"It is to be observed that so anxious was England to confirm and enforce this ratification given by Ireland, that their Parliament soon after passed a law affecting to enact what subsequent times have shown it was incompetent to, and which we therefore here mention merely to point out the stress which England laid on the sacrifice made by Ireland of its great and natural staple trade, in exchange for a new staple resting on a material not the natural growth of the country, and the establishment of which was but in its infancy, though nurtured for near sixty years by the Government of the kingdom. The Act we refer to is the 10 & 11 Will. III., cap. 10, which recites 'that wool and the woollen manufacture of cloth, serge, bays, kerseys, and other stuffs made or mixed with wool, are the greatest and most profitable commodities of the kingdom, on which the value of lands and the trade of the nation do chiefly depend; that great quantities of the _like manufactures_ have of late been made, and _are daily increasing in the kingdom of Ireland_, and in the English Plantations in America, _and are exported from thence to foreign markets heretofore supplied from England_: all which inevitably tends to injure the value of lands, and to ruin the trade and woollen manufactures of the realm; and that for the prevention thereof the export of wool and of the woollen manufacture from Ireland be prohibited under the forfeiture of goods and ship, and a penalty of £500 for every such offence.'" Ireland's woollen manufacture was thus sacrificed to England's commercial jealousy.[51] I will give hereafter some account of the widespread misery this industrial calamity entailed. It might have been expected that the solemn compact for the encouragement of the linen trade would have been scrupulously observed. This, however, was not the case. The English Parliament deliberately broke faith with the Irish people. This charge I will substantiate by quotations from the speeches of public men in the English Parliament, the words of the English statute book, and the admissions of English writers.