“It is contemptible nonsense to argue that because Ireland has never had iron manufactories she cannot soon have them.... One hundred years ago the Irish had no linen manufacture; they imported linen; and now they sell to us to the amount of a million annually. How came this about? The civil wars under Charles I., and the tyranny of the Scotch Privy Council under Charles II., chased the people out of Scotland, because they were Presbyterians. Ireland received and protected them; they peopled the northern provinces; many of them were weavers; they followed their business in Ireland, and taught others. Philip II. chased the inhabitants out of Flanders, on account of religion; Queen Elizabeth received and protected them; and England learnt to manufacture woollen cloth. The persecutions of Lewis XIV. occasioned the establishment of a colony in Spitalfields. And the Parliament of Britain, under the auspices of ---- and ----, and others, imposed oppressive duties on glass; and ----’s Act gave the Irish liberty to export it to our Colonies; the glass-makers fled from the tyranny of the Excise; Ireland has now nine glass-houses. Britain has lost the export trade of that article! More examples of the migrations of manufactures could be adduced, but it seems unnecessary; for it cannot be denied that men will fly from tyranny to liberty, whether Philip’s Priests, Charles’s Dragoons, or our Excisemen be the instruments of the tyranny. And it must also be allowed that even the Inquisition itself is not more formidable than our Excise Laws (as far as property is concerned) to those who unhappily are subjected to them.” Towards the end of the statement he asks, “Would it not be more manly and proper at once to invite the Irish to come into a perfect union with Britain, and to pay the same duties and excises that we do? Then every distinction of country might with justice be done away with, and they would have a fair claim to all the advantages which we enjoy.”