A

PROPOSAL

THAT

All the LADIES and WOMEN of IRELAND should appear constantly in Irish Manufactures.

Written in the Year D MCC XXIX.

THERE was a treatife written about nine years ago to perfuade the people of Ireland to wear their own manufactures *. This treatise was allowed to have not one fyllable in it of party or difaffection, but was wholly founded upon the growing poverty of the nation, occafioned by the utter want of trade in every branch, except that ruinous importation of all foreign extravagancies from other countries. This treatise was presented, by the Grandjury of the city and county of Dublin, as a fcandalous, feditious, and factious pamphlet. I forget who was the foreman of the city Grand-jury, but the foreman for the county, was one Doctor Seal, register to the Archbishop of Dublin, wherein he dif

fered much from the fentiments of his Lord. The Printer was tried before the late Mr. Whitchet, that famous Lord ChiefJuftice; who, on the bench, laying his hand on his heart, declared upon his falvation that the Author was a Jacobite, and had a defign to beget a quarrel between the two nations. In the midft of this profecution, about 1500 weavers were forced to beg their bread, and had a general contribution made for their relief, which just ferved to make them drunk for a week; and then they were forced to turn rogues, or strolling beggars, or to leave the kingdom.

The Duke of Grafton, who was then Lieutenant, being perfectly afhamed of fo infamous and unpopular a proceeding, obtained from England a noli profequi for the Printer. Yet the Grand-jury had folemn thanks given them from the Secretary of

State.

I mention this paffage (perhaps too much forgotten) to fhew how dangerous it hath been for the best meaning person to write one fyllable in the defence of his country, or discover the miferable condition it is in. And, to prove this truth, I will produce one inftance more; wholly omitting the famous

per

famous cafe of the Drapier, and the proclamation against him, as well as the verfeness of another jury against the same Mr. Whitchet, who was violently bent to act the second part in another scene.

About two years ago there was a small paper printed, which was called A short View of the State of Ireland*, relating the feveral caufes whereby any country may grow rich, and applying them to Ireland. Whitchet was dead, and confequently the printer was not troubled. Mift, the famous journalist, happened to reprint this paper in London, for which his prefs-folks were profecuted for almost a twelvemonth; and, for ought I know, are not yet difcharged.

This is our cafe; infomuch, that, although I am often without money in my pocket, I dare not own it in fome company, for fear of being thought difaffected.

But fince I am determined to take care, that the author of this paper fhall not be discovered, (following herein the most prudent practice of the Drapier) I will venture to affirm, that the three feafons wherein our corn hath miscarried, did no more contribute to our prefent mifery, than one fpoonful of water thrown upon a rat al

* See Vol. X. p. 300.

ready

ready drowned would contribute to his death; and that the present plentiful harveft, although it should be followed by a dozen enfuing, would no more restore us, than it would the rat aforefaid to put him near the fire, which might indeed warm his fur-coat, but never bring him back to life.

The fhort of the matter is this, The diftreffes of the kingdom are operating more and more every day, by very large degrees, and so have been doing for above a dozen years past.

If

you demand from whence thefe diftreffes have arifen, I defire to afk the following question.

If two thirds of any kingdom's revenue be exported to another country, without one farthing of value in return, and if the faid kingdom be forbidden the most profitable branches of trade wherein to employ the other third, and only allowed to traffic in importing those commodities which are most ruinous to itself, how shall that kingdom ftand?

If this question were formed into the firft propofition of an hypothetical fyllogifm, I defy the man born in Ireland, who is now in the fairest way of getting a collectorship,

collectorship, or a cornet's post, to give a good reafon for denying it.

Let me put another cafe. Suppose a gentleman's estate of 200l. a year fhould fink to one hundred, by fome accident, whether by an earthquake or inundation it matters not, and fuppofe the faid gentleman utterly hopeless and unqualified ever to retrieve the lofs; how is he otherwife to proceed in his future oeconomy, than by reducing it on every article to one half less, unless he will be content to fly his country, or rot in jail? This is a representation of Ireland's condition, only with one fault, that it is a little too favourable. Neither am I able to propose a full remedy for this, that shall ever be granted, but only a small prolongation of life, until God fhall miraculously dispose the hearts of our neighbours, our kinfmen, our fellow proteftants, fellow fubjects, and fellow rational creatures, to permit us to starve without running further in debt. I am informed that our national debt (and God knows how we wretches came by that fashionable thing a national debt) is about 250,000 l.; which is, at least, one third of the whole kingdom's rents, after our abfentees and other foreign drains are paid,

and