SOME REMARKS ON BRITISH FOREST HISTORY. 1 89 



for this purpose (which would more properly be left to improve 

 and strengthen the land) will be better supplied by the use of a 

 sufficient sweet and kindely Fuell thus provided."^ 



The shortage of fuel in England was one of the factors in the 

 English exploitation of Ireland. The iron-works in that country 

 appear to have been almost entirely founded by English 

 enterprise : - much of the ore smelted appears to have come 

 from England,^^ although the existence of ores of various types 

 in Ireland was known:* and English immigrants were employed 

 in all branches of the industry.-^ The Irish, Sir William Petty 

 said, were not "so good as the English, even for Cutting, 

 Cording, and Coaling of Wood, nor for raising of Mines, and 

 carrying off the Water from their Pitts.'"' 



The Irish iron industry had its ups and downs : politics and 

 the disturbed state of the country were its bane. At one time 

 the manufacture of ordnance and munitions was forbidden,^ a 

 restriction which at that period might have been severe had it 

 been enforced, but a monopoly in that branch of the industry 

 was soon afterwards established.'^ The patentees, however, had 

 to contend with many difficulties, especially with the Earl of 

 Cork, and apparently did very little good for themselves, the 

 existing iron-works going on very much as before.' Iron-works — 

 presumably as a peculiarly English institution— appear to have 

 excited the animosity of the Irish, and were destroyed wholesale 

 during the Cromwellian rebellion. i'* The industry at least 

 partially revived later in the century, particularly after the 



1 Ibid., pp. 14, 27. 



- Cal. State Papers {Ireland), 1608-IO, pp. 256, 260, 432, 480, 530; 1611- 

 14, pp. 369, 370, 381 ; 1615-25, pp. 429, 529 : Boate, Ireland's Natural 

 History, pp. 129, 1 30: Yarranton, England's Improvement, p. 39 : Newenham, 

 Vie-M of Ireland, p. 154. 



■'Cal. State Papers {Ireland), 1608-10, p. 530: Boate, op. cit., p. 13Q: 

 Temple, Of the Advancement of Trade in Ireland (1673), in Works (1814), 

 iii. 25. 



■• Boate, op. cit., pp. 125 ff: Cal. State Papers {Ireland), 1608-10, p. 290 ; 

 1611-I4, p. 227. 



5 Ibid., 1633-43, p. 85. 



" Petty, Treatise of Ireland {i6ij). Economic Writings, p. 595. 



'' Tudor and Stuart Pi oclamations {\r.), No. 245. 



■* Cal. State Papers (Ireland), 1615-25, p. 499; 1625-32, p. 399; 1647-60, 

 pp. 74 flF. 



» Ibid., 1615-25, pp. 505, 549, 619, 682. 



'" Boate, op. cit., p. 130. 



