[43] "Life of Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford," by Elizabeth Cooper, i., pp. 185, 186. Miss Cooper comments severely "on the stolid unconsciousness of wrongdoing by such a design, the undreamed-of suspicion that such a proposal could be received with any other feeling than that of approbation." It is but just to the memory of Strafford to state that he endeavoured to develop the linen manufacture in Ireland. He sent to Holland for flax seed, and invited Flemish and French artisans to settle in Ireland. "In order to stimulate the new industry, the earl himself embarked in it, and expended not less than £30,000 of his private fortune in the enterprise. It was afterwards made one of the grounds of his impeachment that he had obstructed the industry of the country by introducing new and unknown processes into the manufacture of flax. It was, nevertheless, greatly to the credit of the earl that he should have endeavoured to improve the industry of Ireland by introducing the superior processes employed by foreign artisans, and had he not attempted to turn the improved flax manufacture to his own advantage by erecting it into a personal monopoly, he might have been entitled to regard as a genuine benefactor of Ireland." (Smiles's "Huguenots," p. 126.) Dr. Smiles, in this passage, speaks of the linen manufacture as a "new industry." The "Report from the Select Committee on the Linen Trade of Ireland" states that that trade was "first planted in Ireland by Lord Strafford" (Appendix, p. 6), and Miss Cooper gives him credit "for the establishment of the linen manufacture in Ireland." ("Life of Lord Strafford," i., p. 346.) These statements are not, I think, historically correct. Mr. Lecky shows that, although Lord Strafford stimulated the linen trade, he did not found it. "The linen manufacture may, indeed, be dimly traced far back into Irish history. It is noticed in an English poem in the early part of the fifteenth century. A century later Guicciardini, in his 'Description of the Low Countries,' mentions coarse linen as among the products imported from Ireland to Antwerp. Strafford had done much to encourage it, and after the calamities of the Cromwellian period the Duke of Ormonde had laboured with some success to revive it." ("England in the Eighteenth Century," ii., pp. 211, 212.) See also, for some very valuable remarks on this subject, "Irish Wool and Woollens," pp. 63, 64. [44] "Irish Wool and Woollens," p. 70. See also Newenham on "The Population of Ireland," pp. 40, 41. [45] 12 Car. II., c. 4. A duty equal to a prohibition was laid on those goods. [46] "English Commons' Journals," xii., p. 338. [47] "English Commons' Journals," xii. 339. [48] "Irish Commons' Journals," ii., p. 241. [49] "Irish Commons' Journals," ii., p. 243. [50] Irish Statutes, 10 Will. III., c. 3.