520 PARLIAMENTARY COLBERTISM AD. 169 venture enjoyed royal patronage and appeared to prosper —1776. . a. i for a time, but it failed to fulfil the anticipations that had been formed, and involved the subsidiary Company which md the had been developed in Ireland in its ruin’. The desirability timen rade of developing this industry, and its suitability for the Irish reloped 2 climate and soil, had been recognised since the time of the Strafford?; but it was not till Louis Crommelin® took the sn Irelan: " . . . matter up, and organised an ingenious co-operative system* by which the necessary stock-in-trade was contributed, that the Irish industry really took root and began to develop. Great pains had been taken by the Scotch Parliament to foster a linen trade, both by promoting consumption, and by insisting on a uniformity in the cloth exposed for sale® A large portion of the money which the Act of Union assigned for encouraging the industrial arts in Scotland was devoted to the linen-trade; there were premiums on the growth of lint, support was given to schools where spinning was taught, prizes were awarded to housewives for the best specimens of linen, and considerable pains were taken to procure models of improved looms®. But the most important developments occurred after 1727, when the Scottish Board Trent where they make Linen for their own Consumption, besides a species to Export in Imitation of Osenburgh, but with small success, as it never was pushed with Vigour, or cherished with proper Care and Encouragement from the Publick, or those in Power, by giving premiums as is done in Scotland and Ireland.” An Appeal to Facts regarding the Home Trade and Inland Manufactures (1751), 35; Brit. Mus. 1144. 7. See also above, p. 369 n. 2. 1 See the excellent account of this episode by Dr W. R. Scott. Proceedings of Royal Soc. Ant. Ireland, xxx1. 874, 2 See above, p. 369; also Reports, 1840, xxm1. 458,521. The English Parliament which was determined to check the migration of Devonshire weavers to Ireland vas ready to encourage alien linen weavers to settle there. They hoped that the foreign Protestants who were leaving France might be attracted to settle in {reland and carry on their calling there. ‘Whereas there are great Sums of Money and Bullion yearely exported out of this Kingdome for the purchasing of Hemp Flax and Linen and the Productions thereof which might in great measure be prevented by being supplied from Ireland if such proper Encouragement were given as might invite Forreigne Protestants into that Kingdome to settle’ (7 and 3 W. II. c. 39). In 1709, 500 families of poor Palatines were sent to Ireland to sarry on husbandry and the linen manufacture. State Paners. Treasury, 1708-14. 1x1x. 1; also 1714-19, crxxxvi. 25. 3 Ulster Journal of Archaeology, 1. 212, Tv. 206. i See p. 829 n. 2, above. 5 Bremner, Industries of Scotland, 215. 6 Bremner, 217. On the progress of the art, compare Lindsay. Interest of Reotland (1733), pp. 81, 160, 178. and in Scotland hy means