"The discouragement of the woollen manufacture of Ireland, affected particularly the English settlers there, for the linen was entirely in the hands of the Scotch, who were established in Ulster, and the Irish natives had no share in either. It is stated in a pamphlet, entitled, 'A Discourse concerning Ireland, etc. in answer to the Exon and Barnstaple petitions,' printed 1697-8, that there were then, in the city and suburbs of Dublin, 12,000 English families, and throughout the nation, 50,000, who were bred to trades connected with the manufacture of wool, 'who could no more get their bread in the linen manufacture, than a London taylor by shoe-making.'
"Mr. Walter Scott says ('Life of Swift,' p. 278) that the Irish woollen manufacture produced an annual million, but this is not the fact; Mr. Dobbs in his 'Essay on the Trade of Ireland,' informs us, from the custom-house books, that in the year 1697 (which immediately preceded the year in which the address above-mentioned was transmitted to the king) the total value of Irish woollen exports, of all sorts, was only £23,614 9s. 6d., and in 1687, when they were at the highest, they did not exceed £70,521 14s. 0d. It moreover appears, that the greater part of these exports were of a sort which did not interfere with the trade of England, £56,415 16s. 0d. was in friezes, and £2,520 18s. 0d. coarse stockings, the rest consisted in serges and other stuffs of the new drapery, which affected not the trade of England generally, but only the particular interests of Exeter and its neighbourhood, and a very few other inconsiderable towns.
"But, whatever injury was intended, little prejudice was done to Ireland, except what followed immediately after the passing of this Act. It appears from Mr. Dobbs's pamphlet, that, a few years after, four times the quantity of woollen goods were shipped in each year, clandestinely, than had ever been exported, legally, before: moreover, the Irish vastly increased their manufactures for home consumption, and learned to make fine cloth from Spanish wool: it was only to England itself that any disadvantage redounded; many manufacturers who were unsettled by this measure, passed over to Germany, Spain, and to Rouen and other parts of France, 'from these beginnings they have, in many branches, so much improved the woollen manufactures of France, as to vie with the English in foreign markets.—Upon the whole, those nations may be justly said to have deprived Britain of millions since that time, instead of the thousands Ireland might possibly have made.'—What Mr. Dobbs has here asserted, relative to the removal of the manufacturers, has been confirmed by another tract, 'Letter from a Clothier a Member of Parliament,' printed in 1731, which informs us that, for some years after, the English seemed to engross all the woollen trade, 'but this appearance of benefit abated, as the foreign factories, raised on the ruin of the Irish, acquired strength': he shows too, that the importation of unmanufactured wool from Ireland to England had been gradually decreasing since that time, which was probably on account of the increase of the illicit trade to foreign parts, towards the encouragement of which the duties, or legal transportation, served to act as a bounty of 36 per cent. 'So true it is, that England can never fall into measures for unreasonably cramping the industry of the people of Ireland, without doing herself the greatest prejudice.'" (Note g, pp. 320-321).
[T. S.]
[104] The causes for absenteeism are thus noted by Lecky ("Hist. of Ireland," p. 213, vol. i., ed. 1892): "The very large part of the confiscated land was given to Englishmen who had property and duties in England, and habitually lived there. Much of it also came into the market, and as there was very little capital in Ireland, and as Catholics were forbidden to purchase land, this also passed largely into the hands of English speculators. Besides, the level of civilization was much higher in England than in Ireland. The position of a Protestant landlord, living in the midst of a degraded population, differing from him in religion and race, had but little attraction, the political situation of the country closed to an Irish gentleman nearly every avenue of honourable ambition, and owing to a long series of very evident causes, the sentiment of public duty was deplorably low. The economical condition was not checked by any considerable movement in the opposite direction, for after the suppression of the Irish manufactures but few Englishmen, except those who obtained Irish offices, came to Ireland."
The amount of the rent obtained in Ireland that was spent in England is estimated elsewhere by Swift to have been at least one-third. In 1729, Prior assessed the amount at £627,000. In the Supplement to his "List of Absentees," Prior gives eight further "articles" by which money was "yearly drawn out of the Kingdom." See the "Supplement," pp. 242-245 in Thone's "Collection of Tracts," Dublin, 1861. [T. S.]
[105] John Erskine, Earl of Mar, has elsewhere been characterized by Swift as "crooked; he seemed to me to be a gentleman of good sense and good nature." The great rebellion of 1715, for which Mar was responsible, was stirred up by him in favour of the Pretender, and succeeded so far as to bring the Chevalier to Scotland. The Duke of Argyll, however, fought his forces, and though the victory remained undecided, Mar was compelled to seek safety in France. The rebellion caused so much disturbance in every part of the British Isles that Ireland suffered greatly from bad trade. [T. S.]
[106] Joshua, Lord Allen. See note on p. 175. [T. S.]
[107] See page 60 of vol. iii. of the present edition. [T. S.]
[108] Chief Justice Whitshed. [T. S.]
[109] See page 14. [T. S.]