, make up (to
compute grossly) about four hundred thousand pounds. Now if we should
allow the thirty thousand pounds, wherein the women have their share, and
which is all we have to comfort us, and deduct seventy thousand pounds
more for over-reaching, there would still remain three hundred thousand
pounds, annually spent, for unwholesome drugs and unnecessary finery;
which prodigious sum would be wholly saved, and many thousands of our
miserable shopkeepers and manufacturers comfortably supported.
Let speculative people bury their brains as they please, there is no other
way to prevent this kingdom from sinking for ever, than by utterly
renouncing all foreign dress and luxury.
It is absolutely so in fact, that every husband of any fortune in the
kingdom, is nourishing a poisonous, devouring serpent in his bosom, with
all the mischief, but with none of its wisdom.
If all the women were clad with the growth of their own country, they
might still vie with each other in the course of foppery; and still have
room left to vie with each other and equally show their wit and judgment,
in deciding upon the variety of Irish stuffs. And if they could be
contented with their native wholesome slops for breakfast, we should hear
no more of the spleen, hysterics, colics, palpitations, and asthmas. They
might still be allowed to ruin each other and their husbands at play,
because the money lost would circulate among ourselves.
My lord, I freely own it a wild imagination, that any words will cure the
sottishness of men, or the vanity of women; but the kingdom is in a fair
way of producing the most effectual remedy, when there will not be money
left for the common course of buying and selling the very necessaries of
life in our markets, unless we absolutely change the whole method of our
proceedings.
The corporation of weavers in woollen and silk, who have so frequently
offered proposals both to your Grace and to me, are the hottest and
coldest generation of men that I have known. About a month ago, they
attended your Grace, when I had the honour to be with you; and designed me
the same favour. They desired you would recommend to your clergy to wear
gowns of Irish stuffs which might probably spread the example among all
their brethren in the kingdom; and perhaps among the lawyers and gentlemen
of the university, and among the citizens of those corporations who appear
in gowns on solemn occasions. I then mentioned a kind of stuff, not above
eightpence a yard, which I heard had been contrived by some of the trade,
and was very convenient. I desired they would prepare some of that, or any
sort of black stuff, on a certain day, when your Grace would appoint as
many clergymen as could readily be found to meet at your palace; and there
give their opinions; and that your Grace's visitation approaching, you
could then have the best opportunity of seeing what could be done in a
matter of such consequence, as they seemed to think, to the woollen
manufacture. But instead of attending, as was expected, they came to me a
fortnight after with a new proposal, that something should be written by
an acceptable and able hand, to promote in general the wearing of home
manufactures; and their civilities would fix that work upon me.
I asked if they had prepared the stuffs, as they had promised, and your
Grace expected; but they had not made the least step in the matter, nor,
as it appears, thought of it more.
I did, some years ago, propose to the masters and principal dealers in the
home-manufactures of silk and wool, that they should meet together; and,
after mature consideration, publish advertisements to the following
purpose:--
"That in order to encourage the wearing of Irish manufactures in silk and
woollen, they gave notice to the nobility and gentry of the kingdom, that
they, the undersigned, would enter into bonds, for themselves and for each
other, to sell the several sorts of stuffs, cloths, and silks, made to the
best perfection they were able, for certain fixed prices; and in such a
manner, that if a child were sent to any of their shops, the buyer might
be secure of the value and goodness and measure of the ware; and, lest
this might be thought to look like a monopoly, any other member of the
trade might be admitted, upon such conditions as should be agreed on. And
if any person whatsoever should complain that he was ill-used, in the
value and goodness of what he bought, the matter should be examined, the
persons injured be fully satisfied by the whole corporation without delay,
and the dishonest seller be struck out of the society, unless it appeared
evidently that the failure proceeded only from mistake."
The mortal danger is, that if these dealers could prevail, by the goodness
and cheapness of their cloths and stuffs, to give a turn to the principal
people of Ireland in favour of their goods; they would relapse into the
knavish practice, peculiar to this kingdom, which is apt to run through
all trades, even so low as a common ale-seller; who, as soon as he gets a
vogue for his liquor, and outsells his neighbours, thinks his credit will
put off the worst he can buy till his customers will come no more. Thus,
I have known at London, in a general mourning, the drapers dye black all
their damaged goods, and sell them at double rates; then complain, and
petition the Court, that they are ready to starve by the continuance of
the mourning.
Therefore, I say, those principal weavers who would enter into such a
compact as I have mentioned, must give sufficient security against all
such practices; for if once the women can persuade their husbands that
foreign goods, besides the finery, will be as cheap, and do more service,
our last state will be worse than the first.
I do not here pretend to digest perfectly the method by which these
principal shopkeepers shall proceed, in such a proposal; but my meaning is
clear enough, and cannot be reasonably objected against.
We have seen what a destructive loss the kingdom received by the
detestable fraud of the merchants, or northern linen weavers, or both;
notwithstanding all the cares of the governor of that board, when we had
an offer of commerce with the Spaniards for our linens to the value, as I
am told, of thirty thousand pounds a year. But, while we deal like
pedlars, we shall practise like pedlars, and sacrifice all honesty to the
present urging advantage.
What I have said may serve as an answer to the desire made me by the
corporation of weavers, that I would offer my notions to the public. As to
anything farther, let them apply themselves to the Parliament in their
next session. Let them prevail on the House of Commons to grant one very
reasonable request; and I shall think there is still some spirit left in
the nation, when I read a vote to this purpose: "Resolved, _nemine
contradicente_, That this House will, for the future, wear no clothes but
such as are made of Irish growth, or of Irish manufacture, nor will permit
their wives or children to wear any other; and that they will, to the
utmost, endeavour to prevail with their friends, relations, dependents,
and tenants, to follow their example." And if, at the same time, they
could banish tea and coffee, and china-ware, out of their families, and
force their wives to chat their scandal over an infusion of sage, or other
wholesome domestic vegetables, we might possibly be able to subsist, and
pay our absentees, pensioners, generals, civil officers, appeals,
colliers, temporary travellers, students, school boys, splenetic visitors
of Bath, Tunbridge, and Epsom, with all other smaller drains, by sending
our crude, unwrought goods to England, and receiving from thence, and all
other countries, nothing but what is fully manufactured, and keep a few
potatoes and oatmeal for our own subsistence.
I have been for a dozen years past wisely prognosticating the present
condition of this kingdom; which any human creature of common sense could
foretell, with as little sagacity as myself. My meaning is, that a
consumptive body must needs die, which has spent all its spirits, and
received no nourishment. Yet I am often tempted to pity, when I hear the
poor farmer and cottager lamenting the hardness of the times, and imputing
them either to one or two ill seasons, which better climates than ours are
more exposed to; or to scarcity of silver, which, to a nation of liberty,
would only be a slight and temporary inconvenience, to be removed at a
month's warning.