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countries to settle here. Before agriculture became so
extensive as it is at present, the principal trade was the
exportation of beef, hides, and skins, not only to the
English settlements but to several ports of Spain;
cheese also, of an inferior quality, called “Mullahawn,”
was exported in considerable quantities, and an exten-
sive trade was carried on with Newfoundland. At
present the principal trade is with England, to which is
exported a large quantity of agricultural produce of
every kind, butter, pork, bacon, flour and all kinds of
provisions; and since the establishment of steam-packet
communication, great numbers of live cattle have been
sent across the channel. The value of these exports,
in 1813, was £2,200,454. 16.; but for several years
afterwards it did not exceed £1,500,000; but this decrease
was rather the result of reduced prices than of any dimi-
nution of the quantity. On an average of three years from
1831 to 1834, the quantity of provisions exported annu-
ally was 38 tierces of beef, 880 tierces and 1795 barrels of
pork, 392,613 flitches of bacon, 132,384 cwts. of butter,
19,139 cwts. of lard, 152,113 barrels of wheat, 160,954
barrels of oats, 27,045 barrels of barley, 403,852 cwts.
of flour, 18,640 cwts. of oatmeal, and 2857 cwts. of
bread; and of live stock the number annually exported,
during the same period, was on an average 44,241 pigs,
5808 head of cattle, and 9729 sheep, the aggregate
value of all which amounted to £2,092,668. 14. per an-
num. The principal imports are tobacco, sugar, tea,
coffee, pepper, tallow, pitch and tar, hemp, flax, wine,
iron, potashes, hides, cotton, dye-stuffs, timber, staves,
saltpetre, and brimstone, from foreign ports; and coal,
culm, soap, iron, slate, spirits, printed calico, earthen-
ware, hardware, crown and window glass, glass bottles,
bricks, tiles, gunpowder, and bark, from the ports of
Great Britain. Notwithstanding the extent of its export
trade and the importation in return of foreign produce
of every kind, the merchants and traders until recently
have not invested much property in shipping of their own,
but have chiefly employed English shipping; and even till
the year 1820, the port was considered one of the worst
in Ireland, in respect of the accommodation it afforded
for repairing ships. This disadvantage has at length
been removed by the construction of a dockyard on the
bank of the river, opposite to the city, into which vessels
of any burden may be drawn completely out of the
water for repair, and in which have been built several
vessels that are much admired for beauty of model and
soundness of workmanship. The trade of the port has
been much promoted by the establishment of a Cham-
ber of Commerce, incorporated by act of parliament in
1815. The building, in King-street, is large and com-
modious: the ground floor is occupied by the officers
of the Harbour Commissioners, and the pilot-office;
and there are a news-room, and a reading-room and
library belonging to the Waterford Institution; the
business of the savings’ bank is also transacted here,
and the upper part of the building is occupied as
an hotel. The amount of deposits in the savings’
bank, for the year ending Nov. 20th, 1833, was
£77,073. The numerous and peculiar advantages which
Waterford enjoys for the extension of its commerce are
still but beginning to be fully known and duly appre-
ciated. The river Suir is navigable for ships of very
large burden, having sufficient depth of water to allow
vessels of 800 tons’ burden to discharge their cargoes
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opposite to the Custom-house. About two miles below
the city is an island called the Little Island, in the form
of an equilateral triangle; and in the King’s channel,
which embraces two sides of this island, is the greatest
depth of water, but from its position it requires particu-
lar winds to work through it, and it is also rendered
dangerous by a sunken rock, called the Golden Rock.
In the other channel, which is called the Ford, and
which is both the shorter and more direct passage, there
was a depth of only two feet at low water. This great
disadvantage naturally attracted the attention of mer-
cantile and nautical men, and in 1816, through the ex-
ertions of the Chamber of Commerce, an act was
obtained for deepening, cleansing, and otherwise im-
proving the port and harbour, for supplying ships with
ballast, and for regulating the pilots. Under this act
the management is vested
in 24 commissioners, 12 of
whom are nominated by the
Chamber of Commerce, 7 by
the corporation of the city,
and 5 by the Commercial As-
sociation of Clonmel; under
its provisions, arrangements
were speedily made for deep-
ening the channel called the
Ford, and this has been so
effectually accomplished that
there is now at high water
of ordinary spring tides a
depth of 21 feet. The ex-
pense of this improvement amounted to £21,901. 15.,
towards which Government contributed £14,588, and
the remainder was paid from duties levied on the ship-
ping under the authority of the act; there are now
three excellent pilot boats, one of 40 and two of
30 tons’ burden. During the latter years of the war,
the average number of ships which annually entered
the port was 995, of the aggregate burden of 91,385
tons; but on the sudden transition from war to peace,
and more especially from the alteration in the navi-
gation laws, which enabled the Colonial settlements,
particularly Newfoundland, to procure from the cheap-
er markets of the continent those supplies of pro-
visions which they had exclusively obtained from the
mother country, the trade of the port was materially
diminished. Since the deepening of the Ford, however;
and the reduction of the port duties, the trade has been
rapidly increasing; in 1825, the number of ships that
entered the port was nearly equal to the former, and the
trade has since continued to make rapid advances. In
the year ending Jan. 5th, 1835, 57 British ships, of the
aggregate burden of 11,489 tons, and 5 foreign ships,
of 984 tons aggregate burden, entered inwards; and
28 British ships, together of 4658 tons, and 1 foreign
vessel of 169 tons, cleared out from this port in the
foreign trade. During the same period, 1376 steam-
vessels, coasters, and colliers, of the aggregate burden
of 154,004 tons, entered inwards, and 1028, of the
collective burden of 123,879 tons, cleared outwards,
from and to Great Britain; and 132 of 6136 tons
aggregate burden entered inwards, and 170 of 6848
tons cleared outwards, from and to Irish ports. The
number of ships registered as belonging to the port, in
the same year, was 115, of the aggregate burden of