Lord Castlereagh was quite right in pointing to the accumulation of capital as the characteristic advantage of England.
Through centuries of political freedom that process had gone on without interruption.

Ireland, on the contrary, had been scientifically pillaged by the application to her of the "colonial system" from 1663 to 1779; I deliberately exclude the previous waste of war and confiscation.

She had but twenty years of commercial freedom, and, despite her brilliant success in that period, she had not time to accumulate capital to any great extent.

But Grattan's Parliament had shown itself extraordinarily astute and steady of purpose in its economic policy.

Had its guidance continued--conservative taxation, adroit bounties, and that close scrutiny and eager discussion of the movements of industry which stands recorded in its Journal--the manufactures of Ireland would have weathered the storm.