Notwithstanding the mistaken commercial legislation of the English Parliament, Ireland was at the time enjoying a period of greater prosperity than she had known for many years. The population, which Sir William Petty estimated at 850,000 in 1652, was considered by him as having increased, in spite of the loss of 616,000 lives in the Civil Wars and the accompanying disturbances, to 1,100,000 in 1672. Just before the passing of the Cattle Acts in 1664, the export of sheep, butter, and beef to England, so far as could be ascertained, had increased one-third; and the farm of the revenue, notwithstanding the defects of which Sir William was the constant and unsparing critic, showed according to his calculations a yield three times greater than the revenue of 1657.[1] The walled towns steadily grew, and improved in the character of the housing of the inhabitants. The woollen manufactures were becoming famous. The outward signs of increasing prosperity were especially to be observed in Dublin, Kinsale, Londonderry, and Coleraine.[2]
The great problem remained: how to improve the lot of the mass of the people. Not more than 16,000 out of the 200,000 families estimated to be in the country had more than one chimney in each house. The 16,000 were prosperous enough: little inferior, in fact, to the well-to-do classes in England. 'Even,' says Sir William, 'the French elegancies are not unknown among them, nor the French and Latin tongues;
- ↑ Political Anatomy, chs. iv. p. 312 and xi. p. 354.
- ↑ It was left to the folly and selfishness of the next generation of English statesmen and manufacturers to crush the Irish trade in manufactured woollens.
able information for the study of the Popish plot, though the papers therein referred to relate mainly to the State Trials and other public events, and do not throw much light on the question whether any real plot existed. The influence of events in France on the belief in a plot in England has not been sufficiently taken into account by the English historians. This error has arisen from treating the final Revocation of the Edict of Nantes as an isolated act, instead of as the completion of a long series of previous events. See L'Eglise et les Philosophes au Dix-huitième Siècle, by M. Lanfrey (Paris, 1879, ch. i. 'L'Eglise militante sous Louis XIV'). For illustrations of the influence of these events on English opinion, see the preamble of the Bill introduced into the House of Lords, entitled 'the Protestant Foreigners Bill' (December 17, 1680), printed in the above Report of the Historical MSS. Commission, p. 259.
