'Revenons a ces Moutons'
"Ireland affords no news, and therfore I hope you will expect none, here is plenty of all things except money. and the colledge here has as much mutton for three halfepence as christch. can afford for sixpence. I was at kingsale not long since, where a poore marchant, had a great losse in his muttons, for driving his sheepe to the seaside over a rock that inclined towards the sea, one chanct to fall in, and all the rest, as sheep use to do, followd their leader and lept in, so that I thinke three hundred were drowned. thes and like misschances makes your commons* so little, for twenty thousand sheep a yeare are reckond to got from one port to England, and ten thousand head of cattle, but fourteen Vessels of them were cast away a month since together. at the same place was a vessell cast away coming to Ireland with spice and nutmegs, and it being neere the harbour, some Irish found some of the nutmegs and went to crack them, but thay prayed for a thousand of st patricks curses to fall upon the merchant for bringing nuts without kirnells in them. if such kind of news doe affect you I could write diurnally of them."
George Percivall, from Trinity College, Dublin, to Christchurch, Oxford* December 1660
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