previously enacted in England from the fifteenth year of the reign of
Charles II., relative to the colonies, it appears that this restrictive
law originated in a system of colonisation. The principle of that system
was that the colonies should send their materials to England and take from
thence her manufactures, and that the making those manufactures in the
colonies should be prohibited or discouraged. But was it reasonable to
extend this principle to Ireland? The climate, growth, and productions of
the colonies were different from those of the parent country. England had
no sugar-canes, coffee, dying stuff, and little tobacco. She took all
those from her colonies only, and it was thought reasonable that they
should take from her only the manufactures which she made. But in Ireland
the climate, soil, growth, and productions are the same as in England,
who could give no such equivalent to Ireland as she gave to America, and
was so far from considering her when this system first prevailed, as a
proper subject for such regulations, that she was allowed the benefits
arising from those colonies equally with England, until the fifteenth year
of the reign of King Charles II.[348] By an Act passed in that year,
Ireland had no longer the privilege of sending any of her exports, except
servants, horses, victuals, and salt, to any of the colonies; the reasons
are assigned in the preamble "to make this kingdom a staple, not only of
the commodities of those plantations, but also of the commodities of other
countries and places for the supplying of them, and it being the usage of
other nations to keep their plantation trade to themselves."[349] At the
time of passing this law, though less liberal ideas in respect of Ireland
were then entertained, it went no further than not to extend to her the
benefits of those colony regulations; but it was not then thought that
this kingdom was a proper subject for any such regulations. The scheme of
substituting there, instead of the woollen, the linen trade, was not at
that time thought of. The English were desirous to establish it among
themselves, and by an Act of Parliament,[350] made in that year for
encouraging the manufacture of linen, granted to all foreigners who shall
set up in England the privileges of natural born subjects.
But it appears by the English Statute of the 7th and 8th of William
III.,[351] which has been before stated, that this scheme had not
succeeded in England, and from this act it is manifest that England
considered itself as well as Ireland interested to encourage the linen
manufacture there; and it does not then appear to have been thought just
that Ireland should purchase this benefit for both, by giving up the
exportation of any other manufacture. But in 1698 a different principle
prevailed, in effect the same, so far as relates to the woollen
manufacture, with that which had prevailed as to the commerce of the
colonies. This is evident from the preamble of the English law,[352] made
in 1699, "for as much as wool and woollen manufactures of cloth, serge,
bays, kersies, and other stuffs, made or mixed with wool, are the greatest
and most profitable commodities of this kingdom, on which the value of
lands and the trade of the nation do chiefly depend, and whereas great
quantities of like manufactures have of late been made and are daily
increasing in the kingdom of Ireland, and _in the English plantations_ in
America, and are exported from thence to foreign markets heretofore
supplied from England, which will inevitably sink the value of lands, and
tend to the ruin of the trade and woollen manufactures of this realm; for
the prevention whereof and for the encouragement of the woollen
manufactures in this kingdom, &c.
The ruinous consequences of the woollen manufactures of Ireland to the
value of lands, trade, and manufactures of England, stated in this Act,
are apprehensions that were entertained, and not events that had happened;
and before those facts are taken for granted, I request the mischief
recited in the Acts[353] made in England to prevent the importation of
cattle dead or alive from Ireland, may be considered. The mischiefs stated
in those several laws are supposed to be as ruinous to England as those
recited in the Act of 1699, and yet are now allowed to be groundless
apprehensions occasioned by short and mistaken views of the real interests
of England. Sir W. Petty[354] demonstrates that the opinion entertained
in England at the time of his prohibition of the import of cattle from
Ireland was ill-founded; he calls it a strange conceit. If he was now
living, he would probably consider the prohibition of our woollen exports
as not having a much better foundation.
Connecting this preamble of the Act of 1699, with the speech made from the
throne to the parliament of Ireland in the year 1698, with the addresses
of both houses in England, and with the prohibition by this and by other
Acts, formerly made in England, of exporting wool from Ireland except to
that kingdom, the object of this new commercial regulation is obvious. It
was to discourage the woollen manufacture in Ireland and in effect to
prohibit the exportation from thence because it was the principal branch
of manufacture and trade in England; to induce us to send to them our
materials for that manufacture, and that we should be supplied with it by
them; and to encourage, as a compensation to Ireland, the linen
manufacture, which was not at that time a commercial object of any
importance to England. This I take to be a part of the system of colony
regulations. Whether it was reasonable or just to bring this kingdom into
that system, has been already submitted from arguments drawn from the
climates and productions of the different countries. The supposed
compensation was no more than what Ireland had before; no further
encouragement was given by England to our linen manufacture until six
years after this prohibition, when at the request of the Irish House of
Commons and after a representation of the ruinous state of the country,
liberty was given by an English Act of Parliament[355] to export our white
and brown linens into the colonies, which was allowing us to do as to one
manufacture what, before the fifteenth of King Charles II., was permitted
in every instance.
It would be presumption in a private man to decide on the weight of those
arguments; but to select and arrange facts that lie dispersed in journals
and books of Statutes in both kingdoms, and to make observations on those
facts with caution and respect, can never give offence to those who
inquire for the purpose of relieving a distressed nation and of promoting
the general welfare. In that confidence I beg leave to place this subject
in a different view, and to request that it may be considered what the
commercial system of this kingdom was at the time of passing this law of
1699, and whether it was, in this respect, reasonable or just that such a
regulation should have been then made? The great object which the Lords
and Commons of Great Britain have determined to investigate led to such a
discussion; determined as they are to pursue effectual methods "for
promoting the common strength, wealth, and commerce of both kingdoms."
What better guides can they follow than the examples of their ancestors
and the means used by them for many centuries, and in the happiest times,
for attaining the same great purposes.
In my opinion it would be improper, in the present state of the British
Empire, to agitate disputed questions that may inflame the passions of
men. May no such questions ever arise between two affectionate sister
kingdoms. It is my purpose only to state acknowledged facts, which never
have been contested, and from those facts to lay before you the commercial
system of Ireland before the year 1699.
For several centuries before this period Ireland was in possession of the
English Common law[356] and of Magna Charta. The former secures the
subject in the enjoyment of property of every kind; and by the latter _the
liberties of all the ports of the kingdom are established_.
The Statutes made in England for the common and public weal are,[357] by
an Irish Act of the 10th of Henry VII., made laws in Ireland; and the
English Commercial Statutes, in which Ireland is expressly mentioned, will
place the former state of commerce in this country in a light very
different from that in which it has been generally considered in Great
Britain.
By the 17th of Edward III., ch. 1, all sorts of merchandises may be
exported from Ireland, except to the King's enemies.
By the 27th of Edward III., ch. 18, merchants of Ireland and Wales may
bring their merchandise to the staple of England; and by the 34th of the
same king, ch. 17, all kinds of merchandises may be exported from and
imported into Ireland, as well by aliens as denizens. In the same year
there is another Statute, ch. 18, that all persons who have lands or
possessions in Ireland might freely import thither and export from that
kingdom _their own commodities_; and by the 50th of Edward III., ch. 8,
no alnage is to be paid, if frieze ware, which are made in Ireland.
This freedom of commerce was beneficial to both countries. It enabled
Ireland to be very serviceable to Edward III., as it had been to his
father and grandfather, in supplying numbers of armed vessels for
transporting their great lords and their attendants and troops[358] to
Scotland and also to Portsmouth for his French wars.
But the reign of Edward IV. furnishes still stronger instances of the
regard shown by England to the trade and manufactures of this country.
In the third year of that monarch's reign the artificers of England
complained to parliament that they were greatly impoverished, and _could
not live_ by bringing in divers commodities and wares ready wrought.[359]
An Act passed reciting those complaints, and ordaining that no merchant
born a subject of the king, denisen or stranger, or other person, should
bring into England or Wales any woollen cloths, &c., and enumerates many
other manufactures on pain of forfeiture, provided that all wares and
"chaffers" made and wrought in Ireland or Wales may be brought in and sold
in the realm of England, as they were wont before the making of that
Act.[360]
In the next year another Act[361] passed in that kingdom, that all woollen
cloth brought into England, and set to sale, should be forfeited, except
cloths made in Wales or Ireland.
In those reigns England was as careful of the commerce and manufactures of
her ancient sister kingdom, particularly in her great staple trade, as she
was of her own.
Of this attention there were further instances in the years 1468 and 1478.
In two treaties concluded in those years between England and the Duke of
Bretagne, the merchandise to be traded in between England, Ireland, and
Calais on the one part, and Bretagne on the other, is specified, and
woollen cloths are particularly mentioned.[362]
And in a treaty between Henry VII. and the Netherlands, Ireland is
included, both as to exports and imports.[363]
The commercial Acts of Parliament in which Ireland is mentioned have only
been stated, because they are not generally known. But the laws made in
England before the 10th Henry VII. for the protection of merchants and
the security of trade, being laws for the common and public weal, are also
made laws here by the Irish statute of that year, which was returned under
the great seal of England, and must have been previously considered in the
privy council of that kingdom. At this period, then, the English
commercial system and the Irish, so far as it depended upon the English
statute law, was the same; and before this period, so far as it depended
upon the common law and Magna Charta, was also the same.
From that time until the 15th of King Charles II., which takes in a period
of 167 years, the commercial constitution of Ireland was as much favoured
and protected as that of England. "The free enlargement of common traffic
which his Majesty's subjects of Ireland enjoyed," is taken notice of
incidentally in an English statute, in the reign of King James I.,[364]
and in 1627, King Charles I. made a strong declaration in favour of the
trade and manufactures of this country. By several English statutes in the
reign of King Charles II., an equal attention was shown to the woollen
manufactures in both kingdoms; in the 12th year of his reign[365] the
exportation of wool, wool-felts, fuller's earth, or any kind of scowering
earth, was prohibited from both. But let the reasons mentioned in the
preamble for passing this law be adverted to: "For preventing
inconveniences and losses that happened, and that daily do and may happen,
to the kingdom of England, dominion of Wales, and kingdom of Ireland,
through the secret exportation of wool out of and from the said kingdoms
and dominions; and for the _better setting on work the poor people_ and
inhabitants of the kingdoms and dominions aforesaid, and to the intent
that the full use and benefit of _the principal native commodities_ of the
same kingdom and dominion may come, redound, and be unto the subjects and
inhabitants of the same."
This was the voice of nature, and the dictate of sound and general policy;
it proclaimed to the nations that they should not give to strangers the
bread of their own children; that the produce of the soil should support
the inhabitants of the country; that their industry should be exercised on
their own materials, and that the poor should be employed, clothed, and
fed.
The shipping and navigation of England and Ireland were at this time
equally favoured and protected. By another Act of the same year no goods
or commodities[366] of the growth, production or manufacture of Asia,
Africa, or America, shall be imported into England, _Ireland_, or Wales,
but in ships which belong to the people of England or _Ireland_, the
dominion of Wales, or town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, or which are of the
built of the said lands, and of which the master and three-fourths of the
mariners are English; and a subsequent statute[367] makes the
encouragement to navigation in both countries equal, by ordaining that the
subjects of Ireland and of the Plantations shall be accounted English
within the meaning of that clause. Another law[368] of the same reign
shows that the navigation, commerce, and woollen manufactures of both
kingdoms were equally protected by the English legislature. This Act lays
on the same restraint as the above-mentioned Act of the 12th of Charles
II., and makes the transgression still more penal. It recites that wool,
wool-felts, &c., are secretly exported from England and Ireland to foreign
parts to the great decay of the woollen manufactures, and the destruction
of the navigation and commerce of _these kingdoms_.
From those laws it appears that the commerce, navigation, and manufactures
of this country were not only favoured and protected by the English
legislature, but that we had in those times the full benefit of their
Plantation trade; whilst the woollen manufactures were protected and
encouraged in England and Ireland, the planting of tobacco in both was
prohibited, because "it was one of the main products of several of the
Plantations, and upon which their welfare and subsistence do depend."[369]
This policy was liberal, just, and equal; it opened the resources and
cultivated the strength of every part of the empire.
This commercial system of Ireland was enforced by several Acts of her own
legislature; two statutes passed in the reign of Henry VIII. to prevent
the exportation of wool, because, says the first of those laws, "it hath
been the cause of dearth of cloth and idleness of many folks,"[370] and
"tends to the desolation and ruin of this poor land." The second of those
laws enforces the prohibition[371] by additional penalties; it recites
"that the said beneficial law had taken little effect, but that since the
making thereof great plenty of wool had been conveyed out of this land to
the great and inestimable hurt, decay, and impoverishment of the King's
poor subjects within the said land, for redress whereof, and in
consideration that conveying of the wool of the growth of this land out of
the same is one of the greatest occasions of the idleness of the people,
waste, ruin, and desolation of the King's cities and borough towns, and
other places of his dominion within this land." The 11th of Elizabeth[372]
lays duties on the exportation equal to a prohibition, and the reason
given in the preamble ought to be mentioned: "That the said commodities
may be more abundantly wrought in this realm ere they shall be so
transported than presently they are, which shall set many now living idle
on work, to the great relief and commodity of this realm.[373]
By the preamble of one of those Acts,[374] made in the reign of Charles
II., it appears that the sale of Irish woollen goods in foreign markets
was encouraged by England, "whereas there is a general complaint in
_England_, France, and other parts beyond the seas (whither the woollen
cloths and other commodities made of wool in this, his Majesty's kingdom
of Ireland, are transported) of the false, deceitful, uneven, and
uncertain making thereof, which cometh to pass by reason that the
clothiers and makers thereof do not observe any certain assize for
length, breadth, and weight for making their clothes and other commodities
aforesaid in this kingdom, as they do in the realm of England, and as they
ought also to do here, by which means the merchants, buyers, and users of
the said cloth and other commodities are much abused and deceived, and the
credit, esteem, and sale of the said cloth and commodities is thereby much
impaired and undervalued, to the great and general hurt and hindrance of
the trade of clothing in this whole realm."
After the ports of England were shut against our cattle, and our trade to
the English colonies was restrained, still this commercial system was
adhered to by encouraging the manufactures of this country, and the
exportation of them to foreign countries. In 1667, when the power of the
Crown was not so well understood as at present, the proclamation before
mentioned was published by the Lord Lieutenant and Privy Council of
Ireland,[375] in pursuance of a letter from Charles II., by the advice of
his council in England, notifying to all his subjects of this kingdom the
allowance of a free trade to all foreign countries, either at war or peace
with his Majesty.
In the year 1663 the distinction between the trade of England and
Ireland,[376] and the restraints on that of the latter commenced. By an
English Act passed in that year, entitled an Act "for the encouragement of
trade," a title not very applicable to the parts of it that related to
Ireland; besides laying a prohibition on cattle imported into England from
that kingdom, the exportation of all commodities except victuals,
servants, horses, and salt for the fisheries of New England and
Newfoundland, from thence to the English plantations, was prohibited from
the 25th March, 1764. The exports allowed were useful to them, but
prejudicial to Ireland, as they consisted of our people, our provisions,
and a material for manufacture which we might have used more profitably on
our own coasts.
In 1670, another Act[377] passed in England to prohibit from the 24th of
March, 1671, the exportation from the English plantations to Ireland of
several materials for manufactures[378] without first unloading in England
or Wales. We are informed by this Act that the restraint of the
exportation from the English plantations to Ireland was intended by the
Act of 1663; but the intention is not effectuated, though the importation
of those commodities into Ireland _from England_, without first unloading
there is, in effect, prohibited by that Act.
The prohibition of importing into Ireland any plantation goods, unless the
same had been first landed in England, and had paid the duties, is made
general, without any exception, by the English Act of the 7th and 8th W.
III., ch. 22.
But by subsequent British Acts[379] it is made lawful to import from his
Majesty's plantations all goods of their growth or manufactures, the
articles enumerated in those several Acts excepted.[380]
By a late British Act[381] there is a considerable extension of the
exports from Ireland to the British plantations. But it is apprehended
that this law will not answer the kind intentions of the British
legislature. Denying the import from those countries to Ireland is, in
effect, preventing the export from Ireland to those countries. Money
cannot be expected for our goods there, we must take theirs in exchange;
and this can never answer on the terms of our being obliged, in our
return, to pass by Ireland, to land those goods in England, to ship them a
second time, and then to sail back again to Ireland. No trade will bear
such an unnecessary delay and expense. The quickness and the security of
the return are the great inducements to every trade. One is lost and the
other hazarded by such embarrassments; those who are not subject to them
carry on the trade with such advantages over those who are so entangled as
totally to exclude them from it. This is no longer the subject of
speculation, it has been proved by the experience of above seventy years.
Since the year 1705, when liberty was given to import white and brown
linen from Ireland into the English plantations, the quantities sent there
directly from Ireland were at all times very inconsiderable
notwithstanding this liberty; they were sent for the most part from
Ireland to England before any bounty was given on the exportation from
thence, which did not take place until the year 1743; and from England the
English plantations were supplied. There cannot be a more decisive proof
that the liberty of exporting without a direct import in return, will not
be beneficial to Ireland.
This country is the part of the British empire most conveniently situated
for trade with the colonies. If not suffered to have any beneficial
intercourse with them, she will be deprived of one of the great advantages
of her situation; and such an obstruction to the prosperity of so
considerable a part must necessarily diminish the strength of the whole
British empire.
Those laws laid Ireland under restraints highly prejudicial to her
commerce and navigation. From those countries the materials for
ship-building[382] and some of those used in perfecting their staple
manufactures were had; Ireland was, by those laws, excluded from almost
all the trade of three quarters of the globe, and from all direct
beneficial intercourse with her fellow-subjects in those countries, which
were partly stocked from her own loins. But still, though deprived at that
time of the benefit of those colonies, she was not then considered as a
colony herself, her manufacturers were not in any other manner
discouraged, her ports were left open, and she was at liberty to look for
a market among strangers, though not among her fellow-subjects in Asia,
Africa, or America.[383] By the law of 1699 she was, as to her staple
manufacture, deprived of those resources; she was brought within a system
of colonisation, but on worse terms than any of the plantations who were
allowed to trade with each other.[384]
She could send her principal materials for manufacture to England only;
but those manufactures were encouraged in England and discouraged in
Ireland. The probable consequence of which was, and the event has answered
the expectation, that we should take those manufactures from that country;
and that, therefore, in those various trades which employ the greatest
numbers of men, the English should work for our people; the rich should
work for the poor.
Let the histories of both kingdoms, and the statute books of both
parliaments be examined, and no precedent will be found for the Act of
1699, or for the system which it introduced.
The whole tenor of the English statutes relative to the trade of this
country, and which, by our Act of the 10th of Henry VII., became a part of
our commercial constitution, breathe a spirit totally repugnant to the
principle of that law; and it is, therefore, with the utmost deference,
submitted to those who have the power to decide whether this law was
agreeable to the commercial constitution of Ireland, which, for 500 years,
has never produced a similar instance.