The destruction of the woollen trade is one of the most disastrous chapters of Irish history. The circumstances attending this transaction are detailed in an Appendix to the "Report from the Select Committee on the Linen Trade of Ireland," which was printed on the 6th of June, 1825, by order of the House of Commons. This paper was prepared by Lord Oriel, who, as Mr. Foster, was Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer and afterwards Speaker of the Irish House of Commons. He was one of the greatest authorities of his time on trade and finance. The Report thus describes an incident which is, I believe, without parallel. "This export (the woollen) was supposed to interfere, and very probably did, with the export from Britain, and a plan was in consequence undertaken there to annihilate the woollen trade of Ireland, and to confine us to the linen manufacture in its place. "Accordingly an Act was passed in England, 1696 (7 & 8 Will., c. 39), for inviting foreign Protestants to settle in Ireland, as the preamble recites, and with that view enacting that the imports of all sorts of hemp and flax, and all the productions thereof, should from thenceforth be admitted duty free from Ireland into England, giving a preference by that exemption from duty to the linen manufacture of Ireland over the foreign, estimated at the time, as a report of the Irish House of Commons, on the 11th February, 1774, states, to be equal to 25 per cent. "This happened in 1696, and in pursuance of the foregoing plan both Houses of the English Parliament addressed King William on the 9th June, 1698.