Eight peers protested against the Irish Bill, chiefly on the ground that the importation of cattle was no nuisance, and that the word was professedly introduced to limit the dispensing power, 'a just, necessary, and ancient prerogative inherent in the Crown,' as a means of dealing with unforeseen emergencies.[68] [Sidenote: Irish cattle totally prohibited] Ireland, said the Irish Government while there were still hopes of stopping the dreaded Bill, 'is a country generally proper only for breeding and grazing of cattle, which, with what commodities proceed from them, are their chief merchandises.' Gookin, the friend of Ireland, said the same thing many years before. So it had always been, and so it is likely to remain, for there is no finer cattle country in the world. The winters are so mild that the beasts need not be housed, while the grass begins earlier and lasts longer than elsewhere, but corn suffers from the abundance of rain and the want of sunshine. A time came when Irish rents were raised by high protective duties on grain, the mass of the people living on potatoes, and suffering annually between the old crop and the new. There were many Irish famines before 1846, but they are forgotten. When the potatoes failed and the duties were abolished the area under corn gradually shrank, and the production of meat again became the national and natural industry. The evils foretold by Ormonde and his advisers followed upon the restrictive legislation, and cattle became a drug on the market. Efforts were, however, made to continue the trade, since the Act which forbade importation into England had no force to prevent exportation from Ireland, and the extreme cheapness of the stock was a great temptation. By the Act such cattle might be seized unless they were declared on oath to be of British origin, half the proceeds of sale going to the informer and half to the poor of the parish. But the speculators sometimes compounded with the churchwardens beforehand, and the smuggling went on, though the risks attending the traffic were so great that no perceptible relief was given to the Irish stockmasters. An amending Act was passed next year which made the ships liable to seizure and the sailors to the common gaol. Even then the possibility of great profit tempted the blockade-runners. There had always been a trade between Ireland and Minehead, and a struggle was made to maintain it. 'So little,' says a local historian, 'were the wants of the poor or so considerable were the forfeitures that in the year 1675 an accumulated surplus sum of about 500_l._ was in hand, and then laid out in the purchase of a freehold estate in the parish of Ottery St. Mary, which estate still retains the name of the Cow-lands.' The proceeds of this investment are even now applied on each New Year's Day to a distribution of blankets, and this is always called the Cow Charity.[69] [Sidenote: Evil effects of the exclusion policy.]