After the
Reformation there was not much danger of a union between the Catholic
Celt and the Protestant Norman. Still another jealousy remained--a
commercial jealousy. The colonization of Ireland meant, in the English
mind, the complete extirpation of the natives, and the peopling of this
island by the adventurers and their descendants; but it is a strange
fact, that even had this actually happened, we can, from what we know of
the history of the period, assert with truth, that still their
commercial prosperity and progress would be watched, and checked, and
legislated against, whenever they would even seem to clash, or when
there was a possibility of their clashing, with the commercial supremacy
of Great Britain. Not to go into all the commercial restraints imposed
on Irish manufactures by the English Parliament, let us take what,
perhaps, was the most important one--that imposed on the woollen
manufacture. For a long period this branch of industry had flourished in
Ireland. We not only manufactured what we required for ourselves, but
our exports of woollens were very considerable. This manufacture existed
in England also, and the Englishmen engaged in it were determined to
have the foreign markets to themselves.
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