Falkinek, — Illustrations of Commercial History of Dublin. 141 



former Custom House had two generations earlier led to similar com- 

 plaints. But the objections of the merchants were, of course, unavail- 

 ing. The Commissioners of Revenue pointed out that the increase of 

 building had been of late so rapid that the town which was formerly- 

 terminated to the east of Essex Bridge was now divided by that 

 structure into equal parts, east and west, that the eastern portion had 

 no communication across the river save by ferries, and that as the city 

 .must naturally continue to develop in an easterly direction, they would 

 be highly blamable in preventing such a communication in the future. 

 The merchants, however, did not siu-render without a struggle ; they 

 interviewed the Yiceroy, petitioned Parliament, and invoked the aid of 

 the merchants of London ; and they voted gold snuff-boxes to two 

 London merchants who had interested themselves in promoting opposi- 

 tion among the traders of the English capital. The result of their 

 efforts was to retard the erection of the new Custom House for about 

 ten years. But in 1781 the Commissioners of Eevenue were at length 

 ■ empowered to build the Custom House on the site so much objected 

 ■to, and although at a public meeting summoned by the merchants 

 under the presidency of the Lord Mayor, a fui'ther petition was ordered 

 to be presented to the Yiceroy by the members for the city, Mr. 

 ■Clements and Sir Samuel Broadstreet, the protest was unavailing. 

 The Custom House was built where it still stands, Carlisle (now 

 O'Connell) Bridge became an immediate necessity, and the develop- 

 ment of the city to the east and south-east at once proceeded apace. 



It was probably a sense of the deficient authority of the Merchants' 

 Committee, as revealed by the failui'e of their opposition to the Custom 

 House scheme, which led to the institution of the more formal organi- 

 zation of a Chamber of Commerce. The change may also have been 

 hastened by an investigation into the conduct of the lotteries held by 

 the Committee, which appears to have provoked some scandal, though 

 no proofs of fraud were established. It is certain, at all events, that 

 little more than a year later the Committee was convened to meet at 

 the Eoyal Exchange on February 10, 1783, for the special purpose of 

 taking into consideration the " Plan for instituting a Chamber of 

 Commerce in this city," a copy of which is printed as an Appendix to 

 this Paper (see Appendix II.). Resolutions affirming the plan were 

 at once adopted, and the Committee of Merchants, after a useful and 

 interesting existence of exactly fifteen years, merged in the Chamber 

 of Commerce of Dublin. 



Although it is not the province of this Paper to further pursue the 

 history of the Chamber of Commerce, it appeal's desirable, inasmuch 



