522 PARLIAMENTARY COLBERTISM 
the circumstances, the Irish linen trade did not prosper rapidly, 
though the Irish Parliament did their best to encourage it?, 
and it had attained considerable proportions when the Dublin 
Linen Hall was founded in 1728% It did not spread over 
the whole island? but it seems to have made steady progress 
through the eighteenth century®, The trade was protected 
against foreign linens® and enjoyed certain bounties’, but it 
did not have a fair share of the encouragement’ that was 
given to British linens® There can be no doubt that certain 
English statesmen viewed this trade with some jealousy 
They feared that if we did not take our returns from the 
Low Countries in linen, they would close their ports against 
English woollen cloth; and thus, while the Irish clothing 
trade was extinguished, the Irish linen trade was also offered 
as a sacrifice to the staple industry of this country. 
Tn ld 230. The story of the hardware trade during this period 
ware trade . . . 3 
underwent has somewhat special interest, since it does not present a 
ttl : 
eh in close parallel to that of the other trades. There is no reason 
organisa to believe that the organisation of the industry underwent 
much change. Some departments seem to have been 
capitalist in character from mediaeval times®; though such 
branches of business as nail-making continued to be in the 
withhold the head. Ireland having received no compensation, directly or in. 
livectly, for any restraints on their trade, ought not, in justice or common 
10nesty, to be made subject to such restraints. I do not mean to impeach the 
right of the parliament of Great Britain to make laws for the trade of Ireland. 
{ only speak of what laws it is right for parliament to make.” 
\ Irish Commons Journals, mm. i. 287; 10 and 11 W, III. ¢. 10, § 2. 
? Lecky, History of England in the Eighteenth Century, m. 321. 
8 Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland (Dublin, 1760), 68. 
Brit. Mus. 116. g. 12. 
t+ Newenham, View of the Natural, Political and Commercial Circumstances of 
Ireland, App. No. 7, p. 10. There was a temporary decline for some years after 
L771, Reports from Committees of the House of Commons, m. 107. 
5 7 Geo. III. e. 58. 6 10 Geo. III. c. 38. 
/ Compare the Report of 1744, Reports from the Committees of the House of 
Tommons, I. 69. 
8 10 Geo. ITT. c. 40. See also the speech of the Marquis of Rockingham, Parl. 
Hist. xx. 640. 
® Compare the survey of the possessions of Gilbert d'Umfraville (1245). 
I. Lowthian Bell in Brit. Assoc. Report, 1863, 787. Dr G. T. Lapsley has 
printed [Eng. Hist. Review, xv. (1899), p. 509] an interesting account of the 
Bishop of Durham's forge at Bedburn in Weardale in 1408. The hands, of 
various grades of skill, were all wage-earners, and in years when the works were 
let at ferm. they were probably rented by a capitalist undertaker. 
A.D. 1689 
—1776.