With such passages before us, we cannot consider the two economists to have been behind their age in their Irish policy. In regard to accurate figures, the later economist was little better off than the earlier. Ireland was not included in the first two censuses of 1801 and 1811. In 1695 its population was estimated by Captain South as little more than one million;[438] in 1731, by inquiry of Irish House of Lords, at two millions; in 1792 by Dr. Beaufort at a little above four millions;[439] in 1805 by Newenham at five and a half millions; in 1812 an imperfect census gave it as nearly six millions; in the census of 1821 it was 6,800,000. It was clear that the population of Ireland was increasing even then faster than that of England.[440] But between these dates and our own times comes an episode striking enough to provide all economical histories with a _purpureus pannus_. For about two generations England had perpetrated in Ireland her crowning feats of commercial jealousy, a jealousy not more foolish or wicked against Ireland than it was against the American colonies, or, till 1707, against Scotland, but more easily victorious. Ireland had not begun to be in any sense an industrial country till the reigns of Elizabeth and James I.; and the wars of the succeeding reigns hampered her early efforts. She had fair corn and meadow lands, and perhaps the best pastures in the world for sheep and cattle. The English farming interest became impatient of Irish competition, and a law was passed to forbid the importation of Irish sheep and cattle and dairy produce into England (1665, 1680). By reason of the later Navigation Acts, Ireland could not make amends for this by trading with America, for all such trading must be by way of England and in English ships, nor by trading with France for the same reason. England in her jealousy would have surrounded her with a cordon quite as close as Berkeley’s wall of brass.[441] As soon as a considerable woollen manufacture grew up, England stopped it by legislation, which (in 1699) forbade the exportation of Irish woollens not only to England but to any other country whatever. English interference, if it had done no more, added immensely to the uncertainties[442] and fluctuations of Irish trade. The growth of industries like the woollen manufacture had set on foot a growth of population which did not stop with the arrest of the industries. As often happens,[443] the effects of an impulse to marriage lasted far beyond the industrial progress that gave the impulse. But this means hunger and suffering, if not death. In the case of Ireland, the ruin of all industries but farming over more than three-fourths of the land led to an absolute dependence of the people on the harvest of their own country; and, where it failed them, they were brought face to face with dearth or famine. It led also to the peopling of the country districts at the expense of the towns,[444] instead of (as usual) the