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