to import our materials, we next made a dash at the silk business; but the silk manufacturer proved as pitiless as the woolstaplers. The cotton manufacturer, the sugar refiner, the soap and candle maker (who especially dreaded the abundance of our kelp), and any other trade or interest that thought it worth its while to petition was received by Parliament with the same partial cordiality,[1] until the most searching scrutiny failed to detect a single vent through which it was possible for the hated industry of Ireland to respire. But, although excluded from the markets of Britain, a hundred harbours gave her access to the universal sea. Alas! a rival commerce on her own element was still less welcome to England, and as early as the reign of Charles II. the Levant, the ports of Europe, and the oceans beyond the Cape were forbidden to the flag of Ireland. The colonial trade alone was in any manner open,—if that could be called an open trade which for a long time precluded all exports whatever, and excluded from direct importation to Ireland such important articles as sugar, cotton, and tobacco. What has been the
- ↑ An amusing instance of the feeling that Ireland was to be sacrificed to England is mentioned by the author of the Commercial Restraints of Ireland, p. 125. In 1698 two petitions were presented to the English House of Commons from the fishermen of Folkstone and Aldborough, stating that they were injured "by the Irish catching herrings at Waterford and Wexford, and sending them to the Straits, and thereby forestalling and ruining petitioners' markets."
