52 



BEITISH WOOL TRADE. 



this most liberal and enlightened monarch was pleased 

 to answer, ''Gentlemen, I will do all that in me lies to 

 discourage the woollen manufacture of Ireland." This 

 was certainly altogether a strange proceeding, especially 

 when viewed in conjunction with the cruel prohibitions 

 of former periods.* Their foreign trade is said by some 

 to have been much diminished by this coolness ; but 

 much of the poignancy and crushing animosity of the 

 request are lost when we consider that encouragement 

 was at the same time given by England to the making 

 of Irish linen, his Majesty being desired in the same 

 address, to forward that manufacture, pursuant to the 

 dictates of an act passed in 1696. Nay, some are of 

 opinion that these measures resulted from the soundest 

 views of the relative situations of the countries, and that 

 the prudent tenor of English enactments was never bet- 

 ter exhibited, than in the discouragement of the wool- 

 len and encouragement of the linen manufactures o 

 Ireland. 



(54.) British Trade in 1699.— In 1699 there were 

 12,000,000 sheep and lambs in Britain, and the yearly 

 increase was supposed to be about 3,600,000. The value 

 of each sheep, besides the skin, was 7s. 4d. The stock 

 was valued at £4,400,000. The value of the wool 

 yearly shorn, at 8s. 4d. per fleece, came to about 

 £2,000,000. The woollens manufactured in Britain 



* By the 18th of Chailes II. the importation from Ireland into Eng. 

 land of great cattle, sheep, swine, beef, pork and bacon, and shortly 

 after of mutton, lamb, butter, and cheese, was declared a common 

 nuisance, and forbidden on pain of forfeiture. Thus, the principal re- 

 source of a poor country in the neighbourhood of a rich one, was unfeeL 

 ingly denied to it, till the reign of George 111 , when the hated edic< 

 was repealed. 



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