"The Lords Justices of Ireland say, in their speech to the Irish Parliament, the 27th September, 1698:[48] 'Amongst those bills there is one for the encouragement of the linen and hempen manufactures. At our first meeting we recommended to you that matter, and we have now endeavoured to render that bill practicable and useful for that effect, and as such we now recommend it to you. The settlement of this manufacture will contribute much to people the country, and will be found much more advantageous to this kingdom than the woollen manufacture, which, being the settled staple trade of England, can never be encouraged here for that purpose; _whereas the linen and hempen manufactures will not only be encouraged, as consistent with the trade of England, but will render the trade of this kingdom both useful and necessary to England_.'
"The Commons replied: 'We pray leave to assure your Excellencies that we shall heartily endeavour to establish a linen and hempen manufacture here, and to render the same useful to England, as well as advantageous to this kingdom; and we hope to find such a _temperament_ in respect to the woollen trade here that the same may not be injurious to England.'[49] In pursuance of this answer they evinced that _temperament_ most effectually by passing an Act[50] for laying prohibitory duties on the export of _their own_ woollen manufacture--thus accepting the national compact and fully performing their part of the agreement, and by that performance giving an incontrovertible claim to Ireland upon England, and consequently upon Great Britain, for a perpetual encouragement of the linen manufacture '_to all the advantage and profit that Ireland should at any time be capable of_.'
"It is to be observed that so anxious was England to confirm and enforce this ratification given by Ireland, that their Parliament soon after passed a law affecting to enact what subsequent times have shown it was incompetent to, and which we therefore here mention merely to point out the stress which England laid on the sacrifice made by Ireland of its great and natural staple trade, in exchange for a new staple resting on a material not the natural growth of the country, and the establishment of which was but in its infancy, though nurtured for near sixty years by the Government of the kingdom. The Act we refer to is the 10 & 11 Will. III., cap. 10, which recites 'that wool and the woollen manufacture of cloth, serge, bays, kerseys, and other stuffs made or mixed with wool, are the greatest and most profitable commodities of the kingdom, on which the value of lands and the trade of the nation do chiefly depend; that great quantities of the _like manufactures_ have of late been made, and _are daily increasing in the kingdom of Ireland_, and in the English Plantations in America, _and are exported from thence to foreign markets heretofore supplied from England_: all which inevitably tends to injure the value of lands, and to ruin the trade and woollen manufactures of the realm; and that for the prevention thereof the export of wool and of the woollen manufacture from Ireland be prohibited under the forfeiture of goods and ship, and a penalty of £500 for every such offence.'"