Restrictions on Irish Trade and Manufactures—All Creeds Suffer—Presbyterian Exodus to America—Death of Royal Personages—Accession of George I
SINCE the days of Charles II, and probably before his reign, a contemptible jealousy of the growth of Irish commerce had taken possession of the commercial element in England. We have already said something about the crushing of the Irish cattle trade, while yet the “Merry Monarch” was on the throne; but a far deadlier blow was struck at Irish prosperity when, in 1698, the English manufacturers had the assurance to petition Parliament against the Irish woolen industry—then among the most prosperous in Europe. This petition was strongly indorsed by the English House of Lords, in an address to King William, wherein they, unconsciously, perhaps, paid a high tribute to Irish manufacturing genius. They virtually admitted that the superiority of Irish woolen fabrics made the English traders apprehensive that the farther growth of the Irish woolen industry “might greatly prejudice the said manufacture in his Majesty’s Kingdom of England.” Not content with this display of mean selfishness, the English fisheries’ interest protested against Irish fishermen catching herrings on the eastern coast of their own island, “thereby coming into competition with them [the English].” The Colonial Parliament of Ireland basely yielded to English coercion, and, in 1699, actually stabbed the industries of their own country in the back, by placing ruinous export duties on fine Irish woolens, friezes, and flannels! And this hostile legislation was aimed, not against the Catholic Irish, who had no industries, but against the Protestant Irish, who possessed all of them!
The English Parliament, thus secured against effective opposition, immediately passed an act whereby the Irish people were forbidden to export either the raw material for making woolen goods, or the goods themselves, to any foreign port, except a few English ports, and only six of the numerous Irish seaports were allowed even this poor privilege. The natural result followed. Irish prices went up in England, and, in spite of the acknowledged excellence of Irish manufactures, the English people would not purchase them at an advanced cost. The Irish traders could not afford to sell them at a moderate price, and, within a few years, most of the latter were absolutely ruined. Dr. P. W. Joyce, in his “History of Ireland,” estimates that “40,000 Irish Protestants—all prosperous working people—were immediately reduced to idleness and poverty—the Catholics, of course, sharing in the misery, so far as they were employed, and 20,000 Presbyterians and other Nonconformists left Ireland for New England. Then began the emigration, from want of employment, that continues to this day. But the English Parliament professed to encourage the Irish linen trade, for this could do no harm to English traders, as flax growing and linen manufacture had not taken much hold in England.”
This, according to Dr. Joyce, was the beginning of that smuggling trade with France which Ireland carried on for more than a century, and a close acquaintance, therefore, sprang up between the French and Irish traders and sailors. Ireland could sell her surplus wool to great advantage in France, and received from that country many luxuries, which, otherwise, she could not have enjoyed. French wines became common at Irish tables, above those of the working-class, and French silks decorated the fair persons of Irish maids and matrons. Moreover, this adventurous trade developed a hardy race of Irish sailors, and, by means of the Irish smugglers and their French copartners, the Irish priests found a convenient avenue of transit to and from the Continent; and brave young Irish spirits, registered as “Wild Geese,” found their way to the ranks of “the bold Brigade,” whose fame was then a household word in Europe. But the Irish masses, both Catholic and Nonconformist, were reduced to abject poverty, and each succeeding year brought fresh commercial restrictions, until, finally, almost every Irish industry, except the linen, was totally extirpated in the island. The smuggling trade, alone, kept some vitality in the commercial veins of the ruined country, and, in defiance of English and Anglo-Irish enactments against it, it continued to flourish down to the beginning of the nineteenth century.
Well-meaning foreign writers, who did not make a study of Anglo-Irish relations in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, have expressed astonishment at the paucity of Irish industries, outside of linen, and have ascribed it to Irish non-adaptability to manufacturing pursuits! Not alone did England compel Ireland to fine her own traders, by levying export duties on their output, but she also, as we have seen, by her own Parliament, limited such exports to the meanest possible proportions! Of course, at this slavish period of the old so-called Irish Parliament, duties to limit the importation of English goods and to foster home industries were not allowed. Ireland was stripped of everything but linen and “homespun,” and then left a beggar. This is a most disgraceful chapter in the history of the political connection of Great Britain and Ireland—one that led to untold bitterness, and that caused the great orator, Grattan, in after years to exclaim, prophetically, in the Irish House of Commons: “What England tramples in Ireland will rise to sting her in America!” He alluded to the Presbyterian and Catholic exodus, which so materially aided the American Revolution.
The last hope of King James again attaining the throne of the “Three Kingdoms” disappeared with the terrible defeat inflicted on the French fleet at the battle of La Hogue, 1692, and, thereafter, his life was passed sadly—for he had ample time to ruminate on his misfortunes—at St. Germain, until he died, in 1701. His rival, William III, whose wife, Queen Mary II, had preceded him to the grave, died from the effects of a horseback accident, in March, 1702. He was immediately succeeded by Queen Anne, the last of the Stuart line who occupied the throne of England. Her reign was one of glory for Great Britain and one of hate and horror for Ireland. We have already mentioned some of the penal laws passed while she held sway. Her ministers, of course, were responsible for her acts, because she herself possessed only moderate ability. Unlike most of the Stuart family, she swam with the current, and so got along smoothly with her English subjects. The most important domestic event of her reign was the legislative union of England with Scotland—which virtually extinguished Scotland as a nation. This event occurred in May, 1707, and was accompanied by acts of the most shameless political profligacy on the part of the English minister and the Scotch lords and commons. In fact, the independence of Scotland, like that of Ireland ninety-three years later, was sold for titles, offices, pensions, and cold cash. The masses of the people, to do them justice, had little to do with this nefarious transaction, which was subsequently satirized by the great Scottish poet, Robert Burns, in his lyric, one verse of which runs thus:
“What English force could not subdue
Through many warlike ages,
Is sold now by a craven few
For hireling traitors’ wages!