con wine for twelve pounds, of Spanish wine for twenty-four pounds.'[1] The Irish beyond the Pale suffered the least. 'Every lord caused his people to keep their victuals within the country,' and the Irishman proper had little use for money—'he cared only for his belly, and that not delicately.'[2] In Dublin, Meath, and Kildare schools were shut up; servants were turned away, from the cost of maintaining them; artisans and tradesmen would take no more apprentices: at last the markets were closed. Those who before had bought little at high prices could now buy nothing at any price; and fever followed in the rear of famine. 'All sorts of people,' Crofts passionately expostulated, 'cry for redress at my hands.' The actual cause of their misery they did not know; 'and no marvel,' 'when the wisest were blinded;' but they understood that it came from England and from English rule; 'and now,' Crofts said, 'they do collect all the enormities that have grown in so many years, so that there is among them such hatred, such disquietures of mind, such wretchedness upon the poor men and artificers, that all the crafts must decay, and towns turn to ruin, and all things either be in common, or each live by others' spoil; and thereof must needs follow slaughter, famine, and all kinds of misery.'[3]
- ↑ Before the depreciation of the currency in England Gascon wine was sold for 4l. 13s. 4d. a tun; Spanish wine for 7l. 8s.—34 and 35 Henry VIII. cap. 7.
- ↑ Crofts to Cecil: Irish MSS. vol. iv.
- ↑ Crofts to Cecil, March 14: Ibid.
