"Trade was a national preoccupation and the constant concern of Parliament and the government, for all his contemporaries were agreed with Defoe that trade was the cause of England's increasing wealth. The trade of England, both overseas and domestic, was extremely rich and varied, based partly on things made or grown at home and partly on an extensive re-export trade of raw materials from the colonies in America and luxury goods from the East. In order to encourage trade, Walpole removed all restrictive measures on the export of English manufactured goods. He also allowed into the country the raw materials needed for them duty free. But, of course, there was no general tendency towards free trade. Everyone, including Walpole, believed that English manufacturers had to be protected at all costs. The Irish were forbidden to make cloth or export their wool to anywhere but England in case the greatest of all English industries – cloth manufacture – should be endangered in any way. This fear of foreign competition was at times carried to fantastic lengths: it was an offence to shear sheep within four miles of the coast in case the fleeces should be smuggled overseas. Yet this attitude – absurd as it might be in many manifestations – was fundamentally realistic. Eighteenth-century politicians realised with great clarity that wealth meant power. Chatham, who was more preoccupied with England's grandeur than any other statesman, planned his campaigns with the merchants of London and planned them to capture French trade. For trade was wealth and wealth was power."