SNIPPET: Between the end of the American Revolution and the end of the War of 1812 (1783-1815), between 100,000 and 150,000 Irish immigrants landed in North America. Most were Ulster Presbyterians who came as farmers or artisans. Squeezed by high rents on their land and the collapse of the linen industry due to British free trade policy, more and more Irish looked to America as a place to begin anew. As economic conditions continued to worsen in Ireland, the numbers of immigrants soared. Upwards of one million Irish immigrants crossed the Atlantic between 1815 and 1845. Increasingly (especially after 1830), these immigrants were Catholics hailing from the south and west of Ireland. They were much poorer and brought fewer skills with them compared with their Ulster counterparts. One of the things making immigration to America in this period easier was the increased trade between Ireland and New York and Liverpool and New York. The growth in trade in the 1820s and 1830s encouraged emigration by lowering the cost of passenger travel. England, however, wanted to populate Canada rather than America with Irish immigrants and thus passed a series of Passenger Acts that made emigration to the latter far more expensive and inconvenient. For example, heavy surcharges increased the price of passage to New York to around 5 pounds versus just 15 shillings for transit to Canada. In addition, ships bound for Canada left from every Irish port, while most bound for America left from Liverpool. Still, limited opportunity in Canada led many an Irish family to book cheap passage to Canada and then walk to Boston. Such a trend accounts for the high percentage of Irish who settled in New England in the pre-Famine era.