"Hides and fish, salmon, hake, herring,
Irish wool and linen cloth, falding
And masternes good be her marchandie;
Hertes, birds, and others of venerie,
Skins of otter, squirrel and Irish hare,
Of sheep, lambe, and fore is her chaffere,
Felles of kids, and conies great plentie."
It will be observed that this list contains only the natural produce of the country; and had any attempt been made to introduce or encourage manufactures, some mention would have been made of them. The silver and gold mines of the country are alluded to further on, and the writer very sensibly observes, that if "we [the English] had the peace and good-will of the wild Irish, the metal might be worked to our advantage." In the sixteenth century the Irish sent raw and tanned hides, furs, and woollens to Antwerp,[[522]] taking in exchange sugar, spices, and mercery. The trade with France and Spain for wines was very considerable; fish was the commodity exchanged for this luxury; and even in 1553, Philip II. of Spain paid[[523]] £1,000 yearly—a large sum for that period—to obtain liberty for his subjects to fish upon the north coast of Ireland. Stafford, in speaking of the capture of Dunboy Castle, says that O'Sullivan made £500 a-year by the duties which were paid to him by foreign fishermen, "although the duties they paid were very little."[[524]]
Stanihurst has described a fair in Dublin, and another in Waterford, where he says the wares were "dog-cheap." These fairs continued for six days, and merchants came to them from Flanders and France, as well as from England. He gives the Waterford people the palm for commerce, declares they are "addicted to thieving," that they distil the best aqua vitæ, and spin the choicest rugs in Ireland. A friend of his, who took a fancy to one of these "choice rugs," being "demurrant in London, and the weather, by reason of a hard hoar frost, being somewhat nipping, repaired to Paris Garden, clad in one of the Waterford rugs. The mastiffs had no sooner espied him, but deeming he had been a bear, would fain have baited him; and were it not that the dogs were partly muzzled and partly chained, he doubted not he should have been well tugged in this Irish rug."
After the plantation of Ulster, Irish commerce was allowed to flourish for a while; the revenue of the crown doubled; and statesmen should have been convinced that an unselfish policy was the best for both countries. But there will always be persons whose private interests clash with the public good, and who have influence enough to secure their own advantage at the expense of the multitude. Curiously enough, the temporary prosperity of Ireland was made a reason for forbidding the exports which had produced it. A declaration was issued by the English Government in 1637, which expressly states this, and places every possible bar to its continuance. The Cromwellian settlement, however, acted more effectually than any amount of prohibitions or Acts of Parliament, and trade was entirely ruined by it for a time. When it again revived, and live cattle began to be exported in quantities to England, the exportation was strictly forbidden. The Duke of Ormonde, who possessed immense tracts of land in Ireland, presented a petition, with his own hands, against the obnoxious measure, and cleverly concluded it with the very words used by Charles himself, in the declaration for the settlement of Ireland at the Restoration, trusting that his Majesty "would not suffer his good subjects to weep in one kingdom when they rejoiced in another." Charles, however, wanted money; so Ireland had to wait for justice. A vote, granting him £120,000, settled the matter; and though for a time cattle were smuggled into England, the Bill introduced after the great fire of London, which we have mentioned in the last chapter, settled the matter definitively. The Irish question eventually merged into an unseemly squabble about prerogative, but Charles was determined "never to kiss the block on which his father lost his head."[[525]] He overlooked the affront, and accepted the Bill, "nuisance" and all. One favour, however, was granted to the Irish; they were graciously permitted to send contributions of cattle to the distressed Londoners in the form of salted beef. The importation of mutton, lamb, butter, and cheese, were forbidden by subsequent Acts, and salted beef, mutton, and pork were not allowed to be exported from Ireland to England until the general dearth of 1757.
The commercial status of the principal Irish towns at this period (A.D. 1669), is thus given by Mr. Bonnell, the head collector of Irish customs in Dublin: "Comparing together the proceeds of the duties for the six years ending December, 1669, received from the several ports of Ireland, they may be thus ranked according to their worth respectively, expressed in whole numbers, without fractions, for more clearness of apprehension:——
| "Rate. | Ports. | Proportion | |
| per cent. | |||
| 1 | Dublin | 40 | |
| 2 | Cork | 10 | |
| 3 | Waterford | 7 | |
| Galway | 7 | ||
| Limerick | 5 | ||
| 4 | Kinsale | 5 | |
| Youghal | 5 | ||
| Drogheda | 3 | ||
| 5 | Londonderry | 3 | |
| Carrickfergus | 3 | ||
| Ross | 1 | ||
| Wexford | 1 | ||
| 6 | Dundalk | 1 | |
| Baltimore | 1 | ||
| Sligo | 1" |
"Killybeg, Dungarvan, Donaghadee, Strangford, Coleraine, and Dingle, are mentioned as "under rate."
The linen trade had been encouraged, and, indeed, mainly established in Ireland, by the Duke of Ormonde. An English writer[[526]] says that 200,000 pounds of yarn were sent annually to Manchester, a supply which seemed immense in that age; and yet, in the present day, would hardly keep the hands employed for forty-eight hours. A political economist of the age gives the "unsettledness of the country" as the first of a series of reasons why trade did not flourish in Ireland, and, amongst other remedies, suggests sumptuary laws and a tax upon celibacy, the latter to weigh quite equally on each sex.[[527]] Sir William Petty does not mention the trade but he does mention the enormous amount of tobacco[[528]] consumed by the natives. It is still a disputed question whether the so-called "Danes' pipes," of which I give an illustration, were made before the introduction of tobacco by Sir Walter Raleigh, or whether any other narcotizing indigenous plant may have been used. Until one, at least, of these pipes shall have been found in a position which will indicate that they must have been left there at an earlier period than the Elizabethan age, the presumption remains in favour of their modern use.
