"England," says Mr. Froude, "might lay a veto on every healthy effort of parliamentary legislation; but England could not touch the self-made laws which the conscience and spirit of the nation might impose upon themselves." Hely Hutchinson has pointed out, that "the not importing goods from England is one of the remedies recommended by the Council of Trade in 1676 for alleviating some distress that was felt at the time; and Sir William Temple, a zealous friend to the trade and manufactures of England, recommends to Lord Essex, then Lord Lieutenant, to introduce, as far as can be, a vein of parsimony throughout the country in all things that are not perfectly the native growths and manufactures. The people of England cannot reasonably object to a conduct of which they have given a memorable example. In 1697 the English House of Lords presented an Address to King William to discourage the use and wearing of all sorts of furniture and cloths not of the growth and manufacture of that kingdom, and beseech him, by his royal example, effectually to encourage the use and wearing of all sorts of furniture and wearing cloths that are the growth of that kingdom or manufactured there; and King William assures them that he would give the example to his subjects, and would endeavour to make it effectually followed. The reason assigned by the Lords for this Address was that the trade of the nation had suffered by the late long and expensive war. But it does not appear that there was any pressing necessity at the time, or that their manufacturers were starving for want of employment.
"Common sense must discover to every man that when foreign trade is restrained, discouraged, or prevented in any country, and where that country has the materials for manufactures, a fruitful soil, and numerous inhabitants, the home trade is its best resource. If this is thought by men of great knowledge to be the most valuable of all trades, because it makes the speediest and surest returns, and because it increases at the same time two capitals in the same country, there is no nation on the globe whose wealth, population, strength, and happiness would be promoted by such a trade in a greater degree than ours."[125]
The author of the "Commercial Restraints" was a barrister of great eminence, who had been Prime Serjeant, was a member of the Irish Privy Council, Principal Secretary of State, and Provost of Trinity College, and a distinguished member of the Irish Parliament. This book, however, obtained a reception similar to that accorded to the "Case of Ireland," and the fourth Drapier's letter. In the fly-leaf of the copy in the Library of the Honourable Society of the King's Inns, which I have utilised in arranging this treatise, there are the following observations:—"Of this remarkable book see the Times of February 14, 1846. Extract of a letter of Sir Valentine Blake, M.P. for Galway, in which he says, 'that immediately after its publication it was suppressed, and burned by the common hangman, and that Mr. Flood, in his place in the House of Commons, said he would give one thousand pounds for a copy, and that the libraries of all the three branches of the Legislature could not procure one copy of this valuable work.'" The editor of a new edition tells us that there are two copies of the work in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, both of which have been recently obtained, and from one of them the reprint is taken.[126] When Hely Hutchinson, in 1779, advocated "the necessity of using our own manufactures," he stated with accuracy that such arguments, though never so universal as at that time, were no new idea in Ireland. It had been recommended half a century before by Swift, and the celebrated Bishop Berkeley. "I heard," said Swift, writing in 1720, "the late Archbishop of Tuam (Dr. John Vesey) make a pleasant observation that Ireland would never be happy till a law was made for burning everything that came from England, except their people and their coals."[127] Again, in 1727, he says, "The directions to Ireland are very short and simple, to encourage agriculture and home consumption, and utterly discard all importations that are not absolutely necessary for health or life."[128] Bishop Berkeley, in the "Querist," published in 1731, asks these questions, which show clearly his views:—"Whether there be upon the earth any Christian or civilised people so beggarly wretched or destitute as the common Irish? Whether, nevertheless, there is any other people whose wants may be more easily supplied from home?"[129] This advice was acted on by the Irish people "after fifty years of expectation." "A great figure," says Chief Justice Whiteside, "now appears upon the stage of public life—Henry Grattan, who took his seat for Charlemont in December, 1775, and began his splendid, though chequered career. The condition of Ireland at this epoch was deplorable. Her industry was shackled, her trade was paralysed, her landed interest was depressed, her exchequer empty, her pension list enormous, her shores undefended, her army withdrawn. The policy and maxims of Swift were revived, a spirit of discontent and a spirit of independence pervaded the nation; the colonies had revolted, republican ideas were afloat in the world, and Ireland was menaced with invasion. The Government, on being applied to for troops, declared they had none to spare, and that Ireland must protect herself. The Volunteer Movement then commenced, and, to the amazement of ministers, they soon stood face to face with an armed nation."[130]
Mr. Froude draws this picture of the condition of Ireland in 1779. "The grand juries represented that the fields and highways were filled with crowds of wretched beings half naked and starving. Foreign markets were closed to them. The home market was destroyed by internal distress, and the poor artisans who had supported themselves by weaving were without work and without food. They had bought English goods as long as they had the means to buy them. Now in their time of dire distress they had hoped the English Parliament would be their friend. They learnt with pain and surprise that the only boon which could give them relief was still withheld. They besought the king to interpose in their favour, and procure them leave to export and sell at least the coarse frieze blankets and flannels, which the peasants' wives and children produced in their cabins. Eloquence and entreaty were alike in vain. The English Parliament, though compelled at least to listen to the truth, could not yet bend itself to act upon it. The House of Commons still refused to open the woollen trade in whole or in part, and Ireland, now desperate and determined, and treading ominously in the steps of America, adopted the measures which long before had been recommended by Swift, and resolved to exclude from the Irish market every article of British manufacture which could be produced at home."[131]
The Earl of Shelburne, speaking in the British House of Lords on the 1st of December, 1779, thus described the attitude of Ireland:—
"Ireland disclaimed any connection with Great Britain, she instantly put herself in a condition of defence against her foreign enemies; oppressed at one time by England, and at length reduced to a state of calamity and distress experienced by no other country that ever existed, unless visited by war or famine, and perceiving that all prospect of justice or relief was in a manner finally closed, and that she must perish or work out her own salvation, she united as one man to rescue herself from that approaching destruction which seemed to await her. The people instantly armed themselves and the numbers armed soon increased to upwards of 40,000 men, and were daily augmenting. This most formidable body was not composed of mercenaries, who had little or no interest in the issue, but of the nobility, gentry, merchants, citizens, and respectable yeomanry, men able and willing to devote their time and part of their property to the defence of the whole and the protection and security of their country. The Government had been abdicated and the people resumed the powers vested in it, and in doing so were fully authorised by every principle of the Constitution, and every motive of self-preservation, and whenever they should again delegate their inherent power they firmly and wisely determined to have it so regulated and placed upon so large and liberal a basis that they should not be liable to suffer from the same oppression in time to come, nor feel the fatal effects and complicated evils of maladministration, of calamity without hope of redress, or of iron-handed power without protection.
"To prove that these were the declared and real sentiments of the whole Irish nation, he should not dwell upon this or that particular circumstance, upon the resolutions of country or town meetings, upon the language of the associations, upon the general prevalent spirit of all descriptions of men of all religions; matters of this kind, however true or manifest, were subject to and might admit of controversy. He would solely confine himself to a passage contained in a State paper, he meant the Address of both Houses of the Irish Parliament, declaring that nothing but the granting the kingdom a 'free trade' could save it from certain ruin. Here was the united voice of the country conveyed through its proper constitutional organs, both Houses of Parliament, to his Majesty, against which there was but one dissentient voice in the Houses, not a second, he believed, in the whole kingdom. Church of England men and Roman Catholics, Dissenters, and sections of all denominations, Whigs and Tories, if any such were to be found in Ireland, placemen, pensioners, and county gentlemen, Englishmen by birth, in short, every man in and out of the House, except the single instance mentioned, had all united in a single opinion that nothing would relieve the country short of a free trade."[132]
His lordship proceeds to explain the meaning of the expression "free trade," which was used in a sense different from the modern acceptation of that term:—