The industrial distress, which had come to be the habitual state of things in Ireland, had been aggravated in 1770 and the following years by a series of embargoes placed by the English Privy Council on the export of Irish provisions to foreign countries. These crippled and eventually almost destroyed one of the only two surviving branches of trade which remained to the country. In 1775 the American colonies, then on the verge of war, excluded Irish linens from their markets.

In 1778 the permission to export some few articles of food from Ireland to England, given some time previously, was withdrawn. The prohibition of the foreign provision trade had been justified on the ground that the rebel colonial army was being fed by Irish beef and pork, but for the refusal to admit Irish food into Great Britain no such excuse could be offered. It was due to mere commercial selfishness and weak pandering to the clamorous complaints of the English farmer and graziers.

The ruin was now complete and widespread amongst all classes and in all parts of the country. The Limerick and Cork merchants found themselves with huge stocks of unsold and unsaleable provisions on their hands. The Dublin weavers paraded the streets in procession carrying a black fleece. Ten thousand workpeople were said (May 1778) to have lost their employment. The Finances were reduced to a deplorable condition. In 1777 the expenses had exceeded the revenue by £80,000. La Touche, the Dublin banker, professed to be unable to advance £20,000 to the authorities. For lack of money the few regular troops left in the country were obliged to be left stationary; their travelling expenses could not be paid.

Paul Jones

Above: The American War

Lord Harcourt, coming as lord lieutenant in 1772, was well received by the leaders of the opposi- tion. On the assembling of parliament in October, 1773 a bill was introduced at his suggestion to put a tax of two shillings in the pound on the incomes of those absentee landlords who did not reside at least six months of the year in Ireland. But through the influence of the great landed proprietors it was re- jected. At this time three great men began their career and for years played an important part in Irish affairs: Henry Flood, born near Kilkenny, 1732: died 1791; Henry Grattan, born in Dublin, 1746, the son of the recorder: died 1820; Edmund Burke, born in Dublin in 1730: died 1797. Burke, who figured in the English parliament, was, perhaps, the greatest political philosopher that ever lived. He began his public life in 1765, as private secretary to lord Rockingham, the English prime minister, and in the following year he was elected member for Wendover.

In 1774 he became member for Bristol. He opposed the American war; and on this question, and on those of the French Revolution and the Stamp act, he wrote powerful pamphlets, and made a scries of splendid speeches. He lifted himself above the prejudices of the times, and all his life advocated the emancipation of the Catholics. Grattan was, perhaps, Ireland’s most brilliant orator and one of her purest and greatest patriots. He began his parliamentary life in 1775, at twenty-nine years of age, as member for Charlemont; and his very first speech was in opposition to the pensions of two absentees. In oratorical power, Flood was second only to Grattan.