Again, this system embittered the relations between landlord and tenant in Ireland by raising unduly the creation of farms, the cultivation of the soil being the only industrial resource left to the people. "Rents," says Mr. Lecky, "were regulated by competition; but it was competition between a half starving population, who had no other resource except the soil, and were prepared to promise anything rather than be deprived of it.[117] The mass of the people," the same writer continues, "became cottiers, because it was impossible to gain a livelihood as agricultural labourers or in mechanical pursuits. This impossibility was due to the extreme paucity of circulating capital, and may be chiefly traced to the destruction of Irish manufactures and to the absence of a considerable class of resident landlords, who would naturally give employment to the poor."[118] Such were some of the more immediate effects upon Ireland of the commercial arrangements of Great Britain. That system was thus described in the Irish House of Commons in October, 1779, by Hussey Burgh, who then held the office of Prime Serjeant, and afterwards became Lord Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer. "The usurped authority of a foreign Parliament has kept up the most wicked laws that a jealous, monopolising, ungrateful spirit could desire, to restrain the bounty of Providence and enslave a nation whose inhabitants are recorded to be a brave, loyal, generous people; by the English code of laws, to answer the most sordid views, they have been treated with a savage cruelty; the words penalty, punishment, and Ireland are synonymous; they are marked in blood on the margin of their statutes, and though time may have softened the calamities of the nation, the baneful and destructive influence of those laws have borne her down to a state of Egyptian bondage. The English have sowed their laws like serpents' teeth; they have sprung up as armed men."[119] Few will be disposed to disagree with Mr. Froude in his estimate of the effects of this policy. "By a curious combination this system worked the extremity of mischief, commercially, socially, and politically."[120] FOOTNOTES: [85] "Eighteenth Century," vol. ii., 257, 258. [86] "Eighteenth Century," vol. ii., 259. [87] "English in Ireland," vol. i., 435. [88] "English in Ireland," vol. i., 436. [89] "Eighteenth Century," vol. ii., 255. [90] "Eighteenth Century," vol. ii., 213. [91] Swift's Works (Scott's Ed.), vol. vii., 195. [92] "An Essay upon the Trade of Ireland"--"Tracts and Treatises" (Ireland), 2, p. 335-6. [93] "English in Ireland," vol. ii., 137. [94] Newenham on "Population," p. 60. This remark is quoted by Mr. Lecky. [95] "Irish Debates," vol. iii., 130. [96] "Commercial Restraints," pp. 24-27. [97] Swift's Works (Scott's Edition), vol. vi., p. 277. [98] Swift's Works (Scott's Edition), vol. vi., 281, 282. [99] "England in the Eighteenth Century," vol. ii., 216.