the enormous and unjust county cesses, which pressed so heavily on the peasantry, and the suspension of the linen trade, caused by the American war; the loss," too, of the great clandestine woollen trade which had been opened with America," and had been the chief support of the spinners and weavers. The existence of such a clandestine trade, however, required to be accounted for, and Lifford, feeling himself on dangerous ground, concluded cautiously: "The great cause, or some great cause, lies probably much deeper. The seeds of the decay which have brought us to our present state may have been sown long ago. I fear there may be some radical cause, not sufficiently understood." "For remedy of present evils, nothing adequate can be found till the people of both kingdoms shall be brought to that temper and liberality of mind that they can think on so great a subject as citizens of the world, and feel indifferent, as one people, under one king, one constitution, and with one religion, whether the manufactures of the empire are carried on in Down or in York."

Pery wrote as a cultivated and moderate Irishman. His country, he said, was either by direct prohibition, or as a consequence of other restraining laws, cut off from trade either with the British colonies or with the rest of the world. There could be no commerce without assortments of the various goods which were in demand in the country traded

1 This remarkable expression deserves to be attended to. Intellect, education, property, political power, everything that could make itself felt as a constituent of national life, was still Protestant. To undo this, to restore Ireland to the condition in which it stood before the Cromwellian conquest, has been the sole result, almost wholly accomplished now, by England's penitence for past misgovernment.

with, and without free permission to bring back the produce of that country. Ireland's present produce was limited to linen and provisions. In the linen trade she had powerful rivals, and she was forbidden at present to send the most profitable branch of that manufacture to America, where there was the readiest market for it. Her provision trade had been violently destroyed by the recent embargo. Pery did not question the justice of the restraining laws, but he ventured to doubt the policy of them. It could not be England's interest to keep Ireland miserable. England was the centre of the empire. To England the wealth gained in the extremities must necessarily flow. She should be ashamed to confess that she dreaded Ireland's rivalry. Her policy should be to allow the Irish to exert themselves in whatever branch of industry best suited them, in common with their British fellow-subjects, and leave them to gather the harvest of their labors. This was all that they asked, and they ought not to be contented with less. Expedients might be tried, and probably would be tried, but they would fail of their object, and would only prolong the irritation. Let the restrictive laws be removed; the Irish and English nations would then be united in affection as much as in interest, and the power of malice would be unable to destroy their harmony; but the seeds of discord had been sown, and if allowed to spring up would soon overspread the land.

All parties were represented on the Viceroy's list. Hussey Burgh was more advanced than Pery, though, perhaps, no truer a patriot. He was young, but just turned thirty, handsome, and with a large fortune. His expenses still exceeded his income. He drove

six horses in the Phoenix Park, and he was attended everywhere by three outriders. He was indolent, but he had shown abilities in Parliament so considerable, that the Government had made him Prime Sergeant, rather to protect themselves against his hostility than in the hope of securing his support. He was called the Cicero of the Senate, and at happy moments he exceeded even Grattan in pregnant powers. of expression.

"It has come to this," Hussey Burgh replied to the Viceroy's request for his sentiments on the Irish difficulty. "England must either support this kingdom, or allow her to support herself. Her option is to give in trade or to give in money; without one or the other the expenses cannot be supplied. If she gives in money, she suffers a country of great extent and fertility to become a burden instead of a benefit. If she gives in trade, whatever wealth we may acquire will flow back upon herself. Were I asked what is for the benefit of Manchester, what is for the benefit of Glasgow, I should answer that monopolies, however destructive of the general weal, are beneficial to those who possess them. Were I asked what is the most effectual measure for promoting the common wealth and strength of his majesty's subjects of both kingdoms, I answer, an equal and perfect freedom of trade, without which one of those kingdoms has neither strength, wealth, nor commerce, and must become a burden on the other."

The contribution of Mr. Hely Hutchinson was the first sketch of a book which he afterwards published on Ireland's commercial disabilities, and which earned his pardon from Irish patriotism for his subserviency to the Court and Lord Townshend.

"You ask my sentiments on the state of my country," he answered to the Viceroy's invitation. "I see ruin everywhere; the rate of interest rising, the revenue falling, between twenty and thirty thousand merchants and artisans in Dublin alone reduced to penury and supported by alms. The public debt exceeds a million, and the interest is remitted to England. Rents have risen, salaries have increased. Pensions, annuities, the American rebellion, the embargo, all in their several ways, have contributed to our distress. But the great and permanent cause of our misfortunes is the restraint of our commerce and the discouragement of our manufactures. The chief produce of our soil is wool, which we are forbidden to work; our weavers starve, therefore, for want of employment. Our principal material is a drug, and we import our woollen goods from England at a cost of 360,000l. a year. Your people are jealous of us. You say labor is cheaper here and taxes lower, and if you leave our trade free, we shall undersell you in foreign markets. Why is our labor cheaper? Our people live on potatoes and milk, or, more often, water. Why? Because they can afford no better. Were trade free they would earn higher wages and demand better fare. Underpaid labor is dear labor in the end. You do your work cheaper in England than we can do, for you undersell us with your woollens in our own market. Open our trade, and the prices of all things will then rise, labor included. Our wool will be manufactured at home with the help of English capital. The chief profit will pass to you, but our people will prosper too. They will learn industry and grow in numbers, and be of service to the State.

"Your exclusion of us from the woollen trade has hurt you even more than it has hurt us. One pack of Irish wool works up two packs of French wool. The French supply themselves with smuggled wool from Ireland; they are thus able to undersell you everywhere, and your loss is then double what it would be if we exported our wool manufactured by ourselves. You have forced us into an illicit commerce, and our very existence now depends upon it. Ireland has paid to Great Britain for eleven years past double the sum that she collects from the whole world in all the trade which Great Britain allows her, a fact not to be paralleled in the history of the world. Whence did the money come? But one answer is possible. It came from the contraband trade, and surely it is madness to suffer an important part of the empire to continue in such a condition. You defeat your own objects. You wished to secure a monopoly in foreign markets. You have not secured it. You wished to be the only purchasers of Irish wool, and the only sellers of woollen goods to Ireland. The quantity of wool exported from Ireland to England in the last ten years has been almost nothing, and we are driven to consume our native goods ourselves. As you have ordered it we can sell our wool and woollen goods only to you. . We can buy woollen goods from you only. You impose a duty equal to a prohibition on our sale of woollen goods to you; you therefore in fact say to us that we shall not sell to you, and that we shall buy from you only. If such a law related to two private men instead of two kingdoms, and enjoined that in buying or selling the same goods, one individual should deal with one man only in exclusion of others, it would in effect ordain