Page:Studies in Irish History, 1649-1775 (1903).djvu/316

After Limerick for them to get enough raw wool for their own purposes from Ireland. In consequence of these petitions the Irish Parliament was made to pass an Act imposing very heavy duties on the exportation of woollen manufactures from Ireland. But this Irish Act of 1698 proved to be merely a preliminary step in the process of crushing out Ireland’s woollen industry. England wished to shut out Ireland completely and finally from foreign markets, and she believed that nothing short of actual prohibition would do this. So in 1699 the English Parliament passed its first great Act restricting Ireland’s foreign trade. This Act prohibited perpetually the exportation from Ireland of all goods made or mixed with wool, except to England or Wales with the license of the Commissioners of the revenue. But as the duties equal to a prohibition which had been laid by a previous English Act on the importation of Irish woollen goods were retained, Ireland had no outlet whatever for her woollen manufactures. She was absolutely restricted to her home trade, and when we consider that English woollen goods were allowed into the country on payment of a small duty, and that the poverty of Ireland prevented the growth of a large home demand for any but the very coarsest stuffs; when we also consider that restrictions 304