importation per annum, taking from three years ending in 1792; and
at present there is an export trade of porter. On an average of
three years, ending March, 1783, there were imported into Ireland,
of cotton wool, 3,326 cwts., of cotton yarn, 5,405 lbs.; but on an
average of three years, ending January, 1803, there were imported,
of the first article, 13,159 cwts., and of the latter, 628,406 lbs.
It is impossible to conceive any manufacture more flourishing. The
export of linen has increased in Ireland from 17,776,862 yards, the
average in 1770, to 43,534,971 yards, the amount in 1805. The
tillage of Ireland has more than trebled within the last twenty-one
years. The importation of coals has increased from 230,000 tons in
1783, to 417,030 in 1804; of tobacco, from 3,459,861 lbs. in 1783,
to 6,611,543 in 1804; of tea, from 1,703,855 lbs. in 1783, to
3,358,256 in 1804; of sugar, from 143,117 cwts. in 1782, to 309,076
in 1804. Ireland now supports a funded debt of above 64 millions,
and it is computed that more than three millions' of money are
annually remitted to Irish absentees resident in this country. In
Mr. Foster's report, of 100 folio pages, presented to the House of
Commons in the year 1806, the total expenditure of Ireland is stated
at 9,760,013 pounds. Ireland has increased about two-thirds in its
population within twenty-five years, and yet, and in about the same
space of time, its exports of beef, bullocks, cows, pork, swine,
butter, wheat, barley, and oats, collectively taken, have doubled;
and this, in spite of two years' famine, and the presence of an
immense army, that is always at hand to guard the most valuable
appanage of our empire from joining our most inveterate enemies.
Ireland has the greatest possible facilities for carrying on
commerce with the whole of Europe. It contains, within a circuit of
750 miles, 66 secure harbours, and presents a western frontier
against Great Britain, reaching from the Firth of Clyde north to the