As to shipping of its own, Ireland is so utterly unprovided, that of all the excellent timber cut down within these fifty or sixty years, it can hardly be said that the nation has received the benefit of one valuable house to dwell in, or one ship to trade with.
Ireland is the only kingdom I ever heard or read of, either in ancient or modern story, which was denied the liberty of exporting their native commodities and manufactures wherever they pleased, except to countries at war with their own prince or state: yet this privilege, by the superiority of mere power, is refused us in the most momentous parts of commerce; beside an act of navigation, to which we never consented, pinned down upon us, and rigorously executed; and a thousand other unexampled circumstances, as grievous as they are invidious to mention. To go on to the rest.
It is too well known, that we are forced to obey some laws we never consented to; which is a condition I must not call by its true uncontroverred name, for fear of lord chief justice Whitshed's ghost with his libertas et natale solum[1], written for a motto on his coach, as it stood at the door of the court, while he was perjuring himself to betray both. Thus we are in the condition of patients, who have physick sent them by doctors at a distance, strangers to their constitution and the nature of their disease: and thus we are forced to pay five hundred per cent to decide our properties: in all which we have likewise the honour to be distinguished from the whole race of mankind.
As to the improvement of land; those few, who
- ↑ Liberty and my native country.
