1 62 LINEN MANUFACTURE. 



their fleeces only at five (hillings each, would amount raw to 

 15418,4.18!. and fpun into bay yarn, without receiving any 

 farther manufacture, the value would be 2,127,622!. reckon- 

 ing the labour half the value of the wool, that is to fay, the 

 amount would be more than the whole value of the linen ma- 

 nufacture both exported and confumed at home. 



How exceeding different are the manufactures of England ! 

 That of the fmgJe city of Norwich amounts to near as much 

 as the whole linen export of Ireland, but very far is that from 

 being the whole exported produce of a province ! It is not 

 that of a fmgle county, for Norfolk, befides feeding that city, 

 Yarmouth and Lynn, two of the greateft ports in England, 

 and a variety of other towns, exports I believe more com 

 than any other county in the kingdom ; and whoever is ac- 

 quainted with the fupply of the London markets, knows that 

 there are thoufands of black cattle fattened every year on Nor- 

 folk turneps, andfent to Smithfield. What a fpectacle is this ! 

 The agriculture in the world, the mod productive of wealth 

 by exportation around one of the greateft manufactures in Eu- 

 rope. It is thus that manufactures become the beft friends to 

 agriculture ; that they animate the farmer's induftry by giv- 

 ing him ready markets, until he is able, not only to fupply 

 them fully, but pufhes his exertions with fuch effect, that he 

 finds a furplus in his hands to convert into gold in the natio- 

 nal balance, by rendering foreigners tributary for their bread. 

 Examine all the other fabrics in the kingdom, you fee them 

 prodigious markets for the furrounding lands ; you fee thofe 

 lands doubling, trebling, quadrupling their rents, while the 

 farmers of them increafe daily in wealth ; thus you fee ma- 

 nufactures rearing up agriculture, and agriculture fupporting 

 manufactures ; you iee a reaftion which gives a reciprocal ani- 

 mation to human induftry ; great national profperity is the ef- 

 fect ; wealth pours in from the fabrics, which fpreading like 

 a fertile ftream over all the furrounding lands, renders them, 

 comparatively fpeaking, fo many gardens, the moft pleafing 

 Spectacles of fuccefsful induftry. 



Change the fcene, and view the North of Ireland ; you there 

 behold a whole province peopled by weavers ; it is they who 

 cultivate, or rather beggar the foil, as well as work the looms ; 

 agriculture is there in ruins ; it is cut up by the root ; extir- 

 pated ; annihilated ; the whole region is the difgrace of the 

 kingdom ; all the crops you fee are contemptible ; are nc- 

 thiog but filth and weeds. No other part of Ireland can 

 exhibit the foil in fuch a ftate of poverty and defolation. A 

 i arming traveller, who goes through that country with at- 

 tention, will be fhocked at feeing wretchednefs in the fliape of 

 a few beggarly oats on a variety of moft fertile foils, which, 

 were they in Norfolk, would foon rival the beft lands in that 



But 



