The persecuting laws were left until the following century.
[Sidenote: Commercial exploitation] The rise of the traders to political power was more ominous than the inception of a new religion.

The country was drained of treasure by the exaction of enormous ransoms for captured chiefs.

The Irish cloth-trade and sea-borne commerce were suppressed.

The country was flooded with inferior coin, thus putting its merchants at a vast disadvantage.

Finally, there was little left that the Irish were able to import save liquors, and those "much corrupted." With every plea in mitigation of judgment that can be offered, it must be recognized that England's government of Ireland proved a failure.
If she did not make the Irish savage she did her best to keep them so, and then punished them for it.