In extraordinary cases where the facts are stronger than the voice of the pleader, it is not unusual to allow the client to speak for himself. Will you, my lord, one of the leading advocates for Ireland, allow her to address her elder sister, and to state her own case; not in the strains of passion or resentment, nor in the tone of remonstrance, but with a modest enumeration of unexaggerated facts in pathetic simplicity. She will tell her, with a countenance full of affection and tenderness, “I have received from you invaluable gifts—the law of[433] common right, your great charter, and the fundamentals of your constitution. The temple of liberty in your country has been frequently fortified, improved, and embellished; mine, erected many centuries since the perfect model of your own, you will not suffer me to strengthen, secure, or repair; firm and well-cemented as it is, it must moulder under the hand of Time for want of that attention which is due to the venerable fabric.[434] We are connected by the strongest ties of natural affection, common security, and a long interchange of the kindest offices on both sides. But for more than a century you have, in some instances, mistaken our mutual interest. I sent you my herds and my flocks, filled your people with abundance, and gave them leisure to attend to more profitable pursuits than the humble employment of shepherds and of herdsmen. But you rejected my produce,[435] and reprobated this intercourse in terms the most opprobrious. I submitted; the temporary loss was mine, but the perpetual prejudice your own. I incited my children to industry, and gave them my principal materials to manufacture. Their honest labours were attended with moderate success, but sufficient to awaken the commercial jealousy of some of your sons; indulging their groundless apprehensions, you desired my materials, and discouraged the industry of my people. I complied with your wishes, and gave to your children the bread of my own; but the enemies of our race were the gainers. They applied themselves with tenfold increase to those pursuits which were restrained in my people, who would have added to the wealth and strength of your empire what, by this fatal error, you transferred to foreign nations. You held out another object to me with promises of the utmost encouragement. I wanted the means, but I obtained them from other countries, and have long cultivated, at great expense, and with the most unremitted efforts, that species of industry which you recommended. You soon united with another great family, engaged in the same pursuit, which you were also obliged to encourage among them, and afterwards embarked in it yourself, and became my rival in that which you had destined for my principal support. This support is now become inadequate to the increased number of my offspring, many of whom want the means of subsistence. My ports are ever hospitably open for your reception, and shut, whenever your interest requires it, against all others; but yours are, in many instances, barred against me. With your dominions in Asia, Africa, and America my sons were long deprived of all beneficial intercourse, and yet to those colonies I transported my treasures for the payment of your armies, and in a war waged for their defence one hundred thousand of my sons fought by your side.[436] Conquest attended our arms. You gained a great increase of empire and of commerce, and my people a further extension of restraints and prohibitions.[437] In those efforts I have exhausted my strength, mortgaged my territories, and am now sinking under the pressure of enormous debts, contracted from my zealous attachment to your interests, to the extension of your empire, and the increase of your glory. By the present unhappy war for the recovery of those colonies, from which they were long excluded, my children are reduced to the lowest ebb of poverty and distress. It is true you have lately, with the kindest intentions, allowed me an extensive liberty of selling to the inhabitants of those parts of your empire; but they have no inducement to buy, because I cannot take their produce in return. Your liberality has opened a new fountain, but your caution will not suffer me to draw from it. The stream of commerce intended to refresh the exhausted strength of my children flies untasted from their parched lips.

“The common parent of all has been equally beneficent to us both. We both possess in great abundance the means of industry and happiness. My fields are not less fertile nor my harbours less numerous than yours. My sons are not less renowned than your own for valour, justice, and generosity. Many of them are your descendants, and have some of your best blood in their veins. But the narrow policy of man has counteracted the instincts and the bounties of nature. In the midst of those fertile fields some of my children perish before my eyes for want of food, and others fly for refuge to hostile nations.

Suffer no longer, respected sister, the narrow jealousy of commerce to mislead the wisdom and to impair the strength of your state. Increase my resources, they shall be yours, my riches and strength, my poverty and weakness will become your own. What a triumph to our enemies, and what an affliction to me, in the present distracted circumstances of the empire, to see my people reduced by the necessity of avoiding famine, to the resolution of trafficing almost solely with themselves! Great and powerful enemies are combined against you; many of your distant connections have deserted you. Increase your strength at home, open and extend the numerous resources of my country, of which you have not hitherto availed yourself, or allowed me the benefit. Our increased force, and the full exertions of our strength, will be the most effectual means of resisting the combination formed against you by foreign enemies and distant subjects, and of giving new lustre to our crowns, and happiness and contentment to our people.”

APPENDIX.—No. I.

Quantity of Wool, Woollen, and Worsted Yarn exported from Ireland to Great Britain in the following years:—

Years
Ending
the 25th
of March.		WOOL.YARN.
Woollen.Worsted.
stones.lbs.stones.lbs.stones.lbs.
176410,12869,99114139,41212
179517,316013,45012149,9159
176621,722137,9800152,1220
176748,73387,5530151,9409
176828,5211111,3876157,7213
17693,840165,0120131,3652
17702,57803,8330117,7359
17712,11854,8682139,37814
17722,04565,9470115,9044
17731,8392—94,09810
17741,00711—63,92010
17752,00713—78,89614
17761,05915—86,5270
17771,7347—114,7032
17781,66512—122,75515