from Ireland.  Sir W. Petty remarks, that before this law was passed, three-fourths of the trade of Ireland was with England, but not one-fourth of it since that time.  Sir Jonah Child, in his Discourse on Trade, describes the state of Ireland as having been much improved by the soldiers of the Commonwealth settling there; through their own industry, and that which they infused into the natives, he adds, that Ireland was able to supply foreign markets, as well as our plantations in America, with beef, pork, hides, tallow, bread, beer, wood, and corn, at a cheaper rate than England could afford to do.  Though this country, as we have seen, exported linen goods at a very early period, yet this manufacture cannot be regarded as the staple one of Ireland, or as having contributed very much to her foreign commerce, till it flourished among the Scotch colonists in Ulster towards the middle of the seventeenth century.  As soon as they entered on it with spirit, linen yarn was no longer exported to Manchester and other parts of England, but manufactured into cloth in Ireland, and in that state it formed the chief article of its commerce.  The woollen manufactures of Ireland, which were always viewed with jealousy by England, and were checked in every possible manner, gradually gave way to the restraints laid on them, and to the rising and unchecked linen manufacture, and of course ceased to enter into the exports.

The commerce of Scotland during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was kept low, by ignorance and want of industry, by the disturbed state of the country, by disputes between the king and nobility, and, till the union of the crowns, by wars with England.  The commerce of Ireland had still greater difficulties to struggle with; among which may be mentioned the ignorant oppression of the English government in every thing that related to its manufactures or trade.

The commerce of France, during the sixteenth century, presents few particulars worthy of notice; that, which was carried on between it and England, was principally confined to the exportation of wines, fruit, silk and linen, from France; and woollen goods, and tin and lead, from England.  There seems to have been a great exchange between the woollens of England and the linens of Bretagne.  The French, however, like all the other nations of Europe at this period, were ignorant of the principles, as well as destitute of the enterprize and capital essential to steady and lucrative commerce; and amply deserve the character given of them by Voltaire, that in the reign of Francis I., though possessed of harbours both on the ocean and Mediterranean, they were yet without a navy; and though immersed in luxury, they had only a few coarse manufactures.  The Jews, Genoese, Venetians, Portuguese, Flemings, Dutch, and English, traded successively for them.  At the very close of this century we have a very summary account of the commerce of France by Giovani Bolero.  France, says he, possesses