I do not propose to enter into details respecting the progress of the trades of Belfast. The most important is the spinning of fine linen yarn, which is for the most part concentrated in that town, over 25,000,000 of pounds weight being exported annually. Towards the end of the seventeenth century the linen manufacture had made but little progress. In 1680 all Ireland did not export more than 6000L. worth annually. Drogheda was then of greater importance than Belfast. But with the settlement of the persecuted Hugnenots in Ulster, and especially through the energetic labours of Crommelin, Goyer, and others, the growth of flax was sedulously cultivated, and its manufacture into linen of all sorts became an important branch of Irish industry. In the course of about fifty years the exports of linen fabrics increased to the value of over 600,000L. per annum. It was still, however, a handicraft manufacture, and done for the most part at home. Flax was spun and yarn was woven by hand. Eventually machinery was employed, and the turn-out became proportionately large and valuable. It would not be possible for hand labour to supply the amount of linen now turned out by the aid of machinery. It would require three times the entire population of Ireland to spin and weave, by the old spinning-wheel and hand-loom methods, the amount of linen cloth now annually manufactured by the operatives of Belfast alone. There are now forty large spinning-mills in Belfast and the neighbourhood, which furnish employment to a very large number of working people.[20] In the course of my visit to Belfast, I inspected the works of the York Street flax-spinning mills, founded in 1830 by the Messrs. Mulholland, which now give employment, directly or indirectly, to many thousand persons. I visited also, with my young Italian friend, the admirable printing establishment of Marcus Ward and Co., the works of the Belfast Rope-work Company, and the shipbuilding works of Harland and Wolff. There we passed through the roar of the iron forge, the clang of the Nasmyth hammer, and the intermittent glare of the furnaces--all telling of the novel appliances of modern shipbuilding, and the power of the modern steam-engine. I prefer to give a brief account of this latter undertaking, as it exhibits one of the newest and most important industries of Belfast. It also shows, on the part of its proprietors, a brave encounter with difficulties, and sets before the friends of Ireland the truest and surest method of not only giving employment to its people, but of building up on the surest foundations the prosperity of the country.