I20 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF NEWFOUNDLAND 



Englanders became as obsolete and hypocritical as they were 

 impotent. In the seventeenth century homeward fares were 

 half as much again as out fares, so that it paid men not to go 

 home. The laws, such as they were, were honestly meant 

 to prevent a real harm (or good). But in the eighteenth 

 century out fares were half as much again as homeward 

 fares; therefore cost did not prevent English sailors from 

 returning, and no one wished the return of those who did not 

 return. A new and unprecedented demand to emigrate, 

 which arose in the eighteenth century, more than doubled the 

 price of the out fares ; and the new demand came from Irish 

 Roman Catholics, who rarely wished,' and whom statesmen 

 never wished, to return. 

 Irish wage- The Irish policy of the eighteenth century was in itself 

 swarmed three-parts sham. Anti-Catholic laws were passed which 

 to New- were directed not so much against Roman Catholicism as 

 and became ' ^g^i"st the industry and property of whoever professes that 

 a danger, Religion '.^ Under a law of 1696 colonial goods might not 

 be imported into Ireland; and under a law of 1699 manu- 

 factured wool might not be exported from Ireland. Scotland 

 was allowed, but Ireland was still forbidden, to vend European 

 goods except provisions to the colonies ; and raw Irish wool 

 could only be exported to England. Ireland was throttled, 

 mutilated, and bound hand and foot. Non-Celtic Ulster- 

 men shook Irish dust from their feet and angrily settled 

 on the American continent. Famines ensued which Swift, 

 Berkeley, Boulter, Sheridan, and Skelton described in 

 words that burn ; and famine was the scourge that drove 

 pitiful hordes of Celtic-Irish peasants to Newfoundland, 

 which was the only place in the New World where their kith 

 and kin could be found. Even there they were unwelcome 

 guests. Captains Percy (1720), Beauclerk (1728), Clinton 

 (1731), Lee (1735), Smith (1741), Byng (1743), Townsend 



1 So Captain Watson, Nov. 27, 1748. 



2 A. Young, Tour in Ireland, vol. ii, p. 55. 



