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+Project Gutenberg's The Land-War In Ireland (1870), by James Godkin
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Land-War In Ireland (1870)
+       A History For The Times
+
+Author: James Godkin
+
+Release Date: January 2, 2005 [EBook #14562]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAND-WAR IN IRELAND (1870) ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Alison Hadwin and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LAND-WAR IN IRELAND
+
+A HISTORY FOR THE TIMES
+
+
+BY JAMES GODKIN
+
+
+AUTHOR OF 'IRELAND AND HER CHURCHES'
+LATE IRISH CORRESPONDENT OF 'THE TIMES'
+
+
+LONDON MACMILLAN AND CO. 1870
+
+
+LONDON: PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE AND
+PARLIAMENT STREET
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+It would be difficult to name any subject so much discussed during the
+last half century as 'the condition of Ireland.' There was an endless
+diversity of opinion; but in one thing all writers and speakers
+agreed: the condition was morbid. Ireland was always sick, always
+under medical treatment, always subject to enquiries as to the nature
+of her maladies, and the remedies likely to effect a cure. The royal
+commissions and parliamentary committees that sat upon her case were
+innumerable, and their reports would fill a library. Still the nature
+of the disease, or the complication of diseases, was a mystery. Sundry
+'boons' were prescribed, by way of experiment; but, though recommended
+as perfect cures, they did the patient no good. She was either very
+low and weak, or so dangerously strong and violent that she had to be
+put under restraint. Whenever this crisis arrived, she arrested the
+special attention of the state doctors. Consultations were held, and
+it was solemnly determined that something should be done. Another
+effort should be made to discover the _fons malorum_, and dry it up if
+possible.
+
+A diseased nation, subject to paroxysms of insanity, and requiring
+30,000 keepers, was a dangerous neighbour, as well as a serious
+financial burden. Yet many contended that all such attempts were
+useless. It was like trying different kinds of soap to whiten the skin
+of a negro. The patient was incurable. Her ailment was nothing but
+natural perversity, aggravated by religious delusions; and the root
+of her disorder could never be known till she was subjected to a _post
+mortem_ examination, for which it was hoped emigration, and the help
+of improving landlords, would soon afford an opportunity. In the
+meantime, the strait waistcoat must be put on, to keep the patient
+from doing mischief.
+
+But at length a great physician arose, who declared that this state of
+things should not continue; the honour, if not the safety, of
+England demanded that the treatment should be reversed. Mr. Gladstone
+understands the case of Ireland, and he has courage to apply the
+proper remedies. Yet the British public do not understand it so well;
+and he will need all the force of public opinion to sustain him and
+his cabinet in the work of national regeneration which they have
+undertaken. It is not enough for a good physician to examine the
+symptoms of his patient. He must have a full and faithful history
+of the case. He must know how the disease originated, and how it
+was treated. If injuries were inflicted, he must know under what
+circumstances, how they affected the nervous system, and whether there
+may not be surrounding influences which prevent the restoration of
+health, or some nuisance that poisons the atmosphere.
+
+Such a history of the case of Ireland the author has endeavoured
+to give in the following pages. It it is no perfunctory service. He
+resolved to do it years ago, when he finished his work on the Irish
+Church Establishment, and it has been delayed only in consequence of
+illness and other engagements. He does not boast of any extraordinary
+qualifications for the work. But he claims the advantage of having
+studied the subject long and earnestly, as one in which he has been
+interested from his youth. He has written the history of the country
+more or less fully three times. During his thirty years' connexion
+with the press, it has been his duty to examine and discuss everything
+that appeared before the public upon Irish questions, and it has
+always been his habit to bring the light of history to bear upon the
+topics of the day. Twenty years ago he was an active member of the
+Irish Tenant League, which held great county meetings in most parts of
+the island; and was enthusiastically supported by the tenant farmers,
+adopting resolutions and petitions on the land question almost
+identical with those passed by similar meetings at the present time.
+Then Mr. Sharman Crawford was the only landlord who joined in the
+movement; now many of the largest proprietors take their stand on the
+tenant-right platform. And after a generation of sectarian division
+and religious dissension in Ulster, stimulated by the landed gentry,
+for political purposes, the Catholic priests and the Presbyterian
+clergy have again united to advocate the demands of the people for the
+legal protection of their industry and their property.
+
+There is scarcely a county in Ireland which the author of this
+volume has not traversed more than once, having always an eye to the
+condition of the population, their mode of living, and the
+relations of the different classes. During the past year, as special
+commissioner of the _Irish Times_, he went through the greater part of
+Ulster, and portions of the south, in order to ascertain the feelings
+of the farmers and the working classes, on the great question which is
+about to engage the attention of Parliament.
+
+The result of his historical studies and personal enquiries is
+this:--All the maladies of Ireland, which perplex statesmen and
+economists, have arisen from injuries inflicted by England in the wars
+which she waged to get possession of the Irish land. Ireland has been
+irreconcilable, not because she was conquered by England, not
+even because she was persecuted, but because she was robbed of her
+inheritance. If England had done everything she has done against the
+Irish nation, omitting the _confiscations_, the past would have been
+forgotten and condoned long ago, and the two nations would have been
+one people. Even the religious wars resolve themselves into efforts to
+retain the land, or to recover the forfeited estates. And the banished
+chiefs never could have rallied the nation to arms, as they so often
+did against overwhelming odds, if the people had not been involved in
+the ruin of their lords. All that is really important in the history
+of the country for the last three centuries is, the fighting of the
+two nations for the possession of the soil. The Reformation was
+in reality nothing but a special form of the land war. The oath of
+supremacy was simply a lever for evicting the owners of the land. The
+process was simple. The king demanded spiritual allegiance; refusal
+was high treason; the punishment of high treason was forfeiture of
+estates, with death or banishment to the recusants. Any other law they
+might have obeyed, and retained their inheritance. This law fixed
+its iron grapples in the conscience, and made obedience impossible,
+without a degree of baseness that rendered life intolerable.
+Hence Protestantism was detested, not so much as a religion, as an
+instrument of spoliation.
+
+The agrarian wars were kept up from generation to generation, Ireland
+always making desperate efforts to get back her inheritance, but
+always crushed to the earth, a victim of famine and the sword, by the
+power of England.
+
+The history of these wars, then, is the history of the case of the
+Irish patient. Its main facts are embodied in the general history of
+the country. But they have recently been brought out more distinctly
+by authors who have devoted years to the examination of the original
+state papers, in which the actors themselves described their exploits
+and recorded their motives and feelings with startling frankness. When
+a task of this kind has been performed by a capable and conscientious
+historian, it would be a work of supererogation for another enquirer
+to undergo the wearisome toil, even if he could. I have, therefore,
+for the purpose of my argument, freely availed myself of the materials
+given to the public by Mr. Froude, the Rev. C.P. Meehan, and Mr.
+Prendergast, not, however, without asking their permission, which was
+in each case most readily and kindly granted.
+
+The ancient state of Ireland, and especially of Ulster, is so little
+known in England, that I was glad to have the facts vouched for by
+so high an authority as Mr. Froude, and a writer so full of the
+instinctive pride of the dominant nation; the more so as I have often
+been obliged to dissent from his views, and to appeal against his
+judgments. Beguiled by the beauty of his descriptions, I am afraid I
+have drawn too largely on his pages, in proving and illustrating
+my case; but I feel confident that no one will read these extracts
+without more eagerly desiring to possess the volumes of his great work
+from which they are taken.
+
+I have similar acknowledgments to make to Father Meehan and Mr.
+Prendergast, both of whom are preparing new editions of their most
+valuable works. The royal charters, and other documents connected
+with the Plantation of Ulster, are printed in the 'Concise View of the
+Irish Society,' compiled from their records, and published by their
+authority in 1832. Whenever I have been indebted to other writers,
+I have acknowledged my obligation in the course of the work. In
+preparing it, I have had but one object constantly in view: to present
+to the public a careful collection and an impartial statement of facts
+on the state of Ireland, for the right government of which the British
+people are now more than ever responsible. I shall be thankful if my
+labours should contribute in any measure, however humble, to the new
+conquest of Ireland 'by justice' of which Mr. Bright has spoken.
+His language is suggestive. It is late (happily not 'too late') to
+commence the reign of justice. But the nation is not to be despised
+which requires nothing more than _that_ to win its heart, while its
+spirit could not be conquered by centuries of injustice. Nor should it
+be forgotten by the people of England that some atonement is due for
+past wrongs, not the least of which is the vilification and distrust
+from which the Irish people have suffered so much. 'The spirit of a
+man may sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit who can bear?'
+Some manifestation of Christian magnanimity just now would greatly
+help the work of national reconciliation. The time is favourable. The
+Government enjoys the prestige of an unparalleled success. The only
+Prime Minister that ever dared to do full justice to Ireland, is the
+most powerful that England has had for nearly a century. He has in
+his Cabinet the only Chief Secretary of Ireland that ever thoroughly
+sympathised with the nation, not excepting Lord Morpeth; the great
+tribune of the English people, who has been one of the most eloquent
+advocates of Ireland; an Ex-Viceroy who has pronounced it felony
+for the Irish landlords to avail themselves of their legal rights,
+although he put down a rebellion which that felony mainly provoked;
+another Ex-Governor, who was one of the most earnest and conscientious
+that ever filled the viceregal throne, and who returned to Parliament
+to be one of the ablest champions of the country he had ruled so well;
+not to mention other members of commanding ability, who are solemnly
+pledged to the policy of justice. In these facts there is great
+promise. He understands little of 'the signs of the times,' who does
+not see the dangers that hang on the non-fulfilment of this promise.
+
+J.G.
+
+LONDON: _January 20_, 1870.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+   I. INTRODUCTION
+
+  II. THE RULE OF THE O'NEILLS
+
+  III. SHANE O'NEILL, SOVEREIGN OF ULSTER
+
+  IV. EXTERMINATING WARS
+
+  V. AN IRISH CRUSADE
+
+  VI. THE LAST OF THE IRISH PRINCES
+
+  VII. GOVERNMENT APPEALS TO THE PEOPLE
+
+  VIII. THE CASE OF THE FUGITIVE EARLS
+
+  IX. THE CONFISCATION OF ULSTER
+
+  X. THE PLANTATION OF ULSTER
+
+  XI. THE REBELLION OF 1641
+
+  XII. THE PURITAN PLANTATION
+
+  XIII. THE PENAL CODE. A NEW SYSTEM OF LAND WAR
+
+  XIV. ULSTER IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
+
+  XV. POVERTY AND COERCION
+
+  XVI. THE FAMINE
+
+  XVII. TENANT-RIGHT IN ULSTER
+
+  XVIII. TENANT-RIGHT IN DOWN
+
+  XIX. TENANT-RIGHT IN ANTRIM
+
+  XX. TENANT-RIGHT IN ARMAGH
+
+  XXI. FAKNEY--MR. TRENCH'S 'REALITIES'
+
+  XXII. BELFAST AND PERPETUITY
+
+  XXIII. LEASE-BREAKING--GEASHILL
+
+  XXIV. THE LAND SYSTEM AND THE WORKING CLASSES
+
+  XXV. CONCLUSION--AN APPEAL TO ENGLISHMEN
+
+  XVIII. TENANT-RIGHT IN DOWN 313
+
+  XIX. TENANT-RIGHT IN ANTRIM 328
+
+  XX. TENANT-RIGHT IN ARMAGH 346
+
+  XXI. FAKNEY--MR. TRENCH'S 'REALITIES' 356
+
+  XXII. BELFAST AND PERPETUITY 381
+
+  XXIII. LEASE-BREAKING--GEASHILL 387
+
+  XXIV. THE LAND SYSTEM AND THE WORKING CLASSES 401
+
+  XXV. CONCLUSION--AN APPEAL TO ENGLISHMEN 424
+
+
+
+
+THE LAND-WAR IN IRELAND.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+As the hour approaches when the legislature must deal with the Irish
+Land question, and settle it, like the Irish Church question, once
+for all, attempts are redoubled to frighten the public with
+the difficulties of the task. The alarmists conjure up gigantic
+apparitions more formidable than those which encountered Bunyan's
+Pilgrim. Monstrous figures frown along the gloomy avenue that, leads
+up to the Egyptian temple in which the divinity, PROPERTY, dwells in
+mysterious darkness. To enter the sanctuary, we are solemnly
+assured, requires all the cardinal virtues in their highest state of
+development--the firmest faith, the most vivid hope, and the charity
+that never faileth. But this is not the only country that has had a
+land question to settle. Almost every nation in Europe has done for
+itself what England is now palled upon to do for Ireland. In fact,
+it is a necessary process in the transition from feudalism to
+constitutional self-government. Feudalism gave the land to a few whom
+it made princes and lords, having forcibly taken it from the many,
+whom it made subjects and serfs. The land is the natural basis of
+society. The Normans made it the artificial basis of a class. Society
+in nearly every other country has reverted back to its original
+foundations, and so remains firm and strong without dangerous rents or
+fissures. No doubt, the operation is difficult and critical. But what
+has been done once may be done again; and as it was England that kept
+Irish society so long rocking on its smaller end, it is her duty
+now to lend all her strength to help to seat it on its own broad
+foundations. Giving up the Viceroy's dreams that the glorious mission
+of Ireland was to be a kitchen garden, a dairy, a larder for England,
+we must come frankly to the conclusion that the national life of the
+Irish people, without distinction of creed or party, increases
+in vigour with their intelligence, and is now invincible. Let the
+imperial legislature put an end for ever to such an unnatural state of
+things--thus only can they secure the harmonious working and cordial
+Union of the two nations united together in one State--thus only can
+they insure for the landlords themselves all the power and all
+the influence that can be retained by them in consistency with the
+industrial rights and political freedom of the cultivators of the
+soil. These now complain of their abject dependence, and hopeless
+bondage, under grinding injustice. They are alleged to be full of
+discontent, which must grow with the intelligence and manhood of the
+people who writhe under the system. Their advocates affirm that their
+discontent must increase in volume and angry force every year, and
+that, owing to the connection of Ireland with the United States,
+it may at any time be suddenly swollen with the fury of a mountain
+torrent, deeply discoloured by a Republican element.
+
+It must be granted, I fear, that the Celts of Ireland feel pretty much
+as the Britons felt under the ascendency of the Saxons, and as the
+Saxons in their turn felt under the ascendency of the Normans. In
+the estimation of the Christian Britons, their Saxon conquerors,
+even after the conversion of the latter, were 'an accursed race, the
+children of robbers and murderers, possessing the fruits of their
+fathers' crimes.' 'With them,' says Dr. Lingard, 'the Saxon was no
+better than a pagan bearing the name of a Christian. They refused to
+return his salutation, to join in prayer with him in the church, to
+sit with him at the same table, to abide with him under the same roof.
+The remnant of his meals and the food over which he had made the sign
+of the cross they threw to their dogs or swine; the cup out of
+which he had drunk they scoured with sand, as if it had contracted
+defilement from his lips.'
+
+It is not the Celtic memory only that is tenacious of national wrong.
+The Saxon was doomed to drink to the dregs the same bitter cup which
+he administered so unmercifully to the Briton. His Teutonic blood
+saved him from no humiliation or insult. The Normans seized all the
+lands, all the castles, all the pleasant mansions, all the churches
+and monasteries. Even the Saxon saints were flung down out of their
+shrines and trampled in the dust under the iron heel of the Christian
+conqueror. Everything Saxon was vile, and the word 'Englishry' implied
+as much contempt and scorn as the word 'Irishry' in a later age. In
+fact, the subjugated Saxons gradually became infected with all the
+vices and addicted to all the social disorders that prevailed among
+the Irish in the same age; only in Ireland the anarchy endured much
+longer from the incompleteness of the conquest and the absence of the
+seat of supreme government, which kept the races longer separate and
+antagonistic. Perhaps the most humiliating notice of the degrading
+effects of conquest on the noble Saxon race to be found in history,
+is the language in which Giraldus Cambrensis, the reviler of the Irish
+Celt, contrasts them with his countrymen, the Welsh. 'Who dare,'
+he says, 'compare the English, the most degraded of all races under
+heaven, with the Welsh? In their own country they are the serfs,
+the veriest slaves of the Normans. In ours whom else have we for our
+herdsmen, shepherds, cobblers, skinners, cleaners of our dog kennels,
+ay, even of our privies, but Englishmen? Not to mention their original
+treachery to the Britons, that hired by them to defend them they
+turned upon them in spite of their oaths and engagements, they are
+to this day given to treachery and murder.' The lying Saxon was,
+according to this authority, a proverbial expression.
+
+The Saxon writers lamented their miserable subjection in a monotonous
+wail for many generations. So late as the seventeenth century an
+English author speaks in terms of compassion of the disinherited
+and despoiled families who had sunk into the condition of artisans,
+peasants, and paupers. 'This,' says M. Thierry, 'is the last sorrowful
+glance cast back through the mist of ages on that great event which
+established in England a race of kings, nobles, and warriors of
+foreign extraction. The reader must figure to himself, not a mere
+change of political rule, not the triumph of one of two competitors,
+but the intrusion of a nation into the bosom of another people which
+it came to destroy, and the scattered fragments of which it retained
+as an integral portion of the new system of society, in the _status_
+merely of personal property, or, to use the stronger language of
+records and deeds, _a clothing of the soil_. He must not picture to
+himself on the one hand the king and despot; on the other simply his
+subjects, high and low, rich and poor, all inhabiting England, and
+consequently all English. He must bear in mind that there were two
+distinct nations--the old Anglo-Saxon race and the Norman invaders,
+dwelling intermingled on the same soil; or, rather, he might
+contemplate two countries--the one possessed by the Normans, wealthy
+and exonerated from public burdens, the other enslaved and oppressed
+with a land tax--the former full of spacious mansions, of walled
+towns, and moated castles--the latter occupied with thatched cabins,
+and ancient walls in a state of dilapidation. This peopled with
+the happy and the idle, with soldiers, courtiers, knights, and
+nobles--that with miserable men condemned to labour as peasants and
+artisans. On the one side he beholds luxury and insolence, on the
+other poverty and envy--not the envy of the poor at the sight of
+opulence and men born to opulence, but that malignant envy, although
+justice be on its side, which the despoiled cannot but entertain on
+looking upon the spoilers. Lastly, to complete the picture, these two
+countries are in some sort interwoven with each other--they meet
+at every point, and yet they are more distinct, more completely
+separated, than if the ocean rolled between them.'
+
+Does not this picture look very like Ireland? To make it more like,
+let us imagine that the Norman king had lived in Paris, and kept a
+viceroy in London--that the English parliament were subordinate to the
+French parliament, composed exclusively of Normans, and governed by
+Norman undertakers for the benefit of the dominant State--that the
+whole of the English land was held by ten thousand Norman proprietors,
+many of them absentees--that all the offices of the government, in
+every department, were in the hands of Normans--that, differing in
+religion with the English nation, the French, being only a tenth of
+the population, had got possession of all the national churches and
+church property, while the poor natives supported a numerous hierarchy
+by voluntary contributions--that the Anglo-Norman parliament was
+bribed and coerced to abolish itself, forming a union of England with
+France, in which the English members were as one to six. Imagine that
+in consequence of rebellions the land of England had been confiscated
+three or four times, after desolating wars and famines, so that all
+the native proprietors were expelled, and the land was parcelled
+out to French soldiers and adventurers on condition that the foreign
+'planters' should assist in keeping down 'the mere English' by force
+of arms. Imagine that the English, being crushed by a cruel penal
+code for a century, were allowed to reoccupy the soil as mere
+tenants-at-will, under the absolute power of their French landlords.
+If all this be imagined by English legislators and English writers,
+they will be better able to understand the Irish land question, and to
+comprehend the nature of 'Irish difficulties,' as well as the justice
+of feeble, insincere, and baffled statesmen in casting the blame
+of Irish misery and disorder on the unruly and barbarous nature of
+Irishmen. They will recollect that the aristocracy of Ireland are the
+high-spirited descendants of conquerors, with the instinct of conquest
+still in their blood. The parliament which enacted the Irish land laws
+was a parliament composed almost exclusively of men of this dominant
+race. They made all political power dependent on the ownership of
+land, thus creating for themselves a monopoly which it is not in human
+nature to surrender without a struggle.
+
+The possession of this monopoly, however, fully accounts for two
+things--the difficulty which the landlords feel in admitting the
+justice of the tenant's claims for the legal recognition of the value
+which his labour has added to the soil, and the extreme repugnance
+with which they regard any legislation on the subject. Besides,
+the want of sympathy with the people, of earnestness and courage in
+meeting the realities of the case, is conspicuous in all attempts
+of the kind during the last half-century. Those attempts have been
+evasive, feeble, abortive--concessions to the demand that _something_
+must be done, but so managed that nothing should be done to weaken the
+power of the eight thousand proprietors over the mass of the nation
+dependent on the land for their existence. Hence has arisen a great
+amount of jealousy, distrust, and irritability in the landlord class
+towards the tenantry and their advocates.
+
+The Irish race, to adopt Thierry's language, are full of 'malignant
+envy' towards the lords of the soil; not because they are rich, but
+because they have the people so completely in their power, so entirely
+at their mercy for all that man holds most dear. The tenants feel
+bitterly when they think that they have no legal right to live on
+their native land. They have read the history of our dreadful civil
+wars, famines, and confiscations. They know that by the old law of
+Ireland, and by custom from times far beyond the reach of authentic
+history, the clans and tribes of the Celtic people occupied certain
+districts with which their names are still associated, and that the
+land was inalienably theirs. Rent or tribute they paid, indeed, to
+their princes, and if they failed the chiefs came with armed followers
+and helped themselves, driving away cows, sheep, and horses sufficient
+to meet their demand, or more if they were unscrupulous, which was
+'distress' with a vengeance. But the eviction of the people even for
+non-payment of rent, and putting other people in their place, were
+things never heard of among the Irish under their own rulers. The
+chief had his own mensal lands, as well as his tribute, and these he
+might forfeit. But as the clansmen could not control his acts, they
+could never see the justice of being punished for his misdeeds by
+the confiscation of their lands, and driven from the homes of their
+ancestors often made doubly sacred by religious associations.
+
+History, moreover, teaches them that, as a matter of fact, the
+government in the reign of James I.--and James himself in repeated
+proclamations--assured the people who occupied the lands of O'Neill
+and O'Donnell at the time of their flight that they would be protected
+in all their rights if they remained quiet and loyal, which they
+did. Yet they were nearly all removed to make way for the English and
+Scotch settlers.
+
+Thus, historical investigators have been digging around the
+foundations of Irish landlordism. They declare that those foundations
+were cemented with blood, and they point to the many wounds still open
+from which that blood issued so profusely. The facts of the conquest
+and confiscation were hinted at by the Devon Commissioners as
+accounting for the peculiar difficulties of the Irish land question,
+and writers on it timidly allude to 'the historic past' as originating
+influences still powerful in alienating landlords and tenants, and
+fostering mutual distrust between them. But the time for evasion and
+timidity has passed. We must now honestly and courageously face
+the stern realities of this case. Among these realities is a firm
+conviction in the minds of many landlords that they are in no sense
+trustees for the community, but that they have an absolute power over
+their estates--that they can, if they like, strip the land clean of
+its human clothing, and clothe it with sheep or cattle instead, or lay
+it bare and desolate, let it lapse into a wilderness, or sow it with
+salt. That is in reality the terrific power secured to them by the
+present land code, to be executed through the Queen's writ and by the
+Queen's troops--a power which could not stand a day if England did not
+sustain it by overwhelming military force.
+
+Another of the realities of the question is the no less inveterate
+conviction in the tenants' mind that the absolute power of the
+landlord was originally a usurpation effected by the sword. Right or
+wrong, they believe that the confiscations were the palpable violation
+of the natural rights of the people whom Providence placed in this
+country. With bitter emphasis they assert that no set of men has any
+divine right to root a nation out of its own land. Painful as this
+state of feeling is, there is no use in denying that it exists. Here,
+then, is the deep radical difference that is to be removed. Here are
+the two conflicting forces which are to be reconciled. This is the
+real Irish land question. All other points are minor and of easy
+adjustment. The people say, and, I believe, sincerely, that they are
+willing to pay a fair rent, according to a public valuation--not a
+rent imposed arbitrarily by one of the interested parties, which
+might be raised so as to ruin the occupier. The feelings of these two
+parties often clash so violently, there is such instinctive distrust
+between them, the peace and prosperity of the country depend so much
+on their coming to terms and putting an end to their long-standing
+feud, that it is still more imperatively necessary than in the
+Church question, that a third party, independent, impartial, and
+authoritative, should intervene and heal the breach.
+
+There was one phrase constantly ringing in the ears of the Devon
+Commissioners, and now, after nearly a generation has passed away, it
+is ringing in the ears of the nation louder than ever--'_the want
+of tenure_.' All the evidence went to show that the want of security
+paralysed industry and impeded social progress. It seems strange that
+any evidence should be thought necesary to prove that a man will not
+sow if he does not hope to reap, and that he will not build houses for
+strangers to enjoy. This would be taken as an axiom anywhere out of
+Ireland. Of all the people in Europe, the Irish have suffered most
+from the oppression of those who, from age to age, had power in the
+country. Whoever fought or conquered, they were always the victims;
+and it is a singular fact that their sufferings are scarcely ever
+noticed by the contemporary annalists, even when those annalists
+were ecclesiastics. The extent to which they were slaughtered in the
+perpetual wars between the native chiefs, and in the wars between
+those chiefs and the English, is something awful to contemplate, not
+to speak of the wholesale destruction of life by the famines which
+those wars entailed. On several occasions the Celtic race seemed very
+nearly extinct. The penal code, with all its malign influence, had one
+good effect. It subdued to a great extent the fighting propensities
+of the people, and fused the clans into one nation, purified by
+suffering. Since that time, in spite of occasional visitations of
+calamity, they have been steadily rising in the social scale, and they
+are now better off than ever they were in their whole history. When
+we review the stages by which they have risen, we cannot but feel at
+times grieved and indignant at the opportunities for tranquillising
+and enriching the country which were lost through the ignorance,
+apathy, bigotry, and selfishness of the legislature. There was no end
+of commissions and select committees to inquire into the condition
+of the agricultural population, whenever Parliament was roused by the
+prevalence of agrarian outrages. They reported, and there the matter
+ended. There were always insuperable difficulties when the natives
+were to be put in a better position. Between 1810 and 1814, for
+example, a commission reported four times on the condition of
+the Irish bogs. They expressed their entire conviction of the
+practicability of cultivating with profit an immense extent of land
+lying waste. In 1819, in 1823, in 1826, and in 1830, select committees
+inquired into and reported on drainage, reclamation of bogs and
+marshes, on roads, fisheries, emigration, and other schemes for giving
+employment to the redundant population that had been encouraged to
+increase and multiply in the most reckless manner, while 'war
+prices' were obtained for agricultural produce, and the votes of the
+forty-shilling freeholders were wanted by the landlords. When, by the
+Emancipation Act in 1829, the forty-shilling franchise was abolished,
+the peasant lost his political value. After the war, when the price of
+corn fell very low, and, consequently, tillage gave place to grazing,
+labourers became to the middleman an encumbrance and a nuisance that
+must be cleared off the land, just as weeds are plucked up and flung
+out to wither on the highway. Then came Lord Devon's Land Commission,
+which inquired on the eve of the potato failure and the great famine.
+The Irish population was now at its highest figure--between eight and
+nine millions. Yet, though there had been three bad seasons, it was
+clearly proved at that time that by measures which a wise and willing
+legislature would have promptly passed, the whole surplus population
+could have been profitably employed.
+
+In this great land controversy, on which side lies the truth? Is it
+the fault of the people, or the fault of the law, that the country is
+but half cultivated, while the best of the peasantry are emigrating
+with hostile feelings and purposes of vengeance towards England? As
+to the landlords, as a class, they use their powers with as much
+moderation and mercy as any other class of men in any country ever
+used power so vast and so little restrained. The best and most
+indulgent landlords, the most genial and generous, are unquestionably
+the old nobility, the descendants of the Normans and Saxons, those
+very conquerors of whom we have heard so much. The worst, the most
+harsh and exacting, are those who have purchased under the Landed
+Estates Court--strangers to the people, who think only of the
+percentage on their capital. We had heard much of the necessity of
+capital to develope the resources of the land. The capital came,
+but the development consists in turning tillage lands into pasture,
+clearing out the labouring population and sending them to the
+poorhouse, or shipping them off at a few pounds per head to keep down
+the rates. And yet is it not possible to set all our peasantry to work
+at the profitable cultivation of their native land? Is it not possible
+to establish by law what many landlords act upon as the rule of their
+estates--namely, the principle that no man is to be evicted so long as
+he pays a fair rent, and the other principle, that whenever he fails,
+he is entitled to the market value by public sale of all the property
+in his holding beyond that fair rent? The hereditary principle,
+rightly cherished among the landlords, so conservative in its
+influence, ought to be equally encouraged among the tenants. The man
+of industry, as well as the man of rank, should be able to feel that
+he is providing for his children, that his farm is at once a bank and
+an insurance office, in which all his minute daily deposits of toil
+and care and skill will be safe and productive. This is the way to
+enrich and strengthen the State, and to multiply guarantees against
+revolution--not by consolidation of farms and the abandonment of
+tillage, not by degrading small holders into day labourers, levelling
+the cottages and filling the workhouses.
+
+If the legislature were guided by the spirit that animates Lord Erne
+in his dealings with his tenantry, the land question would soon
+be settled to the satisfaction of all parties. 'I think,' said his
+lordship, 'as far as possible, every tenant on my estate may call his
+farm his castle, as long as he conducts himself honestly, quietly, and
+industriously; and, should he wish to leave in order to find a better
+landlord, I allow him to sell his farm, provided he pleases me in a
+tenant. Therefore, if a man lays out money on his farm judiciously, he
+is certain to receive back the money, should he wish to go elsewhere.'
+He mentioned three cases of sale which occurred last year. One tenant
+sold a farm of seventy acres in bad order for 570 l., another thirty
+acres for 300 l., and a third the same number of acres in worse
+condition for 200 l. The landlord lost nothing by these changes. His
+rent was paid up, and in each case he got a good tenant for a bad one.
+Lord Erne is a just man, and puts on no more than a fair rent. But
+all landlords are not just, as all tenants are not honest. Even where
+tenant-right is admitted in name, it is obvious that the rent may be
+raised so high as to make the farm worth nothing in the market. To
+give to the tenant throughout the country generally the pleasant
+feeling that his farm is his castle, which he can make worth more
+money every day he rises, there must be a public letting valuation,
+and this the State could easily provide. And then there should be the
+right of sale to the highest solvent bidder.
+
+This might be one way of securing permanent tenure, or stimulating the
+industry and sustaining the thrift of the farmer. But the nature
+of the different tenures, and the effect of each in bracing up or
+relaxing the nerves of industry, will be the object of deliberation
+with the Government and the legislature. It is said that, in the hands
+of small farmers, proprietorship leads to endless subdivision; that
+long leases generally cause bad husbandry; that tenants-at-will often
+feel themselves more secure and safe than a contract could make them;
+that families have lived on the same farm for generations without a
+scrape of a pen except the receipt for rent. On the other hand, there
+is the general cry of 'want of tenure;' there is the custom of serving
+notices to quit, sometimes for other reasons than non-payment of rent;
+there are occasional barbarities in the levelling of villages, and
+dragging the aged and the sick from the old roof-tree, the parting
+from which rends their heart-strings; and, above all, there is the
+feeling among the peasantry which makes them look without horror on
+the murder of a landlord or an agent who was a kind and benevolent
+neighbour; and, lastly, the paramount consideration for the
+legislature, that a large portion of the people are disaffected to
+the State, and ready to join its enemies, and this almost solely on
+account of the state of the law relating to land. Hence the necessity
+of settling the question as speedily as possible, and the duty of all
+who have the means to contribute something towards that most desirable
+consummation, which seems to be all that is wanted to make Irishmen of
+every class work together earnestly for the welfare of their country.
+It is admitted that no class of men in the world has improved more
+than the Irish landlords during the last twenty years. Let the
+legislature restore confidence between them and the people by taking
+away all ground for the suspicion that they wish to extirpate the
+Celtic race.
+
+Nor was this suspicion without cause, as the following history will
+too clearly prove. A very able English writer has said: 'The policy
+of all the successive swarms of settlers was to extirpate the native
+Celtic race, but every effort made to break up the old framework
+of society failed, for the new-comers soon became blended with and
+undistinguishable from the mass of the people--being obliged to ally
+themselves with the native chieftains, rather than live hemmed in by a
+fiery ring of angry septs and exposed to perpetual war with everything
+around them. Merged in the great Celtic mass, they adopted Irish
+manners and names, yet proscribed and insulted the native inhabitants
+as an inferior race. Everything liberal towards them is intercepted in
+its progress.
+
+'The past history of Ulster is but a portion of Scottish history
+inserted into that of Ireland--a stone in the Irish mosaic of an
+entirely different quality and colour from the pieces that surround
+it.
+
+'Thus it came to pass that, through the confiscation of their lands
+and the proscription of their religion, popery was worked by a most
+vehement process into the blood and brain of the Irish nation.'
+
+It has been often said that the Irish must be an inferior race, since
+they allowed themselves to be subjugated by some thousands of English
+invaders. But it should be recollected, first, that the conquest,
+commenced by Henry II. in the twelfth century, was not completed till
+the seventeenth century, when the King's writ ran for the first time
+through the province of Ulster, the ancient kingdom of the O'Neills;
+in the second place, the weakness of the Celtic communities was not so
+much the fault of the men as of their institutions, brought with them
+from the East and clung to with wonderful tenacity. So long as they
+had boundless territory for their flocks and herds, and could always
+move on 'to pastures new,' they increased and multiplied, and allowed
+the sword and the battle-axe to rest, unless when a newly elected
+chief found it necessary to give his followers 'a hosting'--which
+means an expedition for plunder. Down to the seventeenth century,
+after five hundred years' contact with the Teutonic race, they were
+essentially the same people as they were when the ancient Greeks
+and Romans knew them. They are thus described by Dr. Mommsen in his
+'History of Rome:'--'Such qualities--those of good soldiers and of bad
+citizens--explain the historical fact that the Celts have shaken all
+States and have _founded none_. Everywhere we find them ready to rove,
+or, in other words, to march, preferring movable property to landed
+estate, and gold to everything else; following the profession of arms
+as a system of organised pillage, or even as a trade for hire, and
+with such success that even the Roman historian, Sallust, acknowledges
+that the Celts bore off the prize from the Romans in feats of arms.
+They were the true 'soldiers of fortune' of antiquity, as pictures and
+descriptions represent them, with big but sinewy bodies, with shaggy
+hair and long moustaches--quite a contrast to the Greeks and Romans,
+who shaved the upper lip--in the variegated embroidered dresses which
+in combat were not unfrequently thrown off, with a broad gold ring
+round their neck, wearing no helmets and without missile weapons
+of any sort, but furnished instead with an immense shield, a long
+ill-tempered sword, a dagger and a lance, all ornamented with gold,
+for they were not unskilful in working in metals. Everything was made
+subservient to ostentation--even wounds, which were often enlarged for
+the purpose of boasting a broader scar. Usually they fought on foot,
+but certain tribes on horseback, in which case every free man was
+followed by two attendants, likewise mounted. War-chariots were early
+in use, as they were among the Libyans and Hellenes in the earliest
+times. Many a trait reminds us of the chivalry of the middle ages,
+particularly the custom of single combat, which was foreign to the
+Greeks and Romans. Not only were they accustomed in war to challenge
+a single enemy to fight, after having previously insulted him by words
+and gestures; in peace also they fought with each other in splendid
+equipments, as for life or death. After such feats carousals followed
+in due course. In this way they led, whether under their own or
+a foreign banner, a restless soldier life, constantly occupied in
+fighting and in their so-called feats of heroism. They were dispersed
+from _Ireland_ and Spain to Asia Minor, but all their enterprises
+melted away like snow in spring, and they nowhere created a great
+state or developed a distinctive culture of their own.' Such were
+the people who once almost terminated the existence of Rome, and were
+afterwards with difficulty repulsed from Greece, who became masters of
+the most fertile part of Italy and of a fair province in the heart
+of Asia Minor, who, after their Italian province had been subdued,
+inflicted disastrous blows on successive Roman generals, and were only
+at last subjugated by Cæsar himself in nine critical and sometimes
+most dangerous campaigns, B.C. 51.
+
+Niebuhr observes that at that time the form of government was
+everywhere an hereditary monarchy, which, when Cæsar went into Gaul,
+had been swallowed up, as had the authority of the Senate, in the
+anarchy of the nobles. Their freedom was lawlessness; an inherent
+incapacity of living under the dominion of laws distinguishes them as
+barbarians from the Greeks and Italians. As individuals had to procure
+the protection of some magnate in order to live in safety, so the
+weaker tribes took shelter under the patronage of a more powerful one.
+For they were a disjointed multitude; and when any people had in
+this manner acquired an extensive sovereignty, they exercised it
+arbitrarily until its abuses became intolerable, or their subjects
+were urged by blind hatred of their power to fall off from them, and
+gather round some new centre. The sole bond of union was the Druidical
+hierarchy which, at least in Cæsar's time, was common to both nations.
+Both of them paid obedience to its tribunal, which administered
+justice once a year--an institution which probably was not introduced
+till long after the age of migrations, when the expulsion of the
+vanquished had ceased to be regarded as the end of war, and which must
+have been fostered by the constant growth of lawlessness in particular
+states--being upheld by the _ban_, which excluded the contumacious
+from all intercourse in divine worship and in daily life with the
+faithful. The huge bodies, wild features, and long shaggy hair of the
+men, gave a ghastliness to their aspect. This, along with their fierce
+courage, their countless numbers, and the noise made by an enormous
+multitude of horns and trumpets, struck the armies arrayed against
+them with fear and amazement. If these, however, did not allow
+their terror to overpower them, the want of order, discipline, and
+perseverance would often enable an inferior number to vanquish a vast
+host of the barbarians. Besides, they were but ill equipped. Few of
+them wore any armour; their narrow shields, which were of the same
+height with their bodies, were weak and clumsy; they rushed upon their
+enemies with broad thin battle-swords of bad steel, which the first
+blow upon iron often notched and rendered useless. Like true savages,
+they destroyed the inhabitants, the towns, and the agriculture of the
+countries they conquered. They cut off the heads of the slain,
+and tied them by the hair to the manes of their horses. If a skull
+belonged to a person of rank, they nailed it up in their houses and
+preserved it as an heirloom for their posterity, as the nobles in rude
+ages do stag-horns. Towns were rare amongst them; the houses and
+the villages, which were very numerous, were mean, the furniture
+wretched--a heap of straw covered with skins served both for a bed
+and a seat. They did not cultivate corn save for a very limited
+consumption, for the main part of their food was the milk and the
+flesh of their cattle. These formed their wealth. Gold, too, they
+had in abundance, derived partly from the sandy beds of their rivers,
+partly from some mines which these had led them to discover. It was
+worn in ornaments by every Gaul of rank. In battle he bore gold chains
+on his arms and heavy gold collars round his neck, even when the upper
+part of his body was in other respects quite naked. For they often
+threw off their parti-coloured chequered cloaks, which shone with
+all the hues of the rainbow, like the picturesque dress of their
+kinspeople the Highlanders, who have laid aside the trousers of the
+ancient Gauls. Their duels and gross revels are an image of the rudest
+part of the middle ages. Their debauches were mostly committed with
+beer and mead; for vines and all the plants of southern regions were
+as yet total strangers to the north of the Alps, where the climate in
+those ages was extremely severe; so that wine was rare, though of all
+the commodities imported it was the most greedily bought up.
+
+Ulster was known in ancient times as one of the five Irish 'kingdoms,'
+and remained unconquered by the English till the reign of James I.,
+when the last prince of the great house of O'Neill, then Earl of
+Tyrone, fled to the Continent in company with O'Donel, Earl of
+Tyrconnel, head of another very ancient sept. Up to that period the
+men of Ulster proudly regarded themselves as 'Irish of the Irish and
+Catholic of the Catholics.' The inhabitants were of mixed blood, but,
+as in the other provinces of the island, the great mass of the people,
+as well as the ruling classes, were of Celtic origin. Those whom
+ethnologists still recognise as aborigines, in parts of Connaught
+and in some mountainous regions, an inferior race, are said to be
+the descendants of the Firbolgs, or Belgae, who formed the third
+immigration. They were followed and subdued by the Tuatha de
+Danans--men famed for their gigantic power and supernatural skill--a
+race of demigods, who still live in the national superstitions. The
+last of the ancient invasions was by the Gael or Celt, known as the
+Milesians and Scoti. The institutions and customs of this people were
+established over the whole island, and were so deeply rooted in the
+soil that their remnants to this day present the greatest obstacles
+to the settlement of the land question according to the English model,
+and on the principles of political economy, which run directly counter
+to Irish instincts. It is truly wonderful how distinctly the present
+descendants of this race preserve the leading features of their
+primitive character. In France and England the Celtic character was
+moulded by the power and discipline of the Roman Empire. To Ireland
+this modifying influence never extended; and we find the Ulster chiefs
+who fought for their territories with English viceroys 280 years ago
+very little different from the men who followed Brennus to the sack
+of Home, and encountered the legions of Julius Cæsar on the plains of
+Gaul.
+
+Mr. Prendergast observes, in the introduction to his 'Cromwellian
+Settlement' that when the companions of Strongbow landed in the reign
+of Henry II. they found a country such as Cæsar had found in Gaul
+1200 years before. A thousand years had passed over the island without
+producing the slightest social progress--'the inhabitants divided
+into tribes on the system of the clansmen and chiefs, without a common
+Government, suddenly confederating, suddenly dissolving, with Brehons,
+Shaunahs, minstrels, bards, and harpers, in all unchanged, except that
+for their ancient Druids they had got Christian priests. Had the
+Irish remained honest pagans, Ireland perhaps had remained unconquered
+still. Round the coast strangers had built seaport towns, either
+traders from the Carthaginian settlements in Spain, or outcasts from
+their own country, like the Greeks that built Marseilles. At the time
+of the arrival of the French and Flemish adventurers from Wales, they
+were occupied by a mixed Danish and French population, who supplied
+the Irish with groceries, including the wines of Poitou, the latter in
+such abundance that they had no need of vineyards.'
+
+If vineyards had been needed, we may be sure they would not have been
+planted, for the Irish Celts planted nothing. Neither did they build,
+except in the simplest and rudest way, improving their architecture
+from age to age no more than the beaver or the bee. Mr. Prendergast
+is an able, honest, and frank writer; yet there is something amusingly
+Celtic in the flourish with which he excuses the style of palaces in
+which the Irish princes delighted to dwell. 'Unlike England,' he says,
+'then covered with castles on the heights, where the French gentlemen
+secured themselves and their families against the hatred of the churls
+and villains, as the English peasantry were called, the dwellings
+of the Irish chiefs were of wattles or clay. It is for robbers and
+foreigners to take to rocks and precipices for security; for native
+rulers, there is no such fortress _as justice and humanity_.' This
+is very fine, but surely Mr. Prendergast cannot mean that the Irish
+chiefs were distinguished by their justice and humanity. The following
+touch is still grander:--'The Irish, like the wealthiest and highest
+of the present day, loved detached houses surrounded by fields and
+woods. Towns and their walls they looked upon as tombs or sepulchres,
+&c.' As to fields, there were none, because the Irish never made
+fences, their patches of cultivated land being divided by narrow
+strips of green sod. Besides, they lived in villages, which were
+certainly surrounded by woods, because the woods were everywhere,
+and they furnished the inhabitants with fuel and shelter, as well as
+materials for building their huts.
+
+But further on this able author expresses himself much more in
+accordance with the truth of history, when he states that the 'Irish
+enemy' was no _nation_ in the modern sense of the word, but a race
+divided into many nations or tribes, _separately_ defending their
+lands from the English barons in the immediate neighbourhood.
+There had been no ancient national government displaced, no dynasty
+overthrown; the Irish had _no national flag_, nor any capital city as
+the metropolis of their common country, nor any common administration
+of law.' He might have added that they had no _mint_. There never was
+an Irish king who had his face stamped on a coin of his realm. Some
+stray pieces of money found their way into the country from abroad,
+but up to the close of the sixteenth century the rudest form of barter
+prevailed in Ulster, and accounts were paid not in coins but in cows.
+Even the mechanical arts which had flourished in the country before
+the arrival of the Celts had gradually perished, and had disappeared
+at the time of the English invasion. Any handy men could build a house
+of mud and wattles. Masons, carpenters, smiths, painters, glaziers,
+&c., were not wanted by a people who despised stone buildings as
+prisons, and abhorred walled towns as sepulchres. Spinning and weaving
+were arts cultivated by the women, each household providing materials
+for clothing, which was little used in warm weather, and thrown off
+when fighting or any other serious work was to be done.
+
+I should be sorry to disparage the Celtic race, or any other race, by
+exaggerating their bad qualities or suppressing any reliable testimony
+to their merits. But with me the truth of history is sacred. Both
+sides of every case should be fairly stated. Nothing can be gained by
+striving to hide facts which may be known to every person who takes
+the trouble to study the subject. I write in the interest of the
+people--of the toiling masses; and I find that they were oppressed and
+degraded by the ruling classes long before the Norman invader took
+the place of the Celtic chief. And it is a curious fact that when the
+Cromwellians turned the Catholic population out of their homes and
+drove them into Connaught, they were but following the example set
+them by the Milesian lords of the soil centuries before.
+
+The late Mr. Darcy Magee, a real lover of his country, in his Irish
+history points out this fact. The Normans found the population divided
+into two great classes--the free tribes, chiefly if not exclusively
+Celtic, and the unfree tribes, consisting of the descendants of the
+subjugated races, or of clans once free, reduced to servitude by the
+sword, and the offspring of foreign mercenary soldiers. 'The unfree
+tribes,' says Mr. Darcy Magee, 'have left no history. Under the
+despotism of the Milesian kings, it was high treason to record the
+actions of the conquered race, so that the Irish Belgae fared as badly
+in this respect at the hands of the Milesian historians as the latter
+fared in after times from the chroniclers of the Normans. We only know
+that such tribes were, and that their numbers and physical force more
+than once excited the apprehension of the children of the conquerors.
+One thing is certain--the jealous policy of the superior race never
+permitted them to reascend the plane of equality from which they had
+been hurled at the very commencement of the Milesian ascendency.'
+
+Mr. Haverty, another Catholic historian, learned, accurate, and
+candid, laments the oppression of the people by their native rulers.
+'Those who boasted descent from the Scytho-Spanish hero would have
+considered themselves degraded were they to devote themselves to
+any less honourable profession than those of soldiers, _ollavs_, or
+physicians; and hence the cultivation of the soil and the exercise of
+the mechanic arts were left almost exclusively to the _Firbolgs_ and
+the _Tuatha-de-Danans_--the former people, in particular, being still
+very numerous, and forming the great mass of the population in
+the west. These were ground down by high rents and the exorbitant
+exactions of the dominant race, _in order to support their unbounded
+hospitality_ and defray the expenses of costly assemblies; but this
+oppression must have caused perpetual discontent, and the hard-working
+plebeians, as they were called, easily perceived that their masters
+were running headlong to destruction, and that it only required a bold
+effort to shake off their yoke.' Then follows an account of a civil
+war, one of the leaders of the revolution being elected king at its
+termination. Carbry reigned five years, during which time there was no
+rule or order, and the country was a prey to every misfortune. 'Evil
+was the state of Ireland during his reign; fruitless her corn, for
+there used to be but one grain on the stalk; and fruitless her rivers;
+her cattle without milk; her fruit without plenty, for there used to
+be but one acorn on the oak.'
+
+Dr. Lynch, author of _Cambrensis Eversus_, expresses his astonishment
+at the great number of ancient Irish kings, most of whom were cut off
+by a violent death, each hewing his way to the throne over the body
+of his predecessor. But upon applying his mind to the more profound
+consideration of the matter, he found nothing more wonderful in
+the phenomenon 'than that the human family should proceed from one
+man--the overflowing harvest from a few grains of seed, &c.' His
+learned translator, the Rev. Matthew Kelly, of Maynooth, sees proof
+of amendment in the fact that between 722 and 1022 twelve Irish kings
+died a natural death. This candid and judicious writer observes in
+a note--'It appears from the Irish and English annals that there
+was perpetual war in Ireland during more than 400 years after the
+invasion. It could not be called a war of races, except perhaps during
+the first century, for English and Irish are constantly found fighting
+under the same banner, according to the varying interests of the rival
+lords and princes of both nations. This was the case even from the
+commencement.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Vol. i. p.216.]
+
+Many persons have wondered at the success of small bands of English
+invaders. Why did not the Irish nation rise _en masse_, and drive them
+into the sea? The answer is easy. There was no Irish nation. About
+half a million of people were scattered over the island in villages,
+divided into tribes generally at war with one another, each chief
+ready to accept foreign aid against his adversary--some, perhaps,
+hoping thereby to attain supremacy in their clans, and others, who
+were pretenders, burning to be avenged of those who had supplanted
+them. It was religion that first gave the Irish race a common cause.
+In the very year of the English invasion (1171) there were no fewer
+than twenty predatory excursions or battles among the Irish chiefs
+themselves, exclusive of contests with the invaders. Hence the Pope
+said--'_Gens se interimit mutua cæde_.' The Pope was right.
+
+The clergy exerted themselves to the utmost in trying to exorcise the
+demon of destruction and to arrest the work of extermination. Not only
+the _Bashall Isa_, or 'the staff of Jesus,' but many other relics were
+used with the most solemn rites, to impress the people with a sense
+of the wickedness of their clan-fights, and to induce them to keep the
+peace, but in vain. The King of Connaught once broke a truce entered
+into under every possible sanction of this kind, trampling upon all,
+that he might get the King of Meath into his clutches. Hence the Rev.
+Mr. Kelly is constrained to say--'It is now generally admitted by
+Catholic writers that however great the efforts of the Irish clergy to
+reform their distracted country in the eleventh and twelfth centuries,
+the picture of anarchy drawn by Pope Adrian is hardly overcharged.'
+Indeed, some Catholic writers have confessed that the anarchy would
+never have been terminated except by foreign conquest establishing a
+strong central government. This, however, was not accomplished
+till after a struggle of centuries, during which, except in brief
+intervals, when a strong prince was able to protect his people, the
+national demoralisation grew worse and worse. An Oxford priest,
+who kept a school at Limerick, writing so late as 1566 of the Irish
+nobles, says--'Of late they spare neither churches nor hallowed
+places, but thence also they fill their hands with spoil--yea, and
+sometimes they set them on fire and kill the men that there lie
+hidden.'
+
+Mr. Froude, following the Irish MSS. in the Rolls House, has presented
+graphic pictures of the disorders of the Irishry in the reign of Queen
+Mary. 'The English garrison,' he says, 'harassed and pillaged the
+farmers of Meath and Dublin; the chiefs made forays upon each other,
+killing, robbing, and burning. When the war broke out between England
+and France, there were the usual conspiracies and uprisings of
+nationality; the young Earl of Kildare, in reward to the Queen who
+had restored him to his rank, appearing as the natural leader of
+the patriots. Ireland was thus happy in the gratification of all its
+natural tendencies. The Brehon law readvanced upon the narrow limits
+to which, by the exertions of Henry VIII., the circuits of the
+judges had been extended. And with the Brehon law came anarchy as its
+inseparable attendant.'
+
+The correctness of this view is too well attested by the records
+which the learned historian brings to light, adopting the quaint
+and expressive phraseology of the old writers whom he quotes. For
+example:--
+
+'The lords and gentiles of the Irish Pale that were not governed under
+the Queen's laws were compelled to keep and maintain a great number
+of idle men of war to rule their people at home, and exact from their
+neighbours abroad--working everyone his own wilful will for a law--to
+the spoil of his country, and decay and waste of the common weal of
+the same. The idle men of war ate up altogether; the lord and his men
+took what they pleased, destroying their tenants, and themselves never
+the better. The common people, having nothing left to lose, became as
+idle and careless in their behaviour as the rest, stealing by day and
+robbing by night. Yet it was a state of things which they seemed all
+equally to enjoy, and high and low alike were always ready to bury
+their own quarrels, to join against the Queen and the English.'
+
+At the time when the crown passed to Elizabeth the qualities of the
+people were thus described by a correspondent of the council, who
+presents the English view of the Irishry at that time:--
+
+'The appearance and outward behaviour of the Irish showeth them to be
+fruits of no good tree, for they exercise no virtue and refrain and
+forbear from no vice, but think it lawful to do every man what him
+listeth. They neither love nor dread God, nor yet hate the devil. They
+are worshippers of images and open idolaters. Their common oath they
+swear is by books, bells, and other ornaments which they do use as
+holy religion. Their chief and solemnest oath is by their lord or
+master's hand, which whoso forsweareth is sure to pay a fine or
+sustain a worse turn. The Sabbath-day they rest from all honest
+exercises, and the week days they are not idle, but worse occupied.
+They do not honour their father and mother as much as they do
+reverence strangers. For every murder that they commit they do not so
+soon repent, for whose blood they once shed, they lightly never cease
+killing all that name. They do not so commonly commit adultery; not
+for that they profess or keep chastity, but for that they seldom or
+never marry, and therefore few of them are lawful heirs, by the law of
+the realm, to the lands they possess. They steal but from the strong,
+and take by violence from the poor and weak. They know not so well who
+is their neighbour as who they favour; with him they will witness in
+right and wrong. They covet not their neighbours' good, but command
+all that is their neighbours' as their own. Thus they live and die,
+and there is none to teach them better. There are no ministers.
+Ministers will not take pains where there is no living to be had,
+neither church nor parish, but all decayed. People will not come to
+inhabit where there is no defence of law.'
+
+After six years of _discipline and improvement_ Sir Henry Sidney, in
+1566, described the state of the four shires, the Irish inhabitants,
+and the English garrison, in the following terms:--'The _English Pale_
+is overwhelmed with vagabonds--stealth and spoil daily carried out of
+it--the people miserable--not two gentlemen in the whole of it able
+to lend 20 l. They have neither horse nor armour, nor apparel, nor
+victual. The soldiers be so beggerlike as it would abhor a general to
+look on them; yet so insolent as to be intolerable to the people, so
+rooted in idleness as there is no hope by correction to amend them,
+yet so allied with the Irish, I dare not trust them in a forte, or in
+any dangerous service.'
+
+A sort of 'special correspondent' or 'commissioner,' as we should call
+him now, furnished to Cecil a detailed account of the social condition
+of the people, which of course he viewed with English eyes. He found
+existing among them a general organisation wherever the Irish language
+was spoken--the remnants of a civilisation very ancient, but now fast
+tending to ruin. Next to the chiefs were the priesthood, and after
+them came a kind of intellectual hierarchy, consisting of four classes
+of spiritual leaders and teachers, which were thus described. The
+first was called the Brehon, or the judge. These judges took
+'pawns' of both the parties, and then judged according to their own
+discretion. Their property was neutral, and the Irishmen would not
+prey upon them. They had great plenty of cattle, and they harboured
+many vagabonds and idle persons. They were the chief maintainers of
+rebels, but when the English army came to their neighbourhood they
+fled to the mountains and woods 'because they would not succour
+them with victuals and other necessaries.' The next sort was called
+_Shankee_, who had also great plenty of cattle wherewith they
+succoured the rebels. They made the ignorant men of the country
+believe that they were descended from Alexander the Great, or Darius,
+or Cæsar, 'or some other notable prince, which made the ignorant
+people run mad, and care not what they did.' This, the correspondent
+remarked, 'was very hurtful to the realm.' Not less hurtful were the
+third sort called _Denisdan_, who not only maintained the rebels,
+but caused those that would be true to become rebellious--'thieves,
+extortioners, murderers, raveners, yea, and worse if it was possible.'
+These seem to have been the historians or chroniclers of the tribe.
+If they saw a young man, the descendant of an O' or a Mac, with half a
+dozen followers, they forthwith made a rhyme about his father and his
+ancestors, numbering how many heads they had cut off, how many towns
+they had burned, how many virgins they had deflowered, how many
+notable murders they had done, comparing them to Hannibal, or Scipio,
+or Hercules, or some other famous person--'wherewithal the poor fool
+runs mad, and thinks indeed it is so.' Then he will gather a lot of
+rascals about him, and get a fortune-teller to prophesy how he is to
+speed. After these preliminaries he betakes himself with his followers
+at night to the side of a wood, where they lurk till morning. And when
+it is daylight, then will they go to the poor villages, not sparing to
+destroy young infants and aged people; and if a woman be ever so
+great with child, her will they kill, burning the houses and corn, and
+ransacking the poor cots; then will they drive away all the kine
+and plough-horses, with all the other cattle. Then must they have a
+bagpipe blowing before them, and if any of the cattle fortune to wax
+weary or faint they will kill them rather than it should do the owner
+good; and if they go by any house of friars, or religious house, they
+will give them two or three beeves, and they will take them and pray
+for them, yea, and praise their doings, and say, 'His father was
+accustomed so to do, wherein he will rejoice.' The fourth class
+consisted of 'poets.' These men had great store of cattle, and 'used
+all the trade of the others with an addition of prophecies. They were
+maintainers of witches and other vile matters, to the blasphemy of
+God, and to the impoverishing of the commonwealth.'
+
+These four septs were divided in all places of the four quarters of
+Ireland, and some of the islands beyond Ireland, as Aran, the land of
+the Saints, Innisbuffen, Innisturk, Innismain, and Innisclare. These
+islands, he added, were under the rule of O'Neill, and they were
+'very pleasant and fertile, plenty of wood, water, and arable ground,
+pastures, and fish, and a very temperate air.' On this description
+Mr. Froude remarks in a note--'At present they are barren heaps of
+treeless moors and mountains. They yield nothing but scanty oat crops
+and potatoes, and though the seas are full of fish as ever, there
+are no hands to catch them. _The change is a singular commentary upon
+modern improvements_.' There were many branches belonging to the four
+septs, continues the credulous reporter, who was evidently imposed
+upon, like many of his countrymen in modern times with better means
+of information. For example, 'there was the branch of Gogath, the
+glutton, of which one man would eat half a sheep at a sitting. There
+was another called the Carrow, a gambler, who generally went about
+naked, carrying dice and cards, and he would play the hair off his
+head. Then there was a set of women called Goyng women, blasphemers
+of God, who ran from country to country, sowing sedition among the
+people.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Froude's History, of England, vol. viii. chap. vii.]
+
+Mr. Froude says that this 'picture of Ireland' was given by some
+half Anglicised, half Protestantised Celt, who wrote what he had seen
+around him, careless of political philosophy, or of fine phrases with
+which to embellish his diction. But if he was a Celt, I think his
+description clearly proves that he must have been a Celt of some
+other country than the one upon whose state he reports. Judging from
+internal evidence, I should say that he could not be a native; for an
+Irishman, even though a convert to Anglicanism, and anxious to please
+his new masters, could scarcely betray so much ignorance of the
+history of his country, so much bigotry, such a want of candour and
+discrimination. If Mr. Froude's great work has any fault, it is his
+unconscious prejudice against Ireland. He knows as well as anyone the
+working of the feudal system and the clan system in Scotland in
+the same age. He knows with what treachery and cruelty murders
+were perpetrated by chiefs and lairds, pretenders and usurpers--how
+anarchy, violence, and barbarism reigned in that land; yet, when he is
+dealing with a similar state of things in Ireland, he uniformly takes
+it as proof of an incurable national idiosyncrasy, and too often
+generalises from a few cases. For example, in speaking of Shane
+O'Neill, who killed his half-brother, Matthew Kelly, Baron of
+Dungannon, in order to secure the succession for himself, he
+says--'_They manage things strangely in Ireland._ The old O'Neill,
+instead of being irritated, saw in this exploit a proof of commendable
+energy. He at once took Shane into favour, and, had he been able,
+would have given him his dead brother's rights.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE RULE OF THE O'NEILLS.
+
+
+Shane O'Neill was a man of extraordinary ability and tremendous
+energy, as the English found to their cost. He was guilty of atrocious
+deeds; but he had too many examples in those lawless times encouraging
+him to sacrifice the most sacred ties to his ambition. He resolved to
+seize the chieftainship by deposing his father and banishing him to
+the Pale, where, after passing some years in captivity, he died. He
+was, no doubt, urged to do this, lest by some chance the son of the
+baron of Dungannon should be adopted by England as the rightful heir,
+and made Earl of Tyrone. This title he spurned, and proclaimed himself
+the O'Neill, the true representative of the ancient kings of Ulster,
+to which office he was elected by his people, taking the usual oath
+with his foot upon the sacred stone. This was an open defiance of
+English power, and he prepared to abide the consequences. He thought
+the opportunity a favourable one to recover the supremacy of his
+ancestors over the O'Donels. He accordingly mustered a numerous army,
+and marched into Tyrconnel, where he was joined by Hugh O'Donel,
+brother of Calvagh, the chief, with other disaffected persons of the
+same clan. O'Donel had recourse to stratagem. Having caused his cattle
+to be driven out of harm's way, he sent a spy into the enemy's camp,
+who mixed with the soldiers, and returning undiscovered, he undertook
+to guide O'Donel's army to O'Neill's tent, which was distinguished by
+a great watch-fire, and guarded by six galloglasses on one side and as
+many Scots on the other. The camp, however, was taken by surprise
+in the dead of night, and O'Neill's forces, careless or asleep, were
+slaughtered and routed without resistance. Shane himself fled for his
+life, and, swimming across three rivers, succeeded in reaching his own
+territory. This occurred the year before he cast off his allegiance
+to England. He was required to appear before Elizabeth in person to
+explain the grounds on which he had claimed the chieftainship. He
+consented, on condition that he got a safe-conduct and money for the
+expenses of his journey. At the same time he sent a long letter to the
+Queen, complaining of the treatment he had received, and defending his
+pretensions. The letter is characteristic of the man and of the times.
+He said: 'The deputy has much ill-used me, your Majesty; and now that
+I am going over to see you, I hope you will consider that I am but
+rude and uncivil, and do not know my duty to your Highness, nor yet
+your Majesty's laws, but am one brought up in wildness, far from all
+civility. Yet have I a good will to the commonwealth of my country;
+and please your Majesty to send over two commissioners that you can
+trust, that will take no bribes, nor otherwise be imposed on, to
+observe what I have done to improve the country, and hear what my
+accusers have to say; and then let them go into the Pale, and hear
+what the people say of your soldiers, with their horses, and their
+dogs, and their concubines. Within this year and a half, three hundred
+farmers are come from the English Pale to live in my country, where
+they can be safe.
+
+'Please your Majesty, your Majesty's money here is not so good as your
+money in England, and will not pass current there. Please your Majesty
+to send me three thousand pounds in English money to pay my expenses
+in going over to you, and when I come back I will pay your deputy
+three thousand pounds Irish, such as you are pleased to have current
+here. Also I will ask your Majesty to marry me to some gentlewoman of
+noble blood meet for my vocation. I will make Ireland all that your
+Majesty wishes for you. I am very sorry your Majesty is put to such
+expense. If you will trust it to me, I will undertake that in three
+years you will have a revenue, where now you have continual loss.'
+
+Shane suspected evil designs on the part of the English, and not
+without reason. The object of the summons to England was to detain him
+there with 'gentle talk' till Sussex could return to his command with
+an English army powerful enough to subjugate Ulster. For this purpose
+such preparations were made by the English Government in men and
+money, 'that rebellion should have no chance; and,' says Mr. Froude,
+'so careful was the secresy which was observed, to prevent Shane from
+taking alarm, that a detachment of troops sent from Portsmouth sailed
+with sealed orders, and neither men nor officers knew that Ireland was
+their destination till they had rounded the Land's End.' The English
+plans were well laid. Kildare, whom Elizabeth most feared, had
+accepted her invitation to go to London, and thus prevented any
+movement in the south, while O'Donel was prepared to join the English
+army on its advance into Ulster; and the Scots, notwithstanding their
+predilection for Mary Stuart, were expected to act as Argyle and his
+sister should direct. But Shane had a genius for intrigue as well
+as Elizabeth, and he was far more rapid than her generals in the
+execution of his plans. By a master-stroke of policy he disconcerted
+their arrangements. He had previously asked the Earl of Argyle to give
+him his daughter in marriage, in order that he might strengthen his
+alliance with the Ulster Scots. It is true that she had been already
+married to his rival, O'Donel; but that was a small difficulty in his
+way. The knot was tied, but he had no hesitation in cutting it with
+his sword. 'The countess' was well educated for her time. She was also
+a Protestant, and the government had hopes that her influence would be
+favourable to 'civility and the Reformation' among the barbarians of
+the north. But whatever advantages the presence of the fair Scottish
+missionary might bring, Shane O'Neill did not see why they should
+not be all his own, especially as he had managed somehow to produce
+a favourable impression on her heart. Accordingly he made a dash
+into Tyrconnel, and carried off both the lady and her husband to his
+stronghold, Shane's Castle, on the banks of Lough Neagh. Her Scotch
+guard, though fifteen hundred strong, had offered no resistance.
+O'Donel was shut up in a prison, and his wife became the willing
+paramour of the captor. 'The affront to McConnell was forgiven or
+atoned for by private arrangement, and the sister of the Earl of
+Argyle--an educated woman for her time, not unlearned in Latin,
+speaking French and Italian, counted sober, wise, and no less
+subtle--had betrayed herself and her husband. The O'Neills, by this
+last manoeuvre, became supreme in Ulster. Deprived of their head, the
+O'Donels sank into helplessness. The whole force of the province, such
+as it was, with the more serious addition of several thousand Scotch
+marauders, was at Shane's disposal, and thus provided, he thought
+himself safe in defying England to do its worst.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Froude, Ibid.]
+
+Meantime, Sussex had arrived in Dublin preceded by his English forces.
+He made a rapid preliminary movement to the north, and seized the
+Cathedral of Armagh, in order to make it a fortified depôt for his
+stores. He then fell back into Meath, where he was joined by Ormond
+with flying companies of galloglasses. Soon after a singular attack
+was made on the English garrison at Armagh. Seeing a number of kernes
+scattered about the town, the officer in command sallied out upon
+them, when O'Neill suddenly appeared, accompanied by the Catholic
+Archbishop, on a hill outside the walls. 'The English had but time to
+recover their defences when the whole Irish army, led by a procession
+of monks, and every man carrying a fagot, came on to burn the
+cathedral over their heads. The monks sang a mass; the primate walked
+three times up and down the lines, willing the rebels to go forward,
+for God was on their side. Shane swore a great oath not to turn his
+back while an Englishman was alive; and with scream and yell his men
+came on. _Fortunately there were no Scots among them._ The English,
+though out-numbered ten to one, stood steady in the churchyard, and,
+after a sharp hand-to-hand fight, drove back the howling crowd. The
+Irish retired into the friars' houses outside the cathedral close, set
+them on fire, and ran for their lives.'
+
+'So far,' adds Mr. Froude, 'all was well. After this there was no more
+talk of treating, and by the 18th, Sussex and Ormond were themselves
+at Armagh with a force--had there been skill to direct it--sufficient
+to have swept Tyrone from border to border.'
+
+The English historian exults in the valour of the small garrison of
+his countrymen, well-disciplined and sheltered behind a strong wall,
+in resisting the assault of a howling multitude of mere Irish, and he
+observes significantly, that 'fortunately there were no _Scots_ among
+them.' But he is obliged immediately after to record an Irish victory
+so signal that, according to the lord deputy himself, 'the fame of the
+English army so hardly gotten, was now vanished.' Yet Mr. Froude does
+not, in this, lay the blame of defeat upon the _nationality_ of the
+vanquished. It is only the Irish nation that is made the scape-goat in
+such cases.
+
+It was July, but the weather was wet, the rivers were high, Ormond was
+ill, Sussex would not leave his friend, and so the English army stayed
+in town doing nothing till the end of the month, when their failing
+provisions admonished them that an Irish hosting would be desirable.
+O'Neill, who seems to have been aware of the state of things,
+presented the appropriate temptation. Spies brought the lord deputy
+word that in the direction of Cavan there were herds of cows, which
+an active party might easily capture. These spies, with ardent
+professions of loyalty, offered to guide the English troops to the
+place where the booty would be found, their object being to draw them
+among bogs and rivers where they might be destroyed. The lord deputy
+did not think it necessary to accompany this host, which consisted of
+200 horse, 500 men-at-arms, and some hundreds of the loyal Irish of
+the Pale. Shane intended to attack them the first night while resting
+on their march. But they escaped by an alteration of the route. Next
+morning they were marching on the open plain, miles from any shelter
+of hill or wood, when the Irish chief, with less than half their
+number, pursued them, and fell upon the cavalry in the rear, with
+the cry, '_Laundarg Aboo_--the Bloody Hand--Strike for O'Neill!' The
+English cavalry commanded by Wingfield, seized with terror, galloped
+into the ranks of their own men-at-arms, rode them down, and
+extricated themselves only to fly panic-stricken from the field to the
+crest of an adjoining hill. Meantime, Shane's troopers rode through
+the broken ranks, cutting down the footmen on all sides. The yells and
+cries were heard far off through the misty morning air. Fitzwilliam,
+who had the chief command, was about a mile in advance at the head
+of another body of cavalry, when a horseman was observed by him,
+galloping wildly in the distance and waving his handkerchief as a
+signal. He returned instantly, followed by his men, and flung himself
+into the _mêleé_. Shane receiving such a charge of those few men, and
+seeing more coming after, ran no farther risk, blew a recall note,
+and withdrew unpursued. Fitzwilliam's courage alone prevented the army
+from being annihilated. Out of 500 English 50 lay dead, and 50 more
+were badly wounded. The survivors fell back to Armagh 'so _dismayed_
+as to be unfit for farther service.' Pitiable were the lamentations
+of the lord deputy to Cecil on this catastrophe. It was, said he, 'by
+cowardice the dreadfullest beginning that ever was seen in Ireland.
+Ah! Mr. Secretary, what unfortunate star hung over me that day to draw
+me, that never could be persuaded to be absent from the army at any
+time--to be then absent for a little disease of another man? _The
+rearward was the best and picked soldiers in all this land._ If I
+or any stout man had been that day with them, we had made an end of
+Shane--which is now farther off than ever it was. Never before durst
+Scot or Irishman look on Englishmen in plain or wood since I was here;
+and now Shane, in a plain three miles away from any wood, and where I
+would have asked of God to have had him, hath, with 120 horse, and a
+few Scots and galloglasse, _scarce half in numbers_, charged our whole
+army, and by the cowardice of one wretch whom I hold dear to me as
+my own brother, was like in one hour to have left not one man of that
+army alive, and after to have taken me and the rest at Armagh. The
+fame of the English army, so hardly gotten, is now vanished, and I,
+wretched and dishonoured, by the vileness of other men's deeds.'
+
+This is real history that Mr. Froude has given us. It places the
+actors before us, enables us to discern their characters, tells us
+who they are and what they have done. It shows also the value and
+the necessity of documentary evidence for establishing the truth
+of history. How different from the vague, uncertain, shadowy
+representations derived from oral tradition, or mere reports,
+though contemporary, circulated from mouth to mouth, and exaggerated
+according to the interests of one party or the other. Let us for
+illustration compare Mr. Froude's vivid picture of this battle, so
+disastrous to the English, with the account given of the same event by
+the Annalists called the Four Masters. These writers had taken great
+pains to collect the most authentic records of the various Irish
+tribes from the invasion by Henry II. to the period of which we
+are writing. They were intensely Irish, and of course glad of any
+opportunity of recording events creditable to the valour of their
+countrymen. They lived in Donegal, under the protection of O'Donel,
+but they showed themselves quite willing to do full justice to his
+great rival O'Neill. The presence of the lord deputy, the Earl of
+Ormond, and other great men at Armagh, with a select English army,
+would naturally have roused their attention, and when that army was
+encountered and vanquished in the open field by the Irish general, we
+should have expected that the details of such a glorious event would
+have been collected with the greatest care from the accounts of
+eye-witnesses. The bards and historiographers should have been on the
+alert to do justice to their country on so great an occasion. They
+were on the spot, they were beside the victors, and they had no excuse
+whatever for ignorance. Yet here is the miserably cold, _jejune_,
+feeble, and imperfect record which we find in the Annals of the Four
+Masters:--'The Lord Justice of Ireland, namely Thomas Fitzwalter
+(Sussex), marched into Tyrone to take revenge for the capture of
+Caloach O'Donel, and also for his own quarrels with the country.
+He encamped with a great army at Armagh, and constructed deep
+entrenchments and impregnable ramparts about the great church of
+Armagh, which he intended to keep constantly guarded. O'Neill, i.e.
+John, having received intelligence of this, sent a party of his
+faithful men and friends with Caloach O'Donel to guard and keep
+him from the Lord Justice, and they conveyed him from one island to
+another, in the recesses and sequestered places of Tyrone. After some
+time the Lord Justice sent out from the camp at Armagh, a number of
+his captains with 1000 men to take some prey and plunder in Oriel.
+O'Neill, having received private information and intelligence of those
+great troops marching into Oriel, proceeded privately and silently to
+where they were, and came up to them after they had collected their
+prey; a battle ensued in which many were slain on both sides; and
+finally the preys were abandoned, and fell into the hands of their
+original possessors on that occasion.'
+
+That is the whole account of the most signal victory over the English
+that had crowned the arms of Ulster during those wars! Not a word of
+the disparity of the forces, or the flight of the English cavalry,
+or the slaughter of the Englishmen-at-arms, or the humiliation and
+disabled condition of the garrison at Armagh. Equally unsatisfactory
+is the record of the subsequent march through Tyrone by Sussex, in the
+course of which his army slaughtered 4000 head of cattle, which they
+could not drive away. Of this tremendous destruction of property the
+Four Masters do not say a word. Such omissions often occur in their
+annals, even when dealing with contemporary events. Uncritical as they
+were and extremely credulous, how can we trust the records which they
+give of remote ages?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+O'NEILL, SOVEREIGN OF ULSTER.
+
+
+The moral atmosphere of Elizabeth's court was not favourable to public
+virtue. Strange to say at this time Lord Pembroke seemed to be the
+only nobleman connected with it whose patriotism could be depended on;
+and, according to Cecil, there was not another person, 'no not one'
+who did not either wish well to Shane O'Neill, or so ill to the Earl
+of Sussex as 'rather to welcome the news than regret the English
+loss!' It would be difficult to find 'intriguing factiousness' baser
+than this even in barbarous Ireland. The success of O'Neill, however,
+had raised him high in the opinion of the Queen, who proposed,
+through the Earl of Kildare, to leave him in possession of all his
+territories, and let him govern the Irish 'according to Irish ideas'
+if he would only become her vassal. Sussex had returned to Dublin with
+the remnant of his army, while Fitzwilliam was dispatched to London
+to explain the disaster, bearing with him a petition from the Irish
+Council, that the troops who had been living in free quarters on the
+tenants of the Pale should be recalled or disbanded. 'Useless in the
+field and tyrannical to the farmer, they were a burden on the English
+exchequer, and answered no purpose but to make the English name
+detested.'
+
+To O'Neill the Queen sent a pardon, with a safe conduct to England, if
+he could be prevailed on to go. In the meantime Shane sent a message
+to the lord deputy, demanding the removal of the garrison from Armagh.
+One of his messengers, Neill Grey communicated secretly with Lord
+Sussex, affecting to dislike rebellion, and intimating that he might
+help the English to get rid of his master. The lord deputy, without
+the least scruple or apparent consciousness of the criminality or
+disgrace of the proceeding, actually proposed to this man that he
+should murder O'Neill. This villanous purpose he avows in his letter
+to the Queen. 'In fine,' said he, 'I breake with him to kill Shane;
+and bound myself by my oath to see him have a hundred marcs of land by
+the year to him, and to his heirs, for his reward. He seemed desirous
+to serve your Highness, and to have the land; but fearful to do it,
+doubting his own escape after with safety, which he confessed and
+promised to do by any means he might, escaping with his life. What he
+will do I know not, but I assure your Highness he may do it without
+danger if he will. And if he will not do that he may in your service,
+there will be done _to him_ what others may. God send your Highness a
+good end.'
+
+This English nobleman was, it seems, pious as well as honourable,
+and could mingle prayers with his plots for assassination. Mr. Froude
+suggests extenuating circumstances: 'Lord Sussex, it appears, regarded
+Shane as a kind of wolf, whom having failed to capture in fair chase
+he might destroy by the first expedient that came to his hand.' And
+'English honour, like English coin, lost something of its purity in
+the sister island.' Of course; it was the Irish atmosphere that did it
+all. But Sussex was not singular in this mode of illustrating English
+honour. A greater than he, the chivalrous Sir Walter Raleigh, wrote to
+a friend in Munster, recommending the treacherous assassination of the
+Earl of Desmond, as perfectly justifiable. And this crime, for which
+an ignorant Irishman would be hanged, was deliberately suggested by
+the illustrious knight whilst sitting quietly in his English study.[1]
+But what perplexes the historian most of all is that the Queen of
+England showed no resentment at the infamous proposal of Sussex. 'It
+is most sadly certain, however, that Sussex was continued in office,
+and inasmuch as it will be seen that he repeated the experiment a few
+months later, his letter could not have been received with any marked
+condemnation.' Yet Elizabeth was never in Ireland.
+
+[Footnote 1: See Life of Sir Walter Raleigh.]
+
+Fitzwilliam, however, returned with reinforcements of troops from
+Berwick, with which the deputy resolved to repair the credit of the
+English arms, and to set the Irish an example of civilised warfare.
+How did he do this? Dispatching provisions by sea to Lough Foyle, he
+succeeded this time in marching through Tyrone, 'and in destroying on
+his way 4,000 cattle, which he was unable to carry away. He had left
+Shane's cows to rot where he had killed them; and thus being without
+food, and sententiously and characteristically concluding that man by
+his policy might propose, but God at His will did dispose; Lord Sussex
+fell back by the upper waters of Lough Erne, sweeping the country
+before him.' When the Irish peasantry saw the carcasses of their
+cattle rotting along the roads, while their children were famished for
+want of milk, they must have been most favourably impressed with the
+blessings of British rule! Shane, instead of encountering the deputy
+on his own territory, amused himself burning villages in Meath.
+Neither of those rulers--those chief protectors of the people--seems
+to have been conscious that he was doing anything wrong in destroying
+the homes and the food of the wretched inhabitants, whom they
+alternately scourged. On the contrary, the extent of devastation which
+they were able to effect was supposed to put them in a better
+position for meeting together, and treating as honourable and gallant
+representatives of their respective nations.
+
+In accordance with the desire of the Queen, Shane, fresh from the work
+of destruction in the Pale, was invited to a conference with Kildare.
+They met at Dundalk, and the Irish chief consented to wait upon
+Elizabeth in London, being allowed to name his own conditions. In
+doing so he implied 'that he was rather conferring a favour than
+receiving one, and that he was going to England as a victorious enemy
+permitting himself to be conciliated.' He demanded a safe-conduct so
+clearly worded that, whatever was the result of his visit, he should
+be free to return; he required 'a complete amnesty for his past
+misdeeds, and he stipulated that Elizabeth should pay all expenses
+for himself and his retinue; the Earls of Ormond, Desmond, and Kildare
+must receive him in state at Dundalk, and escort him to Dublin;
+Kildare must accompany him to England; and, most important of all,
+Armagh Cathedral must be evacuated. He did not anticipate treachery;
+and either he would persuade Elizabeth to recognise him, and thus
+prove to the Irish that rebellion was the surest road to prosperity
+and power, or, at worst, by venturing into England, and returning
+unscathed, he would show them that the Government might be defied with
+more than impunity.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Froude.]
+
+These terms, so humiliating to English pride, were advocated in the
+Council 'for certain secret respects;' and even Sir William Cecil
+was not ashamed to say, 'that, in Shane's absence from Ireland,'
+_something might be cavilled against him or his_, for non-observing
+the covenants on his side; and so the pact being infringed, the
+matter might be used as should be thought fit. With this understanding
+Elizabeth wrote, making all the ignominious concessions demanded, save
+one, the evacuation of the cathedral. Shane replied in lofty terms
+that, although for the Earl of Sussex he would not mollify one iota
+of his agreement, yet he would consent at the request of her Majesty.
+'Thus,' says Mr. Froude, 'with the Earl of Kildare in attendance, a
+train of galloglasse, 1,000 l. in hand, and a second 1,000 l. awaiting
+for him in London, the champion of Irish freedom sailed from Dublin,
+and appeared on the second of January at the English court.'
+
+It is stated that Cecil, Pembroke, and Bacon, received him privately
+on his arrival, instructed him how to behave in the royal presence,
+gave him the promised money, and endeavoured to impress upon him the
+enormity of his offences. But, to every appeal made to his conscience,
+Shane answered by a counter appeal about money; 2,000 l. was a poor
+present from so great a Queen; he was sure their honours would
+give him a few more hundreds. He agreed, however, to make a general
+confession of his sins in Irish and English; and, thus tutored,
+Elizabeth received him in state on January 6, 1562, attended by
+the Council, the peers, the foreign ambassadors, bishops, aldermen,
+dignitaries of all kinds, who gazed 'as if at the exhibition of some
+wild animal of the desert.' The scene is very graphically described by
+Mr. Froude: 'O'Neill stalked in, his saffron mantle sweeping round and
+round him, his hair curling on his back, and clipped short below
+the eyes, which gleamed from under it with a grey lustre, frowning,
+fierce, and cruel. Behind him followed his galloglasse, bare-headed
+and fair-haired, with shirts of mail which reached their knees, a
+wolf-skin flung across their shoulders, and short broad battle-axes in
+their hands. At the foot of the throne the chief paused, bent forward,
+threw himself on his face upon the ground, and then, rising upon his
+knees, spoke aloud in Irish!' Camden says he 'confessed his crime and
+rebellion with howling,' and Mr. Froude adds that, to his hearers, the
+sound of the words 'was as the howling of a dog.' He said:--
+
+'Oh! my most dread sovereign lady and queen, like as I Shane O'Neill,
+your Majesty's subject of your realm of Ireland, have of long time
+desired to come into the presence of your Majesty to acknowledge my
+humble and bounden subjection, so am I now here upon my knees by your
+gracious permission, and do most humbly acknowledge your Majesty to be
+my sovereign lady and Queen of England, France, and Ireland; and I
+do confess that, for lack of civil education, I have offended your
+Majesty and your laws, for the which I have required and obtained your
+Majesty's pardon. And for that I most humbly, from the bottom of my
+heart, thank your Majesty, and still do with all humbleness require
+the continuance of the same; and I faithfully promise here before
+Almighty God and your Majesty, and in presence of all these your
+nobles, that I intend, by God's grace, to live hereafter in the
+obedience of your Majesty as a subject of your land of Ireland.
+
+'And because this my speech, being Irish, is not well understanded, I
+have caused this my submission to be written in English and Irish, and
+thereto have set my hand and seal; and to these gentlemen, my kinsmen
+and friends, I most humbly beseech your Majesty to be merciful and
+gracious.'
+
+Camden remarks that the bare-headed galloglasse, with long dishevelled
+hair, crocus-dyed shirts, wide sleeves, short jackets, shaggy cloaks,
+&c., were objects of great wonder to the Londoners; while the hauteur
+of the Irish prince excited the merriment of the courtiers, who styled
+him 'O'Neill the Great, cousin to St. Patrick, friend to the Queen
+of England, enemy to all the world besides.' Notwithstanding Shane's
+precautions with respect to the safe-conduct, English artifice outdid
+Irish cunning. With all their horror of the Jesuits, Elizabeth's
+ministers in this case practised mental reservation. True, the
+Government had promised to permit him to return to Ireland, but then
+the time of his stay had not been specified. Various pretexts were
+invented to detain him. He must be recognised as his father's heir;
+the cause must be pleaded before the English judges; the young Baron
+of Dungannon must come over and be heard on the other side. O'Neill
+was told that he had been sent for, while Cecil wrote privately to
+Fitzwilliam to keep him safe in Ireland. While the prince was thus
+humoured with vain excuses, he was occupied in pleading his own cause
+by flattering communications to the Queen, 'whose fame was spoken
+of throughout the world.' He wished to study the wisdom of her
+government, that he might know better how to order himself in civil
+polity. He was most urgent that her Majesty would give him 'some noble
+English lady for a wife, with augmentation of living suitable.' If she
+would give him his father's earldom, he would make her the undisputed
+sovereign of willing subjects in Ulster; he would drive away all her
+enemies, save her from all further expense, and secure for her a
+great increase of revenue. He begged in the meantime, that he might be
+allowed to attend her favourite, Lord Robert Cecil, in order to learn
+'to ride after the English fashion, to run at the tilt, to hawk, to
+shoot, and use such other good exercises as the said good lord was
+most apt unto.' Thus month after month passed away, and Shane was
+still virtually a prisoner. 'At length,' says Mr. Froude, 'the false
+dealing produced its cruel fruit, the murder of the boy who was used
+as the pretext for the delay. Sent for to England, yet prevented from
+obeying the command, the young Baron of Dungannon was waylaid at the
+beginning of April in a wood near Carlingford by Turlogh O'Neill. He
+fled for his life, with the murderers behind him, till he reached
+the bank of a deep river, which he could not swim, and there he was
+killed.'
+
+This event brought matters to a crisis, and Shane's cause was
+triumphant. By articles entered into between him and the Queen it was
+agreed that he was to be constituted captain or governor of Tyrone 'in
+the same manner as other captains of the said nation called O'Nele's
+had rightfully executed that office in the time of King Henry VIII.
+And, moreover, he was to enjoy and have the name and title of O'Nele,
+with the like authority as any other of his ancestors, with the
+service and homage of all the lords and captains called _urraughts_,
+and other nobles of the said nation of O'Nele.' All this was upon the
+condition 'that he and his said nobles should truly and faithfully,
+from time to time, serve her Majesty, and, where necessary, wage war
+against all her enemies in such manner as the Lord Lieutenant for the
+time being should direct.' The title of O'Neill, however, was to be
+contingent on the decision of Parliament as to the validity of the
+letters-patent of Henry VIII. Should that decision be unfavourable, he
+was to enjoy his powers and prerogatives under the style and title
+of the Earl of Tyrone, with feudal jurisdiction over the northern
+counties. The Pale was to be no shelter to any person whom he might
+demand as a malefactor. If any Irish lord or chief did him wrong, and
+the deputy failed within twenty-one days to exact reparation, Shane
+might raise an army and levy war on his private account. An exception
+was made on behalf of the loyal O'Donel, whose cause was to be
+submitted to the arbitration of the Irish earls. The 'indenture'
+between the Queen and O'Neill was signed by the high contracting
+parties, and bears date April 30, 1562. The English historian
+indignantly remarks: 'A rebel subject treating as an equal with his
+sovereign for the terms on which he would remain in his allegiance was
+an inglorious spectacle; and the admission of Shane's pretensions to
+sovereignty was one more evidence to the small Ulster chiefs that no
+service was worse requited in Ireland than fidelity to the English
+crown. The Maguires, the O'Reillys, the O'Donels--all the clans who
+had stood by Sussex in the preceding summer--were given over to their
+enemy bound hand and foot. But Elizabeth was weary of the expense,
+and sick of efforts which were profitless as the cultivation of a
+quicksand. True it was that she was placing half Ireland in the hands
+of an adulterous, murdering scoundrel, but the Irish liked to have it
+so, and she forced herself to hope that he would restrain himself for
+the future within the bounds of decency.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Froude.]
+
+In that hope she was soon disappointed. Shane with his galloglasse
+returned in glory, his purse lined with money and honour wreathed
+about his brows. He told the northern chiefs that he had gone to
+England not to lose but to win, and that they must henceforth submit
+to his authority, or feel his power. The O'Donels, relying on English
+promises, dared to refuse allegiance to the O'Neill, whereupon,
+without consulting the lord deputy, 'he called his men to arms and
+marched into Tyrconnel, killing, robbing, and burning in the old style
+through farm and castle.' The Irish historians, however, make excuses
+for O'Neill, affirming that he was released from his obligations
+by the bad faith of the lord deputy. He it was who gave him a safe
+conduct to Dublin, that he might take the oath of allegiance according
+to promise; but the document was so ingeniously worded that its
+meaning might be twisted so as to make him a prisoner. He was informed
+of this treachery, and, as Mr. Froude remarks, 'Shane was too cunning
+a fish, and had been too lately in the meshes, to be caught again in
+so poor a snare.' A most attractive bait was provided by Sussex in
+the person of his sister, who had been brought over to Dublin, and who
+might be won by the great northern chief if he would only come up to
+the viceregal court to woo her. 'Shane glanced at the tempting morsel
+with wistful eyes. Had he trusted himself in the hands of Sussex he
+would have had a short shrift for a blessing and a rough nuptial knot
+about his neck. At the last moment a little bird carried the tale
+to his ear. He had been advertized out of the Pale that the lady
+was brought over only to entrap him, and if he came to the deputy he
+should never return.' He therefore excused himself by alleging that
+his duty to the Queen forbade him to leave the province while it was
+in such a disturbed condition, the disturbance being caused chiefly by
+his own predatory excursions into the territories of the O'Donels and
+Maguires.
+
+Shane took charge of the affairs of the Church as well as of the
+State. The Catholic primate refusing to acknowledge Elizabeth as the
+head of the Church, the see was declared vacant, and a _congé d'élire_
+was sent down for the appointment of 'Mr. Adam Loftus,' an Englishman,
+who came over as the lord deputy's chaplain. The answer returned and
+reported by Sussex to the Queen was 'that the chapter there, whereof
+the greater part were Shane O'Neill's horsemen, were so sparkled
+and out of order that they could by no means be assembled for the
+election. In the meantime the lord deputy began to apprehend that
+O'Neill aspired, not without some hope of success, to the sovereignty
+of the whole island. It was found that he was in correspondence with
+the Pope, and the Queen of Scots, and the King of Spain. No greater
+danger, wrote Sussex, had ever been in Ireland. He implored the Queen
+not to trifle with it, declaring that he wished some abler general to
+take the command, not from any want of will, 'for he would spend his
+last penny and his last drop of blood for her Majesty.' Right and left
+Shane was crushing the petty chiefs, who implored the protection
+of the Government. Maguire requested the deputy to write to him in
+English, not in Latin, because the latter language was well known,
+and but few of the Irish had any knowledge of the former, in which
+therefore the secrets of their correspondence would be more safe. Here
+is a specimen of his English: 'I know well that within these four days
+the sayed Shan will come to dystroy me contrey except your Lordshypp
+will sette some remedy in the matter.' He did indeed go down into
+Fermanagh with 'a great hoste.' As Maguire refused to submit, Shane
+'bygan to wax mad, and to cawsse his men to bran all his corn and
+howsses.' He spared neither church nor sanctuary; three hundred women
+and children were piteously murdered, and Maguire himself, clean
+banished, as he described it, took refuge with the remnant of his
+people in the islands on the lake, whither Shane was making boats to
+pursue him. 'Help me, your lordship,' the hunted wretch cried, in his
+despair, to Sussex. 'Ye are lyke to make hym the strongest man of all
+Erlond, for every man wyll take an exampull by the gratte lostys; take
+hyd to yourself by thymes, for he is lyke to have all the power from
+this place thill he come to the wallys of Gallway to rysse against
+you.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Wright's Elizabeth, vol. i. p.73.]
+
+It is the boast of the Irish that when Shane had subdued all his
+opponents, he ruled Tyrone for some time with such order, 'that if
+a robbery was committed within his territory, he either caused the
+property to be restored, or reimbursed the loser out of his own
+treasury.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Haverty's History of Ireland, p.300.]
+
+The perplexity of the Government in this critical emergency is vividly
+described by Mr. Froude: 'Elizabeth knew not which way to turn. Force,
+treachery, conciliation had been tried successively, and the Irish
+problem was more hopeless than ever. In the dense darkness of the
+prospects of Ulster there was a solitary gleam of light. Grown
+insolent with prosperity, Shane had been dealing too peremptorily with
+the Scots; his countess, though compelled to live with him, and to be
+the mother of his children, had felt his brutality and repented of her
+folly, and perhaps attempted to escape. In the daytime, when he
+was abroad marauding, she was coupled like a hound to a page or a
+horse-boy, and only released at night when he returned to his evening
+orgies. The fierce Campbells were not men to bear tamely these
+outrages from a drunken savage on the sister of their chief, and
+Sussex conceived that if the Scots, by any contrivance, were separated
+from Shane, they might be used as a whip to scourge him.'
+
+At length Sussex, determined to crush the arch-rebel, marched
+northward in April, 1563, with a mixed force of English and Irish,
+ill-armed, ill-supplied, dispirited and almost disloyal. The diary of
+the commander-in-chief is, perhaps, the funniest on record: 'April 6:
+The army arrived at Armagh. April 8: The army marches back to Newry
+to bring up stores and ammunition left behind. April 11: The army
+advances again to Armagh, where it waits for galloglasse and kerne
+from the Pale. April 14: The commander-in-chief answers a letter from
+James M'Connell. April 15: The army goes upon Shane's cattle, of which
+it takes enough to serve it, but would have taken more if it had had
+galloglasse.' Next day it returns to Armagh. There it waits three days
+for the galloglasse, and then sends back for them to Dublin. On April
+20, again writes M'Connell, because he did not come according to
+promise. April 21: The army surveys the Trough mountains. April 22:
+The pious commander winds up the glorious record in these words: 'To
+Armagh with the spoil taken which would have been much more if we had
+had galloglasse, and because St. George even forced me, her Majesty's
+lieutenant, to return to divine service that night. April 23: Divine
+service.' Subsequently his lordship's extreme piety caused him the
+loss of 300 horses, which he naïvely confesses thus: 'Being Easter
+time, and he having travelled the week before, and Easter day till
+night, thought fit to give Easter Monday to prayer, and in this time
+certain churls stole off with the horses.' To this Mr. Froude adds the
+pertinent remark: 'The piety which could neglect practical duty for
+the outward service of devotion, yet at the same time could make
+overtures to Neil Greg to assassinate his master, requires no very
+lenient consideration.'
+
+In connexion with the Irish Church Disestablishment Bill Lord Elcho
+proposed Solomon's plan of settling the dispute of the two mother
+Churches about Ireland. He would cut the country in two, establishing
+Protestantism in the north and Catholicism in the south. When an
+experienced member of the House of Commons makes such a proposition
+in this age, we should not be surprised that Sir Thomas Cusack in the
+year 1563 proposed to Queen Elizabeth that Ireland should be divided
+into four provinces, each with a separate president, either elected by
+the people or chosen in compliance with their wishes. O'Neill was to
+have the north, the Clanrickards the west, the O'Briens or Desmonds
+the south, and thus the English might be allowed the undisturbed
+enjoyment of the Pale. This notable scheme for settling the Irish
+question was actually adopted by the Queen, and she wrote to Sussex,
+stating that, as his expedition to the north had resulted only in
+giving fresh strength to the enemy, she 'had decided to come to an end
+of the war of Ulster by agreement rather than by force.' To Shane she
+was all compliance. He had but to prove himself a good subject, and
+he might have any pre-eminence which her Majesty could grant without
+doing any other person wrong. 'If he desired to have a council
+established at Armagh, he should himself be the president of that
+council; if he wished to drive the Scots out of Antrim, her own troops
+would assist in the expulsion; if he was offended with the garrison in
+the cathedral, she would gladly see peace maintained in a manner less
+expensive to herself. To the primacy he might name the person most
+agreeable to himself, and with the primacy, as a matter of course,
+even the form of maintaining the Protestant Church would be abandoned
+also. In return for these concessions the Queen demanded only that
+Shane, to save her honour, should sue for them as a favour instead
+of demanding them as a right. The rebel chief consented without
+difficulty to conditions which cost him nothing, and after an
+interview with Cusack, O'Neill wrote a formal apology to Elizabeth,
+and promised for the future to be her Majesty's true and faithful
+subject. Indentures were drawn up on December 17, in which the Ulster
+sovereignty was transferred to him in everything but the name, and the
+treaty required only Elizabeth's signature, when a second dark effort
+was made to cut the knot of the Irish difficulty.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Froude, vol. viii. p.48.]
+
+This second 'dark effort' was nothing less than an attempt to murder
+O'Neill by means of poison. He could not be conquered; he could not be
+out-manoeuvred; he could not be assassinated in the ordinary way. But
+the resources of Dublin Castle, and of English ingenuity, were
+not exhausted. The lord deputy was of course delighted with the
+reconciliation which had been effected with the Ulster prince. What
+could be more natural than to send him a present of the choicest
+wine from the viceregal cellars? certainly few presents could be more
+agreeable. Shane and his household quaffed the delicious beverage
+freely enough we may be sure, without the slightest suspicion that
+there was death in the cup. But the wine was mingled with poison.
+Those who drank it were quickly at the point of death. O'Neill might
+thank his good constitution for his recovery from an illness almost
+mortal. The crime was traced to an Englishman named Smith, who, if
+employed by Lord Sussex, did not betray the guilty secret. Mr. Froude
+admits that the suspicion cannot but cling to him that this second
+attempt at murder was not made without his connivance; 'nor,' he adds,
+'can Elizabeth herself be wholly acquitted of responsibility. She
+professed the loudest indignation, but she ventured no allusion to
+his previous communication with her, and no hint transpires of
+any previous displeasure when the proposal had been made openly to
+herself. The treachery of an English nobleman, the conduct of
+the inquiry, and the anomalous termination of it, would have been
+incredible even in Ireland, were not the original correspondence
+extant, in which the facts are not denied.'
+
+O'Neill of course complained loudly to the Queen, whereupon she
+directed that a strict investigation should take place, in order
+that the guilty parties should be found out and punished, 'of what
+condition soever the same should be.' In writing to the lord deputy
+she assumed that Smith had been committed to prison and would be
+brought to condign punishment. That person, after many denials, at
+length confessed his guilt, and said that his object was to rid his
+country of a dangerous enemy. This motive was so good in the eye
+of the Government that it saved the life of the culprit. Sir Thomas
+Cusack, writing to Cecil, March 22, 1564, says, 'I persuaded O'Neill
+to forget the matter, whereby no more talk should grow of it; seeing
+there is no law to punish the offender other than by discretion and
+imprisonment, which O'Neill would little regard except the party might
+be executed by death, and that the law doth not suffer. So as the
+matter be wisely pacified, it were well done to leave it.' Shane was
+probably aware that Smith was but an instrument, who would be readily
+sacrificed as a peace-offering.
+
+The sketch which Mr. Froude gives of Ulster and its wild sovereign at
+this time is admirably picturesque. 'Here then, for the present,
+the story will leave Shane safely planted on the first step of his
+ambition, in all but the title, sole monarch of the North. He
+built himself a fort on an island in Lough Neagh, which he called
+_Foogh-ni-gall_, or, Hate of Englishmen, and grew rich on the spoils
+of his enemies, the only strong man in Ireland. He administered
+justice after a paternal fashion, permitting no robbers but himself;
+when wrong was done he compelled restitution, or at his own cost
+redeemed the harm "to the loser's contentation." Two hundred pipes of
+wine were stored in his cellars; 600 men-at-arms fed at his table, as
+it were his janissaries; and daily he feasted the beggars at his gate,
+saying, it was meet to serve Christ first. Half wolf, half fox, he lay
+couched in his Castle of Malepartuis, with his emissaries at Rome, at
+Paris, and at Edinburgh. In the morning he was the subtle pretender to
+the Irish throne; in the afternoon, when the wine was in him, he was
+a dissolute savage, revelling in sensuality with his unhappy countess,
+uncoupled from her horseboy to wait upon his pleasure. He broke loose
+from time to time to keep his hand in practice. At Carlingford,
+for example, he swept off one day 200 sheep and oxen, while his
+men violated sixty women in the town; but Elizabeth looked away and
+endeavoured not to see. The English Government had resolved to stir no
+sleeping dogs in Ireland till a staff was provided to chastise them if
+they would bite. Terence Daniel, the dean of those rough-riding canons
+of Armagh, was installed as primate; the Earl of Sussex was recalled
+to England; and the new archbishop, unable to contain his exultation
+at the blessed day which had dawned upon his country, wrote to Cecil
+to say how the millennium had come at last, glory be to God!'
+
+As a picture of Irish savage life this is very good. But the historian
+has presented a companion picture of English civilised life, which
+is not at all inferior. Sir Thomas Wroth and Sir Nicholas Arnold were
+sent over to reform the Pale. They were stern Englishmen, impatient
+of abuses among their own countrymen, and having no more sympathy for
+Irishmen than for wolves. In the Pale they found that peculation had
+grown into a custom; the most barefaced frauds had been converted by
+habit into rights: and a captain's commission was thought ill-handled
+if it did not yield, beyond the pay, 500 l. a year. They received pay
+for each hundred men, when only sixty were on the roll. The soldiers,
+following the example of their leaders, robbed and ground the
+peasantry. In fact, the Pale was 'a weltering sea of corruption--the
+captains out of credit, the soldiers mutinous, the English Government
+hated; every man seeking his own, and none that which was Christ's.'
+The purification of the Pale was left to Arnold, 'a hard, iron,
+pitiless man, careful of things and careless of phrases, untroubled
+with delicacy, and impervious to Irish enchantments. The account books
+were dragged to light, where iniquity in high places was registered in
+inexorable figures. The hands of Sir Henry Ratcliffe, the brother of
+Sussex, were not found clean. Arnold sent him to the Castle with
+the rest of the offenders. Deep, leading drains were cut through the
+corrupting mass. The shaking ground grew firm, and honest healthy
+human life was again made possible. With the provinces beyond the
+Pale, Arnold meddled little, save where, taking a rough view of the
+necessities of the case, he could help the Irish chiefs to destroy
+each other.'
+
+To Cecil, Arnold wrote thus: 'I am with all the wild Irish at the same
+point I am at with bears and ban-dogs; when I see them fight, so they
+fight earnestly indeed, and tug each other well, I care not who has
+the worst.' 'Why not, indeed?' asks Mr. Froude; 'better so than hire
+assassins! Cecil, with the modesty of genius, confessed his ignorance
+of the country, and his inability to judge; yet, in every opinion
+which he allowed himself to give, there was always a certain nobility
+of tone and sentiment.' Nobility was scarcely necessary to induce
+a statesman to revolt against the policy of Arnold. A little
+Christianity, nay a slight touch of humanity, would have sufficed for
+that purpose. Sussex was a nobleman, and considered himself, no
+doubt, a very godly man, but everyone must admit that, in all heroic
+qualities, he was incomparably beneath the uncultured Shane O'Neill,
+while in baseness and wickedness he was not far behind his northern
+foe, 'half wolf, half fox.' Cecil, however, was a man of a very
+different stamp from Sussex. Evidently shocked at the prevailing
+English notions about the value of Irish life, he wrote to Arnold:
+'You be of that opinion which many wise men are of, from which I do
+not dissent, being an Englishman; but being, as I am, a Christian man,
+I am not without some perplexity, to enjoy of such cruelties.'
+
+The work of reform, however, did not prove so easy a task. Arnold's
+vigour was limited by his powers. The paymasters continued to cheat
+the Government by false returns. The Government allowed the pay to
+run in arrear, the soldiers revenged themselves by oppressing and
+plundering the people; and 'so came to pass this wonderful phenomenon,
+that _in O'Neill's country_ alone in Ireland--defended as it was from
+attacks from without, and enriched with the plunder of the Pale--_were
+the peasantry prosperous, or life or property secure_.' This fact
+might suggest to the English historian that the evils of Ireland do
+not all proceed from blood or race; and that the Saxon may be placed
+in circumstances which make him as false, as dishonest, as lazy, as
+disordered, as worthless as the Celt, and that even men of 'gentle
+blood' may become as base as their most plebeian servants. Nor did
+zeal for religious reformation redeem the defects of the Anglo-Irish
+rulers. The Protestant bishops were chiefly agitated by the vestment
+controversy. 'Adam Loftus, the titular primate, to whom,' says
+Mr. Froude, 'sacked villages, ravished women, and famine-stricken
+skeletons crawling about the fields, were matters of everyday
+indifference, shook with terror at the mention of a surplice.' Robert
+Daly wrote in anguish to Cecil, in dismay at the countenance to
+'Papistry,' and at his own inability to prolong a persecution which he
+had happily commenced. An abortive 'devise for the better government
+of Ireland' gives us some insight into the condition of the people.
+'No poor persons should be _compelled_ any more to work or labour
+by the day, or otherwise, without meat, drink, wages, or some other
+allowance during the time of their labour; no earth tillers, nor any
+others inhabiting a dwelling, under any lord, should be distrained or
+punished, in body or goods, for the faults of their landlord; nor
+any honest man lose life or lands without fair trial by parliamentary
+attainder, according to the ancient laws of England and Ireland.'
+Surely it was no proof of incurable perversity of nature, that the
+Irish peasantry were discontented and disaffected, under the horrid
+system of oppression and slavery here laid before the English
+Government.
+
+As remedial measures, it was proposed that a true servant of God
+should be placed in every parish, from Cape Clear to the Giant's
+Causeway; that the children should be taught the New Testament and the
+Psalms in Latin, 'that they, being infants, might savour of the same
+in age as an old cask doth;' that there should be a university for the
+education of the clergy, 'and such godly discipline among them that
+there should be no more pluralities, no more abuse of patronage, no
+more neglect, or idleness, or profligacy.' Mr. Froude's reflection
+upon this projected policy is highly characteristic:--
+
+'Here was an ideal Ireland painted on the retina of some worthy
+English minister; but the real Ireland was still the old place. As it
+was in the days of Brian Boroihme and the Danes, so it was in the days
+of Shane O'Neill and Sir Nicholas Arnold; and the Queen, who was
+to found all these fine institutions, cared chiefly to burden her
+exchequer no further in the vain effort _to drain the black Irish
+morass_, fed as it was from the perennial fountains of Irish
+NATURE.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Vol. viii. p.377.]
+
+The Queen, however, thought it more prudent to let Shane have his way
+in Ulster. To oblige him, she would remove the Protestant primate,
+Loftus, to Dublin, and appoint his own nominee and friend, Terence
+Daniel. The Pope had sent a third archbishop for the same see,
+named Creagh; but, when passing through London, he was arrested, and
+incarcerated in the Tower, 'where he lay in great misery, cold, and
+hunger, without a penny, without the means of getting his single
+shirt washed, and without gown or hose.' At last he made his escape
+by gliding over the walls into the Thames. The events of 1565 made the
+English Government more than ever anxious to come to terms with the
+chieftain 'whom they were powerless to crush.' Since the defeat of the
+Earl of Sussex, continues Mr. Froude, 'Shane's influence and strength
+had been steadily growing. His return unscathed from London, and the
+fierce attitude which he assumed on the instant of his reappearance
+in Ulster, convinced the petty leaders that to resist him longer would
+only ensure their ruin. O'Donel was an exile in England, and there
+remained unsubdued in the North only the Scottish colonies of Antrim,
+which were soon to follow with the rest. O'Neill lay quiet through the
+winter. With the spring and the fine weather, when the rivers fell
+and the ground dried, he roused himself out of his lair, and with
+his galloglasse and kerne, and a few hundred harquebussmen, he dashed
+suddenly down upon the Red-shanks, and broke them utterly to pieces.
+Six or seven hundred were killed in the field, James M'Connell and
+his brother, Sorleyboy, were taken prisoners, and, for the moment, the
+whole colony was swept away. James M'Connell, himself badly wounded
+in the action, died a few months later, and Shane was left undisputed
+sovereign of Ulster.'
+
+Primate Daniel announced to the Queen this 'glorious victory over a
+malicious and dangerous people' who were gradually fastening on the
+country; and Sir Thomas Cusack urged that now was the time to make
+O'Neill a friend for ever, an advice which was backed up by the stern
+Arnold. 'For what else could be done? The Pale,' he pleaded, 'is poor
+and unable to defend itself. If he do fall out before the beginning of
+next summer, there is neither outlaw, rebel, murderer, thief, nor any
+lewd nor evil-disposed person--of whom God knoweth there is plenty
+swarming in every quarter among the wild Irish, yea and in our own
+border too--which would not join to do what mischief they might.'
+
+But Shane did not wait for further royal overtures. He saw that with
+the English Government might was right, and that the justice of his
+cause shone out more brightly in proportion to the increase of his
+power. Thus encouraged in his course of aggression and conquest, he
+seized the Queen's Castles of Newry and Dundrum. He then marched into
+Connaught, demanding the tribute due of old time 'to them that were
+kings in that realm.' He exacted pledges of obedience from the western
+chiefs, and spoiled O'Rourke's country, and returned to Tyrone driving
+before him 4,000 head of cattle. While proceeding at this rate he
+wrote soothing and flattering words to the Queen. It was for her
+majesty he was fighting; he was chastising her enemies and breaking
+stiff-necked chiefs into her yoke; and he begged that she would not
+credit any stories which his ill-willers might spread abroad against
+him. On the contrary he hoped she would determine his title and rule
+without delay, and grant him, in consideration of his good services,
+some augmentation of living in the Pale. Elizabeth, however, excused
+his conduct, saying 'we must allow something for his wild bringing-up,
+and not expect from him what we should expect from a perfect subject.
+If he mean well he shall have all his reasonable requests granted.'
+
+But there was among Elizabeth's advisers a statesman who felt that
+this sort of policy would never do. Sir Henry Sidney, on being
+requested to take charge of the Government of Ireland, urged the
+absolute necessity of a radical change. The power of O'Neill, and such
+rulers as he, must be utterly broken, and that by force, at whatever
+cost. And this, he argued, would not only be sound policy but true
+economy. The condition of Ireland was unexampled; free from foreign
+invasion, the sovereignty of the Queen not denied, yet the revenue so
+mean and scanty that 'great yearly treasures were carried out of the
+realm of England to satisfy the stipends of the officers and soldiers
+required for the governance of the same.' He must have 10,000 l.
+or 12,000 l. to pay out-standing debts and put the army in proper
+condition. As for his own remuneration, the new viceroy, as he could
+expect nothing from the Queen, would be content with permission to
+export six thousand kerseys and clothes, free of duty.
+
+Sir Henry Sidney struck out the only line of policy by which the
+English government of Ireland could be made successful or even
+possible. He said: 'To go to work by force will be chargeable, it is
+true; but if you will give the people justice and minister law among
+them, and exercise the sword of the sovereign, and put away the sword
+of the subject, _omnia hæc adjicientur vobis_--you shall drive the now
+man of war to be an husbandman, and he that now liveth like a lord
+to live like a servant, and the money now spent in buying armour, and
+horses, and waging of war, shall be bestowed in building of towns and
+houses. By ending these incessant wars ere they be aware, you shall
+bereave them both of force and beggary, and make them weak and
+wealthy. Then you can convert the military service due from the lords
+into money; then you can take up the fisheries now left to the French
+and the Spaniards; then you can open and work your mines, and the
+people will be able to grant you subsidies.'[1] When the lord deputy
+arrived in Ireland he found a state of things in the Pale far worse
+than he could have imagined. It was 'as it were overwhelmed with
+vagabonds; plunder and spoils daily carried out of it; the people
+miserable; not two gentlemen in the whole of it able to lend 20 l.;
+without horse, armour, apparel, or victual. The soldiers were worse
+than the people: so beggarlike as it would abhor a general to look on
+them; never a married wife among them, and therefore so allied with
+Irishwomen that they betrayed secrets, and could not be trusted on
+dangerous service; so insolent as to be intolerable; so rooted in
+idleness as there was no hope by correction to amend them.' In Munster
+a man might ride twenty or thirty miles and find no houses standing
+in a country which he had known as well inhabited as many counties in
+England. 'In Ulster,' Sidney wrote, 'there tyrannizeth the prince of
+pride; Lucifer was never more puffed up with pride and ambition than
+that O'Neill is; he is at present the only strong and rich man in
+Ireland, and he is the dangerest man and most like to bring the whole
+estate of this land to subversion and subjugation either to him or
+to some foreign prince, that ever was in Ireland.' He invited this
+Lucifer to come into the Pale to see him, and Shane at first agreed to
+meet him at Dundalk, but on second thoughts he politely declined, on
+the ground that the Earl of Sussex had twice attempted to assassinate
+him, and but for the Earl of Kildare would have put a lock upon
+his hands when he was passing through Dublin to England. Hence his
+'timorous and mistrustful people' would not trust him any more in
+English hands. In fact O'Neill despised any honours the Queen could
+confer upon him. 'When the wine was in him he boasted that he was in
+blood and power better than the best of their earls, and he would give
+place to none but his cousin of Kildare, because he was of his own
+house. They had made a wise earl of M'Carthymore, but Shane kept as
+good a man as he. Whom was he to trust? Sussex gave him a safe-conduct
+and then offered him the courtesy of a handlock. The Queen had told
+him herself that, though he had got a safe-conduct to come and go, the
+document did not say when he was to go; and, in order to get away
+from London, he was obliged to agree to things against his honour
+and profit, and he would never perform them while he lived.' That
+treachery drove him into war. 'My ancestors,' he said, 'were kings
+of Ulster; and Ulster is mine, and shall be mine. O'Donel shall
+never come into his country, nor Bagenal into Newry, nor Kildare into
+Dundrum, or Lecale. They are now mine. With this sword I won them,
+with this sword I will keep them.' Sidney, indignant at these
+pretensions, wrote thus to Leicester: 'No Atila nor Yotila, no Vandal
+nor Goth that ever was, was more to be dreaded for over-running any
+part of Christendom, than this man is for over-running and spoiling of
+Ireland. If it be an angel of heaven that will say that ever O'Neill
+will be a good subject till he be thoroughly chastised, believe him
+not, but think him a spirit of error. Surely if the queen do not
+chastise him in Ulster, he will chase all hers out of Ireland. Her
+majesty must make up her mind to the expense, and chastise this
+cannibal.' He therefore demanded money that he might pay the garrison
+and get rid of the idle, treacherous, incorrigible soldiers which
+were worse than none. Ireland, he said, would be no small loss to the
+English crown. It was never so likely to be lost as then, and he would
+rather die than that it should be lost during his government. The
+queen, however, sent money with the greatest possible reluctance, and
+was strangely dissatisfied with this able and faithful servant, even
+when his measures were attended with signal success.
+
+[Footnote 1: Opinions of Sir H. Sidney, Irish MSS., Rolls House;
+Froude, p.385.]
+
+In the meantime O'Neill zealously espoused the cause of Mary Queen of
+Scots. His friendship with Argyle grew closer, and he proposed that it
+should be cemented by a marriage. 'The countess' was to be sent away,
+and Shane was to be united to the widow of James M'Connell, whom he
+had killed--who was another half-sister of Argyle, and whose daughter
+he had married already and divorced. Sidney wrote, that was said to be
+the earl's practice; and Mr. Froude, who has celebrated the virtues
+of Henry VIII., takes occasion from this facility of divorce to have
+another fling at 'Irish nature.' He says:--'The Irish chiefs, it
+seemed, three thousand years behind the world, retained the habits
+and the moralities of the Greek princes in the tale of Troy, when
+the bride of the slaughtered husband was the willing prize of the
+conqueror; and when only a rare Andromache was found to envy the fate
+of a sister
+
+    Who had escaped the bed of some victorious lord.'
+
+After a brief and brilliant campaign, in which Shane 'swept round by
+Lough Erne, swooped on the remaining cattle of Maguire, and struck
+terror and admiration into the Irishry,' he wrote a letter to Charles
+IX. of France, inviting his co-operation in expelling the heretics,
+and bringing back the country to the holy Roman see. The heretic
+Saxons, he said, were the enemies of Almighty God, the enemies of the
+holy Church of Rome, the King's enemies, and his. 'The time is come
+when we all are confederates in a common bond to drive the invader
+from our shores, and we now beseech your Majesty to send us 6,000
+well-armed men. If you will grant our request there will soon be no
+Englishmen left alive among us, and we will be your Majesty's subjects
+ever more.' This letter was intercepted, and is now preserved among
+the Irish MSS.
+
+Sidney resolved to adopt a new plan of warfare. His campaigns would
+not be mere summer forays, mere inroads of devastation during the few
+dry weeks of August and September. He would wait till the harvest
+was gathered in, place troops in fortresses, and continue hostilities
+through the winter. He adopted this course because 'in the cold Irish
+springs, the fields were bare, the cattle were lean, and the weather
+was so uncertain that neither man nor horse could bear it, whereas
+in August _food everywhere was abundant_, and the soldiers would have
+time to become hardened to their work.' They could winter somewhere on
+the Bann; harry Tyrone night and day without remission, and so break
+Shane to the ground and ruin him. There was no time to be lost.
+Maguire had come into Dublin, reporting that his last cottage was in
+ashes, and his last cow driven over the hill into Shane's country;
+while Argyle, with the whole disposable force of the western isles,
+was expected to join him in summer. O'Neill himself, after an abortive
+attempt to entrap Sidney at Dundalk, made a sudden attack on that town
+in July; but his men were beaten back, 'and eighteen heads were left
+behind to grin hideously over the gates.' He then returned to Armagh
+and burned the cathedral to the ground, to prevent its being again
+occupied by an English garrison. He next sent a swift messenger to
+Desmond, calling for a rising in Munster. 'Now was the time or never'
+to set upon the enemies of Ireland. If Desmond failed, or turned
+against his country, God would avenge it on him. But Desmond's reply
+was an offer to the deputy 'to go against the rebel with all his
+power. The Scots also held back.' Shane offered them all Antrim to
+join him, all the cattle in the country, and the release of Sorleyboy
+from captivity; but Antrim and its cattle they believed that they
+could recover for themselves, and James M'Connell had left a brother
+Allaster, who was watching with eager eyes for an opportunity to
+revenge the death of his kinsman, and the dishonour with which Shane
+had stained his race.
+
+In the meantime troops and money came over from England, and on
+September 17, Colonel Randolph was at the head of an army in Lough
+Foyle; and the lord deputy took the field accompanied by Kildare, the
+old O'Donel, Shane Maguire, and O'Dogherty. So that this war against
+O'Neill was waged for the dispossessed Irish chiefs as well as for
+England. Armagh city they found a mere heap of blackened stones.
+Marching without obstruction to Ben brook, one of O'Neill's best and
+largest houses, which they found 'utterly burned and razed to the
+ground,' thence they went on towards Clogher, 'through pleasant
+fields, and villages so well inhabited as no Irish county in the realm
+was like it.' The Bishop of Clogher was out with Shane in the field.
+'His well-fattened flock were devoured by Sidney's men as by a flight
+of Egyptian locusts.' 'There we stayed,' said Sidney, 'to destroy the
+corn; we burned the country for 124 miles compass, and we found by
+experience that now was the time of the year to do the rebel most
+harm.' But he says not a word of the harm he was doing to the poor
+innocent peasantry, whose industry had produced the crops, to the
+terrified women and children whom he was thus consigning to a horrible
+lingering death by famine. This was a strange commencement of his own
+programme to treat the people with justice.
+
+The lord deputy expected to meet Randolph at Lifford; but struck with
+the singular advantages presented by Derry, then an island, for a
+military position, he pitched his tents there, and set the troops to
+work in erecting fortifications. Nothing then stood on the site of
+the present city, save a decrepid and deserted monastery of Augustine
+monks, which was said to have been built in the time of St. Columba.
+
+Sidney stayed a few days at Derry, and then, leaving Randolph with
+650 men, 350 pioneers, and provisions for two months, he marched on
+to Donegal. This was once a thriving town, inhabited by English
+colonists. At the time of Sidney's arrival it was a pile of ruins,
+'in the midst of which, like a wild beast's den, strewed round with
+mangled bones, rose the largest and strongest castle which he had seen
+in Ireland. It was held by one of O'Donel's kinsmen, to whom Shane,
+to attach him to his cause, had given his sister to wife. At the
+appearance of the old chief with the English army, it was immediately
+surrendered. O'Donel was at last rewarded for his fidelity and
+sufferings; and the whole tribe, with eager protestations of
+allegiance, gave sureties for their future loyalty.' Sidney next
+directed his march to Ballyshannon, and on by the coast of Sligo.
+Passing over the bogs and mountains of Mayo, they came into Roscommon,
+and then, 'leaving behind them as fruitful a country as was in
+England or Ireland all utterly waste,' the army crossed the Shannon at
+Athlone, swimming 'for lack of a bridge.' The results of this progress
+are thus summed up by Mr. Froude. 'Twenty castles had been taken as
+they went along and left in hands that could be trusted. In all that
+long and painful journey Sidney was able to say that there had not
+died of sickness but three persons; men and horses were brought
+back in full health and strength, while her majesty's honour
+was re-established among the Irishry, and grown to no small
+veneration--"an expedition comparable only to Alexander's journey into
+Bactria," wrote an admirer of Sidney to Cecil--revealing what to Irish
+eyes appeared the magnitude of the difficulty, and forming a measure
+of the effect which it produced. The English deputy had bearded Shane
+in his stronghold, burned his houses, pillaged his people, and had
+fastened a body of police in the midst of them, to keep them waking
+in the winter nights. He had penetrated the hitherto impregnable
+fortresses of mountain and morass; the Irish who had been faithful to
+England were again in safe possession of their lands and homes. The
+weakest, maddest, and wildest Celts were made aware that, when the
+English were once roused to effort, they could crush them as the lion
+crushes the jackal.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Vol. viii. p.407.]
+
+O'Neill had followed the lord deputy to Lifford, and then marched on
+to the Pale, expecting to retaliate upon the invaders with impunity.
+But he was encountered by Warren St. Leger, lost 200 men, and was at
+first hunted back over the border. He again returned, however, with
+'a main army,' burned several villages, and in a second fight with St.
+Leger, compelled the English to retire, 'for lack of more aid;' but
+they held together in good order, and Shane, with the Derry garrison
+in his rear, durst not follow far from home in pursuit. 'Before he
+could revenge himself on Sidney, before he could stir against the
+Scots, before he could strike a blow at O'Donel, he must pluck out the
+barbed dart which was fastened in his unguarded side.'
+
+In order to accomplish this object, he hovered cautiously about
+the Foyle, watching for an opportunity to attack the garrison. But
+Randolph fell upon him by surprise, and after a short sharp action,
+the O'Neills gave way. O'Dogherty with his Irish horse chased the
+flying crowd of his countrymen, killing every person he caught; and
+Shane lost 400 men, the bravest of his warriors. The English success
+was dearly bought, for Randolph leading the pursuit, was struck by a
+random shot, and fell dead from his horse.
+
+Before the Irish chief could recover from this great disaster, Sidney
+'struck in again beyond Dundalk, burning his farms and capturing his
+castles. The Scots came in over the Bann, wasting the country all
+along the river side. Allaster M'Connell, like some chief of Sioux
+Indians, sent to the captain of Knockfergus an account of the cattle
+that he had driven, and _the wives and bairns_ that he had slain. Like
+swarms of angry hornets, these avenging savages drove their stings in
+the now maddened and desperate Shane on every point where they could
+fasten; while in December the old O'Donel came out over the mountains
+from Donegal, and paid back O'Neill with interest for his stolen wife,
+his pillaged country, and his own long imprisonment and exile. The
+tide of fortune had turned too late for his own revenge: worn out
+with his long sufferings, he fell from his horse, at the head of his
+people, with the stroke of death upon him; but before he died, he
+called his kinsmen about him, and prayed them to be true to England
+and their queen, and Hugh O'Donel, who succeeded to his father's
+command, went straight to Derry, and swore allegiance to the English
+crown.
+
+'Tyrone was now smitten in all its borders. Magennis was the last
+powerful chief who still adhered to Shane's fortunes; the last week in
+the year Sidney carried fire and sword through his country, and left
+him not a hoof remaining. It was to no purpose that Shane, bewildered
+by the rapidity with which disasters were piling themselves upon him,
+cried out now for pardon and peace; the deputy would not answer his
+letter, and nothing was talked of but his extirpation by war only.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Froude, p.413.]
+
+The war, however, was interrupted by a singular calamity that befel
+the Derry garrison. By the death of their commander left 'a headless
+people,' they suffered from want of food and clothing. They also
+became the prey of a mysterious disease, against which no precautions
+could guard, which no medicine could cure, and by which strong men
+were suddenly struck dead. By the middle of November 'the flux was
+reigning among them wonderfully;' many of the best men went away
+because there was none to stay them. The secret of the dreadful
+malady--something like the cholera--was discovered in the fact that
+the soldiers had built their sleeping quarters over the burial-ground
+of the abbey, 'and the clammy vapour had stolen into their lungs and
+poisoned them.' The officer who succeeded to the command applied the
+most effectual remedy. He led the men at once into the pure air of the
+enemies' country, and they returned after a few days driving before
+them 700 horses and 1,000 cattle. He assured Sidney, that with 300
+additional men, he could so hunt the rebel, that ere May was passed,
+he should not show his face in Ulster. But the 'Black Death' returned
+after a brief respite; and, says Mr. Froude, in the reeking vapour of
+the charnel-house, it was indifferent whether its victims returned in
+triumph from a stricken field, or were cooped within their walls by
+hordes of savage enemies. By the middle of March there were left out
+of 1,100 but 300 available to fight. Reinforcements had been raised at
+Liverpool, but they were countermanded when on the point of sailing.
+The English council was discussing the propriety of removing the
+colony to the Bann, when accident finished the work which the plague
+had begun, and spared them the trouble of deliberation. The huts
+and sheds round the monastery had been huddled together for the
+convenience of fortification. At the end of April, probably after
+a drying east wind, a fire broke out in a blacksmith's forge, which
+spread irresistibly through the entire range of buildings. The flames
+at last reached the powder magazine: thirty men were blown to pieces
+by the explosion, and the rest, paralysed by this last addition
+to their misfortunes, made no more effort to extinguish the
+conflagration. St. Loo, with all that remained of that ill-fated
+party, watched from their provision boats in the river the utter
+destruction of the settlement which had begun so happily, and then
+sailed drearily away to find a refuge in Knockfergus. Such was the
+fate of the first efforts for the building of Londonderry; and below
+its later glories, as so often happens in this world, lay the bones
+of many a hundred gallant men who lost their lives in laying its
+foundations. Elizabeth, who in the immediate pressure of calamity
+resumed at once her noble nature, 'perceiving the misfortune not
+to come of treason, but of God's ordinance,' bore it well; she was
+willing to do that should be wanting to repair the loss; and Cecil was
+able to write cheerfully to Sidney, telling him to make the best of
+the accident and let it stimulate him to fresh exertions.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Page 410.]
+
+In the meantime Shane O'Neill, hard pressed on every side, earnestly
+implored the cardinals of Lorraine and Guise, in the name of their
+great brother the duke, to bring the _Fleur-de-lys_ to the rescue of
+Ireland from the grasp of the ungodly English. 'Help us,' he cried,
+blending _Irish-like_ flattery with entreaty: 'when I was in England,
+I saw your noble brother, the Marquis d'Elboeuf, transfix two stags
+with a single arrow. If the most Christian king will not help us,
+move the pope to help us. I alone in this land sustain his cause.' To
+propitiate his holiness, Primate Daniel was dismissed to the ranks
+of the army, and Creagh received his crosier, and was taken into
+O'Neill's household.
+
+'All was done,' says the English historian, 'to deserve favour
+in earth and heaven, but all was useless. The Pope sat silent or
+muttering his anathemas with bated breath. The Guises had work enough
+on hand at home to heed the _Irish wolf_, whom the English, having in
+vain attempted to trap or poison, were driving to bay with more lawful
+weapons.' His own people, divided and dispirited, began now to desert
+the failing cause. In May, by a concerted movement, the deputy with
+the light horse of the Pale overran Tyrone, and robbed the farmers
+of 3,000 cattle, while the O'Donels mustered their forces for a great
+contest with Shane, now struggling, almost hopelessly, to maintain
+his supremacy. The O'Neills and O'Donels met on the banks of the Foyle
+near Lifford. The former were superior in number, being about 3,000
+men. After a brief fight 'the O'Neills broke and fled; the enemy was
+behind them, the river was in front; and when the Irish battle cries
+had died away over moor and mountain, but 200 survived of those fierce
+troopers, who were to have cleared Ireland for ever from the presence
+of the Saxons. For the rest, the wolves were snarling over their
+bodies, and the seagulls whirling over them with scream and cry, as
+they floated down to their last resting-place beneath the quiet waters
+of Lough Foyle. Shane's foster-brethren, faithful to the last, were
+all killed; he himself with half-a-dozen comrades rode for his life,
+pursued by the avenging furies. His first desperate intention was to
+throw himself at Sidney's feet, _with a slave's collar upon his neck_;
+but his secretary, Neil M'Kevin, persuaded him that his cause was not
+yet absolutely without hope. Sorleyboy was still a prisoner in the
+castle at Lough Neagh, the Countess of Argyle had remained with her
+ravisher through his shifting fortunes, had continued to bear him
+children, and notwithstanding his many infidelities, was still
+attached to him. M'Kevin told him that for their sakes, or at their
+intercession, he might find shelter and perhaps help among the kindred
+of the M'Connells.'
+
+Acting on this advice, O'Neill took his prisoner, 'the countess, his
+secretary, and fifty men to the camp of Allaster M'Connell, in the
+far extremity of Antrim. He was received with dissembled gratulatory
+words.' For two days all went on well, and an alliance was talked of.
+But the vengeance of his hosts was with difficulty suppressed. The
+great chief who was now in their power, had slain their leaders in the
+field, had divorced James M'Connell's daughter, had kept a high-born
+Scottish lady as his mistress, and had asked Argyle to give him for a
+wife M'Connell's widow, who, to escape the dishonour, had remained in
+concealment at Edinburgh. On the third evening, Monday June 2, when
+the wine and the whiskey had gone freely round, and the blood in
+Shane's veins had warmed, Gilespie M'Connell, who had watched him from
+the first with an ill-boding eye, turned round upon M'Kevin, and asked
+scornfully, 'whether it was he who had bruited abroad that the lady
+his aunt did offer to come from Scotland to Ireland to marry with his
+master?'
+
+M'Kevin meeting scorn with scorn said, that if his aunt was Queen of
+Scotland she might be proud to match with the O'Neill. 'It is false,'
+the fierce Scot shouted; 'my aunt is too honest a woman to match with
+her husband's murderer.'
+
+'Shane, who was perhaps drunk, heard the words, and forgetting where
+he was, flung back the lie in Gilespie's throat. Gilespie sprung to
+his feet, ran out of the tent, and raised the slogan of the Isles. A
+hundred dirks flashed into the moonlight, and the Irish, wherever they
+could be found, were struck down and stabbed. Some two or three
+found their horses and escaped, all the rest were murdered; and Shane
+himself, gashed with fifty wounds, was wrapped in a kern's old shirt,
+and flung into a pit, dug hastily among the ruined arches of Glenarm.
+Even there, what was left of him was not allowed to rest. Four days
+later, Piers, the captain of Knockfergus, hacked the head from the
+body, and carried it on a spear's point through Drogheda to Dublin,
+where, staked upon a pike, it bleached on the battlements of the
+castle, a symbol to the Irish world of the fate of Celtic heroes.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Froude, p.418, &c.]
+
+Mr. Froude might have added: Celtic heroes struck down by Celtic
+hands. No lord deputy could boast of a victory over Shane O'Neill
+in the field. Irish traitors in English pay, Irish clans moved by
+vengeance, did the work of England in the destruction of the great
+principality of the O'Neills, and it was by _their_ swords, not
+by English valour, that Sidney 'recovered Ireland for the crown of
+Elizabeth.' Whatever may have been the faults of Shane O'Neill, and no
+doubt they were very great, though not to be judged of by the morality
+of the nineteenth century, his talents, his force of character, his
+courage and capacity as a general, deserved more favourable notice
+from Mr. Froude, who, in almost every sentence of his graphic and
+splendid descriptions, betrays an animosity to the Celtic race,
+very strange in an author so enlightened, and evincing, with this
+exception, such generous sympathies. After so often reviling the
+great Irish champion by comparing him to all sorts of wild beasts, the
+historian thus concludes:--
+
+'So died Shane O'Neill, one of those champions of Irish nationality,
+who under varying features have repeated themselves in the history of
+that country with periodic regularity. At once a _drunken ruffian_,
+and a keen and fiery patriot, the representative in his birth of the
+line of the ancient kings, the ideal in his character of all which
+Irishmen most admired, regardless in his actions of the laws of God
+and man, yet the devoted subject in his creed of the holy Catholic
+Church; with an eye which could see far beyond the limits of his own
+island, and a tongue which could touch the most passionate chords
+of the Irish heart; the like of him has been seen many times in that
+island, and the like of him may be seen many times again till the
+Ethiopian has changed his skin, and the leopard his spots. Numbers of
+his letters remain, to the Queen, to Sussex, to Sidney, to Cecil,
+and to foreign princes; far-reaching, full of pleasant flattery and
+promises which cost him nothing, but showing true ability and insight.
+Sinner though he was, he too in his turn was sinned against; in the
+stained page of Irish misrule there is no second instance in which
+an English ruler stooped to treachery, or to the infamy of attempted
+assassination; and it is not to be forgotten that Lord Sussex, who has
+left under his own hand the evidence of his own baseness, continued a
+trusted and favoured councillor of Elizabeth, while Sidney, who fought
+Shane and conquered him in the open field, found only suspicion and
+hard words.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+EXTERMINATING WARS.
+
+
+Mr. Froude's magnificent chapter on Ireland, in the eleventh volume
+of his history, just published, ought to be studied by every member of
+the legislature before parliament meets. If a nation has a conscience,
+England must feel remorse for the deeds done in her name in Ireland;
+and ought to make amends for them, if possible. The historian has well
+described the policy of Queen Elizabeth. She was at times disposed to
+forbearance, but 'she made impossible the obedience she enjoined. Her
+deputies and her presidents, too short-sighted to rule with justice,
+were driven to cruelty in spite of themselves. It was easier to kill
+than to restrain. Death was the only gaoler which their finances could
+support, while the Irish in turn lay in wait to retaliate upon their
+oppressors, and atrocity begat atrocity in hopeless continuity.'
+
+Whenever there was a failing in any enterprise, the queen conceived 'a
+great misliking of the whole matter;' but success covered a multitude
+of sins. When the Irish were powerful, and the colony was in danger,
+she thought it 'a hard matter to subvert the customs of the people
+which they had enjoyed, to be ruled by the captains of their own
+nation. Let the chiefs sue for pardon, and submit to her authority,
+and she would let them have their seignories, their captaincies, their
+body-guards, and all the rest of their dignities, with power of life
+and death over their people. But,' says Mr. Froude, 'it was the curse
+of the English rule that it never could adhere consistently to any
+definite principle. It threatened, and failed to execute its threats.
+It fell back on conciliation, and yet immediately, by some injustice
+or cruelty, made reliance on its good faith impossible.'
+
+Essex seemed to understand well the nature and motive of the queen's
+professions, and he resolved to make some bold attempts to win back
+her favour. He had made a sudden attack on Sir Brian O'Neill of
+Clandeboye, with troops trained in the wars of the Low Countries, and
+in a week he brought him to abject submission, which he expressed by
+saying that 'he had gone wickedly astray, wandering in the wilderness
+like a blind beast.' But it was the misfortune of Sir Brian, or
+M'Phelim, that he still held his own territory, which had been
+granted by the queen to Essex. 'The attempt to deprive him had been
+relinquished. He had surrendered his lands, and the queen, at Essex's
+own intercession, had reinstated him as tenant under the crown. It
+seems, however, as if Essex had his eye still upon the property.'
+Under such circumstances, it was easy to assume that O'Neill was still
+playing false. So he resolved that he should not be able to do so any
+longer. 'He determined to make sure work with so fickle a people.' He
+returned to Clandeboye, as if on a friendly visit. Sir Brian and Lady
+O'Neill received him with all hospitality. The Irish Annalists say
+that they gave him a banquet. They not only let him off safe, but they
+accompanied him to his castle at Belfast. There he was very gracious.
+A high feast was held in the hall; and it was late in the night when
+the noble guest and his wife retired to their lodging outside the
+walls. When they were supposed to be asleep, a company of soldiers
+surrounded the house and prepared to break the door. 'The O'Neills
+flew to arms. The cry rang through the village, and the people swarmed
+out to defend their chief; but surprised, half-armed, and outnumbered,
+they were overpowered and cut to pieces. Two hundred men were killed.
+The Four Masters add that the women were slain. The chieftain's wife
+had female attendants with her, and no one was knowingly spared. The
+tide being out, a squadron of horse was sent at daybreak over the
+water into the "Ardes," from which, in a few hours, they returned with
+3,000 of Sir Brian's cattle, and with a drove of stud mares, of which
+the choicest were sent to Fitzwilliam. Sir Brian himself, his brother,
+and Lady O'Neill, were carried as prisoners to Dublin, where they were
+soon after executed.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Froude, vol. xi. p.179.]
+
+Essex did not miscalculate the probable effect of this exploit. It
+raised him high in the estimation of the Anglo-Irish of the Pale. 'The
+taint of the country was upon him; he had made himself no better than
+themselves, and was the hero of the hour.' The effect of such conduct
+and such a spirit in the rulers, may be imagined. A few weeks later,
+Sir Edward Fitton wrote: 'I may say of Ireland, that it is quiet;
+but if universal oppression of the mean sort by the great; if murder,
+robberies, burnings make an ill commonwealth, then I cannot say we are
+in a good case ... Public sentiment in Dublin, however, was unanimous
+in its approbation. Essex was the man who would cauterize the
+long-standing sores. There was a soldier in Ireland at last who
+understood the work that was to be done, and the way to set about it.
+Beloved by the soldiers, admirable alike for religion, nobility, and
+courtesy, altogether the queen's, and not bewitched by the factions
+of the realm, the governor of Ulster had but to be armed with supreme
+power, and the long-wished-for conquest of Ireland would be easily and
+instantly achieved.'
+
+These feelings were not unnatural to the party in Dublin, now
+represented by the men who recently declared that they rejoiced in
+the election of a Fenian convict in Tipperary, and declared that they
+would vote for such a candidate in preference to a loyal man. But how
+did Queen Elizabeth receive the news of the treacherous and atrocious
+massacre at Belfast? She was not displeased. 'Her occasional
+disapprobation of severities of this kind,' says Mr. Froude, 'was
+confined to cases to which the attention of Europe happened to be
+especially directed. She told Essex that he was a great ornament of
+her nobility, she wished she had many as ready as he to spend their
+lives for the benefit of their country.'
+
+Thus encouraged by his sovereign, and smarting under the reproach of
+cowardice cast on him by Leicester, Essex determined to render his
+name illustrious by a still more signal deed of heroism. After an
+unprovoked raid on the territories of O'Neill in Tyrone, carrying
+off cattle and slaughtering great numbers of innocent people whom
+his soldiers hunted down, he perpetrated another massacre, which is
+certainly one of the most infamous recorded in history. A great
+number of women and children, aged and sick persons, had fled from the
+horrors that reigned on the mainland, and taken refuge in the island
+of Rathlin. The story of their tragic fate is admirably told by Mr.
+Froude:--'The situation and the difficulty of access had thus long
+marked Rathlin as a place of refuge for Scotch or Irish fugitives,
+and, besides its natural strength, it was respected as a sanctuary,
+having been the abode at one time of St. Columba. A mass of broken
+masonry, on a cliff overhanging the sea, is a remnant of the castle in
+which Robert Bruce watched the leap of the legendary spider. To this
+island, when Essex entered Antrim, M'Connell and other Scots had sent
+their wives and children, their aged and their sick, for safety. On
+his way through Carrickfergus, when returning to Dublin, the earl
+ascertained that they had not yet been brought back to their homes.
+The officer in command of the English garrison (it is painful to
+mention the name either of him, or of any man concerned in what
+ensued) was John Norris, Lord Norris's second son, so famous
+afterwards in the Low Countries, grandson of Sir Henry Norris,
+executed for adultery with Anne Boleyn. Three small frigates were in
+the harbour. The summer had been hot and windless; the sea was smooth,
+there was a light and favourable air from the east; and Essex directed
+Norris to take a company of soldiers with him, cross over, and--'
+
+What? Bring those women and children, those sick and aged folk, back
+to their homes? Essex had made peace by treaty with the O'Neill. He
+had killed or chased away every man that could disturb the peace;
+and an act of humanity like this would have had a most conciliatory
+effect, and ought to recommend the hero to the queen, who should be
+supposed to have the heart as well as the form of a woman.
+
+No; the order was, to go over '_and kill whatever he could find!_' Mr.
+Froude resumes: 'The run of the Antrim coast was rapidly and quietly
+accomplished. Before an alarm could be given, the English had landed,
+close to the ruins of the church which bears St. Columba's name.
+Bruce's castle was then standing, and was occupied by a score or two
+of Scots, who were in charge of the women. But Norris had brought
+cannon with him. The weak defences were speedily destroyed, and after
+a severe assault, in which several of the garrison were killed, the
+chief who was in command offered to surrender, if he and his people
+were allowed to return to Scotland. The conditions were rejected. The
+Scots yielded at discretion, and every living creature in the place,
+except the chief and his family (who were probably reserved for
+ransom), was immediately put to the sword. Two hundred were killed in
+the castle. It was then discovered that several hundred more, chiefly
+mothers and their little ones, were hidden in the caves about
+the shore. There was no remorse, nor even the faintest shadow of
+perception that the occasion called for it. They were hunted out as if
+they had been seals or otters, and all destroyed. Sorleyboy and other
+chiefs, Essex coolly wrote, had sent their wives and children into the
+island, "which be all taken and executed to the number of six hundred.
+Sorleyboy himself," he continued, "stood upon the mainland of the
+Glynnes and saw the taking of the island, and was likely to have run
+mad for sorrow, tearing and tormenting himself, and saying that he
+there lost all that he ever had!" The impression left upon the mind by
+this horrible story, is increased by the composure with which even the
+news of it was received. "Yellow-haired Charley," wrote Essex to
+the queen, "might tear himself for his pretty little ones and
+their _dam_," but in Ireland itself the massacre was not specially
+distinguished in the general system of atrocity. Essex described it
+himself as one of the exploits with which he was most satisfied; and
+Elizabeth, in answer to his letters, bade him tell John Norris, "the
+executioner of his well-designed enterprise, that she would not be
+unmindful of his services."'
+
+I have transcribed this narrative partly for the sake of the
+reflection with which Mr. Froude concludes. He says: 'But though
+passed over and unheeded at the time, and lying buried for three
+hundred years, the bloody stain comes back to the light again, not in
+myth or legend, but in the original account of the nobleman by whose
+command the deed was done; and when the history of England's dealings
+with Ireland settles at last into its final shape, that hunt among the
+caves at Rathlin will not be forgotten.'[1] It was for services like
+these that Essex got the barony of Farney, in the county Monaghan. He
+had mortgaged his English estates to the queen for 10,000 l.,and after
+his plundering expeditions in Ireland he went home to pay his debts.
+
+[Footnote 1: History of England, vol. xi. p.184.]
+
+Further on Mr. Froude has another reflection connected with the death
+of Essex, supposed to have been poisoned, as his widow immediately
+after married Leicester. He says: 'Notwithstanding Rathlin, Essex was
+one of the noblest of living Englishmen, and that such a man could
+have ordered such a deed, being totally unconscious of the horror of
+it, is not the least instructive feature in the dreadful story.' It
+is certainly a strange fact that nearly all the official murderers who
+ruled in Ireland in those times were intensely religious, setting
+to their own class a most edifying example of piety. Thus, from the
+first, Protestantism was presented to the Irish in close connexion
+with brutal inhumanity and remorseless cruelty. Essex, when dying, was
+described by the bystanders as acting 'more like a divine preacher or
+heavenly prophet than a man.' His opinion of the religious character
+of his countrymen was most unfavourable. 'The Gospel had been preached
+to them,' he said, 'but they were neither Papists nor Protestants--of
+no religion, but full of pride and iniquity. There was nothing but
+infidelity, infidelity, infidelity!--atheism, atheism!--no religion,
+no religion!' What such tiger-like slaughterers of women and children,
+such ruthless destroyers, could have meant by religion is a puzzle for
+philosophers.
+
+Sidney reluctantly resumed the office of viceroy in 1575. Tirlogh
+O'Neill congratulated the Government on his appointment, 'wretched
+Ireland needing not the sword, but sober, temperate, and humane
+administration.' Though it was winter, the new deputy immediately
+commenced a progress through the provinces. Going first to Ulster, he
+saw Sorleyboy, and gave him back Rathlin. He paid a friendly visit
+to the O'Neill, who gave him an assurance of his loyalty. Leinster he
+found for the most part 'waste, burnt up and destroyed.' He proceeded
+by Waterford to Cork. He was received everywhere with acclamation.
+'The wretched people,' says Mr. Froude, how truly!--'sanguine then, as
+ever, in the midst of sorrow, looked on his coming as the inauguration
+of a new and happier era.' So, in later times, they looked on the
+coming of Chesterfield, and Fitzwilliam, and Anglesey. But the good
+angel was quickly chased away by the evil demon--invoked under the
+name of the 'Protestant Interest.' The Munster and the Connaught
+chiefs all thronged to Sidney's levées, weary of disaffection, and
+willing to be loyal, if their religion were not interfered with,
+'detesting their barbarous lives,'--promising rent and service for
+their lands. 'The past was wiped out. Confiscation on the one hand,
+and rebellion on the other, were to be heard of no more. A clean page
+was turned.' Even the Catholic bishops were tractable, and the viceroy
+got 'good and honest juries in Cork, and with their help twenty-four
+malefactors were honourably condemned and hanged.' Enjoying an ovation
+as he passed on to Limerick and Galway, he found many grievances to be
+redressed--'plenty of burnings, rapes, murders, besides such spoil
+in goods and cattle as in number might be counted infinite, and in
+quantity innumerable.'
+
+Sir William Drury was appointed president of Munster; and he was
+determined that in his case the magistrate should not bear the sword
+in vain. Going round the counties as an itinerant judge, he gleaned
+the malefactors Sidney had left, and hanged forty-three of them
+in Cork. One he pressed to death for declining to plead to his
+indictment. Two M'Sweenys, from Kerry, were drawn and quartered. At
+Limerick he hanged forty-two, and at Kilkenny thirty-six, among which
+he said were 'some good ones,' as a sportsman might say, bagging his
+game. He had a difficulty with 'a blackamoor and two witches,' against
+whom he found no statute of the realm, so he dispatched them 'by
+natural law.' Although Jeffreys, at the Bloody Assizes, did not come
+near Drury, the latter found it necessary to apologise to the English
+Government for the paucity of his victims, saying, 'I have chosen
+rather with the snail tenderly to creep, than with the hare swiftly to
+run.' With the Government in Ireland, as Mr. Froude has well remarked,
+'the gallows is the only preacher of righteousness.'
+
+But the gallows was far too slow, as an instrument of reform and
+civilisation, for Malby, president of Connaught; and as modern
+evictors in that province and elsewhere have chosen Christmas as the
+most appropriate season for pulling down dwellings, extinguishing
+domestic fires, and unhousing women and children, so Malby chose the
+same blessed season for his 'improvements' in 1576. It is such a model
+for dealing with the Fenians and tenants on the Tory plan, that I
+transcribe his own report, which Mr. Froude has found among the Irish
+MSS. 'At Christmas,' he wrote, 'I marched into their territory, and
+finding courteous dealing with them had like to have cut my throat,
+I thought good to take another course; and so with determination _to
+consume them with fire and sword, sparing neither old nor young_,
+I entered their mountains. I burnt all their corn and houses, and
+committed to the sword all that could be found, where were slain
+at that time above sixty of their best men, and among them the best
+leaders they had. This was Shan Burke's country. Then I burnt Ulick
+Burke's country. In like manner I assaulted a castle where the
+garrison surrendered. I put them to the misericordia of my soldiers.
+They were all slain. Thence I went on, sparing none which came in my
+way, which cruelty did so amaze their followers, that they could not
+tell where to bestow themselves. Shan Burke made means to me to pardon
+him and forbear killing of his people. I would not hearken, but went
+on my way. The gentlemen of Clanrickard came to me. I found it was but
+dallying to win time, so I left Ulick as little corn and as few houses
+standing as I left his brother; and what people was found had as
+little favour as the other had. _It was all done in rain and frost
+and storm_, journeys in such weather bringing them the sooner to
+submission. They are humble enough now, and will yield to any terms we
+like to offer them.'
+
+And so Malby and his soldiers enjoyed a merry Christmas; and when
+Walsingham read his letters, giving an account of his civilising
+progress, to the Queen, she, too, must have enjoyed a fresh sensation,
+a new pleasure amidst the festivities and gallantries of her brilliant
+court. Mr. Froude has rendered a timely service in this Christmas
+time to the Coercionists, the Martial Law men, and the Habeas Corpus
+Suspension men of our own day. He has shown them their principles at
+work and carried out with a vengeance, and with what results! He has
+admirably sketched the progress of English rule in Ireland up to
+that time--a rule unchanged in principle to the present hour, though
+restrained in its operation by the spirit of the age. Mr. Froude says:
+'When the people were quiet, there was the rope for the malefactors,
+and death by the natural law for those whom the law written could not
+touch. When they broke out, there was the blazing homestead, and death
+by the sword for all, not for the armed kerne only, but for the aged
+and infirm, the nursing mother and the baby at her breast. These, with
+ruined churches, and Irish rogues for ministers,--these, and so far
+_only_ these were the symbols of the advance of English rule; yet even
+Sidney could not order more and more severity, and the president of
+Munster was lost in wonder at the detestation with which the English
+name was everywhere regarded. Clanrickard was sent to Dublin, and the
+deputy wished to hang him, but he dared not execute an earl without
+consulting his mistress, and Elizabeth's leniency in Ireland, as well
+as England, was alive and active towards the great, although it was
+dead towards the poor. She could hear without emotion of the massacres
+at Rathlin or Slievh Broughty; but the blood of the nobles, who had
+betrayed their wretched followers into the rebellion for which they
+suffered, was for ever precious in her sight. She forbade Sidney to
+touch him.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Vol. xi, p.197.]
+
+Next came the great Desmond Rebellion, by which Munster was desolated.
+The Pope had encouraged an expedition against the heretics in Ireland,
+and some Spanish forces joined in the enterprise. It was organised by
+an English ecclesiastic, named Sanders, and an exiled Geraldine,
+named Fitzmaurice of Kerry, both able and energetic men. The Spaniards
+landed at Dingle in 1579. In a few days all Kerry and Limerick were
+up, and the woods between Mallow and the Shannon 'were swarming
+with howling kerne.' 'The rebellion,' wrote Waterhouse, 'is the most
+perilous that ever began in Ireland. Nothing is to be looked for but a
+general revolt.' Malby took the command against them, joined by one of
+the Burkes, Theobald, who when he saw Fitzmaurice struck by a ball
+and staggering in his saddle, rode at him and cut him down. The Papal
+standard was unfolded in this battle. Malby then burnt the Desmonds'
+country, killing all the human beings he met, up to the walls of
+Askeaton. When opportunity offered, Desmond retaliated by sacking and
+burning Youghal. For two days the Geraldines revelled in plunder; they
+violated the women and murdered all who could not escape. At length
+Elizabeth was roused to the greatness of the danger, her parsimony
+was overcome. A larger force was drawn into Ireland than had ever
+been assembled there for a century. Ormond, the hereditary enemy of
+Desmond, was appointed commander-in-chief; and Burghley, writing to
+him in the name of the queen, concluded thus: 'So now I will merely
+say, Butler aboo, against all that cry in the new language--Papa aboo,
+and God send your hearts' desire to banish and vanquish those cankered
+Desmonds!' The war now raged, and, as usual, the innocent people, the
+cultivators of the soil, were the first victims. 'We passed through
+the rebel countries,' wrote Pelham, 'in two companies, burning with
+fire _all habitations, and executing the people_ wherever we found
+them.' Mr. Froude says: '_Alone_ of all the English commanders he
+expressed remorse at the work.' Well, if the creatures they destroyed
+were horses, dogs, or cats, we should expect a man of ordinary human
+feelings to be shocked at the wholesale butchery. But the beings
+slaughtered were men and women and children--Christians found unarmed
+and defenceless in their dwellings. Let the English imagine such a
+war carried on in Kent or Yorkshire, by Irish invaders, killing in
+the name of the Pope. The Irish Annalists say that Pelham and Ormond
+killed the blind and the aged, women and children, sick and idiots,
+sparing none.
+
+The English, as usual, had help from an Irish chief in the work of
+destruction. Ormond had in his train M'Carthymore, 'who, believing
+Desmond's day to be done, hoped, by making himself useful, to secure
+a share of the plunder.' Dividing their forces, Pelham marched on to
+Dingle, 'destroying as he went, with Ormond parallel to him on the
+opposite side of the bay, the two parties watching each other's course
+at night across the water by the flames of the burning cottages!'
+
+The fleet was waiting at Dingle. There was a merry meeting of the
+officers. 'Here,' says Sir Nicholas White, 'my lord justice and I
+gathered cockles for our supper.'[1] The several hunting parties
+compared notes in the evening. Sometimes the sport was bad. On one
+occasion Pelham reported that his party had hanged a priest in the
+Spanish dress. 'Otherwise,' he says, 'we took small prey, and
+killed less people, though we reached many places in our travel!' At
+Killarney they found the lakes full of salmon. In one of the islands
+there was an abbey, in another a parish church, in another a castle,
+'out of which there came to them a fair lady, the rejected wife of
+Lord Fitzmaurice.' Even the soldiers were struck with the singular
+loveliness of the scene. 'A fairer land,' one of them said, 'the
+sun did never shine upon--pity to see it lying waste in the hands of
+traitors.' Mr. Froude, who deals more justly by the Irish in his last
+volumes, replies: 'Yet it was by those traitors that the woods whose
+beauty they so admired had been planted and fostered. Irish hands,
+unaided by English art or English wealth, had built Muckross and
+Innisfallen and Aghadoe, and had raised the castles on whose walls the
+modern poet watched the splendour of the sunset.'
+
+[Footnote 1: Carew Papers; Froude, vol. xi. p.225.]
+
+Ormond was the arch-destroyer of his countrymen. In a report of his
+services he stated that in this one year 1580, he had put to the
+sword 'forty-six captains and leaders, with 800 notorious traitors
+and malefactors, _and above_ 4,000 other people.'[1] In that year
+the great Desmond wrote to Philip of Spain that he was a homeless
+wanderer. 'Every town, castle, village, farm-house belonging to him or
+his people had been destroyed. There was no longer a roof standing in
+Munster to shelter him.' Hunted like a wolf through the mountains,
+he was at last found sleeping in a hut and killed. In vain his wife
+pleaded with Ormond, and threw herself on his protection. Even she was
+not spared. Mr. Froude gives an interesting account of Desmond's last
+hours. He was hunted down into the mountains between Tralee and the
+Atlantic. M'Sweeny had sheltered him and fed him through the summer,
+though a large price was set on his head; and when M'Sweeny was gone,
+killed by an Irish dagger, the earl's turn could not be distant.
+Donell M'Donell Moriarty had been received to grace by Ormond, and
+had promised to deserve his pardon. This man came to the captain
+of Castlemayne, gave information of the hiding-place, a band was
+sent--half-a-dozen English soldiers and a few Irish kerne, who stole
+in the darkness along the path which followed the stream--the door was
+dashed in, and the last Earl of Desmond was killed in his bed.
+
+[Footnote 1: Carew Papers; Froude, vol. xi. p.225.]
+
+Ormond had recourse to a horrible device to extinguish the embers of
+the rebellion. It was carrying out to a diabolical extent the policy
+of setting one Irishman against another. If the terror-stricken
+wretches hoped for pardon, they must deserve it, by murdering their
+relations. Accordingly sacks full of the heads of reputed rebels were
+brought in daily. Yet concerning him Mr. Froude makes this singular
+remark: 'To Ormond the Irish were human beings with human rights. To
+the English they were _vermin, to be cleared from off the earth_ by
+any means that offered.'
+
+Consequently, when it was proposed to make Ormond viceroy, the Pale
+was in a ferment. How could any man be fit to represent English power
+in Dublin Castle, who regarded the Irish as human beings! Not less
+curious is the testimony which the historian bears to the character of
+the English exterminators. He says, 'They were honourable, high-minded
+men, full of natural tenderness and gentleness, to every one with whom
+they were placed in _human relations_. The Irish, unfortunately, they
+looked upon as savages who had refused peace and protection when it
+was offered to them, and were now therefore to be _rooted out and
+destroyed_.' A reformer in 1583, however, suggested a milder policy.
+He recommended that 'all Brehons, carraghs, bards, rhymers, friars,
+monks, jesuits, pardoners, nuns, and such-like should be executed by
+martial law, and that with this clean sweep the work of death might
+end, and a new era be ushered in with universities and schools, a
+fixed police, and agriculture, and good government.'
+
+When the English had destroyed all the houses and churches, burnt all
+the corn, and driven away all the cattle, they were disgusted at the
+savage state in which the remnant of the peasantry lived. A gentleman
+named Andrew Trollope gave expression to this feeling thus: 'The
+common people ate flesh if they could steal it, if not they lived on
+shamrock and carrion. They never served God or went to church; they
+had no religion and no manners, but were in all things more barbarous
+and beast-like than any other people. No governor shall do good here,'
+he said, 'except he show himself a Tamerlane. If hell were open and
+all the evil spirits abroad, they could never be worse than these
+Irish rogues--rather dogs, and worse than dogs, for dogs do but after
+their kind, and they degenerate from all humanity.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Froude, vol. xi. p.246.]
+
+The population of Ireland was then by slaughter and famine reduced to
+about 600,000, one-eighth of the population of England; but far too
+many, in the estimation of their English rulers. Brabason succeeded
+Malby in Connaught, and surpassed him in cruelty. The Four Masters
+say: 'Neither the sanctuary of the saint, neither the wood nor the
+forest valley, the town nor the lawn, was a shelter from this captain
+and his people, till the whole territory was destroyed by him.' In the
+spring of 1582 St. Leger wrote from Cork: 'This country is so ruined
+as it is well near unpeopled by the murders and spoils done by the
+traitors on the one side, and by the killing and spoil done by the
+soldiers on the other side, together with the great mortality in town
+and country, which is such as the like hath never been seen. There has
+died by famine only not so few as 30,000 in this province in less than
+half a year, besides others that are hanged and killed.'
+
+At length the world began to cry shame on England; and Lord Burghley
+was obliged to admit that the English in Ireland had outdone the
+Spaniards in ferocious and blood-thirsty persecution. Remonstrating
+with Sir H. Wallop, ancestor of Lord Portsmouth, he said that the
+'Flemings had not such cause to rebel against the oppression of
+the Spaniards, as the Irish against the tyranny of England.' Wallop
+defended the Government; the causes of the rebellion were not to
+be laid at the door of England at all. They were these, 'the great
+affection they generally bear to the Popish religion, which agreeth
+with their humour, that having committed murder, incest, thefts, with
+all other execrable offences, by hearing a mass, confessing themselves
+to a priest, or obtaining the Pope's pardon, they persuade themselves
+that they are forgiven, and, hearing mass on Sunday or holyday, they
+think all the week after they may do what heinous offence soever and
+it is dispensed withal.' Trollope said they had no religion. Wallop
+said they had too much religion. But their nationality was worse than
+their creed. Wallop adds, 'They also much hate our nation, partly
+through the general mislike or disdain one nation hath to be governed
+by another; partly that we are contrary to them in religion; and
+lastly, they seek to have the government among themselves.'
+
+The last was the worst of all. Elizabeth wished to heal the wounds of
+the Irish nation by appointing Ormond lord deputy. He was a nobleman
+of Norman descent. His family had been true to England for centuries.
+He had commanded her armies during this exterminating war, and, being
+a native of the country, he would be best fitted to carry on the work
+of conciliation after so much slaughter. But, says Mr. Froude, 'from
+every English officer serving in the country, every English settler,
+every bishop of the Anglo-Irish Church, there rose one chorus of
+remonstrance and indignation; to them it appeared as a proposal now
+would appear in Calcutta to make the Nizam Viceroy of India.'[1]
+Wallop wrote that if he were appointed, there would be 'no dwelling in
+the country for any Englishman.'
+
+[Footnote 1: Ibid. p.202.]
+
+The fear that a merciful policy might be adopted towards Ireland
+sorely troubled Wallop and Archbishop Loftus; but they were comforted
+by a great prize--an archbishop fell into their hands. Dr. Hurley
+refused to give information against others. Walsingham suggested that
+he should be put to the torture. To him Archbishop Loftus wrote with
+unction. 'Not finding that easy method of examination do any good, we
+made command to Mr. Waterhouse and Mr. Secretary Fenton to put him to
+the torture, such as your honour advised us, which was to _toast his
+feet_ against the fire with hot boots.' He confessed something. They
+asked permission to execute him by martial law. The queen took a month
+to consider. She recommended an ordinary trial for high treason, and
+if the jury did not do its duty, they might take the shorter way.
+She wished for no more torture, but 'for what was past her majesty
+accepted in good part their careful travail, and greatly commended
+their doings.' The Irish judges had repeatedly decided that there was
+no case against Archbishop Hurley; but on June 19, 1584, Loftus and
+Wallop wrote to Walsingham, 'We gave warrant to the knight-marshal to
+do execution upon him, which accordingly was performed, and thereby
+the realm rid of a most pestilent member.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Froude, vol. xi. p.264.]
+
+This was the last act of these two lords justices. Sir John Perrot,
+the new viceroy, made a speech which sent a ray of hope athwart the
+national gloom. It was simply that the people might thenceforth
+expect a little justice and protection. He told the natives that 'as
+natural-born subjects of her majesty she loved them as her own people.
+He wished to be suppressed and universally abolished throughout the
+realm the name of a churle and the crushing of a churle; affirming
+that, however the former barbarous times had desired it and nourished
+it, yet he held it tyrannous both in name and manner, and therefore
+would extirpate it, and use in place of it the titles used in England,
+namely, husbandmen, franklins or yeomen.' 'This was so plausible,'
+wrote Sir G. Fenton, 'that it was carried throughout the whole realm,
+in less time than might be thought credible, if expressed.'
+
+The extirpation of the Munster Geraldines, in the right line,
+according to the theory of the 'Undertakers' and the law of England in
+general, vested in the queen the 570,000 acres belonging to the late
+earl. Proclamation was accordingly made throughout England, inviting
+'younger brothers of good families' to undertake the plantation of
+Desmond--each planter to obtain a certain scope of land, on condition
+of settling thereupon so many families--'none of the native Irish to
+be admitted' Under these conditions, Sir Christopher Hatton took up
+10,000 acres in Waterford; Sir Walter Raleigh 12,000 acres, partly in
+Waterford and partly in Cork; Sir William Harbart, or Herbert, 13,000
+acres in Kerry; Sir Edward Denny 6,000 in the same county; Sir Warren
+St. Leger, and Sir Thomas Norris, 6,000 acres each in Cork; Sir
+William Courtney 10,000 acres in Limerick; Sir Edward Fitton 11,500
+acres in Tipperary and Waterford, and Edmund Spenser 3,000 acres in
+Cork, on the beautiful Blackwater. The other notable Undertakers
+were the Hides, Butchers, Wirths, Berkleys, Trenchards, Thorntons,
+Bourchers, Billingsleys, &c. Some of these grants, especially
+Raleigh's, fell in the next reign to Richard Boyle, the so-called
+'_great_ Earl of Cork '--probably the most pious hypocrite to be found
+in the long roll of the 'Munster Undertakers.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+AN IRISH CRUSADE.
+
+
+In 1602, the Lord Deputy Mountjoy, in obedience to instructions from
+the Government in London, marched to the borders of Ulster with
+a considerable force, to effect, if he could, the arrest of Hugh
+O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, or to bring him to terms. Since the defeat
+of the Irish and Spanish confederacy at Kinsale, O'Neill comforted
+himself with the assurance that Philip III. would send another
+expedition to Ireland to retrieve the honour of his flag, and avenge
+the humiliation it had sustained, owing to the incompetency or
+treachery of Don Juan d'Aquila. That the king was inclined to aid the
+Irish there can be no question; 'for Clement VIII., then reigning in
+the Vatican, pressed it upon him as a sacred duty, which he owed to
+his co-religionists in Ireland, whose efforts to free themselves from
+Elizabeth's tyranny, the pontiff pronounced to be a _crusade_ against
+the most implacable heretic of the day.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Fate and Fortunes of the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell.
+By the Rev. P.C. Meehan, M.R.I.A.]
+
+If Mr. Meehan's authorities may be relied upon, Queen Elizabeth was,
+in intention at least, a murderer as well as a heretic. He states
+that while she was gasping on her cushions at Richmond, gazing on the
+haggard features of death, and vainly striving to penetrate the opaque
+veil of the future, she commanded Secretary Cecil to charge Mountjoy
+to entrap Tyrone into a submission, on diminished rank as Baron of
+Dungannon, and with lessened territory; or if possible, to have his
+head, before engaging the royal word. It was to accomplish either of
+these objects, that Mountjoy marched to the frontier of the north.
+'Among those employed to murder O'Neill in cold blood, were Sir
+Geoffry Fenton, Lord Dunsany, and _Henry Oge O'Neill._ Mountjoy bribed
+one Walker, an Englishman, and a ruffian calling himself Richard
+Combus, to make the attempt, but they all failed.'[1] Finding it
+impossible to procure the assassination of 'the sacred person of
+O'Neill, who had so many eyes of jealousy about him,' he wrote to
+Cecil from Drogheda, that nothing prevented Tyrone from making his
+submission but mistrust of his personal safety and guarantee
+for maintenance commensurate to his princely rank. The lords of
+Elizabeth's privy council empowered Mountjoy to treat with O'Neill on
+these terms, and to give him the required securities. Sir Garret Moore
+and Sir William Godolphin were entrusted with a commission to effect
+this object. But while the lord deputy, with a brilliant retinue,
+was feasting at Mellifont, a monastery bestowed by Henry VIII. on an
+ancestor of Sir Garret Moore, by whom it was transformed into a 'fair
+mansion,' half palace, half fortress, a courier arrived from England,
+announcing the death of the queen. Nevertheless the negotiations
+were pressed on in her name, the fact of her decease being carefully
+concealed from the Irish. Tyrone had already sent his secretary, Henry
+O'Hagan, to announce to the lord deputy that he was about to come to
+his presence. Accordingly on March 29, he surrendered himself to the
+two commissioners at Tougher, within five miles of Dungannon. On the
+following evening he reached Mellifont, when, being admitted to the
+lord deputy's presence, 'he knelt, as was usual on such occasions;'
+and made penitent submission to her majesty. Then, being invited to
+come nearer to the deputy, he repeated the ceremony, if we may credit
+Fynes Moryson, in the same humiliating attitude, thus:--
+
+'I, Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, do absolutely submit myself to the
+queen's mercy, imploring her gracious commiseration, imploring her
+majesty to mitigate her just indignation against me. I do avow that
+the first motives of my rebellion were neither malice nor ambition;
+but that I was induced by fear of my life, to stand upon my guard. I
+do therefore most humbly sue her majesty, that she will vouchsafe
+to restore to me my former dignity and living. In which state of
+a subject, I vow to continue for ever hereafter loyal, in all true
+obedience to her royal person, crown, and prerogatives, and to be
+in all things as dutifully conformable thereunto as I or any other
+nobleman of this realm is bound by the duty of a subject to his
+sovereign, utterly renouncing the name and title of O'Neill, or any
+other claim which hath not been granted to me by her majesty. I abjure
+all foreign power, and all dependency upon any other potentate but her
+majesty. I renounce all manner of dependency upon the King of Spain,
+or treaty with him or any of his confederates, and shall be ready to
+serve her majesty against him or any of his forces or confederates.
+I do renounce all challenge or intermeddling with the Uriaghts, or
+fostering with them or other neighbour lords or gentlemen outside my
+country, or exacting black-rents of any Uriaghts or bordering lords.
+I resign all claim and title to any lands but such as shall now be
+granted to me by her majesty's letters patent. Lastly, I will be
+content to be advised by her majesty's magistrates here, and will
+assist them in anything that may tend to the advancement of her
+service, and the peaceable government of this kingdom, the abolishing
+of barbarous customs, the clearing of difficult passes, wherein I will
+employ the labours of the people of my country in such places as I
+shall be directed by her majesty, or the lord deputy in her name; and
+I will endeavour for myself and the people of my country, to erect
+civil habitations such as shall be of greater effect to preserve us
+against thieves, and any force but the power of the state.'
+
+[Footnote 1: See Life and Letters of Florence M'Carthy. By D.
+M'Carthy, Esq.]
+
+To this act of submission Tyrone affixed his sign manual, and handed
+it to the deputy, who told him he must write to Philip III. of Spain,
+to send home his son Henry, who had gone with Father M'Cawell to
+complete his studies in Salamanca. The deputy also insisted that he
+should reveal all his negotiations with the Spanish court, or any
+other foreign sovereign with whom he maintained correspondence; and
+when the earl assured him that all these requirements should be duly
+discharged, the lord deputy in the queen's name promised him her
+majesty's pardon to himself and followers, to himself the restoration
+of his earldom and blood with new letters patent of all his lands,
+excepting the country possessed by Henry Oge O'Neill, and the Fews
+belonging to Tirlough Mac Henry O'Neill, both of whom had recently
+taken grants of their lands, to be holden immediately from the queen.
+It was further covenanted that Tyrone should give 300 acres of his
+land to the fort of Charlmont, and 300 more to that of Mountjoy, as
+long as it pleased her majesty to garrison said forts. Tyrone assented
+to all these conditions, and then received the accolade from the lord
+deputy, who, a few months before, had written to Queen Elizabeth, that
+he hoped to be able to send her that ghastliest of all trophies--her
+great rebel's head!
+
+On April 4, the lord deputy returned to Dublin accompanied by the
+great vassal whom he fancied he had bound in inviolable loyalty to the
+English throne. To make assurance doubly sure, the day after James was
+proclaimed, Tyrone repeated the absolute submission made at Mellifont,
+the name of the sovereign only being changed. He also despatched a
+letter to the King of Spain stating that he had held out as long as
+he could, in the vain hope of being succoured by him, and finally when
+deserted by his nearest kinsmen and followers, he was enforced as in
+duty bound to declare his allegiance to James I., in whose service and
+obedience he meant to live and die.
+
+The importance of this act of submission will appear from a manifesto
+issued by O'Neill three years before, dated Dungannon, November 16,
+1599, and subscribed 'O'Neill.' This remarkable document has been
+published for the first time by Father Meehan.
+
+'_To the Catholics of the towns in Ireland._
+
+'Using hitherto more than ordinary favour towards all my countrymen,
+who generally by profession are Catholics, and that naturally I
+am inclined to affect [esteem] you, I have for these and other
+considerations abstained my forces from tempting to do you hindrance,
+and because I did expect that you would enter into consideration of
+the lamentable state of our poor country, most tyrannically oppressed,
+and of your own gentle consciences, in maintaining, relieving and
+helping the enemies of God and our country in wars infallibly tending
+to the promotion of heresy: But now seeing you are so obstinate in
+that which hereunto you continued of necessity, I must use severity
+against you (whom otherwise I most entirely love) in reclaiming you
+by compulsion. My tolerance and happy victories by God's particular
+favour doubtless obtained could work no alteration in your
+consciences, notwithstanding the great calamity and misery, whereunto
+you are most likely to fall by persevering in that damnable state in
+which hereunto you have lived. Having commiseration on you I thought
+it good to forewarn you, requesting every of you to come and join with
+me against the enemies of God and our poor country. If the same you do
+not, I will use means to spoil you of all your goods, but according to
+the utmost of my power shall work what I may to dispossess you of
+all your lands, because you are the means whereby wars are maintained
+against the exaltation of the Catholic faith. Contrariwise, whosoever
+it shall be that shall join with me, upon my conscience, and as to the
+contrary I shall answer before God, I will employ myself to the utmost
+of my power in their defence and for the extirpation of heresy, the
+planting of the Catholic religion, the delivery of our country of
+infinite murders, wicked and detestable policies by which this
+kingdom was hitherto governed, nourished in obscurity and ignorance,
+maintained in barbarity and incivility, and consequently of infinite
+evils which were too lamentable to be rehearsed. And seeing these are
+motives most laudable before any men of consideration, and before the
+Almighty most meritorious, which is chiefly to be expected, I thought
+myself in conscience bound, seeing God hath given me some power to use
+all means for the reduction of this our poor afflicted country into
+the Catholic faith, which can never be brought to any good pass
+without either your destruction or helping hand; hereby protesting
+that I neither seek your lands or goods, neither do I purpose to plant
+any in your places, if you will adjoin with me; but will extend what
+liberties and privileges that heretofore you have had if it shall
+stand in my power, giving you to understand upon my salvation that
+chiefly and principally I fight for the Catholic faith to be planted
+throughout all our poor country, as well in cities as elsewhere,
+as manifestly might appear by that I rejected all other conditions
+proffered to me this not being granted. I have already by word of
+mouth protested, and do now hereby protest, that if I had to be
+King of Ireland without having the Catholic religion which before I
+mentioned, I would not the same accept. Take your example by that most
+Catholic country, France, whose subjects for defect of Catholic faith
+did go against their most natural king, and maintained wars till he
+was constrained to profess the Catholic religion, duly submitting
+himself to the Apostolic See of Rome, to the which doubtless we may
+bring our country, you putting your helping hand with me to the same.
+As for myself I protest before God and upon my salvation I have been
+proffered oftentimes such conditions as no man seeking his own private
+commodity could refuse; but I seeking the public utility of my native
+country will prosecute these wars until that generally religion be
+planted throughout all Ireland. So I rest, praying the Almighty to
+move your flinty hearts to prefer the commodity and profit of our
+country, before your own private ends.'
+
+As a crusader, the O'Neill was a worthy disciple of the King of Spain.
+The Catholics of the south had no wish to engage in a religious
+war, but the northern chief aspiring to the sovereignty of the whole
+island, resolved to reclaim them by compulsion, seeing that
+his tolerance and happy victories had worked no change in their
+consciences, and they still persevered in that 'damnable state'
+in which they had lived. From his entire love and commiseration he
+forewarned them that if they did not come and join him against the
+enemies of God and 'our poor country,' he would not only despoil
+them of all their goods, but dispossess them of all their lands.
+The extirpation of heresy, the planting of the Catholic religion, he
+declared could never be brought to any good pass without either the
+destruction or the help of the Catholics in the towns of the south and
+west. He did not want their lands or goods, nor did he intend to plant
+others in their places _if they would adjoin with him_. Pointing to
+the example of France, he vowed that he would prosecute those wars
+until the Catholic religion should be planted throughout all Ireland,
+praying that God would move their flinty hearts to join him in this
+pious and humane enterprise. In those times when religious wars
+had been raging on the continent, when the whole power of Spain was
+persistently employed to exterminate Protestants with fire and sword
+and every species of cruelty, it is not at all surprising that a
+chief like O'Neill, leading such a wild warlike life in Ulster, should
+persuade himself that he would be glorifying God and serving his
+country by destroying the Catholic inhabitants of the towns, that is
+all the most civilised portion of the community, because they would
+not join him in robbing and killing the Protestants. But it is not a
+little surprising that an enlightened, learned, and liberal Catholic
+priest, writing in Dublin in the year 1868, should give his deliberate
+sanction to this unchristian and barbarous policy. Yet Father Meehan
+writes: 'But no; not even the dint of that manifesto, _with the ring
+of true steel in its every line_, could strike a spark out of their
+hearts, for they were chalky.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Page 34.]
+
+It was very natural that the English Government should act upon the
+same principle of intolerance, especially when they had the plea
+of state necessity. They did not yet go the length of exterminating
+Catholicity by the means with which the O'Neill threatened his
+peaceable and industrious co-religionists in the towns.
+
+All they required was that the Catholics should cease to harbour
+their priests, and that they should attend the Protestant churches.
+Remarking upon the proclamation of Chichester to this effect Mr.
+Meehan says:--'Apart from the folly of the king, who had taken into
+his head that an entire nation should, at his bidding, apostatise from
+the creed of their forefathers, the publishing such a manifesto
+in Dungannon, in Donegal, and elsewhere was a bitter insult to
+the northern chieftains, whose wars were _crusades_,--the natural
+consequence of faith,--stimulated by the Roman Pontiffs, assisted
+by Spain, then the most Catholic kingdom in the world.' Does not Mr.
+Meehan see that crusading is a game at which two can play? And if
+wars which were crusades were the natural consequence of the Catholic
+faith, were stimulated by the Roman Pontiffs, and assisted by Spain,
+for the purpose of destroying the power of England, everywhere as well
+as in Ireland, and abolishing the Reformation,--does it not follow
+as a necessary consequence that the English Government must in sheer
+self-defence have waged a war of extermination against the Catholic
+religion, and have regarded its priests as mortal enemies? No better
+plea for the English policy in Ireland was ever offered by any
+Protestant writer than this language, intended as a condemnation, by
+a very able priest in our own day. It was no doubt extreme folly for
+King James I. to expect that a nation, or a single individual, should
+apostatise at his bidding; but it was equal folly in the King of Spain
+to expect Protestants to apostatise at his bidding; and if possible
+still greater folly for O'Neill to expect the Catholic citizens of
+Munster to join him in the bloody work of persecution. It was, then,
+the Spanish policy stimulated by the Sovereign Pontiff that was the
+standing excuse of the cruel intolerance and rancorous religious
+animosity which have continued to distract Irish society down to
+our own time. Persecution is alien to the Irish race. The malignant
+_virus_ imported from Spain poisoned the national blood, maddened the
+national brain, and provoked the terrible system of retaliation that
+was embodied in the Penal Code, and which, surviving to our own time,
+still defends itself by the old plea--the intrusion of a foreign power
+attempting to overrule the government of the country.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE LAST OF THE IRISH PRINCES.
+
+
+The accession of James I. produced a delirium of joy in the Catholics
+of the south. Their bards had sung that the blood of the old Celtic
+monarchs circulated in his veins, their clergy told them that as
+James VI. of Scotland he had received supplies of money from the
+Roman court, and above all Clement VIII. then reigning, had sent to
+congratulate him on his accession, having been solicited by him to
+favour his title to the crown of England, which the Pope guaranteed
+to do on condition that James promised not to persecute the Catholics.
+The consequence was that the inhabitants of the southern towns rose
+_en masse_ without waiting for authority, forced open the gates of the
+ancient churches, re-erected the altars and used them for the public
+celebration of worship. The lord deputy was startled by intelligence
+to this effect from Waterford, Limerick, Cork, Lismore, Kilkenny,
+Clonmel, Wexford, &c. The cathedrals, churches, and oratories were
+seized by the people and clergy, Father White, Vicar-Apostolic of
+Waterford, being the leader in this movement, going about from city
+to city for the purpose of 'hallowing and purifying' the temples which
+Protestantism had desecrated.
+
+The mayors of the cities were rebuked by Mountjoy as seditious and
+mutinous in setting up 'the public exercise of the Popish religion,'
+and he threatened to encamp speedily before Waterford, 'to suppress
+insolences and see peace and obedience maintained.' The deputy kept
+his word, and on May 4, 1603, he appeared before Waterford at the
+head of 5,000 men, officered by Sir R. Wingfield, and others who had
+distinguished themselves during Tyrone's war. 'There is among the
+family pictures at Powerscourt,' says Mr. Meehan, 'a portrait of this
+distinguished old warrior, whose lineal descendant, the present noble
+lord, has always proved most generous to his Catholic tenantry.' The
+reverend gentleman gives an amusing sketch of a theological encounter
+between the old warrior and Father White and a Dominican friar,
+who came forth to the camp under a safe-conduct, both wearing their
+clerical habits and preceded by a cross-bearer. The soldiers jeered
+at the sacred symbol, and called it an idol. Father White indignantly
+resented the outrage, when Sir Richard Wingfield threatened to put
+an end to the controversy by running his sword through the
+Vicar-Apostolic. 'The deputy however was a bookish man, at one period
+of his life inclined to Catholicity, and he listened patiently to
+Father White on the right of resisting or disobeying the natural
+prince; but when the latter quoted some passage thereanent in the
+works of St. Augustine, Mountjoy caused to be brought to him out of
+his tent the identical volume, and showed to the amazement of the
+bystanders, that the context explained away all the priest had
+asserted.' The noble theologian told Father White that he was a
+traitor, worthy of condign punishment for bringing an idol into a
+Christian camp and for opening the churches by the Pope's authority.
+Father White appeared in the camp a second time that day, making
+a most reasonable request. He fell on his knees before the deputy,
+begging liberty of conscience, free and open exercise of religion,
+protesting that the people would be ready to resist all foreign
+invasion were that granted; and finally beseeching that some of the
+ruined churches might be given to the Catholics, who were ready
+to rebuild them, and pay for them a yearly rent into his majesty's
+exchequer. But the deputy was inexorable, and all he would grant was
+leave to wear clerical clothes, and celebrate mass in private houses.
+Mountjoy entered Waterford, received from the citizens the oath of
+allegiance, and made over the city churches to the small section
+of Protestants. At the same time he sent despatches to other towns
+ordering the authorities to evict the Roman Catholics from the places
+of worship. And then proceeding to Cork, and thence through Cashel
+to Dublin, he undid all that the clergy had done with respect to the
+churches, 'leaving perhaps to future statesmen,' writes Father
+Meehan, 'living above the atmosphere of effete prejudices, the duty of
+restoring to the Catholics of Ireland those grand old temples, which
+were never meant to accommodate a fragment of its people.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Page 30.]
+
+When Mountjoy returned to Dublin he found that he had been created
+Lord Lieutenant of Ireland with two-thirds of the deputy's allowance,
+Sir George Carew, appointed deputy during his absence in
+England, receiving the other third together with his own pay as
+treasurer-at-war. Mountjoy was also informed that the royal pardon had
+been granted to Tyrone under the great seal, and that all other grants
+made to him by the lord deputy had been confirmed. The king concluded
+by requesting that he would induce Tyrone to go with him to London,
+adding, 'as we think it very convenient for our service, and require
+you so to do; and if not that at least you bring his son.' Along with
+these instructions came a protection for O'Neill and his retinue. It
+was supposed that James felt grateful to the Ulster chieftain for the
+services he had rendered him during the late queen's reign; and it is
+stated by Craik that after the victory of the Blackwater, he sent his
+secretary O'Hagan to Holyrood, to signify to his majesty that if he
+supplied him with money and munitions he would instantly march on
+Dublin, proclaim him King of Ireland, and set the crown upon his head.
+
+In compliance with the sovereign's request, Mountjoy, with a brilliant
+suite, accompanied by Tyrone and Rory O'Donel, embarked in May 1603,
+and sailed for Holyhead. But when they had sighted the coast of Wales,
+the pinnace was driven back by adverse winds, and nearly wrecked in a
+fog at the Skerries. They landed safe, however, at Beaumaris, whence
+they rode rapidly to Chester, where they stopped for the night, and
+were entertained by the mayor. The king's protection for the O'Neill
+was not uncalled for. Whenever he was recognised in city or hamlet,
+the populace, notwithstanding their respect for Mountjoy, the hero of
+the hour, pursued the earl with bitter insults, and stoned him as he
+passed along. Throughout the whole journey to London, the Welsh and
+English women assailed him with their invectives. Not unnaturally, for
+'there was not one among them but could name some friend or kinsman
+whose bones lay buried far away in some wild pass or glen of Ulster,
+where the object of their maledictions was more often victor than
+vanquished.'[1] The king, however, gave the Irish chiefs a gracious
+reception, having issued a proclamation that he had restored them to
+his favour, and that they should be 'of all men honourably received.'
+This excited intense disgust amongst English officers who had been
+engaged in the Irish wars. Thus Sir John Harrington, writing to
+a bishop, said: 'I have lived to see that damnable rebel, Tyrone,
+brought to England, honoured and well liked. Oh, what is there that
+does not prove the inconstancy of worldly matters! How I did labour
+after that knave's destruction! I adventured perils by sea and land,
+was near starving, eat horseflesh in Munster, and all to quell that
+man, who now smileth in peace at those who did hazard their lives
+to destroy him; and now doeth Tyrone dare us old commanders with his
+presence and protection.'
+
+[Footnote 1: Father Meehan.]
+
+In fact the favour of the king went to an excess fatal to its object,
+by conceding powers incompatible with his own sovereignty, leading
+to disorders and violence, and exciting jealousy and mortal enmity in
+those who were charged with the government in Ireland. The lords of
+the Privy Council, with the king's consent, gave O'Neill authority for
+martial law, 'to be executed upon any offenders that shall live under
+him, the better to keep them in obedience.' It was ordered that the
+king's garrisons should not meddle with him or his people. The king
+also invested O'Donel with all the lands and rights of ancient time
+belonging to his house, excepting abbeys and other spiritual livings,
+the castle and town of Ballyshannon, and 1,000 acres adjoining
+the fishing there. He also received the style and title of Earl
+of Tyrconnel, with remainder to his brother Caffar, the heirs male
+apparent being created Barons of Donegal. He was formally installed
+in Christ Church Cathedral on the 29th of September following, in
+presence of Archbishop Loftus and a number of high officials. Tyrone,
+however, was dogged by spies while he was in London, and one
+Atkinson swore informations to the effect that he was in the habit
+of entertaining a Jesuit named Archer, who was intriguing with the
+foreign enemies of England, and who was held by Irish royalists for
+'the most bloody and treacherous traitor, who could divert Tyrone
+and all the rest from the king, and thrust them again into actual
+rebellion.'
+
+In the meantime, Sir George Carew was pursuing a policy in Ireland
+which must of necessity involve the north in fresh troubles. In his
+letters to England, he complained that the country 'so swarmed with
+priests, Jesuits, seminarists, friars, and Romish bishops, that if
+speedy means were not used to free the kingdom of this wicked rabble,
+which laboured to draw the subjects' hearts from their due obedience
+to their prince, much mischief would burst forth in very short time.
+For,' he said, 'there are here so many of this wicked crew, that are
+able to disquiet four of the greatest kingdoms in Christendom. It is
+high time they were banished from hence, and none to receive, or
+aid, or relieve them. Let the judges and officers be sworn to the
+supremacy; let the lawyers go to the church and show conformity,
+or not plead at the bar; and then the rest by degrees will shortly
+follow.'
+
+Carew was succeeded as deputy by Sir Arthur Chichester, descended
+from a family of great antiquity in Devon. He had served in Ireland
+as governor of Carrickfergus, admiral of Lough Neagh, and commander
+of the Fort of Mountjoy. Father Meehan describes him as malignant and
+cruel, with a physiognomy repulsive and petrifying; a Puritan of the
+most rigid character, utterly devoid of sympathy, solely bent on his
+own aggrandisement, and seeking it through the plunder and persecution
+of the Irish chieftains. That is the Irish view of his character. How
+far he deserved it the reader will be able to judge by his acts.
+He was evidently a man of strong will, an able administrator
+and organiser; and he set himself at once, and earnestly, to the
+establishment of law and order in the conquered territories of the
+Irish princes. He sent justices of assize throughout Munster and
+Connaught, reducing the 'countries or regions' into shire-ground,
+abolishing cuttings, cosheries, spendings, and other customary
+exactions of the chiefs, by which a complete revolution was effected.
+He issued a proclamation, by the king's order, commanding all the
+Catholics, under penalties, to assist at the Church of England
+service; proscribing priests, and other ecclesiastical persons
+ordained by authority from the see of Home; forbidding parents to send
+their children to seminaries beyond the seas, or to keep as private
+tutors other than those licensed by the Protestant archbishop or
+bishop. If any priest dared to celebrate mass, he was liable to a fine
+of 200 marks, and a year's imprisonment; while to join the _Romish_
+Church was to become a traitor, and to be subject to a like penalty.
+Churchwardens were to make a monthly report of persons absent from
+church, and to whet the zeal of wardens and constables, for each
+conviction of offending parties, they were to have a reward of forty
+shillings, to be levied out of the recusant's estate and goods.
+Catholics might escape these penalties by quitting the country, and
+taking the oath of abjuration, by which they bound themselves to
+abjure the land and realm of James, King of England, Scotland, France,
+and Ireland, to hasten towards a certain port by the most direct
+highway, to diligently seek a passage, and tarry there but one
+flood and ebb. According to one form, quoted by Mr. Meehan, the oath
+concluded thus: 'And, unless I can have it (a passage) in such a
+place, I will go every day into the sea up to my knees, essaying to
+pass over, so God me help and His holy judgment.'
+
+The deputy found some difficulty in bending the consciences of the
+Dublin people to the will of the sovereign in matters of faith; but
+the said will was to be enforced _circa sacra_ at all hazards; so he
+summoned sixteen of the chief citizens and aldermen before the Privy
+Council, and censured them for their recusancy, imprisoned them in the
+castle during pleasure, inflicting upon six a fine of 100 l. each, and
+upon three 50 l. each. The king was delighted with this evangelical
+method of extending reformed religion in Ireland. Congratulating his
+deputy, he expressed a hope that many, by such means, would be brought
+to conformity in religion, who would hereafter 'give thanks to God for
+being drawn by so gentle a constraint to their own good.' The 'gentle
+constraint' was imposed in all directions. The Privy Council decreed
+that none but a member of the Church of England could hold any
+office under the Crown. The old Catholic families of the Pale humbly
+remonstrated, and their chief men were flung into prison. Sir Patrick
+Barnwell, their agent, was sent to London by order of the king, and
+was forthwith committed to the Tower for contempt. Henry Usher, then
+Archbishop of Armagh, carried out the system of exclusion in his own
+diocese, which included the territories of Tyrone. All 'Papists' were
+forbidden to assist at mass, on pain of forfeiture of their goods and
+imprisonment. In a like manner, the Catholic worship was prohibited
+even in the residence of the Earl of Tyrconnel. He and Tyrone strongly
+remonstrated against this violation of the royal word, that they and
+their people might have liberty for their worship in private houses.
+The answer was decided. His majesty had made up his mind to disallow
+liberty of worship, and his people, whether they liked it or not,
+should repair to their parish churches.
+
+In addition to this religious grievance, which excited the bitterest
+feelings of discontent, the two earls were subjected to the most
+irritating annoyances. They complained that their people were
+plundered by sheriffs, under-sheriffs, officers, and soldiers; and
+that even their domestic privacy was hourly violated, that their
+remonstrances were unheeded, and their attempts to obtain legal
+remedies were frustrated. At the same time their vassals were
+encouraged to repudiate their demands for tribute and rent. Bishop
+Montgomery of Derry was a dangerous neighbour to O'Neill. Meeting him
+one day at Dungannon, the earl said: 'My lord, you have two or three
+bishopricks, and yet you are not content with them, but seek the lands
+of my earldom.'
+
+'My lord,' replied the bishop, 'your earldom is swollen so big with
+the lands of the Church, that it will burst if it be not vented.' If
+he had confined his venting operations to the chiefs, and abstained
+from bleeding the poor people, it would have been better for
+Protestantism. For we read that he sent bailiffs through the diocese
+of Raphoe, to levy contributions for the Church. 'For every cow and
+plough-horse, 4 d.; as much out of every colt and calf, to be
+paid twice a year; and half-a-crown a quarter of every shoemaker,
+carpenter, smith, and weaver in the whole country; and 8 d. a year for
+every married couple.'
+
+This bishop seems to have been greatly impressed with the
+'commodities' of O'Cahan's country, which he describes with much
+unction in a letter to the Earl of Salisbury. He said that the country
+was 'large, pleasant, and fruitful; twenty-four miles in length
+between Lough Foyle and the Bann; and in breadth, from the sea-coast
+towards the lower parts of Tyrone, 14 miles.' He states that O'Cahan
+was able to assist the Earl of Tyrone, during his war, with 1,200
+foot and 300 horse, the ablest men that Ulster yielded; and, by the
+confession of gentlemen of the first plantation, had oftener put them
+to their defence than any enemy they had to do with, not suffering
+them to cut a bough or build a cabin without blows. When Tyrone was
+driven to his fastness, Glenconkeine, O'Cahan sent him 100 horse and
+300 foot, and yet made good his own country against the army lying
+round about him, adding, that his defection 'did undo the earl, who,
+as he had his country sure behind him, cared little for anything the
+army could do to him.' The bishop was, therefore, very anxious that
+Tyrone should not have any estate in O'Cahan's country, 'since he was
+of great power to offend or benefit the poor infant city of Derry, its
+new bishop and people, cast out far from the heart and head into the
+remotest part of Ireland, where life would be unsafe until the whole
+region was well settled with civil subjects. If this be not brought to
+pass, we may say: "_fuimus Troes,--fuit Ilium_."'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Meehan, p.79.]
+
+The defection of O'Cahan was, no doubt, a very serious matter to
+O'Neill. Their case was referred for adjudication to the lord deputy,
+Chichester, before whom they personally pleaded. Their contradictory
+statements, and the eagerness of each for the support of a ruler whom
+they regarded as a common enemy, accounts for the facility with which
+their power was ultimately destroyed. They at the same time throw much
+light on the condition of Ulster before the confiscation of James I.,
+proving that it was by no means so poor and wild and barren a region
+as it is generally represented by modern writers. The two chiefs had a
+personal altercation at the council table, and O'Neill so far lost his
+temper as to snatch a paper out of the hand of O'Cahan. Whereupon Sir
+John Davis remarked: 'I rest assured, in my own conceit, that I shall
+live to see Ulster the best reformed province in this kingdom; and
+as for yourself, my lord, I hope to live to see you the best reformed
+subject in Ireland.' To this the haughty chief replied with warmth,
+that he hoped 'the attorney-general would never see the day when
+injustice should be done him by transferring his lands to the Crown,
+and thence to the bishop, who was intent on converting the whole
+territory into his own pocket.'
+
+Acting under the advice of the bishop, O'Cahan employed a skilful
+hand to draw up a statement of his case, which was presented on May 2,
+1607, in the form of 'the humble petition of Donald Ballagh O'Cahan,
+chief of his name,' addressed to the lord deputy and council. He
+declared that for 3,000 years and upwards, he and his ancestors had
+been possessed of a country called 'O'Cahan's country,' lying between
+the river Bann and Lough Foyle, without paying any rent, or other
+acknowledgment thereof to O'Neill, saving that his ancestors were wont
+to aid O'Neill twice a year if he had need, with risings of 100 horse
+and 300 foot, for which O'Cahan had in return O'Neill's whole suit of
+apparel, the horse that he rode upon, and 100 cows in winter. He also
+paid 21 cows every year in the name of _Cios'righ_, the king's rent,
+or the king's rent-cess. He alleged that Queen Elizabeth had granted
+him his country to be held immediately from her majesty at the
+accustomed rent, by virtue of which he enjoyed it for one whole year
+without paying, or being craved payment, of any rent or duty, until
+the Earl of Tyrone, on his return from England, alleged that he had
+got O'Cahan's country by patent, from the king, who had made him
+vassal to Tyrone and his heirs for ever, imposing the annual payment
+of 100 cows, with the yearly rent of 200 l. He had also claimed the
+fishing of the Bann; he preyed yearly upon other parts of his country,
+and drew from him his best tenants. He therefore prayed for the
+protection of the lord deputy against these unjust demands and
+usurpations.
+
+On the 23rd of the same month, O'Neill made a counter statement to the
+following effect: O'Cahan had no estate in the territory that was by
+a corruption of speech called O'Cahan's country; nor did he or any of
+his ancestors ever hold the said lands but as tenants at sufferance,
+servants and followers to the defendant and his ancestors. His
+grandfather Con O'Neill was seised in fee of those lands before he
+surrendered to Henry VIII., 'and received yearly, and had thereout,
+as much rents, cutting, spending and all other duties as of any other
+lands which he had in demesne,' within the province of Ulster and
+territory of Tyrone, and that after Con's surrender the territories
+were all re-granted with the rents, customs, duties, &c. as before.
+He was ready to prove that the ancestors of O'Cahan never enjoyed the
+premises at any time, but at the will and sufferance of O'Neill and
+his ancestors. A few days after, he despatched a memorial to the king
+setting forth his grievances, in which he stated that there were so
+many that sought to deprive him of the greatest part of the residue
+of his territory that without his majesty's special consideration he
+should in the end have nothing to support his 'estate' or rank. For
+the Lord Bishop of Derry, not content with the great living the king
+had bestowed upon him, sought to have the greater part of the earl's
+lands, to which none of his predecessors had ever laid claim. And
+he also set on others to question his titles which had never before
+before doubted. He therefore humbly besought the king to direct that
+new letters patent should be made out re-conveying to him and his
+heirs the lands in dispute, being, he said, 'such a favour as is
+appointed by your majesty to be extended to such of your subjects of
+this kingdom as should be suitors for the same, amongst whom I will
+during my life endeavour to deserve to be in the number of the most
+faithful, whereunto not only duty, but also your majesty's great
+bounty, hath ever obliged me.'
+
+This was dated at Mellifont on May 26, 1607. It does not appear that
+any answer was received to his appeals to the king, nor is it likely
+that it served his cause, for it is seldom safe to appeal from an
+agent or deputy to the supreme authority. The Privy Council in Dublin,
+however, made a report confirming to some extent the claims put forth
+by Tyrone. A jury had been appointed to inquire into the boundaries
+and limits of the lands granted by Queen Elizabeth, and they found
+that they extended from the river Fuin to Lough Foyle, and from Lough
+Foyle by the sea-shore to the Bann, and thence to the east of Lough
+Neagh. Within these limits they found that there existed the territory
+called O'Cahan's, Glenconkeine and Killetragh, which were not the
+lands of the O'Neills, '_but held by tenants having estates in them
+equivalent to estates of freehold_.' The jury could not determine what
+rents the tenants of said lands were accustomed to pay, but they found
+generally that all lands within the limits of Tyrone, except the lands
+of the church, rendered to O'Neill bonnaght or free quarters for armed
+retainers, 'rising out, cutting and spending.' The parties, however,
+did not abide by the decision of the privy council, but kept up their
+contention in the courts of law. It was quite clear that matters could
+not remain long in that unsettled state, with so many adventurers
+thirsting for the possession of land, which was lying comparatively
+idle. It was thought desirable to appoint a president of Ulster, as
+there had been a president of Munster. The Earl of Tyrone applied to
+the king for the office, evidently fearing that if Chichester were
+appointed, he must share the fate of the Earl of Desmond. On the other
+hand, it was felt that with his hereditary pretensions, impracticable
+temper, and vast influence with the people, it would be impossible to
+establish the English power on a permanent basis until he was got out
+of the way. This was not difficult, with unprincipled adventurers
+who were watching for opportunities to make their fortunes in those
+revolutionary times. Among these was a person named St. Lawrence,
+Baron of Howth. This man worked cunningly on the mind of the lord
+deputy, insinuating that O'Neill was plotting treason and preparing
+for a Spanish invasion. He even went so far as to write an anonymous
+letter, revealing an alleged plot of O'Neill's to assassinate the lord
+deputy. It was addressed to Sir William Usher, clerk of the council,
+and the writer began by saying that it would show him, though far
+severed from him in religion, how near he came home to him in honesty.
+He was a Catholic, and professed to reveal what he had heard among
+Catholic gentlemen, 'after the strictest conditions of secresy.' The
+conspirators were, in the first place, to murder or poison the lord
+deputy when he came to Drogheda, 'a place thought apt and secure to
+act the same.' They thought it well to begin with him, because his
+authority, wisdom, and valour stood only in the way of their first
+attempts. Next after him they were to cut off Sir Oliver Lambert,
+whom for his own judgment in the wars, his sudden resolution, and
+undertaking spirit, they would not suffer to live. These two lights
+thus put out, they would neither fear nor value any opposite in the
+kingdom. The small dispersed garrisons must either through hunger
+submit themselves to their mercy, or be penned up as sheep to the
+shambles. They held the castle of Dublin for their own, neither manned
+nor victualled, and readily surprised. The towns were for them, the
+country with them, the great ones abroad prepared to answer the first
+alarm. The Jesuits warranted from the Pope and the Catholic king would
+do their parts effectually, and Spanish succours would not be wanting.
+These secrets greatly troubled the sensitive conscience of Lord Howth.
+From the time he was entrusted with them, he said, 'till I resolved to
+give you this caveat, my eyelids never closed, my heart was a fire,
+my soul suffered a thousand thousand torments; yet I could not, nor
+cannot persuade my conscience, in honesty, to betray my friends,
+or spill their bloods, when this timely warning may prevent the
+mischief.' In conclusion, he said, 'though I reverence the mass and
+the Catholic religion equal with the devoutest of them, I will make
+the leaders of this dance know that I prefer my country's good before
+their busy and ambitious humours.' It is related of this twenty-second
+baron of Howth, known as Sir Christopher St. Lawrence, that having
+served in Ulster under Essex, and accompanied him in his flight to
+England, he proposed to murder Lord Grey de Wilton, lest he should
+prejudice the queen's mind against her former favourite, if he got
+access to her presence before him; that he had commanded a regiment of
+infantry under Mountjoy, and that when that regiment was disbanded, he
+became discontented, not having got either pension or employment;
+that having gone as a free lance to the Low Countries, and failed to
+advance himself there as he expected, through the interest of
+Irish ecclesiastics, he returned to England, and skulked about the
+ante-chambers of Lord Salisbury, waiting upon Providence, when he hit
+upon the happy idea of the revelations which he conveyed under the
+signature of' A.B.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Meehan, p.103.]
+
+After some time he acknowledged the authorship of the letter
+privately, but refused to come forth publicly as an informer, nor
+was he able to produce any corroboration of the improbable story.
+Ultimately, however, when pressed by Chichester, he induced his friend
+Baron Devlin to swear an information to the same effect, revealing
+certain alleged conversations of O'Neill. In the meantime St. Lawrence
+cunningly worked upon the fears of the earl, giving him to understand
+that his ruin was determined on, and that he had better consult
+his safety, by leaving the country. It appears that he received
+intimations to the same effect from his correspondents in Spain and
+in London. At all events, he lost heart, became silent, moody, and
+low-spirited, suspecting foul play on the part of the king, who was
+very urgent that he should be brought over to London, in which case
+Tyrone was led to believe that he would certainly be sent to the
+Tower, and probably lose his head. With such apprehensions, he came
+to the conclusion that it was idle to struggle any longer against the
+stream.
+
+He had for some weeks been engaged quietly making preparations for his
+flight. He had given directions to his steward to collect in advance
+one half of his Michaelmas rents, leading the lord deputy to think
+that he did so either to provide funds for his journey to London,
+or to defray the expenses of his son's projected marriage with the
+daughter of Lord Argyle. Meanwhile a vessel had been purchased by
+Cu-Connaught Maguire, and Bath, the captain of this vessel, assured
+the Earl of Tyrconnel, whom he met at Ballyshannon, that he also
+would lose his life or liberty if he did not abandon the country with
+O'Neill. On September 8, Tyrone took leave of the lord deputy, and
+then spent a day and night at Mellifont with his friend Sir Garret
+Moore, who was specially dear to him as the fosterer of his son John.
+The earl took his leave with unusual emotion, and after giving
+his blessing according to the Irish fashion to every member of his
+friend's household, he and his suite took horse and rode rapidly by
+Dundalk, over the Fews to Armagh, where he rested a few hours, and
+then proceeded to Creeve, one of his crannoges or island habitations,
+where he was joined by his wife and other members of his family. Sir
+Oliver Lambert in a communication to the Irish Government, relating to
+the affairs of Ulster, made some interesting allusions to O'Neill. He
+states that he had apologised for having appealed to the king in the
+case between him and O'Cahan, and said that he felt much grieved in
+being called upon so suddenly to go to England, when on account of his
+poverty he was not able to furnish himself as became him for such a
+journey and for such a presence. In all things else, said Sir Oliver,
+'he seemed very moderate and reasonable, albeit he never gave over to
+be a general solicitor in all causes concerning his country and people
+however criminal.' He thought the earl had been much abused by persons
+who had cunningly terrified, and diverted him from going to the king;
+'or else he had within him a thousand witnesses testifying that he was
+as deeply engaged in these secret treasons as any of the rest, whom
+they knew or suspected.' At all events he had received information
+on the previous day from his own brother Sir Cormac O'Neill, from the
+primate, from Sir Toby Caulfield and others, that the earl had taken
+shipping with his lady, the Baron of Dungannon, his eldest son, and
+two others of his children, John and Brien, both under seven years
+old, the Earl of Tyrconnel, and his son and heir, an infant, not yet a
+year old, his brother Caffar O'Donel, and his son an infant two years
+old, 'with divers others of their nearest and trusted followers and
+servants, as well men as women, to the number of between thirty and
+forty persons.'
+
+The Rev. Mr. Meehan gives graphic details of the flight of his two
+heroes. Arrived at Rathmullen they found Maguire and Captain Bath
+laying stores of provisions on board the ship that had come into Lough
+Swilly under French colours. Here they were joined by Rory, Earl of
+Tyrconnel. At noon on Friday they all went on board and lifted anchor,
+but kept close to the shore waiting for the boats' crews, who were
+procuring water and fuel; but they had to wait till long after sunset,
+when the boats came with only a small quantity of wood and water.
+According to a fatality which makes one Irishman's extremity another
+Irishman's opportunity, the foraging party was set upon by M'Sweeny
+of Fanad, who churlishly prevented them getting a sufficient supply
+of these necessaries. This barbarous conduct is accounted for by Mr.
+Meehan, from the fact, that this M'Sweeny had recently taken a grant
+of his lands from the crown. At midnight, September 14, 1607, they
+spread all sail and made for the open sea, intending, however, to
+land on the Island of Arran, off the coast of Donegal, to provide
+themselves with more water and fuel. The entire number of souls
+on board this small vessel, says O'Keenan in his narrative, was
+ninety-nine, having little sea store, and being otherwise miserably
+accommodated. Unable to make the island of Arran, owing to a gale
+then blowing off the land, and fearing to be crossed by the king's
+cruisers, they steered for the harbour of Corunna in Spain. But for
+thirteen days, continues O'Keenan, 'the sea was angry, and the tempest
+left us no rest; and the only brief interval of calm we enjoyed, was
+when O'Neill took from his neck a golden crucifix containing a relic
+of the true cross, and trailed it in the wake of the ship. At that
+moment, two poor merlins with wearied pinions sought refuge in the
+rigging of our vessel, and were captured for the noble ladies, who
+nursed them with tenderest affection.' After being tempest-tossed
+for three weeks, they dropped anchor in the harbour of Quilleboeuf
+in France, having narrowly escaped shipwreck, their only remaining
+provisions being one gallon of beer and a cask of water. They
+proceeded to Brussels and thence to Louvain, where splendid
+accommodation was provided for them. In several of the cities through
+which they passed they received ovations, their countrymen clerical
+and military having prepared for their reception with the greatest
+zeal and devotion. The King of Spain was of course friendly, but to
+avoid giving offence to King James he discouraged the stay of the
+exiles in his dominions, and they found their final resting-place
+at Rome, where the two earls were placed upon the Pope's civil list,
+which, however, they did not long continue to burden. Tyrconnel fell a
+victim to the malaria, and died on July 28, 1608. 'Sorrowful it was,'
+say the Four Masters, 'to contemplate his early eclipse, for he was a
+generous and hospitable lord, to whom the patrimony of his ancestors
+seemed nothing for his feastings and spending.' His widow received
+a pension of 300 l. a year out of his forfeited estates. O'Neill
+survived his brother earl eight years, having made various attempts to
+induce the King of Spain to aid him in the recovery of his patrimony.
+He died in 1616, in the seventy-sixth year of his age. Sir Francis
+Cottington, announcing the event from Madrid, said, 'The Earl of
+Tyrone is dead at Rome; by whose death this king saves 500 ducats
+every month, for so much pension he had from here, well paid him.
+Upon the news of his death, I observed that all the principal Irish
+entertained in several parts of this kingdom are repaired unto this
+court.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+GOVERNMENT APPEALS TO THE PEOPLE.
+
+
+The flight of the earls caused great consternation to the Irish
+Government. Letters were immediately despatched to the local
+authorities at every port to have a sharp look out for the fugitives,
+and to send out vessels to intercept them, should they be driven back
+by bad weather to any part of the coast. At the same time the lord
+deputy sent a despatch to the Government in London, deprecating
+censure for an occurrence so unexpected, and so much to be regretted,
+because of the possibility of its leading to an invasion by the
+Spaniards. In other respects it was regarded by the principal members
+of the Irish Government, and especially by the officials in Ulster, as
+a most fortunate occurrence. For example, Sir Oliver Lambert, in his
+report to the lords of the council, already referred to, said:--'But
+now these things are fallen out thus, contrary to all expectation
+or likelihood, by the providence of God I hope, over this miserable
+people, for whose sake it may be he hath sent his majesty this rare
+and unlocked for occasion: whereby he may now at length, with good
+apprehension and prudent handling, repair an error which was committed
+in making these men proprietary lords of so large a territory, without
+regard of the poor freeholders' rights, or of his majesty's service,
+and the commonwealth's, that are so much interested in the honest
+liberty of that sort of men, which now, in time, I commend unto your
+lordships' grave consideration and wisdom, and will come to that which
+nearest concerns ourselves and the whole.'
+
+According to Sir John Davis, in his letter to the first minister, Lord
+Salisbury, Tyrone could not be reconciled in his heart to the English
+Government, because 'he ever lived like a free prince, or, rather,
+like an absolute tyrant, there. The law of England, and the ministers
+thereof, were shackles and handlocks unto him.' He states that _after
+the Irish manner_, he made all the tenants of his land _villeins_.
+'Therefore to evict any part of that land from him was as grievous
+unto him as to pinch away the quick flesh from his body ... Besides,'
+the attorney-general added, 'as for us that are here, we are glad to
+see the day wherein the countenance and majesty of the law, as civil
+government, hath banished Tyrone out of Ireland, which the best army
+in Europe, and the expense of two millions of sterling pounds did not
+bring to pass. And we hope his majesty's happy government will work
+a greater miracle in this kingdom, than ever St. Patrick did; for St.
+Patrick did only banish the poisonous worms, but suffered the men full
+of poison to inhabit the land still; but his majesty's blessed genius
+will banish all that generation of vipers out of it, and make it, ere
+it be long, a right fortunate island.'
+
+Again, Sir Geoffry Fenton, writing to Salisbury on the same subject,
+says, 'And now I am to put your lordship in mind what a door is open
+to the king, if the opportunity be taken, and well converted, not only
+to pull down for ever these two proud houses of O'Neill and O'Donel,
+but also to bring in colonies to plant both countries, to a great
+increasing of his majesty's revenues, and to establish and settle the
+countries perpetually in the crown; besides that many well-deserving
+servitors may be recompensed in the distribution; a matter to be taken
+to heart, for that it reaches somewhat to his majesty's conscience and
+honour to see these poor servitors relieved, whom time and the wars
+have spent, even unto their later years, and now, by this commodity,
+may be stayed and comforted without charges to his majesty.' This
+advice was quite in accordance with the views of the prime minister,
+who in a letter to Chichester said, 'I do think it of great necessity
+that those countries be made the king's by this accident; that there
+be a mixture in the plantation, the _natives_ made his majesty's
+tenants of part, but the rest to be divided among those that will
+_inhabit_; and in no case any man is suffered to embrace more than
+is visible he can and will _manure_. That was an oversight in the
+plantation of Munster, where 12,000 acres were commonly allotted to
+bankrupts and country gentlemen, that never knew the disposition of
+the Irish; so as God forbid that those who have spent their blood in
+the service should not of all others be preferred.' It was because
+this idea of manuring, i.e. residence and cultivation, was carried
+out in Ulster, that the plantation has proved so successful. But Davis
+would allow but small space comparatively to the natives, whom he
+compared to weeds which, if too numerous, would choke the wheat. With
+him the old inhabitants were simply a nuisance from the highest to
+the lowest; and if there were no other way of getting rid of them, he
+would no doubt have adopted the plan recommended by Lord Bacon,
+who said, 'Some of the chiefest of the Irish families should
+be transported to England, and have recompense there for their
+possessions in Ireland, till they were cleansed from their blood,
+incontinency, and theft, which were not the lapses of particular
+persons, but the very laws of the nation.' The Lord Deputy Chichester,
+however, agreed thoroughly with his attorney-general, for he certainly
+made no more account of rooting out the 'mere Irish' from their homes
+than if they were the most noxious kinds of weeds or vermin. 'If,'
+said he, writing to Lord Salisbury, 'I have observed anything during
+my stay in this kingdom, I may say it is not _lenity_ and good works
+that will reclaim the Irish, but _an iron rod_, and severity of
+justice, for the restraint and punishment of those firebrands of
+sedition, _the priests_; nor can we think of any other remedy but to
+proclaim _them, and their relievers and harbourers, traitors_.'
+
+Considering that those Englishmen were professedly Christian rulers,
+engaged in establishing the reformed religion, the accounts which they
+give with perfect coolness of their operations in this line, are among
+the most appalling passages to be met with in the world's history. For
+instance, the lord deputy writes: 'I have often said and written, it
+is _famine that must consume the Irish_, as our _swords_ and other
+endeavours worked not that, speedy effect which is expected; _hunger_
+would be a better, because a speedier, weapon to employ against them
+than the sword.' He spared no means of destruction, but combined all
+the most fearful scourges for the purpose of putting out of existence
+the race of people whom God in his anger subjected to his power.
+Surely the spirit of cruelty, the genius of destruction, must have
+been incarnate in the man who wrote thus: 'I burned all along the
+Lough (Neagh) within four miles of Dungannon, and killed 100 people,
+sparing none, of what quality, age, or sex soever, besides _many
+burned to death_. We killed man, _woman and child_, horse, beast, and
+whatsoever we could find.'
+
+At the time of the flight of the earls, however, he was very anxious
+about the safety of the kingdom. He was aware that the people were
+universally discontented, he had but few troops in the country,
+and little or no money in the treasury, so that in case of a sudden
+invasion, it was quite possible that the maddened population would
+rise and act in their own way upon his own merciless policy of
+extermination. He therefore hastened to issue a proclamation for the
+purpose of reassuring the inhabitants of Ulster, and persuading
+them that they would not suffer in any way by the desertion of
+their chiefs. In this proclamation, headed by 'The _Lord Deputy
+and Counsell_,' it was stated that Tyrone and Tyrconnel and their
+companions had lately embarked themselves at Lough Swilly and had
+secretly and suddenly departed out of this realm without license or
+notice. The Government was as yet uncertain about their purpose
+or destination. But inasmuch as the manner of their departure,
+considering the quality of their persons, might raise many doubts
+in the minds of his majesty's loving subjects in those parts, and
+especially the common sort of people inhabiting the counties of
+Tyrone and Tyrconnel, who might suppose they were in danger to suffer
+prejudice in their _lands_ and goods for the contempt or offence of
+the earls,--they were solemnly assured that they had nothing whatever
+to fear. The words of the proclamation on this point are: 'We do
+therefore in his majesty's name declare, proclaim, and publish that
+all and every his majesty's good and loyal subjects inhabiting those
+countries of Tyrone and Tyrconnel shall and may quietly and securely
+possess and enjoy all and singular _their lands and goods_ without the
+trouble or molestation of any of his majesty's officers or ministers
+or any other person or persons whatsoever as long as they disturb not
+his majesty's peace, but live as dutiful and obedient subjects. And
+forasmuch as the said earls to whom his majesty, reposing special
+trust in their loyalty, had committed the government of the said
+several countries are now undutifully departed, therefore his Majesty
+doth graciously receive all and every of his said loyal subjects into
+his own immediate safeguard and protection, giving them full assurance
+to defend them and every of them by his kingly power from all violence
+or wrong, which any loose persons among themselves or any foreign
+force shall attempt against them. And to that end, we the lord deputy
+and council have made choice of certain commissioners as well Irish as
+English, residing in the said several countries, not only to preserve
+the public peace there, but also to administer speedy and indifferent
+justice to all his majesty's loving subjects in those parts, which
+shall have any cause of complaint before them.' All governors, mayors,
+sheriffs, justices of peace, provost-marshals, bailiffs, constables,
+and all other his majesty's ministers whatsoever were strictly charged
+to use their utmost endeavours faithfully and diligently to keep the
+people in their duty and obedience to his majesty and the laws of the
+realm.
+
+The assurance thus given that the subjects and tenants of the
+absconding princes should securely possess and enjoy their lands and
+be protected from all oppression under the sceptre of King James would
+have been very satisfactory had the royal promise been realised,
+but conciliation was then absolutely necessary, for the lord deputy
+himself stated that 'the kingdom had not been in the like danger these
+hundred years, as we have but few friends and no means of getting
+more.' The foregoing proclamation was issued from Rathfarnham on
+September 10. On November 9 following, another proclamation of a
+general nature was published and widely circulated in order to justify
+the course the Government adopted. According to this document it was
+known to all the world 'how infinitely' the fugitive earls had been
+obliged to the king for his singular grace and mercy in giving them
+free pardon for many heinous and execrable treasons, above all hope
+that they could in reason conceive, and also in restoring the one to
+his lands and honours justly forfeited, and in raising the other 'from
+a very mean estate to the degree and title of an earl, giving him
+withal large possessions for the support of that honour, before either
+of them had given any proof of loyalty, or merited the least favour.'
+Even in the point of religion, which served as a cloak for all their
+treasons, they got no provocation or cause of grievance. For these and
+other causes it was announced that his majesty would seize and take
+into his hands all the lands and goods of the said fugitives. But
+he would, notwithstanding, extend such grace and favour to the
+loyal inhabitants of their territories that none of them should be
+'impeached, troubled, or molested in _their own lands_, goods, or
+bodies, they continuing in their loyalty, _and yielding unto his
+majesty such rents and duties as shall be agreeable to justice and
+equity_.' This assurance was repeated again emphatically in these
+words: 'His most excellent majesty doth take all the good and loyal
+inhabitants of the said countries, together with their wives and
+children, land and goods, into his own immediate protection, to defend
+them in general against all rebellions and invasions, and to right
+them in all their wrongs and oppressions, offered or to be offered
+unto them by any person whatsoever, etc.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE CASE OF THE FUGITIVE EARLS.
+
+
+Before proceeding to notice the manner in which these promises of
+justice, equity, and protection to the occupiers of the land were
+fulfilled, it is well to record here the efforts made by King James
+and his ambassador to discredit the fugitive earls on the Continent,
+and the case which they made out for themselves in the statement of
+wrongs and grievances which they addressed to the king soon after.
+There was great alarm in England when news arrived of the friendly
+reception accorded to the Irish chiefs by the continental sovereigns
+through whose dominions they passed, and especially by the King of
+Spain, who was suspected of intending another invasion of Ireland.
+Consequently the most active preparations were made to meet the
+danger. In every street of the metropolis drums were beating for
+recruits, and large detachments were sent in all possible haste to
+reinforce the Irish garrisons. Sir Charles Cornwallis was then English
+ambassador at Madrid; and lest his diplomatic skill should not be up
+to the mark, James himself sent him special and minute instructions as
+to the manner in which he should handle the delicate subjects he had
+to bring before the Spanish sovereign. There has been seldom a better
+illustration of the saying, that the use of speech is to conceal
+thought, than in the representations which the ambassador was
+instructed to make about Irish affairs. Indeed Cornwallis had already
+shown that he scarcely needed to be tutored by his sovereign. In a
+preliminary despatch he had sent an account of his conversation with
+Philip III.'s secretary of state about the fugitive earls. He told him
+that though they had been guilty of rebellions and treasons they had
+not only been pardoned, but loaded with dignities such as few or none
+of the king's ancestors had ever bestowed on any of the Irish nation.
+He had conferred upon them an absolute and, 'in a manner, unlimited
+government in their own countries, nothing wanting to their ambitions
+but the name of kings, and neither crossed in anything concerning
+their civil government, nor so much as in act or imagination molested,
+or in any sort questioned with, for their consciences and religion.'
+He thought therefore that they would never have fled in such a way,
+unless they had been drawn to Spain by large promises in the hope of
+serving some future turns.
+
+The secretary listened to this insinuation with much impatience, and
+declared solemnly, laying his hand on his breast with an oath, that of
+the departure and intention of the earls there was no more knowledge
+given to the king or any of his state than to the ambassador himself.
+He added that there had been much consumption of Spanish treasure by
+supporting strangers who had come from all parts. In particular they
+had a bitter taste of those who had come from James's dominions; and
+they would have suffered much more, 'if they had not made a resolute
+and determined stop to the running of that fountain and refused to
+give ear to many overtures.' The ambassador expressed his satisfaction
+at this assurance, and then endeavoured to show how unworthy those
+Irish princes were of the least encouragement. Their flight was the
+result of madness, they departed without any occasion of 'earthly
+distaste' or offence given them by their sovereign, whose position
+towards the Irish was very different from that of the late queen.
+Elizabeth had employed against their revolts and rebellions only her
+own subjects of England, who were not accustomed either to the diet
+of that savage country, or to the bogs, and other retreats which that
+wild people used. But now, the king his master, being possessed of
+Scotland, had in that country, 'near adjoining to the north part of
+Ireland, a people of their own fashion, diet, and disposition, that
+could walk their bogs as well as themselves, live with their food,
+and were so well practised and accustomed in their own country to
+the like, that they were as apt to pull them out of their dens and
+withdrawing places, as ferrets to draw rabbits out of their burrows.'
+Moreover all other parts of Ireland were now reduced to such
+obedience, and so civil a course, and so well planted with a mixture
+of English, that there was not a man that showed a forehead likely to
+give a frown against his majesty, or his government. Cornwallis went
+on to plead the incomparable virtues of the king his master, among
+which liberality and magnificence were not the least. But if he had
+given largely, it was upon a good exchange, for he had sowed money,
+which of itself can do nothing, and had reaped hearts that can do
+all. As for the alleged number of 'groaning Catholics,' he assured
+the secretary that there were hardly as many hundreds as the fugitives
+reckoned thousands.
+
+According to his report the minister heard him with great attention,
+and at the conclusion protested, that he joined with him in opinion
+that those fugitives were dangerous people and that the Jesuits were
+turbulent and busy men. He assured him on the word of a caballero,
+that his majesty and council had fully determined never to receive or
+treat any more of those 'straying people;' as they had been put to
+great inconvenience and cost, how to deliver themselves from those
+Irish vagabonds, and continual begging pretenders.
+
+This despatch, dated October 28, 1607, was crossed on the way by one
+from the English minister Salisbury, dated the 27th, giving the
+king's instructions 'concerning those men that are fled into Spain.'
+Cornwallis was directed not to make matters worse than they really
+were, because the end must be good, 'what insolencies soever the
+Jesuits and pack of fugitives there might put on. King James knew that
+this remnant of the northern Irish traitors had been as full of malice
+as flesh and blood could be, no way reformed by the grace received,
+but rather sucking poison out of the honey thereof.' He knew also that
+they had absolutely given commission to their priests and others to
+abandon their sovereign if Spain would entertain their cause. But this
+he could not demonstrably prove _in foro judicii_, though clear _in
+foro conscientiæ_, and therefore punishment would savour of rigour.
+So long as things were in that state his majesty was obliged to suffer
+adders in his bosom, and give them means to gather strength to his
+own prejudice, whereas now the whole country which they had possessed
+would be made of great use both for strength and profit to the king.
+What follows should be given in his majesty's own words:--
+
+'Those poor creatures who knew no kings but those petty lords, under
+the burden of whose tyranny they have ever groaned, do now with great
+applause desire to be protected by the immediate power, and to receive
+correction only from himself, so as if the council of Spain shall
+conceive that they have now some great advantage over this state,
+where it shall appear what a party their king may have if he shall
+like to support it, there may be this answer: that those Irish without
+the King of Spain are poor worms upon earth; and that when the King of
+Spain shall think it time to begin with Ireland, the king my master is
+more like than Queen Elizabeth was, to find a wholesomer place of the
+King of Spain's, where he would be loath to hear of the English, and
+to show the Spaniards who shall be sent into Ireland as fair a way as
+they were taught before. In which time the more you speak of the base,
+insulting, discoursing fugitives, the more proper it will be for you.
+In the meantime upon their departure, not a man hath moved, neither
+was there these thirty years more universal obedience than there is
+now. Amongst the rest of their barbarous lies I doubt not but they
+will pretend protection for religion, and breach of promise with them;
+wherein you may safely protest this, that for any, of all those that
+are gone, there never was so much as an offer made to search their
+consciences.'
+
+Not content with the labours of his ambassadors at the various
+continental courts, to damage the cause of the Irish earls, the king
+issued a proclamation, which was widely dispersed abroad. His majesty
+said he thought it better to clear men's judgments concerning the
+fugitives, 'not in respect of any worth or value in these men's
+persons, being base and rude in their original,' but to prevent any
+breach of friendship with other princes. For this purpose he declared
+that Tyrone and Tyrconnel had not their creation or possessions in
+regard of any lineal or lawful descent from ancestors of blood or
+virtue, but were only conferred by the late queen and himself for some
+reasons of state. Therefore, he judged it needless to seek for
+many arguments 'to confirm whatsoever should be said of these men's
+corruption and falsehood, whose heinous offences remained so fresh in
+memory since they declared themselves so very monsters in nature, as
+they did not only withdraw themselves from their personal obedience to
+their sovereign, but were content to sell over their native country,
+to those who stood at that time in the highest terms of hostility with
+the crowns of England and Ireland.' 'Yet,' adds the king, 'to make the
+absurdity and ingratitude of the allegation above mentioned so much
+the more clear to all men of equal judgment, we do hereby profess
+in word of a king that there was never so much as any shadow of
+molestation, nor purpose of proceeding in any degree against them
+for matter concerning religion:--such being their condition and
+profession, to think murder no fault, marriage of no use, nor any
+man worthy to be esteemed valiant that did not glory in rapine and
+oppression, as we should have thought it an unreasonable thing to
+trouble them for any different point in religion, before any man could
+perceive by their conversation that they made truly conscience of any
+religion. The king thought these declarations sufficient to disperse
+and to discredit all such untruths as these contemptible creatures, so
+full of infidelity and ingratitude, should discharge against him and
+his just and moderate proceedings, and which should procure unto them
+no better usage than they would wish should be afforded to any such
+pack of rebels born their subjects and bound unto them in so many and
+so great obligations.'
+
+Such was the case of the English Government presented to the world
+by the king and his ministers. Let us now hear what the personages
+so heartily reviled by them had to say for themselves. The Rev. C.P.
+Meehan has brought to light the categorical narratives, which the
+earls dictated, and which had lain unpublished among the 'old historic
+rolls,' in the Public Record Office, London. These documents are of
+great historic interest, as are many other state-papers now first
+published in his valuable work.[1] O'Neill's defence is headed,
+'Articles Exhibited by the Earl of Tyrone to the King's Most Excellent
+Majesty, declaring certain Causes of Discontent offered Him, by which
+he took occasion to Depart His Country.' The statement is divided
+into twenty items, of which the following is the substance: It was
+proclaimed by public authority in his manor of Dungannon, that none
+should hear mass upon pain of losing his goods and imprisonment, and
+that no ecclesiastical person should enjoy any cure or dignity without
+swearing the oath of supremacy and embracing the contrary religion,
+and those who refused so to do were actually deprived of their
+benefices and dignities, in proof of which the earl referred to the
+lord deputy's answer to his own petition, and to the Lord Primate of
+Ireland, who put the persecuting decree into execution. The Earl
+of Devon, then lord-lieutenant, had taken from him the lands of his
+ancestors called the Fews, in Armagh, and given them to other persons.
+He was deprived of the annual tribute of sixty cows from Sir Cahir
+O'Dogherty's country called Inishowen, which tribute had never been
+brought into question till James's reign. The same lord-lieutenant had
+taken from him the fishings of the Bann, which always belonged to his
+ancestors, and which he was forced to purchase again. Portions of his
+territory had been taken 'under colour of church-lands, a thing never
+in any man's memory heard of before.' One Robert Leicester an attorney
+had got some more of the earl's land, which he transferred to Captain
+Leigh. 'So as any captain or clerk had wanted means, and had no other
+means or device to live, might bring the earl in trouble for some part
+or parcel of his living, falsely inventing the same, to be concealed
+or church-land.' The Archbishop of Armagh and the Bishop of Derry
+and Clogher claimed the best part of the earl's whole estate, as
+appertaining to their bishoprics, 'which was never moved by any other
+predecessors before, other than that they had some _chiefry_ due to
+them, in most part of all his living, and would now have the whole
+land to themselves as their domain lands, not content with the benefit
+of their ancient registers, which the earl always offered, and
+was willing to give without further question. O'Cahan, 'one of the
+chiefest and principalest of the earl's tenants, was set upon by
+certain of his majesty's privy council, as also by his highness's
+counsel-at-law, to withdraw himself and the lands called
+_Iraght-I-Cahan_ from the earl, being a great substance of his
+living;' and this although O'Cahan had no right to the property except
+as his _tenant at will_, yielding and paying all such rents, dues,
+and reservations as the other tenants did. He complained that at
+the council table in Dublin it was determined to take two-thirds of
+O'Cahan's country from him; and he perceived by what Sir John Davis
+said, that they had determined to take the other third also. They
+further made claim in his majesty's behalf to four other parcels of
+the earl's land, which he named, being the substance of all that was
+left, and began their suit for the same in the court of exchequer.
+In fine he felt that he could not assure himself of anything by the
+letters patent he had from the king. Whenever he had recourse to law
+his proceedings were frustrated by the government; so that he could
+not get the benefit of his majesty's laws, or the possession of his
+lands; 'and yet any man, of what degree soever, obtained the extremity
+of the law with favour against him, in any suit.' Although the king
+had allowed him to be lieutenant of his country, yet he had no more
+command there than his boy; the worst man that belonged to the sheriff
+could command more than he, and that even in the earl's own house. If
+they wanted to arrest any one in the house they would not wait till
+he came out, but burst open the doors, and 'never do the earl so much
+honour in any respect as once to acquaint him therewith, or to send to
+himself for the party, though he had been within the house when they
+would attempt these things; and if any of the earl's officers would
+by his direction order or execute any matter betwixt his own tenants,
+with their own mutual consent, they would be driven not only to
+restore the same again, but also be first amerced by the sheriff, and
+after indicated as felons, and so brought to trial for their lives
+for the same; so as the earl in the end could scarce get any of his
+servants that would undertake to levy his rents.' According to law the
+sheriff should be a resident in the county, have property there, and
+be elected by the nobility and chief gentlemen belonging to it; but
+the law was set aside by the lord deputy, who appointed as sheriffs
+for the counties Tyrone and Armagh Captain Edmund Leigh and one
+Marmaduke Whitechurch, dwelling in the county of Louth, both being
+retainers, and very dear friends to the Knight-marshal Bagenal, who
+was the only man that urged the earl to his last troubles. Of all
+these things 'the earl did eftsoons complain to the lord deputy,
+and could get no redress, but did rather fare the worse for his
+complaints, in respect they were so little regarded.'
+
+[Footnote 1: Page 192.]
+
+The earl understanding that earnest suit had been made to his majesty
+for the presidentship of Ulster, made bold to write to the king,
+humbly beseeching him not to grant any such office to any person over
+himself, 'suspecting it would be his overthrow, as by plain experience
+he knew the like office to be the utter overthrow of others of his
+rank in other provinces within the realm of Ireland.' He also wrote
+to the Earl of Salisbury, who replied that the earl was not to tie his
+majesty to place or displace officers at his (the earl's) pleasure in
+any of his majesty's kingdoms. This was not the earl's meaning, but it
+indicated to him pretty plainly that he had no favour to expect from
+that quarter. The office was intended for Sir Arthur Chichester, and
+he much feared that it would be used for his destruction without
+his majesty's privity. Therefore, seeing himself envied by those who
+should be his protectors, considering the misery sustained by
+others through the oppression of the like government, he resolved to
+sacrifice all rather than live under that yoke.
+
+The next item is very characteristic. The earl's nephew Brian M'Art
+happened to be in the house of Turlough M'Henry, having two men in his
+company. Being in a merry humour, some dispute arose between him and
+a kinsman of his own, who 'gave the earl's nephew a blow of a club
+on the head, and tumbled him to the ground; whereupon, one of his men
+standing by and seeing his master down, did step up with the fellow
+and gave him some three or four stabs of a knife, having no other
+weapon, and the master himself, as it was said, gave him another,
+through which means the man came to his death. Thereupon, the earl's
+nephew and his two men were taken and kept in prison till the next
+sessions holden in the county Armagh, where his men were tried by a
+jury of four innocent and mere ignorant people, having little or no
+substance, most of them being bare soldiers and not fit, as well by
+the institution of law in matters of that kind as also through their
+own insufficiency, to be permitted or elected to the like charge;
+and the rest foster-brethren, followers, and very dear friends to the
+party slain, that would not spare to spend their lives and goods to
+revenge his death. Yet all that notwithstanding were they allowed,
+and the trial of these two gentlemen committed to them, through which
+means, and the vigorous threatening and earnest enticements of the
+judges, they most shamefully condemned to die, and the jury in a
+manner forced to find the matter murder in each of them, and that,
+not so much for their own offences, as thinking to make it an evidence
+against the master, who was in prison in the Castle of Dublin,
+attending to be tried the last Michaelmas term, whose death, were it
+right or wrong, was much desired by the lord deputy.
+
+Again, the earl had given his daughter in marriage to O'Cahan with
+a portion of goods. After they had lived together for eight years,
+O'Cahan was induced to withdraw himself from the earl, and at the same
+time, by the procurement of his setters on, he turned off the earl's
+daughter, kept her fortune to himself, and married another. The
+father appealed to the lord deputy for justice in vain. He then took
+proceedings against O'Cahan, at the assizes in Dungannon. But the
+defendant produced a warrant from the lord deputy, forbidding the
+judges to entertain the question, as it was one for the Lord Bishop of
+Derry. The Bishop of Derry, however, was the chief instigator of the
+divorce, and therefore no indifferent judge in the case. Thus the
+earl's cause was frustrated, and he could get no manner of justice
+therein, no more than he obtained in many other weighty matters that
+concerned him. The next complaint is about outrages committed by
+one Henry Oge O'Neill, one Henry M'Felemey and others, who at the
+instigation of the lord deputy, 'farther to trouble the earl,' went
+out as a wood-kerne to rob and spoil the earl and his nephew, and
+their tenants. They committed many murders, burnings, and other
+mischievous acts, and were always maintained and manifestly relieved
+amongst the deputy's tenants and their friends in Clandeboye, to whom
+they openly sold the spoils. They went on so for the space of two
+years, and the earl could get no justice, till at length they murdered
+one of the deputy's own tenants. Then he saw them prosecuted, and the
+result was, that the earl cut them all off within a quarter of a year
+after. But the lord deputy was not at all pleased with this. Therefore
+he picked up 'a poor rascally knave' and brought him to Dublin, where
+he persuaded him to accuse above threescore of the earl's tenants of
+relieving rebels with meat, although it was taken from them by force.
+For the rebels killed their cattle in the fields, and left them dead
+there, not being able to carry them away; burnt their houses,
+took what they could of their household stuff, killed and mangled
+themselves. 'Yet were they, upon report of that poor knave, who was
+himself foremost in doing these mischiefs, all taken and brought
+to their trial by law, where they were, through their innocency,
+acquitted, to their no small cost; so as betwixt the professed enemy,
+and the private envy of our governors, seeking thereby to advance
+themselves, there was no way left for the poor subject to live.'
+
+One Joice Geverard, a Dutchman, belonging to the deputy, was taken
+prisoner on his way from Carrickfergus to Toome, and he was compelled
+to pay to his captors a ransom of 30 l. For this the lord deputy
+assessed 60 l. on the county, and appointed one-half of it to be taken
+from O'Neil's tenants, being of another county, and at least twelve
+miles distant from the scene of the outrage, perpetrated by a
+wood-kerne, 'and themselves being daily killed and spoiled by the said
+wood-kerne, and never no redress had to them.' Several outrages and
+murders perpetrated by the soldiers are enumerated; but they were such
+as might have been expected in a state bordering on civil war, which
+was then the condition of the province. If, however, Tyrone is to be
+believed, the rulers themselves set the example of disorder. Sir
+Henry Folliott, governor of Ballyshannon, in the second year of his
+majesty's reign, came with force of arms, and drove away 200 cows from
+the earl's tenants, 'and killed a good gentleman, with many other poor
+men, women, and children; and besides that, there died of them above
+100 persons with very famine, for want of their goods; whereof the
+earl never had redress, although the said Sir Henry could show no
+reasonable cause for doing the same.'
+
+Finally the earl saw that the lord deputy was very earnest to
+aggravate and search out matters against him, touching the staining
+of his honour and dignity, scheming to come upon him with some forged
+treason, and thereby to bereave him of both his life and living. The
+better to compass this he placed his 'whispering companion,' Captain
+Leigh, as sheriff in the county, 'so as to be lurking after the earl,
+to spy if he might have any hole in his coat.' Seeing then that the
+lord deputy, who should be indifferent, not only to him but to
+the whole realm, having the rod in his own power, did seek his
+destruction, he esteemed it a strife against the stream for him to
+seek to live secure in that kingdom, and therefore of both evils
+he did choose the least, and thought it better rather to forego
+his country and lands, till he had further known his majesty's
+pleasure--to make an honourable escape with his life and liberty only,
+than by staying with dishonour and indignation to lose both life,
+liberty, and country, which much in very deed he feared. Indeed the
+many abuses 'offered' him by Sir John Davis, 'a man more fit to be a
+stage player than a counsel,' and other inferior officers, might be
+sufficient causes to provoke any human creature, not only to forego
+a country, were it ever so dear to him, but also the whole world, to
+eschew the like government. And thus he concludes his appeal to
+his 'most dread sovereign:' 'And so referring himself, and the due
+consideration of these, and all other his causes, to your majesty's
+most royal and princely censure, as his only protector and defender,
+against all his adversaries, he most humbly taketh his leave, and will
+always, as in bounden duty, pray.'
+
+The Earl of Tyrconnel's statement contains no less than forty-four
+items under the following heading: 'A note, or brief collection of
+the several exactions, wrongs, and grievances, as well spiritual
+as temporal, wherewith the Earl of Tyrconnel particularly doth find
+himself grieved and abused by the king's law ministers in Ireland,
+from the first year of his majesty's reign until this present year of
+1607: to be presented to the king's most excellent majesty.'
+
+_Imprimis_, all the priests and religious persons dwelling within
+the said earl's territories were daily pursued and persecuted by his
+majesty's officers. Sir Arthur Chichester told him, in the presence of
+divers noblemen and gentlemen, that he must resolve to go to church,
+or he would be forced to go. This was contrary to the toleration which
+had been till then enjoyed, and he resolved rather to abandon lands
+and living, yea, all the kingdoms of the earth, with the loss of his
+life, than to be forced utterly against his conscience to any such
+practice.
+
+When Sir George Carew was lord deputy, Captain Nicholas Pynnar
+and Captain Basil Brook, officers of the king's forces at Lifford,
+plundered the earl's tenants there, taking from them 150 cows, besides
+as many sheep and swine as they pleased. Not satisfied with this
+spoil, they most tyrannically stripped 100 persons of all their
+apparel. These outrages the earl complained of 'in humble wise' to the
+lord deputy, and could find no remedy; for the same year the garrisons
+of Lough Foyle, and Ballyshannon took from the earl's tenants 400 cows
+for the victualling of the soldiers; and although the English council
+wrote to the lord deputy, requiring him to pay for the cattle in
+English money, the payment was never made. When, in pursuance of a
+promise made to him by the lord deputy, he appeared before the king,
+to get new letters patent of his territories, &c., his property, in
+Sligo, Tyrawly, Moylurg, Dartry, Sir Cahir O'Dogherty's country,
+and all Sir Nial O'Donel's lands, were excepted and kept from him,
+together with the castle of Ballyshannon and 1,000 acres of land, and
+the whole salmon-fishing of the river Erne, worth 800 l. a year, 'the
+same castle being one of the earl's chieftest mansion houses.' They
+also took from him 1,000 acres of his best land, and joined it to
+the garrison of Lifford for the king's use, without any compensation.
+There were seven sheriffs sent into Tyrconnel, by each of which there
+was taken out of every cow and plough-horse 4 d., and as much out of
+every colt and calf twice a year, and half-a-crown a quarter of every
+shoemaker, carpenter, smith, and weaver in the whole country, and
+eight pence a year for every married couple.'
+
+Sir Nial O'Donel was committed to prison by Tyrconnel, for usurping
+the title of O'Donel and taking his herds and tenants. 'He broke loose
+from prison and killed some of his Majesty's subjects. For this the
+earl prosecuted him under a special warrant from the lord deputy;
+but notwithstanding all this, Carew gave warrants to Captains Pynnar,
+Brook, and Bingley, to make reprisals upon the earl's tenants for the
+pretender's use. Accordingly three English companies joining with nine
+score of Sir Nial's men, seized and carried away 500 cows, 60 mares,
+30 plough-horses, 13 horses, besides food and drink to support the
+assailants for six weeks. They were guilty of many other extortions,
+the country being extremely poor after the wars, and 17 of the earl's
+tenants were hindered from ploughing that season. A certain horse-boy,
+who was sentenced to be hanged for killing one Cusack, was promised
+his life by Sir George Carew, if he accused Tyrconnel as having
+employed him to commit the murder. The boy did make the accusation,
+which served no purpose 'but to accelerate his hanging.' Thus
+betrayed, he declared at the gallows, and in the presence of 400
+persons, the sheriff of the county, and the portreve of Trim, he
+retracted the false confession. A similar attempt was made with an
+Englishman, who was kept a close prisoner without food, drink, or
+light, in order to get him to accuse the earl of Cusack's murder.
+All such, with many other of the said Carew's cruel and tyrannical
+proceedings, the earl showed to the council in England, which promised
+to give satisfaction by punishing the said Carew, who at his arrival
+in England did rather obtain greater favours than any reprehension or
+check of his doings, so as the earl was constrained to take _patience_
+for a full satisfaction of his wrongs.
+
+Sir Henry Docwra, governor of Derry, levied 100 l. off Tyrconnel's
+tenants for the building of a church in that city, but the money was
+applied by Sir Henry to his own use. Carew ordered the troops under
+Sir H. Docwra, Sir H. Folliott, Sir Ralph Constable, Sir Thomas
+Roper, and Captain Doddington, to be quartered for three months upon
+Tyrconnel's people, 'where they committed many rapes, and used many
+extortions, which the earl showed, and could neither get payment
+for their victuals nor obtain that they should be punished for their
+sundry rapes and extortions.' Indeed there was never a garrison in
+Tyrconnel that did not send at their pleasure private soldiers into
+the country to fetch, now three beeves, now four, as often as they
+liked, until they had taken all; and when the earl complained,
+Carew seemed rather to flout him than any way to right him. Sir H.
+Folliott's company on one occasion took from his tenants thirty-eight
+plough-horses, which were never restored or paid for; at another
+time they took twenty-one, and again fourteen. This being done in the
+spring of the year the tenants were hindered from ploughing as before.
+During a whole year Folliott took for the use of his own house,
+regularly every month, six beeves and six muttons, without any manner
+of payment. Captain Doddington and Captain Cole made free with the
+people's property in the same manner.
+
+'All these injuries he laid in a very humble manner before the lord
+deputy, but instead of obtaining redress he was dismissed by him in a
+scoffing manner, and even a lawyer whom he employed was threatened by
+Carew in the following terms:--that he and his posterity should smart
+for his doings until the seventh generation; so that all the earl's
+business was ever since left at random, and no lawyer dared plead in
+his cause.'
+
+Tyrconnel killed some rebels, and captured their chief, whom his men
+carried to Sir H. Folliott to be executed. Sir Henry offered to spare
+his life if he could accuse the earl of any crime that might work
+his overthrow. He could not, and he was hanged. In order to settle
+a dispute between the earl and Sir Nial, the English _protégé_ and
+pretender to the chieftainship, twelve tenants of each were summoned
+to be examined by the king's officers in the neighbourhood. 'The
+earl's men were not examined, but locked up in a room; and the
+vice-governor, upon the false deposition of Sir Nial's men, directed
+warrants, and sent soldiers to the number of 300, to bring all the
+earl's tenants unto Sir Nial, to the number of 340 persons, who paid
+half-a-crown a piece, and 12 d. for every cow and garron, as a fee
+unto the captains, whereby they lost their ploughing for the space of
+twenty-eight days, the soldiers being in the country all the while.
+One Captain Henry Vaughan, being sheriff in the year 1605, got a
+warrant to levy 150 l. to build a sessions house. He built the house
+of timber and wattles. It was not worth 10_l_, and it fell in three
+months. Nevertheless he levied every penny of the money, and the
+people had to meet a similar demand the next year, to build another
+house. It was a rule with the governors of the local garrisons to
+offer his life to every convict about to be executed, and also a large
+reward, if he could accuse the earl of some detestable crime. No less
+than twenty-seven persons hanged in Connaught and Tyrone were offered
+pardon on this condition. He was at the same sessions called to the
+bar for hanging some wood-kerne, although he had authority from the
+king to execute martial law. Shortly after, by the lord deputy's
+orders, the horse and foot soldiers under Docwra and Folliott were
+cessed upon the country, where they for four months remained, and paid
+nothing for their charges of horse-meat or man's meat.' In the year
+1606 the lord deputy came to Ballyshannon, where, being at supper, he
+demanded of the earl what right he had to the several territories he
+claimed. He replied that his ancestors had possessed them for 1,300
+years, and that the duties, rents, and homages were duly paid during
+that time. Whereupon the lord deputy said, 'the earl was unworthy to
+have them, he should never enjoy them, the State was sorry to have
+left so much in his possession, and he should take heed to himself
+or else the deputy would make his pate ache.' The matters in dispute
+between him and Sir Nial being referred on that occasion to the lord
+deputy, both parties having submitted their papers for examination,
+every case was decided against Tyrconnel, all his challenges
+frustrated, 300 l. damages imposed, and his papers burned; while Sir
+Nial's papers were privately given back to him. The result was that
+at the next sessions Sir Nial had the benefit of all his papers,
+his opponent having nothing to show to the contrary. The fishery
+of Killybegs, worth 500 l. a season, had belonged to Tyrconnel's
+ancestors for 1,300 years. But it was taken from him without
+compensation, by Sir Henry Folliott and the Bishop of Derry, with
+the ultimate sanction of the lord deputy, who confirmed the bishop in
+possession 'both for that season and for all times ensuing.' Sir H.
+Folliott on one occasion took away for his carriage the horses
+that served the earl's house with fuel and wood for fire, 'and the
+soldiers, scorning to feed the horses themselves, went into the earl's
+house, and forcibly took out one of his boys to lead them, and ran
+another in the thigh with a pike for refusing to go with him.' He
+had a number of tenants, who held their lands 'by lease of years for
+certain rents.' Yet the lord deputy sent warrants to them, directing
+them to pay no rents, and requiring the Governor of Derry 'to raise
+the country from time to time, and resist and hinder the earl from
+taking up his rents.'
+
+To crown all, when Tyrconnel made a journey into the Pale to know the
+reason why he was debarred from his rents, he lodged on his way in the
+Abbey of Boyle. He had scarcely arrived there when the constable of
+the town, accompanied by twenty soldiers, and all the churls of the
+place, surrounded and set fire to the house where he lay, he having no
+company within but his page and two other serving men. 'But it befell,
+through the singular providence of Almighty God, whose fatherly care
+he hath ever found vigilant over him, that he defended himself and his
+house against them all the whole night long, they using on the other
+side all their industry and might to fire it, and throwing in of
+stones and staves in the earl's face, and running their pikes at him
+and swords until they had wounded him, besides his other bruisings,
+with stones and staves in six places; they menacing to kill him,
+affirming that he was a traitor to the king, and that it was the best
+service that could be rendered to his majesty to kill him. And that
+all this is true, Sir Donough O'Conor, who was taken prisoner by the
+same men, because he would not assist them in their _facinorous_ and
+wicked design of killing the earl, will justify; but in the morning
+the earl was rescued by the country folk, which conveyed him safely
+out of the town. And when the earl complained, and showed his wounds
+unto the lord deputy, he promised to hang the constable and ensign,
+but afterwards did not once deign so much as to examine the matter
+or call the delinquents to account, by reason whereof the earl doth
+verily persuade himself--which his surmise was afterwards confirmed
+in time, by the credible report of many--that some of the State
+were sorry for his escape, but specially Sir Oliver Lambert, who had
+purposely drawn the plot of the earl's ruin.'
+
+[Transcriber's note: marker for following footnote is missing in the
+original]
+
+[Footnote: Meehan's Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnel, pp. 192-224.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE CONFISCATION OF ULSTER.
+
+
+Sir Toby Caulfield, accompanied by the sheriffs of Tyrone and
+Tyrconnel, followed quickly the proclamation of the lord deputy to
+the people of Ulster, and took possession of the houses, goods, and
+chattels of the fugitive earls. Sir Toby was further empowered to act
+as receiver over the estates, taking up the rents according to the
+Irish usage until other arrangements could be made. His inventory
+of the effects of O'Neill in the castle of Dungannon is a curious
+document, showing that according to the ideas of those times in the
+matter of furniture 'man wants but little here below.' The following
+is a copy of the document taken from the memorandum roll of the
+exchequer by the late Mr. Ferguson. It is headed, '_The Earl of
+Tyrone's goods, viz._' The spelling is, however, modernised, and
+ordinary figures substituted for Roman numerals.
+
+
+_The Earl of Tyrone's Goods, viz._
+
+                                                  £.   s.   d.
+
+Small steers, 9 at 10 s.                           4   10   0
+
+60 hogs, at 2 s. 6 d.                              7   10   0
+
+2 long tables, 10 s.
+2 long forms, 5 s.; an old bedstead, 5 s.
+An old trunk, 3 s.; a long stool, 12 d.
+3 hogsheads of salt, 28 s. 6 d.; all valued at     4   12   6
+
+A silk jacket                                      0   13   4
+
+8 vessels of butter, containing 4-1/2 barrels      5   17   6
+
+2 iron spikes                                      0    2   0
+
+A powdering tub                                    0    0   6
+
+2 old chests                                       0    4   0
+
+A frying-pan and a dripping-pan                    0    3   0
+
+5 pewter dishes                                    0    5   0
+
+A casket, 2 d.; a comb and comb case, 18 d.        0    1   8
+
+2 dozen of trenchers and a basket                  0    0  10
+
+2 eighteen-bar ferris                              0    6   0
+
+A box and 2 drinking glasses                       0    1   3
+
+A trunk 1; a pair of red taffeta curtains 1;
+other pair of green satin curtains                 4    5   0
+
+A brass kettle                                     0    8   6
+
+'A payer of covyrons'                              0    5   0
+
+2 baskets with certain broken earthen dishes and
+some waste spices                                  0    2   0
+
+Half a pound of white and blue starch              0    0   4
+
+A vessel with 11 gallons of vinegar                0    3   0
+
+17 pewter dishes                                   0   15   0
+
+3 glass bottles                                    0    1   6
+
+2 stone jugs, whereof 1 broken                     0    0   6
+
+A little iron pot                                  0    1   6
+
+A great spit                                       0    1   6
+
+6 garrons at 80 s. apiece                          9    0   0
+
+19 stud mares, whereof [some] were claimed by
+Nicholas Weston, which were restored to him by
+warrant, 30 l. 9 s. being proved to be his own,
+and so remaineth                                  17    0   0
+
+With respect to rents, Sir Toby Caulfield left a memorandum, stating
+that there was no certain portion of Tyrone's land let to any of his
+tenants that paid him rent, and that such rents as he received were
+paid to him partly in money and partly in victuals, as oats, oatmeal,
+butter, hogs, and sheep. The money-rents were chargeable on all the
+cows, milch or in calf, which grazed on his lands, at the rate of
+a shilling a quarter each. The cows were to be numbered in May and
+November by the earl's officers, and 'so the rents were taken up at
+said rate for all the cows that were so numbered, except only the
+heads and principal men of the _creaghts_, as they enabled them to
+live better than the common multitude under them, whom they caused to
+pay the said rents, which amounted to about twelve hundred sterling
+Irish a year.
+
+'The butter and other provisions were usually paid by those styled
+horsemen--O'Hagans, O'Quins, the O'Donnillys, O'Devolins, and others.'
+These were a sort of middle men, and to some of them an allowance was
+made by the Government. 'Thus for example, Loughlin O'Hagan, formerly
+constable of the castle of Dungannon, received in lieu thereof a
+portion of his brother Henry's goods, and Henry O'Hagan's wife and her
+children had all her husband's goods, at the suit of her father Sir
+G. O'Ghy O'Hanlon, who had made a surrender of all his lands to the
+crown.'
+
+The cattle were to be all numbered over the whole territory in one
+day, a duty which must have required a great number of men, and sharp
+men too; for, if the owners were dishonestly inclined, and were
+as active in that kind of work as the peasantry were during the
+anti-tithe war in our own time, the cattle could be driven off into
+the woods or on to the lands of a neighbouring lord. However, during
+the three years that Caulfield was receiver, the rental amounted
+to 12,000 l. a year, a remarkable fact considering the enormous
+destruction of property that had taken place during the late wars, and
+the value of money at that time.
+
+A similar process was adopted with regard to the property of O'Donel,
+and guards were placed in all the castles of the two chiefs. In order
+that their territories might pass into the king's possession by due
+form of law, the attorney-general, Sir John Davis, was instructed to
+draw up a bill of indictment for treason against the fugitive
+earls and their adherents. With this bill he proceeded to Lifford,
+accompanied by a number of commissioners, clerks, sheriffs, and a
+strong detachment of horse and foot. At Lifford, the county town of
+Donegal, a jury was empanelled for the trial of O'Donel, consisting
+of twenty-three Irishmen and ten Englishmen. Of this jury Sir Cahir
+O'Dogherty was foreman. He was the lord of Inishowen, having the
+largest territories in the county next to the Earl of Tyrconnel. The
+bill being read in English and Irish, evidence was given, wrote the
+attorney-general, 'that their guilty consciences, and fear of losing
+their heads, was the cause of their flight.' The jury, however, had
+exactly the same sort of difficulty that troubled the juries in our
+late Fenian trials about finding the accused guilty of compassing the
+death of the sovereign. But Sir John laboured to remove their scruples
+by explaining the legal technicality, and arguing that, 'whoso would
+take the king's crown from his head would likewise, if he could, take
+his head from his shoulders; and whoever would not suffer the king to
+reign, if it lay in his power, would not suffer the king to live.' The
+argument was successful with the jury. In all the conflicts between
+the two races, whether on the field of battle or in the courts of law,
+the work of England was zealously done by Celtic agents, who became
+the eager accusers, the perfidious betrayers, and sometimes the
+voluntary assassins of men of their own name, kindred, and tribe.
+
+The commissioners next sat at Strabane, a town within two or three
+miles of Lifford, where a similar jury was empanelled for the county
+Tyrone, to try O'Neill. One of the counts against him was that he had
+treasonably taken upon him the name of O'Neill. In proof of this a
+document was produced: 'O'Neill bids M'Tuin to pay 60 l.' It was also
+alleged that he had committed a number of murders; but his victims,
+it was alleged, were criminals ordered for execution in virtue of the
+power of life and death with which he had been invested by the queen.
+He was found guilty, however; and Henry Oge O'Neill, his kinsman,
+who was foreman of the jury, was complimented for his civility and
+loyalty, although he belonged to that class concerning which Sir John
+afterwards wrote, 'It is as natural for an Irish lord to be a thief
+as it is for the devil to be a liar, of whom it was written, he was a
+liar and a murderer from the beginning.'
+
+True bills having been found by the grand juries, proceedings were
+taken in the Court of King's Bench to have the fugitive earls and
+their followers attainted of high treason. The names were:--'Hugh
+earl of Tyrone, Rory earl of Tyrconnel, Caffar O'Donel, Cu Connaught
+Maguire, Donel Oge O'Donel, Art Oge, Cormack O'Neill, Henry
+O'Neill, Henry Hovenden, Henry O'Hagan, Moriarty O'Quinn, John Bath,
+Christopher Plunket, John O'Punty O'Hagan, Hugh O'Galagher, Carragh
+O'Galagher, John and Edmund M'Davitt, Maurie O'Multully, Donogh
+O'Brien, M'Mahon, George Cashel, Teigue O'Keenen, and many other false
+traitors, who, by the instigation of the devil, did conspire and plot
+the destruction and death of the king, Sir Arthur Chichester, &c.; and
+did also conspire to seize by force of arms the castles of Athlone,
+Ballyshannon, Duncannon, co. Wexford, Lifford, co. Donegal, and with
+that intent did sail away in a ship, to bring in an army composed of
+foreigners to invade the kingdom of Ireland, to put the king to death,
+and to dispose him from the style, title, power, and government of the
+Imperial crown.'
+
+The lord deputy and his officers, able, energetic, farseeing men,
+working together persistently for the accomplishment of a well-defined
+purpose, were drawing the great net of English law closer and closer
+around the heads of the Irish clans, who struggled gallantly and
+wildly in its fatal meshes. The episode of Sir Cahir O'Dogherty is
+a romance. On the death of Sir John O'Dogherty, the O'Donel, in
+accordance with Irish custom, caused his brother Phelim Oge to be
+inaugurated Prince of Inishowen, because Cahir, his son, was then
+only thirteen years of age, too young to command the sept. But this
+arrangement did not please his foster brothers, the M'Davitts, who
+proposed to Sir Henry Docwra, governor of Derry, that their youthful
+chief should be adopted as the queen's O'Dogherty; and on this
+condition they promised that he and they would devote themselves to
+her majesty's service. The terms were gladly accepted. Sir Cahir was
+trained by Docwra in martial exercises, in the arts of civility, and
+in English literature. He was an apt pupil. He grew up strong and
+comely; and he so distinguished himself before he was sixteen years
+of age in skirmishes with his father's allies, that Sir Henry wrote
+of him in the following terms: 'The country was overgrown with ancient
+oak and coppice. O'Dogherty was with me, alighted when I did, kept me
+company in the greatest heat of the fight, behaved himself bravely,
+and with a great deal of love and affection; so much so, that I
+recommended him at my next meeting with the Lord Deputy Mountjoy, for
+the honour of knighthood, which was accordingly conferred upon him.'
+The young knight went to London, was well received at court, and
+obtained a new grant of a large portion of the O'Dogherty's country.
+He married a daughter of Lord Gormanstown, a catholic peer of the
+Pale, distinguished for loyalty to the English throne, resided with
+his bride at his Castle of Elagh, or at Burt, or Buncranna, keeping
+princely state, not in the old Irish fashion, but in the manner of an
+English nobleman of the period; hunting the red deer in his forest,
+hawking, or fishing in the teeming waters of Lough Foyle, Lough
+Swilly, and the Atlantic, which poured their treasures around the
+promontory of which he was the lord. His intimate associates were
+officers and favourites of the king.
+
+Docwra had given up the government of Derry and retired to England. He
+was succeeded by Sir George Paulet, a man of violent temper. Sir Cahir
+had sold 3,000 acres of land, which was to be planted with English;
+and, in order to perfect the deed of sale, it was necessary to have
+the document signed before the governor of Derry. It had been reported
+to the lord deputy that Sir Cahir, not content with his position,
+intended to leave the country, probably with the design of joining the
+fugitive earls in an attempt to destroy the English power in
+Ireland. He was therefore summoned before the lord deputy; and Lord
+Gormanstown, Thomas Fitzwilliam of Merrion, and himself, were obliged
+to give security that he should not quit Ireland without due notice
+and express permission. This restraint had probably irritated his
+hot impetuous spirit, and made it difficult for him to exercise due
+self-control when he came in contact with the English governor of
+Derry, with whom his relations were not improved by the suspicions now
+attaching to his loyalty. Accordingly, while the legal forms of
+the transfer were being gone through, the young chief made a remark
+extremely offensive to Paulet, which was resented by a blow in the
+face with his clenched fist. Instead of returning the blow, young
+O'Dogherty hurried away to consult the M'Davitts, whose advice was
+that the insult he received must be avenged by blood. The affair
+having been immediately reported to the lord deputy, who apprehended
+that mischief would come of it, he sent a peremptory summons to Sir
+Cahir, requiring him to appear in Dublin, 'to free himself of certain
+rumours and reports touching disloyal courses into which he had
+entered, contrary to his allegiance to the king, and threatening the
+overthrow of many of his majesty's subjects.' His two sureties were
+also written to, and required to 'bring in his body.' But O'Dogherty
+utterly disregarded the lord deputy's order. Taking counsel with Nial
+Garve O'Donel, he resolved to seize Culmore Fort, Castle Doe, and
+other strong places; and then march on Derry, and massacre the English
+settlers in the market square.
+
+Towards the close of April, Sir Cahir invited Captain Harte, governor
+of Culmore Castle, on the banks of the Foyle, about four miles from
+Derry, with his wife and infant child, of which he was the godfather,
+to dine with him at his Castle of Elagh.
+
+The entertainment was sumptuous, and the pleasures of the table
+protracted to a late hour. After dinner the host took his guest into
+a private apartment, and told him that the blow he had received from
+Paulet demanded a bloody revenge. Harte remonstrated; O'Dogherty's
+retainers rushed in, and, drawing their swords and skeines, declared
+that they would kill his wife and child in his presence, unless he
+delivered up the castle of Culmore. The governor was terrified, but
+he refused to betray his trust. Sir Cahir, commanding the armed men to
+retire, locked the chamber door, and kept his guest imprisoned
+there for two hours, hoping that he would yield when he had time for
+reflection. But finding him still inflexible, O'Dogherty grew furious,
+and vented his rage in loud and angry words. Mrs. Harte, hearing the
+altercation, and suspecting foul play, rushed into the room, and
+found Sir Cahir enforcing his appeal with a naked sword pointed at her
+husband's throat. She fell on the floor in a swoon. Lady O'Dogherty
+ran to her assistance, raised her up, and assured her that she knew
+nothing of her husband's rash design. The latter then thrust the whole
+party down-stairs, giving orders to his men to seize Captain Harte.
+Meantime, Lady Harte fell on her knees, imploring mercy, but the only
+response was an oath that she and her husband and child should be
+instantly butchered if Culmore were not surrendered. What followed
+shall be related in the words of Father Meehan: 'Horrified by this
+menace, she consented to accompany him and his men to the fort, where
+they arrived about midnight. On giving the pass word the gate was
+thrown open by the warder, whose suspicions were lulled when Lady
+Harte told him that her husband had broken his arm and was then lying
+in Sir Cahir's house. The parley was short, and the followers of
+Sir Cahir, rushing in to the tower, fell on the sleeping garrison,
+slaughtered them in their beds, and then made their way to an upper
+apartment where Lady Harte's brother, recently come from England,
+was fast asleep. Fearing that he might get a bloody blanket for his
+shroud, Lady Harte followed them into the room, and implored the
+young man to offer no resistance to the Irish, who broke open trunks,
+presses and other furniture, and seized whatever valuables they could
+clutch. Her thoughtfulness saved the lives of her children and
+her brother; for as soon as Sir Cahir had armed his followers with
+matchlocks and powder out of the magazine, he left a small detachment
+to garrison Culmore, and then marched rapidly on Derry, where he
+arrived about two o'clock in the morning. Totally unprepared for
+such an irruption, the townsfolk were roused from their sleep by the
+bagpipes and war-shout of the Clan O'Dogherty, who rushed into the
+streets, and made their way to Paulet's house, where Sir Cahir, still
+smarting under the indignity of the angry blow, satisfied his vow of
+vengeance by causing that unhappy gentleman to be hacked to death with
+the pikes and skeines of Owen O'Dogherty and others of his kindred.
+After plundering the houses of the more opulent inhabitants, seizing
+such arms as they could find, and reducing the young town to a heap
+of ashes, Sir Cahir led his followers to the palace of Montgomery the
+bishop, who fortunately for himself was then absent in Dublin. Not
+finding him, they captured his wife, and sent her, under escort, to
+Burt Castle, whither Lady O'Dogherty, her sister-in-law and infant
+daughter, had gone without warders for their protection. It was on
+this occasion that Phelim M'Davitt got into Montgomery's library and
+set fire to it, thus destroying hundreds of valuable volumes, printed
+and manuscript, a feat for which he is not censured--we are sorry to
+have to acknowledge it--by Philip O'Sullivan in his account of
+the fact. Elated by this successful raid, Sir Cahir called off his
+followers and proceeded to beleaguer Lifford, where there was a small
+garrison of English who could not be induced to surrender, although
+suffering severely from want of provisions. Finding all his attempts
+to reduce the place ineffectual, he sent for the small force he had
+left in Culmore to join the main body of his partisans, and then
+marched into M'Swyne Doe's country.'
+
+Meantime news of these atrocities reached Dublin, and the lord deputy
+immediately sent a force of 3,000 men, commanded by Sir Richard
+Wingfield, Sir Thomas Roper, and Sir Toby Caulfield, with instructions
+to pursue the revolted Irish into their fastnesses and deal with them
+summarily. He himself set out to act with the troops, and on reaching
+Dundalk published a proclamation, in which he offered pardon to
+all who laid down their arms, or would use them in killing their
+associates. He took care, however, to except Phelim M'Davitt from all
+hope of mercy, consigning him to be dealt with by a military tribunal.
+The English force in the interval had made their way into O'Dogherty's
+country, and coming before Culmore, found it abandoned by the Irish,
+who, unable to carry off the heavy guns, took the precaution of
+burying them in the sea. Burt Castle surrendered without a blow.
+Wingfield immediately liberated the inmates, and sent Bishop
+Montgomery's wife to her husband, and Lady O'Dogherty, her infant
+daughter and sister-in-law, to Dublin Castle. As for Sir Cahir,
+instead of going to Castle Doe, he resolved to cross the path of the
+English on their march to that place, and coming up with them in the
+vicinity of Kilmacrenan, he was shot dead by a soldier. The death of
+the young chieftain spread panic among his followers, most of
+whom flung away their arms, betook themselves to flight, and were
+unmercifully cut down. Sir Cahir's head was immediately struck off and
+sent to Dublin, where it was struck upon a pole at the east gate of
+the city.
+
+O'Dogherty's country was now confiscated, and the lord deputy,
+Chichester, was rewarded with the greatest portion of his lands. But
+what was to be done with the people? In the first instance they were
+driven from the rich lowlands along the borders of Lough Foyle and
+Lough Swilly, and compelled to take refuge in the mountain fastnesses
+which stretched to a vast extent from Moville westward along the
+Atlantic coast. But could those 'idle kerne and swordsmen,' thus
+punished with loss of lands and home for the crimes of their chief,
+be safely trusted to remain anywhere in the neighbourhood of the new
+English settlers? Sir John Davis and Sir Toby Caulfield thought of
+a plan by which they could get rid of the danger. The illustrious
+Gustavus Adolphus was then fighting the battles of Protestantism
+against the house of Austria. In his gallant efforts to sustain the
+cause of the Reformation every true Irish Protestant sympathised, and
+none more than the members of the Irish Government. To what better
+use, then, could the 'loose Irish kerne and swordsmen' of Donegal be
+turned than to send them to fight in the army of the King of Sweden?
+Accordingly 6,000 of the able-bodied peasantry of Inishown were
+shipped off for this service. Sir Toby Caulfield, founder of the
+house of Charlemont, was commissioned to muster the men and have them
+transported to their destination, being paid for their keep in the
+meantime. A portion of his account ran thus: 'For the dyett of 80 of
+said soldiers for 16 daies, during which tyme they were kept in prison
+in Dungannon till they were sent away, at iiiid le peece per diem;
+allso for dyett of 72 of said men kept in prison at Armagh till they
+were sent away to Swethen, at iiiid le peece per diem,' &c., &c.
+Caulfield was well rewarded for these services; and Captain Sandford,
+married to the niece of the first Earl of Charlemont, obtained a
+large grant of land on the same score. This system of clearing out the
+righting men among the Irish was continued till 1629, when the lord
+deputy, Falkland, wrote that Sir George Hamilton, a papist, then
+impressing soldiers in Tyrone and Antrim, was opposed by one
+O'Cullinan, a priest, who was rash enough to advise the people to stay
+at home and have nothing to do with the Danish wars. For this he was
+arrested, committed to Dublin Castle, tortured and then hanged.
+
+With regard to the immediate followers of O'Dogherty in his insane
+course, many of the most prominent leaders were tried by court-martial
+and executed. Others were found guilty by ordinary course of law.
+Among these was O'Hanlon, Sir Cahir's brother-in-law. Pie was hanged
+at Armagh; and his youthful wife was found by a soldier, 'stripped of
+her apparel, in a wood, where she perished of cold and hunger, being
+lately before delivered of a child.' M'Davitt, the firebrand of the
+rebellion, was convicted and executed at Derry. At Dungannon Shane,
+Carragh O'Cahan was found guilty by 'a jury of his _kinsmen_' and
+executed in the camp, his head being stuck upon the castle of that
+place--the castle from which his brother was mainly instrumental in
+driving its once potent lord into exile. At the same place a monk, who
+was a chief adviser of the arch-rebel, saved his life and liberty by
+tearing off his religious habit, and renouncing his allegiance to
+the Pope. Father Meehan states that many of the clergy, secular and
+regular, of Inishown might have saved their lives by taking the oath
+of supremacy. It was a terrible time in Donegal. No day passed without
+the killing and taking of some of the dispersed rebels, one betraying
+another to get his own pardon, and the goods of the party betrayed,
+according to a proviso in the deputy's proclamation. Among the
+informers was a noble lady, the mother of Hugh Roe O'Donel and Rory
+Earl of Tyronnel, who accused Nial Garve, her own son-in-law, of
+complicity in O'Dogherty's revolt, for which she got a grant of some
+hundreds of acres in the neighbourhood of Kilmacrenan.
+
+The insurgent leaders and the dangerous kerne having been effectually
+cleared off in various ways, the whole territory of Inishown was
+overrun by the king's troops. The lord deputy, Sir Arthur Chichester,
+with a numerous retinue, including the attorney-general, sheriffs,
+lawyers, provosts-martial, engineers, and 'geographers,' made a grand
+'progress,' and penetrated for the first time the region which was to
+become the property of his family. It was a strange sight to the poor
+Irish that were suffered to remain. 'As we passed through the glens
+and forests,' wrote Sir John Davis, 'the wild inhabitants did as much
+wonder to see the king's deputy as the ghosts in Virgil did to see
+Æneas alive in hell.' In this exploring tour a thorough knowledge of
+the country was for the first time obtained, and the attorney-general
+could report that 'before Michaelmas he would be ready to present to
+his majesty a perfect survey of six whole counties which he now hath
+in actual possession in the province of Ulster, of greater extent of
+land than any prince in Europe hath in his own hands to dispose of.' A
+vast field for plantation! But Sir John Davis cautioned the Government
+against the mistakes that caused the failure of former settlements,
+saying, that if the number of the Scotch and English who were to come
+to Ireland did not much exceed that of the natives, the latter would
+quickly 'overgrow them, as weeds overgrow corn.'
+
+O'Cahan, who was charged with complicity in O'Dogherty's outbreak, or
+with being at least a sympathiser, had been arrested, and was kept,
+with Nial Garve, a close prisoner in Dublin Castle. An anonymous
+pamphleteer celebrated the victories that had been achieved by the
+lord deputy, giving to his work the title, 'The Overthrow of an Irish
+Rebel,' having for its frontispiece a tower with portcullis, and the
+O'Dogherty's head impaled in the central embrazure. The spirit of the
+narrative may be inferred from the following passage: 'As for Tyrone
+and Co., or Tyrconnel, they are already fled from their coverts, and I
+hope they will never return; and for other false hearts, the chief of
+note is O'Cahan, Sir Nial Garve, and his two brothers, with others of
+their condition. They have holes provided for them in the castle of
+Dublin, where I hope they are safe enough from breeding any cubs to
+disquiet and prey upon the flock of honest subjects.'
+
+O'Cahan and his companion, however, tried to get out of the hole,
+although the lord deputy kept twenty men every night to guard the
+castle, in addition to the ordinary ward, and two or three of the
+guards lay in the same rooms with the prisoners. Their horses had
+arrived in town, and all things were in readiness. But their escape
+was hindered by the fact that Shane O'Carolan, who had been acquitted
+of three indictments, cast himself out of a window at the top of the
+castle by the help of his mantle, which broke before he was half way
+down; and though he was presently discovered, yet he escaped about
+supper time. 'Surely,' exclaimed the lord deputy, 'these men do go
+beyond all nations in the world for desperate escapes!' The prisoners
+were subsequently conveyed to the Tower, where they remained many
+years closely confined, and where they ended their days. Sir Allen
+Apsley, in 1623, made a report of the prisoners then in his custody,
+in which he said, 'There is here Sir Nial Garve O'Donel, a man that
+was a good subject during the late queen's time, and did as great
+service to the state as any man of his nation. He has been a prisoner
+here about thirteen years. His offence is known specially to the Lord
+Chichester. Naghtan, his son, was taken from Oxford and committed with
+his father. I never heard any offence he did.'
+
+While O'Cahan was in prison, commissioners sat in his mansion at
+Limavaddy, including the Primate Usher, Bishop Montgomery of Derry,
+and Sir John Davis. They decided that by the statute of 11 Elizabeth,
+which it was supposed had been cancelled by the king's pardon, all his
+territory had been granted to the Earl of Tyrone, and forfeited by
+his flight. It was, therefore, confiscated. Although sundry royal and
+viceregal proclamations had assured the tenants that they would not
+be disturbed in their possessions, on account of the offences of their
+chiefs, it was now declared that all O'Cahan's country belonged to
+the crown, and that neither he nor those who lived under him had any
+estate whatever in the lands. Certain portions of the territory were
+set apart for the Church, and handed over to Bishop Montgomery. 'Of
+all the fair territory which once was his, Donald Balagh had not now
+as much as would afford him a last resting-place near the sculptured
+tomb of Cooey-na-gall. O'Cahan got no sympathy, and he deserved
+none; for he might have foreseen that the Government to which he sold
+himself would cast him off as an outworn tool, when he could no
+longer subserve their wicked purposes.'[1] 'Thus were the O'Cahans
+dispossessed by the colonists of Derry, to whom their broad lands and
+teeming rivers were passed, _mayhap_ for ever. Towards the close of
+the Cromwellian war in Ireland, the Duchess of Buckingham, passing
+through Limavaddy, visited its ancient castle, then sadly dilapidated,
+and, entering one of the apartments, saw an aged woman wrapped in a
+blanket, and crouching over a peat fire, which filled the room with
+reeking smoke. After gazing at this pitiful spectacle, the duchess
+asked the miserable individual her name; when the latter, rising and
+drawing herself up to her full height, replied, "I am the wife of
+the O'Cahan."'[Father Meehan dedicates his valuable work to the lord
+chancellor of Ireland, the Right Hon. Thomas O'Hagan,--the first
+Catholic chancellor since the Revolution. Descended from the O'Hagans,
+who were hereditary justiciaries and secretaries to the O'Neill, he
+is, by universal consent, one of the ablest and most accomplished
+judges that ever adorned the Irish Bench. His ancestors were involved
+in the fortunes of Tyrone. How strange that the representative of the
+judicial and literary clan of ancient Ulster should now be the head of
+the Irish magistracy!]
+
+[Footnote 1: Meehan, p.317.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE PLANTATION OF ULSTER.
+
+
+In the account which the lord deputy gave of the flight of Tyrone
+and Tyrconnel, he referred to the mistake that had been committed in
+making these men proprietary lords of so large a territory, '_without
+regard to the poor freeholders' rights, or of his majesty's service,
+or the commonwealths, that are so much interested in the honest
+liberty of that sort of men_.' And he considered it a providential
+circumstance that the king had now an opportunity of repairing that
+error, and of relieving the natives from the exactions and tyranny of
+their former barbarous lords. How far this change was a benefit to
+the honest freeholders and the labouring classes may be seen from the
+reports of Sir Toby Caulfield to the lord deputy, as to his dealings
+with those people. He complains of his ill success in the prosecution
+of the wood-kerne. He had done his best, and all had turned to
+nothing. When the news of the plantation came, he had no hope at all,
+for the people then said it would be many of their cases to become
+wood-kerne themselves out of necessity, 'no other means being left for
+them to keep being in this world than to live as long as they could
+by scrambling.' They hoped, however, that so much of the summer being
+spent before the commissioners came down, 'so great cruelty would not
+be showed as to remove them upon the edge of winter from their
+houses, and in the very season when they were employed in making their
+harvest. They held discourse among themselves, that if this course had
+been taken with them in war time, it had had some colour of justice;
+but being pardoned, and their land given them, and they having lived
+under law ever since, and being ready to submit themselves to the
+mercy of the law, for any offence they can be charged withal, since
+their pardoning, they conclude it to be the greatest cruelty that was
+ever inflicted upon any people.'
+
+It is no wonder that Sir Toby was obliged to add to his report this
+assurance: 'There is not a more discontented people in Christendom.'
+It is difficult to conceive how any people in Christendom could be
+contented, treated as they were, according to this account, which the
+officer of the Government did not deny; for surely no people, in any
+Christian country, were ever the victims of such flagrant injustice,
+inflicted by a Government which promised to relieve them from the
+cruel exactions of their barbarous chiefs--a Government, too, solemnly
+pledged to protect them in the unmolested enjoyment of their houses
+and lands. How little this policy tended to strengthen the Government
+appears from a confession made about the same time by the lord deputy
+himself. He wrote: 'The hearts of the Irish are against us: we have
+only a handful of men in entertainment so ill paid, that everyone is
+out of heart, and our resources so discredited, by borrowing and
+not repaying, that we cannot take up 1,000 l. in twenty days, if the
+safety of the kingdom depended upon it. The Irish are hopeful of the
+return of the fugitives, or invasion from foreign parts.'
+
+But the safety of England, do what she might in the way of oppression,
+lay then, as it lay often since, and ever will lie, in the tendency
+to division, and the instability of the Celtic character. The Rev. Mr.
+Meehan, with all his zeal for Irish nationality, admits this failing
+of the people with his usual candour. He says: 'These traits, so
+peculiar to the Celtic character, have been justly stigmatised by a
+friendly and observant Italian (the Nuncio Rinuccini) who, some thirty
+years after the period of which we are writing, tells us that the
+native Irish were behind the rest of Europe in the knowledge of
+those things that tended to their material improvement--indifferent
+agriculturists, living from hand to mouth--caring more for the sword
+than the plough--good Catholics, though by nature barbarous--and
+placing their hopes of deliverance from English rule on foreign
+intervention. For this they were constantly straining their eyes
+towards France or Spain, and, no matter whence the ally came, were
+ever ready to rise in revolt. One virtue, however--intensest love of
+country--more or less redeemed these vices, for so they deserve to be
+called; but to establish anything like strict military discipline
+or organisation among themselves, it must be avowed they had no
+aptitude.' This, says Mr. Meehan, 'to some extent, will account for
+the apathy of the Northern Catholics, while the undertakers were
+carrying on the gigantic eviction known as the plantation of Ulster;
+for, since Sir Cahir O'Dogherty's rebellion till 1615, there was only
+one attempt to resist the intruders, an abortive raid on the city of
+Derry, for which the meagre annals of that year tell us, six of the
+Earl of Tyrone's nearest kinsmen were put to death. Withal the people
+of Ulster were full of hope that O'Neill would return with forces to
+evict the evicters, but the farther they advanced into this agreeable
+perspective, the more rapidly did its charms disappear.
+
+The proclamations against wood-kerne present a curious picture of
+these 'plantation' times. The lord deputy, in council, understood
+that 'many idle kerne, loose and masterless men, and other disordered
+persons, did range up and down in sundry parts of this kingdom, being
+armed with swords, targets, pikes, shot, head-pieces, horsemen's
+staves, and other warlike weapons, to the great terror of his
+majesty's well-disposed subjects, upon whom they had committed many
+extortions, murders, robberies, and other outrages. Hence divers
+proclamations had been published in his majesty's name, commanding
+that no person of what condition soever, travelling on horseback,
+should presume to carry more arms than one sword or rapier and dagger;
+and that no person travelling on foot should carry any weapons at all.
+Twenty days were allowed for giving the arms to the proper officers.
+If the proclamation was not obeyed within that time, the arms were
+to be seized for the king's use, and the bearers of them committed to
+prison.
+
+On July 21, 1609, a commission was issued by the crown to make
+inquisition concerning the forfeited lands in Ulster after the flight
+of the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnel. The commissioners included the
+Lord-Deputy Chichester, the Archbishops of Armagh and Dublin, Sir John
+Davis, attorney-general; Sir William Parsons, surveyor-general, and
+several other public functionaries. This work done, King James, acting
+on the advice of his prime minister, the Earl of Salisbury, took
+measures for the plantation of Ulster, a project earnestly recommended
+by statesmen connected with Ireland, and for which the flight of
+O'Neill and O'Donel furnished the desired opportunity. The city of
+London was thought to be the best quarter to look to for funds to
+carry on the plantation. Accordingly, Lord Salisbury had a conference
+with the lord mayor, Humphry Weld, Sir John Jolles, and Sir W.
+Cockaine, who were well acquainted with Irish affairs. The result was
+the publication of 'Motives and Reasons to induce the City of London
+to undertake the Plantation in the North of Ireland.'
+
+The inducements were of the most tempting character. It is customary
+to speak of Ulster, before the plantation, as something like a desert,
+out of which the planters created an Eden. But the picture presented
+to the Londoners was more like the land which the Israelitish spies
+found beyond Jordan--a land flowing with milk and honey. Among
+'the land commodities which the North of Ireland produceth' were
+these:--the country was well watered generally by abundance of
+springs, brooks, and rivers. There was plenty of fuel--either wood,
+or 'good and wholesome turf.' The land yielded 'store of all necessary
+for man's sustenance, in such a measure as may not only maintain
+itself, but also furnish the city of London yearly with manifold
+provision, especially for their fleets--namely, with beef, pork, fish,
+rye, bere, peas, and beans.' It was not only fit for all sorts of
+husbandry, but it excelled for the breeding of mares and the increase
+of cattle; whence the Londoners might expect 'plenty of butter,
+cheese, hides, and tallow,' while English sheep would breed abundantly
+there. It was also held to be good in many places for madder, hops,
+and woad. It afforded 'fells of all sorts in great quantity, red deer,
+foxes, sheep, lambs, rabbits, martins and squirrels,' &c. Hemp and
+flax grew more naturally there than elsewhere, which, being well
+regarded, would give provision for canvas, cables, cording, besides
+thread, linen cloth, and all stuffs made of linen yarn, 'which are
+more fine and plentiful there than in all the rest of the kingdom.'
+Then there were the best materials of all sorts for building, with
+'the goodliest and largest timber, that might compare with any in his
+majesty's dominions;' and, moreover, the country was 'very plentiful
+in honey and wax.'
+
+The sea and the rivers vied with the land in the richness of their
+produce. 'The sea fishing of that coast was very plentiful of all
+manner of usual sea fish--there being yearly, after Michaelmas, for
+taking of herrings, above seven or eight score sail of his majesty's
+subjects and strangers for lading, besides an infinite number of boats
+for fishing and killing.'
+
+The corporation were willing to undertake the work of plantation if
+the account given of its advantages should prove to be correct.
+With the caution of men of business, they wished to put the glowing
+representations of the Government to the test of an investigation by
+agents of their own. So they sent over 'four wise, grave, and discreet
+citizens, to view the situation proposed for the new colony.' The men
+selected were John Broad, goldsmith; Robert Treswell, painter-stainer;
+John Rowley, draper; and John Munns, mercer. On their return from
+their Irish mission they presented a report to the Court of Common
+Council, which was openly read. The report was favourable. A company
+was to be formed in London for conducting the plantation. Corporations
+were to be founded in Derry and Coleraine, everything concerning
+the colony to be managed and performed in Ireland by the advice and
+direction of the company in London. It was agreed between the Privy
+Council and the City that the sum of 20,000 l. should be levied,
+15,000 l. for the intended plantation, and 5,000 l. 'for the clearing
+of private men's interest in the things demanded.' That 200 houses
+should be built in Derry, and room left for 300 more. 'That 4,000
+acres lying on the Derry side, next adjacent to the wherry, should be
+laid thereunto--bog and barren mountain to be no part thereof, but
+to go as waste for the city; the same to be done by indifferent
+commissioners.'
+
+The royal charters and letters clearly set forth the objects of the
+plantation. James I., in the preamble of the charter to the town of
+Coleraine, thus described his intentions in disposing of the forfeited
+lands to English undertakers: 'Whereas there can be nothing more
+worthy of a king to perform than to establish the true religion of
+Christ among men hitherto depraved and almost lost in superstition;
+to improve and cultivate by art and industry countries and lands
+uncultivated and almost desert, and not only to stock them with
+honest citizens and inhabitants, but also to strengthen them with
+good institutions and ordinances, whereby they might be more safely
+defended not only from the corruption of their morals but from their
+intestine and domestic plots and conspiracies, and also from foreign
+violence: And whereas the province of Ulster in our realm of Ireland,
+for many years past, hath grossly erred from the true religion of
+Christ and divine grace, and hath abounded with superstition, insomuch
+that for a long time it hath not only been harassed, torn, and wasted
+by private and domestic broils but also by foreign arms: We therefore,
+deeply and heartily commiserating the wretched state of the said
+province, have esteemed it to be a work worthy of a Christian prince,
+and of our royal office, to stir up and recal the same province from
+superstition, rebellion, calamity, and poverty, which heretofore
+have horribly raged therein, to religion, obedience, strength, and
+prosperity. And whereas our beloved and faithful subjects the mayor
+and commonalty and citizens of our city of London, burning with a
+flagrant zeal to promote such our pious intention in this behalf, have
+undertaken a considerable part of the said plantation in Ulster, and
+are making progress therein'.
+
+King James, having heard very unsatisfactory reports of the progress
+of the plantation, wrote a letter to the lord deputy in 1612,
+strongly complaining of the neglect of the 'Londoners' to fulfil the
+obligations they had voluntarily undertaken. He had made 'liberal
+donations of great proportions of those lands to divers British
+undertakers and servitors, with favourable tenures and reservations
+for their better encouragement; but hitherto neither the safety of
+that country, nor the planting of religion and civility among those
+rude and barbarous people, which were the principal motives of that
+project, and which he expected as the only fruits and returns of
+his bounty, had been as yet any whit materially effected. He was not
+ignorant how much the real accomplishment of the plantation concerned
+the future peace and safety of that kingdom; but if there was no
+reason of state to press it forward, he would yet pursue and effect
+that object with the same earnestness, 'merely for the goodness and
+morality of it; esteeming the settling of religion, the introducing
+of civility, order, and government among a barbarous and unsubjected
+people, to be acts of piety and glory, and worthy also a Christian
+prince to endeavour.'
+
+The king therefore ordered that there should be a strict inquiry into
+the work done, because 'the Londoners pretended the expense of great
+sums of money in that service, and yet the outward appearance of it
+was very small.' The lord deputy was solemnly charged to give him
+a faithful account without care or fear to displease any of his
+subjects, English or Scottish, of what quality soever.'
+
+Sir Josias Bodley was the commissioner appointed for this purpose. He
+reported very unfavourably, in consequence of which his majesty
+called upon the Irish society and the several companies to give him an
+account of their stewardship. He also wrote again to the lord deputy
+in 1615. The language the king uses is remarkable, as proving the
+_trusteeship_ of the companies. Referring to Bodley's report he
+said:--
+
+'We have examined, viewed, and reviewed, with our own eye, every part
+thereof, and find greatly to our discontentment the slow progression
+of that plantation; some few only of our British undertakers,
+servitors, and natives having as yet proceeded effectually by the
+accomplishment of such things in all points as are required of them
+by the articles of the plantation; the rest, and by much the greatest
+part, having either done nothing at all, or so little, or, by reason
+of the slightness thereof, to so little purpose, that the work seems
+rather to us to be forgotten by them, and to perish under their hand,
+than any whit to be advanced by them; some having begun to build and
+not planted, others begun to plant and not built, and all of them, in
+general, retaining the Irish still upon their lands, the avoiding of
+which was the fundamental reason of that plantation. We have made
+a collection of their names, as we found their endeavours and
+negligences noted in the service, which we will retain as a memorial
+with us, and they shall be sure to feel the effects of our favour and
+disfavour, as there shall be occasion. It is well known to you that
+if we had intended only (as it seems most of them over-greedily
+have done) our present profit, we might have converted those large
+territories to our escheated lands, to the great improvement of the
+revenue of our crown there; but we chose rather, for the safety of
+that country and the civilizing of that people, to part with the
+inheritance of them at extreme undervalues, and to make a plantation
+of them; and since we were merely induced thereunto out of reason of
+state, we think we may without any breach of justice make bold with
+their rights who have neglected their duties in a service of so much
+importance unto us, and by the same law and reason of state resume
+into our hands their lands who have failed to perform, according to
+our original intention, the articles of plantation, and bestow them
+upon some other men more active and worthy of them than themselves:
+and the time is long since expired within which they were bound to
+have finished to all purposes their plantation, so that we want not
+just provocation to proceed presently with all rigour against them.'
+
+He gave them a year to pull up their arrears of work, and in
+conclusion said to Chichester: 'My lord, in this service I expect that
+zeal and uprightness from you, that you will spare no flesh, English
+or Scottish; for no private man's worth is able to counterbalance
+the particular safety of a kingdom, which this plantation, well
+accomplished, will procure.'
+
+Two or three years later, Captain Pynnar was sent to survey the lands
+that had been granted to the undertakers, and to report upon the
+improvements they had effected. A few notices from his report will
+give an idea of the state of Ulster at the commencement of this great
+social revolution:--
+
+Armagh was one of the six counties confiscated by James I. The
+territory had belonged to the O'Neills, the O'Hanlons, the O'Carrols,
+and M'Kanes, whose people were all involved more or less in the
+fortunes of the Earl of Tyrone, who wielded sovereign power over this
+portion of Ulster. The plantation scheme was said to be the work of
+the Privy Council of Ireland, and submitted by them for the adoption
+of the English Government. It was part of the plan that all the lands
+escheated in each county should be divided into four parts, whereof
+two should be subdivided into proportions consisting of about 1,000
+acres a piece; a third part into proportions of 1,500 acres; and the
+fourth in proportions of 2,000 acres. Every proportion was to be made
+into a parish, a church was to be erected on it, and the minister
+endowed with glebe land. If an incumbent of a parish of 1,000 acres he
+was to have sixty; if of 1,500 acres, ninety; and if 2,000 acres, he
+was to have 120 acres; and the whole tithes and duties of every
+parish should be allotted to the incumbent as well as the glebe. The
+undertakers were to be of several sorts. 1st, English and Scotch, who
+were to plant their proportions with English and Scotch tenants; 2nd,
+servitors in Ireland, who might take English or Scotch tenants at
+their choice; 3rd, natives of the county, who were to be freeholders.
+
+With respect to the disposal of the natives, it was arranged that the
+same course should be adopted as in the county of Tyrone, which was
+this: some were to be planted upon two of the small proportions, and
+upon the glebes; others upon the land of Sir Art O'Neill's sons and
+Sir Henry Oge O'Neill's sons, 'and of such other Irish as shall be
+thought fit to have any _freeholds_; some others upon the portions of
+such servitors as are not able to inhabit these lands with English or
+Scotch tenants, especially of _such as best know how to rule and
+order the Irish_. But the swordsmen (that is, the armed retainers or
+soldiers of the chiefs) are to be transplanted into such other parts
+of the kingdom as, by reason of the wastes therein, are fittest to
+receive them, namely, into Connaught and some parts of Munster, where
+they are to be dispersed, and not planted together in one place; and
+such swordsmen, who have not followers or cattle of their own, to be
+disposed of in his majesty's service.' This provision about planting
+the swordsmen, however, was not carried out. The whole county of
+Armagh was found to contain 77,300 acres of arable and pasture land,
+which would make 60 proportions. That county, as well as other parts
+of ancient Ireland, was divided into ballyboes, or townlands, tracts
+of tillage land surrounding the native villages unenclosed, and held
+in _rundale_, having ranges of pasture for their cattle, which were
+herded in common, each owner being entitled to a certain number of
+'collops' in proportion to his arable land. As these ballyboes were
+not of equal extent, the English made the division of land by acres,
+and erected boundary fences.
+
+The primate's share in this county was 2,400 acres. The glebes
+comprised 4,650 acres; the College of Dublin got 1,200, and the Free
+School at Armagh 720; Sir Turlough M'Henry possessed 9,900 acres,
+and 4,900 had been granted to Sir Henry Oge O'Neill. After these
+deductions, there were for the undertakers 55,620 acres, making in all
+forty-two proportions.
+
+Number one in the survey is the estate of William Brownlow, Esq.,
+which contained two proportions, making together 2,500 acres. Pynar
+reported as follows: 'Upon the proportion of Ballenemony there is a
+strong stone house within a good island; and at Dowcoran there is a
+very fair house of stone and brick, with good lyme, and hath a strong
+bawne of timber and earth with a pallizado about it. There is now laid
+in readiness both lyme and stone, to make a bawne thereof, the which
+is promised to be done this summer. He hath made a very fair town,
+consisting of forty-two houses, all which are inhabited with
+English families, and the streets all paved clean through; also two
+water-mills and a wind-mill, all for corn, and he hath store of arms
+in his house.'
+
+Pynar found 'planted and estated' on this territory 57 families
+altogether, who were able to furnish 100 men with arms, there not
+being one Irish family upon all the land. There was, however, a number
+of sub-tenants, which accounts for the fact that there was 'good store
+of tillage.' Five of the English settlers were freeholders, having 120
+acres each; and there were 52 leaseholders, whose farms varied in size
+from 420 acres to 5; six of them holding 100 acres and upwards. This
+was the foundation of the flourishing town of Lurgan.
+
+Mr. Obens had 2,000 acres obtained from William Powell, the first
+patentee. He had built a bawne of sods with a pallizado of boards
+ditched about. Within this there was a 'good fair house of brick and
+lyme,' and near it he had built four houses, inhabited by English
+families. There were twenty settlers, who with their under-tenants
+were able to furnish forty-six armed men. This was the beginning of
+Portadown.
+
+The fourth lot was obtained from the first patentee by Mr. Cope, who
+had 3,000 acres. 'He built a bawne of lyme and stone 180 feet square,
+14 feet high, with four flankers; and in three of them he had built
+very good lodgings, which were three stories high.' He erected
+two water-mills and one wind-mill, and near the bawne he had built
+fourteen houses of timber, which were inhabited by English families.
+This is now the rich district of Lough Gall.
+
+It should be observed here that, in all these crown grants, the
+patentees were charged crown rents only for the _arable_ lands
+conveyed by their title-deeds, bogs, wastes, mountain, and unreclaimed
+lands of every description being thrown in gratuitously; amounting
+probably to ten or fifteen times the quantity of demised ground set
+down in acres. Lord Lurgan's agent, Mr. Hancock, at the commencement
+of his evidence before the Devon Commission, stated that 'Lord Lurgan
+is owner of about 24,600 acres, with a population of 23,800, under the
+census of 1841'--that is, by means of original reclamation, drainage,
+and other works of agricultural improvement, Mr. Brownlow's 2,500
+acres of the year 1619, had silently grown up to 24,600 acres, and
+his hundred swordsmen, or pikemen, the representatives of 57 families,
+with a few subordinates, had multiplied to 23,800 souls. Now Mr.
+Hancock founds the tenant-right custom upon the fact that few, if any,
+of the 'patentees were wealthy;' we may therefore fairly presume that
+the _settlers built their own houses, and made their own improvements
+at their own expense_, contrary to the English practice.' As the
+population increased, and 'arable' land became valuable, bogs, wastes,
+and barren land were gradually reclaimed and cultivated, through
+the hard labour and at the cost of the occupying tenantry, until the
+possessions of his descendants have spread over ten times the area
+nominally demised by the crown to their progenitor. This process went
+on all over the province.
+
+Sixteen years passed away, and in the opinion of the Government the
+London companies and the Irish Society, instead of reforming as Irish
+planters, went on from bad to worse. Accordingly, in 1631, Charles I.
+found it necessary to bring them into the Star Chamber. In a letter to
+the lords justices he said:--
+
+'Our father, of blessed memory, in his wisdom and singular care,
+both to fortify and preserve that country of Ireland from foreign and
+inward forces, and also for the better establishment of true religion,
+justice, civility, and commerce, found it most necessary to erect
+British plantations there; and, to that end, ordained and published
+many politic and good orders, and for the encouragement of planters
+gave them large proportions and privileges. Above the rest, his grace
+and favour was most enlarged to the Londoners, who undertook the
+plantation of a considerable part of Ulster, and were specially
+chosen for their ability and professed zeal to public works; and yet
+advertisements have been given from time to time, not only by private
+men, but by all succeeding deputies, and by commissioners sent from
+hence and chosen there, and being many of them of our council, that
+the _Londoners for private lucre_ have broken and neglected both their
+general printed ordinances and other particular directions given by us
+and our council here, so as if they hall escape unpunished all others
+will be heartened to do the like, and in the end expose that our
+kingdom to former confusions and dangers; for prevention whereof we
+have, upon mature advice of our councillors for those causes, caused
+them to be questioned in our high court of Star-chamber here, whence
+commission is now sent to examine witnesses, upon interrogatories, for
+discovery of the truth; and because we understand that the Londoners
+heretofore prevailed with some, from whom we expected better service,
+that in the return of the last commission many things agreed under the
+hands of most commissioners were not accordingly certified: Now that
+our service may not surfer by like partiality, we will and require
+you to have an especial eye to this business; and take care that this
+commission be faithfully executed, and that no practice or indirect
+means be used, either to delay the return or to frustrate the ends of
+truth in every interrogatory.'
+
+This proceeding on the part of the crown was ascribed to the influence
+of Bishop Bramhall, who had come over with Lord Strafford as his
+chaplain. The result was, that in 1632 the whole county of Londonderry
+was sequestrated, and the rents levied for the king's use, the Bishop
+of Derry being appointed receiver and authorised to make leases. The
+lord chancellor, with the concurrence of the other judges, decreed
+that the letters patent should be surrendered and cancelled. This
+decree was duly executed.
+
+Cromwell reinstated the companies in their possessions, and Charles
+II., instead of reversing the forfeiture, granted a new charter. This
+charter founded a system of protection and corporate exclusiveness,
+the most perfect perhaps that ever existed in the three kingdoms.
+He began by constituting Londonderry a county, and Derry city a
+corporation--to be called Londonderry. He named the aldermen and
+burgesses, who were to hold their offices during their natural lives.
+He placed both the county and city under the control of 'the Irish
+Society,' which was then definitely formed. He appointed Sir Thomas
+Adams first governor, and John Saunders, deputy governor. He also
+appointed the twenty-four assistants, all citizens of London. He
+invested the society with full power 'to send orders and directions
+from, this kingdom of England into the said realm of Ireland, by
+letters or otherwise, for the ordering, directing, and disposing of
+all and all manner of matters and things whatsoever of and concerning
+the same plantation, or the disposition or government thereof. The
+grant of property was most comprehensive:--
+
+'We also will, and, by these presents for us, our heirs and
+successors, do give, grant, and confirm to the said society of the
+governor and assistants [London] of the new plantation in Ulster
+within the realm of Ireland, and their successors: 'All that the city,
+fort, and town of Derry, and all edifices and structures thereof, with
+the appurtenances, in the county of the city of Derry aforesaid, in
+the province of Ulster, in our realm of Ireland; and also the whole
+island of Derry, with the appurtenances, and all lands and the whole
+ground within the island of Derry aforesaid, in the said county of the
+city of Derry, otherwise Londonderry, within the province of Ulster,
+in our aforesaid realm of Ireland. And also all those lands next
+adjacent to the said city or town of Derry, lying and being on or
+towards the west part of the river of Loughfoyle, containing by
+estimation four thousand acres, besides bog and barren mountains,
+which said bog and barren mountains may be had and used as waste to
+the same city belonging. And also all that portion and proportion
+of land by the general survey of all the lands in the aforesaid late
+county of Coleraine, now Londonderry, heretofore taken, called the
+great proportion of Boughtbegg, lying and being in the barony or
+precinct of Coleraine, now Londonderry, within the province of Ulster
+aforesaid, in our said realm of Ireland; that is to say, all lands,
+tenements, and other hereditaments, called and known by the names, and
+situate, lying, and being in or within the several towns, villages,
+hamlets, places, balliboes, or parcels of land following, that is to
+say: Hacketbegg, being two balliboes of land; Aglakightagh, being two
+balliboes of land; Altybryan, being one balliboe of land; Bratbooly,
+being one balliboe of land; Hackmoore, being one balliboe of land;
+Tirecurrin, being one balliboe of land; Edermale, being one balliboe
+of land; Lennagorran, being one balliboe of land; Knockmult, being one
+balliboe of land; Boughtmore, being one balliboe of land; Boughtbegg,
+being one balliboe of land, &c.
+
+'We will also, and by these presents for us, our heirs and successors,
+do grant and confirm to the said society of the governor and
+assistants [London] of the new plantation in Ulster, and their
+successors, that they and their successors, and also all their
+assigns, deputies, ministers, and servants shall and may have full
+liberty of fishing, hawking, and fowling in all the places, tenements,
+shores, and coasts aforesaid, at their will and pleasure.
+
+'And that it shall and may be lawful to and for them and every of them
+to draw and dry their nets, and pack the fishes there taken upon any
+part of the shores and coasts aforesaid where they shall fish; and
+the salmons and other fishes there taken to take thence and carry away
+without any impediment, contradiction, or molestation of us or others
+whomsoever, wheresoever it shall happen to be done.
+
+'And that in like manner they may have the several fishings and
+fowlings within the city of Londonderry aforesaid, and in all lands
+and tenements before mentioned to be granted and confirmed to the said
+society of the governor and assistants [London] of the new plantation
+in Ulster and their successors, and in the river and water of
+Loughfoile, to the ebb of the sea, and in the river or water of Bann
+to Loughneagh.'
+
+The grants were made without any reservation in favour of the tenants
+or the old inhabitants, saving some portions of land given by letters
+patent by his grandfather to 'certain _Irish gentlemen_ in the said
+county of Londonderry, heretofore inhabiting and residing, and who
+were heretofore made freeholders, and their successors, under a small
+yearly rent,' which was to be paid to the Irish Society. Even the
+Irish gentlemen were not allowed to hold their ancient inheritance
+directly under the crown. I am informed that there is but one Roman
+Catholic landed gentleman now remaining in the whole province of
+Ulster.
+
+The Londoners had extraordinary privileges as traders. They had free
+quarters in every port throughout the kingdom, while they treated all
+but the members of their own body as 'foreigners.' They knew nothing
+of reciprocity:--'And further we will, and, by these presents for us,
+our heirs and successors, do grant and confirm to the said mayor and
+commonalty and citizens of our city of Londonderry aforesaid, that all
+citizens of the said city of Londonderry and liberty of the same (as
+much as in us is) be for ever quit and free, and all their things
+throughout all Ireland, of all tolls, wharfage, murage, anchorage,
+beaconage, pavage, pontage, piccage, stallage, passage, and lestage,
+and of all other tolls and duties.'
+
+The 'foreigners,' including all his majesty's subjects but the
+favoured few within the walls of Derry, were forbidden to buy or sell,
+or practise any trade in this sanctuary of freedom and head-centre
+of 'civility.' 'And that merchants and others which are not of the
+freedom of the city of Londonderry aforesaid shall not sell by
+retail any wines or other wares whatsoever within the same city of
+Londonderry, the suburbs, liberties, or franchises of the same, upon
+pain of forfeiture for the things so bought, or the value thereof,
+to the use of the mayor and commonalty and citizens of the city of
+Londonderry aforesaid. And also that no person being a foreigner from
+the freedom of the city aforesaid shall use or exercise within the
+same city, liberties or suburbs of the same, any art, mystery, or
+manual occupation whatsoever, to make his gain and profit thereof,
+upon pain of forfeiture of forty shillings for every time wherein
+such person shall use or exercise within the said city of Londonderry,
+liberties, and suburbs of the same, any art, mystery, or manual
+occupation as aforesaid.'
+
+Foreigners were not allowed to buy from or sell to foreigners, and
+there was to be no market for the accommodation of the unprivileged
+inhabitants within seven miles of the city.
+
+Similar exclusive privileges were conferred upon the corporation of
+Coleraine. Such was the system established by the City of London in
+its model communities in Ireland--normal schools of freedom, fountains
+of civilising and Christianising influences which were to reclaim and
+convert the barbarous and superstitious natives into loyal subjects
+and enlightened Protestants! What the natives beheld in Londonderry
+was, in fact, a royal organisation of selfishness, bigotry, and
+monopoly, of the most intensely exclusive and repulsive character. In
+one sense the Londoners in Derry showed that they peculiarly prized
+the blessings of civilisation, for they kept them all to themselves.
+The fountain was flowing in the most tempting manner before the
+thirsty Irish, but let them dare to drink of it at their peril! A fine
+which no Irishman was then able to pay must be the penalty for every
+attempt at civilisation!
+
+The representatives of Derry and Coleraine were not only elected
+without cost, but paid for their attendance in Parliament.
+
+From the very beginning, the greatest possible care was taken to
+keep out the Irish. The society, in 1615, sent precepts to all the
+companies requiring each of them to send one or two artisans, with
+their families, into Ulster, to settle there; and directions were also
+given, in order that Derry might not in future be peopled with Irish,
+that twelve Christ's Hospital and other poor children should be sent
+there as apprentices and servants, and the inhabitants were to be
+prohibited from taking Irish apprentices. Directions were also given
+to the companies, to repair the churches on their several proportions,
+and furnish the ministers with a bible, common-prayer book, and a
+communion cup. The trades which the society recommended as proper to
+introduce into Ulster were, weavers of common cloth, fustians, and
+new stuffs, felt-makers and trimmers of hats, and hat-band makers,
+locksmiths and farriers, tanners and fellmongers, iron makers,
+glass-makers, pewterers, coast fishermen, turners, basket-makers,
+tallow-chandlers, dyers, and curriers.
+
+The Christ's Hospital children arrived safe, and became the precious
+seed of the 'prentice boys.
+
+In 1629 the following return was made of the total disbursements by
+the Londoners in Derry from January 2, 1609, to this year:--
+
+                                                           £
+For 77-1/2 houses at 140 l. a house                      10,850
+For 33 houses at 80 l. a house                            2,680
+For the Lord Bishop's house                                 500
+For the walls and fortifications                          8,357
+For digging the ditch and filling earth for the rampire   1,500
+For levelling earth to lay the rampire                      500
+For building a faggot quay at the water-gate                100
+For two quays at the lime kilns                              10
+For the building of the town house                          500
+For the quays at the ferry                                   60
+For carriage and mounting the ordnance                       40
+For arms                                                    558
+For a guardhouse                                             50
+For the platforms for bulwarks                              300
+For some work done at the old church                         40
+For some work done at the town pike                           6
+For sinking 22 cellars, and sundry of the houses not
+done at first, at 20 s. cellar, one with another            440
+For the building of lime kilns                              120
+                                                         ______
+                                                         26,611
+                                                         ______
+Sum total, as given in the Commissioners' account        27,197
+
+The exclusive and protective system utterly failed to accomplish its
+purpose in keeping out the Irish.
+
+Sir Thomas Phillips made a muster-roll in 1622, in which he gives
+110 as the number of settlers in the city of Derry capable of bearing
+arms. There are but two Irish names in the list--Ermine M'Swine, and
+James Doherty. The first, from his Christian name, seemed to have
+been of mixed blood, the son of a judge, which would account for
+his orthodoxy. But his presence might have reminded the citizens
+unpleasantly of the Irish battle-axes. Never were greater pains taken
+to keep a community pure than within the sacred precincts of the
+Derry walls; and never was Protestantism more tenderly fostered by
+the state--so far as secular advantages could do it. The natives
+were treated as 'foreigners.' No trade was permitted except by the
+chartered British. They were free of tolls all over the land, and for
+their sake restrictions were placed on everybody that could in any way
+interfere with their worldly interests. So complete was the system
+of exclusion kept up by the English Government and the London
+corporation, in this grand experiment for planting religion and
+civility among a barbarous people, that, so late as the year 1708,
+the Derry corporation considered itself nothing more or less than _a
+branch of the City of London_! In that year they sent an address to
+the Irish Society, to be presented through them to the queen. 'In this
+address they stated themselves to be a branch of the City of London.
+The secretary was ordered to wait upon the lord lieutenant of Ireland
+with the address and entreat the favour of his lordship's advice
+concerning the presenting of the same to her majesty.' A few days
+after it was announced that the address had been graciously received,
+and published in the _Gazette_.
+
+The Irish were kept out of the enclosed part of the city till a late
+period. In the memory of the present generation there was no Catholic
+house within the walls, and I believe it is not much longer since
+the Catholic servants within the sacred enclosure were obliged to go
+outside at night to sleep among their kinsfolk. The English garrison
+did not multiply very fast. In 1626 there were only 109 families
+in the city, of which five were families of soldiers liable to
+be removed. Archbishop King stated that in 1690 the whole of the
+population of the parish, including the Donegal part, was about 700.
+
+But the irrepressible Irish increased and multiplied around the walls
+with alarming rapidity. The tide of native population rose steadily
+against the ramparts of exclusion, and could no more be kept back than
+the tide in the Foyle. In the general census of 1800 there were no
+returns from Derry. But in 1814 it was stated in a report by the
+deputation from the Irish Society, that the population amounted at
+that time to 14,087 persons. This must have included the suburbs. In
+the census of 1821 the city was found to have 9,313 inhabitants. The
+city and suburbs together contained 16,971.
+
+The report of the commissioners of public instruction in 1831 made a
+startling disclosure as to the effect of the system of exclusion in
+this 'branch of the City of London.' In the parish of Templemore (part
+of) there were--
+
+Members of the Established Church        3,166
+Presbyterians                            5,811
+Roman Catholics                          9,838
+
+The report of 1834 gave the Roman Catholics, 10,299; the
+Presbyterians, 6,083; and the Church only 3,314.
+
+The figures now are--Catholics          12,036
+Protestants of all denominations         8,839
+Majority of Irish and Catholics in this
+'branch of the City of London'           3,197
+
+This majority is about equal to the whole number which the exclusive
+system, with all its 'protection' and 'bounties,' could produce for
+the Established Church in the course of two centuries! If the Irish
+had been admitted to the Pale of English civilisation, and instructed
+in the industrial arts by the settlers, the results with respect to
+religion might have been very different. In the long run the Church
+of Rome has been the greatest gainer by coercion. Derry has been a
+miniature representation of the Establishment. The 'prentice boys,
+like their betters, must yield to the spirit of the age, and submit
+with the best grace they can to the rule of religious equality.
+
+The plantation was, however, wonderfully successful on the whole. In
+thirty years, towns, fortresses, factories, arose, pastures, ploughed
+up, were converted into broad corn-fields, orchards, gardens, hedges,
+&c. were planted. How did this happen? 'The answer is that it sprang
+from the security of tenure which the plantation settlement supplied.
+The landlords were in every case bound to make fixed estates to their
+tenants at the risk of sequestration and forfeiture. Hence their
+power of selling their plantation rights and improvements. This is the
+origin of Ulster tenant-right.'
+
+Yet the work went on slowly enough in some districts. The viceroy,
+Chichester, was not neglected in the distribution of the spoils. He
+not only got the O'Dogherty's country, Innishown, but a large tract in
+Antrim, including the towns of Carrickfergus and Belfast. An English
+tourist travelling that way in 1635 gives a quaint description of the
+country in that transition period:--
+
+On July 5 he landed at Carrickfergus, where he found that Lord
+Chichester had a stately house, 'or rather like a prince's palace.'
+In Belfast, he said, my Lord Chichester had another _daintie_, stately
+palace, which, indeed, was the glory and beauty of the town. And there
+were also _daintie_ orchards, gardens, and walks planted. The Bishop
+of Dromore, to whom the town of Dromore entirely belonged, lived
+there in a 'little timber house.' He was not given to hospitality, for
+though his chaplain was a Manchester man, named Leigh, he allowed
+his English visitor to stop at an inn over the way. 'This,' wrote the
+tourist, 'is a very dear house, 8 d. ordinary for ourselves, 6 d. for
+our servants, and we were overcharged in _beere_.' The way thence
+to Newry was most difficult for a stranger to find out. 'Therein he
+wandered, and, being lost, fell among the Irish _touns_.' The Irish
+houses were the poorest cabins he had seen, erected in the middle of
+fields and grounds which they farmed and rented. 'This,' he added,
+'is a wild country, not inhabited, planted, nor enclosed.' He gave an
+Irishman 'a groat' to bring him into the way, yet he led him, like a
+villein, directly out of the way, and so left him in the lurch.
+
+Leaving Belfast, this Englishman said: 'Near hereunto, Mr. Arthur
+Hill, son and heir of Sir Moyses Hill, hath a brave plantation,
+which he holds by lease, and which has still forty years to come.
+The plantation, it is said, doth yield him 1,000 l. per annum.
+Many Lancashire and Cheshire men are here planted. They sit upon a
+rack-rent, and pay 5 s. or 6 s. for good ploughing land, which now is
+clothed with excellent good _corne_.'
+
+According to the Down survey, made twenty-two years later, Dromore had
+not improved: 'There are no buildings in this parish; only Dromore, it
+being a market town, hath some old thatched houses and a ruined church
+standing in it. What other buildings are in the parish are nothing but
+removeable _creaghts_.'
+
+To the economist and the legislator, the most interesting portions
+of the state papers of the 16th and 17th centuries are, undoubtedly,
+those which tell us how the people lived, how they were employed,
+housed, and fed, what measure of happiness fell to their lot, and what
+were the causes that affected their welfare, that made them contented
+and loyal, or miserable and disaffected. Contemporary authors, who
+deal with social phenomena, are also read with special interest for
+the same reason. They present pictures of society in their own time,
+and enable us to conceive the sort of life our forefathers led, and to
+estimate, at least in a rough way, what they did for posterity.
+
+Harris was moved to write his 'History of Down' by indignation at
+the misrepresentations of the English press of his day. They had the
+audacity to say that 'the Irish people were uncivilised, rude, and
+barbarous; that they delighted in butter _tempered_ with oatmeal,
+and sometimes flesh without bread, which they ate raw, having
+first pressed the blood out of it; and drank down large draughts of
+usquebaugh for digestion, reserving their little corn for the horses;
+that their dress and habits were no less barbarous; that cattle
+was their chief wealth; that they counted it no infamy to commit
+robberies, and that in their view violence and murder were in no way
+displeasing to God; that the country was overgrown with woods, which
+abounded in wolves and other voracious animals,' &c. It was, no doubt,
+very provoking that such stories should be repeated 130 years
+after the plantation of Ulster, and Harris undertook, with laudable
+patriotism, to show 'how far this description of Ireland was removed
+from the truth, from the present state of only one county in the
+kingdom.' The information which the well-informed writer gives is most
+valuable, and very much to the purpose of our present inquiry.
+
+More than half the arable ground was then (in 1745) under tillage,
+affording great quantities of oats, some rye and wheat, and 'plenty
+of barley,' commonly called English or spring barley, making excellent
+malt liquor, which of late, by means of drying the grain with Kilkenny
+coals, was exceedingly improved. The ale made in the county was
+distinguished for its fine colour and flavour. The people found the
+benefit of '_a sufficient tillage_, being not obliged to take up
+with the poor unwholesome diet which the commonalty of Munster and
+Connaught had been forced to in the late years of scarcity; and
+sickness and mortality were not near so great as in other provinces of
+the kingdom.'
+
+Yet the county Down seemed very unfavourable for tillage. The
+economists of our time, perhaps our viceroys too, would say it was
+only fit for bullocks and sheep. It was 'naturally coarse, and full of
+hills; the air was sharp and cold in winter, with earlier frosts than
+in the south, the soil inclined to _wood_, unless constantly ploughed
+and kept open, and the low grounds degenerated into morass or bog
+where the drains were neglected. Yet, by the constant labour and
+industry of the inhabitants, the morass grounds had of late, by
+burning and proper management, produced surprisingly large crops
+of rye and oats. Coarse lands, manured with lime, had answered the
+farmers' views in wheat, and yielded a great produce, and wherever
+marl was found there was great store of barley. The staple commodity
+of the county was linen, due care of which manufacture brought great
+wealth among the people. Consequently the county was observed to be
+'populous and flourishing, though it did not become amenable to the
+laws till the reign of Queen Elizabeth, nor fully till the reign of
+James I.' The English habit, language, and manners almost universally
+prevailed. 'Irish,' says Harris, 'can be heard only among the inferior
+rank of _Irish Papists_, and even that little diminishes every day, by
+the great desire the poor natives have that their children should
+be taught to read and write in the English tongue in the Charter, or
+other English Protestant schools, to which they willingly send them.'
+The author exults in the progress of Protestantism. There were but two
+Catholic gentlemen in the county who had estates, and their income was
+very moderate. When the priests were registered in 1704 there were but
+thirty in the county. In 1733 the books of the hearth-money collectors
+showed--
+
+Protestant families in the county Down         14,000
+Catholic families                               5,210
+Total Protestants, reckoning five a family     70,300
+Total Catholics                                26,050
+                                               ______
+Protestant majority                            44,250
+
+Our author, who was an excellent Protestant of the 18th century type,
+with boundless faith in the moral influence of the Charter schools,
+would be greatly distressed if he could have lived in these degenerate
+days, and seen the last religious census, which gives the following
+figures for the county of Down:--
+
+Protestants of all denominations              202,026
+Catholics                                      97,240
+                                              _______
+Total population                              299,266
+
+The total number of souls in the county in the year 1733 was 96,350.
+These figures show that the population was more than trebled in 130
+years, and that the Catholics have increased nearly fourfold.
+
+The history of the Hertfort estate illustrates every phase of the
+tenant-right question. It contains 66,000 acres, and comprises the
+barony of Upper Massereene, part of the barony of Upper Belfast, in
+the county of Antrim, and part of the baronies of Castlereagh and
+Lower Iveagh, in the county of Down; consisting altogether of no
+less than 140 townlands. It extends from Dunmurry to Lough Neagh, a
+distance of about fourteen miles as the crow flies. When the Devon
+commission made its inquiry, the population upon this estate amounted
+to about 50,000. It contains mountain land, and the mountains are
+particularly wet, because, unlike the mountains in other parts of the
+country, the substratum is a stiff retentive clay. At that time there
+was not a spot of mountain or bog upon Lord Hertfort's estate that
+was not let by the acre. About one-third of the land is of first-rate
+quality; there are 15,000 or 16,000 acres of mountain, and about the
+same quantity of land of medium quality.
+
+In the early part of Elizabeth's reign this property formed a section
+of the immense territory ruled over by the O'Neills. One of these
+princes was called the Captain of _Kill-Ultagh_. In those times, when
+might was right, this redoubtable chief levied heavy contributions
+on the settlers, partly in retaliation for aggressions and outrages
+perpetrated by the English upon his own people. The queen, with the
+view of effecting a reconciliation, requested the lord deputy, Sir H.
+Sidney, to pay the Irish chief a visit. He did so, but his welcome
+was by no means gratifying. In fact, O'Neill would not condescend to
+receive him at all. His reason for exhibiting a want of hospitality
+so un-Irish was this:--He said his 'home had been pillaged, his lands
+swept of their cattle, and his vassals shot like wild animals.' The
+lord deputy, in his notes of the northern tour, written in October,
+1585, says:--'I came to Kill-Ultagh, which I found rich and plentiful,
+after the manner of these countries. But the captain was proud and
+insolent; he would not come to me, nor have I apt reason to visit
+him as I would. But he shall be paid for this before long; I will not
+remain in his debt.' The 'apt reason' for carrying out this threat
+soon occurred. Tyrone had once more taken the field against the queen;
+the captain joined his relative; all his property was consequently
+forfeited, and handed over to Sir Fulke Conway, a Welsh soldier of
+some celebrity. Sir Fulke died in 1626, and his brother, who was a
+favourite of Charles I., succeeded to the estate, to which his royal
+patron added the lands of Derryvolgie, thus making him lord of nearly
+70,000 statute acres of the broad lands of Down and Antrim. The
+Conways brought over a number of English and Welsh families, who
+settled on the estate, and intermarrying with the natives, a race of
+sturdy yeomen soon sprang up. The Conways were good landlords, and
+greatly beloved by the people. With the addition made to the property
+the king conferred upon the fortunate recipient of his bounty the
+title of Baron. At the close of 1627, Lord Conway began the erection
+of a castle (finished in 1630) on a picturesque mount overlooking
+the Lagan, and commanding a view of the hills of Down. During the
+struggles of 1641 the castle was burned down, together with
+the greater part of the town, which up to this time was called
+Lisnagarvah, but thenceforth it received the name of Lisburn. Very
+little, however, had been done by the settlers when the outbreak
+occurred, for an English traveller in 1635 remarked that 'neither the
+town nor the country thereabouts was _planted_, being almost all woods
+and moorish.' About a month after the breaking out of the rebellion
+the king's forces, under Sir George Rawdon, obtained a signal victory
+over the Irish commanded by Sir Phelim O'Neill, Sir Con M'Guinness,
+and General Plunket. In 1662 the town obtained a charter of
+incorporation from Charles II., and sent two members to the Irish
+parliament, the church being at the same time made the cathedral for
+Down and Connor. The Conway estates passed to the Seymours in this
+way. Popham Seymour, Esq., was the son of Sir Edward Seymour, fourth
+baronet, described by Bishop Burnet as 'the ablest man of his party,
+the first speaker of the House of Commons that was not bred to the
+law; a graceful man, bold and quick, and of high birth, being the
+elder branch of the Seymour family.' Popham Seymour inherited the
+estates of the Earl of Conway, who was his cousin, under a will dated
+August 19, 1683, and assumed in consequence the surname of Conway.
+This gentleman died unmarried, and was succeeded by his brother
+Francis, who was raised to the peerage in 1703 by the title of Baron
+Conway, of Kill-Ultagh, county Antrim. His eldest son, the second
+baron, was created Viscount Beauchamp and Earl of Hertfort in 1750. In
+1765 he was Viceroy of Ireland, and in 1793 he was created Marquis
+of Hertfort. The present peer, born in the year 1800, is the fourth
+marquis, having succeeded his father in 1842.
+
+Lisburn is classic ground. It represents all sorts of historic
+interest. On this hill, now called the Castle Gardens, the Captain
+of Kill-Ultagh mustered his galloglasse. Here, amid the flames of the
+burning town, was fought a decisive battle between the English and the
+Irish, one of the Irish chiefs in that encounter being the ancestor of
+the restorer of St. Patrick's Cathedral. The battle lasted till near
+midnight, when the Irish were put to flight, leaving behind them dead
+and wounded thrice the number of the entire garrison. Here, on this
+mount, stood William III. in June, 1690. I saw in the church the
+monument of Jeremy Taylor, and the pulpit from which the most eloquent
+of bishops delivered his immortal sermons. I saw the tablet erected
+by his mother to the memory of Nicholson, the young hero of Delhi,
+and those of several other natives of Lisburn who have contributed,
+by their genius and courage, to promote the fame and power of England.
+Among the rest Lieutenant Dobbs, who was killed in an encounter with
+Paul Jones, the American pirate, in Carrickfergus Bay.
+
+I received a hospitable welcome from a loyal gentleman in the house
+which was the residence of General Munroe, the hero of '98, and saw
+the spot in the square where he was hanged in view of his own windows.
+But I confess that none of the monuments of the past excited so much
+interest in my mind as the house of Louis Crommelin, the Huguenot
+refugee, who founded the linen manufacture at Lisburn. That house is
+now occupied by Mr. Hugh M'Call, author of 'Our Staple Manufactures,'
+who worthily represents the intelligence, the public spirit, and
+patriotism of the English and French settlers, with a dash of the
+Irish ardour, a combination of elements which perhaps produces the
+best 'staple' of character. I stood upon the identical oak floor upon
+which old Crommelin planned and worked, and in the grave-yard
+Mr. M'Call deciphered for me the almost obliterated inscriptions,
+recording the deaths of various members of the Crommelin family. Their
+leader, Louis himself, died in July, 1727, aged 75 years.
+
+The revocation of the Edict of Nantes drove three quarters of a
+million of Protestants out of France. A great number settled
+in London, where they established the arts of silk-weaving in
+Spitalfields and of fancy jewellery in St. Giles's. About 6,000 fled
+to Ireland, of whom many settled in Dublin, where they commenced the
+silk manufacture, and where one of them, La Touche, opened the first
+banking establishment. Wherever they settled they were missionaries of
+industry, and examples of perseverance and success in skilled labour,
+as well as integrity in commerce. Many of those exiles settled in
+Lisburn, and the colony was subsequently joined by Louis Crommelin,
+a native of Armandcourt near St. Quentin, where for several centuries
+his forefathers had carried on the flaxen manufacture on their own
+extensive possessions in the province of Picardy. Foreseeing the
+storm of persecution, the family had removed to Holland, and, at the
+personal request of the Prince of Orange, Louis came over to take
+charge of the colonies of his countrymen, which had been established
+in different parts of Ireland. The linen trade had flourished in this
+country from the earliest times. Linen formed, down to the reign of
+Elizabeth, almost the only dress of the population, from the
+king down--saffron-coloured, and worn in immense flowing robes,
+occasionally wrapped in various forms round the body. Lord Stafford
+had exerted himself strenuously to improve the fabric by the forcible
+introduction of better looms; but little had been done in this
+direction till the Huguenots came and brought their own looms, suited
+for the manufacture of fine fabrics. Mark Dupre, Nicholas de la
+Cherois, Obre, Rochet, Bouchoir, St. Clair, and others, whose ashes
+lie beside the Lisburn Cathedral and in the neighbouring churchyards,
+and many of whose descendants still survive among the gentry and
+manufacturers of Down and Antrim, were, with Crommelin, the chief
+promoters of the linen trade which has wrought such wonders in the
+province of Ulster. Lord Conway granted the Lisburn colonists a site
+for a place of worship, which was known as the French Church, and
+stood on the ground now occupied by the Court-house in Castle Street.
+The Government paid 60 l. a year to their first minister, Charles de
+la Valade, who was succeeded by his relative, the Rev. Saumarez du
+Bourdieu, distinguished as a divine and a historian. His father was
+chaplain to the famous Schomberg, and when he fell from his horse
+mortally wounded the reverend gentleman carried him in his arms to
+the spot on which he died a short time after. Talent was hereditary in
+this family, the Rev. John du Bourdieu, rector of Annahilt, was author
+of the Statistical Surveys of Down and Antrim, published by the Royal
+Dublin Society. Referring to his ancestors he says that his father
+had been fifty-six years minister of the French Church in Lisburn. Mr.
+M'Call states that, for some time before his death in 1812, he held
+the living of Lambeg, the members of the French Church having by that
+time merged into union with the congregation of the Lisburn Cathedral.
+A similar process took place in Dublin, Portarlington, and elsewhere,
+the descendants of the Huguenots becoming zealous members of the
+Established Church.
+
+Du Bourdieu informs us that Louis Crommelin obtained a patent for
+carrying on and improving the linen manufacture, with a grant of 800
+l. per annum, as interest of 10,000 l., to be advanced by him as a
+capital for carrying on the same; 200 l. per annum for his trouble;
+120 l. per annum for three assistants; and 160 l. for the support of
+the chaplain. Mr. M'Call, in his book, copies the following note of
+payments made by the Government from 1704 to 1708:--
+
+                                                       £   s.   d.
+
+Louis Crommelin, as overseer of linen manufacture    470   19    0
+
+W. Crommelin, salary and rent of Kilkenny factory    451    6    7
+
+Louis Crommelin, to repay him for sums advanced to
+flax dressers and reed makers, and for services of
+French ministers                                   2,225    0    0
+
+Louis Crommelin, for individual expenses and for
+sums paid Thomas Turner, of Lurgan, for buying
+flax-seed and printing reports                       993    4    0
+
+Louis Crommelin, three years' pension                600    0    0
+
+French minister's two years' pension                 120    0    0
+                                                   _______________
+Total                                             £4,860    9    7
+
+It should be mentioned, that when the owner of Lisburn, then Earl of
+Hertfort, held the office of lord lieutenant in 1765, with his son,
+Viscount Beauchamp, as chief secretary, he rendered very valuable
+services to the linen trade, and was a liberal patron of the damask
+manufacture, which arrived at a degree of perfection hitherto
+unequalled, in the hands of Mr. William Coulson, founder of the great
+establishment of that name which still flourishes in Lisburn, and
+from whom not only the court of St. James's but foreign courts also
+received their table linen. Du Bourdieu mentions that Lisburn and
+Lurgan were the great markets for cambrics--the name given to cloth
+of this description, which was then above five shillings a yard; under
+that price it was called lawn. In that neighbourhood cambric had been
+made which sold for 1 l. 2 s. 9 d. a yard unbleached. The principal
+manufacturing establishments in addition to Messrs. Coulsons' are
+those of the Messrs. Richardson and Co. and the Messrs. Barbour.
+
+Lord Dufferin has written the ablest defence of the Irish landlords
+that has ever appeared. In that masterly work he says: 'But though
+a dealer in land and a payer of wages, I am above all things an
+Irishman, and as an Irishman I rejoice in any circumstance which tends
+to strengthen the independence of the tenant farmer, or to add to
+the comfort of the labourer's existence.' If titles and possessions
+implied the inheritance of religion and blood, Lord Dufferin ought
+indeed to be 'Irish of the Irish' as the men of Ulster in the olden
+times proudly called themselves. On the railroad from Belfast to
+Bangor there is a station constructed with singular beauty, like
+the castellated entrance to a baronial hall, and on the elaborately
+chiselled stone we read 'Clandeboye.' Under the railway from Graypoint
+on Belfast Lough runs a carriage-drive two miles long, to the famous
+seat of the O'Neills, where his lordship's mansion is situated,
+enclosed among aged trees, remembrancers of the past. Perhaps, there
+is no combination of names in the kingdom more suggestive of the
+barbaric power of the middle ages and the most refined culture of
+modern civilisation. The avenue, kept like a garden walk, with a
+flourishing plantation on each side, was cut through some of the
+best farms on the estate, and must have been a work of great expense.
+Taking this in connection with other costly improvements, among which
+are several picturesque buildings for the residence of workmen--model
+lodging-houses resembling fancy villas at the seaside--we can
+understand how his lordship, within the last fifteen years, has paid
+away in wages of labour the immense sum of 60,000 l., at the rate of
+4,000 l. a year.
+
+The Abbot of Bangor never gave employment like that. William O'Donnon,
+the last of the line, was found in the thirty-second year of Henry
+VIII. to be possessed of thirty-one townlands in Ards and Upper
+Clandeboye, the grange of Earbeg in the county Antrim, the two
+Copeland Islands, the tithes of the island of Raghery, three rectories
+in Antrim, three in Down, and a townland in the Isle of Man. The
+abbey, some of the walls of which still remain, adjoining the parish
+church, was built early in the twelfth century. We are informed by
+Archdall, that it had so gone to ruin in 1469 through the neglect
+of the abbot, that he was evicted by order of Pope Paul II., who
+commanded that the friars of the third order of St. Francis should
+immediately take possession of it, which was accordingly done,
+says Wadding, by Father Nicholas of that order. The whole of the
+possessions were granted by James I. to James Viscount Clandeboye.
+
+Bangor was one of the most celebrated schools in Ireland when this
+island was said to have been 'the _quiet_ abode of learning and
+sanctity.' As to the quiet, I could never make out at what period it
+existed, nor how the 'thousands' of students at Bangor could have been
+supported. The Danes came occasionally up the lough and murdered the
+monks _en masse_, plundering the shrines. But the greatest scourges of
+the monasteries in Down and elsewhere were, not the foreign pagans and
+pirates, but the professedly Christian chiefs of their own country. It
+appears, therefore, that neither the Irish clergy nor the people have
+much reason to regret the flight of the Celtic princes and nobles, who
+were utterly unable to fulfil the duties of a government; and who did
+little or nothing but consume what the industry of the peasants, under
+unparalleled difficulties, produced. The people of Clandeboye and
+Dufferin might have been proud that their chief received 40 l. a year
+as a tribute or blackmail from Lecale, that he might abstain from
+visiting the settlers there with his galloglasse; but Lord Dufferin,
+the successor of the O'Neill of Clandeboye, spends among the peasantry
+of the present day 4,000 l. a year in wages. And how different is the
+lot of the people! Not dwelling in wattled huts under the oaks of the
+primeval forest, but in neat slated houses, with whitewashed walls,
+looking so bright and pretty in the sunshine, like snowdrops in the
+distant landscape. On the hill between Bangor and Newtownards, Lord
+Dufferin has erected a beautiful tower, from which, reclining on his
+couch, he can see the country to an immense extent, from the mountains
+of Antrim to the mountains of Mourne, Strangford Lough, Belfast Lough,
+the Antrim coast, and Portpatrick at the other side of the Channel,
+all spread out before him like a coloured map.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE REBELLION OF 1641.
+
+
+The Rebellion of 1641--generally called a 'massacre'--was undoubtedly
+a struggle on the part of the exiled nobles and clergy and the evicted
+peasants to get possession of their estates and farms, which had been
+occupied by the British settlers for nearly a generation. They
+might probably have continued to occupy them in peace, but for the
+fanaticism of the lords justices, Sir John Parsons and Sir John
+Borlace. It was reported and believed that, at a public entertainment
+in Dublin, Parsons declared that in twelve months no more Catholics
+should be seen in that country. The English Puritans and Scottish
+Covenanters were determined never to lay down their arms till they had
+made an end of Popery. Pym, the celebrated Puritan leader, avowed that
+the policy of his party was not to leave a priest alive in the land.
+Meantime, the Irish chiefs were busy intriguing at Rome, Madrid,
+Paris, and other continental capitals, clamouring for an invasion of
+Ireland, to restore monarchy and Catholicity--to expel the English
+planters from the forfeited lands. Philip III. of Spain encouraged
+these aspirations. He had an Irish legion under the command of Henry
+O'Neill, son of the fugitive Earl of Tyrone. It was reported that,
+in 1630 there were in the service of the Archduchess, in the Spanish
+Netherlands alone, 100 Irish officers able to command companies, and
+20 fit to be colonels. There were many others at Lisbon, Florence,
+Milan, and Naples. They had in readiness 5,000 or 6,000 stand of arms
+laid up at Antwerp, bought out of the deduction of their monthly pay.
+The banished ecclesiastics formed at every court a most efficient
+diplomatic corps, the chief of these intriguers being the celebrated
+Luke Wadding. Religious wars were popular in those times, and the
+invasion of Ireland would be like a crusade against heresy. But with
+the Irish chiefs the ruling passion was to get possession of their
+homes and their lands. The most active spirit among these was Roger,
+or Rory O'Moore, a man of high character, great ability, handsome
+person, and fascinating manners. With him were associated Conor
+Maguire, Costelloe M'Mahon, and Thorlough O'Neill, Sir Phelim O'Neill,
+Sir Con Magennis, Colonel Hugh M'Mahon, and the Rev. Dr. Heber
+M'Mahon. O'Moore visited the country, went through the several
+provinces, and, by communicating with the chiefs personally, organised
+the conspiracy to expel the British and recover the kingdom for
+Charles II. and the Pope.
+
+The plan agreed upon by the confederates was this:--A rising when
+the harvest was gathered in; a simultaneous attack on all the English
+fortresses; the surprise of Dublin Castle, said to contain arms for
+12,000 men; and to obtain for these objects all possible aid, in
+officers, men, and arms, from the Continent. The rising took place
+on the night of October 22, 1641. It might have been completely
+successful if the Castle of Dublin had been seized. It seemed an
+easy prey, for it was guarded only by a few pensioners and forty
+halberdiers, who would be quickly overpowered. But the plot was
+made known to the lords justices by an informer when on the eve of
+execution.
+
+Sir Phelim O'Neill was one of those 'Irish gentlemen' who, by royal
+favour, were permitted to retain some portions of their ancient
+patrimonies. At this time he was in possession of thirty-eight
+townlands in the barony of Dungannon, county Tyrone, containing 23,000
+acres, then estimated to be worth 1,600 l. a-year, equal to some
+10,000 l. of our money. Charles Boulton held by lease from the
+same chief 600 acres, at a yearly rent of 29 l. for sixty years, in
+consideration of a fine of 1,000 l. In 1641 this property yielded a
+profit rent of 150 l. a year. Three townlands in the same barony were
+claimed by George Rawden of Lisnagarvagh, as leased to him by Sir
+Phelim under the rent of 100 l., estimated to be worth 50 l. per
+annum.
+
+Sir Phelim might, therefore, have been content, so far as property was
+concerned. But, setting aside patriotism, religion, and ambition, it
+is likely enough that he distrusted the Government, and feared the
+doom pronounced in Dublin Castle against all the gentlemen of his
+creed and race. At all events he put himself at the head of the
+insurrection in Ulster. He and the officers under his command, on the
+night of the 22nd, surprised and captured the forts of Charlemont and
+Mountjoy. The towns of Dungannon, Newry, Carrickmacross, Castleblaney,
+Tandragee fell into the hands of the insurgents, while the O'Reillys
+and Maguires overran Cavan and Fermanagh. Sir Conor Magennis wrote
+from Newry to the Government officers in Down: 'We are for our lives
+and liberties. We desire no blood to be shed; but, if you mean to shed
+our blood, be sure we shall be as ready as you for that purpose.' And
+Sir Phelim O'Neill issued the following proclamation:--
+
+'These are to intimate and make known unto all persons whatsoever, in
+and through the whole country, the true intent and meaning of us whose
+names are hereunto subscribed: 1. That the first assembling of us is
+nowise intended against our sovereign lord the king, nor hurt of any
+of his subjects, either English or Scotch; but only for the defence
+and libertie of ourselves and the Irish natives of this kingdom. And
+we further declare that whatsoever hurt hitherto hath been done to
+any person shall be presently repaired; and we will that every person
+forthwith, after proclamation hereof, make their speedy repaire unto
+their own houses, under paine of death, that no further hurt be done
+unto any one under the like paine, and that this be proclaimed in all
+places.
+
+  'PHELIM O'NEILL.
+
+  'At Dungannon, the 23rd October, 1641.'
+
+It is easy for an insurgent chief to give such orders to a tumultuous
+mass of excited, vindictive, and drunken men, but not so easy to
+enforce them. The common notion among Protestants, however, that a
+midnight massacre of all the Protestant settlers was intended, or
+attempted, is certainly unfounded. Though horrible outrages were
+committed on both sides, the number of them has been greatly
+exaggerated. Mr. Prendergast quotes some contemporary authorities,
+which seem to be decisive on this point. In the same year was
+published by 'G.S., minister of God's word in Ireland,' 'A Brief
+Declaration of the Barbarous and Inhuman Dealings of the Northern
+Irish Rebels ...; written to excite the English Nation to relieve
+our poor Wives and Children that have escaped the Rebels' savage
+Cruelties.'
+
+This author says, it was the intention of the Irish to massacre all
+the English. On Saturday they were to disarm them; on Sunday to seize
+all their cattle and goods; on Monday, at the watchword 'Skeane,' they
+were to cut all the English throats. The former they executed; the
+third only (that is the massacre) they failed in.
+
+That the massacre rested hitherto in intention only is further evident
+from the proclamation of the lords justices of February 8, 1642;
+for, while offering large sums for the heads of the chief northern
+gentlemen in arms (Sir Phelim O'Neill's name heading the list with
+a thousand pounds), the lords justices state that the massacre had
+failed. Many thousands had been robbed and spoiled, dispossessed of
+house and lands, many murdered on the spot; but the chief part of
+their plots (so the proclamation states), and amongst them a universal
+massacre, had been disappointed.
+
+But, says Mr. Prendergast, after Lord Ormond and Sir Simon Harcourt,
+with the English forces, in the month of April, 1642, had burned the
+houses of the gentry in the Pale, and committed slaughters of unarmed
+men, and the Scotch forces, in the same month, after beating off
+Sir Phelim O'Neill's army at Newry, drowned and shot men, women, and
+priests, in that town, who had surrendered on condition of mercy, then
+it was that some of Sir Phelim O'Neill's wild followers in revenge,
+and in fear of the advancing army, massacred their prisoners in some
+of the towns in Tyrone. The subsequent cruelties were not on one side
+only, and were magnified to render the Irish detestable, so as to make
+it impossible for the king to seek their aid without ruining his cause
+utterly in England. The story of the massacre, invented to serve
+the politics of the hour, has been since kept up for the purposes
+of interest. No inventions could be too monstrous that served to
+strengthen the possession of Irish confiscated lands.
+
+'A True Relation of the Proceedings of the Scots and English Forces in
+the North of Ireland,' published in 1642, states that on Monday, May
+5, the common soldiers, without direction from the general-major, took
+some eighteen of the Irish women of the town [Newry], stripped them
+naked, threw them into the river, and drowned them, shooting some in
+the water. More had suffered so, but that some of the common soldiers
+were made examples of.
+
+'A Levite's Lamentation,' published at the same time, thus refers
+to those atrocities: 'Mr. Griffin, Mr. Bartly, Mr. Starkey, all of
+Ardmagh, and murdered by these bloudsuckers on the sixth of May. For,
+about the fourth of May, as I take it, we put neare fourty of them
+to death upon the bridge of the Newry, amongst which were two of
+the Pope's pedlers, two seminary priests, in return of which they
+slaughtered many prisoners in their custody.'
+
+A curious illustration of the spirit of that age is given in the fact
+that an English officer threw up his commission in disgust, because
+the Bishop of Meath, in a sermon delivered in Christ Church, Dublin,
+in 1642, pleaded for mercy to Irish women and children.
+
+The unfortunate settlers fled panic-stricken from their homes, leaving
+behind their goods, and, in many cases, their clothes; delicate women
+with little children, weary and footsore, hurried on to some place
+of refuge. In Cavan they crowded the house of the illustrious
+Bishop Bedell, at Kilmore. Enniskillen, Derry, Lisburn, Belfast,
+Carrickfergus, with some isolated castles, were still held by the
+English garrisons, and in these the Protestant fugitives found succour
+and protection. Before their flight they were in such terror that,
+according to the Rev. Dr. Maxwell, rector of Tynan, for three nights
+no cock was heard to crow, no dog to bark. The city of London sent
+four ships to Londonderry with all kinds of provisions, clothing,
+and accoutrements for several companies of foot, and abundance
+of ammunition. The twelve chief companies sent each two pieces of
+ordnance. No doubt these liberal and seasonable supplies contributed
+materially to keep the city from yielding to the insurgent forces by
+which it was besieged.
+
+Meantime the Government in Dublin lost not a moment in taking the
+most effectual measures for crushing the rebellion. Lord Ormond, as
+lieutenant-general, had soon at his disposal 12,000 men, with a fine
+train of field artillery, provided by Strafford for his campaign in
+the north of England. The king, who was in Scotland, procured the
+dispatch of 1,500 men to Ulster; and authorised Lords Chichester and
+Clandeboye to raise regiments among their tenants. Thus the 'Scottish
+army' was increased to about 5,000 foot, with cavalry in proportion.
+The Irish, on the other hand, were ill-provided with arms and
+ammunition. They were not even provided with pikes, for they had not
+time to make them. The military officers counted upon did not appear,
+though they had promised to be on the field at fourteen days' notice.
+Rory O'Moore, like 'Meagher of the sword' in 1848, had never seen
+service; and Sir Phelim O'Neill, like Smith O'Brien, was only a
+civilian when he assumed the high-sounding title of 'Lord General of
+the Catholic army in Ulster.' He also took the title of 'the O'Neill.'
+The massacre of a large number of Catholics by the Carrickfergus
+garrison, driving them over the cliffs into the sea at the point of
+the bayonet, madly excited the Irish thirst for blood. Mr. Darcy
+Magee admits that, from this date forward till the arrival of Owen Roe
+O'Neill, the war assumed a ferocity of character foreign to the nature
+of O'Moore, O'Reilly, and Magennis. 'That Sir Phelim permitted, if
+he did not in his gusts of stormy passion instigate, those acts of
+cruelty which have stained his otherwise honourable conduct, is too
+true; but he stood alone among his confederates in that crime, and
+that crime stands alone in his character. Brave to rashness and
+disinterested to excess, few rebel chiefs ever made a more heroic end
+out of a more deplorable beginning.' The same eulogy would equally
+apply to many of the English generals. Cruelty was their only crime.
+The Irish rulers of those times, if not taken by surprise, felt at the
+outbreak of open rebellion much as the army feels at the breaking
+out of a war, in some country where plenty of prize money can be won,
+where the looting will be rich and the promotion rapid. Relying with
+confidence on the power of England and the force of discipline, they
+knew that the active defenders of the Government would be victorious
+in the end, and that their rewards would be estates. The more
+rebellions, the more forfeited territory, the more opportunities to
+implicate, ruin, and despoil the principal men of the hated race. The
+most sober writer, dealing with such facts, cannot help stirring men's
+blood while recording the deeds of the heroes who founded the English
+system of government in Ireland, and secured to themselves immense
+tracts of its most fertile soil. What then must be the effect of the
+eloquent and impassioned denunciations of such writers as Mr.
+Butt, Mr. A.M. Sullivan, and Mr. John Mitchell, not to speak of the
+'national press'? Yet the most fiery patriot utters nothing stronger
+on the English rule in Ireland than what the Irish may read in the
+works of the greatest statesmen and most profound thinkers in England.
+The evil is in the facts, and the facts cannot be suppressed because
+they are the roots of our present difficulties. Mr. Darcy Magee, one
+of the most moderate of Irish historians, writing far away from his
+native land, not long before he fell by the bullet of the assassin--a
+martyr to his loyalty--sketches the preliminaries of confiscation at
+the commencement of this civil war.
+
+In Munster, their chief instruments were the aged Earl of Cork, still
+insatiable as ever for other men's possessions, and the president,
+St. Leger: in Leinster, Sir Charles Coote. Lord Cork prepared 1,100
+indictments against men of property in his province, which he sent to
+the speaker of the Long Parliament, with an urgent request that
+they might be returned to him, with authority to proceed against the
+parties named as outlaws. In Leinster, 4,000 similar indictments
+were found in the course of two days by the free use of the rack with
+witnesses. Sir John Read, an officer of the king's bedchamber, and
+Mr. Barnwall of Kilbrue, a gentleman of threescore and six, were among
+those who underwent the torture. When these were the proceedings of
+the tribunals in peaceable cities, we may imagine what must have been
+the excesses of the soldiery in the open country. In the south,
+Sir William St. Leger directed a series of murderous raids upon the
+peasantry of Cork, which at length produced their natural effect. Lord
+Muskerry and other leading recusants, who had offered their services
+to maintain the peace of the province, were driven by an insulting
+refusal to combine for their own protection. The 1,100 indictments
+of Lord Cork soon swelled their ranks, and the capture of the ancient
+city of Cashel, by Philip O'Dwyer, announced the insurrection of the
+south. Waterford soon after opened its gates to Colonel Edmund Butler;
+Wexford declared for the Catholic cause, and Kilkenny surrendered to
+Lord Mountgarret. In Wicklow, Coote's troopers committed murders such
+as had not been equalled since the days of the pagan Northmen. Little
+children were carried aloft writhing on the pikes of these barbarians,
+whose worthy commander confessed that 'he liked such frolics.' Neither
+age nor sex was spared, and an ecclesiastic was especially certain
+of instant death. Fathers Higgins and White of Naas, in Kildare, were
+given up by Coote to these 'lambs,' though, each had been granted a
+safe-conduct by his superior officer, Lord Ormond. And these murders
+were taking place at the very time when the Franciscans and Jesuits of
+Cashel were protecting Dr. Pullen, the Protestant chancellor of that
+cathedral and other Protestant prisoners; while also the castle of
+Cloughouter, in Cavan, the residence of Bishop Bedell, was crowded
+with Protestant fugitives, all of whom were carefully guarded by the
+chivalrous Philip O'Reilly.
+
+In Ulster, by the end of April, there were 19,000 troops, regulars and
+volunteers, in the garrison or in the field. Newry was taken by Monroe
+and Chichester. Magennis was obliged to abandon Down, and McMahon
+Monaghan; Sir Phelim was driven to burn Armagh and Dungannon and to
+take his last stand at Charlemont. In a severe action with Sir Robert
+and Sir William Stewart, he had displayed his usual courage with
+better than his usual fortune, which, perhaps, we may attribute to the
+presence with him of Sir Alexander McDonnell, brother to Lord Antrim,
+the famous _Colkitto_ of the Irish and Scottish wars. But the severest
+defeat which the confederates had was in the heart of Leinster, at the
+hamlet of Kilrush, within four miles of Athy. Lord Ormond, returning
+from a second reinforcement of Naas and other Kildare forts, at
+the head, by English account, of 4,000 men, found on April 13 the
+Catholics of the midland counties, under Lords Mountgarrett, Ikerrin,
+and Dunboyne, Sir Morgan Cavenagh, Rory O'Moore, and Hugh O'Byrne,
+drawn up, by his report 8,000 strong, to dispute his passage. With
+Ormond were the Lord Dillon, Lord Brabazon, Sir Richard Grenville, Sir
+Charles Coote, and Sir T. Lucas. The combat was short but murderous.
+The confederates left 700 men, including Sir Morgan Cavenagh and
+some other officers, dead on the field; the remainder retreated in
+disorder, and Ormond, with an inconsiderable diminution of numbers,
+returned in triumph to Dublin. For this victory the Long Parliament,
+in a moment of enthusiasm, voted the lieutenant-general a jewel worth
+500 l. If any satisfaction could be derived from such an incident, the
+violent death of their most ruthless enemy, Sir Charles Coote, might
+have afforded the Catholics some consolation. That merciless soldier,
+after the combat at Kilrush, had been employed in reinforcing Birr and
+relieving the castle of Geashill, which the Lady Letitia of Offally
+held against the neighbouring tribe of O'Dempsey. On his return from
+this service he made a foray against a Catholic force, which had
+mustered in the neighbourhood of Trim; here, on the night of the 7th
+of May, heading a sally of his troop, he fell by a musket shot--not
+without suspicion of being fired from his own ranks. His son and
+namesake, who imitated him in all things, was ennobled at the
+Restoration by the title of the Earl of Mountrath.
+
+The Long Parliament would not trust the king with an army in Ireland.
+They consequently took the work of subjugation into their own hands.
+Having confiscated 2,500,000 acres of Irish land, they offered it as
+security to 'adventurers' who would advance money to meet the cost of
+the war. In February, 1642, the House of Commons received a petition
+'of divers well affected' to it, offering to raise and maintain forces
+at their own charge 'against the rebels of Ireland, and afterwards to
+receive their recompense out of the rebels' estates.' Under the act
+'for the speedy reducing of the rebels' the adventurers were to carry
+over a brigade of 5,000 foot and 500 horse, and to have the right of
+appointing their own officers. And they were to have estates given to
+them at the following rates: 1,000 acres for 200 l. in Ulster, for 300
+l. in Connaught, for 450 l. in Munster, and 600 l. in Leinster. The
+rates per acre were 4 s., 6s., 8s., and 12 s. in those provinces
+respectively.
+
+The nature of the war, and the spirit in which it was conducted, may
+be inferred from the sort of weapons issued from the military
+stores. These included scythes with handles and rings, reaping-hooks,
+whetstones, and rubstones. They were intended for cutting down the
+growing corn, that the people might be starved into submission, or
+forced to quit the country. The commissary of stores was ordered to
+issue Bibles to the troops, one Bible for every file, that they might
+learn from the Old Testament the sin and danger of sparing idolaters.
+
+The rebellion in Ulster had almost collapsed before the end of the
+year. The tens of thousands who had rushed to the standard of Sir
+P. O'Neill were now reduced to a number of weak and disorganised
+collections of armed men taking shelter in the woods. The English
+garrisons scoured the neighbouring counties with little opposition,
+and where they met any they gave no quarter. Sir William Cole,
+ancestor of the Earl of Enniskillen, proudly boasted of his
+achievement in having 7,000 of the rebels famished to death within
+a circuit of a few miles of his garrison. Lord Enniskillen is an
+excellent landlord, but the descendants of the remnant of the natives
+on his estate do not forget how the family obtained its wealth and
+honours. The Government, however, seemed to have good reason to
+congratulate itself that the war was over with the Irish. To these Sir
+Phelim O'Neill had shown that there is something in a name: but if
+the name does not represent real worth and fitness for the work
+undertaken, it is but a shadow. It was so in Sir Phelim's O'Neill's
+case. Though he had courage, he was a poor general. But another hero
+of the same name soon appeared to redeem the honour of his race, and
+to show what the right man can do. At a moment when the national
+cause seemed to be lost, when the Celtic population in Ulster were
+meditating a wholesale emigration to the Scottish Highlands--'a word
+of magic effect was whispered from the sea-coast to the interior.'
+Colonel Owen Roe O'Neill had arrived off Donegal with a single ship,
+a single company of veterans, 100 officers, and a quantity of
+ammunition. He landed at Doe Castle, proceeded to the fort of
+Charlemont, met the heads of the clans at Clones in Monaghan, was
+elected general-in-chief of the Catholic forces, and at once set about
+organising an army. The Catholics of the whole kingdom had joined a
+confederation, which held its meetings at Kilkenny. A general assembly
+was convened for October 23, 1642. The peerage was represented by
+fourteen lords and eleven bishops. Generals were appointed for each
+of the other provinces, Preston for Leinster, Barry for Munster, and
+Burke for Connaught. With the Anglo-Irish portion of the confederacy
+the war was Catholic, and the object religious liberty. With them
+there was no antipathy or animosity to the English. There was the
+Pope's Nuncio and his party, thinking most of papal interests, and
+there was the national party, who had been, or were likely to be,
+made landless. The king, then at Oxford, was importuned by the
+confederation on the one side and the Puritans on the other; one
+petitioning for freedom of worship, the other for the suppression of
+popery. Pending these appeals there was a long cessation between the
+Irish belligerents.
+
+Ormond had amused the confederates with negotiations for a permanent
+peace and settlement, from spring till midsummer, when Charles,
+dissatisfied with these endless delays, dispatched to Ireland a more
+hopeful ambassador. This was Herbert, Earl of Glamorgan, one of the
+few Catholics remaining among the English nobility, son and heir to
+the Marquis of Worcester, and son-in-law to Henry O'Brien, Earl of
+Thomond. Of a family devoutly attached to the royal cause, to which
+it is said they had contributed not less than 200,000 l., Glamorgan's
+religion, his rank, his Irish connections, the intimate confidence of
+the king which he was known to possess, all marked out his embassy as
+one of the utmost importance.
+
+The earl arrived in Dublin about August 1, and, after an interview
+with Ormond, proceeded to Kilkenny. On the 28th of that month,
+preliminary articles were agreed to and signed by the earl on behalf
+of the king, and by Lords Montgarrett and Muskerry on behalf of the
+confederates. It was necessary, it seems, to get the concurrence of
+the Viceroy to these terms, and accordingly the negotiators on both
+sides repaired to Dublin. Here Ormond contrived to detain them ten
+long weeks in discussions on the articles relating to religion; it
+was the 12th of November when they returned to Kilkenny, with a much
+modified treaty. On the next day, the 13th, the new Papal Nuncio,
+a prelate who, by his rank, his eloquence, and his imprudence, was
+destined to exercise a powerful influence on the Catholic councils,
+made his public entry into that city.
+
+This personage was John Baptist Rinuccini, Archbishop of Fermo in
+the marches of Ancona, which see he had preferred to the more exalted
+dignity of Florence.
+
+From Limerick, borne along on his litter, such was the feebleness
+of his health, he advanced by slow stages to Kilkenny, escorted by a
+guard of honour, despatched on that duty by the supreme council.
+
+The pomp and splendour of his public entry into the Catholic capital
+was a striking spectacle. The previous night he slept at a village
+three miles from the city, for which he set out early on the morning
+of November 13, escorted by his guard and a vast multitude of the
+people. Five delegates from the supreme council accompanied him. A
+band of fifty students, mounted on horseback, met him on the way, and
+their leader, crowned with laurel, recited some congratulatory Latin
+verses. At the city gate he left the litter and mounted a horse richly
+housed; here the procession of the clergy and the city guilds awaited
+him: at the market cross, a Latin oration was delivered in his honour,
+to which he graciously replied in the same language. From the cross he
+was escorted to the cathedral, at the door of which he was received by
+the aged bishop, Dr. David Rothe. At the high altar he intonated the
+_Te Deum_, and gave the multitude the apostolic benediction. Then he
+was conducted to his lodgings, where he was soon waited upon by Lord
+Muskerry and General Preston, who brought him to Kilkenny Castle,
+where, in the great gallery, which elicited even a Florentine's
+admiration, he was received in stately formality by the president of
+the council--Lord Mountgarrett. Another Latin oration on the nature of
+his embassy was delivered by the Nuncio, responded to by Heber, Bishop
+of Clogher, and so the ceremony of reception ended.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Darcy Magee, vol. ii. p.128.]
+
+After a long time spent in negotiations, the celebrated Glamorgan
+treaty was signed by Ormond for the king, and Lord Muskerry and the
+other commissioners for the confederates. It conceded, in fact, all
+the most essential claims of the Irish--equal rights as to property,
+in the army, in the universities, and at the bar; gave them seats in
+both houses and on the bench; authorised a special commission of oyer
+and terminer, composed wholly of confederates; and declared that 'the
+independency of the parliament of Ireland on that of England' should
+be decided by declaration of both houses 'agreeably to the laws of the
+kingdom of Ireland.' In short, this final form of Glamorgan's treaty
+gave the Irish Catholics, in 1646, all that was subsequently obtained,
+either for the church or the country, in 1782, 1793, or 1829. 'Though
+some conditions were omitted, to which Rinuccini and a majority of the
+prelates attached importance, Glamorgan's treaty was, upon the whole,
+a charter upon which a free church and a free people might well have
+stood, as the fundamental law of their religious and civil liberties.'
+
+General O'Neill was greatly annoyed at these delays. Political
+events in England swayed the destiny of Ireland then as now. The poor
+vacillating, double-dealing king was delivered to the Puritans, tried,
+and executed. But before Cromwell came to smash the confederation and
+everything papal in Ireland, the Irish chief gladdened the hearts of
+his countrymen by the glorious victory of Benburb, one of the most
+memorable in Irish history.
+
+In a naturally strong position, the Irish, for four hours, received
+and repulsed the various charges of the Puritan horse. Then as the
+sun began to descend, pouring its rays upon the enemy, O'Neill led
+his whole force--five thousand men against eight--to the attack.
+One terrible onset swept away every trace of resistance. There were
+counted on the field 3,243 of the Covenanters, and of the Catholics
+but 70 killed and 100 wounded. Lord Ardes, and 21 Scottish officers,
+32 standards, 1,500 draught horses, and all the guns and tents, were
+captured. Monroe fled to Lisburn and thence to Carrickfergus, where he
+shut himself up till he could obtain reinforcements. O'Neill forwarded
+the captured colours to the Nuncio at Limerick, by whom they were
+solemnly placed in the choir of St. Mary's Cathedral, and afterwards,
+at the request of Pope Innocent, sent to Rome. The _Te Deum_ was
+chanted in the confederate capital; penitential psalms were sung
+in the northern fortresses. 'The Lord of Hosts,' wrote Monroe,
+'has rubbed shame on our faces till once we are humbled.' O'Neill
+emblazoned the cross and keys on his banner with the Red Hand
+of Ulster, and openly resumed the title originally chosen by his
+adherents at Clones, 'the Catholic Army.'
+
+The stage of Irish politics now presented the most extraordinary
+complications political and military. The confederation was occupied
+with endless debates and dissensions. Commanders changed positions so
+rapidly, the several causes for which men had been fighting became so
+confused in the unaccountable scene-shifting, giving glimpses now of
+the king, now of the commonwealth, and now of the pope, that no one
+knew what to do, or what was to be the end. The nuncio went home in
+disgust that his blessings and his curses, which he dispensed with
+equal liberality, had so little effect.
+
+At length appeared an actor who gave a terrible unity to the drama of
+Irish politics. Cromwell left London in July 1649, 'in a coach drawn
+by six gallant Flanders mares,' and made a grand progress to Bristol.
+He landed at Ring's End, near Dublin, on August 14. He entered the
+city in procession and addressed the people from 'a convenient place,'
+accompanied by his son Henry, Blake, Jones, Ireton, Ludlow, Hardress,
+Waller, and others. The history of Cromwell's military exploits in
+Ireland is well known. I pass on, therefore, to notice the effects of
+the war on the condition of the people.
+
+As usual, in such cases, the destruction of the crops and other
+provisions by the soldiers, brought evil to the conquerors as well as
+to their victims. There had been a fifteen years' war in Ulster,
+when James I. ascended the throne, and it left the country waste
+and desolate. Sir John Davis, his attorney-general, asserted the
+unquestionable fact that perpetual war had been continued between the
+two nations for 'four hundred and odd years,' and had always for its
+object to 'root out the Irish.' James was to put an end to this war,
+and, as we have seen, the lord deputy promised the people 'estates' in
+their holdings. The effect of this promise, as recorded by Davis,
+is remarkable. 'He thus made it a year of jubilee to the poor
+inhabitants, because every man was to return to his own house, and
+be restored to his ancient possessions, and they all went home
+rejoicing.'
+
+Poor people! they soon saw the folly of putting their trust in
+princes. Now, after a seven years' war, the nation was again
+visited with famine, and the country converted into a wilderness.
+Three-fourths of the cattle had been destroyed; and the commissioners
+for Ireland reported to the council in England in 1651, that four
+parts in five of the best and most fertile land in Ireland lay waste
+and uninhabited, stating that they had encouraged the Irish to till
+the land, promising them the enjoyment of the crops. They had also
+given orders 'for enforcing those that were removed to the mountains
+to return.' The soldiers were employed to till the lands round their
+posts. Corn had to be imported to Dublin from Wales. So scarce
+was meat that a widow was obliged to petition the authorities for
+permission to kill a lamb; and she was 'permitted and lycensed to kill
+and dresse so much lambe as shall be necessary for her own eating,
+not exceeding three lambes for this whole year, notwithstanding
+any declaration of the said Commissioners of Parliament to the
+contrary.'[A] This privilege was granted to Mrs. Buckley in
+consideration of 'her old age and weakness of body.' In 1654 the Irish
+revenue from all sources was only 198,000 l., while the cost of the
+army was 500,000 l. A sort of conditional amnesty was granted from
+necessity, pending the decision of Parliament, and on May 12,
+1652, the Leinster army of the Irish surrendered on terms signed
+at Kilkenny, which were adopted successively by the other principal
+armies between that time and the September following, when the Ulster
+forces surrendered. By these Kilkenny articles, all except those who
+were guilty of the first blood were received into protection on
+laying down their arms; those who should not be satisfied with the
+conclusions the Parliament might come to concerning the Irish nation,
+and should desire to transport themselves with their men to serve any
+foreign state in amity with the Parliament, should have liberty
+to treat with their agents for that purpose. But the Commissioners
+undertook faithfully to mediate with the Parliament that they
+might enjoy such a remnant of their lands as might make their lives
+comfortable at home, or be enabled to emigrate.
+
+[Footnote 1: Prendergast, the Cromwellian Settlement, p.16.]
+
+The Cromwellian administration in Ireland effected a revolution
+unparalleled in history. Its proceedings have been well summarised by
+Mr. Darcy Magee:--
+
+The Long Parliament, still dragging out its days under the shadow of
+Cromwell's great name, declared in its session of 1652 the rebellion
+in Ireland 'subdued and ended,' and proceeded to legislate for that
+kingdom as a conquered country. On August 12 they passed their Act of
+Settlement, the authorship of which was attributed to Lord Orrery, in
+this respect the worthy son of the first Earl of Cork. Under this act
+there were four chief descriptions of persons whose status was thus
+settled: 1. All ecclesiastics and royalist proprietors were exempted
+from pardon of life or estate. 2. All royalist commissioned officers
+were condemned to banishment, and the forfeit of two-thirds of their
+property, one-third being retained for the support of their wives and
+children. 3. Those who had not been in arms, but could be shown, by
+a parliamentary commission, to have manifested 'a constant, good
+affection' to the war, were to forfeit one-third of their estates,
+and receive 'an equivalent' for the remaining two-thirds west of
+the Shannon. 4. All husbandmen and others of the inferior sort, 'not
+possessed of lands or goods exceeding the value of 10 l.,' were to
+have a free pardon, on condition also of transporting themselves
+across the Shannon.
+
+This last condition of the Cromwellian settlement distinguished it,
+in our annals, from every other proscription of the native population
+formerly attempted. The great river of Ireland, rising in the
+mountains of Leitrim, nearly severs the five western counties from the
+rest of the kingdom. The province thus set apart, though one of the
+largest in superficial extent, had also the largest proportion of
+waste and water, mountain and moorland. The new inhabitants were there
+to congregate from all the other provinces before the first day of
+May, 1654, under penalty of outlawry and all its consequences; and
+when there, they were not to appear within two miles of the Shannon,
+or four miles of the sea. A rigorous passport system, to evade which
+was death without form of trial, completed this settlement, the design
+of which was to shut up the remaining Catholic inhabitants from all
+intercourse with mankind, and all communion with the other inhabitants
+of their own country.
+
+A new survey of the whole kingdom was also ordered, under the
+direction of Dr. William Petty, the fortunate economist who founded
+the house of Lansdowne. By him the surface of the kingdom was
+estimated at 10,500,000 plantation acres, three of which were deducted
+for waste and water. Of the remainder, above 5,000,000 were in
+Catholic hands, in 1641; 300,000 were church and college lands; and
+2,000,000 were in possession of the Protestant settlers of the reigns
+of James and Elizabeth. Under the Protectorate, 5,000,000 acres were
+confiscated; this enormous spoil, two-thirds of the whole island, went
+to the soldiers and adventurers who had served against the Irish,
+or had contributed to the military chest, since 1641--except 700,000
+acres given in 'exchange' to the banished in Clare and Connaught;
+and 1,200,000 confirmed to 'innocent Papists.' Such was the complete
+uprooting of the ancient tenantry or clansmen from their original
+holdings, that, during the survey, orders of parliament were issued to
+bring back individuals from Connaught to point out the boundaries of
+parishes in Munster. It cannot be imputed among the sins so freely
+laid to the historical account of the native legislature, that
+an Irish parliament had any share in sanctioning this universal
+spoliation. Cromwell anticipated the union of the kingdoms by 150
+years, when he summoned, in 1653, that assembly over which 'Praise-God
+Barebones' presided; members for Ireland and Scotland sat on the same
+benches with the commons of England. Oliver's first deputy in the
+government of Ireland was his son-in-law Fleetwood, who had married
+the widow of Ireton; but his real representative was his fourth son
+Henry Cromwell, commander-in-chief of the army. In 1657, the title of
+lord deputy was transferred from Fleetwood to Henry, who united the
+supreme civil and military authority in his own person until the eve
+of the restoration, of which he became an active partisan. We may thus
+properly embrace the five years of the Protectorate as a period of
+Henry Cromwell's administration.
+
+In the absence of a parliament, the government of Ireland was vested
+in the deputy, the commander-in-chief, and four commissioners, Ludlow,
+Corbett, Jones, and Weaver. There was, moreover, a high court of
+justice, which perambulated the kingdom, and exercised an absolute
+authority over life and property greater than even Strafford's Court
+of Star Chamber had pretended to. Over this court presided Lord
+Lowther, assisted by Mr. Justice Donnellan, by Cooke, solicitor to the
+parliament on the trial of King Charles, and the regicide Reynolds.
+By this court, Sir Phelim O'Neill, Viscount Mayo, and Colonels O'Toole
+and Bagnall were condemned and executed; children of both sexes were
+captured by thousands, and sold as slaves to the tobacco-planters of
+Virginia and the West Indies. Sir William Petty states that 6,000 boys
+and girls were sent to those islands. The number, of all ages, thus
+transported, was estimated at 100,000 souls. As to the 'swordsmen'
+who had been trained to fighting, Petty, in his _Political Anatomy_,
+records that 'the chiefest and most eminentest of the nobility and
+many of the gentry had taken conditions from the King of Spain,
+and had transported 40,000 of the most active, spirited men, most
+acquainted with the dangers and discipline of war.' The chief
+commissioners in Dublin had despatched assistant commissioners to the
+provinces. The distribution which they made of the soil was nearly
+as complete as that of Canaan among the Israelites; and this was
+the model which the Puritans had always before their minds. Where a
+miserable residue of the population was required to till the land
+for its new owners, they were tolerated as the Gibeonites had been by
+Joshua. Irish gentlemen who had obtained pardons were obliged to
+wear a distinctive mark on their dress on pain of death. Persons of
+inferior rank were distinguished by a black spot on the right cheek.
+Wanting this, their punishment was the branding-iron or the gallows.
+
+No vestige of the Catholic religion was allowed to exist. Catholic
+lawyers and schoolmasters were silenced. All ecclesiastics were slain
+like the priests of Baal. Three bishops and 300 of the inferior clergy
+thus perished. The bedridden Bishop of Kilmore was the only native
+clergyman permitted to survive. If, in mountain recesses or caves, a
+few peasants were detected at mass, they were smoked out and shot.
+
+Thus England got rid of a race concerning which Mr. Prendergast found
+this contemporary testimony in a MS. in Trinity College library,
+Dublin, dated 1615:--
+
+'There lives not a people more hardy, active, and painful ... neither
+is there any will endure the miseries of warre, as famine, watching,
+heat, cold, wet, travel, and the like, so naturally and with such
+facility and courage that they do. The Prince of Orange's excellency
+uses often publiquely to deliver that the Irish are souldiers the
+first day of their birth. The famous Henry IV., late king of France,
+said there would prove no nation so resolute martial men as they,
+would they be ruly and not too headstrong. And Sir John Norris was
+wont to ascribe this particular to that nation above others, that he
+never beheld so few of any country as of Irish that were idiots and
+cowards, which is very notable.'
+
+At the end of 1653, the parliament made a division of the spoil among
+the conquerors and the adventurers; and, on September 26, an act was
+passed for the new planting of Ireland by English. The Government
+reserved for itself the towns, the church lands, and the tithes, the
+established church, hierarchy and all, having been utterly abolished.
+The four counties of Dublin, Kildare, Carlow, and Cork were also
+reserved. The amount due to the adventurers was 360,000 l. This they
+divided into three lots, of which 110,000 l. was to be satisfied in
+Munster, 205,000 l. in Leinster, and 45,000 l. in Ulster, and the
+moiety of ten counties was charged with their payment--Waterford,
+Limerick, and Tipperary, in Munster; Meath, Westmeath, King's and
+Queen's Counties, in Leinster; and Antrim, Down, and Armagh, in
+Ulster. But, as all was required by the Adventurers Act to be done by
+lot, a lottery was appointed to be held in Grocers' Hall, London, for
+July 20, 1653, to begin at 8 o'clock in the morning, when lots should
+be first drawn in which province each adventurer was to be satisfied,
+not exceeding the specified amounts in any province; lots were to
+be drawn, secondly, to ascertain in which of the ten counties
+each adventurer was to receive his land--the lots not to exceed in
+Westmeath 70,000 l., in Tipperary 60,000 l., in Meath 55,000 l., in
+King's and Queen's Counties 40,000 l. each, in Limerick 30,000 l., in
+Waterford 20,000 l., in Antrim, Down, and Armagh 15,000 l. each. And,
+as it was thought it would be a great encouragement to the adventurers
+(who were for the most part merchants and tradesmen), about to plant
+in so wild and dangerous a country, not yet subdued, to have soldier
+planters near them, these ten counties, when surveyed (which was
+directed to be done immediately, and returned to the committee for
+the lottery at Grocers' Hall), were to be divided, each county by
+baronies, into two moieties, as equally as might be, without dividing
+any barony. A lot was then to be drawn by the adventurers, and by
+some officer appointed by the Lord General Cromwell on behalf of the
+soldiery, to ascertain which baronies in the ten counties should be
+for the adventurers, and which for the soldiers.
+
+The rest of Ireland, except Connaught, was to be set out amongst the
+officers and soldiers for their arrears, amounting to 1,550,000 l.,
+and to satisfy debts of money or provisions due for supplies advanced
+to the army of the commonwealth amounting to 1,750,000 l. Connaught
+being by the parliament reserved and appointed for the habitation of
+the Irish nation, all English and Protestants having lands there, who
+should desire to remove out of Connaught into the provinces inhabited
+by the English, were to receive estates in the English parts, of equal
+value, in exchange.
+
+The next thing was to clear out the remnant of the inhabitants,
+and the overture to this performance was the following merciful
+proclamation:--
+
+'The Parliament of the Commonwealth of England having by one act
+lately passed (entitled an Act for the Settling of Ireland) declared
+that _it is not their intention to extirpate this whole nation_,
+but that mercy and pardon for life and estate be extended to all
+husbandmen, plowmen, labourers, artificers, and others of the inferior
+sort, in such manner as in and by the said Act is set forth: for the
+better execution of the said Act, and that timely notice may be given
+to all persons therein concerned, it is ordered that the Governor and
+Commissioners of Revenue, or any two or more of them, within every
+precinct in this nation, do cause the said Act of Parliament with this
+present declaration to be published and proclaimed in their respective
+precincts _by beat of drumme and sound of trumpett_, on some markett
+day, within tenn days after the same shall come unto them within their
+respective precincts.
+
+'Dated at the Castle of Kilkenny, this 11th October, 1652.
+
+  'EDMUND LUDLOW,   MILES CORBET,
+  'JOHN JONES,      R. WEAVER.'
+
+A letter from Dublin, dated December 21, 1654, four days before
+Christmas, says the 'transplantation is now far advanced, the men
+being gone to prepare their new habitations in Connaught. Their wives
+and children and dependants have been, and are, packing away after
+them apace, and all are to be gone by the 1st of March next.' In
+another letter the writer _naïvely_ remarks, 'It is the nature of this
+people to be rebellious, and they have been so much the more disposed
+to it, having been highly exasperated to it by the transplanting
+work.' The temper of the settlers towards the natives may be inferred
+from a petition to the lord deputy and council of Ireland, praying for
+the enforcement of the original order requiring the removal of all
+the Irish nation into Connaught, except boys of fourteen and girls
+of twelve. 'For we humbly conceive,' say the petitioners, 'that the
+proclamation for transplanting only the proprietors, and such as have
+been in arms, will neither answer the end of safety nor what else is
+aimed at thereby. For the first purpose of the transplantation is
+to prevent those of natural principles' (i.e. of natural affections)
+'becoming one with these Irish, as well in affinity as idolatry, as
+many thousands did who came over in Elizabeth's time, many of which
+have had a deep hand in all the late murders and massacres. And shall
+we join in affinity,' they ask, 'with a people of these abominations?
+Would not the Lord be angry with us till He consumes us, having
+said--"the land which ye go to possess is an unclean land, because
+of the filthiness of the people who dwell therein. Ye shall not,
+therefore, give your sons to their daughters, nor take their daughters
+to your sons," as it is in Ezra ix. 11, 12, 14. "Nay, ye shall surely
+root them out, lest they cause you to forsake the Lord your God."
+Deut. c. vii. &c.'
+
+In this way they hoped that 'honest men' would be encouraged to come
+and live amongst them, because the other three provinces (that is, all
+the island but Connaught) would be free of 'tories,' when there was
+none left to harbour or relieve them. They would have made a clean
+sweep of Munster, Leinster, and Ulster, so that 'the saints' might
+inherit the land without molestation. If any Protestant friends of the
+Irish objected to this thorough mode of effecting the work of Irish
+regeneration, Colonel Lawrence 'doubted not but God would enable that
+authority yet in being to let out that dram of rebellious bloud, and
+cure that fit of sullenness their advocate speaks of.'
+
+The commissioners appointed to effect the transplantation were
+painfully conscious of their unworthiness to perform so holy a work,
+and Were overwhelmed with a sense of their weakness in the midst of
+such tremendous difficulties, so that they were constrained to say:
+'The child is now come to the birth, and much is desired and expected,
+but there is no strength to bring forth.' They therefore fasted and
+humbled themselves before the Lord, inviting the officers of the army
+to join them in lifting up prayers, 'with strong crying and tears,
+to Him to whom nothing is too strong, that His servants, whom He had
+called forth in this day to act in these great transactions, might be
+made faithful, and carried on by His own outstretched arm, against all
+opposition and difficulty, to do what was pleasing in His sight.'
+
+It is true they had this consolation, 'that the chiefest and
+eminentest of the nobility and many of the gentry had taken conditions
+from the king of Spain, and had transported 40,000 of the most active,
+spirited men, most acquainted with the dangers and discipline of war.'
+The priests were all banished. The remaining part of the whole nation
+was scarce one-sixth of what they were at the beginning of the war, so
+great a devastation had God and man brought upon that land; and that
+handful of natives left were poor labourers, simple creatures, whose
+sole design was to live and maintain their families.'
+
+Of course there were many exceptions to this rule. There were some of
+the upper classes remaining, described in the certificates which all
+the emigrants were obliged to procure, like Sir Nicholas Comyn, of
+Limerick, 'who was numb at one side of his body of a dead palsy,
+accompanied only by his lady, Catherine Comyn, aged thirty-five years,
+flaxen-haired, middle stature; and one maid servant, Honor M'Namara,
+aged twenty years, brown hair, middle stature, having no substance,'
+&c. From Tipperary went forth James, Lord Dunboyne, with 21 followers,
+and having 4 cows, 10 garrons, and 2 swine. Dame Catherine Morris, 35
+followers, 10 cows, 16 garrons, 19 goats, 2 swine. Lady Mary Hamilton,
+of Roscrea, with 45 persons, 40 cows, 30 garrons, 46 sheep, 2 goats.
+Pierce, Lord Viscount Ikerrin, with 17 persons, having 16 acres of
+winter corn, 4 cows, 5 garrons, 14 sheep, 2 swine, &c. There were
+other noblemen, lords of the Pale, descended from illustrious English
+ancestors, the Fitzgeralds, the Butlers, the Plunkets, the Barnwells,
+the Dillons, the Cheevers, the Cusacks, &c., who petitioned, praying
+that their flight might not be in the winter, or alleging that their
+wives and children were sick, that their cattle were unfit to drive,
+or that they had crops to get in. To them dispensations were granted,
+provided the husbands and parents were in Connaught building huts,
+&c., and that not more than one or two servants remained behind to
+look after the respective herds and flocks, and to attend to the
+gathering in and threshing of the corn. And some few, such as John
+Talbot de Malahide, got a pass for safe travelling from Connaught
+to come back, in order to dispose of their corn and goods, giving
+security to return within the time limited. If they did not return
+they got this warning in the month of March--that the officers had
+resolved to fill the jails with them, 'by which this bloody people
+will know that they (the officers) are not degenerated from English
+principles. Though I presume we should be very tender of hanging any
+except leading men, yet we shall make no scruple of sending them
+to the West Indies,' &c. Accordingly when the time came, all the
+remaining crops were seized and sold; there was a general arrest of
+all 'transplantable persons. All over the three provinces, men and
+women were hauled out of their beds in the dead hour of night to
+prison, till the jails were choked.' In order to further expedite
+the removal of the nobility and gentry, a court-martial sat in St.
+Patrick's Cathedral, and ordered the lingering delinquents, who shrunk
+from going to Connaught, to be hanged, with a placard on the breast
+and back of each victim--'_For not transplanting.'_
+
+Scully's conduct at Ballycohy, was universally execrated. But what did
+he attempt to do? Just what the Cromwellian officers did at the end
+of a horrid civil war 200 years ago, with this difference in favour of
+Cromwell, that Scully did not purpose to 'transplant,' He would simply
+uproot, leaving the uprooted to perish on the highway. His conduct was
+as barbarous as that of the Cromwellian officers. But what of Scully?
+He is nothing. The all-important fact is, that, in playing a part
+worse than Cromwellian, he, _acting according to English law, was
+supported by all the power of the state_; and if the men who defended
+their homes against his attack had been arrested and convicted, Irish
+judges would have consigned them to the gallows; and they might, as
+in the Cromwellian case, have ordered a placard to be put on their
+persons:--
+
+    'FOR NOT TRANSPLANTING!'
+
+In fact the Cromwellian commissioners did nothing more than carry out
+fully the _principles_ of our present land code. Nine-tenths of the
+soil of Ireland are held by tenants at will. It is constantly argued
+in the leading organs of English opinion, that the power of the
+landlords to resume possession of their estates, and turn them into
+pastures, evicting all the tenants, is _essential_ to the rights of
+property. This has been said in connection with the great absentee
+proprietors. According to this theory of proprietorship, the only one
+recognised by law, Lord Lansdowne may legally spread desolation over a
+large part of Kerry; Lord Fitzwilliam may send the ploughshare of ruin
+through the hearths of half the county Wicklow; Lord Digby, in the
+King's County, may restore to the bog of Allen vast tracts reclaimed
+during many generations by the labour of his tenants; and Lord
+Hertfort may convert into a wilderness the district which the
+descendants of the English settlers have converted into the garden
+of Ulster. If any or all of those noblemen took a fancy, like Colonel
+Bernard of Kinnitty or Mr. Allen Pollok, to become graziers and
+cattle-jobbers on a gigantic scale, the Government would be compelled
+to place the military power of the state at their disposal, to evict
+the whole population in the queen's name, to drive all the families
+away from their homes, to demolish their dwellings, and turn them
+adrift on the highway, without one shilling compensation. Villages,
+schools, churches would all disappear from the landscape; and, when
+the grouse season arrived, the noble owner might bring over a party of
+English friends to see his '_improvements!_' The right of conquest
+so cruelly exercised by the Cromwellians is in this year of grace _a
+legal right_; and its exercise is a mere question of expediency and
+discretion. There is not a landlord in Ireland who may not be a Scully
+if he wishes. It is not law or justice, it is not British power, that
+prevents the enactment of Cromwellian scenes of desolation in
+every county of that unfortunate country. It is self-interest, with
+humanity, in the hearts of good men, and the dread of assassination
+in the hearts of bad men, that prevent at the present moment the
+immolation of the Irish people to the Moloch of territorial despotism.
+It is the effort to render impossible those human sacrifices, those
+holocausts of Christian households, that the priests of
+feudal landlordism denounce so frantically with loud cries of
+'_confiscation_.'
+
+The 'graces' promised by Charles I. in 1628 demonstrate the real
+wretchedness of the country to which they were deceitfully offered,
+and from which they were treacherously withdrawn. From them we learn
+that the Government soldiers were a terror to more than the king's
+enemies, that the king's rents were collected at the sword's point,
+and that numerous monopolies and oppressive taxes impoverished the
+country. There was little security for estates in any part of Ireland,
+and none at all for estates in Connaught. No man could sue out livery
+for his lands without first taking the oath of the royal supremacy.
+The soldiers enjoyed an immunity in the perpetration of even capital
+crimes, for the civil power could not touch them. Those who were
+married, or had their children baptized, by Roman Catholic priests,
+were liable to fine and censure. The Protestant bishops and clergy
+were in great favour and had enormous privileges. The patentees of
+dissolved religious houses claimed exemption from various assessments.
+The ministers of the Established Church were entitled to the aid of
+the Government in exacting reparation for clandestine exercises of
+spiritual jurisdiction by Roman Catholic priests, and actually appear
+to have kept private prisons of their own. They exacted tithes from
+Roman Catholics of everything titheable. The eels of the rivers and
+lakes, the fishes of the sea paid them toll. The dead furnished the
+mortuary fees to the 'alien church' in the shape of the best clothes
+which the wardrobe of the defunct afforded. The government of
+Wentworth, better known as the Earl of Strafford, is highly praised by
+high churchmen and admirers of Laud, but was execrated by the Irish,
+who failed to appreciate the mercies of his star-chamber court, or to
+recognise the justice of his fining juries who returned disagreeable
+verdicts. The list of grievances, transmitted by the Irish House
+of Peers in 1641 to the English Government, cannot be regarded as
+altogether visionary, for it was vouched by the names of lords,
+spiritual and temporal, whose attachment to the English interest was
+undoubted. The lord chancellor (Loftus), the archbishop of Dublin
+(Bulkeley), the bishops of Meath, Clogher, and Killala were no rebels,
+and yet they protested against the grievances inflicted on Ireland by
+the tyranny of Strafford. According to these contemporary witnesses,
+the Irish nobles had been taxed beyond all proportion to the English
+nobles; Irish peers had been sent to prison although not impeached
+of treason or any capital offence; the deputy had managed to keep all
+proxies of peers in the hands of his creatures, and thus to sway the
+Upper House to his will; the trade of the kingdom had been destroyed;
+and the 'graces' of 1628 had been denied to the nation, or clogged by
+provisoes which rendered them a mockery. And yet, in the face of
+such evidence of misery and misgovernment, the Archbishop of Dublin
+asserted in a charge to his clergy, that 'all contemporary writers
+agree in describing the flourishing condition of the island, and its
+rapid advance in civilisation and wealth, when all its improvement
+was brought to an end by the catastrophe of the Irish rebellion of
+1641'--the very year in which the Irish Houses of Lords and Commons
+agreed in depicting the condition of Ireland as utterly miserable!
+
+But Archbishop Trench not only contradicts the authentic contemporary
+records, in picturing as halcyon days one of the most wretched periods
+of Irish history, but also wrongfully represents one of the saddest
+episodes of that history. He reminded his clergy 'that the number
+of Protestants who were massacred by the Roman Catholics during the
+rebellion was, by the most moderate estimate, set down as 40,000.' His
+grace seems to have been unacquainted with the contemporary evidence
+collected by the Protestant historian Warner, who examined the
+depositions of 1641, on which the story of the massacre was based, and
+found the estimate of those who perished in the so-called massacre to
+have been enormously exaggerated. He calculated the number of those
+killed, 'upon evidence collected within two years after the rebellion
+broke out,' at 4,028, besides 8,000 said to have perished through bad
+usage. The parliament commissioners in Dublin, writing in 1652 to the
+commissioners in England, say that, 'besides 848 families, there
+were killed, hanged, burned, and drowned 6,062. Thus there were two
+estimates--one of 12,000, the other of 10,000--each of which was far
+lower than the estimate of 40,000, which his grace calls 'the
+most moderate.' It turns out, moreover, that the argument based by
+Archbishop Trench on the false estimate of those said to have been
+massacred, is wholly worthless for the purpose intended by his grace.
+The disproportion of Protestants to Roman Catholics, which appears
+by the census of 1861, cannot be accounted for by the statistics
+of 1641--be those statistics true or false. For the proportion of
+Protestants to Roman Catholics was higher in 1672--thirty years after
+the alleged massacre--than in 1861. The Protestants in 1672, according
+to Sir W. Petty, numbered 300,000, and the Roman Catholics 800,000;
+while in 1861 there were found in Ireland only 1,293,702 Protestants
+of all denominations to 4,505,265 Roman Catholics. It follows from
+these figures, as has been already remarked by Dr. Maziere Brady, that
+there has been a relative decrease of Protestants, as compared with
+Roman Catholics, of 395,772 persons. And this relative decrease was in
+no way affected--inasmuch as it took place since the year 1672--by the
+alleged massacre of 1641.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE PURITAN PLANTATION.
+
+
+It is a fearful thing to undertake the destruction of a nation
+by slaughter, starvation, and banishment. When we read of such
+enormities, perpetrated by some 'scourge of God,' in heathen lands and
+distant ages, we are horrified, and we thank Providence that it is our
+lot to be born in a Christian country. But what must the world think
+of our Christianity when they read of the things that, in a most
+Bible-reading age, Englishmen did in Ireland?
+
+The work of transplanting was slow, difficult, and intensely painful
+to the Irish, for Connaught was bleak, sterile, and desolate, and the
+weather was inclement. The natural protectors of many families had
+been killed or banished, and the women and children clung with frantic
+fondness to their old homes. But for the feelings of such afflicted
+ones the conquerors had no sympathy. On the contrary, they believed
+that God, angry at their lingering, sent his judgments as a
+punishment. Mr. Prendergast has published a number of letters, written
+at the time by the English authorities and others, from which some
+interesting matters may be gleaned. The town of Cashel had got a
+dispensation to remain. 'But,' says the writer, 'the Lord, who is a
+jealous God, and more knowing of, as well as jealous against their
+iniquity than we, by a fire on the 23rd inst. hath burned down the
+whole town in little less than a quarter of an hour, except a few
+houses that a few English lived in,' &c. In consequence of the delay,
+the Irish began to break into 'torying' (plundering). 'The tories fly
+out and increase. What strange people, not to starve in peace.' To
+be inclined to plunder under such circumstances, with so gracious a
+Government, must be held to be a proof of great natural depravity, as
+well as of a peculiar incapacity to respect, or even to understand,
+the rights of property.
+
+At length, however, the land was ready for the enjoyment of the
+officers and soldiers. On August 20, 1655, the lord deputy, Fleetwood,
+thus addressed one of the officers:--
+
+'Sir,--In pursuance of his highness's command, the council here
+with myself and chief officers of the army having concluded about
+disbanding part of the army, in order to lessening the present charge,
+it is fit that your troope be one. And, accordingly, I desire you
+would march such as are willing to plant of them into the barony of
+Shelmaliere, in the county of Wexford, at or before the first day of
+September, where you shall be put into possession of your lands, for
+your arrears, according to the rates agreed on by the committee and
+agents. As also you shall have, upon the place wherein you are, so
+much money as shall answer the present three months' arrear due to you
+and your men, but to continue no longer the pay of the army than upon
+the muster of this August. The sooner you march your men the better;
+thereby you will be enabled to make provision for the winter.' After
+some sweetening hints that they will be perhaps paid hereafter as a
+militia he concludes:--
+
+'And great is your mercy, that after all your hardships and
+difficulties you may sit down, and, if the Lord give His blessing, may
+reape some fruits of your past services. Do not think it a blemish
+or underrating of your past services, that you are now disbanded; but
+look upon it as of the Lord's appointing, and with cheerfulness submit
+thereunto; and the blessing of the Lord be upon you all, and keep you
+in His fear, and give you hearts to observe your past experience of
+signal appearances. And that this fear may be seen in your hearts, and
+that you may be kept from the sins and pollutions which God hath so
+eminently witnessed against in those whose possessions you are to take
+up, is the desire of him who is
+
+  'Your very affectionate friend, to love and serve you,
+
+  'CHARLES FLEETWOOD.'
+
+He congratulated them that, 'having by the blessing of God obtained
+their peace, they might sit down in the enjoyment of the enemies'
+fields and houses, which they planted not nor built not. They had no
+reason to repent their services, considering how great an issue God
+had given.' Yet many refused to settle, and sold their debentures to
+their officers. What could they do with the farms? They had no horses
+or ploughs, no cattle to stock the land, no labourers to till it.
+Above all, they had no women. Flogging was the punishment for amours
+with Irish girls, and marriage with the idolatrous race was forbidden
+under heavy penalties. Hence the soldiers pretended that their wives
+were converted to Protestantism. But this was to be tested by a strict
+examination of each as to the state of her soul, and the means by
+which she had been enlightened. If she did not stand the test, her
+husband was degraded in rank, and, if disbanded, he was liable to
+be sent to Connaught with the fair seducer. The charms of the Irish
+women, however, proved irresistible, and the hearts of the pious
+rulers were sorely troubled by this danger.
+
+'In 1652, amongst the first plans for paying the army their arrears
+in land, it was suggested there should be a law that any officers or
+soldiers marrying Irishwomen should lose their commands, forfeit their
+arrears, and be made incapable of inheriting lands in Ireland. No such
+provision, however, was introduced into the act, because it provided
+against this danger more effectually by ordering the women to
+transplant, together with the whole nation, to Connaught. Those in
+authority, however, ought never to have let the English officers and
+soldiers come in contact with the Irishwomen, or should have ordered
+another army of young Englishwomen over, if they did not intend this
+provision to be nugatory. Planted in a wasted country, amongst the
+former owners and their families, with little to do but to make love,
+and no lips to make love to but Irish, love or marriage must follow
+between them as necessarily as a geometrical conclusion follows
+from the premises. For there were but few who (in the language of a
+Cromwellian patriot),
+
+  ----'rather than turne
+  From English principles, would sooner burne;
+  And rather than marrie an Irish wife,
+  Would batchellers remain for tearme of life.'
+
+About forty years after the Cromwellian Settlement, and just seven
+years after the Battle of the Boyne, the following was written: 'We
+cannot so much wonder at this [the quick "degenerating" of the English
+of Ireland], when we consider how many there are of the children of
+Oliver's soldiers in Ireland who cannot speak one word of English.
+And (which is strange) the same may be said of some of the children
+of King William's soldiers who came but t'other day into the country.
+This misfortune is owing to the marrying Irishwomen for want of
+English, who come not over in so great numbers as are requisite. 'Tis
+sure that no Englishman in Ireland knows what his children may be as
+things are now; they cannot well live in the country without growing
+Irish; for none take such care as Sir Jerome Alexander [second justice
+of the Common Pleas in Ireland from 1661 to his death in 1670], who
+left his estate to his daughter, but made the gift void if she married
+any Irishman;' Sir Jerome including in this term 'any lord of Ireland,
+any archbishop, bishop, prelate, any baronet, knight, esquire, or
+gentleman of Irish extraction or descent, born and bred in Ireland, or
+having his relations and means of subsistence there,' and expressly,
+of course, any 'Papist.'--'True Way to render Ireland happy and
+secure; or, a Discourse, wherein 'tis shown that 'tis the interest
+both of England and Ireland to encourage foreign Protestants to plant
+in Ireland; in a letter to the Hon. Robert Molesworth.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Cromwellian Settlement, p.130.]
+
+The impossibility of getting a sufficient number of settlers from
+England to cultivate the land, produce food, and render the estates
+worth holding, led to some fraudulent transactions for the benefit
+of the natives who were 'loath to leave.' The officers in various
+counties got general orders giving dispensations from the necessity
+of planting with English tenants, and liberty to take Irish, provided
+they were not proprietors or swordsmen. But the proprietors who had
+established friendships with their conquerors secretly became tenants
+under them to parts of their former estates, ensuring thereby the
+connivance of their new landlords against their transplantation. On
+June 1, 1655, the commissioners for the affairs of Ireland (Fleetwood,
+lord deputy, one of them), being then at Limerick, discovered this
+fraud, and issued a peremptory order revoking all former dispensations
+for English proprietors to plant with Irish tenants; and they enjoined
+upon the governor of Limerick and all other officers the removing of
+the proprietors thus sheltered and their families into Connaught, on
+or before that day three weeks. But, happily, says Mr. Prendergast,
+all penal laws against a nation are difficult of execution. The
+officers still connived with many of the poor Irish gentry and
+sheltered them, which caused Fleetwood, then commander of the
+parliament forces in Ireland, upon his return to Dublin, and within a
+fortnight after the prescribed limit for their removal was expired,
+to thunder forth from Dublin Castle a severe reprimand to all
+officers thus offending. Their neglect to search for and apprehend
+the transplantable proprietors was denounced as a great dishonour and
+breach of discipline of the army; and their entertaining any of them
+as tenants was declared a hindrance to the planting of Ireland with
+English Protestants. 'I do therefore,' the order continued, 'hereby
+order and declare, that if any officer or soldier under my command
+shall offend by neglect of his duty in searching for and apprehending
+all such persons as by the declaration of November 30, 1654, are
+to transplant themselves into Connaught; or by entertaining them as
+tenants on his lands, or as servants under him, he shall be punished
+by the articles of war as negligent of his duty, according to the
+demerit of such his neglect.'
+
+The English parliament resolved to clear out the population of all
+the principal cities and seaport towns, though nearly all founded and
+inhabited by Danes or English, and men of English descent. In order to
+raise funds for the war, the following towns were offered to English
+merchants for sale at the prices annexed:--Limerick, with 12,000 acres
+contiguous, for 30,000 l., and a rent of 625 l. payable to the state;
+Waterford, with 1,500 acres contiguous, at the same rate; Galway, with
+10,000 acres, for 7,500 l., and a rent of 520 l.; Wexford, with 6,000
+acres, for 5,000 l., and a rent of 156 l. 4 s.
+
+There were no bidders; but still the Government adhered to its
+determination to clear out the Irish, and supply their place with a
+new English population. Artisans were excepted, but strictly limited
+in number, each case being particularly described and registered,
+while dispensations were granted to certain useful persons, on the
+petition of the settlers who needed their services.
+
+On July 8 in the same year, the governor of Clonmel was authorised to
+grant dispensations to forty-three persons in a list annexed, or as
+many of them as he should think fit, being artificers and workmen, to
+stay for such time as he might judge convenient, the whole time not
+to exceed March 25, 1655. On June 5, 1654, the governor of Dublin was
+authorised to grant licences to such inhabitants to continue in the
+city (notwithstanding the declaration for all Irish to quit) as he
+should judge convenient, the licences to contain the name, age,
+colour of hair, countenance, and stature of every such person; and the
+licence not to exceed twenty days, and the cause of their stay to
+be inserted in each licence. Petitions went up from the old native
+inhabitants of Limerick; from the fishermen of Limerick; from the
+mayor and inhabitants of Cashel, who were all ordered to transplant;
+but, notwithstanding these orders, many of them still clung about
+the towns, sheltered by the English, who found the benefit of their
+services.
+
+The deserted cities of course fell speedily into ruins. Lord
+Inchiquin, president of Munster, put many artisans, menial servants,
+grooms, &c. in the houses, to take care of them in Cork; still about
+3,000 good houses in that city, and as many in Youghal, out of which
+the owners had been driven, were destroyed by the soldiers, who used
+the timber for fuel. The council addressed the following letter to
+Secretary Thurloe:--
+
+  'Dublin Castle, March 4, 1656.
+
+'Right Honourable,--The council, having lately taken into their
+most serious consideration what may be most for the security of this
+country, and the encouragement of the English to come over and plant
+here, did think fitt that all Popish recusants, as wel proprietors
+as others, whose habitations are in any port-towns, walled-towns, or
+garrisons, and who did not before the 15th of September 1643 (being
+the time mentioned in the act of 1653 for the encouragement of
+adventurers and soldiers), and ever since profess the Protestant
+religion, should remove themselves and their families out of all such
+places, and two miles at the least distant therefrom, before the
+20th of May next; and being desirous that the English people may take
+notice, that by this means there will be both security and conveniency
+of habitation for such as shall be willing to come over as planters,
+they have commanded me to send you the enclosed declaration, and to
+desire you that you will take some course, whereby it may be made
+known unto the people for their encouragement to come over and plant
+in this country.
+
+  'Your humble servant,
+
+  'THOMAS HERBERT, Clerk of the Council.'
+
+On July 23, 1655, the inhabitants of Galway were commanded to quit the
+town for ever by the 1st of November following, the owners of houses
+getting compensation at eight years' purchase.
+
+'On October 30, this order was executed. All the inhabitants, except
+the sick and bedrid, were at once banished, to provide accommodation
+for English Protestants, whose integrity to the state should entitle
+them to be trusted in a place of such importance; and Sir Charles
+Coote, on November 7, received the thanks of the Government for
+clearing the town, with a request that he would remove the sick and
+bedrid as soon as the season might permit, and take care that the
+houses while empty were not spoiled by the soldiery. The town was thus
+made ready for the English. There was a large debt of 10,000 l., due
+to Liverpool for their loss and suffering for the good cause. The
+eminent deservings and losses of the city of Gloucester also had
+induced the parliament to order them 10,000 l., to be satisfied in
+forfeited lands in Ireland. The commissioners of Ireland now offered
+forfeited houses in Galway, rated at ten years' purchase, to the
+inhabitants of Liverpool and Gloucester, to satisfy their respective
+debts, and they were both to arrange about the planting of it with
+English Protestants. To induce them to accept the proposal, the
+commissioners enlarged upon the advantages of Galway. It lay open for
+trade with Spain, the Straits, the West Indies, and other places;
+no town or port in the three nations, London excepted, was more
+considerable. It had many noble uniform buildings of marble, though
+many of the houses had become ruinous by reason of the war, and the
+waste done by the impoverished English dwelling there. No Irish were
+permitted to live in the city, nor within three miles of it. If it
+were only properly inhabited by English, it might have a more hopeful
+gain by trade than when it was in the hands of the Irish that
+lived there. There never was a better opportunity of undertaking a
+plantation and settling manufacturers there than the present, and they
+suggested that it might become another Derry.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: The Cromwellian Settlement.]
+
+Some writers, sickened with the state of things in Ireland, and
+impatient of the inaction of our rulers, and of the tedious forms of
+constitutional government, have exclaimed: 'Oh for one day of Oliver
+Cromwell!' Well, Ireland had him and his worthy officers for many
+years. They had opportunities, which never can be hoped for again, of
+rooting out the Irish and their religion. '_Thorough_' was their word.
+They dared everything, and shrunk from no consequences. They found
+Dublin full of Catholics; and on June 19, 1651, Mr. John Hewson had
+the felicity of making the following report on the state of religion
+in the Irish metropolis:--
+
+'Mr. Winter, a godly man, came with the commissioners, and they flock
+to hear him with great desire; besides, there is in Dublin, since
+January last, about 750 Papists forsaken their priests and the masse,
+and attends the public ordinances, I having appointed Mr. Chambers,
+a minister, to instruct them at his own house once a week. They all
+repaire to him with much affection, and desireth satisfaction. And
+though Dublin hath formerly swarmed with Papists, I know none (now)
+there but one, who is a chirurgeon, and a peaceable man. It is much
+hoped the glad tidings of salvation will be acceptable in Ireland, and
+that this savage people may see the salvation of God.'
+
+Political economists tell us that when population is greatly thinned
+by war, or pestilence, or famine, Nature hastens to fill up the void
+by the extraordinary fecundity of those who remain. The Irish must
+have multiplied very fast in Connaught during the Commonwealth; and
+the mixture of Saxon and Celtic blood resulting from the union of the
+Cromwellian soldiers with the daughters of the land must have produced
+a numerous as well as a very vigorous breed in Wexford, Kilkenny,
+Tipperary, Waterford, Cork, East and West Meath, King's and Queen's
+Counties, and Tyrone. But these were not 'wholly a right seed.' This
+was to be found only in the union of English with English, newly
+arrived from the land of the free. The more precious this seed was,
+the more care there should be in bringing it into the field. This
+matter constituted one of the great difficulties of the plantation.
+There were plenty of Irish midwives: they might have been affectionate
+and careful, possibly skilful; but if they had any good quality, the
+council could not see it. On the contrary, it gave them credit
+for many bad qualities, the worst of all being their idolatry and
+disloyalty. It was really dreadful to think of English mothers and
+their infants being at the mercy of Irish nurses. Consequently, after
+much deliberation, and 'laying the matter before the Lord' in prayer,
+it was resolved to bring over a state nurse from England, and to her
+special care were to be entrusted all the _accouchements_ in the city
+of Dublin. Endowed with such a monopoly, it was natural enough that
+she should be an object of envy and dislike to those midwives whom she
+had supplanted. She was therefore annoyed and insulted while passing
+through the streets. To put a stop to these outrages, a proclamation
+was issued from Dublin Castle for her special protection, which began
+thus:--
+
+_By the Commissioners of Parliament for the Affairs of Ireland_.
+
+'Whereas we are informed by divers persons of repute and godliness,
+that Mrs. Jane Preswick hath, through the blessing of God, been very
+successful within Dublin and parts about, through the carefull and
+skillfull discharge of her midwife's duty, and instrumental to helpe
+sundry poore women who needed her helpe, which bathe abounded to the
+comfourte and preservation of many English women, who (being come
+into a strange country) had otherwise been destitute of due helpe,
+and necessitated to expose their lives to the mercy of Irish midwives,
+ignorant in the profession, and bearing little good will to any of
+the English nation, which being duly considered, we thought fitt to
+evidence this our acceptance thereof, and willingness that a person
+so eminently qualified for publique good and so well reported of
+for piety and knowledge in her art should receive encouragement and
+protection,' &c.
+
+Cromwell and his ministers did not hesitate about applying heroic
+remedies for what they conceived to be grievances. The Irish
+parliament was abolished, like the Irish churches, the Irish cities,
+and everything else that could be called Irish, except the thing for
+which they fought--_the land_, which was to be Irish no more. The new
+England which the Protector established in the Island of Saints
+was represented, like Scotland, in the united parliament at
+Westminster--which first assembled in 1657. In that parliament, Major
+Morgan represented the county of Wicklow. In speaking against some
+proposed taxation for Ireland, he said, among other things, the
+country was under very heavy charges for rewards paid for the
+destruction of three beasts--the wolf, the priest, and the tory. 'We
+have three beasts to destroy,' he said, 'that lay burdens upon us. The
+first is a wolf, on whom we lay 5 l. a head if a dog, and 10 l. if a
+bitch. The second beast is a priest, on whose head we lay 10 l.; if he
+be eminent, more. The third beast is a tory, on whose head, if he be
+a public tory, we lay 20 l.; and 40 s. on a private tory. Your army
+cannot catch them: the Irish bring them in; brothers and cousins cut
+one another's throats.'
+
+In May, 1653, the council issued the following printed declaration.
+'Upon serious consideration had of the great multitudes of poore
+swarming in all parts of this nacion, occasioned by the devastation
+of the country, and by the habits of licentiousness and idleness
+which the generality of the people have acquired in the time of this
+rebellion; insomuch that frequently some are found feeding on carrion
+and weeds,--some starved in the highways, and many times poor children
+who have lost their parents, or have been deserted by them, are found
+exposed to and some of them fed upon _by ravening wolves and other
+beasts and birds of prey._'
+
+No wonder the wolves multiplied and became very bold, when they fed
+upon such dainty fare as Irish children! By what infatuation, by what
+diabolical fanaticism were those rulers persuaded that they were
+doing God a service, or discharging the functions of a Government,
+in carrying out such a policy, and consigning human beings to such a
+fate!
+
+By a printed declaration of June 29, 1653, published July 1, 1656,[1]
+the commanders of the various districts were to appoint days and times
+for hunting the wolf; and persons destroying wolves and bringing their
+heads to the commissioners of the revenue of the precinct were to
+receive for the head of a bitch wolf, 6 _l_; of a dog wolf, 5 _l_; for
+the head of every cub that preyed by himself, 40 s.; and for the head
+of every sucking cub, 10 _s_: The assessments on several counties
+to reimburse the treasury for these advances became, as appears from
+Major Morgan's speech, a serious charge. In corroboration it appears
+that in March, 1655, there was due from the precinct of Galway 243
+l. 5 s. 4 d. for rewards paid on this account. But the most curious
+evidence of their numbers is that lands lying only nine miles north of
+Dublin were leased by the state in the year 1653, under conditions of
+keeping a hunting establishment with a pack of wolf hounds for killing
+the wolves, part of the rent to be discounted in wolves' heads, at
+the rate in the declaration of June 29, 1653. Under this lease Captain
+Edward Piers was to have all the state lands in the barony of Dunboyne
+in the county of Meath, valued at 543 l. 8 s. 8 d., at a rent greater
+by 100 l. a year than they then yielded in rent and contribution, for
+five years from May 1 following, on the terms of maintaining at Dublin
+and Dunboyne three wolf-dogs, two English mastiffs, a pack of hounds
+of sixteen couple (three whereof to hunt the wolf only), a knowing
+huntsman, and two men and one boy. Captain Piers was to bring to the
+commissioners of revenue at Dublin a stipulated number of wolf-heads
+in the first year and a diminishing number every year; but for every
+wolf-head whereby he fell short of the stipulated number, 5 l. was to
+be defalked from his salary.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: A/84, p.255. Republished 7th July, 1656.--'Book of
+Printed Declarations of the Commissioners for the Affairs of Ireland.'
+British Museum.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Cromwellian Settlement, p.154.]
+
+Twenty pounds was paid for the discovery of a priest, the second
+'burdensome beast,' and to harbour him was death. Again I avail myself
+of the researches of Mr. Prendergast, to give a few orders on this
+subject.
+
+'_August_ 4, 1654.--Ordered, on the petition of Roger Begs, priest,
+now prisoner in Dublin, setting forth his miserable condition by being
+nine months in prison, and desiring liberty to go among his friends
+into the country for some relief; that he be released upon giving
+sufficient security that within four months he do transport himself to
+foreign parts, beyond the seas, never to return, and that during that
+time he do not exercise any part of his priestly functions, nor move
+from where he shall choose to reside my above five miles, without
+permission. Ordered, same date, on the petition of William Shiel,
+priest, that the said William Shiel being old, lame, and weak, and
+not able to travel without crutches, he be permitted to reside in
+Connaught where the Governor of Athlone shall see fitting, provided,
+however, he do not remove one mile beyond the appointed place without
+licence, nor use his priestly function.'
+
+At first the place of transportation was Spain. Thus:--'_February_
+1, 1653. Ordered that the Governor of Dublin take effectual course
+whereby the priests now in the several prisons of Dublin be forthwith
+shipped with the party going for Spain; and that they be delivered
+to the officers on shipboard for that purpose: care to be taken that,
+under the colour of exportation, they be not permitted to go into the
+country.'
+
+'_May_ 29, 1654.--Upon reading the petition of the Popish priests
+now in the jails of Dublin; ordered, that the Governor of Dublin take
+security of such persons as shall undertake the transportation of
+them, that they shall with the first opportunity be shipped for some
+parts in amity with the Commonwealth, provided the five pounds for
+each of the said priests due to the persons that took them, pursuant
+to the tenor of a declaration dated January 6, 1653, be first paid or
+secured.'
+
+The commissioners give reasons for this policy, which are identical
+with what we hear constantly repeated at the present day in Ireland
+and England and in most of the newspapers conducted by Protestants.
+For two centuries the burden of all comments on Irish affairs is 'the
+country would be happy but for priests and agitators.' 'Hang or banish
+the priests!' cry some very amiable and respectable persons, 'and then
+we shall have peace.' 'We can make nothing of those priests,' says the
+improving landlord, or agent, 'they will not look us straight in the
+face.'
+
+On December 8, 1655, in a letter from the commissioners to the
+Governor of Barbadoes, advising him of the approach of a ship with a
+cargo of proprietors deprived of their lands, and then seized for not
+transplanting, or banished for having no visible means of support,
+they add that amongst them were three priests; and the commissioners
+particularly desire they may be so employed as they may not return
+again where that sort of people are able to do much mischief, having
+so great an influence over the Popish Irish, and alienating their
+affections from the present Government. 'Yet these penalties did not
+daunt them, or prevent their recourse to Ireland. In consequence of
+the great increase of priests towards the close of the year 1655, a
+general arrest by the justices of the peace was ordered, under which,
+in April, 1656, the prisons in every part of Ireland seem to have
+been filled to overflowing. On May 3, the governors of the respective
+precincts were ordered to send them with sufficient guards from
+garrison to garrison to Carrickfergus, to be there put on board such
+ship as should sail with the first opportunity for the Barbadoes. One
+may imagine the pains of this toilsome journey by the petition of one
+of them. Paul Cashin, an aged priest, apprehended at Maryborough,
+and sent to Philipstown on the way to Carrickfergus, there fell
+desperately sick, and, being also extremely aged, was in danger of
+perishing in restraint for want of friends and means of relief. On
+August 27, 1656, the commissioners, having ascertained the truth of
+his petition, ordered him sixpence a day during his sickness; and
+(in answer probably to this poor prisoner's prayer to be spared from
+transportation) their order directed that it should be continued to
+him in his travel thence (after his recovery) to Carrickfergus, in
+order to his transportation to the Barbadoes.'
+
+At Carrickfergus the horrors of approaching exile seem to have shaken
+the firmness of some of them; for on September 23, 1656, Colonel
+Cooper, who had the charge of the prison, reporting that several would
+under their hands renounce the Pope's supremacy, and frequent the
+Protestant meetings and no other, he was directed to dispense with the
+transportation, if they could give good Protestant security for the
+sincerity of their professions.
+
+As for the third beast--the tory, the following extract gives an idea
+of the class to which he belonged, or, rather, from which he sprang.
+
+'And whereas the children, grandchildren, brothers, nephews, uncles,
+and next pretended heirs of the persons attainted, do remain in
+the provinces of Leinster, Ulster, and Munster, having little or no
+visible estates or subsistence, but living only and coshering upon
+the common sort of people who were tenants to or followers of the
+respective ancestors of such persons, waiting an opportunity, as
+may justly be supposed, to massacre and destroy the English who, as
+adventurers or souldiers, or their tenants, are set down to plant upon
+the several lands and estates of the persons so attainted,' they
+are to transplant or be transported to the English plantations in
+America.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Act for Attainder of the Rebels in Ireland, passed 1656.
+Scobell's 'Acts and Ordinances.']
+
+No wonder that Mr. Prendergast exclaims:--
+
+'But how must the feelings of national hatred have been heightened,
+by seeing every where crowds of such unfortunates, their brothers,
+cousins, kinsmen, and by beholding the whole country given up a prey
+to hungry insolent soldiers and adventurers from England, mocking
+their wrongs, and triumphing in their own irresistible power!'
+
+Every possible mode of repression that has been devised at the
+present time as a remedy for Ribbonism was then tried with unflinching
+determination. John Symonds, an English settler, was murdered near
+the garrison town of Timolin, in the county Kildare. All the Irish
+inhabitants of the town and neighbourhood were immediately transported
+to Connaught as a punishment for the crime. A few months after two
+more settlers were murdered at Lackagh.
+
+'All the Irish in the townland of Lackagh were seized; four of them
+by sentence of court-martial were hanged for the murder, or for not
+preventing it; and all the rest, thirty-seven in number, including two
+priests, were on November 27 delivered to the captain of the "Wexford"
+frigate, to take to Waterford, there to be handed over to Mr. Norton,
+a Bristol merchant, to be sold as bond slaves to the sugar-planters in
+the Barbadoes. Among these were Mrs. Margery Fitzgerald, of the age
+of fourscore years, and her husband, Mr. Henry Fitzgerald of Lackagh;
+although (as it afterwards appeared) the tories had by their frequent
+robberies much infested that gentleman and his tenants--discovery that
+seems to have been made only after the king's restoration.'
+
+The penalties against the tories themselves were to allow them no
+quarter when caught, and to set a price upon their heads. The ordinary
+price for the head of a tory was 40 s.; for leaders of tories, or
+distinguished men, it varied from 5 l. to 30 l.
+
+'But,' continues Mr. Prendergast, 'a more effective way of suppressing
+tories seems to have been to induce them, as already mentioned,
+to betray or murder one another--a measure continued after the
+Restoration, during the absence of parliaments, by acts and orders
+of state, and re-enacted by the first parliament summoned after
+the Revolution, when in that and the following reigns almost every
+provision of the rule of the parliament of England in Ireland was
+re-enacted by the parliaments of Ireland, composed of the soldiers and
+adventurers of Cromwell's day, or new English and Scotch capitalists.
+In 1695 any tory killing two other tories proclaimed and on their
+keeping was entitled to pardon--a measure which put such distrust and
+alarm among their bands on finding one of their number so killed,
+that it became difficult to kill a second. Therefore, in 1718, it was
+declared sufficient qualification for pardon for a tory to kill one
+of his fellow-tories. This law was continued in 1755 for twenty-one
+years, and only expired in 1776. Tory-hunting and tory-murdering thus
+became common pursuits. No wonder, therefore, after so lengthened an
+existence, to find traces of the tories in our household words. Few,
+however, are now aware that the well-known Irish nursery rhymes have
+so truly historical a foundation:--
+
+  'Ho! brother Teig, what is your story?'
+  'I went to the wood and shot a tory:'
+  'I went to the wood, and shot another;'
+  'Was it the same, or was it his brother?'
+
+  'I hunted him in, and I hunted him out,
+  Three times through the bog, and about and about;
+  Till out of a bush I spied his head,
+  So I levelled my gun and shot him dead.'
+
+After the war of 1688, the tories received fresh accessions, and, a
+great part of the kingdom being left waste and desolate, they betook
+themselves to these wilds, and greatly discouraged the replanting of
+the kingdom by their frequent murders of the new Scotch and English
+planters; the Irish 'choosing rather' (so runs the language of
+the act) 'to suffer strangers to be robbed and despoiled, than to
+apprehend or convict the offenders.' In order, therefore, for the
+better encouragement of strangers to plant and inhabit the kingdom,
+any persons presented as tories, by the gentlemen of a county, and
+proclaimed as such by the lord lieutenant, might be shot as outlaws
+and traitors; and any persons harbouring them were to be guilty of
+high treason.[1] Rewards were offered for the taking or killing of
+them; and the inhabitants of the barony, of the ancient native race,
+were to make satisfaction for all robberies and spoils. If persons
+were maimed or dismembered by tories, they were to be compensated by
+10 l.; and the families of persons murdered were to receive 30 l.'
+
+[Footnote 1: The Cromwellian Settlement, p.163, &c.]
+
+The Restoration at length brought relief and enlargement to the
+imprisoned Irish nation. They rushed across the Shannon to see their
+old homes; they returned to the desolated cities, full of hope
+that the king for whom they had suffered so much would reward
+their loyalty, by giving them back their inheritances--the 'just
+satisfaction' promised at Breda to those who had been unfairly
+deprived of their estates. The Ulster Presbyterians also counted on
+his gratitude for their devotion to his cause, notwithstanding the
+wrongs inflicted on them by Strafford and the bishops in the name of
+his father. But they were equally doomed to disappointment. Coote
+and Broghill reigned in Dublin Castle as lords justices. The first
+parliament assembled in Dublin for twenty years, contained an
+overwhelming majority of undertakers, adventurers, and Puritan
+representatives of boroughs, from which all the Catholic electors
+had been excluded. 'The Protestant interest,' a phrase of tremendous
+potency in the subsequent history of Ireland, counted 198 members
+against 64 Catholics in the Commons, and in the Lords 72 against 21
+peers. A court was established under an act of parliament in Dublin,
+to try the claims of 'nocent' and 'innocent' proprietors. The judges,
+who were Englishmen, declared in their first session that 168 were
+innocent to 19 nocent. The Protestant interest was alarmed; and,
+through the influence of Ormond, then lord lieutenant, the duration of
+the court was limited, and when it was compelled to close its labours,
+only 800 out of 3,000 cases had been decided. If the proportions
+of nocent and innocent were the same, an immense number of innocent
+persons were deprived of their property. In 1675, fifteen years after
+the Restoration, the English settlers were in possession of 4,500,000
+acres, while the old owners retained 2,250,000 acres. By an act passed
+in 1665, it was declared that no Papist, who had not already been
+adjudged innocent, should ever be entitled to claim any lands or
+settlements.'
+
+Any movement on the part of the Roman Catholics during this reign,
+and indeed, ever since, always raised an alarm of the 'Protestant
+interest' in danger. While the panic lasted the Catholics were
+subjected to cruel restrictions and privations. Thus Ormond, by
+proclamation, prohibited Catholics from entering the castle of Dublin,
+or any other fortress; from holding fairs or markets within the walls
+of fortified towns, and from carrying arms to such places. By another
+proclamation, he ordered all the _relatives_ of known 'tories' to be
+arrested and banished the kingdom, within fourteen days, unless such
+tories were killed or surrendered within that time. There was one tory
+for whose arrest all ordinary means failed. This was the celebrated
+Redmond O'Hanlon, still one of the most popular heroes with the Irish
+peasantry. He was known on the continent as Count O'Hanlon, and was
+the brother of the owner of Tandragee, now the pretty Irish seat of
+the Duke of Manchester. As no one would betray this outlaw, who levied
+heavy contributions from the settlers in Ulster, it was alleged
+and believed that the viceroy hired a relative to shoot him. 'Count
+O'Hanlon,' says Mr. D. Magee, 'a gentleman of ancient lineage, as
+accomplished as Orrery, or Ossory, was indeed an outlaw to the code
+then in force; but the stain of his cowardly assassination must for
+ever blot the princely escutcheon of James, Duke of Ormond.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See 'The Tory War of Ulster,' by John P. Prendergast,
+author of 'The Cromwellian Settlement.' This pamphlet abounds in the
+most curious information, collected from judicial records, descriptive
+of Ireland from the Restoration to the Revolution--A.D. 1660-1690.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE PENAL CODE, A NEW SYSTEM OF LAND-WAR.
+
+
+The accession of James II. was well calculated to have an intoxicating
+effect on the Irish race. He was a Catholic, he undertook to effect
+a counter-reformation. He would restore the national hierarchy to the
+position from which it had been dragged down and trampled under the
+feet of the Cromwellians. He would give back to the Irish gentry and
+nobility their estates; and to effect this glorious revolution, he
+relied upon the faith and valour of the Irish. The Protestant militia
+were disarmed, a Catholic army was formed; the corporations were
+thrown open to Catholics. Dublin and other corporations, which refused
+to surrender their exclusive charters, were summarily deprived of
+their privileges; Catholic mayors and sheriffs, escorted by troops,
+went in state to their places of worship. The Protestant chancellor
+was dismissed to make way for a Catholic, Baron Rice. The plate
+of Trinity College was seized as public property. The Protestants,
+thoroughly alarmed by these arbitrary proceedings, fled to England in
+thousands. Many went to Holland and joined the army of the Prince of
+Orange. Dreadful stories were circulated of an intended invasion of
+England by wild Irish regiments under Tyrconnel. There was a rumour of
+another massacre of the English, and of the proposed repeal of the
+act of settlement. Protestants who could not cross the channel fled to
+Enniskillen and to Derry, which closed its gates and prepared for its
+memorable siege. James, who had fled to France, plucked up courage
+to go to Ireland, and make a stand there in defence of his crown.
+His progress from Kinsale to Dublin was an ovation. Fifteen royal
+chaplains scattered blessings around him; Gaelic songs and dances
+amused him; he was flattered in Latin orations, and conducted to his
+capital under triumphal arches. In Dublin the trades turned out with
+new banners; two harpers played at the gate by which he entered; the
+clergy in their robes chanted as they went: and forty young girls,
+dressed in white, danced the ancient _rinka_, scattering flowers on
+the newly sanded streets. Tyrconnell, now a duke, the judges, the
+mayor and the corporation, completed the procession, which moved
+beneath arches of evergreens, and windows hung with 'tapestry and
+cloth of arras.' The recorder delivered to his majesty the keys of the
+city, and the Catholic primate, Dominick Maguire, waited in his robes
+to conduct him to the royal chapel, where the _Te Deum_ was sung. On
+that day the green flag floated from the main tower of the castle,
+bearing the motto, 'Now or never--now and for ever.'
+
+The followers of James, according to Grattan, 'though papists, were
+not slaves. They wrung a constitution from King James before they
+accompanied him to the field.' A constitution wrung from such a man
+was not worth much. His parliament passed an act for establishing
+liberty of conscience, and ordering every man to pay tithes to his own
+clergy only, with some other measures of relief. But he began to
+play the despot very soon. The Commons voted him the large subsidy of
+20,000 l. He doubled the amount by his own mere motion. He established
+a bank, and by his own authority decreed a bank monopoly. He debased
+the coinage, and fixed the prices of merchandise by his own will.
+He appointed a provost and librarian in Trinity College without the
+consent of the senate, and attempted to force fellows and scholars on
+the university contrary to the statutes. The events which followed
+are well known to all readers of English history. Our concern is with
+their effects on the land question.
+
+One of the measures passed by this parliament was an act repealing the
+act of settlement. But, soon after the Revolution, measures were taken
+to render that settlement firmer than ever. A commission was appointed
+to enquire into the forfeited estates; and the consequence was that
+1,060,792 acres were declared escheated to the crown. In 1695 King
+William, in his speech, read to the Irish parliament, assured
+them that he was intent upon the firm settlement of Ireland upon a
+Protestant basis. He kept his word, for when he died there did not
+remain in the hands of Catholics one-sixth of the land which their
+grandfathers held, even after the passing of the act of settlement.
+The acts passed for securing the Protestant interest formed the series
+known as the penal code, which was in force for the whole of the
+eighteenth century. It answered its purpose effectually; it reduced
+the nation to a state of poverty, degradation, and slavishness of
+spirit unparalleled in the history of Christendom, while it made the
+small dominant class a prodigy of political and religious tyranny.
+Never was an aristocracy, as a body, more hardened in selfishness,
+more insolent in spirit; never was a church more negligent of duty,
+more intensely and ostentatiously secular. Both church and state
+reeked with corruption.
+
+The plan adopted for degrading the Catholics, and reducing all to one
+plebeian level, was most ingenious. The ingenuity indeed may be said
+to be Satanic, for it debased its victims morally as well as socially
+and physically. It worked by means of treachery, covetousness,
+perfidy, and the perversion of all natural affections. The trail of
+the serpent was over the whole system. For example, when the last Duke
+of Ormond arrived as lord lieutenant in 1703, the Commons waited on
+him with a bill 'for discouraging the further growth of Popery,' which
+became law, having met his decided approval. This act provided that
+if the son of a Catholic became a Protestant, the father should be
+incapable of selling or mortgaging his estate, or disposing of any
+portion of it by will. If a child ever so young professed to be a
+Protestant, it was to be taken from its parents, and placed under the
+guardianship of the nearest Protestant relation.
+
+The sixth clause renders Papists incapable of purchasing any manors,
+tenements, hereditaments, or any rents or profits arising out of the
+same, or of holding any lease of lives, or other lease whatever, for
+any term exceeding thirty-one years. And with respect even to such
+limited leases, it further enacts, that if a Papist should hold a farm
+producing a profit greater than _one-third of the amount of the rent_,
+his right to such should immediately cease, and pass over entirely
+to the first Protestant who should discover the rate of profit. The
+seventh clause prohibits Papists from succeeding to the properties or
+estates of their Protestant relations. By the tenth clause, the estate
+of a Papist, not having a Protestant heir, is ordered to be gavelled,
+or divided in equal shares between _all_ his children. The sixteenth
+and twenty-fourth clauses impose the oath of abjuration, and the
+sacramental test, as a qualification for office, and for voting at
+elections. The twenty-third clause deprives the Catholics of Limerick
+and Galway of the protection secured to them by the articles of the
+treaty of Limerick. The twenty-fifth clause vests in the crown all
+advowsons possessed by Papists.
+
+A further act was passed, in 1709, imposing additional penalties. The
+first clause declares that no Papist shall be capable of holding an
+annuity for life. The third provides, that the child of a Papist, on
+conforming, shall at once receive an annuity from his father; and that
+the chancellor shall compel the father to discover, upon oath, the
+full value of his estate, real and personal, and thereupon make an
+order for the support of such conforming child or children, and for
+securing such a share of the property, after the father's death, as
+the court shall think fit. The fourteenth and fifteenth clauses secure
+jointures to Popish wives who shall conform. The sixteenth prohibits
+a Papist from teaching, even as assistant to a Protestant master. The
+eighteenth gives a salary of 30 l. per annum to Popish priests who
+shall conform. The twentieth provides rewards for the discovery of
+Popish prelates, priests, and teachers, according to the
+following whimsical scale:--For discovering an archbishop, bishop,
+vicar-general, or other person, exercising any foreign ecclesiastical
+jurisdiction, 50 l.; for discovering each regular clergyman, and each
+secular clergyman, not registered, 20 l.; and for discovering each
+Popish schoolmaster or usher, 10 l.
+
+In judging the Irish peasantry, we should try to estimate the effects
+of such a system on any people for more than a century. It will
+account for the farmer's habit of concealing his prosperity, and
+keeping up the appearance of poverty, even if he had not reason for it
+in the felonious spirit of appropriation still subsisting under legal
+sanction. We are too apt to place to the account of race or religion
+the results of malignant or blundering legislation. We are not without
+examples of such results in England itself.
+
+In the winter of 1831-2, a very startling state of things was
+presented. In a period of great general prosperity, that portion of
+England in which the poor laws had their most extensive operation, and
+in which by much the largest expenditure of poor-rates had been made,
+was the scene of daily riot and nightly incendiarism. There were
+ninety-three parishes in four counties, of which the population was
+113,147, and the poor-law expenditure 81,978 l., or 14 s. 5 d. per
+head; and there were eighty parishes in three other counties, the
+population of which was 105,728, and the poor-law expenditure 30,820
+l., or 5 s. 9 d. a head. In the counties in which the poor-law
+expenditure was large, the industry and skill of the labourers were
+passing away, the connection between the master and servant had become
+precarious, the unmarried were defrauded of their fair earnings,
+and riots and incendiarism prevailed. In the counties where the
+expenditure was comparatively small, there was scarcely any instance
+of disorder; mutual attachment existed between the workman and his
+employer; the intelligence, skill, and good conduct of the labourers
+were unimpaired, or increased. This striking social contrast was only
+a specimen of what prevailed throughout large districts, and generally
+throughout the south and north of England, and it proved that, either
+through the inherent vice of the system, or gross mal-administration
+in the southern counties, the poor-law had the most demoralising
+effect upon the working classes, while it was rapidly eating up the
+capital upon which the employment of labour depended. This fact was
+placed beyond question by a commission of enquiry, which was composed
+of individuals distinguished by their interest in the subject, and
+their intimate knowledge of its principles and details. Its labours
+were continued incessantly for two years. Witnesses most competent to
+give information were summoned from different parts of the country.
+The commissioners had before them documentary evidence of every kind
+calculated to throw light on the subject. They personally visited
+localities, and examined the actual operation of the system on the
+spot; and when they could not go themselves, they called to their aid
+assistant commissioners, some of whom extended their enquiries into
+Scotland, Guernsey, France, and Flanders; while they also collected a
+vast mass of interesting evidence from our ambassadors and diplomatic
+agents in different countries of Europe and America. It was upon the
+report of this commission of enquiry that the act was founded for the
+amendment and better administration of the laws relating to the poor
+in England and Wales (4 and 5 William IV., cap. 76). A more solid
+foundation for a legislative enactment could scarcely be found. The
+importance of the subject fully warranted all the expense and labour
+by which it was obtained.
+
+One of the most astounding facts established by the enquiry was the
+wide-spread demoralisation which had developed itself in certain
+districts. Home had lost its sanctity. The ties that bind parents and
+children were loosened, and natural affection gave place to intense
+selfishness, which often manifested itself in the most brutal manner.
+Workmen grew lazy and dishonest. Young women lost the virtue which is
+not only the point of honour with their sex, but the chief support of
+all other virtues. Not only women of the working classes, but in some
+cases even substantial farmers' daughters, and sometimes those who
+were themselves the actual owners of property, had their illegitimate
+children as charges on the parish, regularly deducting the cost
+of their maintenance from their poor-rate, neither they nor their
+relatives feeling that to do so was any disgrace. The system must
+have been fearfully vicious that produced such depravation of moral
+feeling, and such a shocking want of self-respect.
+
+Dr. Burn has given a graphic sketch of the duties of an overseer
+under the old poor-law system in England. 'His office is to keep an
+extraordinary watch to prevent people from coming to inhabit without
+certificates; to fly to the justices to remove them. Not to let anyone
+have a farm of 10 l. a year. To warn the parishioners, if they would
+have servants, to hire them by the month, the week, or the day, rather
+than by any way that can give them a settlement; or if they do hire
+them for a year, then to endeavour to pick a quarrel with them before
+the year's end, and so to get rid of them. To maintain their poor as
+cheaply as they possibly can, and not to lay out twopence in prospect
+of any future good, but only to serve the present necessity. To
+bargain with some sturdy person to take them by the lump, who yet is
+not intended to take them, but to hang over them _in terrorem_, if
+they shall complain to the justices for want of maintenance. To
+send them out into the country a begging. To bind out poor children
+apprentices, no matter to whom, or to what trade; but to take special
+care that the master live in another parish. To move heaven and earth
+if any dispute happen about a settlement; and, in that particular,
+to invert the general rule, and stick at no expense. To pull down
+cottages: _to drive out as many inhabitants, and admit as few, as they
+possibly can; that is, to depopulate the parish, in order to lessen
+the poor's-rate_. To be generous, indeed, sometimes, in giving a
+portion with the mother of a bastard child to the reputed father,
+on condition that he will marry her, or with a poor widow, _always
+provided that the husband_ be settled elsewhere; or if a poor man with
+a large family happen to be industrious, they will charitably assist
+him in taking a farm in some neighbouring parish, and give him 10 l.
+to pay his first year's rent with, that they may thus for ever get rid
+of him and his progeny.'
+
+The effect of this system was actually to depopulate many parishes.
+The author of a pamphlet on the subject, Mr. Alcock, stated that the
+gentlemen were led by this system to adopt all sorts of expedients
+to hinder the poor from marrying, to discharge servants in their
+last quarter, to evict small tenants, and pull down cottages; so
+that several parishes were in a manner depopulated, while England
+complained of a want of useful hands for agriculture, manufactories,
+for the land and sea service. 'When the minister marries a couple,' he
+said, 'he rightly prays that they may be fruitful in the procreation
+of children; but most of the parishioners pray for the very contrary,
+and perhaps complain of him for marrying persons, that, should they
+have a family of children, might likewise become chargeable.' Arthur
+Young also described the operation of the law in his time, in
+clearing off the people, and causing universally 'an open war against
+cottages.' Gentlemen bought them up whenever they had an opportunity,
+and immediately levelled them with the ground, lest they should become
+'nests of beggars' brats.' The removal of a cottage often drove the
+industrious labourer from a parish where he could earn 15 s. a week,
+to one where he could earn but 10 s. As many as thirty or forty
+families were sent off by removals in one day. Thus, as among the
+Scotch labourers of the present day, marriage was discouraged; the
+peasantry were cleared off the land, and increasing immorality was the
+necessary consequence.
+
+There was another change in the old system, by which the interests of
+the influential classes were made to run in favour of the 'beggars'
+nests,' which were soon at a premium. The labourer was to be paid,
+not for the value of his labour, but according to the number of his
+family; the prices of provisions being fixed by authority, and the
+guardians making up the difference between what the wages would buy
+and what the family required.
+
+The allowance scales issued from time to time were framed on the
+principle that every labourer should have a gallon loaf of standard
+wheaten bread weekly for every member of his family, and one over. The
+effect of this was, that a man with six children, who got 9 s. a week
+wages, required nine gallon loaves, or 13 s. 6 d. a week, so that he
+had a pension of 4 s. 6 d. over his wages. Another man, with a wife
+and five children, so idle and disorderly that no one would employ
+him, was entitled to eight gallon loaves for their maintenance, so
+that he had 12 s. a week to support him. The increase of allowance
+according to the number of children acted as a direct bounty upon
+marriage. The report of the Committee of the House of Commons on
+labourers' wages, printed in 1824, describes the effect of this
+allowance system in paralysing the industry of the poor. 'It is
+obvious,' remarked the committee, 'that a disinclination to work must
+be the consequence of so vicious a system. He whose subsistence
+is secure without work, and who cannot obtain more than a mere
+sufficiency by the hardest work, will naturally be an idle and
+careless labourer. Frequently the work done by four or five such
+labourers does not amount to what might easily be performed by a
+single labourer at task work. A surplus population is encouraged: men
+who receive but a small pittance know that they have only to marry and
+that pittance will be increased proportionally to the number of their
+children. When complaining of their allowance, they frequently say,
+"We will marry, and then you must maintain us." This system secures
+subsistence to all; to the idle as well as the industrious; to the
+profligate as well as the sober; and, as far as human interests are
+concerned, all inducements to obtain a good character are taken away.
+The effects have corresponded with the cause: able-bodied men
+are found slovenly at their work, and dissolute in their hours of
+relaxation; a father is negligent of his children, the children do not
+think it necessary to contribute to the support of their parents;
+the employer and employed are engaged in personal quarrels; and the
+pauper, always relieved, is always discontented. Crime advances with
+increasing boldness; and the parts of the country where this system
+prevails are, in spite of our gaols and our laws, filled with poachers
+and thieves.' Mr. Hodges, chairman of the West Kent quarter sessions,
+in his evidence before the emigration committee, said, 'Formerly,
+working people usually stayed in service till they were twenty-five,
+thirty, and thirty-five years of age, before they married; whereas
+they now married frequently under age. Formerly, these persons
+had saved 40 l. and 50 l. before they married, and they were never
+burdensome to the parish; now, they have not saved a shilling before
+their marriage, and become immediately burdensome.'
+
+The farmers were not so discontented with this allowance system as
+might be supposed, because a great part of the burden was cast upon
+other shoulders. The tax was laid indiscrimately upon all fixed
+property; so that the occupiers of villas, shopkeepers, merchants, and
+others who did not employ labourers, had to pay a portion of the wages
+for those that did. The farmers were in this way led to encourage a
+system which fraudently imposed a heavy burden upon others, and which,
+by degrading the labourers, and multiplying their numbers beyond the
+real demand for them, must, if allowed to run its full course, have
+ultimately overspread the whole country with the most abject poverty
+and wretchedness.
+
+There was another interest created which tended to increase the evil.
+In the counties of Suffolk, Sussex, Kent, and generally through
+all the south of England, relief was given in the shape of house
+accommodation, or free dwellings for the poor. The parish officers
+were in the habit of paying the rent of the cottages; the rent was
+therefore high and sure, and consequently persons who had small pieces
+of ground were induced to cover them with those buildings. On this
+subject Mr. Hodges, the gentleman already referred to, remarks: 'I
+cannot forbear urging again that any measure having for its object the
+relief of the parishes from their over population, must of necessity
+become perfectly useless, unless the act of parliament contains some
+regulations with respect to the erecting and maintaining of cottages.
+I am quite satisfied that the erecting of cottages has been a most
+serious evil throughout the country. The getting of the cottage tempts
+young people of seventeen and eighteen years of age, and even younger,
+to marry. It is notorious that almost numberless cottages have been
+built by persons speculating on the parish rates for their rents.'
+
+The evils of this system had reached their height in the years 1831-2.
+That was a time when the public mind was bent upon reforms of all
+sorts, without waiting for the admission from the Tories that the
+grievances of which the nation complained were 'proved abuses.' The
+reformers were determined no longer to tolerate the state of things,
+in which the discontent of the labouring classes was proportioned to
+the money disbursed in poor-rates, or in voluntary charities; in
+which the young were trained in idleness, ignorance, and vice--the
+able-bodied maintained in sluggish and sensual indolence--the aged
+and more respectable exposed to all the misery incident to dwelling
+in such society as that of a large workhouse without discipline or
+classification--the whole body of inmates subsisting on food far
+exceeding both in kind and amount, not merely the diet of the
+independent labourer, but that of the majority of the persons who
+contributed to their support. The farmer paid 10 s. in the pound in
+poor-rates, and was in addition compelled to employ supernumerary
+labourers not required on his farm, at a cost of from 100 l. to 250 l.
+a year; the labourer had no need to hasten himself to seek work, or to
+please his master, or to put a restraint upon his temper, having all
+the slave's security for support, without the slave's liability to
+punishment. The parish paid parents for nursing their little children,
+and children for supporting their aged parents, thereby destroying
+in both parties all feelings of natural affection and all sense of
+Christian duty.
+
+I hope I shall be excused in giving, from a former work of my own,
+these home illustrations to prove that bad laws can degrade and
+demoralize a people in a comparatively short time, in spite of race
+and creed and public opinion; and that, where class interests are
+involved, the most sacred rights of humanity are trampled in the mire
+of corruption. Even now the pauperism resulting of necessity from the
+large-farm system is degrading the English people, and threatening to
+rot away the foundations of society. On this subject I am glad to find
+a complete corroboration of my own conclusions in a work by one of the
+ablest and most enlightened Christian ministers in England, the Rev.
+Dr. Rigg. He says:--
+
+'Notwithstanding a basis of manly, honest, and often generous
+qualities, the common character of all the uneducated and unelevated
+classes of the English labouring population includes, as marked
+and obvious features, improvidence, distrust of their superiors,
+discontent at their social position, and a predominant passion for
+gross animal gratification. Of this general character we regard the
+rude, heavy, unhopeful English peasant, who knows no indulgence
+or relaxation but that of the ale-house, and lives equally without
+content and without ambition, as affording the fundamental
+type, which, like all other things English, possesses a marked
+individuality. It differs decidedly from the Irish type of peasant
+degradation. Something of this may be due to the effect of race. The
+Kelt and the Saxon may be expected to differ. Yet we think but little
+stress is to be laid upon this. There is, probably, much more Keltic
+blood in the southern and western counties of England, and, also, more
+Saxon blood in some of the southern and even western parts of
+Ireland, than has been generally supposed. We apprehend that a Saxon
+population, under the same conditions as the southern and western
+Irish peasantry, would have grown up into very much the same sort of
+people as the Irish have been; while a Keltic population, exposed to
+the same influences, through successive generations, as the midland
+and southern peasantry of England, would not have been essentially
+different at the present day from the actual cultivators of the soil.
+
+'The Irish peasant is poorer and yet more reckless than the
+Englishman; but he is not so sullen or so spiritless. His body is not
+so muscular or so strongly-set as that of the Anglo-Saxon husbandman,
+on whose frame the hard and unintermitted toil of thirty generations
+has stamped its unmistakable impress, and, correspondently, he is a
+less persevering and less vigorous labourer; but, as a general rule,
+his stature is taller and his step far more free and elastic than that
+of the sturdy but slow and stunted labourer of our southern counties.
+There are wild mountainous districts of the west, indeed, in which
+the lowest type of the Irish peasantry is found, that must be taken
+as exceptions to our general statement; and as many from those regions
+cross the Channel to tramp through England in the complex character
+of mendicant labourers, no doubt some have received from them an
+impression as to the Irish peasantry very different from what our
+observations are intended to convey. But no one can have travelled
+through the south of Ireland without having noticed what we state. The
+Tipperary and Kilkenny peasantry are proverbially tall; Connemara has
+been famed for its "giants," and many of both sexes throughout the
+south, are, spite of their rags, fine figures, and graceful in their
+movements. While looking at them, we have ceased to wonder at what has
+been regarded as no better than the arch-agitator's blarney, when he
+spoke of the Irish as the "finest pisantry in the world;" and we have
+even felt saddened as we mentally contrasted with what we saw before
+us the bearing and appearance of our own southern labourers. For
+the tattered Irish peasant, living in a mud hovel, is, after all, a
+gentleman in his bearing; whereas there is generally either a cringing
+servility or a sullen doggedness in the demeanour of the south
+Saxon labourer. The Irishman is, besides, far more intelligent and
+ready-witted than the Saxon husbandman. The fact is that the Irishman,
+if underfed, has not been overworked. His life has not been one of
+unceasing and oppressive labour. Nor has his condition been one
+of perpetual servitude. With all his poverty, he has been, to a
+considerable extent, his own master. Half-starved, or satisfying his
+appetite on light and innutritious fare,--far worse housed and
+clad than the poorest English labourer, often, indeed, almost
+half-naked,--oppressed by middle-men, exactors of rack-rent; with
+all this the Irish cottier has been, from father to son, and
+from generation to generation, _a tenant, and not merely a day
+labourer_.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: 'Essays for the Times, on Ecclesiastical and Social
+Subjects,' by James H. Rigg, D.D. London, 1866.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+ULSTER IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
+
+
+Let us, then, endeavour to get rid of the pernicious delusions about
+race and religion in dealing with this Irish land question. Identity
+of race and substantial agreement in religion did not prevent the
+Ulster landlords from uprooting their tenants when they fancied it was
+their interest to banish them--to substitute grazing for tillage, and
+cattle for a most industrious and orderly peasantry.
+
+The letters of Primate Boulter contain much valuable information on
+the state of Ulster in the last century, and furnish apt illustrations
+of the land question, which, I fancy, will be new and startling to
+many readers. Boulter was lord primate of Ireland from 1724 to 1738.
+He was thirteen times one of the lords justices. As an Englishman and
+a good churchman, he took care of the English interests and of the
+establishment. The letters were written in confidence to Sir Robert
+Walpole and other ministers of state, and were evidently not intended
+for publication. An address 'to the reader' from some friend, states
+truly that they give among other things an impartial account of 'the
+distressed state of the kingdom for want of _tillage_, the vast sums
+of money sent out of the nation for corn, flour, &c., the dismal
+calamities thereon, the want of trade and the regulation of the
+English and other coins, to the very great distress of all the
+manufacturers,' &c. They show that he was a man of sound judgment,
+public-spirited, and very moderate and impartial for the times in
+which he lived. His evidence with regard to the relations of landlord
+and tenant in Ulster is exceedingly valuable at the present moment.
+Lord Dufferin could not have read the letters when he wrote his book;
+otherwise I should think his apology for the landlords of the last
+century would have been considerably modified.
+
+Primate Boulter repeatedly complained to Walpole, the Duke of
+Newcastle, and other ministers, that the Ulster farmers were deserting
+the country in large numbers, emigrating to the United States, then
+British colonies, to the West Indies, or to any country where they
+hoped to get the means of living, in many cases binding themselves
+to work for a number of years _as slaves_ in payment of their passage
+out. The desire to quit the country of their birth is described by the
+primate as a mania. Writing to the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1728 he
+says:--'We are under great trouble here about a frenzy that has taken
+hold of very great numbers to leave this country for the West Indies,
+and we are endeavouring to learn what may be the reasons of it, and
+the proper remedies.' Two or three weeks later he reported to the Duke
+of Newcastle that for several years past some agents from the colonies
+in America, and several masters of ships, had gone about the country
+'and deluded the people with stories of great plenty and estates to
+be had for going for in those parts of the world.' During the previous
+summer more than 3,000 men, women, and children had been shipped
+for the West Indies. Of these, not more than one in ten were men of
+substance. The rest hired themselves for their passage, or contracted
+with masters of ships for four years' servitude, 'selling themselves
+as servants for their subsistence.' The whole north was in a ferment,
+people every day engaging one another to go next year to the West
+Indies. 'The humour,' says the primate, 'has spread like a contagious
+distemper, and the people will hardly hear anybody that tries to
+cure them of their madness. The worst is that it affects only
+_Protestants_, and reigns chiefly in the North, which is the seat of
+our linen manufacture.'
+
+As the Protestant people, the descendants of the English and Scotch
+who had settled in the country in the full assurance that they were
+building homes for their posterity, were thus deserting those homes in
+such multitudes, their pastors sent a memorial to the lord lieutenant,
+setting forth the grievances which they believed to be the cause of
+the desertion. On this memorial the primate wrote comments to the
+English Government, and, in doing so, he stated some astounding
+facts as to the treatment of the people by their landlords. He was a
+cautious man, thoroughly acquainted with the facts, and writing under
+a sense of great responsibility. In order to understand some of those
+facts, we should bear in mind that the landlords had laid down large
+portions of their estates in pasture, to avoid the payment of tithes,
+and that this burden was thrown entirely upon the tenants who tilled
+the land. Now, let my readers mark what the primate states as to their
+condition. He says:--'If a landlord takes too great a portion of the
+profits of a farm for his share by way of rent (as the tithe will
+light on the tenant's share), the tenant will be impoverished; but
+then it is not the tithe, but the increased rent that undoes the
+farmer. And, indeed, in this country, where I fear the tenant hardly
+ever has more than one-third of the profits he makes of his farm for
+his share, and too often but a _fourth_, or, perhaps, a _fifth part_,
+as the tenant's share is charged with the tithe, his case is, no
+doubt, hard, but it is plain from what side the hardship arises.' What
+the gentlemen wanted to be at, according to the primate, was, that
+they might go on raising their rents, and that the clergy should
+receive their old payments. He admits, however, that the tenants were
+sometimes cited to the ecclesiastical courts, and if they failed to
+appear there, they stood excommunicated; and he adds, 'possibly when a
+writ _de excommunicato capiendo_ is taken out, and they find they have
+7 l. or 8 l. to pay, _they run away_, for the greatest part of the
+occupiers of the land here are so poor, that an extraordinary stroke
+of 8 l. or 10 l. falling on them is certain ruin to them.' He further
+states that, to his own knowledge, many of the clergy had chosen
+rather to lose their 'small dues' than to be at a certain great
+expense in getting them, 'and at an uncertainty whether the farmer
+would not at last _run away without paying anything_.'
+
+Such was the condition of the Protestants of Ulster during the era of
+the penal code; and it is a curious fact that it was the Presbyterians
+and not the Catholics that were forced by the exactions of the
+Protestant landlords and the clergy to run away from the country which
+their forefathers had been brought over to civilize. But there was
+another fact connected with the condition of Ulster which I dare say
+will be almost incredible to many readers. The tenantry, so cruelly
+rack-rented and impoverished, were reduced by two or three bad seasons
+to a state bordering upon famine. There was little or no corn in the
+province. The primate set on foot a subscription in Dublin, to which
+he himself contributed very liberally. The object was to buy food to
+supply the necessities of the north, and to put a stop to 'the great
+desertion' they had been threatened with. He hoped that the landlords
+would 'do _their_ part by remitting some arrears, or making some
+abatement of their rents.' As many of the tenants had eaten the oats
+they should have sowed their lands with, he expected the landlords
+would have the good sense to furnish them with seed; if not, a great
+deal of land would lie waste that year. And where were the provisions
+got? Partly in Munster, where corn was very cheap and abundant. But
+the people of Cork, Limerick, Waterford, and Clonmel objected to have
+their provisions sent away, although they were in some places 'as
+cheap again as in the north; but where dearest, at least one-third
+part cheaper.' Riotous mobs broke open the store-houses and cellars,
+setting what price they pleased upon the provisions. And, what between
+those riots and the prevalence of easterly winds, three weeks elapsed
+before the 3,000 l. worth of oats, oatmeal, and potatoes could be got
+down to relieve the famishing people of the north, which then seemed
+black enough, even to its own inhabitants. Hence the humane primate
+was obliged to write: 'The humour of going to America still continues,
+and the scarcity of provisions certainly makes many quit us. There
+are now seven ships at Belfast that are carrying off 1,000 passengers
+thither, and if we knew how to stop them, as most of them can neither
+get victuals nor work at home, it would be cruel to do it.'
+
+The Presbyterian clergy suffered greatly from the impoverishment of
+their people. Several of them who had been receiving a stipend of
+50 l. a year, had their incomes reduced to less than 15 l. In their
+distress they appealed to the primate, and, staunch churchman as he
+was, they found in him a kind and earnest advocate. Writing to Sir
+Robert Walpole, on March 31, 1729, he pleaded for the restoration of
+400 l. a year, which had been given to the non-conforming clergy
+of Ireland from the privy purse, in addition to the 1,200 l. royal
+bounty, which, it appears, had been suspended for two years, owing
+to the death of the late king. 'They are sensible,' said his grace,
+'there is nothing due to them, nor do they make any such claim; but as
+the calamities of this kingdom are at present very great, and by the
+desertion of many of their people to America, and the poverty of the
+greatest part of the rest, their contributions, particularly in the
+north, are very much fallen off, it would be a great instance of his
+majesty's goodness if he would consider their present distress.' In
+our own days a Presbyterian minister would be considered to deserve
+well of his country if he emigrated to America, and took with him as
+many of the people as he could induce to forsake their native land.
+But what was the great plea which Primate Boulter urged on the English
+Minister on behalf of the Presbyterian clergy of his day? It was, that
+they had exerted their influence to prevent emigration. 'It is,'
+he said, 'but doing them justice to affirm that they are very
+well affected to his majesty and his royal family, and by the best
+enquiries I could make, do their best endeavours to keep their
+congregations from deserting the country, not more than one or two
+of the younger ministers having anyways encouraged the humour now
+prevailing here. And his majesty's goodness in giving them some
+extraordinary relief on this occasion of their present great distress
+would undoubtedly make them _more active to retain their people here_.
+I cannot help mentioning on this occasion that, what with scarceness
+of corn in the north, _and the loss of all credit there_, and by
+the numbers that go, or talk of going, to America, and with the
+disturbances in the south, this kingdom is at present in a deplorable
+condition.'
+
+In a statement previously made to the Bishop of London, the Irish
+primate earnestly solicited his correspondent to use his influence
+to prevent the Irish landlords from passing a law to strip the
+established clergy of their rights with respect to the tithe of
+agistment. They had entered into a general combination, and formed a
+stock purse to resist the payment of tithe, except by the poor
+tenants who tilled the soil, a remarkable contrast to the zeal of
+the landlords of our own time in defending church property against
+'spoliation' by the imperial legislature, and to the liberality with
+which many of them are now contributing to the Sustentation Fund.
+How shall we account for the change? Is it that the landlords of the
+present day are more righteous than their grandfathers? Or is it that
+the same principle of self-interest which led the proprietors of past
+times to grind the tenantry and rob the Church, now operates in forms
+more consistent with piety and humanity, and by its subtle influence
+illustrates the maxim of the poet--
+
+  Self-love and social is the same.
+
+However that may be, the primate contented himself in this letter
+with a defence of the Church, in which he admitted matters of real
+grievance, merely alluding to other grievances, 'such as raising
+the rents unreasonably, the oppression by justices of the peace,
+seneschals, and other officers in the country.'
+
+From the pictures of the times he presents we should not be surprised
+at his statement to the Duke of Newcastle, that the people who went
+to America made great complaints of the oppressions they suffered, and
+said that those oppressions were one reason of their going. When he
+went on his visitation, in 1726, he 'met all the roads full of whole
+families that had left their homes to beg abroad,' having consumed
+their stock of potatoes two months before the usual time. During the
+previous year many hundreds had perished of famine. What was the cause
+of this misery, this desolating process going on over the plains of
+Ulster? The archbishop accounts for it by stating that many persons
+had let large tracts of land, from 3,000 to 4,000 acres, which were
+stocked with cattle, and had no other inhabitants on their land than
+so many cottiers as were necessary to look after their sheep and black
+cattle, '_so that, in some of the finest counties, in many places
+there is neither house nor cornfield to be seen in ten or fifteen
+miles' travelling_, and daily in some counties many gentlemen, as
+their leases fall into their hands, tie up their tenants from tillage;
+and this is one of the main causes why so many venture to go into
+foreign service at the hazard of their lives if taken, because they
+cannot get land to till at home.'
+
+My readers should remember that the industrious, law-abiding,
+bible-loving, God-fearing people, who were thus driven by oppression
+from the fair fields of Ulster, which they had cultivated, and
+the dwellings which they had erected, to make way for sheep and
+cattle--because it was supposed by the landlords that sheep and cattle
+paid better--were the descendants of British settlers who came to the
+country under a royal guarantee _of freeholds and permanent tenures_.
+Let them picture to their minds this fine race of honest, godly
+people, rack-rented, crushed, evicted, heart-broken--men, women, and
+children--Protestants, Saxons, cast out to perish as the refuse of the
+earth, by a set of landed proprietors of their own race and creed; and
+learn from this most instructive fact that, if any body of men has
+the power of making laws to promote its own interest, no instincts of
+humanity, no dictates of religion, no restraints of conscience can
+be relied upon to keep them from acting with ruthless barbarity,
+and doing more to ruin their country than a foreign invader could
+accomplish by letting loose upon it his brutal soldiers. How much
+more earnestly would Boulter have pleaded with the prime minister of
+England on behalf of the wretched people of Ulster if he could have
+foreseen that ere long those Presbyterian emigrants, with the sense
+of injustice and cruel wrong burning in their hearts, would be found
+fighting under the banner of American independence--the bravest and
+fiercest soldiers of freedom which the British troops encountered in
+the American war. History is continually repeating itself, yet how
+vainly are its lessons taught! The same legal power of extermination
+is still possessed by the Irish landlords after sixty-nine years of
+imperial legislation. Our hardy, industrious people, naturally as well
+disposed to royalty as any people in the world, are still crowding
+emigrant ships in all our ports, deserting their country with the same
+bitter feelings that animated the Ulster men a century ago, hating our
+Government with a mortal hatred, and ready to fight against it under
+a foreign flag! We have no Primate Boulter now in the Protestant
+hierarchy to plead the cause of an unprotected tenantry; but we have
+the press, which can concentrate upon the subject the irresistible
+force of public opinion.
+
+As a churchman, Primate Boulter naturally regarded the land question
+in its bearings on the interests of the Establishment. Writing to Sir
+Robert Walpole in 1737 he said that he had in vain represented to the
+landlords that, by destroying the tithe of agistment, they naturally
+discouraged tillage, lessened the number of people, and raised the
+price of provisions. By running into cattle they caused the young men
+to enlist in foreign service for bread, there being no employment for
+them at home, 'where two or three hands can look after some hundreds
+of acres stocked with cattle.' And by this means, said the primate, 'a
+great part of our churches are neglected; in many places five, six, or
+seven parishes bestowed on one incumbent, who, perhaps, with all
+his tithes, scarce gets 100 l. a year.' But there was at that time a
+member of the Irish House of Commons who was capable of taking a more
+enlarged view of the Irish question. This was Mr. Arthur Dobbs, who
+belonged to an old and honourable Ulster family--the author of a book
+on the 'North-west Passage to India,' and of a very valuable work on
+the 'Trade of Great Britain and Ireland.' He was intimately acquainted
+with the working of the Irish land system, for he had been many years
+agent of the Hertfort estate, one of the largest in Ireland. There
+is among Boulter's letters an introduction of Mr. Dobbs to Sir Robert
+Walpole, recommending him as a person of good sense, who had applied
+himself to the improvement of trade, and to the making of our colonies
+in America of more advantage than they had hitherto been. He was
+afterwards made Governor of North Carolina. I have mentioned these
+facts in the hope of securing the attention of landlords and statesmen
+to the following passage from his book accounting for the deplorable
+condition of the province of Ulster at that time, and the emigration
+of its industrious and wealth-producing inhabitants. In my humble
+opinion it furnishes irresistible arguments in favour of a measure
+which should settle the Irish land question in such a manner that it
+would speak to the people of Ireland in the words of holy writ:
+'And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant
+vineyards and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build and another
+inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat.' Mr. Dobbs says:--
+
+'How can a tenant improve his land when he is convinced that, after
+all his care and toil, his improvements will be overrated, and he
+will be obliged to shift for himself? Let us place ourselves in his
+situation and see if we should think it reasonable to improve for
+another, if those improvements would be the very cause of our being
+removed from the enjoyment of them. I believe we should not. Industry
+and improvements go very heavily on when we think we are not to have
+the property in either. What can be expected, then, from covenants to
+improve and plant, when the person to do it knows he is to have _no
+property in them_? There will be no concern or care taken to preserve
+them, and they will run to ruin as fast as made or planted. What was
+it induced so many of the commonalty lately to go to America but high
+rents, bad seasons, and want of good tenures, or a permanent property
+in their land? This kept them poor and low, and they scarce had
+sufficient credit to procure necessaries to subsist or till their
+ground. They never had anything to store, all was from hand to mouth;
+so one or two bad crops broke them. Others found their stock dwindling
+and decaying visibly, and so removed before all was gone, while they
+had as much left as would pay their passage, and had little more than
+what would carry them to the American shore.
+
+'This, it may be allowed, was the occasion of the poor farmers going
+who had their rents lately raised. But it may be objected that was not
+the reason why rich farmers went, and those who had several years in
+beneficial leases still unexpired, who sold their bargains and removed
+with their effects. But it is plain they all went for the same reason;
+for these last, from _daily examples before them_, saw the present
+occupiers dispossessed of their lands at the expiration of their
+leases, and no preference given to them; so they expected it would
+soon be their own case, to avoid which, and make the most of the years
+still unexpired, they sold, and carried their assets with them to
+procure a settlement in a country where they had reason to expect a
+permanent property.'
+
+It is a curious fact that sentiments very similar were published by
+one of Cromwell's officers about a century before. The plea which
+he put forth for the Irish tenant in the dedication of his work on
+Ireland to the Protector, has been repeated ever since by the tenants,
+but repeated in vain: Captain Bligh, the officer alluded to, said:
+'The first prejudice is, that if a tenant be at ever so great pains or
+cost for the improvement of his land, he doth thereby but occasion a
+greater rack-rent upon himself, or else invests his landlord with his
+cost and labour _gratis_, or at least lies at his landlord's mercy for
+requital; which occasions a neglect of all good husbandry, to his own,
+the land, the landlord, and the commonwealth's suffering.' Now, this,
+I humbly conceive, might be removed, if there were a law enacted, by
+which every landlord should be obliged either to give him reasonable
+allowance for his clear improvement, or else suffer him _or his_
+to enjoy it so much longer or till he hath had a proportionable
+requital.'
+
+But although Primate Boulter protested against the conduct of the
+landlords--all Episcopalians--who were ruining the church as well as
+the country, the established clergy, as a body, were always on the
+side of the oppressors.
+
+The Test Act placed the Presbyterians, like the Papists, in the
+position of an inferior race. 'In the city of Londonderry alone, which
+Presbyterian valour had defended, ten out of twelve aldermen,
+and twenty out of twenty-four burgesses, were thrust out of the
+corporation by that act, which placed an odious mark of infamy upon
+at least one-half the inhabitants of the kingdom.' Presbyterians could
+not legally keep a common school. The _Edinburgh Review_ says: 'All
+the settlements, from first to last, had the effect of making the
+cause of the church and the cause of the landlords really one. During
+the worst days of landlord oppression it never identified itself with
+the interests of the people, but uniformly sustained the power and
+privileges of the landlords.'
+
+It was vain to expect justice from the Irish parliament. The people
+of Ireland never were governed exclusively, or at all, by her own
+Sovereign, her own Lords, and her own Commons. Ireland was 'in the
+custody of England,' just as much before the Union as during the last
+sixty-seven years. Even during the few brief years of her spasmodic
+'independence,' the mass of the nation formed no part of the 'Commons
+of Ireland.' It was still, as it always had been, a sham parliament--a
+body representing the colonial aristocracy--acting as undertakers for
+the Government of England, for whose interest exclusively this island
+was to be ruled. Provided this result was secured, it did not matter
+much, at the other side of the Channel, how the Irish people were
+treated. Indeed, they were not recognised as the people of Ireland,
+or any part thereof. Even philosophic liberals, like Lord Charlemont,
+were shocked at the idea of a Papist getting into the Irish House
+of Commons; and the volunteer system was shattered by this insane
+animosity of the ruling race against the subject nation. The antipathy
+was as strong as the antipathy between the whites and the negroes in
+the West Indies and the United States. Hence the remorseless spirit in
+which atrocities were perpetrated in 1798. Mr. Daunt has shown that a
+large proportion of the Irish House of Lords consisted of men who were
+English to all intents and purposes--many of them by birth, and many
+by residence, and, no doubt, they always came over with reluctance to
+what Lord Chancellor Clare called 'our damnable country.' It may be
+that in some years after the abolition of the Establishment--after
+some experience of the _régime_ of religious equality--the two races
+in this island will learn to act together so harmoniously as to give a
+fair promise that they could be safely trusted with self-legislation.
+But the '_self_' must be one body animated by one spirit; not
+two bodies, chained together, irritated by the contact, fiercely
+struggling against one another, eternally reproaching one another
+about the mutual wrongs of the past, and not unfrequently coming
+to blows, like implacable duellists shut up in a small room, each
+determined to kill or be killed. If England were to let go her hold
+even now, something like this would be the Irish 'situation.' The
+abiding force of this antipathy, in the full light of Christianity, is
+awful.
+
+In his 'Life, Letters, and Speeches of Lord Plunket,' the Hon.
+David Plunket states that, when his grandfather entered the Irish
+parliament, 'the English Government had nearly abandoned the _sham_
+of treating the Irish parliament as an independent legislature; the
+treasury benches were filled with placemen and pensioners. All efforts
+tending to reform of parliament or concession to the Catholics had
+been given up as useless. Grattan and some of his immediate followers
+had seceded from an assembly too degraded to appreciate their motives,
+or to be influenced by their example; and whatever remained of
+independence in the House of Commons ministers still laboured to bring
+under their control. Scarcely thirty votes appeared in opposition
+on the most important divisions, while Government could at any time
+readily whip a majority of 100.'
+
+According to a Government return made in 1784, by Pitt's direction,
+116 nomination seats were divided between some 25 proprietors. Lord
+Shannon returned no less than 16 members, and the great family of
+Ponsonby returned 14; Lord Hillsborough, 9, the Duke of Leinster,
+7, and the Castle itself 12. Eighty-six seats were _let out_ by the
+owners, in consideration of titles, offices, and pensions. No less
+than 44 seats were occupied by placemen, 32 by gentlemen who had
+promises of pensions, 12 by gentlemen who stood out for higher prices
+from Government. The regular opposition appears to have been limited
+to 82 votes, of which 30 belonged to Whig nominees, and the rest to
+the popular party.
+
+It is, then, easy to account for the state of public feeling which Mr.
+Plunket, with these facts and figures before him, so well describes.
+He says truly that if it were possible to appeal to the country under
+these circumstances, the people would not have responded. 'Gloomy
+and desperate, they had lost all confidence in their parliament,
+and looked to other quarters for deliverance from the _intolerable
+tyranny_ under which they suffered. There can be no doubt that
+this anarchy and disgrace were in a great degree the result of a
+misgovernment, ancient and recent, _which seems to have been always
+adopted with a view to bring out strongly the worst elements of the
+Irish character_; but it was at that time said, and no doubt believed
+by the Opposition, that the ministry of the day had deliberately
+planned and accomplished the disorganisation of the Irish people and
+their parliament, in order to enable them to carry out their favourite
+project of the Union.'
+
+Mr. Plunket, after describing the classes of 'representatives' that
+his grandfather had to deal with in the Irish House of Commons,
+further says: 'It is true that this corrupt assembly cannot fairly be
+looked upon as the mirror of national character and national honour.
+The members of the majority who voted for the Union _were not_
+the representatives of the people, _but the hired servants of the
+Minister, for the Parliament had been packed for the purpose_.'
+
+Towards the close of the century, however, the French Revolution,
+the American war, and the volunteer movement, had begun to cause
+some faint stirring of national life in the inert mass of the Roman
+Catholic population, which the penal code had '_dis-boned_.' Up
+to this time they were not even thought of in the calculations of
+politicians. According to Dean Swift, Papists counted no more in
+politics than the women and children. Macaulay uses a still more
+contemptuous comparison to express the estimate in which they were
+held in those times, saying, that their lords and masters would as
+soon have consulted their poultry and swine on any political question.
+Nevertheless, during the excitement of the volunteer movement, some
+of the poor Celts began to raise their heads, and presumed to put the
+question to the most liberal portion of the ruling race--'Are we not
+men? Have not we also some rights?' The appeal was responded to in the
+Irish parliament, and in 1793 the elective franchise was conceded to
+Roman Catholics. It was the first concession, and the least that could
+be granted. But the bare proposal excited the utmost indignation in
+the Tory party, and especially in the Dublin corporation, where
+the Orange spirit was rampant. That body adopted an address to the
+Protestants of Ireland, which bears a remarkable resemblance in its
+spirit and style to addresses lately issued by Protestant Defence
+Associations. Both speak in the kindest terms of their Roman Catholic
+fellow-subjects, disclaim all intention of depriving them of any
+advantages they enjoy under our glorious constitution, declaring that
+their objects are purely _defensive_, and that they want merely to
+guard that constitution against the aggressions of the Papacy quite as
+much for the sake of Roman Catholics as for the sake of Protestants.
+'Countrymen and friends,' said the Dublin Tories, seventy-five years
+ago, 'the firm and manly support which we received from you when we
+stood forward in defence of the Protestant Ascendancy, deserves our
+warmest thanks. We hoped that the sense of the Protestants of Ireland,
+declared upon that occasion, would have convinced our Roman Catholic
+fellow-subjects that the pursuit of political power was for them a
+vain pursuit; for, though the liberal and enlightened mind of the
+Protestant receives pleasure at seeing the Catholic exercise his
+religion with freedom, enjoy his property in security, and possess
+the highest degree of personal liberty, yet, experience has taught us
+that, without the ruin of the Protestant establishment, the Catholic
+cannot be allowed the smallest influence in the state.'
+
+Those men were as thoroughly convinced as their descendants,
+who protest against concession to-day, that all our Protestant
+institutions would go to perdition, if Papists, although then mere
+serfs, were allowed to vote for members of parliament. They were
+equally puzzled to know why Roman Catholics were discontented, or what
+more their masters could reasonably do for them to add to the enviable
+happiness of their lot. 'We entreat you,' the Dublin corporation said
+to their Protestant brethren throughout the country--'we entreat you
+to join with us in using every honest means of persuading the Roman
+Catholics to rest content with the most perfect toleration of their
+religion, the fullest security of their property, and the most
+complete personal liberty; but, by no means, now or hereafter, to
+attempt any interference in the government of the kingdom, as such
+interference would be incompatible with the Protestant Ascendancy,
+which we have resolved with our lives and fortunes to maintain.'
+Lest any doubt should exist as to what they meant by 'Protestant
+Ascendancy,' they expressly defined it. They resolved that it
+consisted in a Protestant King of Ireland; a Protestant Parliament,
+Protestant electors and Government; Protestant benches of justice;
+a Protestant hierarchy; the army and the revenue, through all their
+branches and details, Protestant; and this system supported by a
+connection with the Protestant realm of Britain.
+
+The power of the political franchise to elevate a degraded people, to
+convert slaves into men, is exhibited before the eyes of the present
+generation in the Southern States of America; even where differences
+of race and colour are most marked, and where the strongest natural
+antipathies are to be overcome. We may judge from this what must
+have been the effect of this concession on the Irish Celts. The
+forty-shilling freeholders very soon became objects of consideration
+with their landlords, who were anxious to extend their political
+influence in their respective counties, for the representation of
+which the great proprietors had many a fierce contest. The abolition
+of this franchise by the Emancipation Act made that measure a
+grievance instead of a relief to the peasantry, for the landlords were
+now as anxious to get rid of the small holders as they had been to
+increase them so long as they served their political purpose. It was
+one of the great drawbacks which deprived emancipation of the healing
+effect it would otherwise have produced. If--as Pitt intended--that
+measure had formed part of the Union arrangements; if the
+forty-shilling freeholders had been spared, and the priesthood had
+been endowed, we should never have had an agitation for repeal or even
+for the separation of the church from the state. Pitt's plan of the
+Union included the abolition of Protestant Ascendancy.
+
+Edmund Burke, in one of his letters on Ireland, said: 'A word has
+been lately struck in the mint of the castle of Dublin. Thence it was
+conveyed to the Tholsel, or city hall, where having passed the touch
+of the corporation, so respectably stamped and vouched, it soon became
+current in parliament, and was carried back by the speaker of the
+House of Commons, in great pomp, as an offering of homage from whence
+it came. That word is Ascendancy. The word is not absolutely new.' He
+then gives its various meanings, and first shows what it does _not_
+signify in the new sense. Not influence obtained by love or reverence,
+or by superior management and dexterity; not an authority derived from
+wisdom or virtue, promoting the happiness and freedom of the Roman
+Catholic people; not by flattering them, or by a skilful adaptation to
+their humours and passions. It means nothing of all these. Burke then
+shows what it does mean. 'New ascendancy is old mastership. It is
+neither more nor less than the resolution of one sect of people in
+Ireland to consider themselves the sole citizens in the commonwealth,
+and to keep a dominion over the rest, by reducing them to absolute
+slavery under a military power; and thus fortified in their power, to
+divide the public estate, which is the result of general contribution,
+as a military booty, solely among themselves. This ascendancy,
+by being a _Protestant_ ascendancy, does not better it, from a
+combination of a note or two more in this anti-harmonic scale. By
+the use that is frequently made of the term, and the policy that is
+grafted on it, the name Protestant becomes nothing more or better than
+the name of a persecuting faction, with a relation of some sort of
+theological hostility to others, but without any sort of ascertained
+tenets of its own, upon the ground of which it persecutes other men;
+for the patrons of this Protestant ascendancy neither do nor can,
+by anything positive, define or describe what they mean by the word
+Protestant.... The whole is nothing but pure and perfect malice. It
+is indeed a perfection in that kind, belonging to beings of a higher
+order than man, and to them we ought to leave it.... Let three
+millions of people but abandon all that they and their ancestors have
+been taught to believe sacred, and to forswear it publicly in terms
+the most degrading, and nothing more is required of them.... The word
+_Protestant_ is the charm that locks up in a dungeon of servitude
+three millions of people.
+
+Every thoughtful reader of the debates in parliament on the state of
+Ireland, must have been struck with the difference of opinion between
+the Liberals and the Conservatives, as to the facts of the case. A
+still more violent difference was presented in the British parliament,
+in the year 1797, when there were great debates in both houses on the
+subject, and when the facts were still more glaring, one of them being
+that the reign of terror established by the Irish Government prevented
+the press from reporting the maddening atrocities which the ruling
+faction was daily perpetrating against the mass of the king's
+subjects. The debate arose in the Lords, on a motion by Lord Moira
+for an address to the king on the state of Ireland. He described the
+horrors of which he had been recently a witness, but softened the
+recital, lest he should shock his hearers too much. Orange loyalty
+was then licensed and let loose upon the defenceless Roman Catholic
+population in Ulster. Lord Gosford's description of the scenes of
+desolation in his own county, Armagh, is well known. He did what
+he could to prevent the burning of Roman Catholic houses, and the
+personal injuries inflicted upon the unfortunate inhabitants, while
+their Orange neighbours chased them out of the country, giving them
+Cromwell's alternative. But his mercy injured his reputation, and he
+felt obliged to protest solemnly that he was a loyal man, and that he
+wished to uphold Protestant ascendancy in Ireland as much as any of
+his accusers. He only asked that the poor Catholic should be allowed
+to live in peace. In the debate referred to, Lord Moira declared that
+ninety-one householders had been banished from one of his own estates;
+and many of them wounded in their persons. The discontent, he said,
+was not confined to one sect. He ascribed the state of things to the
+recall of Lord Fitzwilliam, which crushed the hopes of the Catholics,
+and gave unbounded licence to the yeomanry, who were empowered to act
+with a vigour beyond the law; to turn out, banish, or kill the king's
+subjects, on mere suspicion, often prompted by private malice, and
+having no better warrant than anonymous information. But for all this
+the Irish parliament and the new reactionary viceroy freely granted
+acts of indemnity. According to Earl Fitzwilliam 'whole parishes,
+baronies, and even counties, were declared to be out of the king's
+peace.'
+
+Mr. Fox brought forward a similar motion in the House of Commons,
+pleading the cause of justice and humanity in a noble speech, and
+boldly affirming principles of government for Ireland, which
+Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Chichester Fortescue, and Mr. Bright are now
+endeavouring to have carried out by the imperial parliament after
+seventy years of concession, extorted by three rebellions. Mr. Fox
+expressed his abhorrence of 'the truly diabolical maxim' of '_Divide
+el impera_,' by which the government of Ireland was conducted. He
+hoped that the discontent which threatened the separation of Ireland
+would be dissipated without the necessity of war. 'But now,' he said,
+'the extremity of rigour has been tried--the severity of despotism has
+been let loose--and the Government is driven to that state when the
+laws are not to be put into execution, but to be superseded.' The
+motion was seconded by Sir Francis Burdett, who said: 'Whoever has
+seen Ireland, has seen a country where the fields are desolated, and
+the prisons overflowing with the victims of oppression--has seen the
+shocking contrast between a profligate, extravagant Government, and
+an enslaved and impoverished people.' The motion was rejected by
+a majority of 136. Lord Moira made a last and an almost despairing
+appeal on November 22, in the same year. In his speech he said:
+'I have seen in that country a marked distinction made between the
+English and the Irish. I have seen troops that have been sent full of
+this prejudice, that every inhabitant of that kingdom is a rebel to
+the British Government. I have seen the most wanton insults practised
+upon men of all ranks and conditions. I have seen the most grievous
+oppression exercised, in consequence of a presumption that the person
+who was the unfortunate object of such oppression was in hostility to
+the Government; and yet that has been done in a part of the country
+as quiet and as free from disturbance as the city of London. He who
+states these things should be prepared with proofs. I am prepared with
+them.' He then went into a number of horrifying details, and concluded
+as follows: 'You say that the Irish are insensible to the benefits
+of the British constitution, and you withhold all these benefits from
+them. You goad them with harsh and cruel punishments, and a general
+infliction of insult is thrown upon the kingdom. I have seen, my
+lords, a conquered country held by military force; _but never did I
+see in any conquered country such a tone of insult as has been adopted
+by Great Britain towards Ireland_. I have made a last effort. I acquit
+my conscience; I have done my duty.'
+
+In subsequent debates, the following sentiments were uttered by the
+leading Whig statesmen of the day: 'The treatment of Ireland,' said
+Mr. Fox, 'was such as to harrow up the soul. It was shocking to think
+that a nation of brothers was thus to be trampled on like the most
+remote colony of conquered strangers.... The Irish people have been
+scourged by the iron hand of oppression, and subjected to the horrors
+of military execution, and are now in a situation too dreadful for the
+mind to contemplate without dismay. After the inhuman dragooning
+and horrible executions, the recital of which makes the blood run
+cold--after so much military cruelty, not in one, but in almost every
+part of the country--is it possible for this administration to procure
+unanimity in Ireland?' On March 22, 1798, the Duke of Bedford moved an
+address to the king, asking him to change his ministers, and alluding
+to the state of Ireland, as it was before the breaking out of the
+Rebellion. He said: 'Were I to enter into a detail of the atrocities
+which have been committed in Ireland, the picture would appal the
+stoutest heart. It could be proved that the most shocking cruelties
+have been perpetrated; but what could be expected if men kept in
+strict discipline were all at once allowed to give loose to their fury
+and their passions?'
+
+Lord Holland was persuaded that his majesty's ministers could not
+tranquillise Ireland even by conciliation. 'How could they conciliate
+whose concessions are always known to be the concessions of weakness
+and of fear, and who never granted to the Irish--the most generous
+people upon earth,--anything without a struggle or resistance?' Lord
+William Russell, in June following, said: 'A man's loyalty was to
+be estimated by the desire he testified to imbrue his hands in his
+brother's blood.' Sheridan asked: 'After being betrayed, duped,
+insulted--disappointed in their dearest hopes, and again thrown into
+the hands of the rulers they detested and despised, was it impossible
+they should feel emotions of indignation? The struggle is not one of
+partial disaffection, but it is a contest between the people and the
+Government.' Mr. Tierney said: 'It was certain the people were in arms
+against the Government, nor was it easy to conceive how--having been
+scourged, burnt, and massacred--they could have any other feeling than
+aversion to that Government.'
+
+Every motion on the subject in both houses was rejected by
+overwhelming majorities. So little impression did the reports of the
+appalling facts which were of daily occurrence in Ireland make upon
+that Tory Government, that the speeches of ministers read exactly like
+the speeches of Mr. Disraeli, Mr. Hardy, Lord Mayo, and Mr. Warren,
+in the past session. Lord Grenville, the home secretary, professed the
+most profound respect for the independence of the Irish parliament,
+and he could not think of interfering in the least with its
+privileges, however the empire might suffer from its excesses.
+'The motion of Lord Moira was not only unnecessary, it was highly
+mischievous.' He dwelt on the improved state of Ireland, and the
+tranquillity of the people. If there were partial excesses on the part
+of the military, they were unavoidable, and could only be deplored.
+'He was unable to discern what should alienate the affections of
+Ireland. For the whole space of thirty years his majesty's Government
+had been distinguished by the same uniform tenderness of regard,
+by the same undeviating adherence to the mild principles of a
+conciliatory system.... If any cruelties had been practised, they must
+have been resisted by a high-spirited people. Were there no courts of
+justice? The conduct of the lord lieutenant was highly commendable.
+The system recommended by Lord Moira would only tend to villify the
+Irish Government.' Then came the fatal announcement which sounded
+the death-knell of thousands of the Irish people, and caused the
+destruction of millions' worth of property. The home secretary said:
+'The contrary system must, therefore, be persevered in; and to
+the spirited exertions of the British military should we owe the
+preservation of Irish laws, of Irish property, and of Irish lives!'
+
+To this the Marquis of Downshire added 'that he was not afraid of the
+effects of coercion. Every concession had been made that could be made
+towards Ireland. Every Catholic was as free as the safety of the
+state would admit. Were the Catholics to have an equal share in the
+government with the Protestants, the Government and the country would
+be lost.'
+
+I will conclude by quoting the remarks of Mr. Fox, referred to above:
+'If you do not allay their discontent, there is no way but force to
+keep them in obedience. Can you convince them by the musket that their
+principles are false? Can you prove to them by the bayonet that their
+pretensions are unjust? Can you demonstrate to them by martial law
+that they enjoy the blessings of a free constitution? No, it is said,
+but they may be deterred from the prosecution of the objects which you
+have determined to refuse. But on what is this founded? On the history
+of Ireland itself? No; for the history of Ireland proves that, though
+repeatedly subdued, it could not be kept in awe by force; and the
+late examples will prove the effect which severity may be expected
+to produce.... I would therefore concede; and if I found I had not
+conceded enough, I would concede more. I know of no way of governing
+mankind, but by conciliating them.... My wish is that the whole people
+of Ireland should have the same principles, the same system, the same
+operation of government. ... I would have the whole Irish government
+regulated by Irish notions and Irish prejudices; and I firmly
+believe, according to an Irish expression, the more she is under Irish
+government, the more she will be bound to English interests. ... I
+say, therefore, try conciliation, but do not have recourse to arms.'
+He warned and implored in vain. The Union had been determined on; and
+it was thought that it could be effected only after the prostration of
+civil war, into which, therefore, the unfortunate people were goaded.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+POVERTY AND COERCION.
+
+
+We are now in the nineteenth century, without any relief for the Irish
+peasantry. The rebellion of '98, so cruelly crushed, left an abiding
+sense of terror in the hearts of the Roman Catholic population.
+Their condition was one of almost hopeless prostration. The Union was
+effected without the promised relief from their religious disabilities
+which was to be one of its essential conditions. The established
+church was secured, the rights of property were secured, but there was
+no security for the mass of the people. Domestic politics were almost
+forgotten in the gigantic struggle with Napoleon, which exhausted
+the energies of the empire. Any signs of political life that showed
+themselves in Ireland were connected with Catholic emancipation, and
+the visit of George IV., in 1820, held forth promises of relief which
+excited unbounded joy. The king loved his Irish subjects, and would
+never miss an opportunity of realising the good wishes for their
+happiness which he had so often and so fervently expressed to his Whig
+friends, when he was Prince Regent. O'Connell's agitation commenced
+soon after, and in nine years after the royal visit emancipation was
+extorted by the dread of civil war, frankly avowed by the Duke of
+Wellington and Sir Robert Peel. But this boon left the masses nearly
+where they had been, only more conscious of their power, and more
+determined to use it, in the removal of their grievances.
+
+Lord Redesdale, writing to Lord Eldon in 1821, said:--'In England
+the machine goes on almost of itself, and therefore a bad driver
+may manage it tolerably well. It is not so in Ireland. The country
+requires great exertion to bring it into a state of order and
+submission to law. The whole population--high and low, rich and poor,
+Catholic and Protestant--must all be brought to obedience to law; all
+must be taught to look up to the law for protection. The gentry are
+ready enough to attend grand juries, to obtain presentments for their
+own benefit, but they desert the quarter-sessions of the peace. The
+first act of a constable in arresting must not be to knock down the
+prisoner; and many, many reforms must be made, which only can be
+effected by a judicious and able Government _on the spot_. Ireland, in
+its present state, cannot be governed in England. If insubordination
+compels you to give, how are you to retain by law what you propose to
+maintain while insubordination remains? It can only be by establishing
+completely the empire of the law.'
+
+Sir Archibald Alison ascribed the unhappy relations of classes in
+Ireland to what he calls 'the atrocious system of confiscation, which,
+in conformity with feudal usages, the victors introduced on every
+occasion of rebellion against their authority.' Sir George Nicholls
+has shown, in his valuable history of the Irish poor law, that as
+early as 1310 the parliament assembled at Kilkenny resolved that none
+should keep Irish, or kern, in time of peace to live upon the poor of
+the country; 'but those which will have them shall keep them at their
+own charges, so that the free tenants and farmers be not charged with
+them.' And 130 years afterwards, the parliament assembled in Dublin
+declared that divers of the English were in the habit of maintaining
+sundry thieves, robbers, and rebels, and that they were to be adjudged
+traitors for so doing, and suffer accordingly. In 1450, this class
+of depredators had increased very much, and by their 'thefts and
+manslaughters caused the land to fall into decay, poverty wasting it
+every day more and more; whereupon it was ordained that it should
+be lawful for every liege man to kill or take notorious thieves, and
+thieves found robbing, spoiling, or breaking houses; and that every
+man that kills or takes any such thieves shall have one penny of every
+plough, and one farthing of every cottage within the barony where the
+manslaughter is done, for every thief.' These extracts show a very
+barbarous state of society, but Sir George Nicholls remarks that
+at the same period the condition of England and Scotland was very
+similar, save only that that of Ireland was aggravated by the civil
+conflicts between the colonists and the natives. There were some
+efforts made in Ireland, by various enactments, to put down this evil,
+and to provide employment for the large numbers that were disposed to
+prey upon the industry of their neighbours, by robbery, beggary, and
+destruction of property. But while there was a legal provision made
+for the poor in England, there was none in Ireland, where the people
+were, _en masse_, deprived of the means of self-support by the action
+of the Government. Hence, so late as the year 1836, the poor-law
+commissioners reported to the following effect:--
+
+It appeared that in Great Britain the agricultural families
+constituted little more than a fourth, whilst in Ireland they
+constituted about two-thirds, of the whole population; that there
+were in Great Britain, in 1831, 1,055,982 agricultural labourers;
+in Ireland, 1,131,715, although the cultivated land of Great Britain
+amounted to about 34,250,000 acres and that of Ireland only to about
+14,600,000. So that there were in Ireland about five agricultural
+labourers for every two that there were for the same quantity of land
+in Great Britain. It further appeared that the agricultural progress
+of Great Britain was more than four times that of Ireland; in which
+agricultural wages varied from sixpence to one shilling a day; the
+average of the country being about eightpence-halfpenny; and that the
+earnings of the labourers came, on an average of the whole class, to
+from two shillings to two and sixpence a week or thereabouts for the
+year round. Thus circumstanced, the commissioners observed, 'It is
+impossible for the able-bodied in general to provide against sickness
+or the temporary absence of employment, or against old age, or the
+destitution of their widows and children in the contingent event of
+their own premature decease. A great portion of them are, it is said,
+insufficiently provided with the commonest necessaries of life. Their
+habitations are wretched hovels, several of a family sleep together
+on straw, or upon the bare ground, sometimes with a blanket, sometimes
+even without so much to cover them; their food commonly consists of
+dry potatoes, and with these they are at times so scantily supplied as
+to be obliged to stint themselves to one spare meal in the day.
+There are even instances of persons being driven by hunger to seek
+sustenance in wild herbs. They sometimes get a herring or a little
+milk, but they never get meat except at Christmas, Easter, and
+Shrovetide. Some go in search of employment to Great Britain, during
+the harvest; others wander through Ireland with the same view. The
+wives and children of many are occasionally obliged to beg; but they
+do so reluctantly and with shame, and in general go to a distance from
+home, that they may not be known. Mendicity, too, is the sole resource
+of the aged and impotent of the poorer classes in general, when
+children or relatives are unable to support them. To it, therefore,
+crowds are driven for the means of existence, and the knowledge that
+such is the fact leads to an indiscriminate giving of alms, which
+encourages idleness, imposture, and general crime.' Such was the
+wretched condition of the great body of the labouring classes in
+Ireland; 'and with these facts before us,' the commissioners say, 'we
+cannot hesitate to state that we consider remedial measures requisite
+to ameliorate the condition of the Irish poor. What those measures
+should be is a question complicated, and involving considerations
+of the deepest importance to the whole body of the people, both in
+Ireland and Great Britain.'
+
+Sir George Nicholls, who had been an English poor-law commissioner,
+was sent over to Ireland to make preliminary enquiries. He found
+that the Irish peasantry had generally an appearance of apathy and
+depression, seen in their mode of living, their habitations, their
+dress and conduct; they seemed to have no pride, no emulation, to
+be heedless of the present and careless of the future. They did not
+strive to improve their appearance or add to their comforts: their
+cabins were slovenly, smoky, dirty, almost without furniture, or any
+article of convenience or common decency. The woman and her children
+were seen seated on the floor, surrounded by pigs and poultry: the man
+lounging at the door, which could be approached only through mud and
+filth: the former too slatternly to sweep the dirt and offal from the
+door, the latter too lazy to make a dry footway, though the materials
+were close at hand. If the mother were asked why she did not keep
+herself and her children clean with a stream of water running near the
+cabin, her answer invariably was--Sure, how can we help it? We are so
+poor.' The husband made the same reply, while smoking his pipe at the
+fire or basking in the sunshine. Sir George Nicholls rightly concluded
+that poverty was not the sole cause of this state of things. He found
+them also remarkable for their desultory and reckless habits. Though
+their crops were rotting in the fields from excessive wet, and every
+moment of sunshine should be taken advantage of, yet if there was a
+market, a fair, or a funeral, a horse-race, a fight, or a wedding,
+forgetting everything else, they would hurry off to the scene of
+excitement. Working for wages was rare and uncertain, and hence arose
+a disregard of the value of time, a desultory, sauntering habit,
+without industry or steadiness of application. 'Such,' he proceeds,
+'is too generally the character and such the habits of the Irish
+peasantry; and it may not be uninstructive to mark the resemblance
+which these bear to the character and habits of the English peasantry
+in the pauperised districts, under the abuses of the old poor law.
+Mendicancy and indiscriminate almsgiving have produced in Ireland
+results similar to what indiscriminate relief produced in England--the
+like reckless disregard of the future, the like idle and disorderly
+conduct, and the same proneness to outrage having then characterised
+the English pauper labourer which are now too generally the
+characteristics of the Irish peasant. An abuse of a good law caused
+the evil in the one case, and a removal of that abuse is now rapidly
+effecting a remedy. In the other case the evil appears to have arisen
+rather from the want than the abuse of a law; but the corrective for
+both will, I believe, be found to be essentially the same.'
+
+The expectation that such a neglected people, made wretched by bad
+land laws, should be loyal, was surely unreasonable. For them,
+it might be said, there was no Government, no protection, no
+encouragement. There could not be more tempting materials for
+agitators to work upon. Lord Cloncurry vividly sketches the state
+of things resulting from the want of principle and earnestness among
+politicians in dealing with Irish questions at that time.
+
+'From the Union up to the year 1829, the type of British colonial
+government was the order of the day. The Protestants were upheld as
+a superior caste, and paid in power and official emoluments for their
+services in the army of occupation. During the second viceroyalty of
+Lord Anglesea, an effort was made by him to evoke the energies of the
+whole nation for its own regeneration. That effort was defeated by
+the conjoint influence of the cowardice of the English cabinet,
+the petulance of Mr. Stanley, and the unseasonable violence and
+selfishness of the lately emancipated popular leaders. Upon Lord
+Anglesea's recall the modern Whig model of statemanship was set up and
+followed: popular grievances were allowed to remain unredressed; the
+discontent and violence engendered by those grievances were used from
+time to time for party purposes; the people were hung and bayoneted
+when their roused passions exceeded the due measure of factious
+requirement; and the state patronage was employed to stimulate and
+to reward a staff of demagogues, by whom the masses were alternately
+excited to madness, and betrayed, according to the necessities of the
+English factions. When Russells and Greys were out or in danger, there
+were free promises of equal laws and privileges and franchises for
+oppressed Ireland; the minister expectant or trembling for his place,
+spoke loudly of justice and compensation, of fraternity and freedom.
+To these key-notes the place-hunting demagogue pitched his brawling.
+His talk was of pike-making, and sword-fleshing, and monster marching.
+The simple people were goaded into a madness, the end whereof was for
+them suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, the hulks, and the gallows;
+for their stimulators, silk gowns and commissionerships and seats on
+the bench. Under this treatment the public mind became debauched; the
+lower classes, forced to bear the charges of agitation, as well as to
+suffer its penalties, lost all faith in their social future; they saw
+not and looked not beyond the momentary excitement of a procession or
+a monster meeting.'
+
+Sir Robert Peel, when introducing the Emancipation Bill, had to
+confess the utter failure of the coercive policy which had been so
+persistently pursued. He showed that Ireland had been governed, since
+the Union, almost invariably by coercive acts. There was always some
+political organisation antagonistic to the British Government. The
+Catholic Association had just been suppressed; but another would soon
+spring out of its ashes, if the Catholic question were not settled.
+Mr. O'Connell had boasted that he could drive a coach-and-six through
+the former act for its suppression; and Lord Eldon had engaged to
+drive 'the meanest conveyance, even a donkey cart, through the act of
+1829.' The new member for Oxford (Sir Robert Inglis) also stated that
+twenty-three counties in Ireland were prepared to follow the example
+of Clare. 'What will you do,' asked Sir Robert Peel, 'with that power,
+that tremendous power, which the elective franchise, exercised
+under the control of religion, at this moment confers upon the Roman
+Catholics? What will you do with the thirty or forty seats that will
+be claimed in Ireland by the persevering efforts of the agitators,
+directed by the Catholic Association, and carried out by the agency
+of every priest and bishop in Ireland?' If Parliament began to recede
+there could be no limit to the retrogression. Such a course would
+produce a reaction, violent in proportion to the hopes that had been
+excited. Fresh rigours would become necessary; the re-enactment of the
+penal code would not be sufficient. They must abolish trial by jury,
+or, at least, incapacitate Catholics from sitting on juries. 2,000,000
+of Protestants must have a complete monopoly of power and privilege in
+a country which contained 5,000,000 of Catholics, who were in most
+of the country four to one--in some districts twenty to one--of the
+Protestants. True, there were difficulties in the way of a settlement.
+'But,' asked Sir Robert Peel, 'what great measure, which has stamped
+its name upon the era, has ever been carried without difficulty?
+
+At the present moment there is a loud cry in the English press for the
+suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, and for the old remedy, coercion.
+Those who raise the cry would do well to read Mr. Shiel's speech at
+the Clare election in 1828. He said:--
+
+'We have put a great engine into action, and applied the entire force
+of that powerful machinery which the law has placed under our control.
+We are masters of the passions of the people, and we have employed
+our dominion with a terrible effect. But, sir, do you, or does any man
+here, imagine that we could have acquired this formidable ability to
+sunder the strongest ties by which the different classes of society
+are fastened, unless we found the materials of excitement in the state
+of society itself? Do you think that Daniel O'Connell has himself,
+and by the single powers of his own mind, unaided by any external
+co-operation, brought the country to this great crisis of agitation?
+Mr. O'Connell, with all his talent for excitation, would have been
+utterly powerless and incapable, unless he had been allied with a
+great conspirator against the public peace; and I will tell you who
+that confederate is--it is the law of the land itself that has been
+Mr. O'Connell's main associate, and that ought to be denounced as the
+mighty agitator of Ireland. The rod of oppression is the wand of this
+enchanter, and the book of his spells is the penal code? Break the
+wand of this political Prospero, and take from him the volume of his
+magic, and he will evoke the spirits which are now under his control
+no longer. But why should I have recourse to illustration, which may
+be accounted fantastical, in order to elucidate what is in itself
+so plain and obvious? Protestant gentlemen, who do me the honour to
+listen to me, look, I pray you, a little dispassionately at the real
+causes of the events which have taken place amongst you.... In no
+other country, except in this, would such a revolution have been
+effected. Wherefore? Because in no other country are the people
+divided by the law from their superiors, and cast into the hands of a
+set of men who are supplied with the means of national excitement
+by the system of government under which we live. Surely, no man can
+believe that such an anomalous body as the Catholic Association could
+exist excepting in a community that has been alienated from the state
+by the state itself. The discontent and the resentment of 7,000,000
+of the population have generated that domestic government which sways
+public opinion, and uses the national passions as the instruments
+of its will. It would be utterly impossible, if there were no
+exasperating distinctions amongst us, to create any artificial causes
+of discontent. Let men declaim for a century, and if they have no real
+grievance their harangues will be empty sound and idle air. But
+when what they tell the people is true--when they are sustained by
+substantial facts, effects are produced of which what has taken place
+at this election is only an example. The whole body of the people
+having been previously excited, the moment any incident such as this
+election occurs, all the popular passions start simultaneously up, and
+bear down every obstacle before them. Do not, therefore, be surprised
+that the peasantry should throw off their allegiance when they are
+under the operation of emotions which it would be wonderful if they
+could resist. The feeling by which they are actuated would make them
+not only vote against their landlord, but would make them scale the
+batteries of a fortress, and mount the breach; and, gentlemen, give
+me leave to ask you whether, after due reflection upon the motives by
+which your vassals (for so they are accounted) are governed, you will
+be disposed to exercise any measure of severity in their regard?'
+
+The greatest warrior of the age rebuked the men who cried in that day
+that the sword should be the arbiter of the Irish question; and Sir
+Robert Peel, in his own vindication of the Emancipation Act, said:--
+
+'I well know that there are those upon whom such considerations as
+these to which I have been adverting will make but a faint impression.
+Their answer to all such appeals is the short, in their opinion the
+conclusive, declaration--" The Protestant constitution in church
+and state must be maintained at all hazards, and by any means; the
+maintenance of it is a question of principle, and every concession
+or compromise is the sacrifice of principle to a low and vulgar
+expediency." This is easily said; but how was Ireland to be governed?
+How was the Protestant constitution in church and state to be
+maintained in that part of the empire? Again I can anticipate the
+reply--"By the overwhelming sense of the people of Great Britain; by
+the application, if necessary, of physical force for the maintenance
+of authority; by the employment of the organised strength of
+government, the police and the military, to enforce obedience to the
+law." I deliberately affirm that a minister of the crown, responsible
+at the time of which I am speaking for the public peace and the public
+welfare, would have grossly and scandalously neglected his duty if he
+had failed to consider whether it might not be possible that the fever
+of political and religious excitement which was quickening the pulse
+and fluttering the bosom of the whole Catholic population--which had
+inspired the serf of Clare with the resolution and energy of a free
+man--which had, in the twinkling of an eye, made all considerations of
+personal gratitude, ancient family connection, local preferences, the
+fear of worldly injury, the hope of worldly advantage, subordinate
+to the all-absorbing sense of religious obligation and public
+duty--whether, I say, it might not be possible that the contagion of
+that feverish excitement might spread beyond the barriers which,
+under ordinary circumstances, the habits of military obedience and
+the strictness of military discipline opposed to all such external
+influences.'
+
+The officer who commanded the military force in Clare during the
+election, testified, as the result of his observation there, that,
+even in the constabulary and the army, the sympathies of a common
+cause, political and religious, could not be altogether repressed,
+and that implicit reliance could not long be placed on the effect of
+discipline and the duty of obedience. On July 20, Lord Anglesea wrote
+as follows:--
+
+'We hear occasionally of the Catholic soldiers being ill-disposed, and
+entirely under the influence of the priests. One regiment of infantry
+is said to be divided into Orange and Catholic factions. It is certain
+that, on July 12, the guard at the castle had Orange lilies about
+them.' On July 26, the viceroy wrote another letter, from which the
+following is an extract:--'The priests are using very inflammatory
+language, and are certainly working upon the Catholics of the army.
+I think it important that the depôts of Irish recruits should be
+gradually removed, under the appearance of being required to join
+their regiments, and that whatever regiments are sent here should be
+those of Scotland, or, at all events, of men not recruited from the
+south of Ireland. I desired Sir John Byng to convey this opinion to
+Lord Hill.'
+
+Emancipation was carried, and the people were disaffected still.
+And why should they not be disaffected still? Emancipation had
+done nothing for them. The farmers were still at the mercy of the
+landlords, whose pride they humbled at the hustings of Clare and
+Waterford. They were still tormented by the tithe-proctor seizing the
+tenth of all that their labour produced on the land. The labourers
+were still wretched, deprived of the forty-shilling freehold, which
+protected them from the horrors of eviction and of transportation in
+a floating hell across the Atlantic. I well remember the celebrated
+anti-tithe war in 1831, as well as the system by which it was
+provoked, and I can bear witness to the accuracy of the following
+description of the tithe-proctor by Henry Grattan. He said:--
+
+'The use of the tithe-farmer is to get from the parishioners what the
+parson would be ashamed to demand, and so enable the parson to absent
+himself from his duty. The powers of the tithe-farmer are summary laws
+and ecclesiastical courts; his livelihood is extortion; his rank in
+society is generally the lowest; and his occupation is to pounce on
+the poor in the name of the Lord! He is a species of wolf left by
+the shepherd to take care of the flock in his absence.' A single
+tithe-proctor had on one occasion processed 1,100 persons for tithes,
+nearly all of the lower order of farmers or peasants, the expense of
+each process being about 8 s. They had heard of opinions delivered
+in parliament, on the platform, and from the press by Protestant
+statesmen of the highest consideration, that it was a cruel oppression
+to extort in that manner from the majority of the tillers of the soil
+the tenth of its produce, in order to support the clergy of another
+church, who, in many cases, had no flocks, or only a few followers,
+who were well able to pay for their own religious instruction. The
+system would be intolerable even were the state clergy the pastors of
+the majority; but as the proportion between the Protestants and the
+Roman Catholics was in many parts as one to ten, and in some as one to
+twenty, the injustice necessarily involved in the mode of levying the
+impost was aggravated a hundredfold. It would be scarcely possible
+to devise any mode of levying an impost more exasperating, which
+came home to the bosoms of men with more irritating, humiliating,
+and maddening power, and which violated more recklessly men's natural
+sense of justice. If a plan were devised for the purpose of driving
+men into insurrection, nothing could be more effectual than
+the tithe-proctor system. Besides, it tended directly to the
+impoverishment of the country, retarding agricultural improvement and
+limiting production. If a man kept all his land in pasture, he escaped
+the impost; but the moment he tilled it, he was subjected to a tax of
+ten per cent. on the gross produce. The valuation being made by the
+tithe-proctor--a man whose interest it was to defraud both the tenant
+and the parson--the consequence was, that the gentry and the large
+farmers, to a great extent, evaded the tax, and left the small
+occupiers to bear nearly the whole burden; they even avoided mowing
+the meadows in some cases, because then they should pay tithe for the
+hay.
+
+There was besides a tax called church cess, levied by Protestants in
+vestry meetings upon Roman Catholics for cleaning the church, ringing
+the bell, washing the minister's surplice, purchasing bread and wine
+for the communion, and paying the salary of the parish clerk. This
+tax was felt to be a direct and flagrant violation of the rights of
+conscience, and of the principles of the British constitution; and
+against it there was a determined opposition, which manifested itself
+in tumultuous and violent assemblages at the parish churches all
+over the country on Easter Monday, when the rector or his curate, as
+chairman of the meeting, came into angry collision with flocks who
+disowned him, and denounced him as a tyrant, a persecutor, and a
+robber.
+
+But the tithe impost was the one most grievously felt, and at last the
+peasantry resolved to resist it by force.
+
+Nothing could be more violent than the contrasts presented at this
+time in the social life of Ireland. On the one side there was a rapid
+succession of atrocities and tragedies fearful to contemplate: the
+bailiffs, constabulary, and military driving away cattle, sheep, pigs,
+and geese to be sold by public auction, to pay the minister who had no
+congregation to whom he could preach the gospel; the cattle-prisons
+or 'pounds' surrounded by high walls, but uncovered, wet and dirty,
+crowded with all sorts of animals, cold and starved, and uttering
+doleful sounds; the driving away of the animals in the night from one
+farm to another to avoid seizures; the auctions without bidders,
+in the midst of groaning and jeering multitudes; the slaughter
+of policemen, and in some instances of clergymen, with fiendish
+expressions of hatred and yells of triumph; the mingling of fierce
+passions with the strongest natural affections; the exultation in
+murder as if it were a glorious deed of war; the Roman Catholic press
+and platform almost justifying those deeds of outrage and blood; the
+mass of the Roman Catholic population sustaining this insurrection
+against the law with their support and sympathy and prayers, as if it
+were a holy war, in which the victims were martyrs. On the other side
+were presented pictures which excited the deepest interest of the
+Protestant community throughout the United Kingdom. We behold the
+clergyman and his family in the glebe-house, lately the abode of
+plenty, comfort, and elegance, a model of domestic happiness and
+gentlemanly life; but the income of the rector fell off, till he was
+bereft of nearly all his means. In order to procure the necessaries
+of life for his family, he was obliged to part with the cows that gave
+milk for his household, the horse and car, which were necessary in the
+remote place where his glebe-house was situated, and everything that
+could be spared, till at length he was obliged to make his greatest
+sacrifice, and to send his books--the dear and valued companions of
+his life--to Dublin, to be sold by auction. His boys could no longer
+be respectably clad, his wife and daughters were obliged to part with
+their jewellery and all their superfluities. There was no longer wine
+or medicine, that the mother was accustomed to dispense kindly and
+liberally to the poor around her, in their sickness and sorrow,
+without distinction of creed.
+
+The glebe, which once presented an aspect of so much comfort and ease
+and affluence, now looked bare and desolate and void of life. But for
+the contributions of Christian friends at a distance, many of
+those once happy little centres of Christian civilisation--those
+well-springs of consolation to the afflicted--must have been abandoned
+to the overwhelming sand of desolation swept upon them by the
+hurricane of the anti-tithe agitation.
+
+During this desperate struggle, force was employed on several
+occasions with fatal effect. At Newtownbarry, in the county of
+Wexford, some cattle were impounded by a tithe-proctor. The peasantry
+assembled in large numbers to rescue them, when they came into
+collision with the yeomanry, who fired, killing twelve persons. It was
+a market day, and a placard was posted on the walls: 'There will be an
+end of church plunder; your pot, blanket, and pig will not hereafter
+be sold by auction to support in luxury, idleness, and ease persons
+who endeavour to make it appear that it is essential to the peace and
+prosperity of the country and your eternal salvation, while the most
+of you are starving. Attend to an auction of your neighbours' cattle.'
+At Carrickshock there was a fearful tragedy. A number of writs against
+defaulters were issued by the court of exchequer, and entrusted to
+the care of process-servers, who, guarded by a strong body of police,
+proceeded on their mission with secrecy and dispatch. Bonfires along
+the surrounding hills, however, and shrill whistles soon convinced
+them that the people were not unprepared for their visitors. But
+the yeomanry pushed boldly on. Suddenly an immense assemblage of
+peasantry, armed with scythes and pitchforks, poured down upon them.
+A terrible hand-to-hand struggle ensued, and in the course of a few
+moments eighteen of the police, including the commanding officer,
+were slaughtered. The remainder consulted safety and fled, marking the
+course of their retreat by the blood that trickled from their wounds.
+A coroner's jury pronounced this deed of death as 'wilful murder'
+against some persons unknown. A large government reward was offered,
+but it failed to produce a single conviction. At Castlepollard, in
+Westmeath, on the occasion of an attempted rescue, the chief constable
+was knocked down. The police fired, and nine or ten persons were
+killed. One of the most lamentable of these conflicts occurred at
+Gurtroe, near Rathcormac, in the county of Cork. Archdeacon Ryder
+brought a number of the military to recover the tithes of a farm
+belonging to a widow named Ryan. The assembled people resisted, the
+military were ordered to fire, eight persons were killed and thirteen
+wounded; and among the killed was the widow's son.
+
+These disorders appealed with irresistible force to the Government and
+the legislature, to put an end to a system fraught with so much evil,
+and threatening the utter disruption of society in Ireland. In the
+first place, something must be done to meet the wants of the destitute
+clergy and their families. Accordingly, Lord Stanley brought in a
+bill, in May 1832, authorising the lord lieutenant of Ireland to
+advance 60,000 l. as a fund for the payment of the clergy, who were
+unable to collect their tithes for the year 1831. This measure was
+designed to meet the present necessity, and was only a preliminary to
+the promised settlement of the tithe question. It was therefore passed
+quickly through both Houses, and became law on June 1. But the money
+thus advanced was not placed on the consolidated fund.
+
+The Government took upon itself the collection of the arrears of
+tithes for that one year. It was a maxim with Lord Stanley that the
+people should be made to respect the law; that they should not
+be allowed to trample upon it with impunity. The odious task thus
+assumed, produced a state of unparalleled excitement. The people were
+driven to frenzy, instead of being frightened by the chief secretary
+becoming tithe-collector-general, and the army being employed in
+its collection. They knew that the king's speech had recommended the
+settlement of the tithe question. They had heard of the evidence of
+Bishop Doyle and other champions, exposing what they believed to be
+the iniquity of the tithe system. They had seen the condemnation of it
+in the testimony of the Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, who declared
+his conviction that it could not be collected except at the point of
+the bayonet, and by keeping up a chronic war between the Government
+and the Roman Catholic people. They had been told that parliamentary
+committees had recommended the complete extinction of tithes, and
+their commutation into a rent-charge. Their own leaders had everywhere
+resolved:--
+
+'That it was a glaring wrong to compel an impoverished Catholic people
+to support in pampered luxury the richest clergy in the world--a
+clergy from whom, the Catholics do not experience even the return of
+common gratitude--a clergy who, in times past, opposed to the last
+the political freedom of the Irish people, and at the present day
+are opposed to reform and a liberal scheme of education for their
+countrymen. The ministers of the God of charity should not, by
+misapplication of all the tithes to their own private uses, thus
+deprive the poor of their patrimony; nor should ministers of
+peace adhere with such desperate tenacity to a system fraught with
+dissension, hatred, and ill-will.' The first proceeding of the
+Government to recover the tithes, under the act of June 1, was
+therefore the signal for general war. Bonfires blazed upon the hills,
+the rallying sounds of horns were heard along the valleys, and the
+mustering tread of thousands upon the roads, hurrying to the scene
+of a seizure or an auction. It was a bloody campaign; there was
+considerable loss of life, and the Church and the Government thus
+became more obnoxious to the people than ever. Lord Stanley being the
+commander-in-chief on one side, and Mr. O'Connell on the other, the
+contest was embittered by their personal antipathies. It was found
+that the amount of the arrears for the year 1831 was 104,285 l., and
+that the whole amount which the Government was able to levy, after
+putting forth its strength in every possible way, was 12,000 l., the
+cost of collection being 15,000 l., so the Government was not able to
+raise as much money as would pay the expenses of the campaign. This
+was how Lord Stanley illustrated his favourite sentiment that the
+people should be made to respect the law. But the Liberal party among
+the Protestants fully sympathised with the anti-tithe recusants.
+
+Of course the Government did not persevere in prosecutions from which
+no parties but the lawyers reaped any advantage; consequently, all
+processes under the existing law were abandoned. It was found that,
+after paying to the clergy the arrears of 1831 and 1832, and what
+would be due in 1833, about a million sterling would be required,
+and this sum was provided by an issue of exchequer bills. The
+reimbursement of the advance was to be effected by a land tax.
+Together with these temporary arrangements to meet the exigency of the
+case, for the payment of the clergy and the pacification of Ireland,
+an act was passed to render tithe composition in Ireland compulsory
+and permanent. But Ireland was not yet pacified.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: The foregoing sketch of the tithe war was written by the
+author seven years ago for Cassell's _History of England_, from which
+it is now extracted.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+THE FAMINE.
+
+
+It had often been predicted by writers on the state of Ireland, that,
+owing to the rottenness at the foundation of the social fabric, it
+would come down with a crash some day. The facts reported by the
+census commissioners of 1841 showed that this consummation could not
+be far off. Out of a population of 8,000,000, there were 3,700,000
+above the age of five years who could neither read nor write; while
+nearly three millions and a half lived in mud cabins, badly thatched
+with straw, having each but one room, and often without either a
+window or a chimney. These figures indicate a mass of ignorance
+and poverty, which could not be contemplated without alarm, and the
+subject was, therefore, constantly pressed upon the attention of
+parliament. As usual in cases of difficulty, the Government, feeling
+that something should be done, and not knowing what to do, appointed
+in 1845 a commission to enquire into the relations between landlords
+and tenants, and the condition of the working classes. At the head of
+this commission was the Earl of Devon, a benevolent nobleman, whose
+sympathies were on the side of the people. Captain Kennedy, the
+secretary to the commissioners, published a digest of the report of
+the evidence, which presented the facts in a readable form, and was
+the means of diffusing a large amount of authentic information on the
+state of Ireland. The commissioners travelled through the country,
+held courts of enquiry, and examined witnesses of all classes. As the
+result of their extensive intercourse with the farming classes, and
+their own observations, they were enabled to state that in almost
+every part of Ireland unequivocal symptoms of improvement, in spite
+of many embarrassing and counteracting circumstances, continually
+presented themselves to the view, and that there existed a very
+general and increasing spirit and desire for the promotion of such
+improvement, from which the most beneficial results might fairly be
+expected.
+
+Indeed, speaking of the country generally, they add: 'With some
+exceptions, which are unfortunately too notorious, we believe that at
+no former period did so active a spirit of improvement prevail; nor
+could well directed measures for the attainment of that object have
+been proposed with a better prospect of success than at the present
+moment.'
+
+But this improvement produced no sensible effect upon the condition
+of the labouring people. However brightly the sun of prosperity might
+gild the eminences of society, the darkness of misery and despair
+settled upon the masses below. The commissioners proceed: 'A
+reference to the evidence of most of the witnesses will show that
+the agricultural labourer of Ireland continues to suffer the greatest
+privations and hardships; that he continues to depend upon casual and
+precarious employment for subsistence; that he is still badly housed,
+badly fed, badly clothed, and badly paid for his labour. Our personal
+experience and observation during our enquiry have afforded us a
+melancholy confirmation of these statements; and we cannot forbear
+expressing our strong sense of the patient endurance which the
+labouring classes have generally exhibited under sufferings greater,
+we believe, than the people of any other country in Europe have to
+sustain.' It was deeply felt that the well-being of the whole United
+Kingdom depended upon the removal of the causes of this misery and
+degradation; for if the Irish people were not elevated, the English
+working classes must be brought down to their level. The facility of
+travelling afforded by railways and steam-boats caused such constant
+intercourse between England and Ireland, that Irish ignorance,
+beggary, and disease, with all their contagion, physical and moral,
+would be found intermingling with the British population. It would be
+impossible to prevent the half-starved Irish peasantry from crossing
+the Channel, and seeking employment, even at low wages, and forming a
+pestiferous Irish quarter in every town and city. The question, then,
+was felt to be one whose settlement would brook no further delay.
+
+It was found that the potato was almost the only food of the Irish
+millions, and that it formed their chief means of obtaining the other
+necessaries of life. A large portion of this crop was grown under the
+system, to which the poorest of the peasantry were obliged to have
+recourse, notwithstanding the minute subdivision of land. There were
+in 1841, 691,000 farms in Ireland exceeding one acre in extent.
+Nearly one half of these were under five acres each. The number
+of proprietors in fee was estimated at 8,000--a smaller number, in
+proportion to the extent of territory, than in any other country of
+Western Europe except Spain. In Connaught, several proprietors had
+100,000 acres each, the proportion of small farms being greater there
+than in the rest of Ireland. The total number of farms in the province
+was 155,842, and of these 100,254 consisted of from one to five acres.
+If all the proprietors were resident among their tenantry, and were
+in a position to encourage their industry and care for their welfare,
+matters would not have been so bad; but most of the large landowners
+were absentees. It frequently happened that the large estates
+were held in strict limitation, and they were nearly all heavily
+encumbered. The owners preferred living in England or on the
+Continent, having let their lands on long leases, or in perpetuity
+to 'middlemen,' who sublet them for as high rents as they could get.
+Their tenants again sublet, so that it frequently happened that two,
+three, or four landlords intervened between the proprietor and the
+occupying tenant, each deriving an interest from the land. The head
+landlord, therefore, though ever so well disposed, had no power
+whatever to help the occupying tenants generally, and of those who
+had the power very few felt disposed. There were extensive districts
+without a single resident proprietor.
+
+For a few weeks after the blight of the potato crop in 1846 the
+cottiers and small farmers managed to eke out a subsistence by the
+sale of their pigs and any little effects they had. But pigs, fowl,
+furniture, and clothing soon went, one after another, to satisfy the
+cravings of hunger. The better class of farmers lived upon their corn
+and cattle; but they were obliged to dismiss their servants, and this
+numerous class became the first victims of starvation; for when they
+were turned off, they were refused admission by their relations, who
+had not the means of feeding them. Tailors, shoemakers, and other
+artisans who worked for the lower orders, lost their employment, and
+became destitute also. While the means of support failed upon every
+side, and food rose to such enormous prices that everything that
+could possibly be eaten was economised, so that the starving dogs were
+drowned from compassion, the famine steadily advanced from the west
+and south to the east and north, till it involved the whole population
+in its crushing grasp. It was painfully interesting to mark the
+progress of the visitation, even in those parts of the country where
+its ravages were least felt. The small farmer had only his corn,
+designed for rent and seed: he was obliged to take it to the mill
+to ward off starvation. The children of the poor, placed on short
+allowance, were suffering fearfully from hunger. Mothers, heart-broken
+and worn down to skeletons, were seen on certain days proceeding
+in groups to some distant depôt, where Indian meal was to be had at
+reduced prices, but still double that of the ordinary market. As they
+returned to their children, with their little bags on their heads, a
+faint joy lit up their famine-stricken features.
+
+When the visitors entered a village their first question was: 'How
+many deaths?' '_The hunger is upon us_,' was everywhere the cry; and
+involuntarily they found themselves regarding this hunger as they
+would an epidemic, looking upon starvation as a disease. In fact, as
+they passed along, their wonder was, not that the people died, but
+that they lived; and Mr. W.G. Forster, in his report, said: 'I have
+no doubt whatever, that in any other country the mortality would have
+been far greater; and that many lives have been prolonged, perhaps
+saved, by the long apprenticeship to want in which the Irish peasant
+has been trained, and by that lovely, touching charity which prompts
+him to share his scanty meal with his starving neighbour. But the
+springs of this charity must be rapidly dried up. Like a scourge of
+locusts, _the hunger_ daily sweeps over fresh districts, eating up all
+before it. One class after another is falling into the same abyss of
+ruin.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Transactions during the Famine in Ireland, Appendix III.]
+
+The same benevolent gentleman describes the domestic scenes he saw in
+Connaught, where the poor Celts were carried off in thousands:--
+
+'We entered a cabin. Stretched in one dark corner, scarcely visible
+from the smoke and rags that covered them, were three children huddled
+together, lying there because they were too weak to rise, pale and
+ghastly; their little limbs, on removing a portion of the covering,
+perfectly emaciated; eyes sunk, voice gone, and evidently in the last
+stage of actual starvation. Crouched over the turf embers was another
+form, wild and all but naked, scarcely human in appearance. It stirred
+not nor noticed us. On some straw, soddened upon the ground, moaning
+piteously, was a shrivelled old woman, imploring us to give her
+something, baring her limbs partly to show how the skin hung loose
+from her bones, as soon as she attracted our attention. Above her,
+on something like a ledge, was a young woman with sunken cheeks, a
+mother, I have no doubt, who scarcely raised her eyes in answer to
+our enquiries; but pressed her hand upon her forehead, with a look
+of unutterable anguish and despair. Many cases were widows, whose
+husbands had been recently taken off by the fever, and thus their only
+pittance obtained from the public works was entirely cut off. In many
+the husbands or sons were prostrate under that horrid disease--the
+result of long-continued famine and low living--in which first the
+limbs and then the body swell most frightfully, and finally burst. We
+entered upwards of fifty of these tenements. The scene was invariably
+the same, differing in little but the manner of the sufferers, or of
+the groups occupying the several corners within. The whole number was
+often not to be distinguished, until the eye having adapted itself
+to the darkness, they were pointed out, or were heard, or some filthy
+bundle of rags and straw was seen to move. Perhaps the poor children
+presented the most piteous and heart-rending spectacle. Many were
+too weak to stand, their little limbs attenuated, except where the
+frightful swellings had taken the place of previous emaciation. Every
+infantile expression had entirely departed; and, in some reason and
+intelligence had evidently flown. Many were remnants of families,
+crowded together in one cabin; orphaned little relatives taken in by
+the equally destitute, and even strangers--for these poor people are
+kind to each other, even to the end. In one cabin was a sister, just
+dying, lying beside her little brother, just dead. I have worse than
+this to relate; but it is useless to multiply details, and they are,
+in fact, unfit.'
+
+In December, 1846, Father Mathew wrote to Mr. Trevelyan, then
+secretary of the treasury, that men, women, and children
+were gradually wasting away. They filled their stomachs with
+cabbage-leaves, turnip-tops, &c., to appease the cravings of hunger.
+There were then more than 5,000 half-starved wretches from the country
+begging in the streets of Cork. When utterly exhausted, they crawled
+to the workhouse to die. The average of deaths in that union was then
+over a hundred a week.
+
+From December 27, in 1846, to the middle of April, in 1847, the number
+of human beings that died in the Cork workhouse was 2,130! And in the
+third week of the following month the free interments in the Mathew
+cemetery had risen to 277--as many as sixty-seven having been buried
+in one day. The destruction of human life in other workhouses of
+Ireland kept pace with the appalling mortality in the Cork workhouse.
+According to official returns, it had reached in April the weekly
+average of twenty-five per 1,000 inmates; the actual number of deaths
+being 2,706 for the week ending April 3, and 2,613 in the following
+week. Yet the number of inmates in the Irish workhouses was but
+104,455 on April 10.
+
+The size of the unions was a great impediment to the working of
+the poor law. They were three times the extent of the corresponding
+divisions in England. In Munster and Connaught, where there was the
+greatest amount of destitution, and the least amount of local agency
+available for its relief, the unions were much larger than in the
+more favoured provinces of Ulster and Leinster. The union of Ballina
+comprised a region of upwards of half a million acres, and within
+its desert tracts the famine assumed its most appalling form, the
+workhouse being more than forty miles distant from some of the
+sufferers. As a measure of precaution, the Government had secretly
+imported and stored a large quantity of Indian corn, as a cheap
+substitute for the potato, which would have served the purpose much
+better had the people been instructed in the best modes of cooking it.
+It was placed in commissariat, along depôts the western coast of the
+island, where the people were not likely to be supplied on reasonable
+terms through the ordinary channels of trade. The public works
+consisted principally of roads, on which, the men were employed as
+a sort of supplement to the poor law. Half the cost was a free grant
+from the treasury, and the other half was charged upon the barony
+in which the works were undertaken. The expense incurred under the
+'Labour Rate Act, 9 and 10 Viet. c. 107,' amounted to 4,766,789 l. It
+was almost universally admitted, when the pressure was over, that
+the system of public works adopted was a great mistake; and it seems
+wonderful that such grievous blunders could have been made with so
+many able statesmen and political economists at the head of affairs
+and in the service of the Government. The public works undertaken
+consisted in the breaking up of good roads to level hills and fill
+hollows, and the opening of new roads in places where they were not
+required--works which the people felt to be useless, and at which they
+laboured only under strong compulsion, being obliged to walk to them
+in all weathers for miles, in order to earn the price of a breakfast
+of Indian meal. Had the labour thus comparatively wasted been devoted
+to the draining, sub-soiling, and fencing of the farms, connected
+with a comprehensive system of arterial drainage, immense and lasting
+benefit to the country would have been the result, especially as
+works so well calculated to ameliorate the soil, and guard against the
+moisture of the climate, might have been connected with a system of
+instruction in agricultural matters of which the peasantry stood so
+much in need, and to the removal of the gross ignorance which had so
+largely contributed to bring about the famine. As it was, enormous
+sums were wasted. Much needless hardship was inflicted on the starving
+people in compelling them to work in frost and rain when they were
+scarcely able to walk, and, after all the vast outlay, very few traces
+of it remained in permanent improvements on the face of the country.
+The system of government relief works failed chiefly through the
+same difficulty which impeded every mode of relief, whether public or
+private--namely, the want of machinery to work it. It was impossible
+suddenly to procure an efficient staff of officers for an undertaking
+of such enormous magnitude--the employment of a whole people. The
+overseers were necessarily selected in haste; many of them were
+corrupt, and encouraged the misconduct of the labourers. In many cases
+the relief committees, unable to prevent maladministration, yielded
+to the torrent of corruption, and individual members only sought to
+benefit their own dependants. The people everywhere flocked to the
+public works; labourers, cottiers, artisans, fishermen, farmers, men,
+women, and children--all, whether destitute or not, sought for a share
+of the public money. In such a crowd, it was almost impossible to
+discriminate properly. They congregated in masses on the roads,
+idling under the name of work, the really destitute often unheeded
+and unrelieved because they had no friend to recommend them. All
+the ordinary employments were neglected; there was no fishing, no
+gathering of sea-weed, no collecting of manure. The men who had
+employment feared to lose it by absenting themselves for any other
+object; those unemployed spent their time in seeking to obtain it. The
+whole industry of the country seemed to be engaged in road-making. It
+became absolutely necessary to put an end to it, or the cultivation
+of the land would be neglected. Works undertaken on the spur of
+the moment, not because they were needful, but merely to employ the
+people, were in many cases ill chosen, and the execution equally
+defective. The labourers, desirous to protract their employment, were
+only anxious to give as little labour as possible, in which their
+overlookers or gangers in many cases heartily agreed. The favouritism,
+the intimidation, the wholesale jobbing practised in many cases were
+shockingly demoralising.
+
+In order to induce the people to attend to their ordinary spring work,
+and put in the crops, it was found necessary to adopt the plan of
+distributing free rations. On March 20, therefore, a reduction of
+twenty per cent. of the numbers employed on the works took place, and
+the process of reduction went on until the new system of gratuitous
+relief was brought into full operation. The authority under which this
+was administered was called the 'Temporary Relief Act,' which came
+into full operation in the month of July, when the destitution was at
+its height, and three millions of people received their daily rations.
+Sir John Burgoyne truly describes this as 'the grandest attempt
+ever made to grapple with famine over a whole country.' Never in the
+history of the world were so many persons fed in such a manner by the
+public bounty. It was a most anxious time--a time of tremendous
+labour and responsibility to those who had the direction of this vast
+machinery. A member of the Board of Works thus describes the feeling
+which no doubt pervaded most of those that were officially connected
+with the administration of relief: 'I hope never to see such a winter
+and spring again. I can truly say, in looking back upon it even now,
+that it appears to me not a succession of weeks and days, but one long
+continuous day, with occasional intervals of night-mare sleep. Rest
+one could never have, when one felt that in every minute lost a score
+of men might die.' Mr. Trevelyan was then secretary of the treasury,
+and it was well that a man so enlightened, energetic, and benevolent
+occupied the post at such a time. He was indefatigable in his efforts
+to mitigate the calamity, and he wrote an interesting account of 'The
+Irish Crisis' in the _Edinburgh Review_. Having presented the dark
+side of the picture in faithfully recording the abuses that had
+prevailed, it is right to give Mr. Trevelyan's testimony as to the
+conduct of the relief committees during this supreme hour of the
+nation's agony. 'It is a fact very honourable to Ireland that among
+upwards of 2,000 local bodies to whom advances were made under this
+act, there is not one to which, so far as the Government is informed,
+any suspicion of embezzlement attaches.'
+
+The following statement of the numbers receiving rations, and the
+total expenditure under the act in each of the four provinces,
+compared with the amount of population, and the annual value assessed
+for poor-rate, may serve to illustrate the comparative means and
+destitution of each province:--
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------
+|         |  Population |  Valuation |    Greatest    |   Total    |
+|         |             |            |   Number of    |Expenditure |
+|         |             |            |  Rations given |            |
+|         |             |            |      out       |            |
+|---------|-------------|------------|----------------|------------|
+|         |             |      £     |                |     £      |
+|Ulster   |  2,386,373  |  3,320,133 |     346,517    |   170,508  |
+|Leinster |  1,973,731  |  4,624,542 |     450,606    |   308,068  |
+|Munster  |  2,396,161  |  1,465,643 |   1,013,826    |   671,554  |
+|Counaught|  1,418,859  |  1,465,643 |     745,652    |   526,048  |
+|         |-------------|------------|----------------|------------|
+|         |  8,175,124  | 13,187,421 |   2,556,601    | 1,676,268  |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Private benevolence did wonders in this crisis. The British
+Association raised and distributed 269,302 l. The queen's letter,
+ordering collections in the English churches, produced 200,738 l. But
+the bounty of the United States of America transcended everything. The
+supplies sent across the Atlantic were on a scale unparalleled in the
+history of the world.
+
+Meetings were held in Philadelphia, Washington, New York, and other
+cities, in quick succession, presided over by the first men in the
+country. All through the States the citizens evinced an intense
+interest, and a noble generosity worthy of the great Republic.
+The railway companies carried free of charge all packages marked
+'Ireland.' Public carriers undertook the gratuitous delivery of
+packages intended for the relief of Irish distress. Storage to any
+extent was offered on the same terms. Ships of war, without their
+guns, came to the Irish shores on a mission of peace and mercy,
+freighted with food for British subjects. Cargo after cargo followed
+in rapid succession, until nearly 100 separate shipments had arrived,
+our Government having consented to pay the freight of all donations of
+food forwarded from America, which amounted in the whole to 33,000 l.
+The quantity of American food consigned to the care of the Society of
+Friends was nearly 10,000 tons, the value of which was about 100,000
+l. In addition to all this, the Americans remitted to the Friends'
+Committee 16,000 l. in money. They also sent 642 packages of clothing,
+the precise value of which could not be ascertained. There was a very
+large amount of remittances sent to Ireland, during the famine, by
+the Irish in the United States. Unfortunately, there are no records of
+those remittances prior to 1848; but since that time we are enabled
+to ascertain a large portion of them, though not the whole, and their
+amount is something astonishing. The following statement of sums
+remitted by emigrants in America to their families in Ireland, was
+printed by order of Parliament:--During the years 1848, 460,180 l.;
+1849, 540,619 l.; 1850, 957,087 l. 1851, 990,811 l.
+
+The arrival of the American ships naturally excited great interest at
+the various ports. 'On Monday, April 13,' writes Mr. Maguire, 'a noble
+sight might be witnessed in Cork harbour--the sun shining its welcome
+on the entrance of the unarmed war-ship Jamieson, sailing in under a
+cloud of snowy canvas, her great hold laden with bread-stuffs for the
+starving people of Ireland. It was a sight that brought tears to many
+an eye, and prayers of gratitude to many a heart. It was one of those
+things which one nation remembers of another long after the day of
+sorrow has passed. Upon the warm and generous people to whom America
+literally broke bread and sent life, this act of fraternal charity, so
+gracefully and impressively offered, naturally produced a profound and
+lasting impression, the influence of which is felt at this moment.'
+
+The clergy, Protestant and Roman Catholic, almost the only resident
+gentry in several of the destitute districts, worked together on the
+committees with commendable zeal, diligence, and unanimity. Among the
+Roman Catholic clergy, Father Mathew was at that time by far the most
+influential and popular. The masses of the peasantry regarded him
+as almost an inspired apostle. During the famine months, he
+exerted himself with wonderful energy and prudence, first, in his
+correspondence with different members of the Government, earnestly
+recommending and urging the speedy adoption of measures of relief;
+and next, in commending those measures to the people, dissuading the
+hungry from acts of violence, and preaching submission and resignation
+under that heavy dispensation of Providence. Of this there are ample
+proofs in the letters published by Mr. Maguire, M.P. 'It is not to
+harrow your feelings, dear Mr. Trevelyan,' he wrote, 'I tell this tale
+of woe. No; but to excite your sympathy in behalf of our miserable
+peasantry. It is rumoured that the capitalists in the corn and flour
+trade are endeavouring to induce the Government not to protect the
+people from famine, but to leave them at their mercy. I consider
+this a cruel and unjustifiable interference. I am so unhappy at the
+prospect before us, and so horror-struck by the apprehension of our
+destitute people falling into the ruthless hands of the corn and flour
+traders, that I risk becoming troublesome, rather than not lay my
+humble opinions before you.' Again: 'I hail with delight the humane,
+the admirable measures for relief announced by my Lord John Russell;
+they have given universal satisfaction. But of what avail will all
+this be, unless the wise precautions of Government will enable the
+toiling workman, after exhausting his vigour during a long day to earn
+a shilling, to purchase with that shilling a sufficiency of daily food
+for his generally large and helpless family?' Father Mathew earnestly
+pleaded for out-door relief, in preference to the workhouse,
+foreseeing the danger of sundering the domestic bonds, which operate
+so powerfully as moral restraints in Ireland. The beautiful picture
+which he drew of the Irish peasant's home in his native land was
+not too highly coloured, as applied to the great majority of the
+people:--'The bonds of blood and affinity, dissoluble by death alone,
+associate in the cabins of the Irish peasantry, not only the husband,
+wife, and children, but the aged parents and the married couple and
+their destitute relatives, even to the third and fourth degree of
+kindred. God forbid that political economists should dissolve these
+ties! should violate these beautiful charities of nature and the
+gospel! I have often found my heart throb with delight when I beheld
+three or four generations seated around the humble board and blazing
+hearth; and I offered a silent prayer to the great Father of all that
+the gloomy gates of the workhouse should never separate those whom
+such tender social chains so fondly link together.'
+
+The following is a tabular view of the whole amount of voluntary
+contributions during the Irish famine, which deserves a permanent
+record for the credit of our common humanity:--
+
+                                             £    s. d.    £    s. d.
+Local contributions officially reported
+  in 1846                                               104,689 18  1
+Local contributions officially reported
+  in 1847                                               199,569  4  1
+British  Relief  Association, total
+  received                                470,041  1  2
+ say five-sixths for Ireland              391,700 17  8
+General Central Relief Committee,
+  College Green                            83,934 17 11
+ Less received from British Relief
+  Association                              20,190  0  0
+                                          _____________  63,744 17 11
+Irish Relief Association, Sackville
+  Street                                                 42,446  5  0
+Relief Committee of the Society of
+  Friends, London                                        42,905 12  0
+Central Relief Committee of the
+  Society of Friends, Dublin              198,313 15  3
+ Less received from Committee of the
+   Society of Friends in London,
+   and interest                            39,249 19 11
+                                          _____________ 159,063 15  4
+Indian Relief Fund                                       13,919 15  2
+National Club, London                                    19,928 12  2
+Wesleyan Methodist Relief Fund,
+  London                                                 20,056 14  4
+Irish Evangelical Society, London                         9,264  9  9
+Baptists' Relief Fund, London                             6,141 11  2
+Ladies' Irish Clothing Society, London      9,533  4  0
+ Less received from British Association,
+  &c.                                       5,324 12 11
+                                          _____________   4,208 11  1
+Ladies' Relief Association for Ireland     19,584  0  9
+ Less received from Irish Relief
+  Association and for sales of
+  manufactures                              7,659  6  7
+                                          _____________  11,924 14  2
+Ladies' Industrial Society for
+  encouragement of labour among the
+  peasantry                                 1,968 12  8
+ Less received from Irish Relief
+  Association                               1,500  0  0
+                                          _____________     468 12  8
+Belfast Ladies' Association for the
+  relief of Irish Distress                                2,617  1  6
+Belfast Ladies' Industrial Association
+  for Connaught                                           4,615 16  1
+There were also two collections in
+  Belfast for general purposes, the
+  amount of which exceeded                               10,000  0  0
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+TENANT-RIGHT IN ULSTER.
+
+
+The Earl of Granard has taken a leading part in the movement for the
+settling of the land question, having presided at two great meetings
+in the counties in which he has large estates, Wexford and Longford,
+supported on each occasion by influential landlords. He was the first
+of his class to propose that the question should be settled on the
+basis of tenant-right, by legalising and extending the Ulster custom.
+A reference to this custom has been frequently made recently, in
+discussions on the platform and in the press. I have studied the
+history of that province with care; and I have during the year 1869
+gone through several of its counties with the special object of
+inquiring how the tenant-right operates, and whether, and to what
+extent, it affords the requisite security to the cultivators of the
+soil; and it may be of some service that I should give here the result
+of my enquiries.
+
+Of the six counties confiscated and planted in Ulster, Londonderry,
+as I have already remarked, was allotted to the London companies. The
+aspect of their estates, is on the whole, very pleasing. In the midst
+of each there is a small town, built in the form of a square, with a
+market-house and a town-hall in the centre, and streets running off at
+each side. There are almost invariably three substantial and handsome
+places of worship--the parish church, always best and most prominent,
+the presbyterian meeting-house, and the catholic chapel, with nice
+manses for the ministers, all built wholly or in part by grants from
+the companies.
+
+Complaints were constantly made against the Irish Society for its
+neglect of its trust, for refusing to give proper building leases, and
+for wasting the funds placed at its disposal for public purposes. The
+details are curious and interesting, throwing much light on the
+social history of the times. The whole subject of its duties and
+responsibilities, and of its anomalous powers, was fully discussed
+at a meeting of the principal citizens, most of them strongly
+Conservative, on the 28th of May, 1866. There had been a discussion
+on the subject in the House of Commons, in which Lord Claud Hamilton,
+then member for the borough, distinguished himself. Mr. Maguire
+brought the Society before Parliament in an able speech. The
+legislature, as well as the public, were then preoccupied with the
+Church question. But, doubtless, the maiden city will make her voice
+heard next session, and insist on being released from a guardian who
+always acted the part of a stepmother.
+
+The Irish Society has been before three parliamentary tribunals, the
+Commissioners of Municipal Corporations for England and Wales, the
+Royal Commission of Enquiry into the state of the Corporation
+of London, and the Irish Municipal Commissioners. The English
+Commissioners say:--'We do not know of any pretext or argument for
+continuing this municipal supremacy of the Irish Society. A control
+of this kind maintained at the present day by the municipality of
+one town in England over another town in Ireland, appears to us
+so indefensible in principle, that our opinion would not have been
+changed, even if it were found that hitherto it has been conducted
+with discretion and forbearance.'
+
+The Irish commissioners affirmed 'that the Irish Society in their
+original institution were created for the purpose of forwarding the
+interests and objects of the Plantation, and not for mere private
+gain; and that of the large income which they receive from their
+possessions in Londonderry, a very inadequate and disproportionate
+share is applied for the public purposes, or other objects connected
+with the local interests of the districts from which the revenues of
+the society are drawn.'
+
+The corporation of Derry cannot put a bye-law in force till it
+receives the approval of the Irish Society. And what is this tribunal
+whose fiat must stamp the decision of the Derry corporation before it
+can operate in the smallest matter within the municipal boundary?
+The members are London traders, totally ignorant of Ireland. They
+are elected for two years, so that they must go out by the time they
+acquire any information about their trust, to make way for another
+batch equally ignorant. Having everything to learn during their term
+of office, if they have time or capacity to learn anything about
+the matter, they must submit to the guidance of the governor, who is
+elected virtually, though not formally, for life; and the members of
+the Derry corporation believe him to be the autocrat of the society.
+Mr. James P. Hamilton, now the assistant-barrister for Sligo, at the
+great meeting of the citizens of Derry already mentioned, pronounced
+the governors to be 'the most ignorant, the most incompetent, and the
+most careless governors that ever were inflicted on a people.' Mr.
+Hamilton quoted from the answer of the corporation of London in 1624
+to the Privy Council, which required them to convey 4,000 acres to
+the citizens of Derry. The corporation replied that they had allotted
+1,500 acres for the use of the mayor and other civil officers. That
+was either true or false. If true, by what right did they recall the
+grant, and re-possess themselves of those lands? By the articles they
+were bound to make quays, which were not made. They were bound to
+give bog and mountain for the city common, which they never gave. The
+corporation had a tract called the sheriffs mountain, but the city was
+robbed of it by her cruel stepmother, the Irish Society. The society
+was bound to give 200 acres for a free school, and if this had been
+done Derry might have had a rich foundation, rivalling Westminster
+or the Charter School. Mr. Hamilton, conservative as he is, with the
+heart of a true Irishman, indignantly asks, 'Why is this national
+grievance and insult continued for the profit of no one? Their very
+name is an insult and a mockery--_The Governor and Assistants, London,
+of the New Plantation in Ulster_! What do they govern? They don't
+govern us in any sense of the word. They merely hold our property in
+a dead grip, without any profit to themselves, and to our great
+disadvantage.'
+
+The city is overwhelmed with debt--debt for the new quays, debt for
+the new bridge, debt for the public works of the corporation, which
+has struggled to improve the city under the incubus of this alien
+power, contending with debt, want of tenure, and other difficulties,
+which would all have been avoided if the city had the lands which
+these Londoners hold in their possession and use as their own pleasure
+dictates, half the revenues being spent in the management.
+
+Mr. William Hazlett, a magistrate of Derry, one of its ablest and
+most respected citizens, stated that from 1818 to 1847 the expenses
+of management were 60 per cent. The royal commissioners set it down
+thus--Total expenditure, 219,898 l.; management, 133,912 l. The
+law expenses were, during the same period, 40,000 l. 'This item
+of itself,' says Mr. Hazlett, 'must be considered an intolerable
+grievance, for it was laid out for the oppression of the people who
+should have benefited by the funds so squandered in opposing the
+very parties who supplied the money, with which they were themselves
+harassed. If a tenant applies for a lease, and the society consents
+to grant one, it is so hampered with obstructive clauses that his
+solicitor objects to his signing it, and says that from its nature it
+could not be made a negotiable instrument on which to raise money. The
+tenant remonstrates, but the reply of the city is--"That is our form
+of lease; you must comply with it or want!" If you go to law with
+them, they may take you into Chancery, and fight you with your own
+money.'
+
+Mr. Hazlett gave a remarkable illustration of this, which shows
+the spirit in which this body thinks proper to fulfil its duties as
+steward of this property. The Devon Land Commission recommended that
+leases of lives renewable for ever should be converted into fee-farm
+grants, which would be a valuable boon to the tenant without any loss
+to the owner. A bill founded on the recommendation was introduced to
+parliament. Did the enlightened and liberal Irish Society hail
+with satisfaction this wise measure of reform? On the contrary, the
+governor went out of his way to oppose it. Having striven in vain,
+with all the vast influence of the corporation, to have the bill
+thrown out, he endeavoured to get the society exempted from its
+operation. When, in spite of his efforts, the bill became law, the
+governor utterly refused to act on it, and brought the matter before
+the Master of the Rolls and the House of Lords. From these renewable
+leases the society had an income of about 2,500 l. yearly. And what
+amount did they demand--these moderate and discreet gentleman, 'The
+Governor and Assistants, London, of the new Plantation of Ulster'--for
+their interest in the renewable leases? Not less than 100,000 l., or
+about 40 years' purchase. In the year 1765, when the city of Derry was
+fast hastening to decay under this London government, the society was
+induced by an increase of 37 per cent. on the rent, to grant those
+renewable leases. 'And but for the granting of those leases,' said Mr.
+Hazlett, 'we should have no standing-ground in this city, nor should
+we even have the right to meet in this hall as we do to-day.'
+
+Other striking facts illustrating the paternal nature of this foreign
+government of the 'New Plantation' were produced by Mr. Thomas
+Chambers, a solicitor who had defended the Rev. J.M. Staples in a suit
+brought by the society, and which cost them 40,000 l. of the public
+money to win, after dragging the reverend gentleman from one court to
+another, regardless of expense. Originally, as we have seen, the city
+got a grant of 4,000 acres for the support of the corporation; but
+actually received only 1,500, valued then at 60 l., a year. This land
+was forfeited and transferred to the bishop in the reign of Charles I.
+Ultimately the bishop gave up the land and the fishery, for which the
+see received, and still receives, 250 l. a year. The society got, hold
+of the 1,500 acres, and refused to give them back to the city, which,
+with the alienation of the sheriff's mountain, and the raising of the
+city rents (in 1820) from 40 l. to 600 l. a year, left it 1,000 l. a
+year worse than it had been previously. The result of this policy of
+a body which was established for promoting 'civility' in Ireland, was,
+that the credit of the corporation went down rapidly. Executions were
+lodged against them, and all their property in quays, markets, &c.
+was swept away, the bridge being saved only by the intervention of a
+special act of parliament. In 1831, however, the society granted the
+corporation an allowance of 700 l. When the reformed corporation came
+in, and found that they were so far emancipated from the thraldom of
+the London governor that they could go before parliament themselves,
+the society was constrained to increase its dole to 1,200 l. a year.
+
+Mr. Isaac Colhoun, at the meeting referred to, produced from the
+accounts of the society for the previous year, published in the local
+papers, the following items:--
+
+                                                       £     s.    d.
+Amount of the present increased income               11,091  17     5
+                                                     ________________
+Incidental expenses as per general agents' account
+  for 1865                                              114   3 0-1/2
+Law expenses                                            492   7    11
+Salaries to general agent, deputy, vice-admiral,
+  surveyor, and others                                  926  16     6
+Pension to general agent                                250   0     0
+Visitation expenses, 1865                               539  19     6
+Surveying expenses                                       50   0     0
+Salary of clerk and porter's wages                      197  10     0
+Coal, gas, printing, stationery, advertisements         449  11     5
+Salary to secretary and assistant governor, and
+  'assistants' for attendance at 51 meetings            549   1     6
+                                                     ________________
+                                                      4,094   1     6
+
+Here, then, is a trust fund amounting to about 12,000 l. a year, and
+the trustees actually spend one-third in its management! And what
+is its management? What do they do with the money? Mr. Pitt Skipton,
+D.L., a landed proprietor, who has nothing to gain or lose by the
+Irish Society, asks, 'Where is our money laid out now? Not on the
+estate of the Irish Society, but on the estates of the church and
+private individuals--on those of owners like myself who give their
+tenants perpetuity, because it is their interest to do so. We should
+wish to see the funds of the society so expended that we could see
+some memorial of them. But where is there in Derry any monument wholly
+erected by the society which they were not specially forced to put up
+by charter, with the exception of a paltry piece of freestone within
+one of the bastions bearing their own arms.'
+
+Let us only imagine what the corporation of Derry could do in local
+improvements with this 12,000 l. a year, which is really their own
+property, or even with the 4,000 l. a-year squandered upon themselves
+by the trustees! Some of these worthy London merchants, it seems, play
+the _rôle_ of Irish landlords when travelling on the Continent, on
+the strength of this Derry estate, or their _assistantship_ in its
+management. 'I object,' says Mr. J.P. Hamilton, 'if I take a
+little run in the summer vacation to Paris or Brussels, to meet a
+greasy-looking gentleman from Whitechapel or the Minories, turned out
+sleek and shining from Moses', and to be told by him that he has a
+large property in _Hireland_, in a place called Derry, and that his
+tenantry are an industrious, thriving set of fellows, quite remarkable
+for their intelligence, but that it is all owing to his excellent
+management of his property and his liberality.'
+
+Mr. Hazlett presented a still funnier picture of the Irish
+'visitations' of the members of the society, with their wives and
+daughters every summer. Gentlemen in London regard it as a fine lark
+to get elected to serve in the Irish Society, as that includes
+a summer trip to Ireland free of expense, with the jolliest
+entertainment. One gentleman, being asked by another whether he was
+ever in Ireland, answered--'No, but I intend to get on the Irish
+Society next year and then I'll have a trip. What kind of people are
+they over there? Do they all speak Irish?'
+
+'Oh, no; they are a very decent, civilised people.'
+
+'Oh, I'm glad they don't speak Irish; for none of us do, of course;
+but my daughter can speak French.'
+
+'They had a great siege one time over there?'
+
+'Oh, yes; the Derry people are proud of the siege.'
+
+'Ah, yes, I see; happened in the reign of King John, I believe.'
+
+But the heaviest charge laid at the door of the Irish Society is its
+persistent refusal to grant proper tenures for building. By this, even
+more than their reckless squandering of the revenues of a fine estate,
+which is not their own, they have obstructed the improvement of the
+city. They might possibly be compelled to refund the wasted property
+of their ward, but they could never compensate for stunting and
+crippling her as they have done. Fortunately, there is a standard by
+which we are able to measure this iniquity with tolerable accuracy.
+Dr. William Brown, of Derry, testified that it was the universal
+conviction of the people of Derry, of all classes and denominations,
+that, by the mismanagement of their trust, the Irish Society had
+converted the crown grant from the blessing it was intended to be, and
+which it would have been under a just administration, into something
+more akin to a curse. For anything that saps the self-reliant and
+independent spirit of a community must always be a curse. Within the
+last hundred years Belfast was not in advance of Derry in population,
+in trade, in capital, or in any other element constituting or
+conducing to prosperity. Its river was not so navigable, and by no
+means so well adapted to foreign, especially transatlantic trade. The
+country surrounding it was not superior in soil, nor the inhabitants
+in intelligence and enterprise. It had no estate, as Derry had,
+granted by the crown to assist in the development of civilisation,
+education, and commerce. Its prospects, then, were inferior to those
+of Derry. But Belfast had the one thing, most needful of all, that
+Derry had not. It had equitable building tenures. And of this one
+advantage, look at the result! 'Belfast is now seven times the size of
+Derry; and is in possession of a trade and a trade capital which Derry
+can never hope to emulate, while smothered by the stick-in-the-mud
+policy of that miserable anachronism the Irish Society.'
+
+The London companies which have estates in the county Derry claimed
+to be entitled to all the surplus revenue after the cost of management
+was deducted. This was the question raised by the celebrated
+'Skinners' case,' ultimately decided by the House of Lords. The effect
+of the decision was, that the society was a trustee, not for the
+companies but for the public objects defined in the charter and the
+'articles of agreement.' Lord Langdale's language on the subject is
+perfectly clear and explicit. He declared that the Irish Society have
+not, 'collectively or individually,' any beneficial interest in the
+estates. In a sense they are trustees. They have important duties
+to perform; but their powers and duties have all reference to the
+_Plantation_, whose object was purely public and political.
+
+Adverting to this judgment, it is not Derry alone that is interested
+in the abolition of the Irish Society. Its objects 'affected the
+general welfare of Ireland and the whole realm.' The city of London,
+in its corporate capacity, had no beneficial interest in the estates.
+'The money which it had advanced was early repaid, and the power which
+remained, or which was considered to remain, was, like that of the
+society, an entrusted power for the benefit of the plantation and
+those interested in it. The Irish Society seems to have been little,
+if anything, more than the representative or instrument of the city
+for the purposes of the Plantation.'
+
+I subjoin the text of the concluding part of the judgment in the
+_Skinners' Case_, the report of which fills a very bulky volume:--
+
+Lord Langdale said: 'The mistaken views which the society may have
+subsequently taken of its own situation and duties (and I think that
+such mistaken views have several times been taken) do not vary the
+conclusion to be deduced from the charter and the circumstances
+contemporary with the grant of the first charter. I am of opinion that
+the powers granted to the society and the trusts reposed in them were
+in part of a general and public nature, independent of the private
+benefit of the companies of London, and were intended by the crown
+to benefit Ireland and the city of London, by connecting the city
+of Londonderry and the town of Coleraine and a considerable Irish
+district with the city of London, and to promote the general purposes
+of the Plantation, not only by securing the performance of the
+conditions imposed on ordinary undertakers, but also by the exercise
+of powers and the performance of trusts not within the scope of those
+conditions. The charter of Charles II. expressly recites that the
+property not actually divided was retained for the general operation
+of the Plantation.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+TENANT-RIGHT IN DOWN.
+
+
+If there are sermons in stones I ought to have learned something from
+the ruins of the castle built by Sir Arthur Hill, the founder of the
+house of Downshire, in which they show the chamber occupied by William
+III. while his army was encamped at Blaris Moor. This was once a royal
+fort, and among the most interesting memorials of the past are the
+primitive gates, long laid aside from duty, the timber gradually
+mouldering away from the huge nails, which once added to their massive
+strength. Hillsborough was incorporated by Charles II., and sent two
+members to parliament. The Hills rose rapidly in rank and influence.
+In 1717, Trevor Hill, Esq., was created Viscount of Hillsborough and
+Baron Hill. In 1756, Wills, the second viscount, was made Earl of
+Hillsborough, and in 1789 he became Marquis of Downshire.
+
+Hillsborough is the most perfect picture of a feudal establishment
+that I know. On one side of the little, quiet, tradeless town are the
+ruins of the old castle, with its park and its fine ancestral trees,
+through the thick foliage of which pierces the spire of the church,
+lofty and beautiful. On the other side, and quite close to the town,
+is 'the new castle'--an immense building of cut stone, in the Greek
+style, two storeys high, shut in by high walls from the view of the
+townsfolk. Then there is the small market-square, with the court-house
+in the centre, the hotel at the top, and other buildings of a better
+class on the opposite side. From the hill, which is crowned by these
+buildings, descend small streets, in which dwell the inhabitants, all
+more or less dependent on the lord of the manor, all cared for by him,
+and many of them pensioned when disabled by age or infirmity.
+
+There is a monument erected to the memory of the late marquis's
+father on a hill to the south of the town. The view from this point is
+glorious. Belfast lies a little beyond, enveloped in the smoke emitted
+from its numerous tall chimneys. To the left is the range of the
+Antrim highlands, continued along the coast of the Lough towards
+Carrickfergus, and from which the Cave Hill stands out in bold relief,
+looking down on the numerous pretty villas with which the taste
+of wealthy manufacturers and merchants has adorned those pleasant
+suburbs. Westward towards Lough Neagh, swelling gradually--southward
+towards Armagh, and round to Newry, the whole surface of the country
+gently undulating, presents a vast picture of quiet beauty, fertility,
+and plenty that can be rivalled only in England. The tall crowded
+stocks along the ridges of the corn-fields attested the abundance of
+the crops--the rich greenness and warmth of the landscape showing how
+well the ground has been drained, manured, and cultivated. The neat,
+white-walled houses gleaming amidst the verdure of sheltering trees
+and trimmed hedges tell the thoughtful observer that the people who
+dwell in this land belong to it, are rooted in it, and ply their
+industry under the happy feeling that, so far as their old landlords
+are concerned, their lot is one of 'quietness and assurance for ever.'
+Nowhere--even on the high ranges about Newry, where the population is
+far too dense, where the patchwork cultivation creeps up the mountain
+side, and the hand of industry snatches a precarious return from a
+poor, cold, ungrateful soil, amidst desolating tempests and blighting
+fogs--not even there did I notice the least trace of evictions or
+clearances. No black remnant of a wall tells that where sheep now
+browze and lambs frisk there was once a fireside, where the family
+affections were cherished, and a home where happy children played in
+the sunshine. This is the field of capital and enterprise; here
+we have an aristocracy of wealth, chiefs of industry, each of whom
+maintains an army of 'hands' more numerous than the swordsmen of Shane
+O'Neill when he reigned in his castle yonder on the banks of Lough
+Neagh. But here also is the aristocracy of rank--lords of ancient
+lineage, descended from heroes--men who have left magnificent
+monuments of their creative genius. They have not only founded great
+houses, but they have laid deep and broad the foundations of a
+social system to whose strength and beauty every age has been adding
+something, and which now wants only one topmost stone to make it
+perfect.
+
+I read on the monument to Lord Downshire the expressive motto of the
+Downshire family--_Per Deum et ferrum obtinui._ No family ever made
+better use of the power thus obtained. The inscription states that the
+third marquis was 'alike distinguished for patriotism, rectitude of
+principle, and honesty of purpose. Upholding his station with becoming
+dignity, he was also mindful of the wants of others, and practised his
+duties with benevolence and humility, which won the regard of every
+virtuous mind, adding lustre to his exalted rank.' Although these
+words were engraved upon a monument by the friends and admirers of
+their object, they are perfectly true, and they would be equally true
+of the late marquis.
+
+Lord Downshire is esteemed as the best of landlords. He charges 33 per
+cent. less for his land than it is worth--than the tenants would
+be able to pay. Tenant-right on his property sells for an enormous
+amount. He never evicts a tenant, nor even threatens to evict those
+who vote against him. What he has done for the contentment and
+prosperity of his tenants, with so much honour and happiness to
+himself, other landlords may do with like results. The late lord, his
+father, and his grandfather pursued the same course. They let their
+lands at a low valuation. They encouraged improvements--they allowed
+the free enjoyment of tenant-right; but they refused to allow
+sub-letting or subdivision of the land. They consolidated farms only
+when tenants, unable to retain small, worn-out holdings, wished to
+sell their tenant-right and depart. The consequence is that there is
+great competition for land on the Downshire estates. The tenant-right
+sells easily for 30 l. to 40 l. an Irish acre, the rent being on an
+average about 28 s. If a tenant is not able to pay his way, he is let
+run on in arrears perhaps for two or three years. Then he feels the
+necessity of selling; but the arrears are deducted, and also debts
+that he may owe to his neighbours, before he departs with the proceeds
+in his pocket.
+
+The late marquis seems to have been almost idolised by the tenants. On
+or off the estate, in town or country, I have heard nothing of him
+but praise of the warmest and most unqualified kind; and, what is more
+remarkable, his late agent, Mr. Filgate, was universally respected for
+his fairness in the discharge of his duties. The way in which I heard
+this spoken of by the people convinces me that there is nothing that
+wins their confidence so much as strict impartiality, and justice,
+calmly, kindly, but firmly administered. The people to whom I spoke
+laid stress on the fact that Mr. Filgate listened quietly to the
+statements of both sides, carefully enquired into the merits of each,
+and decided accordingly. There was no favouritism, they said, no
+partiality; no hasty decision in a fit of anger, or passion, or
+impatience; no refusal to listen to reason.
+
+I observed to one of the tenants, 'You admit that the rents are much
+lower than on other estates, much lower than the value of the lands,
+and that during the last twenty years the tenant-right has increased
+in value. Suppose, then, that the marquis should raise the rents, say
+twenty-five per cent., what would be the consequence? Would they pay
+the increase willingly?' 'Willingly!' he exclaimed, 'no, there would
+be rebellion! The late lord could do anything with the people; he
+could raise the country. But you see when they bought the tenant-right
+they believed they could never be robbed of the value for which they
+paid by raising the rent.'
+
+What can be better than the social picture which Harris presents of
+the state of society here 130 years ago? 'The inhabitants are warm
+and well clad at church, fairs, and markets. Tillage and the linen
+manufacture keep them in constant employment; a busy and laborious
+life prevents excess and breaches of the laws, which in no part of
+the kingdom are more reverenced. The people are regular in their
+attendance on public worship. Few breaches of the peace, felonies,
+burglaries, or murders come before the judges at the assizes;
+convictions for capital offences seldom happen. Men travel securely
+by day, and are afraid of little disturbance at night to keep them
+on their guard. Every man sits down securely under his vine and his
+figtree, and enjoys with comfort the fruit of his honest labours.' He
+ascribes in the main this prosperity to what he calls '_the spirit of
+tillage_.' Until that spirit arose in Ulster, the Irish had to send to
+America for their daily bread, 'which,' he says, 'to the astonishment
+of all Europe, has been often our weakness.' Viewing the whole social
+condition of the county, he exclaims, 'Such are the happy effects of
+a well-peopled country, _extensive tillage, the linen manufacture, and
+the Protestant religion_.'
+
+In the first year of the present century, the Dublin Society (not yet
+'Royal') employed 'land commissioners' to enquire into the condition
+of agriculture in the several counties of Ireland. The Rev. John
+Dubourdieu, rector of Annahilt, in this county, was their commissioner
+for Down and Antrim. He states that the rent was then on an average
+20 s. the _Irish_ acre (three equal to five English), allowing for the
+mountains and bogs, which he computed at 44,658 acres. The rental of
+the county he sets down at 300,000 l. The net annual value of property
+assessed under the Tenement Valuation Act is now 743,869 l. This is
+considerably under the letting value, it is supposed, 25 per cent. If
+this be so, the county yields to the proprietors a revenue of about
+1,000,000 l. a year. If we add the value of the tenant-right, and of
+the fixtures of all sorts--houses, mills, roads, bridges--as well as
+the movable property and stock, we may get some idea of the enormous
+aggregate of wealth which the labour of man has created on this strip
+of wild wooded hills, swampy plains, and bogs.
+
+Now, what has effected this marvellous change? The tenants, with one
+voice, exclaim, 'our labour, our capital, our skill, our care, and
+self-denial. It was we that cleared away the woods which it was
+so difficult to eradicate. It was we who drained away the bogs and
+morasses, and by the help of lime and marl converted them into rich
+land. It was we that built the dwelling-houses and offices. It was we
+that made the fences, and planted the hedge-rows and orchards. It was
+we that paid for the making of the roads and bridges. The landlords
+gave us the wild country to work upon; we have done the rest. Our
+industry enabled them to build their stately mansions, and we have
+continued to pay to them their princely revenues. Our forefathers
+came with them as settlers, that they might "plant" the country with
+a loyal and industrious race of people, and they came on the assurance
+that they and their children's children were to remain for ever rooted
+where they were planted. They did their duty faithfully and well by
+the land, by the landlords, and by the Government. Where the children
+that inherited their rights failed, their interest in their farms has
+been purchased dearly by others of the same race who have taken their
+places. By what right, then, can they be turned out?'
+
+It is not possible, if it were desirable, to introduce the 'high
+farming system' in this county. But if possible, would it be
+desirable? In the eye of a scientific agriculturist it might be better
+that all those comfortable farm-houses, with the innumerable fences
+crossing the landscape in every possible form, making all sorts
+of mathematical figures, presenting the appearance of an immense
+variegated patchwork--were levelled and removed so that the plough and
+all the modern machinery might range unobstructed over hill and vale.
+But assuredly it would not seem better to the philanthropist, the
+Christian, or the statesman. To the chancellor of the exchequer it
+would make the most serious difference; for a few herds and ploughmen
+would consume but a very small portion indeed of the excisable
+articles now used by the tenant farmers of this county. I have taken
+some notes on the diet of this people which may be instructive.
+
+At the beginning of the present century the small farmers were
+generally weavers. There was an obvious incompatibility in the two
+occupations, and the farms were neglected. Gradually this evil has
+been corrected, especially since the famine. The weavers have
+become cottiers, and the farmers have devoted themselves to their
+agricultural operations exclusively with the more energy since
+railroads have so facilitated the quick sale of produce, particularly
+that sort of produce which enables the occupiers to supply the markets
+with the smaller necessaries of life, and with which large farmers
+would not trouble themselves. Daily labourers working from 6 A.M., to
+6 P.M. in large fields with machinery cannot do the hundreds of little
+matters which the family of the small holder attends to every hour of
+the day, often in the night--and which give work to women and children
+as well as the men--work of the most healthful character and most free
+from demoralizing influences.
+
+On a farm of fifteen to thirty acres there is constant employment of
+a profitable kind for the members of a household, including women and
+children. The effect of good drainage is that farming operations can
+be carried on through winter, in preparing the ground and putting in
+wheat and other crops early to supply the markets, when prices are
+high. Oats, barley, potatoes, flax, turnips claim attention in
+turn, and then come the weeding and thinning, the turf-making, the
+hay-making, and all the harvest operations. It is by the ceaseless
+activity of small farmers in watching over their pigs, poultry, lambs,
+&c., that the markets are kept so regularly supplied, and that towns
+grow up and prosper. If Down and Antrim had been divided into farms
+of thousands of acres each, like Lincolnshire, what would Belfast
+have become? Little more than a port for the shipping of live stock
+to Liverpool and Glasgow. Before the famine, the food of the small
+farmers was generally potatoes and milk three times a day, with a bit
+of meat occasionally. But salt herrings were the main reliance for
+giving a flavour to the potato, often 'wet' and bad. After the failure
+of the potatoes, their place was supplied by oatmeal in the form
+of 'stirabout.' Indian meal was subsequently found cheaper and more
+wholesome. But of late years the diet of the farmers in these parts
+has undergone a complete revolution. There is such brisk demand for
+butter, eggs, potatoes, and other things that used to be consumed
+by the family, that they have got into the habit of taking tea, with
+cakes and other home-made bread twice, or even three times, a day.
+The demand for tea is, therefore, enormous. There is one grocer's
+establishment in Belfast which has been able to produce a mixture that
+suits the taste of the people, and the quantity of tea sold by it is
+a ton a day. This is the business of but one out of many houses in
+Belfast. Then there is the brisk trade in such towns as Newtownards,
+Lisburn, Ballymena, &c. In pastoral districts the towns languish, the
+people pine in poverty, and the workhouses are in request.
+
+In a financial point of view, therefore, it is manifestly the interest
+of the state to encourage 'the spirit of tillage.' It is thus that
+most will be got out of the ground, that most revenue will be raised,
+and that the other elements of national power will be most fully
+developed. How can this encouragement be most effectually given?
+Security for the farmer is essential--of what nature should the
+security be? The phrase 'unexhausted improvements' is often used.
+But should the legislature contemplate, or make provision for the
+exhaustion of improvements? Is the improving tenant to be told that
+his remedy is to retrograde--to undo what he has done--to take out
+of the land all the good he has put in it, and reduce it to the
+comparative sterility in which he, or those whom he represents, first
+received it? Should not the policy of the legislature rather be to
+keep up improvements of the soil, and its productive power at the
+highest possible point, and make it the interest of the occupier
+never to relax in his exertions? The rower will not put forth all his
+strength unless he believes he will win. In other races, though
+many start, only one or two can receive the prize. In this race of
+agricultural improvement all competitors might win ample rewards. But
+will they put forth all their energies--is it in human nature that
+they should--was it ever done by any people, if the prizes are to be
+seized, enjoyed, and flaunted before their eyes by others, who may
+be strangers, and who never helped them by their sympathy in their
+toilsome course of training and self-denial? It is because the
+landlords of the county Down have been so often in the same boat with
+their tenants, and with so much good faith, generous feeling, and
+cordial sympathy encouraged their exertions, and secured to them their
+just rewards, that this great county presents to the world such a
+splendid example of what industry, skill, and capital can accomplish.
+Is it not possible to extend the same advantages through the whole
+island without wronging the landlord or degrading the tenant?
+
+The stranger is at first surprised to see so large a town as
+Newtownards, with its handsome square, its town-hall, its wide,
+regular streets, its numerous places of worship, and a population of
+9,500, in a place without visible factories, and without communication
+with the sea, within eight miles of Belfast, and three miles of
+Bangor, which, though a seaport, is but one-fourth of the size. But
+although there are no great mills sending forth volumes of smoke,
+Newtownards is really a manufacturing town. Those clean, regular
+streets, with their two-storey houses, uniform as a district in the
+east of London, are inhabited by weavers. In each house there is one
+loom at least, in most two or three, and in some as many as six. The
+manufacture of woollen and cotton goods of finer qualities than can
+be produced by the power-loom is carried on extensively. I saw one man
+working at a piece of plaid of six colours, a colour on every shuttle,
+With the help of his wife, who assisted in winding, he was able to
+earn only 8 s. a week by very diligent work from early morning till
+night. There is a general complaint of the depression of trade at
+present. Agents, chiefly from Glasgow houses, living in the town,
+supply the yarn and pay the wages. I was struck with the number of
+public-houses in all the leading streets. How far they are supported
+by the weavers I cannot say, but whether or not they can dispense
+with the glass, they must have their tobacco, and when this luxury
+is deducted, and a shilling a week for the rent of the cottage, it is
+hard to understand how a family of six or eight can be supported on
+the weekly wages. The trade of muslin embroidery once flourished here,
+and in the pretty little neighbouring town of Comber; but it has so
+fallen off that now the best hands, plying the needle unceasingly
+during the long, long day, can earn only three or four shillings
+a week. Before the invention of machinery for flax-spinning, the
+manufacture of fine thread by hand-labour was a most profitable
+employment. Wonders were wrought in this way by female fingers. The
+author of 'Our Staple Manufactures' states that in 1799, out of a
+pound and a half of flax, costing 10 s., a woman produced yarn of the
+value of 5 l. 2 s. 6 d. Miss M'Quillan, of Comber, spun 94 hanks out
+of one pound of flax, splitting the fibre with her needles to give
+this degree of fineness.
+
+  But alas! what a change to the cottage hearth!
+  The song of the wheel's no more--
+  The song that gladdened with guileless mirth
+  The hearths and homes of the poor!
+
+But here, and in all the small towns about, they have still the
+weaving, and it is carried on to a considerable extent by persons who
+hold a few acres of land, throwing aside the shuttle while putting in
+the crops and doing the harvest work. Thus combining the two pursuits,
+these poor people are able, by extraordinary industry, to earn their
+daily bread; but they can do little more. The weavers, as a class,
+appear to be feeble and faded specimens of humanity, remarkably quiet,
+intelligent, and well-disposed--a law-abiding people, who shrink from
+violence and outrage, no matter what may be their grievances. It is
+cruel to load them too heavily with the burdens of life, and yet I am
+afraid it is sometimes done, even in this county, unnecessarily and
+wantonly. What I have said of the Downshire and Londonderry estates,
+holds good with respect to the estates of the other large proprietors,
+such as Lord Roden, the kindest of landlords, almost idolised, even by
+his Catholic tenants; Lord Annesley; the trustees of Lord Kilmurray;
+Sir Thomas Bateson, and others. But I am sorry to learn that even
+the great county Down has a share of the two classes which supply the
+worst species of Irish landlords--absentees who live extravagantly in
+England, and merchants who have purchased estates to make as large a
+percentage as possible out of the investment. It is chiefly, but not
+wholly, on the estates of these proprietors that cases of injustice
+and oppression are found. In the first class it is the agent that the
+tenants have to deal with; and whether he be humane or not matters
+little to them, for, whatever may be his feelings, the utmost penny
+must be exacted to keep up the expensive establishments of the
+landlord in England, to meet the cost of a new building, or the debt
+incurred by gambling on the turf and elsewhere. Every transaction of
+the kind brings a fresh demand on the agent, and even if he be not
+unscrupulous or cruel, he must put on the screw, and get the money
+at all hazards. I have been assured that it is quite usual, on such
+estates, to find the tenantry paying the highest rent compatible with
+the maintenance of bare life. There is in the county of Down a great
+number of small holders thus struggling for existence. As a specimen
+let us take the following case:--A man holds a dozen acres of land,
+for which he pays 2 l. 10 s. per acre. He labours as no slave could be
+made to work, in the summer time from five o'clock in the morning till
+six in the evening. He can hardly scrape together a pound beyond the
+rent and taxes. If a bad season comes, he is at starvation point: he
+falls into arrears with the landlord, and he is forced by the bailiff
+to sell off his small stock to pay the rent.
+
+Without the excuse of pecuniary difficulties, the merchant landlord is
+not a whit less exacting, or more merciful. He looks upon the tenants
+as he would on so many head of cattle, and his sole consideration
+is what is the highest penny he can make out of them. Not far from
+Belfast lived a farmer who cultivated a few acres. Sickness and the
+support of a widowed sister's family forced him into arrears of rent.
+Ejectment proceedings were taken, and one day when he returned to his
+house, he found his furniture thrown out on the road, the sister and
+family evicted, and the door locked. He was offered as much money as
+would take him to America, but he would not be allowed to sell the
+tenant-right. Here is another case illustrative of the manner in which
+that right is sometimes dealt with:--A respectable man purchased a
+farm at 10 l. an acre. It was very poor land, much of it unfit for
+cultivation. Immediately on getting possession a surveyor came and
+added two acres to the former measurement. The incoming tenant was
+at the same time informed that the rent was raised to an extent that
+caused the possession to be a dead loss. On threatening to throw up
+the concern, some reduction was made, which brought the rent as close
+as possible to the full letting value.
+
+I have been told by a well-informed gentleman, whose veracity I cannot
+doubt, that it is quite common in the county of Down (and indeed
+I have been told the same thing in other counties) to find an
+_improving_ tenant paying 2 l. to 3 l. an acre for land, which he has
+at his own expense brought up to a good state of cultivation,
+while the adjoining land of his lazy neighbour--originally of equal
+value--yields only 20 s. to 35 s. an acre. The obvious tendency of
+this unjust and impolitic course on the part of landlords and agents,
+is to discourage improvements, to dishearten the industrious, and to
+fill the country with thriftless, desponding, and miserable occupiers,
+living from hand to mouth. There are circumstances under which even
+selfish men will toil hard, though others should share with them the
+benefit of their labours; but if they feel that this partnership in
+the profits of their industry is the result of a system of legalised
+injustice, which enables unscrupulous men to appropriate at will the
+whole of the profits, their moral sense so revolts against that system
+that they resolve to do as little as they possibly can.
+
+The consequence of these painful relations of landlord and tenant,
+even in this comparatively happy county, is a perceptible degeneracy
+in the manhood of the people. Talk to an old inhabitant, who has been
+an attentive observer of his times, and he will tell you that
+the vigorous and energetic, the intelligent and enterprising, are
+departing to more favoured lands, and that this process has produced
+a marked deterioration in the population within his memory. He can
+distinctly recollect when there were more than double the present
+number of strong farmers in the country about Belfast. He declares
+that, with many exceptions of course, the land is getting into the
+hands of a second or third class of farmers, who are little more than
+servants to the small landlords. Even where there are leases, such
+intelligent observers affirm that they are so over-ridden with
+conditions that the farmer has no liberty or security to make any
+great improvements. Were it otherwise he would not think a thirty-one
+years' lease sufficient for the building of a stone house, that would
+be as good at the end of a hundred years as at the end of thirty. All
+the information that I can gather from thoughtful men, who are really
+anxious for a change that would benefit the landlords as well as
+themselves, points to the remedy which Lord Granard has suggested,
+as the most simple, feasible, and satisfactory--the legalisation and
+extension of the tenant-right custom. They rejoice that such landlords
+now proclaim the injustice which the tenant class have so long
+bitterly felt--namely, the presumption of law that all the
+improvements and buildings on the farm belong to the lord of the
+soil, although the notorious fact is that they are all the work of the
+tenant.
+
+And here I will take the opportunity of remarking that the legislature
+were guilty of strange oversight, or deliberate injustice, in
+the passing of the Incumbered Estates Act. Taking advantage of an
+overwhelming national calamity, they forced numbers of gentlemen into
+a ruinous sale of their patrimonial estates, in order that men of
+capital might get possession of them. But they made no provision
+whatever for the protection of the tenants, or of the property which
+those tenants had created on these estates. Many of those were tenants
+at will, who built and planted in perfect and well-grounded reliance
+on the honour and integrity of their old landlords. But in the
+advertisements for the sale of property under the Landed Estates
+Court, it was regularly mentioned as an inducement to purchasers of
+the Scully type that the tenants had no leases. The result of this
+combination of circumstances bearing against the cultivators of the
+soil--the chief producers of national wealth--is a deep, resentful
+sense of injustice pervading this class, and having for its immediate
+objects the landlords and their agents. The tenants don't speak out
+their feelings, because they dare not. They fear that to offend the
+_office_ in word or deed is to expose themselves and their children
+to the infliction of a fine in the shape of increased rent, perhaps at
+the rate of five or ten shillings an acre in perpetuity.
+
+One unfortunate effect of the distrust thus generated, is that when
+enlightened landlords, full of the spirit of improvement, like Lord
+Dufferin and Lord Lurgan, endeavour, from the most unselfish and
+patriotic motives, to make changes in the tenures and customs on their
+estates, they have to encounter an adverse current of popular opinion
+and feeling, which is really too strong to be effectually resisted.
+For example: In order to correct the evils resulting from the undue
+competition for land among the tenants, they limit the amount per acre
+which the outgoing tenant is permitted to receive; but the limitation
+is futile, because the tenants understand one another, and do what
+they believe to be right behind the landlord's back. The market price
+is, say, 20 l. an acre. The landlord allows 10 l.; the balance finds
+its way secretly into the pocket of the outgoing tenant before he
+gives up possession. As a gentleman expressed it to me emphatically,
+'The outgoing tenant _must_ be satisfied, and he _is_ satisfied.'
+Public opinion in his own class demands it; and on no other terms
+would it be considered lucky to take possession of the vacant farm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+TENANT-RIGHT IN ANTRIM.
+
+
+I find from the Antrim Survey, published in 1812, that at that time
+leases were general on the Hertfort estate. There were then about
+3,600 farmers who held by that tenure, each holding, on an average,
+twenty English acres, but many farms contained 100 acres or more. Mr.
+Hugh M'Call, of Lisburn, the able author of 'Our Staple Manufactures,'
+gives the following estimates of the rental. In 1726, it was 3,500
+l.; in 1768, it was 12,000 l.; and for 1869, his estimate is 63,000 l.
+Taking the estimate given by Dean Stannus, as 10 l. or 12 l. an acre,
+the tenant-right of the estate is worth 500,000 l. at the very least,
+probably 600,000 l. is the more correct figure. This vast amount of
+property created by the industry and capital of the tenants, is held
+at the will of an absentee landlord, who has on several occasions
+betrayed an utter want of sympathy with the people who lie thus at his
+mercy. There are tenant farmers on the estate who hold as much as
+100 to 200 acres, with handsome houses built by themselves, whose
+interest, under the custom, should amount to 1,500 l. and 2,500 l.
+respectively, which might be legally swept away by a six months'
+notice to quit. The owners of this property might be regarded as very
+independent, but in reality, unless the spirit of martyrdom has raised
+them above the ordinary feelings of human nature, they will take care
+to be very humble and submissive towards Lord Hertfort's agents. If
+words were the same as deeds, if professions were always consistent
+with practice, the tenants would certainly have nothing to fear; for
+great pains have been taken from time to time, both by the landlord
+and agent, to inspire them with unbounded confidence.
+
+In the year 1845, the tenants presented an address to Lord Hertfort,
+in which they said:--'It is a proud fact, worthy to be recorded, that
+the tenant-right of the honest and industrious man on your lordship's
+estate is a certain and valuable tenure to him, so long as he
+continues to pay his rent.' To this his lordship replied in the
+following terms:--'I am happy to find that the encouragement I
+have given to the improvement of the land generally has been found
+effectual, and I trust that the advantage to the tenant of the
+improved system of agriculture will be found to increase; and I beg
+to assure you that with me the right of the improving tenant shall
+continue to be as scrupulously respected as it has been hitherto by
+my ancestors. Your kindness alone, independent of the natural
+interest which I must ever feel as to everything connected with this
+neighbourhood, affords a powerful inducement to my coming among you,
+and I hope to have the pleasure of often repeating my visit.'
+
+Twenty-four years have since elapsed, and during all that time the
+marquis has never indulged himself in a repetition of the exquisite
+pleasure he then enjoyed. At a banquet given in his honour on that
+occasion, he used the following language, which was, no doubt,
+published in the _Times_, and read with great interest in London and
+Paris:--'This is one of the most delightful days I ever spent. Trust
+me, I have your happiness and welfare at heart, and it shall ever
+be my endeavour to promote the one and contribute to the other.' The
+parting scene on this occasion must have been very touching; for,
+in tearing himself away, his lordship said: 'I have now come to the
+concluding toast. It is, "Merry have we met, and merry may we _soon_
+meet again!"'
+
+The tenants could scarcely doubt the genuineness of their landlord's
+feelings, for on the same occasion Dean Stannus said: 'I feel myself
+perfectly justified in using the term "a good landlord;" because his
+lordship's express wish to me often was, "I hope you will always
+keep me in such a position that I may be considered the friend of
+my tenants."' But as he did not return to them, a most respectable
+deputation waited upon him in London in the year 1850, to present
+a memorial praying for a reduction of rent on account of the potato
+blight and other local calamities which had befallen the tenantry. The
+memorialists respectfully showed 'that under the encouraging auspices
+of the Hertfort family, and on the faith of that just and equitable
+understanding which has always existed on this estate--that _no
+advantage would be taken of the tenant's improvements in adjusting
+the letting value of land_, they had invested large sums of money in
+buildings and other improvements on their farms, and that this, under
+the name of tenant-right, was a species of sunk capital that was
+formerly considered a safe repository for accumulated savings, which
+could be turned to account at any time of difficulty by its sale, or
+as a security for temporary advances.' In his reply, Lord Hertfort
+said, 'I seek not to disturb any interest, much less do I wish to
+interfere by any plan or arrangement of mine with the tenant-right
+which my tenants have hitherto enjoyed, and which it is my anxious
+wish to preserve to them.'
+
+The faith and hope inspired by these assurances of the landlord were
+repeatedly encouraged and strengthened by the public declarations of
+his very reverend agent, Dean Stannus. At a meeting of the Killultagh
+and Derryvolgie Farming Society, in 1849, he stated that he had great
+pleasure in subscribing to almost everything said by Mr. M'Call.
+He had taken great pains to convince the late Lord Hertfort that
+tenant-right was one of the greatest possible boons, _as well to the
+landlords themselves_ as to the tenants. So advantageous did he regard
+it to the interest of Lord Hertfort and the tenants, that if it were
+not preserved he would not continue agent to the estate. Tenant-right
+was his security for the Marquis of Hertfort's rent, and he would not
+ask a tenant to relinquish a single rood of land without paying him at
+the rate of 10 l. to 12 l. an acre for it.
+
+Firmly believing in the statements thus emphatically and solemnly made
+to them from time to time, that on this estate tenant-right was as
+good as a lease, the tenants went on building houses, and making
+permanent improvements in Lisburn and elsewhere, depending on this
+security. And, indeed, the value of such security could scarcely be
+presented under more favourable circumstances. The absentee landlord
+receiving such a princely revenue, and absorbed in his Parisian
+pursuits, seemed to leave everything to his agent. The agent was
+rector of the parish of Lisburn, a dignitary of the Church, a
+gentleman of the highest social position, with many excellent points
+in his character, and pledged before the world, again and again,
+to respect rigidly and scrupulously the enormous property which
+a confiding tenantry had invested in this estate. If, under these
+circumstances, the security of tenant-right fails, where else can it
+be trusted? If it be proved, by open and public proceedings, that on
+the Hertfort estate, the distinctly recognised property of the tenant
+is liable to be seized and wrested from him by the agent, it is clear
+to demonstration that such property absolutely requires the protection
+of law. This proof, I am sorry to say, is forthcoming. Let my readers
+reflect for a moment on what might have been done for Lisburn and the
+surrounding country if the Marquis of Hertfort had rebuilt his castle
+and resided among his people. What an impulse to improvement of every
+kind, what employment for tradesmen of every class, what business for
+shops might have resulted from the local expenditure of 50,000 l. or
+60,000 l. a year! What public buildings would have been erected--how
+local institutions would have flourished! The proverb that 'absence
+makes the heart grow fonder' does not apply to the relations of
+landlord and tenant. But there is another proverb that applies
+well--'Out of sight, out of mind.' Of this I shall now give two or
+three illustrations. Some years ago, it was discovered that no
+lease of the Catholic chapel at Lisburn could be found, and in the
+recollection of the oldest member of the congregation no rent had been
+paid. Kent, however, was now demanded, and the parish priest agreed
+to pay a nominal amount, which places the congregation at the mercy
+of the office. Ground was asked some time ago to build a Presbyterian
+Church, but it was absolutely refused. A sum of money was subscribed
+to build a literary institute, but, though a sort of promise was given
+for ground to build it on, it was never granted, and the project fell
+through. Lord Hertfort spends no portion of his vast income where it
+is earned. His estate is like a farm to which the produce is never
+returned in the shape of manure, but is all carted off and applied to
+the enrichment of a farm elsewhere. One might suppose that where such
+an exhausting process has been going on for so long a time an effort
+would be made at some sort of compensation, especially at periods of
+calamity. Yet, when the weavers on his estate were starving, owing to
+the cotton famine during the American war, his lordship never replied
+to the repeated applications made to him for help to save alive those
+honest producers of his wealth. The noble example of Lord Derby and
+other proprietors in Lancashire failed to kindle in his heart a spark
+of humanity, not to speak of generous emulation. The sum of 3,000 l.
+was raised in Lisburn, and by friends in Great Britain and America,
+which was expended in saving the people from going _en masse_ to
+the workhouse. Behold a contrast! While the great peer, whose family
+inherited a vast estate for which they never paid a shilling, was deaf
+to the cries of famishing Christians, whom he was bound by every tie
+to commiserate and relieve, an American citizen, who owed nothing
+to Ireland but his birth--Mr. A.T. Stewart, of New York--sent a ship
+loaded with provisions, which cost him 5,000 l. of his own money, to
+be distributed amongst Lord Hertfort's starving tenants, and on
+the return of the ship he took out as many emigrants as he could
+accommodate, free of charge. The tourist in Ireland is charmed with
+the appearance of Lisburn--the rich and nicely cultivated town parks,
+the fields white as snow with linen of the finest quality, the busy
+mills, the old trees, the clean streets, the look of comfort in the
+population, the pretty villas in the country about. Mrs. S.C. Hall
+says that there is, probably, no town in Ireland where the happy
+effects of English taste and industry are more conspicuous than at
+Lisburn. 'From Drumbridge and the banks of the Lagan on one side,
+to the shores of Lough Neagh on the other, the people are almost
+exclusively the descendants of English settlers. Those in the
+immediate neighbourhood of the town were mostly Welsh, but great
+numbers arrived from the northern English shires, and from the
+neighbourhood of the Bristol Channel. The English language is perhaps
+spoken more purely by the populace of this district than by the same
+class in any other part of Ireland. The neatness of the cottages, and
+the good taste displayed in many of the farms, are little, if at all,
+inferior to aught that we find in England, and the tourist who visits
+Lough Neagh, passing through Ballinderry, will consider it to have
+been justly designated _the garden of the north._ The multitude of
+pretty little villages, scattered over the landscape, each announcing
+itself by the tapering tower of a church, would almost beguile the
+traveller into believing that he was passing through a rural district
+in one of the midland counties of England.'
+
+We have seen that after General Conway got this land, it was described
+by an English traveller as still uninhabited--'all woods and moor.'
+Who made it the garden of the north? The British settlers and their
+descendants. And why did they transform this wilderness into fruitful
+fields? Because they had permanent tenures and fair rents. The rental
+150 years ago was 3,500 l. per annum. Allow that money was three times
+as valuable then as it is now, and the rental would have been about
+10,500 l. It is now nearly six times that amount. By what means was
+the revenue of the landlord increased? Was it by any expenditure of
+his own? Did any portion of the capital annually abstracted from
+the estate return to it, to fructify and increase its value? Did the
+landlord drain the swamps, reclaim the moors, build the dwellings and
+farmhouses, make the fences, and plant the orchards? He did nothing
+of the kind. Nor was it agricultural industry alone that increased his
+revenue. He owes much of the beauty, fertility, and richness of his
+estate to the linen manufacture, to those weavers to the cries of
+distress from whose famishing children a few years ago the most noble
+marquis resolutely turned a deaf ear.
+
+But, passing from historical matters to the immediate purpose of our
+enquiry, let it suffice to remark that from Lisburn as a centre the
+linen trade in all its branches--flax growing, scutching, spinning,
+weaving and bleaching--spread over the whole of the Hertfort estate,
+giving profitable employment to the tenants, circulating money,
+enabling them to build and improve and work the estate into the
+rich and beautiful garden described by Mrs. Hall;--all this work
+of improvement has been carried on, all or nearly all the costly
+investments on the land have been made, without leases and in
+dependence on tenant-right. We have seen what efforts were made by
+landlord and agent to strengthen the faith of the tenants in this
+security. We have seen also from the historical facts I have adduced
+the sort of people that constitute the population of the borough of
+Lisburn. If ever there was a population that could be safely entrusted
+with the free exercise of the franchise it is the population of
+this town--so enlightened, so loyal, so independent in means, such
+admirable producers of national wealth, so naturally attached to
+British connection. Yet for generations Lisburn has been a pocket
+borough, and the nominee of the landlord, often a total stranger, was
+returned as a matter of course. The marquis sent to his agent a _congé
+d'élire_, and that was as imperative as a similar order to a dean
+and chapter to elect a bishop. In 1852 the gentleman whom the Lisburn
+electors were ordered to return was Mr. Inglis, the lord advocate of
+Scotland. They, however, felt that the time was come when the borough
+should be opened, and they should be at liberty to exercise their
+constitutional rights. A meeting of the inhabitants was therefore
+held, at which Mr. R. Smith was nominated as the popular candidate.
+The contest was not political; it was simply the independence of the
+borough against the _office_. Dean Stannus, as agent to an absentee
+landlord, was the most powerful personage in the place, virtually
+the lord of the manor. Before the election that gentleman published a
+letter in a Belfast paper contradicting a statement that had
+appeared to the effect that Lord Hertfort took little interest in the
+approaching contest, in which letter he said: 'I have the best reason
+for knowing that his lordship views with intense interest what is
+passing here, and that he is most anxious for the return of Mr.
+Inglis, feeling that the election of such a representative (which I am
+now enabled to say is _certain_) will do much credit to the borough of
+Lisburn, and that this _unmeaning_ contest will, at all events, among
+its other effects, prove to his lordship whom he may regard as his
+_true_ friends in his future relations with this town.'
+
+Notwithstanding this warning, so significantly emphasized, the
+candidate whom the voters selected as their real representative was
+returned. Now no one can blame the marquis or his agent for wishing
+that the choice had fallen upon Mr. Inglis. So far as politics were
+concerned, the contest _was_ unmeaning; but so far as the rights of
+the people and the loyal working of the British constitution were
+concerned, the contest was full of meaning, and if the landlord and
+his agent respected the constitution more than their own personal
+power they would have frankly acquiesced in the result, feeling that
+this Protestant and Conservative constituency had conscientiously
+done its duty to the state. But who could have imagined, after all
+the solemnly recorded pledges I have quoted, that they would have
+instantly resolved to punish the independent exercise of the franchise
+by inflicting an enormous and crushing fine amounting to nothing less
+than the whole tenant-right property of every adverse voter who had
+not a lease! Immediately after the election 'notices to quit' were
+served upon every one of them. In consequence of this outrageous
+proceeding a public meeting was held, at which a letter from John
+Millar, Esq., a most respectable and wealthy man (who was unable to
+attend) was read by the secretary. He said: 'I have at various times
+purchased places held from year to year, relying on the custom of the
+country, and on the declared determination of the landlord and his
+agent to respect such customary rights of property, for the continued
+possession of it. I have besides taken under the same landlord several
+fields as town parks, which were in very bad order. These fields I
+have drained and very much improved. I have always punctually paid the
+rent charged for the several holdings, and, I think I may venture to
+say, performed all the duties of a good tenant. At the last election,
+however, I exercised my right as a citizen of a free country,
+by giving my votes at Hillsborough and Lisburn in favour of the
+tenant-right candidates, without reference to the desires or orders of
+those who have no legal or constitutional right to control the use of
+my franchise. I have since received from the office a notice to quit,
+desiring me to give up possession of all my holdings, as tenant
+from year to year, in the counties of Down and Antrim, without any
+intimation that I shall receive compensation, and without being able
+to obtain any explanation of this conduct towards me except by popular
+rumour.' At the same meeting Mr. Hugh M'Call said that he had looked
+over some documents and found that the individuals in Lisburn who
+had received notices to quit held property to the value of 3,000 l.,
+property raised by themselves, or purchased by them with the sanction
+of the landlord. In one case the agent himself went into the premises
+where buildings were being erected, and suggested some changes. In
+fact the improvements were carried out under his inspection as an
+architect. Yet he served upon that gentleman a notice to quit. Some
+of the tenants paid the penalty for their votes by surrendering their
+holdings; others contested the right of eviction on technical points,
+and succeeded at the quarter sessions. One of the points was, as
+already mentioned, that a dean and rector could not be legally a land
+agent at the same time. It was, indeed, a very ugly fact that the
+rector of the parish should be thus officially engaged, not only in
+nullifying the political rights of his own Protestant parishioners,
+but in destroying their tenant-right, evicting them from their
+holdings, which _they_ believed to be legal robbery and oppression,
+accompanied by such flagrant breach of faith as tended to destroy all
+confidence between man and man, and thus to dissolve the strongest
+bonds of society. Sad work for a dignitary of the church to be engaged
+in!
+
+In April, 1856, there was another contested election. On that
+occasion the marquis wrote to a gentleman in Lisburn that he would not
+interfere 'directly or indirectly to influence anybody.' Nevertheless,
+notices to quit, signed by Mr. Walter L. Stannus, assistant and
+successor to his father, were extensively served upon tenants-at-will,
+though it was afterwards alleged that they were only served as matters
+of form. But what, then, did they mean? They meant that those who
+had voted against the office had, _ipso facto, forfeited their
+tenant-right property._ Many other incidents in the management of the
+estate have been constantly occurring more recently, tending to show
+that the most valuable properties created by the tenants-at-will are
+at the mercy of the landlord, and that tenant-right, so called, is
+not regarded by him as a matter of _right_ at all, but merely as a
+_favour_, to be granted to those who are dutiful and submissive to the
+office in all matters, political and social. For instance, one farmer
+was refused permission to sell his tenant-right till he consented to
+sink 100 l. or 200 l. in the shares of the Lisburn and Antrim railway,
+so that, as he believed, he was obliged to throw away his money in
+order to get his right.
+
+The enormous power of an office which can deal with property amounting
+to more than half a million sterling, in such an arbitrary manner,
+necessarily generates a spirit of wanton and capricious despotism,
+except where the mind is very well regulated and the heart severely
+disciplined by Christian duty. Of this I feel bound to give the
+following illustration, which I would not do if the fact had not been
+made public, and if I had not the best evidence that it is undeniable.
+George Beattie, jun., a grocer's assistant in Lisburn, possessed a
+beautiful greyhound which he left in charge of George Beattie, sen.,
+his uncle, on departing for America. This uncle possessed a farm on
+the Hertfort estate, the tenant-right of which he wanted to sell.
+Having applied to Mr. Stannus for permission, the answer he received
+was that he would not be allowed to sell until the head of the
+greyhound was brought to the office. The tenant remonstrated and
+offered to send the dog away off the estate to relatives, but to no
+effect. He was obliged to kill the greyhound, and to send its head in
+a bag to Lord Hertfort's office. It was a great triumph for the agent.
+What a pretty sensational story he had to tell the young ladies in the
+refined circles in which he moves. How edifying the recital must have
+been to the peasantry around him! How it must have exalted their ideas
+of the civilising influence of land agency. 'It is quite a common
+thing,' says a gentleman well acquainted with the estate, 'when a
+tenant becomes insolvent, that his tenant-right is sold and employed
+to pay those of his creditors who may be in favour. I know a lady who
+made application to have a claim against a small farmer registered in
+the office, which was done, and she now possesses the security of the
+man's tenant-right for her money.'
+
+The case of the late Captain Bolton is the last illustration I
+shall give in connection with this estate. Captain Bolton resided in
+Lisburn, and he was one of the most respected of its inhabitants.
+He was the owner of four houses in that town, a property which he
+acquired in this way:--The site of two of them was obtained by the
+late James Hogg, in lieu of freehold property surrendered. On this
+ground, his son, Captain Bolton's uncle, built the two houses entirely
+at his own expense. Two other houses, immediately adjoining, came into
+the market, and he purchased the out-going tenant's 'good-will' for
+a sum of about 40 l. These houses were thatched, and in very bad
+condition. He repaired them and slated them, and thus formed a nice
+uniform block of four workers' houses. Captain Bolton inherited these
+from his uncle and retained uninterrupted possession till 1852, when
+he voted for Johnston Smyth at the election of that date. Immediately
+afterwards he received a notice to quit, an ejectment was brought in
+due time, the case was dismissed at the quarter sessions, an appeal
+was lodged, but it was again dismissed at the assizes. Undaunted by
+these two defeats, the persistent agent served another notice to quit.
+The captain was a man of peace, whose nerves could not stand such
+perpetual worrying by litigation, and he was so disgusted with
+the whole affair that he tied up the keys, and sent them to Lord
+Hertfort's office. In his ledger that day he made the following
+entry:--'Plundered, this 20th December 1854, by our worthy agent to
+the marquis, because I voted for Smyth and the independence of the
+borough.--J.B.'
+
+The houses remained in the hands of the agent till the next election,
+when Captain Bolton voted for Mr. Hogg, the office candidate.
+The conscientious old gentleman--as good a conservative as Dean
+Stannus--voted from principle in both cases and not to please the
+agent or anyone else. The agent, however, thought proper to regard
+it as a penitent act, and as the tenant had ceased to be naughty,
+and had, it was assumed, shown proper deference to his political
+superiors, he received his houses back again, retaining the possession
+of them till his death. The profit rent of the houses is 20 l. a year.
+Either this rent belonged to Captain Bolton or to Lord Hertfort. If
+to Captain Bolton, by what right did Dean Stannus take it from him and
+give it to the landlord? If to the landlord, by what right did Dean
+Stannus take it from Lord Hertfort and give it to Captain Bolton?
+
+However, the latter gentleman having no doubt whatever, first or last,
+that the property was his own, bequeathed the houses to trustees
+for the support of a school which he had established in Lisburn. The
+school, it appears, had been placed in connection with the Church
+Education Society, and as it did not go on to his satisfaction, he
+placed it in connection with the National Board of Education, having
+appointed as his trustees John Campbell, Esq., M.D., William Coulson,
+Esq., and the Rev. W.J. Clarke, Presbyterian minister, all of Lisburn.
+Dr. Campbell died soon after, and Mr. Coulson refused to act, so that
+the burden of the trust fell upon Mr. Clarke, who felt it to be
+his duty to carry it out to the best of his ability. Dean Stannus,
+however, was greatly dissatisfied with the last will and testament of
+Captain Bolton. Yet the dying man had no reason to anticipate that
+his affectionate pastor would labour with all his might to abolish
+the trust. Dean Stannus paid the captain a visit on his deathbed, and
+while administering the consolations of religion he seemed moved
+even to tears. To a friend who subsequently expressed doubt, the
+simple-minded old Christian said: 'I will trust the dean that he will
+do nothing in opposition to my will. He was here a few days ago and
+wept over me. He loves me, and will carry out my wishes.' The captain
+died in April, 1867. He was scarcely cold in his grave when the agent
+of Lord Hertfort took proceedings to eject his trustees, and deprive
+the schools of the property bequeathed for their support. Not content
+with this, he took proceedings to get possession of the schoolhouse
+also, deeming it a sufficient reason for this appropriation of another
+man's property, this setting aside of a will, this abolition of
+a trust, that, in his opinion, the schools ought to be under the
+patronage of the rector, and in connection with the Church Education
+Society. He had a perfect right to think and say this, and it might
+be his conscientious conviction that the property would be thus better
+employed; but he ought to know that the end does not sanctify the
+means; that he had no right to substitute his own will for that of
+Captain Bolton, and that he had no right to take advantage of the
+absence of an act of parliament to possess himself of the rightful
+property of other people. Unfortunately, too, he was a judge in his
+own case, and he did not find it easy to separate the rector of the
+parish from the agent of the estate. It is a significant fact that
+when his son, Mr. Stannus, handed his power of attorney to Mr. Otway,
+the assistant-barrister, that gentleman refused to look at it, saying,
+'I have seen it one hundred times;' and the Rev. Mr. Clarke, while
+waiting in the court for the case to come on, observed that all the
+ejectment processes were at the suit of the Marquis of Hertfort. The
+school-house was built by Mr. Bolton, at his own expense twenty-eight
+years ago, and he maintained it till his death. The Rev. W.J. Clarke,
+the acting trustee, bravely defended his trust and fought the battle
+of tenant-right in the courts till driven out by the sheriff. He
+was then called on to perform the same duty with regard to the
+school-house. He has done it faithfully and well, and deserves the
+sympathy of all the friends of freedom, justice, and fair dealing.
+'I shall never accept a trust,' he says, in a letter to the _Northern
+Whig_--'I shall never accept a trust, and permit any man, whether
+nobleman, agent, or bailiff, to alienate that trust, without appealing
+to the laws of my country; and if the one-sidedness of such laws shall
+enable Dean and Mr. Stannus to confiscate this property, and turn
+it from the purpose to which benevolence designed it, then, having
+defended it to the last, I shall retire from the field satisfied that
+I have done my duty to the memory of the dead and the educational
+interests of the living.' Nor can we be surprised at the strong
+language that he uses when he says: 'The history of the case rivals,
+for blackness of persecution, anything that has happened in the north
+of Ireland for many years. But such a course of conduct only recoils
+on the heads of those who are guilty of it, and it shall be so in this
+case. The Marquis of Hertfort will not live always, and the power of
+public opinion may be able to reach his successor, and be felt even in
+Lisburn.'
+
+Dean Stannus, in his evidence before the Devon commission, stated that
+only a small portion of the estate was held by lease. The leases were
+obtained in a curious way. In 1823 a system of fining commenced. If a
+tenant wanted a lease he was required to pay in cash a fine of 10 l.
+an acre, which was equal to an addition of ten shillings an acre to
+the rent for twenty years, not counting the interest on the money thus
+sunk in the land. Yet, such was the desire of the tenants to have a
+better security than the tenant-right custom, always acknowledged on
+the estate, that 'every man who had money took advantage of it.' Mr.
+Gregg, the seneschal of the manor, gave an illustration of the working
+of this fining system. A tenant sold his farm of fourteen acres for
+205 l., eight of the fourteen acres being held at will. The person who
+bought the farm was obliged to take a lease of the eight acres, and
+to pay a proportional fine in addition to the sum paid for the
+tenant-right. Dean Stannus said 'he would wish to see the tenant-right
+upheld upon the estate of Lord Hertfort, as it always had been. It is
+that,' he said, 'which has kept up the properties in the north over
+the properties in other parts of Ireland. It is a security for the
+rent in the first instance, and reconciles the tenants to much of what
+are called grievances. If you go into a minute calculation of
+what they have expended, they are not more than paid for their
+expenditure.' It transpired in the course of the examination that a
+man who had purchased tenant-right, and paid a fine of 10 l. an acre
+on getting a lease, would have to pay a similar fine over again when
+getting the lease renewed. The result of these heavy advances was that
+the middle-class farmers lived in constant pecuniary difficulties.
+They were obliged to borrow money at six per cent. to pay the rent,
+but they borrowed it under circumstances which made it nearly 40 per
+cent., for it was lent by dealers in oatmeal and other things, from
+whom they were obliged to purchase large quantities of goods at such a
+high rate that they sold them again at a sacrifice of 33 per cent.
+
+Mr. Joshua Lamb, another witness, stated that the effect of the fining
+system had been to draw away a great deal of the accumulated capital
+out of the hands of the tenantry, as well as their anticipated savings
+for years to come, by which the carrying out of improved methods of
+agriculture was prevented. Still, the existence of a lease for 31
+years doubled the value of the tenant-right. This witness made a
+remarkable statement. With respect to this custom he said: The 'effect
+of this arrangement, when duly observed, is to prevent all disputes,
+quarrels, burnings, and destruction of property, so common in those
+parts of Ireland where this practice does not prevail. Indeed, so
+fully are farmers aware of this, that very few, except the most
+reckless, would venture on taking a farm without obtaining the
+outgoing tenant's "good-will." Such a proceeding as taking land
+"over a man's head," as it is termed, is regarded here as not merely
+dishonourable, but as little better than robbery, and as such held
+in the greatest detestation.' He added that the justice of this
+arrangement was obvious--'because all the buildings, planting, and
+other improvements, being entirely at the tenant's expense, he has a
+certain amount of capital sunk in the property, for which, if he
+parts with the place, he expects to be repaid by the sale of the
+tenant-right. He knew no case in the county in which the tenant, or
+those from whom he purchased, had made no improvements.'
+
+The first marquis occasionally visited the estate, and was proud of
+the troops of yeomanry and cavalry which had been raised from his
+tenantry. The second marquis, who died in 1822, was only once in
+that part of Ireland. The third marquis--he of Prince Regent
+notoriety--never set foot on the property; and the present, who has
+been reigning over 140 townlands for nearly thirty years, has never
+been among his subjects except during a solitary visit of three weeks
+in October, 1845, when, it is said, he came to qualify for his ribbon
+(K.G.) that he might be able to say to the prime minister that he
+was a resident landlord. He has resided almost entirely in Paris,
+cultivating the friendship of Napoleon instead of the welfare of the
+people who pay him a revenue of 60,000 l. a year. Bagatelle, his
+Paris residence, has, it is said, absorbed Irish rents in its
+'improvements', till it has been made worth three quarters of a
+million sterling. If the residence cost so much, fancy may try to
+conceive the amount of hard-earned money squandered on the luxuries
+and pleasures of which it is the temple--the most Elysian spot in the
+Elysian fields.
+
+The following curious narrative appeared in a Belfast newspaper, and
+was founded on a speech made by Dean Stannus at a public meeting.
+
+The venerable Dean of Ross and his son, Mr. W.T. Stannus, had been
+deputed to go to Paris to wait on Lord Hertfort, and urge him to
+assist in the expense of finishing the Antrim Junction Railway. The
+dean is in his eighty-first year; fifty-one years of his life have
+been spent in the management of the Hertfort estate, and whatever
+difference of opinion may exist as to his arrangements with the
+tenantry, every one who knows anything of the affair must admit that
+there never existed a more faithful representative of a landowner. On
+arriving in Paris he found the marquis ill, so much so that neither
+the dean nor his son could get an interview. For three days the
+venerable gentleman danced attendance on his chief, and on Monday the
+fourth attempt was made, the dean sent up his name, and had a reply
+that 'the marquis was too ill to see anyone.' Next day, however, the
+marquis condescended to receive his agent, and the subject of the
+railway was introduced. The dean told him that Lord Erne had given
+200,000 l. towards the railway projects on his property--that Lords
+Lucan, Annesley, and Lifford had contributed largely, and that Lord
+Downshire had been exceedingly liberal in promoting lines on his
+estate. But all was vain. The noble absentee, who drains about 60,000
+l. a year from his Irish property, and who often pays 5,000 l. for
+a picture, refused to lend 15,000 l. to aid in finishing a railway,
+which runs for three-fourths of the mileage through his own estate.
+During the interview Mr. W.T. Stannus urged on the marquis that the
+investment would be the best that could be made, as preference shares
+paying five per cent. would be allocated to him as security for the
+amount. All arguments and entreaties, however, were lost on the noble
+invalid. Even the appeal of the old gentleman who, for more than half
+a century, had managed the estate so advantageously for the successive
+owners of that splendid property, was made in vain. 'You never refused
+me anything before,' urged the dean, 'and I go away in very bad
+spirits.' What a wonderful history lies in this episode of Irish
+landlordism. Here is an unmarried nobleman whose income from
+investments in British and French securities is said to exceed 30,000
+l. a year, besides the immense revenue of his English and Irish
+estates, and yet he refuses to part with 15,000 l. towards aiding in
+the construction of a railway on his own property.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+TENANT-RIGHT IN ARMAGH.
+
+
+Among the undertakers in the county of Armagh were the two Achesons,
+Henry and Archibald, ancestors of Lord Gosford, who founded Market
+Hill, Richard Houlston, John Heron, William Stanbowe, Francis
+Sacheverell, John Dillon, John Hamilton, Sir John Davis, Lord Moore,
+Henry Boucher, Anthony Smith, Lieutenant Poyntz, and Henry M'Shane
+O'Neill.
+
+In connection with each of these settlements Pynar uses the phrase,
+'I find planted and estated.' What he means is more fully explained
+in his reference to the precinct of Fews, allotted to Scottish
+undertakers, where Henry Acheson had obtained 1,000 acres. The
+surveyor says: 'I find a great number of tenants on this land: but not
+any that have any estates but by promise, and yet they have been many
+years upon the land. There are nominated to me two freeholders and
+seventeen leaseholders, all which were with me, and took the oath of
+supremacy, and petitioned unto me that they might have their leases,
+the which Mr. Acheson seemed to be willing to perform it unto them
+presently. These are able to make thirty men with arms. Here is great
+store of tillage.' The whole of the reports indicate that the Crown
+required of the undertakers two things. First, that they should
+themselves reside on the land, that they should build strong houses,
+fortified with bawns, and keep a certain number of armed men for
+the defence of the settlement. Secondly, that the English and Scotch
+settlers who were expected to reclaim the land and build houses, were
+to have 'estates' in their farms, either as freeholders or lessees.
+The grants were made to the undertakers on these conditions--they
+should be resident, and they should have around them a number of
+independent yeomanry to defend the king when called upon to do so.
+Everything connected with the plantation gives the idea of permanent
+tenures for the settlers. A curious fact is mentioned about Sir John
+Davis, who had been so active in bringing about the plantation. He
+obtained a grant for 500 acres. 'Upon this,' says Pynar, 'there is
+nothing at all built, nor so much as an English tenant on the land.'
+It seems his tenants were all of the class for whose extirpation
+he pleaded, as weeds that would choke the Saxon crop. Henry M'Shane
+O'Neill got 1,000 acres at Camlagh, 'but he being lately dead, it was
+in the hands of Sir Toby Caulfield, who intended to do something upon
+it, for as yet there was nothing built.' Sir Toby was the ancestor of
+the Earl of Charlemont, always one of the best landlords in Ulster.
+
+It is gratifying to find that both the undertakers and the original
+tenants are still fairly represented--a considerable number of the
+former having founded noble houses, and the latter having multiplied
+and enriched the land to such an extent that, though the population
+is dense and the farms are generally very small, they are the most
+prosperous and contented population in the kingdom. Leases were common
+in this county at the close of the last century, but the terms were
+short--twenty-one years and one life. Some had leases for thirty-one
+years or three lives, and there were some perpetuities. Land was
+then so valuable that when a small estate came into the market--large
+estates hardly ever did--they brought from twenty-five to thirty
+years' purchase. The large tracts of church land, which are now among
+the richest and most desirable in the country, presented at the
+close of the last century, a melancholy contrast to the farms that
+surrounded them. The reason is given by Sir Charles Coote. It is most
+instructive and suggestive at the present time. He says, 'It is very
+discouraging for a wealthy farmer to have anything to do with church
+lands, as his improvements cannot even be secured to him during his
+own life, or the life of his landlord, but he may at any time be
+deprived of the fruits of his industry, by the incumbent changing his
+living, as his interest then terminates.' This evil was remedied first
+by making the leases renewable, on the payment of fines, and, in our
+own time, an act was passed enabling the tenants to convert their
+leaseholds into perpetuities. The consequence is, that the church
+lands now present some of the finest features in the social landscape,
+occupied by a class of resident gentry, an essential link, in any
+well-organised society, between the people and the great proprietors.
+The Board of Trinity College felt so strongly the necessity of giving
+fixed tenures, if permanent improvements were to be effected on their
+estates, that, without waiting for a general measure of land reform,
+they obtained, in 1861, a private act of parliament giving them power
+to grant leases for ninety-nine years. 'The legislature,' says Dr.
+Hancock, 'thus gave partial effect in the case of one institution to
+the recommendation which the Land Occupation Commissioners intended to
+apply to all estates in the hands of public boards in Ireland.'
+
+Armagh was always free from middlemen. The landlord got what Sir
+Charles Coote calls a rack rent from the occupying tenant, and it
+was his interest to divide rather than consolidate farms, because the
+linen trade enabled the small holder to give a high rent, while
+the custom of tenant-right furnished an unfailing security for its
+payment.
+
+The country, when seen from an elevation, is one continuous patchwork
+of corn, potatoes, clover, and other artificial grasses. Wonders
+are wrought in the way of productiveness by rotation of crops and
+house-feeding. Cattle are not only fattened much more rapidly than on
+the richest grazing land, but large quantities of the best manure are
+produced by the practice of house-feeding. The more northern portions
+of the county, bordering on Down and Lough Neagh, and along the banks
+of the rivers Bann and Blackwater, are naturally rich, and have been
+improved to the highest degree by ages of skilful cultivation. But
+other parts, particularly the barony of Fews, embracing the high
+lands stretching to the Newry mountains, and bordering on the County
+Monaghan, were, about the close of the last century, nearly all
+covered with heather, and absolutely waste. Sir Charles Coote
+remarked, in 1804, that it had been then undergoing reclamation.
+Within the last fifteen years the land had doubled in value, and was
+set at the average rate of 16 s. an acre. Mr. Tickell, referring to
+this county, remarked that the Scotch and English settlers chiefly
+occupied the lowland districts, and that the natives retired to this
+poor region, retaining their old language and habits; and he was
+occasionally obliged to swear interpreters where witnesses or parties
+came from the Fews, which were 'very wild, and very unlike other parts
+of the county of Armagh.'
+
+Now let us see what the industry of the people has done in that wild
+district. The farms are very small, say from three to ten English
+acres. They have been so well drained, cleared, sub-soiled, and
+manured, that the occupier is able to support on one acre as many
+cattle as on three acres when grazed; while affording profitable
+employment to the women and children. Great labour has been bestowed
+in taking down crooked and broad fences. Every foot of ground is
+cultivated with the greatest care, and in the mountain districts,
+patches of land among rocks, inaccessible to horses, are tilled by the
+hand. In many cases in the less exposed districts, two crops in the
+year are obtained from the same ground, viz., winter tares followed by
+turnips or cabbages, and rape followed by tares, potatoes, turnips,
+or cabbages. These crops are succeeded by grain or flax the next year,
+with which clover is sown for mowing and stall-feeding, yielding two
+or three cuttings. The green crops are so timed as to give a full
+supply for house-feeding throughout the year. Nothing is neglected by
+those skilful and thrifty farmers; the county is famous for orchards,
+and when I was in the city of Armagh, last autumn, I saw in the market
+square almost as many loads of apples as of potatoes.
+
+The connection of large grazing farms with pauperism, as cause and
+effect, has not received sufficient attention from the friends
+of social progress. I resolved last year to test this matter by a
+comparison. We have at present no check upon the legally enforced
+depopulation of this country except the _interest_ of the landlords,
+or what they imagine to be their interest. It is well that the
+question should be determined whether it is really for the benefit
+of the owners of the land that they should clear it of Christians and
+occupy it with cattle--in other words, whether Christians or cattle
+will pay more rent and taxes. I omit all higher considerations,
+because some of the most philanthropic and enlightened defenders of
+the present land system have defended it on this low ground. In order
+to make the test complete and unexceptionable, I have selected a
+comparatively poor district for tillage, and one of the richest I
+could find for grazing, giving all possible natural advantages to
+Scullyism. But the test would not be fair unless the occupiers of the
+poorer land had a tolerably secure tenure so long as they paid the
+highest rent that a reasonable agent could impose. I thought also that
+possible objections would be obviated if the tenantry were destitute
+of 'the fostering care of a resident landlord.' Therefore, instead
+of selecting the tenants of Lord Downshire, or Lord Roden, or Lord
+Dufferin, I have fixed upon the tenants of Lord Kilmorey, because he
+and the producers of the rents which he enjoys have never seen
+one another in the flesh, and they have never received one word of
+encouragement or instruction from him in the whole course of their
+lives. Accordingly, with the Union of Kilkeel, which comprises the
+Mourne district, I have compared the Union of Trim, which comprises
+some of the richest grazing land in Ireland. Travellers have noted
+that population always grows thick on rich lands, while it is sparse
+on poor lands. No one requires to be told the reason of this.
+
+The Unions of Kilkeel and Trim have populations very nearly
+equal--viz., Kilkeel, 22,614; Trim, 22,918. The total arable land in
+Kilkeel is 50,000 statute acres, giving 2 1/3 acres on an average
+for each person, and 14 acres for each holding. Trim contains 119,519
+statute acres, giving 5 acres to each person, and 42 to each holding.
+
+In Mourne the area of land under crops is 20,904 acres (nearly half),
+giving one acre of tillage to each inhabitant, and 6 acres to each
+holding of 14 acres. In Trim the area under crops is 38,868 acres,
+giving 2 acres for each inhabitant, and 14 for each holding of 42
+acres.
+
+The significance of these figures is shown by the Government valuation
+in 1867. The valuation of Mourne Union is 40,668 l., the average for
+each person being 2 l. and for each holding 11 l. The valuation of
+Trim is 109,068 l., allowing 5 l. for each person and 38 l. for each
+holding. In other words, the capability of the land of Trim to support
+population is as five to two when compared with Mourne; but whereas
+in Mourne 2 1/3 acres support one person, in Trim it takes 5 acres
+to support one person--about double the quantity. As the value of the
+land in Meath is more than double what it is in Mourne, each acre in
+Meath ought to maintain its man. That is, if Meath were cultivated
+like Down, its population ought to be _five times as large as it is_!
+
+But this is not the whole case. The Mourne population may be too
+large. With so many families crowded on such a small tract of poor
+land, the Union must be overwhelmed with pauperism. If so, the case
+for tenant-right and tillage would fall to the ground, and Scullyism
+would be triumphant. Let us see, then, how stands this essential fact.
+The number of paupers in the workhouse and receiving outdoor relief in
+the Union of Trim, in 1866, was 2,474. This large amount of pauperism
+is not peculiar to Trim. It belongs to other Unions of this rich
+grazing district, which so fully realises the late Lord Carlisle's
+ideal of Irish prosperity. Navan Union has 3,820 paupers, and Kells
+has 1,306. Now, the population of Trim and Mourne being nearly the
+same, and Trim being twice as rich as Mourne, and not half as thickly
+peopled, it follows that Mourne ought to have at least four times as
+many paupers as Trim--that is, it ought to have 9,896. But it actually
+has only 521 persons receiving relief in and out of the workhouse!
+
+Consequently, Scullyism and grazing produce nearly twenty times the
+amount of poverty and misery produced by tenant-right and tillage.
+
+I have not overlooked the difference of race and religion. On the
+contrary, they were uppermost in my mind when rambling among the
+nice, clean, comfortable, orderly homesteads of Mourne, reminding me
+strongly of Forth and Bargy in the county Wexford. I said to the owner
+and driver of my car, who is a Roman Catholic, 'Do the Roman
+Catholics here keep their houses and farms in as nice order as the
+Presbyterians?' He answered, 'Why should they not? Are they not the
+same flesh and blood?'
+
+According to the census of 1861, the Roman Catholics greatly outnumber
+the Protestants in this Union. The exact figures are:--
+
+Total population of Mourne Union     22,614
+Protestants of all denominations      8,080
+Roman Catholics                      14,534
+
+The result of this comparison may perhaps make a better impression
+on the reader's mind if cast in the form of tables, as given on
+succeeding page.
+
+Table Headings:
+
+Col A. Population in 1861
+Col B. No. of Holdings in 1864
+Col C. Total Area (in Stat. Acres)
+Col D. Area under Crops, 1864 (in Stat. Acres)
+Col E. Valuation in 1807 (in £)
+Col F. No. in Workhouse and receiving Out-door Relief
+Col G. Protestants of all denominations
+Col H. Roman Catholics
+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+                        TENANT-RIGHT AND TILLAGE.
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+Names of Unions  |  A.  |  B.  |  C.   |  D.  |  E.   |  F. |  G. |  H.
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+Kilkeel          |22,614| 3,540| 50,000|20,904| 40,668| 521 |8,080|14,534
+ Average for each|      |      |       |      |       |     |     |
+   person        |      |      | 2-1/2 |   1  |   2   |     |     |
+ Average for each|      |      |       |      |       |     |     |
+   holding       |      |      |  14   |   6  |  11   |     |     |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+                        LARGE FARMS AND GRAZING.
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+Trim             |22,918| 2,816|119,519|38,867|109,068|2,474|1,700|21,218
+ Average for each|      |      |       |      |       |     |     |
+  person         |      |      |   5   |   2  |   5   |     |     |
+ Average for each|      |      |       |      |       |     |     |
+  person         |      |      |  42   |  14  |  38   |     |     |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+In Kilkeel Union there were 4,012 acres of flax in 1864, which at 20
+l. an acre would produce 80,000 l., considerably more than the rental
+of the entire district. Trim, in that year, produced only 78 acres of
+flax.
+
+What everyone wants to know now is this--whether any measure can be
+devised that will satisfy the cultivators of the soil without wronging
+the landlords, or militating against the interests of the state. A
+measure that will not satisfy the tenants and put an end to their
+discontent, would be manifestly useless. It would be but adding to the
+numerous legislative abortions that have gone before it. A man engaged
+in such enquiries as this, is to ascertain what will satisfy the
+people. It is for the legislature to determine whether it can be
+rightly or safely granted. I have, therefore, directed my attention to
+this point in particular, and I have ascertained beyond question, from
+the best possible sources of information, that nothing will satisfy
+the people of this country but what they do not hesitate to name with
+the most determined emphasis--'Fixity of Tenure.' Whether they are
+Protestants or Catholics, Orangemen or Liberals, Presbyterians or
+Churchmen, this is their unanimous demand, the cry in which they all
+join to a man. Every case in which tenant-right is disregarded, or in
+which, while admitted nominally, an attempt is made to evade it, or
+to fritter it away, excites the bitterest feeling, in which the whole
+community sympathises.
+
+They deny, however, that the existing tenant-right is a sufficient
+security:--
+
+Because it depends on the option of the landlord, and cannot be
+enforced by law.
+
+Because even the best disposed landlord may be influenced to alter his
+policy by the advice of an agent, by the influence of his family, or
+by the state of his finances.
+
+Because a good landlord, who knows the tenants and cares for them, may
+be succeeded by a son who is a 'fast young man,' addicted to the
+turf and overwhelmed in debt, while the estate gets into the hands of
+usurers.
+
+Because in such a case the law affords no protection to the property
+of the tenant, which his family may have been accumulating on the
+land since the first of them came over from England or Scotland,
+and settled around their commander, after helping by their swords to
+conquer the country, and preserve it to the crown of England.
+
+Because it is not in human nature to avoid encroaching on the rights
+and property of others, if it can be done at will--done legally, and
+done under the pretext that it is necessary for 'improvement,' and
+will be a benefit even to those who are despoiled.
+
+Because the custom is no protection to a man's political rights as
+a British subject. No tenant farmer can vote against his landlord in
+obedience to his conscience without the risk of ruining his family.
+The greater his interest in the land, the larger his investments,
+the heavier his stake; the greater his accumulations in his bank--the
+farm--the greater will be his dependence, the more complete
+his political bondage. He has the more to lose. Therefore, if a
+Conservative, he must vote for a Radical or a Catholic, who would pull
+down the Church Establishment; or if a Catholic, he must vote for a
+'No-popery' candidate, who ignores tenant-right, and against a
+Liberal statesman, whose life has been devoted to the interests of the
+country.
+
+It appears to me that the difficulty of settling this question is
+much aggravated by the importation of opinions from the United States
+hostile to the aristocracy; and as this source of discontent and
+distrust is likely to increase every year, the sooner the settlement
+is effected the better. What is the use of scolding and reviling the
+tenant's advocates? Will that weaken one iota the tremendous force of
+social discontent--the bitter sense of legal injustice, with which
+the legislature must deal? And will the legislature deal with it more
+effectually by shutting its eyes to facts?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+FARNEY--MR. TRENCH'S 'REALITIES.'
+
+
+When the six Ulster counties were confiscated, and the natives were
+all deprived of their rights in the soil, the people of the county
+Cavan resolved to appeal for justice to the English courts in Dublin.
+The Crown was defended by Sir John Davis. He argued that the Irish
+could have no legal rights, no property in the land, because they did
+not enclose it with fences, or plant orchards. True, they had boundary
+marks for their tillage ground; but they followed the Eastern custom
+in not building ditches or walls around their farms. They did not
+plant orchards, because they had too many trees already that grew
+without planting. The woods were common property, and the apples,
+if they had any, would be common property too, like the nuts and the
+acorns.
+
+The Irish were obliged to submit to the terms imposed by the
+conquerors, glad in their destitution to be permitted to occupy their
+own lands as tenants at will. The English undertakers, as we have
+seen, were bound to deal differently with the English settlers; but
+their obligations resolved themselves into promises of freeholds and
+leases which were seldom granted, so that many persons threw up their
+farms in despair, and returned to their own country.
+
+In the border county of Monaghan, we have a good illustration of the
+manner in which the natives struggled to live under their new masters.
+The successors of some of those masters have in modern times taken a
+strange fancy to the study of Irish antiquities. Among these is Evelyn
+P. Shirley, Esq., who has published 'Some Account of the Territory
+or Dominion of Farney.' The account is interesting, and, taken in
+connection with the sequel given to the public by his agent, Mr. W.
+Steuart Trench, it furnishes an instructive chapter in the history
+of the land war. The whole barony of Farney was granted by Queen
+Elizabeth to Walter Earl of Essex in the year 1576, in reward for the
+massacres already recorded. It was then an almost unenclosed plain,
+consisting chiefly of coarse pasturage, interspersed with low
+alder-scrub. When the primitive woods were cut down for fuel,
+charcoal, or other purposes, the stumps remained in the ground, and
+from these fresh shoots sprang up thickly. The clearing out of these
+stumps was difficult and laborious; but it had to be done before
+anything, but food for goats, could be got out of the land. This was
+'the M'Mahons' country,' and the tribe was not wholly subdued till
+1606, when the power of the Ulster chiefs was finally broken. The
+lord deputy, the chancellor, and the lord chief justice passed through
+Farney on their way to hold assizes for the first time in Derry and
+Donegal. They were protected by a guard of 'seven score foot, and
+fifty or three score horse, which,' wrote Sir John Davis, 'is an
+argument of a good time and a confident deputy; for in former times
+(when the state enjoyed the best peace and security) no lord deputy
+did ever venture himself into those parts, without an army of 800 or
+1000 men.' At this time Lord Essex had leased the barony of Farney
+to Evor M'Mahon for a yearly rent of 250 l. payable in Dublin. After
+fourteen years the same territory was let to Brian M'Mahon for 1,500
+l. In the year 1636, the property yielded a yearly rent of 2022 l.
+18 s. 4 d. paid by thirty-eight tenants. A map then taken gives the
+several townlands and denominations nearly as they are at present.
+Robert Earl of Essex, dying in 1646, his estates devolved on his
+sisters, Lady Frances and Lady Dorothy Devereux, the former of whom
+married Sir W. Seymour, afterwards Marquis of Hertfort, and the latter
+Sir Henry Shirley, Bart., ancestor of the present proprietor of half
+the barony. Ultimately the other half became the property of the
+Marquis of Bath. At the division in 1690, each moiety was valued at
+1313 l. 14 s. 4-1/2 d. Gradually as the lands were reclaimed by the
+tenants, the rental rose. In 1769 the Bath estate produced 3,000 l.,
+and the Shirley estate 5,000 l. The total of 8,000 l. per annum, from
+this once wild and barren tract, was paid by middlemen. The natives
+had not been rooted out, and during the eighteenth century these
+sub-tenants multiplied rapidly. According to the census in 1841 the
+population of the barony exceeded 44,000 souls, and they contributed
+by their industry, to the two absentee proprietors, the enormous
+annual revenue of 40,000 l., towards the production of which it does
+not appear that either of them, or any person for them, ever invested
+a shilling.
+
+Mr. S. Trench was amazed to find 'more than one human being for every
+Irish acre of land in the barony, and nearly one human being for every
+1 l. valuation per annum of the land.' The two estates join in the
+town of Carrickmacross. When Mr. Trench arrived there, March 30, 1843,
+to commence his duties as Mr. Shirley's agent, he learned that the
+sudden death of the late agent in the court-house of Monaghan had been
+celebrated that night by fires on almost every hill on the estate,
+'and over a district of upwards of 20,000 acres there was scarcely
+a mile without a bonfire blazing in manifestation of joy at his
+decease.' Mr. Trench says, the tenants considered themselves
+ground down to the last point by the late agent. As he relates the
+circumstances, the people would seem to be a very savage race; and
+he gives other more startling illustrations to the same effect as he
+proceeds. But here, as elsewhere, he does not state all the facts,
+while those he does state are most artistically dressed up for
+sensational effect, Mr. Trench himself being always the hero, always
+acting magnificently, appearing at the right place and at the right
+moment to prevent some tremendous calamity, otherwise inevitable, and
+by some mysterious personal influence subduing lawless masses, so
+that by a sudden impulse, their murderous rage is converted into
+admiration, if not adoration. Like the hearers of Herod or of St.
+Paul, when he flung the viper off his hand, they are ready to cry out,
+'He is a god, and not a man.' Of course he, as a Christian gentleman,
+was always 'greatly shocked,' when these poor wretches offered him
+petitions on their knees. Still he relates every case of the kind with
+extraordinary unction, and with a picturesqueness of situation and
+detail so stagey that it should make Mr. Boucicault's mouth water, and
+excite the envy of Miss Braddon. Not even she can exceed the author of
+'Realities of Irish Life,' in prolonging painful suspense, in piling
+up the agony, in accumulating horrors, in throwing strong lights on
+one side of the picture and casting deep shade on the other.
+
+It is with the greatest reluctance that I thus allude to the work of
+Mr. Trench. I do so from a sense of duty, because I believe it is one
+of the most misleading books on Ireland published for many years. It
+has made false impressions on the public mind in England, which will
+seriously interfere with a proper settlement of the land question.
+The mischief would not be so great if the author did not take so
+much pains to represent his stories as realities 'essentially
+characteristic of the country.' It is very difficult to account for
+the exaggeration and embellishment in which he has permitted himself
+to indulge, with so many professions of conscientious regard for
+truth. They must have arisen from the habit of reciting the adventures
+to his friends during a quarter of a century, naturally laying stress
+on the most sensational passages, while the facts less in keeping with
+startling effects dropped out of his memory. Very few of the actors in
+the scenes he describes now survive. Those who do, and who might
+have a more accurate memory, are either so lauded that it would
+be ungrateful of them to contradict--or so artfully discredited as
+'virulent' and base that people would not be likely to believe them if
+their recollections were different. There is one peculiarity about Mr.
+Trench's dialogues. There were never any witnesses present. He always
+took the wild Irishman, on whom he operated so magically, into his
+private office; or into a private room in the house of the 'subject;'
+or into a cell alone, if secrets were to be extracted from a Ribbonman
+in gaol. Even conversations with the gentler sex, who knelt before
+him as if he were a bishop, were not permitted to reach the ear of his
+chief clerk. On some matters, however, others have spoken since his
+book appeared. He is very precise about the trial for an agrarian
+murder in Monaghan, giving details from his own actual observation.
+Mr. Butt, Q.C., who was engaged in the case, has published a letter,
+stating that Mr. Trench was quite mistaken in his account. It seems
+strange that he did not refresh his memory by looking at a report of
+the trial in some newspaper file.
+
+Mr. Trench 'adds his testimony to the fact that Ireland is not
+altogether unmanageable,' that 'justice fully and firmly administered
+is always appreciated in the end.' And at the conclusion of his volume
+he says:--
+
+'We can scarcely shut our eyes to the fact that the circumstances and
+feelings which have led to the terrible crime of murder in Ireland,
+are usually very different from those which have led to murder
+elsewhere. The reader of the English newspaper is shocked at the list
+of children murdered by professional assassins, of wives murdered
+by their husbands, of men murdered for their gold. In Ireland that
+dreadful crime may almost invariably be traced to a wild feeling of
+revenge for the national wrongs, to which so many of her sons believe
+that she has been subjected for centuries.'
+
+There is a mistake here. No murders are committed in Ireland for
+'national wrongs.' The author has gathered together, as in a chamber
+of horrors, all the cases of assassination that occurred during
+the years of distress, provoked by the extensive _evictions_ which
+succeeded the _famine_, and by the infliction of great hardships on
+tenants who, in consequence of that dreadful calamity, had fallen
+into arrears. People who had been industrious, peaceable, and
+well-conducted were thus driven to desperation; and hence the young
+men formed lawless combinations and committed atrocious murders.
+But every one of these murders was agrarian, not national. They were
+committed in the prosecution of _a war_, not against the Government,
+but against the landlords and their agents and instruments. It was a
+war _pro aris et focis_, waged against local tyrants, and waged in the
+only way possible to the belligerents who fought for home and
+family. Mr. Trench always paints the people who sympathise with their
+champions as naturally wild, lawless, and savage. If he happens to
+be in good humour with them, he makes them ridiculous. His son, Mr.
+Townsend Trench, who did the illustrations for the work, pictures the
+peasantry as gorillas, always flourishing shillelaghs, and grinning
+horribly. With rare exceptions, they appear as an inferior race, while
+the ruling class, and the Trenches in particular, appear throughout
+the book as demigods, 'lords of the creation,' formed by nature to be
+the masters and guides and managers of such a silly, helpless people.
+Nowhere is any censure pronounced upon a landlord, or an agent, with
+one exception, and this was the immediate predecessor of Mr. Trench
+at Kenmare. To his gross neglect in allowing God to send so many human
+beings into the world, he ascribes the chaos of misery and pauperism,
+which he--a heaven-born agent--had to reduce to order and beauty.
+But there were other causes of the 'poetic turbulence' which he
+so gloriously quelled, that he might have brought to light, had he
+thought proper, for the information of English readers. He might have
+shown--for the evidence was before him in the report of the Devon
+Commission--with what hard toil and constant self-denial, amidst what
+domestic privations and difficulties, Mr. Shirley's tenants struggled
+to scrape up for him his 20,000 l. a year, and how bitterly they must
+have felt when the landlord sent an order to add one-third to their
+rack-rent. I will supply Mr. Trench's lack of service, and quote the
+evidence of one of those honest and worthy men, given before the Devon
+Commissioners.
+
+Peter Mohun, farmer, a tenant on the Shirley estate, gave the
+following evidence:--
+
+'What family have you?--I am married, and have two daughters, and my
+wife, and a servant boy.
+
+'What rent do you pay?--Sometime ago I paid 3 l. 19 s. 11d. I was
+doing well at that time; and then my rent was raised to 5 l. 19 s. 9
+d., and sometimes 6 l., and one year 5 l. 19 s. 6 d.
+
+'How do you account for the difference?--I do not know; perhaps by the
+bog rent. We had the bog free before, and we were doing well; and then
+we were cut down from the bog, and we were raised from 3 l. 19 s. 11
+d. to 6 l. We are beaten down now quite.
+
+'What does the county-cess come to?--Sometimes we pay 1 s. 6-1/2 d. an
+acre, and oftener 1 s. 7-1/2 d., the half-year.
+
+'Have you paid your rent pretty punctually?--Yes, I have done my best
+so far to pay the rent.
+
+'How much do you owe now?--I believe I shall pay the rent directly
+after May; I am clear till May. I cannot pay it till harvest comes
+round.
+
+'How do you get the money to pay the rent?--When I had my land cheap,
+and myself a youth, I was a good workman, and did work by the loom,
+and I would be mowing in the summer season, and earn a good deal, and
+make a little store for me, which has stood by me. I buy some oats and
+make meal of it, and I make money in that way. It was not by my land I
+was paying my rent, but from other sources.
+
+'How much wheat have you now?--Half an acre, rather above.
+
+'How much oats have you?--Half a rood.
+
+'How much potato land shall you have?--Three and a half roods besides
+the garden.
+
+'Have you any clover?--Very near a rood of clover.
+
+'What is the smallest quantity of land that you think a man who has
+no other means of support can subsist and pay rent upon?--I was paying
+rent well myself when I had three acres, when I was paying 3 l. 19 s.
+11 d.
+
+'You weave a little?--Yes, but very little; but there was a good price
+for the barrel of wheat, and for pigs, and so I made a little store.
+But as for any man to support himself out of a small farm, at the
+high price of land, and the price of labour that is going, it is
+impossible.
+
+'What is the smallest farm upon which a man can support himself at the
+present rate of rent, taking a man with five or six children?--That is
+a hard question.
+
+'Supposing a man to pay 35 s. an acre, and to have two acres, and to
+be obliged to live out of the farm, do you think he could do it and
+pay rent?--He could not; his land must be very good. Unless he lived
+near a town, and had cheap land, it would be impossible. But a man
+with five acres, at a moderate rent, he could support his family upon
+it.
+
+'What should you earn at weaving?--I only weave for my own family. I
+weave my own shirt.
+
+'Do your family ever spin any wool and weave it?--Yes.
+
+'Do you live upon the Shirley estate?--Yes.
+
+'How much bog do you require to keep your house in fuel?--Half a rood,
+if it was good; but it is bad bog ground, red mossy turf, white and
+light; it requires more than the black turf.
+
+'What do you pay for half a rood of turf?--It is 13 s. 4 d. for a
+rood--that is, 6 s. 8 d. for half a rood. There is 4 s. 6 d. paid for
+bad bog.
+
+'Do you pay anything for the ticket of leave to cut?--Yes, I do; I
+have not a ticket unless I pay 6 d. for it.
+
+'That is over and above the 4 s. 6 d.?--Yes.
+
+'Did you ever pay more than 6 s. 8 d. for the bog in the late agent's
+time?--He took the good bog off us; we were paying 6 s. 8 d. for it.
+They left us to the bad bog, and we do not pay so high for that.
+
+'Was the good bog dearer or cheaper than the bad bog at 4 s. 6
+d.?--Half a rood of the good bog was worth half an acre or an acre of
+the other. The bad bog smokes so we have often to leave the house: we
+cannot stay in it unless there is a good draught in the chimney.'
+
+The Rev. Thomas Smollan, P.P., has published a letter to the Earl of
+Dunraven, a Catholic Peer, to whom Mr. Trench has dedicated his book.
+In this letter the parish priest of Farney says:--
+
+'In pages 63 and 64 Mr. Trench tells his readers that on the very
+night the news of the late agent's sudden death, in the county
+courthouse of Monaghan, reached Carrickmacross, "fires blazed on
+almost every hill on the Shirley estate, and over a district of more
+than 20,000 acres there was scarcely a mile without a bonfire blazing
+in manifestation of joy at his decease." This paragraph, my lord,
+taken by itself and unexplained in any way, would at once imply that
+the people were inhuman, almost savages, whom Mr. Trench was sent to
+tame--that they were insensible to the agent's sudden death, a death
+so sudden that it would make an enemy almost relent. Mr. Trench
+assigns no cause for this strange proceeding except what we read in
+page 64, and what he learned from the chief clerk, viz., "that the
+people were much excited, that they were ground down to the last point
+by the late agent, and they were threatening to rise in rebellion
+against him," &c. One would think that Mr. Trench having learned so
+much on such authority, would have set to work to try and find out
+the cause of the discontent and apply a remedy. He does not say in his
+book that he did so, but seems still unable to understand this to him
+incomprehensible proceeding. However, I am of opinion that Mr. Trench
+knew the whole of it, if not then at all events before "The Realities"
+saw the light, for in a speech of his, when Lord Bath visited Farney
+(page 383), he said, "A dog could not bark on the estate without
+it coming to his knowledge." And therefore I say that a man so
+inquisitive as to find out the barking of a dog on the Bath estate,
+who had so many sources of information close at hand, could not have
+been long without knowing the causes of the "excitement, threatened
+rebellion, bonfires, &c., on the Shirley estate," if he had only
+wished for the information. Either he knew the cause of all this when
+he wrote his book, or he did not. If he did, I say he was bound
+in fair play to tell it to the public; if he did not know it his
+self-laudation in his speech goes for nought. But, my lord, with your
+permission, I will inform your lordship, Mr. Trench, and the public,
+as to some of the causes of so remarkable an occurrence, which could
+not pass unobserved by Mr. Trench. At the memorable election of 1826,
+Evelyn John Shirley, Esq., and Colonel Leslie, father of the present
+M.P., contested the county of Monaghan, and the former brought all
+his influence to bear on his tenants to vote for himself (Shirley)
+and Leslie, who coalesced against the late Lord Rossmore. The electors
+said "they would give one vote for their landlord, and the other they
+would give for their religion and their country;" the consequence was,
+Shirley and Westenra were returned, and Leslie was beaten. Up to this
+time Mr. Shirley was a good landlord, and admitted tenant-right to
+the fullest extent on the property, but after that election he never
+showed the same friendly feelings towards the people. Soon after the
+election Mr. Humphrey Evatt, the agent, died, and was succeeded in the
+agency by Mr. Sandy Mitchell, who very soon set about surveying and
+revaluing the estate, of course at the instance of his master, Evelyn
+John Shirley, Esq. He performed the work of revaluation, &c., and
+the result was that the rents were increased by one-third and in
+some cases more. The bog, too, which up to this time was free to the
+tenants, was taken from them and doled out to them in small patches of
+from twenty-five to forty perches each, at from 4 l. to 8 l. per
+acre. At the instance of the then parish priest, President Reilly, Mr.
+Shirley gave 5 l. per year to a few schools on his property, without
+interfering in any way with the religious principles of the Catholics
+attending these schools; but the then agent insisted on having the
+authorised version of the Bible, without note or comment, read in
+those schools by the Catholic children. The bishop, the Most Rev. Dr.
+Kernan, could not tolerate such a barefaced attempt at proselytism,
+and insisted on the children being withdrawn from the schools. For
+obeying their bishop in this, the Catholic parents were treated most
+unsparingly. I have before me just now a most remarkable instance
+of the length to which this gentleman carried his proselytising
+propensities, which I will mention. In the vestry, or sacristy,
+attached to Corduff Chapel, was a school taught by a man named Rush,
+altogether independent of the schools aided by Mr. Shirley, and by
+largely subsidising the teacher, the then agent actually introduced
+his proselytism into that school too. The priests and people tried
+legal means to get rid of the teacher, but without success, and in the
+end the people came by night and knocked down the sacristy, so that in
+the morning when the teacher came he had no house to shelter him.
+The Catholics were then without a school, and in order to provide the
+means of education for them the Rev. F. Keone, administrator, under
+the Most Rev. Dr. Kernan, applied for aid to the Commissioners of
+National Education, and obtained it; but where was he to procure
+building materials? The then agent, in his zeal for "converting"
+Catholics, having issued an order forbidding the supplying of them
+from any part of the Shirley estate, which extends over an area of
+fifteen miles by ten, Father Keone went on the next Sunday to the
+neighbouring chapels outside the Shirley estate, told his grievances,
+and on the next day the people came with their horses and carts and
+left sand, lime, and stones in sufficient quantities to build the
+house inside the chapel-yard. The priest and people thought it
+necessary to "thatch" their old chapel, and, though strange it may
+seem, the agent actually served an ejectment process on the father
+of the two boys who assisted the priest to make the collection at the
+chapel door for so absolutely necessary a work. I may add, this man
+owed no rent. Lastly, the then agent was in the habit of arranging
+matrimonial alliances, pointing out this girl as a suitable match for
+that boy, and the boy must marry the girl or give up his farm. These
+facts being true, my lord, and more which I might state, but that I
+have trespassed too much already on your lordship's time, I ask you,
+my Lord Dunraven--I ask any impartial man, Irishman or Englishman--for
+whom Mr. Trench wrote his "book," is it strange or wonderful that the
+Catholic people, so treated, would rejoice--would have bonfires on
+the hill tops at their deliverance from such conduct? I flatter myself
+that you, my lord--that the learned reading public--that the English
+people would sympathise with any people so treated for conscience'
+sake; and having pronounced the sentence of condemnation against Mr.
+Trench for not having noticed these facts, that you will direct your
+name to be erased from the "book." I have the honour to remain,
+my lord, with the most profound respect, your lordship's faithful
+servant.'
+
+  'THOMAS SMOLLAN, P.P.
+
+  'Clones, Feb. 15, 1869.'
+
+The electors of Monaghan, in their simplicity, thought they were
+fairly exercising the rights conferred by the constitution when they
+gave one vote for the landlord, and one for their religion and their
+country, thus securing the return of one Liberal. But Mr. Shirley soon
+taught them that the blessings of our glorious constitution belong not
+to the tenant, but to the landlord; and so he punished their mistake
+by adding one-third to their rent, and depriving them of proper fuel.
+Not content with this, he carried the war into their chapels and
+schools, and punished them for their religion. These facts may help to
+explain the scenes which Mr. Trench describes so poetically.
+
+The persecuting agent died suddenly in the court-house. The landlord
+and a new agent, Mr. Trench, arrived at Carrickmacross; and the
+tenants presented a petition, imploring him to remove the new and
+intolerable burden that had been put on their shoulders. They were
+told to come back for an answer on the following Monday:--
+
+'"Monday! Monday!" was shouted on all sides. The most frenzied
+excitement ensued. Hats were thrown in the air, sticks were flourished
+on all sides, and the men actually danced with wild delight. After a
+little time, however, the crowd cleared away, and the news flew like
+wildfire over the town and country, that the whole tenantry were told
+to come in on Monday next, that they might know the amount of the
+reduction to be granted, and have all their grievances removed!'
+
+Mr. Shirley quickly repented having given the invitation, and sent out
+a circular countermanding it, and requesting the tenants to stay at
+home. On Monday, however, a vast excited mass assembled to hear his
+_ultimatum_, which was announced by the new agent. 'He would not
+reduce their rents. They might give up their lands if they pleased;
+but they had little or no cause of complaint.' They insisted on his
+mounting a chair and making a speech. He softened the message as well
+as he could. When he had done there was a dead silence. In describing
+what follows Mr. Trench surpasses the wildest romancers in piling
+up the agony. I copy the description that the reader may see the
+difference between romance and history.
+
+'There was a dead silence when I stopped speaking. It was broken by a
+stentorian voice.
+
+'"Then you won't reduce our rents?"
+
+'"I have already given you Mr. Shirley's answer upon that point," said
+I. "Stranger as I am, it is impossible for me to form any opinion as
+to whether they are too high or not."
+
+'"_Down on your knees, boys!_" shouted the same voice; "we will ask
+him once more upon our knees!" and to my horror and amazement the vast
+crowd, almost all at least who were in my immediate vicinity, dropped
+suddenly on their knees, and another dead silence ensued.
+
+'It was a dreadful spectacle. Their hats were on their heads, and
+their sticks in their hands, some leaning upon them as they knelt,
+others balancing and grasping them. It was fearful to see the attitude
+of supplication, due only to a higher power, thus mingled with a wild
+defiance.
+
+'"_We ask you upon our knees, for God's sake, to get us a reduction of
+our rents!_" again the same voice cried aloud.
+
+'I was greatly shocked. I instantly got down off the chair. I
+entreated them to rise. I told them that I was distressed beyond
+measure, but that I had given them the only message I was authorised
+to give; and quite overcome by such a scene, I endeavoured to move
+again across the crowded space from the office, in order to enter the
+house, and report proceedings to Mr. Shirley, intending to request
+that he would himself appear and address his excited tenantry.
+
+'The moment I moved towards the door, the vast crowd leaped again to
+their feet; I was instantly surrounded, hustled, and prevented from
+getting near it. I bore this good-humouredly, and the door being
+quite close to me, I had no doubt they would ultimately let me in. But
+whilst this scene was going on, a shout was raised by those who were
+at a distance up the road leading to the town, and who had not heard
+what had been said. "Bring him up--bring him up, and let us see him!"
+In a moment I was seized, and though I resisted to my utmost, I was
+dragged up the narrow road which led from Shirley House to the town. I
+was kicked and beaten, and pushed and bruised, my hat knocked off, and
+my clothes torn; and in this state I was dragged into the main street
+of Carrickmacross.
+
+'Here a scene of the wildest excitement took place, some cried one
+thing--some another. I was beaten again, my clothes torn off my back,
+and sticks whirled over my head. Four or five policemen met me as I
+was being dragged along, but they might as well have attempted to
+stop the rushing of an Atlantic wave, as to stern the crowd that had
+assembled around me; _and they only looked on and let me pass_.'
+
+If the sub-inspector, who was present, and his men acted in this
+manner, I venture to say it is the only instance in the whole history
+of the force in which the Royal Irish constabulary were guilty of such
+a cowardly neglect of duty. However, not only the police, but the best
+part of the crowd deserted this strange gentleman, and he was 'left
+in the hands of the vilest and most furious of the mob.' Where was Mr.
+Shirley? Where were the clergy and the respectable inhabitants of the
+town? The mob dragged him along towards Loughfea Castle--a mile and a
+half--whither they heard Mr. Shirley had fled, still beating, kicking,
+and strangling their victim, without any object; for how could they
+serve their cause by killing an agent who had never injured them? And
+how easy it was to kill him if they wished! But here comes the climax;
+he asked the murderous multitude to let him stop a few moments to
+breathe--he then proceeds: 'I shall never forget that moment. I was
+then about a mile from the town on the broad and open road leading to
+Loughfea Castle. I turned and looked around me, thinking my last
+hour was come, and anxious to see if there was one kind face, one
+countenance, I had ever seen before, who could at least tell my
+friends how I had died. But I looked in vain. The hills were crowded
+with people. The long line of road was one mass of human beings,
+whilst those immediately around me, mad with excitement, seemed only
+to thirst for my blood.
+
+'Having got a few moments' breathing-time, and seeing all appeal to
+be vain, I turned again on my way, determined, however, to hold out
+to the last, as I felt that to fall or to faint must be certain death.
+Just then I became conscious of an able hand and a stout heart beside
+me, and I heard a whisper in my ear: "They are determined to have your
+blood, but hold up, they shall have mine first." The speaker grasped
+my arm firmly under his own, and walked on steadily by my side.
+
+'By this time I was _completely naked with the exception of my
+trousers_. My coat, even my shirt, had been torn off, and I walked on,
+still beaten and ill-treated, like a man to execution; my head bare,
+and _without any clothes from my waist upwards_. To increase the
+misery of my situation, I found that my friend had been beaten and
+dragged away in spite of himself, and again I was left alone in the
+hands of those merciless men. I felt also I could now go no further,
+and that a last effort must be made before my senses left me from
+exhaustion. Stopping therefore once more, I asked to be led towards a
+high bank at the roadside, and leaning against this I turned and faced
+those whom I now believed would soon become my murderers.
+
+'"I can go no further," said I; "what have you brought me here for?
+What do you want me to do?" Again the same voice which I had first
+heard at the office, though I could not identify the speaker from the
+shouting and confusion around me, cried aloud, "We want a reduction of
+our rents, will you promise to get us that?"
+
+'There are times of instant danger, when it is said that the whole of
+a man's past life rushes before him in the spaces of a single moment.
+If ever there be such a time, this was such to me. I stood there,
+exhausted, without one friendly face on which to rest, and surrounded
+by _the worst of ten thousand men who seemed determined to have a
+victim_. I knew and felt all this. So I said very quietly, as a last
+effort to save my life, and hoping they would name something I could
+promise to ask,
+
+'"And what reduction will you be content with?"
+
+'Again the same voice replied,
+
+'"We will never pay more than one-half our present rents."
+
+'"Then," said I, "there ends the matter, _I never will promise that_."
+
+'There was a pause, and a dead silence. I stood _naked and bareheaded
+before them_. They stood opposite to me, with their sticks clenched in
+their hands, ready to strike. I looked at them, and they at me. They
+hesitated; _no one would strike me first_. I saw that they wavered,
+and instinctively, in a moment I _felt_ that I had won. This sudden
+revulsion of feeling--though I was still externally motionless--sent
+the blood throbbing to my temples with a rush that became almost
+oppressive. But the strange pause continued--when at length a shout
+was raised from the old stentorian voice again, "Stand off, boys--for
+your lives! no one shall harm him--he is a good man after all!" and in
+a moment I was surrounded by a new set of faces, who dashed furiously
+towards me. They raised me on their shoulders, swept my old enemies
+away from me, procured me some water to drink, and carried me, now
+completely overcome, exhausted, and almost fainting, into the demesne
+of Loughfea.
+
+'Here again these suddenly converted friends desired me to get up on
+a chair, and speak to the crowd now assembled before the castle. I did
+so. A reaction for the moment had taken place within me, and I felt
+some return of strength.
+
+'I told the people I had never injured them. That it was a shame, and
+a disgrace of which I had not believed any Irishman to be capable, to
+treat a stranger as they had dealt with me that day. That in my own
+country I could have as many to fight for me as were now against me,
+and in short I abused them right heartily and soundly. They bore it
+without a murmur. My new friends cheered me vociferously, and I was
+carried, now quite unable to walk, into the Castle of Loughfea. Mr.
+Shirley's architect here appeared upon the scene, and perceiving that
+the people were much exasperated at not finding Mr. Shirley at the
+castle, and that some of the most violent were disposed in consequence
+to make a fresh attack upon me as I was being carried exhausted inside
+the gates, he promised to speak to Mr. Shirley in their favour, and
+in some degree calmed their feelings. The excitement was past. Mr.
+Shirley had not been there, and the people at last quietly dispersed.
+
+'In the evening I was conveyed in a covered carriage to
+Carrickmacross, blackened with bruises, stiff and sore, and scarcely
+able to stand--musing over the strange transactions which had happened
+that day--and wrapped in a countryman's frieze coat which had been
+borrowed to cover _my nakedness_.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Realities of Irish Life, chap. v.]
+
+When the reader recovers his breath after this. I will ask him to turn
+to the history of this transaction--bad enough in itself--and see
+what fancy and art can do in dressing up a skeleton so that it becomes
+'beautiful for ever.' Mr. Trench himself shall be the historian,
+writing to the authorities when the occurrences were all fresh in his
+mind. The narrative was handed in to the Devon commissioners as his
+_sworn evidence_:
+
+'_William Steuart Trench, esq., agent._
+
+'Have there been any agrarian outrages, and in what have they
+originated?--There have been none, except _during a late short period
+of peculiar local excitement_.
+
+'Will you state the particulars of that excitement, and what then
+occurred?--I think my best mode of doing so will be by handing in
+the copy of a letter which I addressed to a local magistrate for
+the information of government.--[_The witness read the following
+letter_:--]
+
+'Dear Sir--In reply to your communication, enclosing a letter from Mr.
+Lucas, requesting that I should give a statement of the particulars
+which occurred to me in Carrickmacross, on Monday last, I beg leave to
+lay before you the facts, as follows:--
+
+'Mr. Shirley has recently appointed me to the agency over his Monaghan
+estate. We both arrived here on Thursday, the 30th of March, and on
+the following morning we went together into the office; and having
+remained there about an hour, we were much surprised, on our return,
+to find an immense mass of people outside the door, who immediately
+presented a petition to Mr. Shirley, requesting a reduction of rent.
+
+'Mr. Shirley declined giving an immediate answer to such an unexpected
+request; but having read the petition, he told them he would give an
+answer to it on the Monday following. By Saturday, however, he had
+arrived at a full conclusion upon the point, and, anxious to avoid any
+unpleasant altercation with his tenants, he thought it advisable to
+let his determination be known as soon as possible; and accordingly,
+on Saturday, he issued and circulated a printed notice, stating the
+determination at which he had arrived, and declining any further
+communications upon the subject. I enclose a copy of the notice.
+
+'Notwithstanding this notice, the people came in on Monday in immense
+numbers; and at about 11 o'clock in the forenoon, the upper part of
+the street opposite to Shirley House, where we were residing, was
+filled with dense masses of men. I then thought it my duty to go out,
+and repeat to them in my capacity as agent, the determination at which
+their landlord had arrived. I did so in the mildest terms. I told them
+I had been able to go over only a part of the estate; but that from
+what I had seen, I was of opinion that a better system of farming
+and of general management of their land, was in my judgment much more
+required than a reduction of the rent. That I knew Mr. Shirley had the
+kindest feeling towards them, and that I was myself quite prepared and
+willing to render them any assistance--to go to every man's farm, if
+possible, and to assist them by my counsel and advice. But that as Mr.
+Shirley had come to a determination to make no present reduction in
+his rental, I did expect that all who were able to pay their rents
+would come in and do so; that the utmost leniency would be extended
+towards those who could not pay; but that my duty was plain, and if
+those who really were able to pay, refused to come forward and do
+so, that I had no alternative left but to take advantage of the power
+which the law afforded for the recovery of the rent--and this I was
+fully prepared and determined to do, if driven to that unpleasant
+necessity. I also made some further observations, of less importance;
+but my manner towards them was quiet and calm, and I expressed myself
+most anxious to do everything in my power to promote their welfare and
+comfort.
+
+'_I then attempted to return to the house, across the street; but
+the mob closed in upon me, and prevented my doing so_, _and with much
+violence dragged me up into the town, where I was repeatedly struck
+and kicked, and nearly strangled, and my coat torn to pieces._
+
+'_The mob continued thus to ill-treat me for about a mile along the
+road to Lough Fea, Mr. Shirley's residence, repeatedly kicking me,
+especially when I showed symptoms of exhaustion, and pressing their
+hands violently upon my throat, till I was almost overcome by fatigue,
+heat and pain._
+
+'_All this appeared to be done for the purpose of forcing me to
+promise to induce Mr. Shirley to lower the rents to 10 s. per acre
+(upwards of fifty per cent.). This I refused to do. They then brought
+me on to Lough Fea, where they thought Mr. Shirley was; and upon not
+finding him, they appeared much exasperated. Mr. Shirley's architect
+then appeared, and by promising to speak to Mr. Shirley in their
+favour, and by requesting them to send a deputation, instead of coming
+in a manner like the present, he induced them to desist from further
+injury to me._
+
+
+  'Believe me, dear Sir, very truly yours,
+  '(Signed) 'WILLIAM STEUART TRENCH.
+
+  'Carrickmacross, April 8, 1844.
+
+'What has been the general demeanour of the people towards you since
+that time?--Though they resisted my measures for the recovery of the
+rent, _to myself they have been perfectly civil; nor have I received
+any personal insult or unpleasantness, arising from the above cause
+since that period._
+
+'How long did this kind of combination exist?--For about six months.'
+
+Setting aside the embellishments, let us note one or two differences
+as to facts. In the book the suddenly converted friends placed him on
+a chair and asked him to make a speech before the castle door. He did
+so, and there is a grand statuesque picture of the hero, naked to the
+waist, and standing on the chair as lofty pedestal. In the torn coat
+the artist could never have made him look like Apollo. Even the shirt
+would have been too commonplace; so off went the shirt. Three or four
+times attention is directed to the fact of the nakedness by the hero
+himself, while the pencil of the filial illustrator has rendered him
+immortal in this primitive costume. In his speech he 'abused them
+heartily and soundly.' Yet they cheered him vociferously, and then
+carried him into the castle, where he could get nothing to cover his
+nakedness but a countryman's frieze coat. It was when he had been
+cheered vociferously, and kindly carried in, that Mr. Shirley's
+architect appeared on the scene. Mr. Trench has not been just to that
+gentleman, for he really came to his rescue, and perhaps saved his
+life, by giving the people the only sensible advice they got that day.
+In his sworn statement, made twenty-five years ago, Mr. Trench said:
+'Mr. Shirley's architect then appeared, and by promising to speak
+to Mr. Shirley in their favour, and by requesting them to send a
+deputation, instead of coming in a manner like the present, _he
+induced them to desist from further injury to me._'
+
+If we had contemporary accounts of all the other romantic scenes which
+have fascinated so many readers, the 'Realities' would lose much
+of their gilding. Indeed, in most cases the internal evidence is
+sufficient to convince us that the sensationalist has been laying on
+his colours pretty heavily. In the sketch of the Farney rent campaign,
+however, I am willing to accept Mr. Trench as a faithful historian. It
+is a most suggestive narrative, because it shows what mischief could
+be done by driving the agricultural population to desperation. A
+general strike against the payment of rent would convulse society.
+If the war which raged in Farney had spread all over the island, the
+landlords would be in serious difficulty. The British army might then
+have become rent collectors, as they had been tithe collectors in
+1831.'
+
+Mr. Shirley resolved, after much deliberation, to enforce his legal
+rights to the utmost. The bailiff was sent to warn the backward
+tenants to come in with the rent, and he everywhere received the same
+answer--'We will pay no rent till our grievances are redressed.' Now
+all the missiles of the law were showered on the recusants--notices
+to quit, _latitats_, processes for arrears, &c. Grippers,
+process-servers, keepers, drivers, were in full requisition. The
+grippers were to arrest all tenants against whom decrees had been
+obtained at the quarter-sessions; the keepers were employed to watch
+the crops that had been seized; and the drivers were to bring the
+cattle, sheep, horses, or pigs to pound. These constituted the
+landlord's army, having the police as a reserve, and the military if
+necessary.
+
+On the other hand, the tenants organised a body called the 'Molly
+Maguires'--stout young men dressed up in women's clothes, their
+faces disguised and besmeared in the most fantastic manner. These men
+waylaid and maltreated the officers of the law so severely, that in a
+short time no money could induce a gripper, process-server, driver or
+bailiff to show his nose on the estate. In this dilemma, Mr. Shirley,
+as commander-in-chief, ordered his lieutenant and his subordinates
+to go forth, with a body of police, and drive in all the cattle they
+could seize on the lands of the defaulting tenants. The expedition
+started one fine morning, led on by the mounted bailiff, a fat man,
+trembling like a hare at the thought of encountering the 'Molly
+Maguires.'
+
+Mr. Trench's description of this foray is very graphic:--'No sooner
+had this formidable party appeared upon the roads in the open country,
+than the people rushed to the tops of the numerous hills with which
+the district abounds; and as we moved forward, they ran from one hill
+to another shouting and cheering with wild defiant cries, and keeping
+a line parallel to that in which our party was travelling.
+
+'The object of our expedition was clearly understood by the people;
+and the exact position of our company was indicated to those in
+the lowlands by the movements of the parties on the hills; and
+accordingly, as we advanced, every beast belonging to every tenant who
+owed rent was housed or locked up, or driven somewhere away. Thus, as
+we had no legal right to break open any door, or take any cattle out
+of any house, but only to seize those we might find in the open fields
+and upon the lands of the defaulting tenants, we soon perceived (as
+we might have known before we started) that we were likely to return
+without success. The bailiff declared with a sigh, "that not a hoof
+nor a horn was left in the whole country-side."
+
+'At length when about to return home, without having secured any
+booty whatever, we came unexpectedly upon a poor little heifer calf,
+browsing quietly on the long grass beside a hedge. The bailiff having
+ascertained that she was grazing on the land of a tenant who was
+a defaulter, we seized upon the unhappy little beast, and drove it
+ingloriously home to the pound at Carrickmacross, a distance of about
+two miles, amidst the jeers and laughter of the populace, at the
+result of our formidable day's driving.'
+
+Thus baffled, Mr. Shirley resolved to try another move.
+
+He applied to the authorities in Dublin for an order for 'substitution
+of service.' That is, instead of delivering the legal notices at the
+houses of the parties, which was impracticable, they were to be posted
+up on the chapel-door. To effect this object, a large police force
+was necessary, and it was accompanied by a stipendiary magistrate. 'As
+soon as the party came near the chapel grounds a shout of defiance was
+raised by the peasantry, who began to crowd into the chapel yard, and
+with uplifted sticks and threatening gestures swore that they would
+never allow the walls of the chapel to be desecrated by such a notice.
+The bailiff, a most respectable and temperate man, did his utmost to
+pacify the excited mob. He reasoned with them as best he could;
+and assured them that no desecration was intended--that he was only
+carrying out the law, which required that the notice should be posted
+on the chapel walls. But his voice had no more power than if he
+had spoken to a storm of wind; they leaped and danced madly about,
+whirling their sticks over their heads, and shouting that they would
+never allow him to touch the sacred edifice.
+
+'The stipendiary magistrate now ordered him to do his duty, and that
+he would be protected in doing it by the police, and he, trembling
+with fear, as well he might, at length approached with the notice in
+his hand to post it in due form. No sooner had he approached towards
+the chapel than a volley of stones sent him staggering back, though
+none actually struck him. The police were now ordered to advance. They
+did so amidst another shower of stones. The storm of missiles still
+continuing and several of the police having been struck and injured,
+they were at length ordered to fire. They aimed low, and directing
+their fire straight into the crowd of stone-throwers, they soon
+checked the vigour of the assault--six or seven men fell under the
+volley and rolled upon the ground. There was a short pause, a dead
+silence ensued--but it was only for a moment, and before the police
+could recover themselves and load again, a furious rush was made upon
+them by the enraged populace. Stones were seen flying as thick
+as hail; and finally the police, apprehending that they must be
+annihilated if they remained, ran to their cars, which were waiting at
+a little distance, and drove into Carrickmacross as fast as the horses
+could gallop, accompanied by the stipendiary magistrate!
+
+'The field thus quickly won, remained in the possession of the
+insurgents. One of the rioters was killed upon the spot--shot through
+the body. The others who fell were only slightly injured; one had his
+ear taken off, another was wounded in the finger, another shot in the
+arm.'
+
+This was 'the battle of Magheracloon.' Mr. Trench wisely recommended
+a cessation of hostilities till the harvest was gathered in, promising
+the landlord that he would then by quiet means, acting on the tenants
+individually and privately, induce them to pay their rents. He
+succeeded, but as Mr. Shirley declined to adopt his plans for the
+better management of the estate, he resigned.
+
+He came back, however, after some years, as agent to the Marquess of
+Bath--a post which he occupies still, being manager-in-chief at the
+same time of the large estates of the Marquess of Lansdowne, in Kerry,
+and Lord Digby, in the King's County. In all these undertakings,
+ably assisted by his sons and his nephew, he has been pre-eminently
+successful. If the Farney men had been driven off in 1843, or swept
+away by the famine, it would have been said that their fate was
+inevitable, nothing could be made of them. They were by nature prone
+to disorder and rebellion. Well, Lord Bath visited his estate in 1865.
+On that occasion a banquet was given to the tenants, at which Mr.
+Trench made an eloquent speech. Referring to the outbreak in 1848, he
+said: 'And yet never, my Lord, never even in the worst of times, did I
+bate one jot of heart or hope in the noble people of Farney, never for
+one moment did I doubt their loyalty to their Queen, their loyalty to
+their country, their respect for their landlord, and above all, that
+they would be true and loyal to themselves.' So much for the incurable
+perversity of the Celtic race, for the 'black morass of Irish nature'
+that can never be drained!
+
+The people of Farney got justice, and they were contented and orderly.
+They got security, and they were industrious and thriving. They
+got protection under the constitution, and they were loyal. Densely
+peopled as the estate is, the agent could not coax one of them to
+emigrate; and after his former experience at Farney, he did not
+venture on eviction, though, no doubt, he would gladly repeat the
+Kenmare experiment in thinning the masses with which he has had to
+deal. Mr. Horsman, a prophet of the same school of economists, says
+that Providence sent the famine to relieve the landlords, by carrying
+away a third of the population, and he seems to think it desirable
+that another third should be got rid of somehow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+BELFAST AND PERPETUITY.
+
+
+Belfast, not being blessed with a cathedral like Armagh and Derry,
+is not called a 'city.' It is only a 'town;' but it is the capital of
+Ulster, and surpasses all other places in Ireland in the rapidity of
+its progress and in its prosperity. It can boast but little of its
+antiquity. There is probably not a house in the borough more than 150
+years old. The place is first noticed by history in 1178, merely as
+the site of a fort of the O'Neills, which was destroyed by John De
+Courcy. It was only a poor village at the time of Bruce's invasion, in
+1315, though Spencer erroneously calls it 'a very good town.' It was
+so insignificant in 1586 that Holinshed does not mention it among the
+towns and havens of Down and Antrim. Whatever town existed there had
+been destroyed by the Earl of Kildare when lord-deputy. In 1552 it was
+repaired and garrisoned, and shortly after it was granted by the
+crown to Hugh O'Neill of Clandeboye. In 1571 the castle, with a large
+portion of territory adjoining it, was bestowed upon Sir Thomas Smith
+and his son. The latter was assassinated by the 'wicked, barbarous,
+and uncivil people;' and the former, not being able to fulfil the
+conditions of his tenure, the district reverted with the whole earldom
+of Ulster to the crown in the reign of James I. Belfast was then
+surrounded by extensive forests, abounding in fine timber for
+building. The best specimen--perhaps the only one in the kingdom--of
+a forest like what covered the country at that time, still exists at
+Shane's Castle, the magnificent demesne of Lord O'Neill, where may be
+seen enormous oaks decaying with age, under whose shade probably the
+famous Shane marshalled his galloglasse.
+
+In 1613 the castle and manor of Belfast were granted to Sir Arthur
+Chichester, lord-deputy, ancestor of the Marquis of Donegal, who did
+so much to effect the final conquest of Ulster. He may be said to
+be the founder of the town. From the estates of his family, in
+Devonshire, and from Scotland, many families came over and made a
+strong settlement here. Ultimately it became a corporation sending two
+members to the Irish Parliament. The chief magistrate was called 'the
+sovereign;' and the first who held the office was Thomas Pottinger,
+ancestor of the celebrated Sir Henry Pottinger. In 1758 the population
+was 8,549; in 1821, it was 37,000; in 1831, it was 53,000; in 1841, it
+had increased to 75,000; in 1851, it amounted to 103,000; and the last
+census shows it to be 121,602. About 1,500 houses are built annually
+in the borough, and the present population is estimated at 150,000.
+The rateable property is more than 394,000 l. The sum of 560,000 l.
+has been spent on the harbour improvements, to which is to be added
+250,000 l. for building new docks. I remember the quays when they were
+small, irregular, inconvenient, dirty, and when the channel worked its
+doubtful course through shifting masses of liquid mud, at low water.
+Now there are quays which extend in a line about a mile, covered
+with spacious sheds for the protection of the goods being shipped
+and unshipped. There are docks of all sorts, and great shipbuilding
+establishments standing on ground created out of the floating chaos
+of mud. 'Year by year,' as one of its poets has said, 'Belfast is
+changing its aspect and overstepping its former boundaries, climbing
+the hill-side, skirting the river margin, and even invading the sea's
+ancient domain.
+
+  'Ambition's mistress of the fertile land,
+  Shuts out the ocean and usurps the strand.'
+
+Among the 'usurpations' is Queen's Island, a beautiful people's
+park, standing in the midst of the Lough. The people of Belfast have
+effected all these vast improvements from their own resources,
+without a shilling from the lord of the soil, without any help from
+Government, except a loan of 100,000 l. from the Board of Works.
+Belfast is the 'linen capital' of the empire, as Manchester is the
+'cotton capital.' The linen trade was fostered in its infancy there
+by Strafford, and encouraged by William III., as a set-off against the
+abolition of the woollen trade. The first spinning of flax by steam
+power was commenced in 1830, by the Messrs. Mulholland, who employ
+2,000 hands, principally females. Mills have sprung up in every
+direction, and it is estimated that they give employment to 15,000
+persons. To supply the consumption of flax, in addition to the home
+produce, about 50,000 tons are imported every year. Linen is the
+staple manufacture; but industrial arts of every kind flourish, with
+all the usual manifestations of wealth.
+
+We have seen in a former chapter that the people of Londonderry, vexed
+that the maiden city has been left so far behind her younger sister,
+ascribe the difference to the fact that the Belfast manufacturers were
+favoured with long building tenures. We hear it said often that the
+Marquis of Donegal gave his tenants perpetuity leases, implying that
+he acted very liberally in doing so. If, however, you speak to persons
+acquainted with the local history, they will ascribe this advantage
+to 'Lord Donegal's necessities.' If you ask an explanation of this
+phrase, you will be told that towards the end of last century, and
+later, Lord Donegal was obliged to adopt extraordinary methods
+for raising money, and that the perpetuity leases in question were
+purchased, and at a very high rate too. You will further learn that
+the tenants were compelled to take the leases, and pay heavy fines for
+them in lump sums, and that if unable to produce the money they were
+evicted, and their farms were given to others who were able to pay. It
+is alleged that his agent got leases in blank, ready to be filled up
+when the cash was forthcoming, and that all the cash did not reach the
+landlord's hands. At any rate, attempts have been made to break some
+of the leases. There has been long pending litigation on the subject.
+Whatever may be the defects of title on the part of the landlord,
+the tenant must suffer. Dr. Hancock alludes to this fact in his
+first report. Referring to Sir John Romilly's Leasing Powers Bill, he
+says:--
+
+'The details of these Bills it is not necessary now to refer to; but
+there was one principle provided for in them which has been neglected
+in subsequent measures. In the ordinary course of business a tenant
+does not investigate his landlord's title; the cost of doing so would
+be nearly always too great; besides, the landlord would not think of
+consenting to the investigation on every occasion of granting a lease.
+It follows from this that it is a great hardship, if a flaw should
+be discovered in a landlord's title, that leases granted before the
+tenants had any notice of the litigation should be bad. Take the
+case of the estate which the late Duke of Wellington and Mr.
+Leslie recovered from Lord Dungannon after he had been for years in
+possession; or the case which is now pending for so many years between
+the Marquis of Donegal and Viscount Templemore. Is it not a great
+hardship that leases which tenants took, trusting in the title of
+Lord Dungannon or Viscount Templemore, who were then visible owners
+of great estates, should afterwards turn out to be worthless on some
+point of law in title-deeds which they never had the opportunity of
+seeing; and which may be so subtle as to take Courts of Law years to
+decide?'
+
+Dr. Hancock says the principle that in such cases the tenant should
+be protected, was neglected in subsequent measures. Now, what must the
+tenants think of legislation that subjects them to be robbed of their
+dearly-bought leases because of flaws, frauds or blunders with which
+they could have nothing to do? The leases granted to the tenants of
+Lord Donegal, however, in Belfast and the neighbourhood were generally
+valid, and to these perpetuities we must undoubtedly ascribe the
+existence of a middle class of remarkable independence of character,
+and the accumulation of capital for manufactures and commerce. Had
+Lord Donegal been able to hold the town in a state of tutelage and
+dependence--had he been an 'improving landlord' of the modern type,
+with an agent like Mr. Trench, so vigilant and curious that a dog
+could not bark on the estate without his knowledge and consent,
+Belfast might have been far behind Derry to-day--as stationary as
+Bangor, Hillsborough, Antrim, or Randalstown. Under such paternal care
+as Mr. Trench bestows upon tenants, with his omnipresent surveillance,
+there could be no manly self-reliance, no freedom of speech or action,
+no enterprise. The agent would take care that no interests should grow
+up on the estate, which his chief could not control or knock down. It
+is not likely that Lord Donegal would have suffered the landscape to
+be spoiled, the atmosphere of the deer park and gardens to be darkened
+and tainted by the smoke of factory chimneys, which could add nothing
+to his rental, while crowding around him the race which his great
+progenitor did so much to extirpate. So Belfast may well be thankful
+that the Marquis of Donegal, for some generations, could not afford to
+be 'an improving landlord,' fond of paternal intermeddling with other
+people's affairs, playing the part of Providence to an inferior race.
+
+But there is one memorable fact connected with those perpetuity leases
+which applies more immediately to our purpose. The tenants who were
+evicted to make way for the men who had money to advance to the lord
+of the soil, feeling themselves seriously aggrieved, formed the first
+of the more modern agrarian combinations under the title of 'the
+Hearts of Oak;' which continued for a long time to disturb the peace
+in Antrim and Down. The farms being extensively turned into pasture
+by the landlords and large graziers, there was no employment for the
+houseless wanderers, no provision of any kind for their support.
+They consequently had no respect for the rights of property, in
+the vindication of which their homes had been demolished and their
+families sacrificed, because they were not able to purchase fixity of
+tenure.
+
+It was, however, very fortunate for Belfast that the landlord was
+obliged to sell it; that the head of the great house founded by the
+conqueror of Ulster, enriched with territory so vast, should have been
+under the necessity of giving a perpetual property in the soil to
+some of the sons of industry. By that simple concession he did more to
+advance the prosperity of the town, than could have been accomplished
+by centuries of fostering care, under the shadow of feudalism. Belfast
+shows, on a grand scale, what might be done on many an estate in
+Ireland, in many a town and village where the people are pining away
+in hopeless misery, if the iron bonds of primogeniture and entail
+which now cramp landed property were struck off. The Greek philosopher
+declared that if he had a standing-place he could move the earth. Give
+to capital the ground of perpetuity of tenure, whereon to plant
+its machinery, and it will soon lift this island from the slough of
+despond. Then may it be said more truly than Grattan said it in 1782,
+that Ireland had got nearer to the sun.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+LEASE-BREAKING--GEASHILL.
+
+
+The history of the Manor of Geashill in the King's County furnishes
+another instructive illustration of the land question and of the
+effect upon the people of the system of management, under the new
+school of agents, of which Mr. Steuart Trench may be regarded as the
+brightest ornament, if not the apostle. The epoch was favourable for
+his mission, and he was the man for the epoch; he had been quietly
+training himself for the restoration of disordered estates, and the
+critical emergencies of the times thrust him into the front rank of
+social reformers. When he describes the wonderful revolutions wrought
+by his instrumentality, the whirlwinds on which he rode, the storms
+which he directed and quelled, the chaos out of which he evoked order,
+he assumes that the hurricane and the chaos were the normal state of
+things. A mysterious pestilence had blighted the principal food of
+the people for two or three years, and brought on a desolating famine.
+Millions perished by that visitation chiefly because the legislature
+had persistently refused up to that period to make any provision for
+the Irish poor such as it had made centuries before for the English
+poor, and because no care had been taken to distribute the population
+over the waste lands which their labour would have reclaimed and
+fertilized; or to improve their position, so that they might not be
+wholly dependent on one sort of food, and that the most precarious and
+perishable. Mr. Sadler, in his work on Population, had proved that,
+even in the case of Ireland before the famine, there was really no
+'surplus population;' that if the resources of the country had been
+developed by a wise Government, sympathising with the people, the text
+which he adopted would have been applicable there: 'Dwell in the land,
+and verily ye shall be fed.' There was hasty legislation to meet the
+emergency, but in all the haste, the heartless economists found time
+to devise clauses and provisions, by means of which, when the small
+farmers had consumed all their stock to keep their families alive,
+they were compelled to relinquish their holdings in order to get food
+for their famishing children. They must submit to the workhouse test,
+they must not hold more than a quarter of an acre of land, if they
+would get relief. Under the dire instigation of hunger, in the
+stupor and recklessness of their misery, they accepted any terms the
+landlords chose to impose, and so whole villages disappeared from the
+landscape, swept off with the besom of destruction.
+
+The political economists (all the new school of land-agents are rigid
+political economists), taught by their prophet Malthus, ascribed the
+famine and every other social evil to surplus population, and to the
+incurably lazy and thriftless habits of the Celtic race. According to
+them the potato blight had only hastened an inevitable catastrophe.
+Therefore they set to work with all their agencies and all their
+might to get rid of the too prolific race, and to supplant the native
+cultivators by British settlers and wealthy graziers.
+
+This has been done ever since by a quiet and gradual process,
+steadily, systematically, inexorably, propelled by many powerful
+tendencies of the age, and checked only by assassination. What are the
+agrarian outrages which have become so terribly rife of late, but the
+desperate struggles of a doomed race to break the instruments which
+pluck them out of their native soil? A generation of instruction in
+the national schools and a generation of intercourse with the
+free citizens of the United States, who call no man 'master' under
+heaven--have taught them that it is an enormous iniquity to sacrifice
+humanity to property, to make the happiness, the freedom, the very
+existence of human beings, secondary to the arbitrary power and
+self-interest of a small class called landlords. They regard the
+'improving landlord' system as nothing but a legal and civilised
+continuation of the barbarous policy of extermination by fire and
+sword which we have seen pursued so ruthlessly in the seventeenth
+century. It is still the land-war, conducted according to modern
+tactics, aiming with deadly effect at the same object, the slow but
+sure destruction of a nuisance called the 'Celtic race.' This may be
+a delusion on their part; but it is the deep-rooted conviction of
+priests and people, and hence the utter inadequacy of any enactment
+which will not render such a policy impossible, by making the tenure
+of the occupiers independent of the will of the landlords. Until such
+time the peasantry will continue to offer a bloody resistance to the
+legal attempts to crush them out of the country.
+
+In this self-defensive war, they cannot cope with the armed power
+of England in the open field; and they are driven upon the criminal
+resource of the oppressed in all ages and all lands--secret
+combination and assassination. For this crime they feel no remorse;
+first, because it is _war_--just as the soldier feels no remorse
+for killing the enemy in a battle; and, secondly, because their
+conquerors, and the successors of those conquerors, have taught them
+too well by repeated examples the terrible lesson of making light of
+human life. Poor ignorant creatures, they cannot see that, while
+the most illustrious noblemen in England won applause and honours
+by shooting down Irish women and children like seals or otters,
+the survivors of the murdered people should be execrated as cruel,
+barbarous, and infamous for shooting the men that pull down the
+rooftrees over the heads of their helpless families and trample upon
+their household gods. These convictions of theirs are very revolting
+to our feelings, but they are facts; and as facts the legislature must
+deal with them. If there be a people, otherwise singularly free from
+crime, who regard the assassination of the members of a certain
+class with indifference, or approbation, the phenomenon is one which
+political philosophy ought to be able to explain, and one which cannot
+be got rid of by suspending the constitution and bringing railing
+accusations against the nation.
+
+Mr. Trench speaks with something like contempt or pity of 'good
+landlords,' a class which he contradistinguishes from 'improving
+landlords.' But it should be remembered that by this last phrase he
+always means agents of the Trench stamp. For he observes that the
+landlord himself cannot possibly do much more than authorize his agent
+to do what he thinks best; and it is rather an advantage that the
+proprietor should be an absentee, otherwise his good nature might
+prompt him to interrupt the work of improvement. Now there is this to
+be said of the good landlords, who may be counted by hundreds, and who
+are found in all the counties of Ireland. Their estates are free from
+the 'poetic turbulence' in which Mr. Trench is the 'stormy petrel.'
+They preserved their tenants through the years of famine, and have
+them still on their estates. Nor should the fact be omitted that among
+those good landlords, who abhor the idea of evicting their tenants,
+are to be found the lineal descendants of some of the most cruel
+exterminators of the seventeenth century. Their goodness has
+completely obliterated, among their people, the bitter memories of the
+past. The present race of Celts would die for the men whose ancestors
+shot down their forefathers as vermin. But the improving landlords run
+their ploughshares through the ashes of old animosities, turning up
+embers which the winds of agitation blow into flames. We seldom hear
+of Ribbonism till the improving agent comes upon the scene, warring
+against natural rights, warring against the natural affections,
+warring against humanity, warring against the soul.
+
+These remarks bring us to the case of the barony of Geashill, the
+estate of Lord Digby, to which Mr. Trench became agent in 1857. Lord
+Digby desired to obtain his services, but he did not communicate his
+desire to Mr. Trench himself, though nothing would seem easier. It was
+first conveyed by Lieut.-General Porter, the confidential friend of
+Lord Digby, and next by Mr. Brewster, afterwards Lord Chancellor of
+Ireland. When the police received a notice that the new landlord of
+Geashill would certainly meet with a 'bloody death' if he persisted in
+his threatened dealings with the tenants, there was no more time
+for diplomatic delicacy in approaching Mr. Trench. The landlord's
+extremity is Mr. Trench's opportunity. When leases are to be broken,
+when independent rights are to be extinguished, or 'contracted away,'
+when an overcrowded estate is to be thinned at the least possible
+cost to the owner, when a rebellious tenantry are to be subdued, and
+Ribbonmen are to be banished or hanged, Mr. Trench is the man to do
+the work of improvement. He admits that he never had before him an
+uglier job than this at Geashill, and he had the worst apprehensions
+as to the danger of the enterprise.
+
+It was nothing less than to break 120 leases, which had been granted
+from time to time by the late Lord Digby during the sixty years that
+he had enjoyed the property. The value of these leases was 30,600 l.,
+for the terms unexpired after his death. Among those 120 leaseholders
+were the descendants of English settlers, gentlemen farmers, one of
+them a magistrate, and a number of substantial yeomen, the sort of men
+the country so much wanted to form an independent middle class. But to
+an 'improving landlord,' the existence of such a class on his estate
+is intolerable. At all hazards they must be made tenants-at-will, and
+brought completely under his control.
+
+They had built houses and planted trees; they had reclaimed the deep
+bog and converted it into good arable land. They had employed the
+peasantry, and given them plots of ground, and, more than all, they
+had allowed a number of families to squat on bits of bog by the
+roadside, where they lived as well as they could; working when
+there was a demand for labour, cutting turf and selling it in the
+neighbouring town of Tullamore, and perhaps carrying on some little
+dealings. At all events they had survived the famine; and there they
+were in 1857 with their huts standing on their 'estates,' for they had
+paid no rent for twenty years, and they had as good a title in law
+as Lord Digby himself. Mr. Trench seems to have been horrified at
+not finding the names of these householders in the rent-books of the
+estate! The idea!--that there should be within the four corners of the
+King's County, even on the bog of Allen, a number of natives holding
+land, without a landlord! It was monstrous. But as they could not be
+evicted for non-title, they were all severally tempted by the offer
+of money, in sums varying from 5 l. to 20 l. each, to sell their
+freeholds to the landlord. Pity they were not preserved as a remnant
+of the antediluvian period, ere the ancient tenures were merged in
+floods of blood. Like a bit of primitive forest, they would be more
+interesting to some minds than the finest modern plantation.
+
+It was not so easy to deal with the 120 leaseholders. To what extent
+they had improved their farms before they got the leases, Mr. Trench
+does not say. But as the absentee landlord had done nothing, and spent
+nothing, whatever increase to the value had been made was undoubtedly
+the work of the tenants; and after the leases were obtained, they
+would naturally feel more confidence in the investment of their
+savings in the land. However that may be, a professional man, employed
+by Lord Digby, estimated the value over and above the reserved rent
+at 30,600 l., which sum the new landlord proposed to put into his own
+pocket, by increasing the rent one-third. The plea for this sweeping
+confiscation was, that the late Lord Digby, cousin to the present, had
+only a life interest in the Irish estate, and therefore, the leases
+were all illegal and worthless. Accordingly the new lord commenced
+proceedings to evict the whole of the tenantry for non-title. They
+were astounded. They held meetings; they deliberated; they appealed to
+the landlord; they appealed to the executors of the late peer, who
+had large estates in England, and died worth a million sterling in
+the funds, all of which he willed away from the heir of his title and
+Irish estates. Says Mr. Trench:--
+
+'It may readily be supposed that circumstances so peculiar as these
+created considerable anxiety in the district. The tenantry, _many_ of
+them large and respectable land-holders, now learned, for the first
+time, that their leases were good for nothing in law. They had been
+duly 'signed, sealed, and delivered' to them under a full belief on
+their part that the contract was not only just and honourable, but
+also perfectly legal; and their feelings may be imagined when they
+found that they were suddenly threatened with a total loss of the
+property which they had always looked upon as secure.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: 'Realities of Irish Life,' p.314.]
+
+Pending the ejectment proceedings, they were knocked about from post
+to pillar, without getting any satisfaction. The landlord referred
+them to the executors, although he knew well they had no legal claim
+on them whatever, and that to legal claims only could they pay any
+attention. The executors again referred them to their landlord, who
+was determined to break the leases, come what would. Now, if the Irish
+law regulating the relations of landlord and tenant were based upon
+justice and equity, the wrong done by the late earl, if any, was a
+wrong for which the tenants should in no way be held responsible. The
+wrong was done to the heir-at-law. To him, and not to the tenants,
+compensation should have been made by the executors. And after all, it
+was really to him that the money was advanced to buy up the leases,
+in order to save him from assassination, for the tenants had no legal
+claim upon them.
+
+The natural, proper, and honest course, then, for the landlord, was to
+have kept the 30,600 l. as compensation to himself for the mistake
+of his predecessor, and to let the leases stand. If he considered
+the peace of the country, if he wished to inspire in the minds of
+the people respect for the rights of property, or confidence in the
+Government, he would not have adopted the desperate course of breaking
+120 contracts, kindling the flames of agitation, and planting Ribbon
+lodges all over a district hitherto peaceful and tranquil. But he was
+bent on crushing the independent yeomanry into the abject condition
+of tenants-at-will. To carry out this purpose, Mr. Trench was
+indispensable. He knew how to tame the wild Irish. And Mr. Trench was
+equal to the occasion. He went to reside a few weeks at Tullamore, to
+reconnoitre the enemy's position. He writes as if this was the first
+time he made acquaintance with the estate. But his own residence
+was in the Queen's County, not far off; and there is good reason to
+believe that he knew all about Geashill long before; and all about
+every estate belonging to an English absentee in the four provinces;
+for he had, growing up around him, a young generation of land-agents,
+trained in all the arts of modern management, and one of the ablest
+of these, his son, Mr. T.W. Trench, became his partner in this agency.
+Mr. Trench's tactics are not new, though he excels all men in their
+skilful application. His plan, adopted on all occasions, is to divide
+and conquer. Violent measures being dangerous and contrary to his
+own feelings, he trusts to diplomacy, dealing with individuals,
+taken separately into a private room, where his irresistible personal
+fascination invariably brings matters to a satisfactory issue.
+
+In this case, he went over to the English executors, and persuaded
+them to advance the 30,600 l. to be distributed among the tenants,
+under the guarantee of Lord Digby that this sum would cover all
+possible claims. Thus provided with funds, he summoned the tenants,
+not all, but ten of the most influential, to meet him at Geashill. He
+left this meeting, purposely, to the last day and the last hour, as a
+piece of generalship. He says:--
+
+'They appeared puzzled and anxious, and very uncertain what to do. At
+length one of them proposed that they should do nothing until they had
+had an opportunity of consulting the remainder of the leaseholders, of
+whom there were upwards of 120 upon the estate.
+
+'"No," replied I, "you must come to a decision now; there is a
+messenger at the door on horseback, to ride to the telegraph station
+at Portarlington to stop the English witnesses coming over. This must
+be done within an hour, or they will start for Ireland, and _then_ it
+will be out of my power to stop the lawsuit. You must determine _now_,
+each man for himself, or the lawsuit must go on."
+
+'"Will you state the amount of money you will give to each of us?"
+asked one of the party.
+
+'"Certainly," replied I, "if you will _each come separately with me
+into another room_."
+
+'They did so. I named to each an amount something less than the sum
+set down by the notary, partly as a reserve, lest any tenants holding
+under these leaseholders should afterwards require to be paid, and
+partly lest it might be supposed we were yielding to a legal claim
+already granted. After a little consideration, they all severally
+signed the consent for judgment.'
+
+The other leaseholders followed. The leases were all surrendered, and
+the holders became tenants-at-will. I had the pleasure of meeting one
+of the most influential of them a short time ago at Geashill--a fine
+tall, patriarchal-looking gentleman, the representative of one of the
+English settlers. He was waiting about humbly and patiently for an
+opportunity of speaking to the young agent, who is as courteous and
+kind as he is efficient. But I could not help reflecting how different
+would be the bearing of the tenant if he had been still in possession
+of his lease! His dwelling-house was not as grand as the stylish villa
+which the landlord has erected beside it. But every stick and stone
+about the place were his own property. So also were the old timber
+trees, which his ancestors planted. But now every stick and stone
+and tree belong to Lord Digby, and as such the agent exhibits them to
+visitors--the buildings, the gardens, the trees, the hedges, the rich
+pasture fields, all having such a look of comfort and independence. I
+asked, 'Did you ever know a place like this old home of yours to have
+been made by a tenant-at-will?' He answered in the negative.
+
+The tenant on an 'improved estate' must be very careful about his
+speech. An agent has a hundred eyes and a hundred ears. People who
+seek 'favours' at the office, find it useful to be spies upon their
+neighbours, to detect violations of the 'rules of the estate.' It is
+mainly through the spy-system that Mr. Steuart Trench, according to
+his own avowal, won most of his victories over refractory tenants. For
+example, on this estate he had a woman acting as a spy at the meetings
+of the Ribbonmen; and he boasted that a dog could not bark at Farney
+without his knowledge. I refer to this matter here again for the
+purpose of saying that I cannot regard as an improvement of the
+country a system which establishes a despot on every estate, which
+degrades the tenant into a day-labourer, which--land being limited and
+scarce--substitutes the old, barbarous, pastoral system for tillage,
+which banishes the poor and enslaves the rich. Lord Digby levelled
+cottages, gardens, farms, manured the land, got an enormous crop,
+which in one year paid all the expenses; and then laid out the land in
+vast tracts of pasture, for which he gets from 30 s. to 40 s. an acre.
+That is improvement for _him_, but not for the people, not for the
+country, not for the state, not for the Queen. It may crush Ribbonism.
+But for every Ribbonman crushed, a hundred Fenians spring up; and
+disaffection becomes not a mere local plague, but an endemic. Mr.
+Trench gives a significant hint to other landlords to follow the
+example of Lord Digby, assuring them that it will '_pay_.'
+
+A still more flagrant case of lease-breaking occurred some years ago
+in the county of Galway. Dr. Hancock has put the facts of this case
+before the Government in his recent report:--
+
+'The plaintiff was the Rev. Dr. O'Fay, parish priest of Craughwell, in
+the county of Galway, and the defendant the landlord on whose estate
+the priest resided. About ten years ago the priest was induced to
+take a farm that had been held by a former parish priest; the previous
+proprietor, the father of the defendant, promising a lease for three
+lives, or thirty-one years. After the priest entered into possession
+the landlord ascertained that he could not fulfil his promise.
+
+'As he did not possess such a power under the terms of the estate
+settlement, he offered, instead, a lease for the priest's own
+life, and 20 l. to aid in building a house. The priest continued
+in possession of the farm, and paid the rent agreed on, thus, as he
+alleged, accepting the arrangement proposed. He was on excellent terms
+with the landlord, and expended 70 l. in permanent improvements, and
+did not ask for the 20 l. which the landlord had promised. In 1854 the
+landlord died, and his son, the defendant, succeeded to the property.
+He gave notice to all his yearly tenants of an intention to raise
+their rents. The priest claimed to have a promise of a lease, and the
+agent of the property, during the landlord's absence abroad, admitted
+this claim, and did not raise the rent. The landlord said he had no
+notice of his father's promise; he, however, allowed the priest to
+remain in possession, and the priest expended 400 l. in buildings, on
+the faith that he would not be disturbed. A dispute subsequently arose
+about trespass, and the fences on the boundary between the priest's
+farm and some land in the possession of the landlord. The landlord
+served notice to quit, and brought an ejectment. After some delay
+judgment was given in his favour, subject to an application to the
+Court of Chancery to compel him to fulfil his father's promise of a
+lease.'
+
+The Master of the Rolls thus characterised the law which justifies the
+robbery of the tenants by unscrupulous and vindictive landlords:--
+
+'Even if the Rev. Dr. O'Fay had no claim except as tenant from year to
+year, I have no hesitation in stating that, although in point of law
+on the authorities I have referred to, and particularly the case of
+Felling _v._ Armitage, the petitioner's suit could not be sustained,
+_yet noticing can be more repugnant to the principles of natural
+justice than that a landlord should look on at a great expenditure
+carried on by a tenant from year to year, without warning the tenant
+of his intention to turn him out of possession_. The defendant's offer
+to allow Dr. O'Fay to remove the buildings was a mockery. _I have no
+jurisdiction to administer equity in the natural sense of that term,
+or I should have no difficulty whatever in making a decree against the
+defendant._ I am bound to administer an artificial system, established
+by the decisions of eminent judges, such as Lord Eldon and Sir William
+Grant, and _being so bound, I regret much that I must administer
+injustice in this case, and dismiss the petition_, but I shall dismiss
+it without costs. _I should be very glad for the sake of justice that
+my decision should be reversed by the Court of Appeal._'
+
+Lest it might be supposed that this was the opinion of a single judge,
+we find in the Court of Appeal equally strong views stated:--It
+was thrown out that it was a case for amicable settlement, but the
+respondent's counsel assured the Court that his client 'had resolved
+to spend his fortune, if necessary, in resisting the claim of the
+Rev. Dr. O'Fay.' Lord Justice Blackburne pronounced this to be a very
+irrational determination, although he had to decide that the claim
+could not be sustained in law or equity.
+
+Lord Chancellor Napier, in concluding his judgment, said:--
+
+'I think I am not overstepping my duty in suggesting to the
+respondent, that, under all the circumstances of this case, he will
+best maintain the character and honour of a British officer, satisfy
+the exigencies of justice, and uphold the rights of property, by
+making _such an arrangement_ with Dr. O'Fay, as to the possession of
+this farm, _as may leave him the full benefit of an expenditure made
+in good faith, and with the reasonable expectation of having the full
+benefit of it sufficiently secured by an undisturbed possession_.'
+
+It is a favourite theory with the new school of agents and improving
+landlords, that long leases cause bad cultivation; in other words,
+that industry prospers best where there is no security that you can
+reap what you have sown, except the honour of a man whose interest it
+is to appropriate the fruits of your labours, which he can _legally_
+do. Now, in every class and profession, there are failures,--persons
+that are good for nothing, indolent, improvident, and thriftless. If
+such a man has a long lease at a low rent, he may be overwhelmed in
+debt, and leave his land in very bad condition. Others may imitate
+their aristocratic superiors in their contempt for labour and their
+habits of expenditure, and so get into a state of hopeless poverty on
+a good estate. If there are cases where industrious sober men are the
+worse for having an old lease, it should be remembered that the most
+insecure of all tenures is a lease dependent on a single bad life,
+which may drop at any hour. But there are other causes of the facts
+urged against long tenures, for which the legislature is responsible,
+not the unimproving tenant. Dr. Hancock explains this point very
+satisfactorily:--
+
+'Instances of bad cultivation and neglect of improvements, where long
+leases exist, are sometimes brought forward to show the inutility of
+tenure as a security for capital, and the strange economic theory
+is propounded that a precarious interest is more favourable to the
+investment of capital than a secure one. As well might the state of
+landed property in Ireland before the Incumbered Estates Court was
+established be adduced as an argument against property in land. The
+remedy, however, which the legislature applied to incumbered estates
+of large proprietors was not to destroy property in land, but simply
+to secure its prompt, cheap, and effectual transfer to solvent hands.
+
+'For tenants' interests under leases where the value is small, and
+where the interests have become complicated, the Landed Estates
+Court is too expensive, and so these interests remain often for years
+untransferred, in the hands of some one who has a very limited and
+often uncertain interest in them. Such a leaseholder is deterred from
+making improvements by the state of the law which deprives him of the
+entire value of his improvements if anyone should disturb him under
+a prior charge or claim, however obscure or unknown, affecting his
+interest. The remedy is to be found in an extension of the principle
+of the Record of Title Act to the local registry of small leasehold
+interests, and in the providing for the local sale of such interests
+in a cheap manner, with an absolute title.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+THE LAND SYSTEM AND THE WORKING CLASSES.
+
+
+We have been told over and over again that the business of Ireland,
+and all its improvements, requiring education and integrity, are
+carried on 'by the Protestants, by whose intelligence, and labour,
+mental and bodily, its prosperity, such as it is, has been produced.'
+This assertion has been made with great confidence, by many writers
+and speakers. It is a gross exaggeration, and absurd as it is gross. I
+say nothing of the unseemly egotism of a dominant caste, thus parading
+its own merits, flaunting its plumes, strutting and crowing over the
+common folk--of this pharisaic spirit of the ascendant Protestant,
+standing close to the altar, reciting to God and the world the number
+of his resplendent virtues, and scornfully contrasting his excellent
+moral condition with the degraded Catholic--the vile publican and
+sinner, overwhelmed with enormous guilt. These monopolising Pharisees,
+who laboured at such a rate to assert their natural superiority, as
+the favourites of Heaven, and members of the Sovereign's church, over
+a race which England enabled them to subjugate and impoverish, have
+found no trumpeter so loud as Master Fitzgibbon, a chancery judge. In
+the same spirit the last census has been analysed by one of the ablest
+defenders of the Irish establishment, the Rev. Dr. Hume, of Liverpool,
+in order to prove that everything good in Ireland has been done by
+the Protestants, and everything bad by the Catholics. But he does not
+state fairly the conditions of the race. He does not state that one of
+the competitors had been master for centuries, well-fed, well-trained,
+possessed of all advantages which give strength, skill, courage, and
+confidence, while the other was ill-fed, untrained, enfeebled, and
+_over-weighted_, having to work out of himself the slavish spirit
+which oppression had produced, and to gain, by extra efforts, the
+skill which the law had forbidden him to acquire. Nevertheless the
+Catholics have acquired skill, and the extent to which the empire is
+dependent on their knowledge of the industrial arts is much greater
+than many people suppose. Of the farming class in Ireland, 76 per
+cent. are Roman Catholics. But we are indebted to the obnoxious race
+in other respects than as producers of food.
+
+From the classification of occupations and professions, we learn that
+the Roman Catholics bear the following proportions to the Protestants
+of all denominations.
+
+Persons employed in the manufacture of:          Roman Catholics.
+
+Skin clothing                                      .77 per cent.
+Woollen do.                                        .88    "
+Flax do.                                           .43    "
+Cotton do.                                         .53    "
+Straw do.                                          .66    "
+Silk do.                                           .66    "
+Miscellaneous do.                                  .67    "
+In producing furniture                             .84    "
+In unclassed industrial employments                .84    "
+In amusements                                      .80    "
+In architecture                                    .78    "
+In making machinery                                .76    "
+In conveyance and travelling                       .73    "
+In literature and education                        .56    "
+In charity and benevolence                         .52    "
+In health                                          .50    "
+In science and art                                 .47    "
+In justice and government                          .46    "
+In banking and agency                              .40    "
+
+There are other suggestive figures in the census, bearing on
+this question. While three-fourths of the farmers are Catholics,
+three-fourths of the land-agents are Protestants, who, as a rule,
+have an unconquerable antipathy to the Catholic clergy, as the only
+obstacle to their absolute power over the tenants, with whom they find
+it hard to sympathise. Of farm labourers and domestic servants, nine
+out of ten belong to the race supposed by some to be incapable of
+virtue and loyalty. Again, of the whole British army of all ranks, 37
+per cent. are Irishmen, and of these Irish soldiers, 67 per cent. are
+Catholics. More than three-fourths of the magistrates are Protestants;
+and they bear about the same proportion on the grand juries. According
+to the theory and practice of the constitution, all power, legislative
+and administrative, must be based on the ownership of land. The
+rate-payers have a voice indeed, but it is generally nothing but
+an echo of the landlord's voice; what else can it be when they are
+tenants-at-will, depending on the mercy of the proprietor for the
+means of existence? In county offices, the Protestants have an
+overwhelming majority. It is the same in all the offices filled by
+government patronage, except the judges of the superior courts. There
+Catholics are in the majority, because they had obtained seats in the
+House of Commons.
+
+On the boards of guardians the mass of the poor might expect that
+a majority of guardians would be prompted by national and religious
+feeling to sympathise with them, so that they would find in the master
+and matron, the doctor and the relieving officer, something like the
+natural tenderness which a common kindred and creed inspire. But half
+the guardians are _ex-officio_ members, as magistrates; nearly all
+landlords and Protestants. They have in addition 'property votes,' and
+'residence votes;' so that, with their influence over the elections,
+they are generally able to pack the board; and in that case the
+officials are almost invariably Protestants and conservatives. I know
+a union in which three-fourths of the rate-payers are Roman Catholics;
+and yet, with the utmost efforts of the priests, they were not able to
+elect a single Catholic guardian. To meet the landlord pressure,
+some of the rate-payers were required to sign their voting papers in
+presence of their pastors, yet so terrible was that pressure that they
+afterwards took them to the agent's office, and, to make assurance
+doubly sure, tore them up before his face. I have been told by a
+priest, that such is the mortal dread of eviction, or of a permanent
+fine in the form of increased rent, that he had known tenants who,
+when produced in the witness-box, denied on oath acts of oppression of
+which they had been bitterly complaining to himself, and which he well
+knew to be facts.
+
+Thus the land-war rages at every board of guardians, in every
+dispensary, in every grand jury room, at every petty sessions,
+in every county court, in every public institution throughout the
+kingdom. The land-agent is the commanding officer, his office is a
+garrison, dominating the surrounding district. He is able, in most
+cases, to defy the confessional and the altar; because he wields
+an engine of terror generally more powerful over the mind of the
+peasantry than the terrors of the world to come. Armed with the 'rules
+of the estate' and with a notice to quit, the agent may have almost
+anything he demands, short of possession of the farm and the home of
+the tenant. The notice to quit is like a death warrant to the family.
+It makes every member of it tremble and agonise, from the grey-headed
+grandfather and grandmother, to the bright little children, who read
+the advent of some impending calamity in the gloomy countenances and
+bitter words of their parents. The passion for the possession of land
+is the chord on which the agent plays, and at his touch it vibrates
+with 'the deepest notes of woe.' By the agent of an improving landlord
+it is generally touched so cunningly, that its most exquisite torture
+cannot easily be proved to be a grievance. He presents an alternative
+to the tenant; he does less than the law allows. He could strike a
+mortal blow, but he lends a helping hand. Resistance entails ruin;
+compliance secures friendship. Give up the old _status_, and accept
+a new one: cease to stand upon _right_, consent to hang upon _mercy_,
+and all may be well.
+
+Passing a cottage by the road-side, one of the kindest and best of
+those agents said to me, 'See with what infatuation these people cling
+to their old places! There is a man in that dilapidated cabin, with
+only one acre of ground. It is an eyesore. I have offered him a nice
+new slated cottage with ten acres, within a short distance, and he
+obstinately refuses to quit.'
+
+Why did he refuse? I suppose, because the place was _his own_. The
+house was probably built by his father; it is the house in which he
+was born, endeared to him, no doubt, by many powerful associations,
+little appreciated by those who never condescend to read the 'simple
+annals of the poor.' He felt, that if, like his neighbours, he moved
+into a house built by the landlord, he would cease to be a free man,
+and would pass under the yoke of a _master._ I was with some visitors
+in one of the new cottages. The wife of the cottier with smiles
+assented to all that was said as to the neatness and comfort of the
+place. I thought the smiles were forced. I was last in going out, and
+I heard her heave a heavy sigh. Perhaps she longed for the old home
+and its freedom, envying the lot of the sturdy peasant to whom I have
+alluded. Poor fellow! he must give way at last. But his proud manhood
+is the stuff of which Hampdens are made.
+
+I have devoted much time and attention to personal enquiries from town
+to town, from village to village, and from house to house, seeking
+corroborative evidence from men of all ranks and professions, on the
+effect of the _Improved Land System_ on the working classes, and I
+will here faithfully record as briefly as possible the result of my
+enquiries. I must premise a few words as to the principles of the
+system which is called 'English.'
+
+1. There is the principle of _contract_, by which alone any tenant
+is to be permitted to occupy land. There is to be no foothold in the
+island, from the centre all round to the sea, from the top of the
+highest mountain to the shore at low-water-mark, for any Irishman in
+his native land, unless he obtains it by contract from a landlord and
+pays for it.
+
+2. There is the principle of _compensation_ for unexhausted
+improvements at the rate of five or six per cent. on the outlay,
+provided the improvements have been made with the knowledge and
+consent of the landlord. A certain number of years is held to be
+sufficient to recoup the tenant for his outlay. If he is removed
+before that time he is entitled to the balance of his invested
+capital; just as if the relation were strictly commercial, and as if
+he had no further claim than his percentage. If the landlord makes the
+improvement--which he prefers doing, on the new system--he requires
+the tenant to pay at the rate of four to six per cent. in the form of
+rent--a clear gain to the landlord, who can borrow money on much lower
+terms, and can hardly invest his capital so profitably or so safely
+elsewhere.
+
+3. _Absenteeism_ is no disadvantage or loss to the country. This
+principle is in great favour with the agents. There is no theme on
+which they are so eloquent or so argumentative. In the absence of the
+landlord the agent is all-powerful. What the Irish lord deputy was to
+the Tudors and Stuarts, the Irish agent now is to the great absentee
+proprietor residing in London or Paris. He will undertake to
+demonstrate that the West-end of London would be just as prosperous if
+the Queen and her court resided constantly at Balmoral or Killarney;
+if the parliament met alternately in Edinburgh and Dublin, and if
+the government offices were all at Liverpool. With the blessing of
+absenteeism, houses in London would be built as fast, and would bring
+as high rents; trade would be as brisk, artizans of all sorts as well
+paid, life as happy, and the Londoners as well content. The Irish,
+however, have, in their ignorance of political economy, conceived the
+idea, that if the millions sterling sent annually out of the country
+to London were spent among those by whose labour the money is made,
+there would be more employment for all sorts of tradesmen, more
+business for the shopkeepers, more opportunities of advancement for
+the farmers' sons, more houses built, more trees planted, more land
+reclaimed, more factories established, more money stirring, more
+wealth, more life, more enjoyment, an immense increase of national
+prosperity. The agents say that this is all a delusion.
+
+4. The next principle of the new agents is this--and to carry it out
+is the aim of all their improvements--that their mission is to produce
+the greatest amount of rent from the smallest number of tenants.
+
+5. To reduce the population by _emigration_ or other means until there
+is barely a sufficient number of labourers to attend the agricultural
+machines, and herd the cattle.
+
+6. To discourage _marriage_ in every possible way, and to diminish
+pauperism till there shall be no further use of the workhouses but to
+serve as lying-in hospitals for the thrifty spinsters, as they do
+in Cumberland and Westmoreland--where the arrangement seems the
+most natural thing in the world. It is certainly not an unnatural
+consequence of the practice of men and women sleeping in the same
+apartment.
+
+Now let us see the working of this new system in Ireland; for it is at
+work more or less extensively in all the four provinces. The rules
+of the estate, when rigidly enforced, as they generally are by the
+improving agents, tend steadily, powerfully, to break down the small
+farmers. They are disappearing by thousands every year. Some take
+their chance across the Atlantic. Others fall into the condition of
+labourers, and may earn 2 s. a day on the estate. This will last for
+awhile until the land is drained, manured, and turned into permanent
+pasture. Then their occupation is gone. There is nothing more for them
+to do. There is no place for them, no room, no support in their native
+land. The grass will grow without their labour, and the bullocks will
+fatten without their care.
+
+We are constantly hearing of the immense rise in wages since the
+famine. Well, they are nominally higher, but in the old times the
+labourer could get more for 8 d. or 10 d. than he can now get for 1
+s. 6 d. or 2 s. Fuel is now three times as dear as it was, because the
+'rules of the estate' will not allow the tenants to sell turf even
+on the verge of extensive bogs. Milk, which was formerly abundant and
+very cheap, is scarcely to be had at all now in the country towns
+and villages, because the land is devoted to feeding sheep and 'dry
+cattle.' Under the old system, the cottiers in the small towns and
+villages, as well as on the roads in the country, were enabled to keep
+pigs. The pig paid the rent, and made manure which was put out on the
+ground of some neighbouring farmer, hired as 'conacre.' The crop of
+potatoes thus obtained was a great help in the winter months, when
+employment was rarely to be had. This practice still prevails in
+Ulster. The farmer puts in the crop for the manure, the cottier paying
+the farmer's rent--5 s. to 10 s. a rood, or whatever it may be. With
+this help the family get over the winter, and feed the pig, without
+which help, they say, it would be impossible to exist, even with
+constant employment at a shilling a day. But on the estates of
+improving landlords in the other provinces, the rules forbid the
+tenant to give the use of any ground for conacre. He must not, on pain
+of eviction, take manure for such a purpose, though it would help to
+enrich his land for the ensuing year. The evicted cottiers and small
+farmers are forced to go to towns and villages, shut up in unwholesome
+rooms. When they have been thus so far got rid of, the most ingenious
+devices are resorted to in order to render it impossible for them to
+live. By the 'rules of the estate,' the supply of necessaries is
+cut off on every side. Without fuel, without milk, without potatoes,
+unless bought at a high rate for ready money, how are they to live?
+The strong members of the poor man's family emigrate or go to
+service; the weak ones and the young children pine away in a state
+of semi-starvation, preferring that to the best fare in the hated
+workhouse.
+
+The people are fully sensible of the causes of these privations. They
+know that they have been forced into this condition by the landlords
+and their improving agents, induced in some cases by the temptation of
+a few pounds to surrender their little holdings. The lord lieutenant
+of the King's County has thus cleared an immense district, and has
+himself become a grazier and a cattle-dealer on a monster scale,
+attending the markets in person, and driving hard bargains with the
+farmers and jobbers. By such means the population of that county has
+been reduced one-third in the last twenty years. The moral aspect of
+this new system is worthy of consideration. It is thus presented by
+Archdeacon Redmond of Arklow, one of the most moderate and respected
+parish-priests in Ireland. When lately presenting an address to Lord
+Granard from his Wexford tenantry, he said:--
+
+'I have always heard the house of Forbes eulogised for its advocacy of
+civil and religious liberty, and the name of Grogan Morgan has become
+a household word through this county as one of the best landlords in
+Ireland. He never broke down a rooftree during or since the terrible
+famine. Under his fostering care they have all tided over the
+calamitous time, and are happy and prosperous in their homes. He did
+not think his estate overcrowded, nor did he avail himself of the
+mysterious destruction of the fruits of the earth, to clear off
+beings made in God's image, and to drive them to the poorhouse, the
+fever-shed, or the emigrant ship, to whiten the bottom of the sea
+with their bones, or to face the moral and physical perils of
+the transatlantic cities. He did not read his bible, like Satan,
+backwards, nor did he turn out the Son of God in the person of His
+poor. Hence his name is in benediction, and his estates are more
+prosperous than the estates of those who forget God in their worldly
+wisdom, and would seem to have no belief in a judgment to come. What
+a happiness it is, my Lord and Lady Granard, for you to have such a
+heritage, and to know that you live in the hearts of your tenantry,
+who would spill the last drop of their blood to shield you and your
+dear children from hurt and harm!'
+
+Let it not be supposed that such sentiments are peculiar to the
+Catholic clergy, or that their causes exist only in the south and
+west. The Rev. Dr. Drew, a rector in the county Down, an Orange
+chaplain, a veteran champion of Protestantism and Toryism, but an
+honourable and humane man, wrote the following letter last autumn:--
+
+If the magnificent lecture of Mr. Butt had done nothing more than
+elicit this letter from Dr. Drew, it would have been much. But will
+not the thoughts of many hearts be revealed in the same manner? What
+a number of plain-speaking Drews we shall have denouncing tyranny when
+their consciences are relieved from the incubus of the Establishment!
+
+  _To Isaac Butt, Esq., LL.D._
+
+'My dear Butt--If every other man in the world entertained doubts of
+my sincerity, you, at least, would give me credit for honesty and
+just intentions. I write to you accordingly, because my mind has been
+stirred to its inmost depths by the perusal of your address in my
+native city of Limerick. I do not regard the subject of your address
+as a political one. It ought to be regarded solely as a question of
+humanity, justice, common sense, and common honesty. I wish my lot had
+never been cast in rural places. As a clergyman I hear what neither
+landlords nor agents ever hear. I see the depression of the people;
+their sighs and groans are before me. They are brought so low as
+often to praise and glorify those who, in their secret hearts, are the
+objects of abhorrence. All this came out gradually before me. Nor did
+I feel as I ought to feel in their behalf until, in my own person and
+purse, I became the victim of a system of tyranny which cries from
+earth to heaven for relief. Were I to narrate my own story it
+would startle many of the Protestants of Ireland. There are good
+landlords--never a better than the late Lord Downshire, or the living
+and beloved Lord Roden. But there are too many of another state of
+feeling and action. There are estates in the north where the screw is
+never withdrawn from its circuitous and oppressive work. Tenant-right
+is an unfortunate and delusive affair, simply because it is almost
+invariably used to the landlord's advantage. Here we have an election
+in prospect, and in many counties no farmer will be permitted to think
+or act for himself. What right any one man has to demand the surrender
+of another's vote, I never could see. It is an act of sheer felony--a
+perfect "stand-and-deliver" affair. To hear a man slavishly and
+timorously say, "I must give my votes as the landlord wishes," is an
+admission that the legislature, which bestowed the right of voting on
+the tenant, should not see him robbed of his right, or subsequently
+scourged or banished from house and land, because he disregarded a
+landlord's nod, or the menace of a land agent. At no little hazard of
+losing the friendship of some who are high and good and kind, I write
+as I now do.--Yours, my dear Butt, very sincerely,
+
+  'THOMAS DREW.
+
+  'Dundrum, Clough, County Down,
+  September 7, 1868.'
+
+Some resident landlords employ a considerable number of labourers, to
+each of whom they give an excellent cottage, an acre of land, and
+the grass of a cow, with work all the year round at seven shillings
+a week. The tenants are most comfortable and most grateful, while the
+praise of those landlords is in the mouths of the peasantry all round
+the country. But these considerate landlords are in a minority. As a
+rule, on the estates where the improvement system is going on, where
+farms are being consolidated, and grazing supersedes tillage, an iron
+pressure weighs upon the labouring classes, crushing them out of
+the country. It is a cold, hard, calculating, far-reaching system of
+inhumanity, which makes the peasant afraid to harbour his own flesh
+and blood. It compels the grandmother to shut the door in the face of
+the poor homeless orphan, lest the improving agent should hear of the
+act of sheltering him from the pitiless storm, not more pitiless than
+the agent himself. The system of terrorism established by the threats
+of eviction de-humanizes a people remarkable for their hospitality to
+the poor. Mr. Thomas Crosbie, of Cork, a gentleman whom I believe to
+be as truthful and honourable as any agent in Ireland, gives appalling
+illustrations of this in his account of 'The Lansdowne Estates,'
+published in 1858. Mr. Trench has given the English public several
+pretty little romances about these estates; but he omitted some
+realities that ought to have impressed themselves upon his memory as
+deeply as any of his adventures. Mr. Crosbie found that the 'rules
+of the estate,' which were rigidly enforced, forbid tenants to build
+houses for their labourers, 'the consequence of which was that men and
+women servants, no matter how great the number, must live under one
+roof.' The rules forbid marriage without the agent's permission. A
+young couple got married, and were chased away to America; and 'the
+two fathers-in-law were not merely warned; they were punished for
+harbouring their son and daughter, by a fine of a gale of rent.' It
+was a rule 'that no stranger be lodged or harboured in any house
+upon the estate, lest he should become sick or idle, or in some way
+chargeable upon the poor-rates.' 'Several were warned and punished for
+giving lodging to a brother-in-law, a daughter,' &c. 'A poor widow got
+her daughter married without the necessary permission; she was served
+with a notice to quit, which was withdrawn on the payment of three
+gales of rent.' Mr. Crosbie gives a number of cases of the kind. The
+following are the most remarkable. A tenant, Timothy Sullivan, of
+Derrynabrack, occasionally gave lodging to his sister-in-law, whilst
+her husband was seeking for work. He was afraid to lodge both or
+either; 'but the poor woman was in low fever, and approaching her
+confinement. Even under such circumstances his terror was so great
+that he removed her to a temporary shed on Jeremiah Sullivan's land,
+where she gave birth to a child. She remained there for some time.
+When "the office" heard of it, Jeremiah Sullivan was sent for and
+compelled to pay a gale of rent (as fine), and to throw down the shed.
+Thus driven out, and with every tenant on the estate afraid to
+afford her a refuge, the miserable woman went about two miles up the
+mountain, and, sick as she was, and so situated, took shelter in a dry
+_cavern_, in which she lived for several days. But her presence even
+there was a crime, and a mulct of another gale of rent was levied off
+Jeremiah Sullivan. Thus, within three weeks he was compelled to
+pay two gales of 3 l. 2 s. 6 d. each. It was declared also that
+the mountain being the joint property of Jeremiah Sullivan, Timothy
+Sullivan, and Thady Sullivan, Timothy Sullivan was a participator in
+the crime, and should be fined a gale of rent. The third, it appears,
+escaped.' 'S.G.O.' narrated another horrifying case in the _Times_,
+at the period of its occurrence, in 1851. Abridged, it runs thus:--'An
+order had gone forth on the estate (a common order in Ireland) that
+no tenant was to admit any lodger into his house. This was a general
+order. It appears, however, that sometimes special orders were given;
+and one was promulgated that Denis Shea should not be harboured. This
+boy had no father living. He had lived with a grandmother, who had
+been turned out of her holding for harbouring him. He had stolen
+a shilling, a hen--done such things as a neglected twelve-year-old
+famishing child will do. One night he came to his aunt Donoghue, who
+lodged with Casey. The latter told the aunt and uncle not to allow him
+into the house, as the agent's drivers had given orders about him.
+The aunt beat him away with a pitchfork, the uncle tied his hands
+with cord behind his back. The poor child crawls to the door of a
+neighbour, and tries to get in. The uncle is called to take him away,
+and he does so. He yet returns with hands still tied behind, having
+been severely beaten. The child seeks refuge in other cabins; but all
+were forbidden to shelter him. He is brought back by some neighbours
+in the night, who try to force the sinking child in upon his relation.
+There is a struggle at the door. The child was heard asking some one
+to put him upright. In the morning there is blood upon the threshold.
+The child is stiff dead--a corpse, with its arms tied; around it every
+mark of a last fearful struggle for shelter--food--the common rights
+of humanity.' Chief Baron Pigot tried the case, and gave a statement
+of the facts in his charge which Mr. Trench ought to have quoted, as a
+faithful recorder of 'realities.'
+
+'On the western estate, that of Cahirciveen, there was some difference
+in the rules. If a son or daughter married, the father was obliged
+to retire with an allowance of 'a cow's grass' or grazing for his
+support. 'Only the newly married person will be left on the land, or
+any portion of it, even though the farm should contain 100 acres,
+or even though there should be two farms. This arbitrary regulation
+operates injuriously in point of morality, and keeps the land
+uncultivated. The people have to go to Nedeen, a distance of forty or
+fifty miles, to get leave to marry.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See the 'North British Review,' No. CI. p.193.]
+
+The Kenmare tenantry have recovered from the fearful shock of the
+famine, after thousands of deaths from hunger, and thousands shipped
+off to America at 4 l. 10 s. a head. Mr. Trench's son, Mr. Townshend
+Trench, the pictorial illustrator of his father's book, is the acting
+agent, and an eloquent propagandist of his father's principles. The
+young marquis paid a visit to his tenantry in 1868, and he was almost
+worshipped. It is gratifying to know that in a speech on that occasion
+he promised to see and judge for himself.
+
+'I feel,' he said, 'that my visit to Kenmare has taught me a valuable
+lesson. As you all know, I was called to my present position at a very
+young age, and I felt when I came in for my property that I had
+much to learn; and that is the reason why I was so anxious to travel
+through the country, and study the desires and comfort of the people.
+That will afford me occupation for many a year to come, and it will
+afford me an occupation not only interesting but pleasing.
+Nothing will do me a more hearty pleasure than to see the marks of
+civilisation and progress in Kenmare--and not alone in Kenmare, but in
+the whole country; and I shall hail every manifestation of improvement
+with delight.'
+
+Lord Lansdowne's system is beautiful, but it is unfinished. Let him
+'crown the edifice with _liberty_.' He possesses a giant's power, and
+he uses it like an angel. When he comes to trouble the waters, the
+multitude gathers around the fountain to be healed. But his visits
+are, like angels' visits, few and far between. Many of the sick and
+impotent folk, after long waiting, are not able to get near till the
+miracle-worker has departed. An absentee landlord, be he ever so good,
+must delegate his power to an agent. Agents have good memories,
+and their servants, the bailiffs, are good lookers-on. There is
+a hierarchy in the heaven of landlordism--the under-bailiff, the
+head-bailiff, the chief-clerk in the office, the sub-agent, the
+head-agent. All these must be submissively approached and anxiously
+propitiated before the petitioner's prayers can reach the ears of Jove
+himself, seated aloft on his remote Olympian throne. He may be,
+and for the most part really is--if he belongs to the old stock of
+aristocratic divinities--generous and gracious, incapable of meanness,
+baseness, or cruelty. But the tenant has to do, not with the absentee
+divinity, but with his priest--not with the good spirit, but his
+medium; and this go-between is not always noble, or disinterested,
+or unexacting. To him power may be new--a small portion of it may
+intoxicate him, like alcohol on an empty stomach. He was not born to
+an inheritance of sycophancy; it comes like an _afflatus_ upon him,
+and it turns his head. It creates an appetite, like strong drink,
+which grows into a disease. This appetite is as capricious as it is
+insatiable. Hence, the chief characteristic of landlord power, as
+felt by the tenant, is _arbitrariness_. The agent may make any rule
+he pleases, and as many exceptions to every rule as he pleases. He
+may allow rents to run in arrear; he may suddenly come down upon the
+defaulter with 'a fell swoop;' he may require the rents to be paid
+up to the day; he may, without reason assigned, call in 'the hanging
+gale;' he may abate or increase the rents at will; he may inflict
+fines for delay or give notices to quit for the sole purpose of
+bringing in fees to his friend or relative, the solicitor. But
+whatever he may choose to do, the tenant has nothing for it but to
+submit; and he must submit with a good grace. Woe to him if the agony
+of his spirit is revealed in the working of his features, or in an
+audible groan! Most of the poor fellows do submit, till their hearts
+are broken--till the hot iron has entered their souls and seared their
+consciences. When the _slave_ is thus finished, the agent and his
+journeymen are satisfied with their handiwork; their 'honours' can
+then count on any sort of services they may choose to exact--may bid
+defiance to the priest and the agitator, and boast of an orderly and
+deserving tenantry devoted to the best of landlords, who is their
+natural protector. It would be wicked to interfere with these amicable
+persons. Why talk about leases? The tenants will not have them; they
+don't want security or independence by contract. So most of the agents
+report--but not all. There are noble exceptions which relieve the
+gloomy picture.
+
+There is certainly one disadvantage connected with a settlement of the
+land question which would abolish the arbitrary power of proprietors
+and their agents--it would put an end to the romance of Irish
+landlordism. The Edgeworths, the Morgans, the Banims, the Carletons,
+and the Levers would then be deprived of the best materials for their
+fictions. The fine old family, over-reached and ruined by a dishonest
+agent; the cruelly evicted farmer, with his wife and children
+fever-stricken, and his bedridden mother cast out on the roadside on
+Christmas Eve, exposed to the pelting of the hailstorm, while their
+home was unroofed and its walls levelled by the crowbar brigade; the
+once comfortable but now homeless father making his way to London, and
+trying day after day to present a petition in person to his landlord,
+repulsed from the gate of the great house, and laughed at for his
+frieze and brogue by pampered flunkeys. Then he travels on foot to his
+lordship's country-seat, scores or hundreds of miles--is taken up, and
+brought before the magistrates as 'an Irish rogue and vagabond.' At
+length he meets his lordship accidentally, and reveals to him the
+system of iniquity that prevails on his Irish estate at Castle
+Squander: Next we have the sudden and unexpected appearance of the god
+of the soil at his agent's office, sternly demanding an account of his
+stewardship. He gives ready audience to his tenants, and fires with
+indignation at bitter complaints from the parents of ruined daughters.
+Investigation is followed by the ignominious eviction of the
+tyrannical and roguish agent and his accomplices, a disgorging of
+their ill-gotten wealth, compensation to plundered and outraged
+tenants, the liberal distribution of poetical justice right and left.
+
+Many other agents have followed Mr. Trench's example in forbidding
+to marry, and commanding to abstain from hospitality and charity. An
+ejectment was lately obtained at the quarter sessions in a southern
+county against a widow who had married without leave, or married a
+different person from the one the agent selected. But it is supposed
+that the threat of assassination prevented a recourse to extremities
+in this and other cases. For the people seem with one consent to have
+made a desperate stand against this cruel tyranny. A landlord said
+to me, 'No one in this part of the country would _presume_ to evict
+a tenant now from fear of assassination. _That_ is the tenant's
+security.'
+
+The wretched outcasts, whom 'improvement' has swept off the estates,
+are crowded into cities and towns, without employment, without food.
+Feeling bitterly their degradation and misery, and taught to blame the
+Government, they become demoralized and desperately disaffected. From
+these fermenting masses issues the avenging scourge of Fenianism--'the
+pestilence that walketh in darkness, and slayeth at noonday.'
+
+For my part, I cannot understand the meaning of improving a country by
+disinheriting and banishing its inhabitants. I do not understand men
+who say the population is too dense, and yet give to one family a
+tract of land large enough to support ten families, turning out the
+nine to make room for the one. A great deal has been said about the
+evils of small farms. But the most disturbed and impoverished parts of
+Ireland are those in which the farms are largest; while the two most
+prosperous and best ordered counties--Armagh and Wexford--are the
+counties in which small farms most abound. I call a reluctant witness,
+Master Fitzgibbon, to testify that when the Irish tenant, be his
+holding ever so small, gets common justice and is not subjected to
+caprice, he gives no trouble. That gentleman informs us that there are
+650 estates of all magnitudes, from 100 l. to 20,000 l. a-year, under
+the control and management of the court of chancery; the total rents
+of these amount to 494,056 l. a-year payable by 28,581 tenants. These
+estates are in all parts of Ireland, not only in all the provinces,
+but in all the counties, without exception; and, according to Master
+Fitzgibbon, they fairly represent the tenantry of the whole country.
+He has 452 of the estates under his own jurisdiction, and the rents
+of these amount to 330,809 l., paid by 18,287 tenants. He has now
+been ten years in the office, during which 'the rents have been paid
+without murmuring or complaints worth noticing.' 'The pressure of
+legal remedies for these rents has been very little used; the
+number of evictions absolutely trifling; and of between 400 and 500
+receivers, who collect these rents, _not one has ever been assailed_,
+or interfered with, or threatened in the discharge of his duty, as
+far as I have been able to discover; and I am the person to whom the
+receiver should apply for redress if anything of the kind occurred.
+It is very well known that my ears are open to any just complaint
+from any tenant, and yet I am very seldom appealed to, considering the
+great number of tenants; and whenever a complaint is well-founded,
+it is promptly and effectually redressed, at scarcely any expense of
+costs. I believe the other three Masters would make substantially
+a similar report to this in respect of the estates under their
+jurisdiction.'
+
+Master Fitzgibbon proceeds to state that 'on one estate there are
+2,500 tenants, paying 13,000 l.,--being an average of 6 l. a-year.
+This estate has been sold, and three of the lots fetched over 30
+years' purchase of the yearly profit rents. The fourth lot is held by
+small cottiers, at rents which average only 2 l., and this lot fetched
+23 years' purchase. This estate has been under a receiver for three
+years, and there has never been one complaint from a tenant. What is
+stated of this estate may be said of every one of them in all the four
+provinces.' He adds: 'Clamour, agitation, or violence of any kind I
+have never had to deal with amongst the tenantry of any one of these
+estates since I came into office.'
+
+Another witness of larger views, and free from unhappy prejudices
+against the majority of his countrymen--Mr. Marcus Keane, agent to the
+Marquis of Conyngham--in a letter to Colonel Vandeleur, M.P., lately
+gave the result of his experience for thirty years as agent of several
+large estates, and as a landlord, on the Irish land question. I
+submit his suggestions to my readers, as eminently worthy of the
+consideration of statesmen at the present time:--
+
+'The outline of measures submitted for your consideration combines
+the very unusual recommendation of meeting, on the one hand, with
+the approbation of some good landlords of the higher class (who, like
+yourself, have long been practically acknowledging the just claims of
+tenants), and, at the same time, of satisfying the claims of many of
+the warmest advocates of the tenant class. It is calculated to protect
+the farmers from selfish landlords, whose conduct has tended much to
+produce the serious disaffection that now prevails.
+
+'I need not burthen you with a lengthened recital of the facts which
+render such legislation absolutely necessary to the tranquillity of
+society. In outline, however, they may be briefly stated--
+
+'_First_--The great mass of Irish tenantry have no better title to
+their holdings than the will of their landlords.
+
+'_Second_--Education is daily rendering the tenant class more
+impatient of the condition of dependence which their want of title
+necessitates.
+
+'_Third_--Every good tenant must improve his land more or less, in
+order to live in comparative comfort.
+
+'_Fourth_--The rentals of Ireland are steadily following the
+improvements of the tenants. Some landlords suffer a considerable
+margin to exist between the actual value and the rent paid; while
+others lose no opportunity of forcing the rents to the highest amount
+that circumstances permit.
+
+'_Fifth_--Although good tenants must improve in order to live
+comfortably, their improvements are not one-fourth of what the
+condition of the country invites, and are far below what they would be
+if the occupiers were afforded equitable security.
+
+'_Sixth_--Trade, manufactures, and industrial occupations require
+local accumulations of surplus capital in order to their prosperity;
+and such accumulations are hindered by the general want of security
+of tenure. Society at large is therefore deeply interested in the
+protection of the tenant class.
+
+'_Seventh_--The increased expense of the governmental establishments,
+civil and military, which Irish disaffection entails, renders it a
+matter of imperial importance that the Irish land question should be
+satisfactorily settled.
+
+'Irish rentals have, in some counties, increased more than tenfold
+since the beginning of the eighteenth century.'
+
+The next witness shall be a landlord, one of the best and noblest of
+his class. At a tenant-right meeting of the county Longford, the Earl
+of Granard said:--'The proposition commences by asserting that which
+has been acknowledged by successive administrations--that the present
+state of the land laws of Ireland is highly unsatisfactory. The
+necessity for their reform has been urged upon parliament since the
+days of O'Connell up to the present time. The want of reform upon the
+most vital question which affects the prosperity of Ireland has
+been the fruitful source of agrarian disturbance, of poverty and
+of misfortune in every county in Ireland. To take an example near
+home,--what rendered Ballinamuck a by-word for deeds of violence? Why,
+that system which permitted a landlord to treat the people of that
+district with high-handed injustice. And why is that district
+now amongst the most peaceable in the county? Because it is now
+administered by its proprietor in a spirit of justice and fair play,
+and because that proprietor recognises the fact that property has its
+duties as well as its rights. I believe that similar results are to
+be obtained everywhere that the warm-hearted and kindly people of this
+country are treated with justice. In his evidence before Mr. Maguire's
+committee, Mr. Curling, the excellent agent of an equally excellent
+landlord--Lord Devon--speaking of his property in Limerick, said that
+the most warm-hearted and grateful people he had ever met with were
+the Irish. He was asked, "Grateful for what?" and he replied, "Even
+for fair play." That is to say, they were grateful for that which in
+every country save this would have been theirs by law. And it is to
+a people thus described by, mind you, not an Irishman, but an English
+gentleman--to a people, I believe, the most religious and affectionate
+in Europe, that the simple act of justice, of repealing unjust
+statutes, has been refused. I say it advisedly, that to the system
+of land laws, which we hope to alter--which at least we are here to
+protest against--are to be attributed those fearful agrarian outrages
+which disgrace the fair fame of our country. A celebrated minister of
+police in France, whenever he heard of a conspiracy, used to ask who
+was the woman, believing that there was always one mixed up with such
+organisations, and in a similar spirit, whenever I hear of an outrage
+in Ireland, I am always inclined to enquire, "Who is the landlord?"
+For I do not hear of such things occurring on estates where justice
+and fair play are the rule and not the exception. But brighter days
+are now in store for us. We have at the head of affairs the most
+earnest, the most conscientious minister that has ever sat on the
+treasury bench. He has promised to redress your grievances, and having
+as his able lieutenants Mr. Bright, who has ever a kindly word for
+Ireland, and Lord Kimberley, whose first act after giving up the
+lord-lieutenancy was to say to the House of Lords that until the
+church and land questions were settled there would be neither peace
+nor contentment in the land--he must be successful. As to what we
+want there can be no doubt. The five points of the Irish charter
+are--fixity of tenure at reasonable rents; recognition of right of
+occupancy as distinct from right of ownership; standard valuation
+for letting purposes; retrospective compensation for 20 years; and
+arbitration courts in cases of dispute between owner and occupier.'
+
+I cannot better express the conclusion of the whole matter than in
+the words of a writer in the _Pall Mall Gazette_, who thoroughly
+understands the question. Nothing can be more truthful and accurate
+than the way in which he puts the tenants' case:--
+
+'"Morally," they say, "we are part-owners. We have a moral right to
+live here. If a great landlord considered that he could make more
+of his estate by clearing it of its inhabitants, and accordingly
+proceeded to do so, he would do a cruel act. What we wish is to see
+our moral rights converted into legal rights. If you ask us precisely
+what it is that we wish, we reply that we wish to be able to live in
+moderate comfort in our native land, and to be able to make our plans
+upon the assumption that we shall not be interfered with. It is
+not for us ignorant peasants to draw an Act of Parliament upon this
+subject, or to say how our views are to be reconciled with your
+English law, which, on other accounts, we by no means love. You, the
+English Government, must find out for yourselves how to do that. What
+we want is to be secure and live in reasonable comfort, and we shall
+never be at rest, and we will never leave you at peace, till this is
+arranged in some way or other." We do not say whether this feeling is
+right or wrong, we do not say how it is to be dealt with, but we do
+say that it is as intelligible, not to say as natural, a feeling as
+ever entered into human hearts, and we say, moreover, that it would
+be very difficult to exaggerate either its generality, its force, its
+extent, or the degree to which it has been excited by recent events.
+We are deeply convinced that to persist in regarding the relation
+between landlord and tenant as one of contract merely, to repeat again
+and again in every possible form that all that the Irish peasants
+have a right to say is that they have made a hard bargain with their
+landlords which they wish the legislature to modify, is to shut
+our eyes to the feelings of the people, feelings which it will be
+difficult and also dangerous to disregard. The very gist and point
+of the whole claim of the tenants is that their moral right (as they
+regard it) is as sacred, and ought to be as much protected by law, as
+the landlords' legal right, and that it is a distinct grievance to a
+man to be prevented from living in Ireland on that particular piece
+of land on which he was born and bred, and which was occupied by his
+ancestors before him.'
+
+The whole drift of this history bears on this point. The policy of the
+past must be reversed. The tenants must be rooted in the soil instead
+of being rooted out. 'Improvement' must include the people as well
+as the land, and agents must no longer be permitted to arrogate to
+themselves the functions of Divine Providence.
+
+    '_Naturam expellas furcâ, tamen usque recurret._'
+
+One of the best pamphlets on the Irish Land Question is by Mr. William
+M'Combie, of Aberdeen. A practical farmer himself, his sagacity
+has penetrated the vitals of the subject. His observations, while
+travelling through the country last year, afford a remarkable
+corroboration of the conclusions at which I have arrived. Of the new
+method of 'regenerating Ireland,' he says:--
+
+'In it the resources of the soil--to get the most possible out of it
+by the most summary process--is the great object; the people are of
+little or no account, save as they can be made use of to accomplish
+this object. But, indeed, it is not alone by the promoters of the
+grand culture that the people have been disregarded, but by Irish
+landlords, generally, of both classes. By the improving landlords--who
+are generally recent purchasers--they are regarded merely as
+labourers; by the leave-alone landlords as rent-producers. The one
+class have ejected the occupiers, the other have applied, harder and
+harder, the screw, until the "good landlord"--the landlord almost
+worshipped in Ireland at this hour--is the landlord who neither evicts
+his tenants nor raises their rents. The consequences are inevitable,
+and, over a large portion of the island, they are patent to every
+eye--they obtrude themselves everywhere. The people are poor; they are
+despondent, broken-spirited. In the south of Ireland decay is written
+on every town. In the poorer parts you may see every fifth or sixth
+house tenantless, roofless, allowed from year to year to moulder
+and moulder away, unremoved, unrepaired.... To make room for these
+large-scale operations, evictions must go on, and as the process
+proceeds the numbers must be augmented of those who are unfit to
+work for hire and unable to leave the country. The poor must be
+made poorer; many now self-supporting made dependent. Pauperism must
+spread, and the burden of poor rates be vastly increased. If the
+greatest good of the greatest number be the fundamental principle of
+good government, this is not the direction in which the state should
+seek to accomplish the regeneration of Ireland. The development of the
+resources of the land ought to be made compatible with the improvement
+of the condition of the people.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+CONCLUSION--AN APPEAL TO ENGLISHMEN.
+
+
+The difficulty of understanding the case of Ireland is proverbial.
+Its most enlightened friends in England and Scotland are often charged
+with 'gross ignorance of the country.' They might excuse themselves by
+answering, that when they seek instruction from Irishmen, one native
+instructor is sure to contradict the other. Yet there must be some
+point of view from which all sides of the Irish question can be seen,
+some light in which the colours are not confused, the picture is not
+exaggerated, the features are not distorted. Every nation has its
+idiosyncrasy, proceeding from race, religion, laws, institutions,
+climate, and other circumstances; and this idiosyncrasy may be the
+key of its history. In Ireland three or four nationalities are bound
+together in one body politic; and it is the conflict of their several
+idiosyncrasies which perplexes statesmen, and constitutes the main
+difficulty of the Irish problem. The blood of different races is
+mingled, and no doubt greatly modified by ages of intercourse.
+But _religion_ is an abiding force. The establishment of religious
+equality in Ireland is a glorious achievement, enough in itself to
+immortalise any statesman. It is a far greater revolution than was
+effected by the Emancipation Act, and more to the credit of the chief
+actor; because, while Mr. Gladstone did spontaneously what he
+firmly believed to be right in principle. Sir Robert Peel did, from
+necessity, what he as firmly believed was wrong in principle. But no
+reasonable man expected that the disestablishment of the Church would
+settle all Irish questions; in fact, it but clears the way for the
+settlement of some of the most important and urgent. It makes it
+possible for Irishmen of every creed to speak in one voice to
+the Government. Their respective clergy, hitherto so intent on
+ecclesiastical claims and pretensions, will no longer pass by on the
+other side, but turn Samaritans to their bleeding country, fallen
+among the thieves of Bigotry and Faction. There are many high
+Protestants--indeed, I may say all, except the aristocracy--who, while
+firmly believing in the vital importance of the union of the three
+kingdoms, earnestly wishing that union to be real and perpetual,
+cannot help expressing their conviction that Ireland has been greatly
+wronged by England--wronged by the legislature, by the Government,
+and most of all by the crown. In no country in the world has loyalty
+existed under greater difficulties, in none has it been so ill
+requited, in none has so much been done as if of set purpose to
+starve it to death. In the reign of Elizabeth the capricious will of
+a despotic sovereign was exerted to crush the national religion, while
+the greatest military exploits of her ablest viceroys consisted of
+predatory excursions, in which they slaughtered or carried away the
+horses and cattle, burned the crops and houses, and laid the country
+waste and desolate, in order to create famines for the wholesale
+destruction of the population, thus spoiled and killed as a punishment
+for the treason of their chiefs, over whom they had no control.
+
+In the reigns of James I. and Charles I. there was a disposition among
+the remnant of the people--
+
+    To fly from petty tyrants to the throne.
+
+But the Stuarts appealed to Irish loyalty merely for the support of
+their dynasty, and William III. laid the laurels won on the banks of
+the Boyne upon the altar of English monopoly. In the reigns of Anne
+and the three Georges, law was made to do the work of the sword, and
+the Catholics of Ireland, constituting the mass of the nation,
+knew their sovereign only as the head of an alien power, cruel and
+unrelenting in its oppression. They were required to love a German
+prince whom they had never seen. He called himself the father of
+his subjects; and he had millions of subjects on the other side of a
+narrow channel, whom he never knew, and never cared to know. When at
+length the dominant nation relented, and wished to strike the penal
+chains from the hands of her sister, the king forbade the act of
+mercy, pleading his conscience and his oath as a bar to justice and to
+freedom, but yielding at last to English state necessity, and robbing
+concession of its grace, of all its power to conciliate. From the
+battle of the Boyne to Catholic emancipation, the king of Ireland had
+never set foot on Irish soil, except in the case of George IV., whose
+visit was little better than a melodramatic exhibition, repaid by
+copious libations of flattery, which however failed to melt his
+bigotry, or to persuade him to redeem his solemn promises and pledges,
+until, nine years later, he was compelled to yield by the fear of
+impending civil war.
+
+Ireland may get from her sister, England, everything but that for
+which the heart yearns--affection--that which alone 'can minister to
+a mind diseased, can pluck from the memory its rooted sorrow, and rase
+out the written troubles from the brain.' That is just what Ireland
+needs above all things. She wants to be kept from brooding morbidly
+over the dismal past, and to be induced to apply herself in a cheerful
+spirit to the business of life. The prescriptions of state physicians
+cannot fully reach the root of the disease. Say that it is a
+sentimental malady--a delusion. What is gained by saying _that_,
+if the sentiment or the delusion makes life wretched, unfits for
+business, produces suicidal propensities, and renders _keepers_
+necessary?
+
+In theory, Ireland is one with England; in practice, she is hourly
+made to feel the reverse. _The Times_, and all the journals which
+express the instincts of the dominant nation, constantly speak of the
+Irish people as '_the subjects of England_, whom Englishmen have
+a right to control. They are the subjects of the Queen only in a
+secondary sense--_as_ the Queen of England, and reigning over them
+through England. Every sovereign, from Queen Elizabeth to Queen
+Victoria, was sovereign of Ireland merely in this subordinate sense,
+even when there was an Irish parliament. The King of _Ireland_ could
+speak to his Irish parliament only as he was advised by his English
+ministers; and their advice was invariably prompted by English
+interests. Her king was not _hers_ in the true sense. His _heart_ and
+his company were wholly given to another, to whose pride, power,
+and splendour she was made to minister. That state of things
+still continues in effect, and while it lasts Ireland can never be
+contented. Her heart will always be disquieted within her. Something
+bitter will ever be bubbling up from the bottom of that troubled
+fountain.
+
+Nor let it be supposed that this is due to a peculiar idiosyncrasy
+in Ireland--to some unhappy congenital malformation, or some original
+taint in the blood. It has been often asked whether England would have
+submitted to similar treatment from Ireland if their relations were
+reversed. Englishmen have not answered that question because they
+cannot understand it. They find it difficult to apply the Divine
+maxim, 'Do as you would be done by.' in their dealings with other
+nations. But they can scarcely conceive its application to their
+dealings with Ireland, any more than the American planter could have
+conceived the duty of fraternizing with his negroes. If we draw from
+this fact the logical inference, we shall be at a loss to discern
+whether the Celt or the Saxon suffers more from the moral perversity
+of his nature. The truth is, both are perverted by their unnatural
+relations, which are a standing outrage on the spirit of Christianity.
+
+The Emperor of Austria long laboured to govern one nation through
+another and for another, in right of conquest, and we know the result
+in Italy and Hungary. Lombardy, though well cultivated and materially
+prosperous, could never be reconciled to Austrian rule. Even the
+nobility could not be tempted to appear at court. Venetia was more
+passionately and desperately hostile, and was consequently crushed by
+military repression, till the country was turned into a wilderness,
+and the capital once so famous for its commerce and splendour, became
+one of the most melancholy scenes of ruin and desolation to be found
+in the world. The Austrians, and those who sympathised with Austria
+as the great conservative power of the Continent, ascribed all this
+to the perversity of the Italian nature, and to the influence of
+agitators and conspirators. Austria was bountiful to her Italian
+subjects, and would be more lenient if she could, but their vices of
+character and innate propensity to rebellion, rendered necessary
+a system of coercion. Hence the prisons were full of political
+offenders; the soldier and the executioner were constantly employed in
+maintaining law and order. All the Emperor wanted was that his Italian
+provinces should be so thoroughly amalgamated with Austria, as to form
+one firmly united empire, and that the inhabitants should be content
+with their position as _Austrian_ subjects, ruled by Austrian
+officials. But this was precisely what they could not or would not
+be. 'They smiled at the drawn dagger and defied its point.' They would
+sacrifice their lives, but they would not sacrifice their nationality
+at the bidding of an alien power.
+
+This illustrates the force of the national sentiment, and the
+tremendous magnitude of the calamities to which its persistent
+violation leads. But the case of Hungary is still more apposite as an
+illustration of the English policy in Ireland. The Hungarians had
+an ancient constitution and parliament of their own. The Emperor of
+Austria was their legitimate king, wearing the crown of Hungary. In
+this capacity the Hungarians were willing to yield to him the most
+devoted loyalty. But he wanted to weld his empire into a compact
+unity, and to centralise all political power at Vienna, so that
+Austria should be the head and heart of the system, and the other
+provinces her hands and her feet. Hungary resisted, and revolted. The
+result was a desolating civil war, in which she was triumphant, till
+the Czar came to the rescue of his brother despot, and poured his
+legions in overwhelming numbers into the devoted country. Hungary was
+now at the feet of her sovereign, and Austria, the dominant state,
+tried to be conciliatory, in order to bring about the desired
+amalgamation and consolidation of the empire. She did so, with
+every apparent prospect of success, and it was generally considered
+throughout Europe that there was an end of the Hungarian kingdom.
+But Hungarian nationality survived, and still resisted Austrian
+centralisation. The Hungarians struggled for its recognition
+constitutionally, manfully, with admirable self-control, moderation,
+and wisdom, until at length they achieved a peaceful victory. Their
+sovereign reigns over them as King of Hungary; he and the empress
+dwell among them, without Austrian guards. Their children are born
+among them, and they are proud to call them natives of Hungary. The
+Hungarians, as subjects of _Austria_, were discontented, miserable,
+incurably disaffected. As subjects of their own king (though he is
+also Emperor of Austria) they are intensely loyal. They are prosperous
+and happy, because they are free. And though they have their
+distinctions of race and religion, they are united. The Magyars of
+Hungary correspond very nearly to the Protestants of Ireland. Though
+a minority, their energy, their education, their natural talent
+for organisation and government, their love of freedom, their frank
+recognition of the rights of conscience, enable them to lead without
+inspiring jealousy, just as the Protestants of Ireland were enabled to
+lead in 1782, notwithstanding the existence of Protestant Ascendancy.
+Religious equality is not a cause of tranquillity in itself. It
+tranquillises simply because it implies the absence of irritation.
+It takes a festering thorn out of the side of the unestablished
+community--a thorn which inflames the blood of every one of its
+members. Let worldly interest, political power, and social precedence
+cease to be connected with the profession of religion, and religious
+differences would cease to produce animosity and intolerance. If the
+Magyars had been the Hungarian party of Protestant ascendancy, and if
+the Protestant interest had also been the Austrian interest; if the
+mission of the Magyars had been to act as a garrison, to keep down the
+Roman Catholic majority, their cause could never have triumphed till
+Protestant ascendancy should be abolished. But Hungarian Protestantism
+did not need such support, although the Pope has as much authority in
+Hungary as in Ireland. Of course the cases of Hungary and Ireland
+are in many respects dissimilar. But they are alike in this: their
+respective histories establish the great fact that the most benevolent
+of sovereigns, and the wisest of legislatures, can never produce
+contentment or loyalty in a kingdom which is ruled _through_ and _for_
+another kingdom.
+
+We can easily understand that when the light of royalty shines upon a
+country _through a conquering nation still dominant_, the medium is of
+necessity dense, cold, refracting, and discolouring. Of this the
+best illustration is derived from the relations between Austria and
+Hungary, now so happily adjusted to the unspeakable advantage of
+both nations. Austrian rule was unsympathetic, harsh, insolent,
+domineering, based upon the arrogant assumption that the Hungarians
+were incapable of managing their own affairs without the guidance
+of Austrian wisdom and the support of Austrian steadiness. But the
+Hungarians, united among themselves, putting their trust, not in
+boastful, vapouring, and self-seeking agitators, but in honest,
+truthful, high-minded, and capable statesmen, persevered in a course
+of firm, but temperate and constitutional, national self-assertion,
+until the Austrians were compelled to put away from them their
+supercilious airs of natural superiority, and to concede the principle
+of international equality and the right of self-government.
+
+What sickens the reader of Irish history most of all is the anarchy
+of the old clan system, the everlasting alternation of outrages
+and avenging reprisals. One faction, when it felt strong and had a
+favourable opportunity, made a sudden raid upon another faction, taken
+at a disadvantage, plundering and killing with reckless fury. The
+outraged party treasured up its anger till it had power to retaliate,
+and then glutted its vengeance without mercy in the same way. When
+this fatal propensity to mutual destruction was restrained by law, it
+broke out from time to time in other ways. What was wanted to cure it
+effectually was a strong, steady, central government, such as England
+enjoys herself. But the very system which is most calculated to foster
+factiousness is the one which has reigned for centuries in Dublin
+Castle. The British sovereign knows no party, and, whatever other
+sovereigns have done, Queen Victoria has never forgotten this
+constitutional principle. But the Irish lord-lieutenant is always a
+party-man, and is always surrounded by party-men. They were Whigs or
+Tories, Liberals or Conservatives, often extreme in their views and
+violent in their temper. The vice of the old clan system was its
+tendency to unsettle, to undo, to upset, to smash and destroy. Instead
+of counteracting that vice (which still lingers in the national
+blood), by a fixed, unchanging system of administration, based on
+principles of unswerving rectitude, which knows no distinction
+of party, no favouritism, England ruled by the alternate sway of
+factions.
+
+_The Times_, referring to the debate on the Irish Church, remarked
+that the viceroyalty was more and more 'a mere ornament.' It is
+really nothing more. The viceroy has no actual power, and if he has
+statesmanship, it is felt to be out of place. He can scarcely give
+public expression to his sentiments on any political questions without
+offending one party or the other, whereas the estate of the realm
+which he represents is neutral and ought to keep strictly to neutral
+ground. As to the effect of the office in degrading the national
+spirit among the nobility and gentry, we could not have a better
+illustration than the fact that the amiable Lord Carlisle was
+accustomed, at the meeting of the Royal Dublin Society, to tell its
+members that the true aim, interest, glory, and destiny of Ireland was
+to be a pasture and a dairy for England,--a compliment which seemed to
+have been gratefully accepted, or was at all events allowed to pass.
+
+But even as an 'ornament' the viceregal system is a failure. The
+Viceroy with his family ought to be the head of society in Ireland,
+just as the Queen is in England. The royal family are the same to all
+parties and classes, showing no partiality on the ground of politics,
+but smiling with equal favour and recognition upon all. In Ireland,
+however, a liberal lord lieutenant is generally shunned by the
+Conservative portion of the aristocracy, which forms the great
+majority of the class. On the other hand the Conservatives flock in
+large numbers to the court of a Tory Viceroy, while Liberals stand
+aloof. Instead therefore of being a centre of union to all sections
+of the best society, and bringing them together, so that they may know
+one another, and enjoy the advantages due to their rank, the viceregal
+court operates as a source of jealousy and division. So that, looking
+at the institution as a mere ornament of society, as a centre of
+fashionable life and refining influences, facilitating intercourse
+between ranks and classes, bringing the owners of land and the men
+of commerce more in harmony, it is not worth preserving. On the other
+hand it produces some of the worst features of conventionalism. It
+cultivates flunkeyism and servility, while operating as a restraint
+upon the manly expression of opinion. It fosters a spirit of spurious
+aristocracy, which shows itself in contempt for men who prefer honest
+industry to place-hunting and insolvent gentility.
+
+But while I thus speak of the viceregal court as at present
+constituted, I still maintain that, like Hungary, this country is
+so peculiarly situated, and is animated by so strong a spirit of
+nationality, that it ought to have a court of its own, and a sovereign
+of its own. The case of Hungary shows how easily this great boon might
+be granted, and how gratifying the results would be to all the parties
+concerned. The Queen ought to reside in Ireland for some portion of
+the year. A suitable palace should be provided for the royal family.
+The Prince of Wales, during her majesty's reign, ought to be the
+permanent Viceroy, with the necessary addition to his income. The
+office would afford an excellent training for his duties as king. The
+attraction of the Princess of Wales would make the Irish court very
+brilliant. It would afford the opportunity of contact with real
+royalty, not the shadowy sort of thing we have had--reflected through
+Viceroys very few of whom were ever _en rapport_ with the Irish
+nation. Not one of them could so speak to the people as to elicit a
+spark of enthusiasm. Of course they could not have the true ring of
+royalty, for royalty was not in them. But they could not play the part
+well. One simple sentence from the Queen or the Prince of Wales, or
+even from Prince Arthur, would be worth all the theatrical pomp
+they could display in a generation. Those noblemen had no natural
+connection with the kingdom, fitting them to take the first place
+in it. They were not hereditary chiefs. They were not elected by the
+people. They were mere 'casual' chief-governors; and they formed
+no ties with the nation that could not be broken as easily as the
+spider's thread. The _hereditary principle_ has immense force in
+Ireland. The landlords are now seeking to weaken it; or rather they
+are ignoring it altogether, and substituting the commercial principle
+in dealing with their tenants, preferring not the most devoted
+adherents of the family, but the man with most money. But I warn them
+that they are doing so at the peril of their order. A prince who was
+_heir presumptive to the throne as Viceroy_, and who, when he ascended
+the throne, should be crowned King of _Ireland_, as well as King of
+Great Britain, crowned in his own Irish palace, and on the _Lia Fail_
+or stone of destiny, preserved at Westminster, would save many a
+million to the British exchequer, for it would be no longer necessary
+to support a large army of occupation to keep the country. If the
+throne of Queen Victoria stood in Dublin, there is not a Fenian in
+Ireland who would not die in its defence. Standing in Westminster it
+is doubtful whether its attraction is sufficient to retain the
+hearts even of Orangemen. There, it is the _English_ throne. So the
+_Englishman_ regards it with instinctive jealousy. He feels it is his
+own; but, say what we may, the Irish loyalist, when he approaches it,
+is made to feel, by a thousand signs, that he is a stranger and an
+intruder. He returns to his own bereaved country with a sad heart,
+and a bitter spirit. Can he be _Anglicised_? Put this question to
+an English philosopher, and he will answer with Mr. Froude--'Can the
+Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?' We can bridge
+the channel with fast steamers; but who will bridge the gulf, hitherto
+impassable, which separates the English Dives from the Irish Lazarus?
+
+'We have,' said Canning, 'for many years been erecting a mound--not to
+assist or improve, but to thwart nature; we have raised it high above
+the waters, and it has stood there, frowning hostility and effecting
+separation. In the course of time, however, the necessities of man,
+and the silent workings of nature, have conspired to break down this
+mighty structure, till there remains of it only a narrow isthmus,
+standing
+
+  Between two kindred seas,
+  Which, mounting, viewed each other from afar,
+  And longed to meet.
+
+What then, shall be our conduct? Shall we attempt to repair
+the breaches, and fortify the ruins? A hopeless and ungracious
+undertaking! Or shall we leave them to moulder away by time and
+accident--a sure but distant and thankless consummation; or, shall
+we not rather cut away at once the isthmus that remains, allow free
+course to the current which has been artificially impeded, and float
+upon the mingling waves the ark of our glorious constitution?'
+
+Much has been done since Canning's time to remove the narrow isthmus.
+Emancipation cut deep into it. The disestablishment of the Irish
+Church submerged an immense portion of it. If Mr. Gladstone's land
+bill be equally effective, a breach will be made through which the
+two kindred seas will meet, and, in their commingling flux and reflux,
+will quickly sweep away all minor obstacles to their perfect union. A
+just settlement of the land question will reconcile the two races, and
+close the war of seven centuries. That is the rock against which the
+two nationalities have rushed in foaming breakers, lashed into fury
+by the storms of faction and bigotry. Remove the obstruction, and the
+world would hear no more the roaring of the waters. Then would
+float peacefully upon the commingling waves the ark of our common
+constitution, in which there would be neither Saxon nor Celt, neither
+English nor Irish, neither Protestant nor Catholic, but one united,
+free, and mighty people. Then might the Emperor of the French mark the
+epoch with the announcement--'England has done justice to Ireland!'
+
+
+
+
+LONDON: PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE AND
+PARLIAMENT STREET
+
+
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+  <title>The Land War in Ireland, November, 2004.</title>
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+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's The Land-War In Ireland (1870), by James Godkin
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Land-War In Ireland (1870)
+       A History For The Times
+
+Author: James Godkin
+
+Release Date: January 2, 2005 [EBook #14562]
+Last Updated: March 14, 2015
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAND-WAR IN IRELAND (1870) ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Alison Hadwin and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+  <h1>THE LAND-WAR IN IRELAND</h1>
+
+  <h2>A HISTORY FOR THE TIMES</h2>
+
+  <h4>BY</h4>
+
+  <h3>JAMES GODKIN</h3>
+
+  <h4>AUTHOR OF 'IRELAND AND HER CHURCHES'</h4>
+
+  <h4>LATE IRISH CORRESPONDENT OF 'THE TIMES'</h4>
+
+  <h4>London</h4>
+
+  <h3>MACMILLAN AND CO.</h3>
+
+  <h4>1870</h4>
+
+  <h4>LONDON: PRINTED BY</h4>
+
+  <h4>SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE</h4>
+
+  <h4>AND PARLIAMENT STREET</h4>
+
+  <h2>PREFACE.</h2>
+
+  <p>It would be difficult to name any subject so much discussed
+  during the last half century as 'the condition of Ireland.' There
+  was an endless diversity of opinion; but in one thing all writers
+  and speakers agreed: the condition was morbid. Ireland was always
+  sick, always under medical treatment, always subject to enquiries
+  as to the nature of her maladies, and the remedies likely to
+  effect a cure. The royal commissions and parliamentary committees
+  that sat upon her case were innumerable, and their reports would
+  fill a library. Still the nature of the disease, or the
+  complication of diseases, was a mystery. Sundry 'boons' were
+  prescribed, by way of experiment; but, though recommended as
+  perfect cures, they did the patient no good. She was either very
+  low and weak, or so dangerously strong and violent that she had
+  to be put under restraint. Whenever this crisis arrived, she
+  arrested the special attention of the state doctors.
+  Consultations were held, and it was solemnly determined that
+  something should be done. Another effort should be made to
+  discover the <i>fons malorum</i>, and dry it up if
+  possible.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pagevi" id=
+  "pagevi"></a>[pg vi]</span>
+
+  <p>A diseased nation, subject to paroxysms of insanity, and
+  requiring 30,000 keepers, was a dangerous neighbour, as well as a
+  serious financial burden. Yet many contended that all such
+  attempts were useless. It was like trying different kinds of soap
+  to whiten the skin of a negro. The patient was incurable. Her
+  ailment was nothing but natural perversity, aggravated by
+  religious delusions; and the root of her disorder could never be
+  known till she was subjected to a <i>post mortem</i> examination,
+  for which it was hoped emigration, and the help of improving
+  landlords, would soon afford an opportunity. In the meantime, the
+  strait waistcoat must be put on, to keep the patient from doing
+  mischief.</p>
+
+  <p>But at length a great physician arose, who declared that this
+  state of things should not continue; the honour, if not the
+  safety, of England demanded that the treatment should be
+  reversed. Mr. Gladstone understands the case of Ireland, and he
+  has courage to apply the proper remedies. Yet the British public
+  do not understand it so well; and he will need all the force of
+  public opinion to sustain him and his cabinet in the work of
+  national regeneration which they have undertaken. It is not
+  enough for a good physician to examine the symptoms of his
+  patient. He must have a full and faithful history of the case. He
+  must know how the disease originated, and how it was treated. If
+  injuries were inflicted, he must know under what circumstances,
+  how they affected the nervous system, and whether there may not
+  be <span class="pagenum"><a name="pagevii" id="pagevii"></a>[pg
+  vii]</span> surrounding influences which prevent the restoration
+  of health, or some nuisance that poisons the atmosphere.</p>
+
+  <p>Such a history of the case of Ireland the author has
+  endeavoured to give in the following pages. It it is no
+  perfunctory service. He resolved to do it years ago, when he
+  finished his work on the Irish Church Establishment, and it has
+  been delayed only in consequence of illness and other
+  engagements. He does not boast of any extraordinary
+  qualifications for the work. But he claims the advantage of
+  having studied the subject long and earnestly, as one in which he
+  has been interested from his youth. He has written the history of
+  the country more or less fully three times. During his thirty
+  years' connexion with the press, it has been his duty to examine
+  and discuss everything that appeared before the public upon Irish
+  questions, and it has always been his habit to bring the light of
+  history to bear upon the topics of the day. Twenty years ago he
+  was an active member of the Irish Tenant League, which held great
+  county meetings in most parts of the island; and was
+  enthusiastically supported by the tenant farmers, adopting
+  resolutions and petitions on the land question almost identical
+  with those passed by similar meetings at the present time. Then
+  Mr. Sharman Crawford was the only landlord who joined in the
+  movement; now many of the largest proprietors take their stand on
+  the tenant-right platform. And after a generation of sectarian
+  division and religious dissension in Ulster, stimulated by the
+  landed gentry, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pageviii" id=
+  "pageviii"></a>[pg viii]</span> for political purposes, the
+  Catholic priests and the Presbyterian clergy have again united to
+  advocate the demands of the people for the legal protection of
+  their industry and their property.</p>
+
+  <p>There is scarcely a county in Ireland which the author of this
+  volume has not traversed more than once, having always an eye to
+  the condition of the population, their mode of living, and the
+  relations of the different classes. During the past year, as
+  special commissioner of the <i>Irish Times</i>, he went through
+  the greater part of Ulster, and portions of the south, in order
+  to ascertain the feelings of the farmers and the working classes,
+  on the great question which is about to engage the attention of
+  Parliament.</p>
+
+  <p>The result of his historical studies and personal enquiries is
+  this:&mdash;All the maladies of Ireland, which perplex statesmen
+  and economists, have arisen from injuries inflicted by England in
+  the wars which she waged to get possession of the Irish land.
+  Ireland has been irreconcilable, not because she was conquered by
+  England, not even because she was persecuted, but because she was
+  robbed of her inheritance. If England had done everything she has
+  done against the Irish nation, omitting the <i>confiscations</i>,
+  the past would have been forgotten and condoned long ago, and the
+  two nations would have been one people. Even the religious wars
+  resolve themselves into efforts to retain the land, or to recover
+  the forfeited estates. And the banished chiefs never <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="pageix" id="pageix"></a>[pg ix]</span> could
+  have rallied the nation to arms, as they so often did against
+  overwhelming odds, if the people had not been involved in the
+  ruin of their lords. All that is really important in the history
+  of the country for the last three centuries is, the fighting of
+  the two nations for the possession of the soil. The Reformation
+  was in reality nothing but a special form of the land war. The
+  oath of supremacy was simply a lever for evicting the owners of
+  the land. The process was simple. The king demanded spiritual
+  allegiance; refusal was high treason; the punishment of high
+  treason was forfeiture of estates, with death or banishment to
+  the recusants. Any other law they might have obeyed, and retained
+  their inheritance. This law fixed its iron grapples in the
+  conscience, and made obedience impossible, without a degree of
+  baseness that rendered life intolerable. Hence Protestantism was
+  detested, not so much as a religion, as an instrument of
+  spoliation.</p>
+
+  <p>The agrarian wars were kept up from generation to generation,
+  Ireland always making desperate efforts to get back her
+  inheritance, but always crushed to the earth, a victim of famine
+  and the sword, by the power of England.</p>
+
+  <p>The history of these wars, then, is the history of the case of
+  the Irish patient. Its main facts are embodied in the general
+  history of the country. But they have recently been brought out
+  more distinctly by authors who have devoted years to the
+  examination of the original state papers, in which <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="pagex" id="pagex"></a>[pg x]</span> the actors
+  themselves described their exploits and recorded their motives
+  and feelings with startling frankness. When a task of this kind
+  has been performed by a capable and conscientious historian, it
+  would be a work of supererogation for another enquirer to undergo
+  the wearisome toil, even if he could. I have, therefore, for the
+  purpose of my argument, freely availed myself of the materials
+  given to the public by Mr. Froude, the Rev. C.P. Meehan, and Mr.
+  Prendergast, not, however, without asking their permission, which
+  was in each case most readily and kindly granted.</p>
+
+  <p>The ancient state of Ireland, and especially of Ulster, is so
+  little known in England, that I was glad to have the facts
+  vouched for by so high an authority as Mr. Froude, and a writer
+  so full of the instinctive pride of the dominant nation; the more
+  so as I have often been obliged to dissent from his views, and to
+  appeal against his judgments. Beguiled by the beauty of his
+  descriptions, I am afraid I have drawn too largely on his pages,
+  in proving and illustrating my case; but I feel confident that no
+  one will read these extracts without more eagerly desiring to
+  possess the volumes of his great work from which they are
+  taken.</p>
+
+  <p>I have similar acknowledgments to make to Father Meehan and
+  Mr. Prendergast, both of whom are preparing new editions of their
+  most valuable works. The royal charters, and other documents
+  connected with the Plantation of Ulster, are printed in
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexi" id="pagexi"></a>[pg
+  xi]</span> the 'Concise View of the Irish Society,' compiled from
+  their records, and published by their authority in 1832. Whenever
+  I have been indebted to other writers, I have acknowledged my
+  obligation in the course of the work. In preparing it, I have had
+  but one object constantly in view: to present to the public a
+  careful collection and an impartial statement of facts on the
+  state of Ireland, for the right government of which the British
+  people are now more than ever responsible. I shall be thankful if
+  my labours should contribute in any measure, however humble, to
+  the new conquest of Ireland 'by justice' of which Mr. Bright has
+  spoken. His language is suggestive. It is late (happily not 'too
+  late') to commence the reign of justice. But the nation is not to
+  be despised which requires nothing more than <i>that</i> to win
+  its heart, while its spirit could not be conquered by centuries
+  of injustice. Nor should it be forgotten by the people of England
+  that some atonement is due for past wrongs, not the least of
+  which is the vilification and distrust from which the Irish
+  people have suffered so much. 'The spirit of a man may sustain
+  his infirmity; but a wounded spirit who can bear?' Some
+  manifestation of Christian magnanimity just now would greatly
+  help the work of national reconciliation. The time is favourable.
+  The Government enjoys the prestige of an unparalleled success.
+  The only Prime Minister that ever dared to do full justice to
+  Ireland, is the most powerful that England has had for nearly a
+  century. He has in his Cabinet <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "pagexii" id="pagexii"></a>[pg xii]</span> the only Chief
+  Secretary of Ireland that ever thoroughly sympathised with the
+  nation, not excepting Lord Morpeth; the great tribune of the
+  English people, who has been one of the most eloquent advocates
+  of Ireland; an Ex-Viceroy who has pronounced it felony for the
+  Irish landlords to avail themselves of their legal rights,
+  although he put down a rebellion which that felony mainly
+  provoked; another Ex-Governor, who was one of the most earnest
+  and conscientious that ever filled the viceregal throne, and who
+  returned to Parliament to be one of the ablest champions of the
+  country he had ruled so well; not to mention other members of
+  commanding ability, who are solemnly pledged to the policy of
+  justice. In these facts there is great promise. He understands
+  little of 'the signs of the times,' who does not see the dangers
+  that hang on the non-fulfilment of this promise.</p>
+
+  <p>J.G.</p>
+
+  <p>LONDON: <i>January 20</i>, 1870.</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="pagexiii" id="pagexiii"></a>[pg xiii]</span>
+
+  <h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>I. INTRODUCTION <a href="#page1">1</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>II. THE RULE OF THE O'NEILLS <a href=
+      "#page29">29</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>III. SHANE O'NEILL, SOVEREIGN OF ULSTER <a href=
+      "#page33">33</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>IV. EXTERMINATING WARS <a href="#page71">71</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>V. AN IRISH CRUSADE <a href="#page88">88</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>VI. THE LAST OF THE IRISH PRINCES <a href=
+      "#page97">97</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>VII. GOVERNMENT APPEALS TO THE PEOPLE <a href=
+      "#page114">114</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>VIII. THE CASE OF THE FUGITIVE EARLS <a href=
+      "#page120">120</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>IX. THE CONFISCATION OF ULSTER <a href=
+      "#page138">138</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>X. THE PLANTATION OF ULSTER <a href=
+      "#page152">152</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>XI. THE REBELLION OF 1641 <a href=
+      "#page185">185</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>XII. THE PURITAN PLANTATION <a href=
+      "#page215">215</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>XIII. THE PENAL CODE. A NEW SYSTEM OF LAND WAR <a href=
+      "#page234">234</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>XIV. ULSTER IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY <a href=
+      "#page248">248</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>XV. POVERTY AND COERCION <a href=
+      "#page271">271</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>XVI. THE FAMINE <a href="#page289">289</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>XVII. TENANT-RIGHT IN ULSTER <a href=
+      "#page303">303</a><br /></p><span class="pagenum"><a name=
+      "pagexiv" id="pagexiv"></a>[pg xiv]</span>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>XVIII. TENANT-RIGHT IN DOWN <a href=
+      "#page313">313</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>XIX. TENANT-RIGHT IN ANTRIM <a href=
+      "#page328">328</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>XX. TENANT-RIGHT IN ARMAGH <a href=
+      "#page346">346</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>XXI. FARNEY&mdash;MR. TRENCH'S 'REALITIES' <a href=
+      "#page356">356</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>XXII. BELFAST AND PERPETUITY <a href=
+      "#page381">381</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>XXIII. LEASE-BREAKING&mdash;GEASHILL <a href=
+      "#page387">387</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>XXIV. THE LAND SYSTEM AND THE WORKING CLASSES <a href=
+      "#page401">401</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>XXV. CONCLUSION&mdash;AN APPEAL TO ENGLISHMEN <a href=
+      "#page424">424</a><br /></p>
+    </div>
+  </div><span class="pagenum"><a name="page1" id="page1"></a>[pg
+  1]</span>
+
+  <h1>THE</h1>
+
+  <h1>LAND-WAR IN IRELAND.</h1>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+  <h3>INTRODUCTION.</h3>
+
+  <p>As the hour approaches when the legislature must deal with the
+  Irish Land question, and settle it, like the Irish Church
+  question, once for all, attempts are redoubled to frighten the
+  public with the difficulties of the task. The alarmists conjure
+  up gigantic apparitions more formidable than those which
+  encountered Bunyan's Pilgrim. Monstrous figures frown along the
+  gloomy avenue that, leads up to the Egyptian temple in which the
+  divinity, PROPERTY, dwells in mysterious darkness. To enter the
+  sanctuary, we are solemnly assured, requires all the cardinal
+  virtues in their highest state of development&mdash;the firmest
+  faith, the most vivid hope, and the charity that never faileth.
+  But this is not the only country that has had a land question to
+  settle. Almost every nation in Europe has done for itself what
+  England is now palled upon to do for Ireland. In fact, it is a
+  necessary process in the transition from feudalism to
+  constitutional self-government. Feudalism gave the land to a few
+  whom it made princes and lords, having forcibly taken it from the
+  many, whom it made subjects and serfs. The land is the natural
+  basis of society. The Normans made it the artificial basis of a
+  class. Society in nearly every other country has <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page2" id="page2"></a>[pg 2]</span> reverted
+  back to its original foundations, and so remains firm and strong
+  without dangerous rents or fissures. No doubt, the operation is
+  difficult and critical. But what has been done once may be done
+  again; and as it was England that kept Irish society so long
+  rocking on its smaller end, it is her duty now to lend all her
+  strength to help to seat it on its own broad foundations. Giving
+  up the Viceroy's dreams that the glorious mission of Ireland was
+  to be a kitchen garden, a dairy, a larder for England, we must
+  come frankly to the conclusion that the national life of the
+  Irish people, without distinction of creed or party, increases in
+  vigour with their intelligence, and is now invincible. Let the
+  imperial legislature put an end for ever to such an unnatural
+  state of things&mdash;thus only can they secure the harmonious
+  working and cordial Union of the two nations united together in
+  one State&mdash;thus only can they insure for the landlords
+  themselves all the power and all the influence that can be
+  retained by them in consistency with the industrial rights and
+  political freedom of the cultivators of the soil. These now
+  complain of their abject dependence, and hopeless bondage, under
+  grinding injustice. They are alleged to be full of discontent,
+  which must grow with the intelligence and manhood of the people
+  who writhe under the system. Their advocates affirm that their
+  discontent must increase in volume and angry force every year,
+  and that, owing to the connection of Ireland with the United
+  States, it may at any time be suddenly swollen with the fury of a
+  mountain torrent, deeply discoloured by a Republican element.</p>
+
+  <p>It must be granted, I fear, that the Celts of Ireland feel
+  pretty much as the Britons felt under the ascendency of the
+  Saxons, and as the Saxons in their turn felt under the ascendency
+  of the Normans. In the estimation of the Christian Britons, their
+  Saxon conquerors, even after the conversion of the latter, were
+  'an accursed race, the children of robbers and murderers,
+  possessing the fruits of their fathers' crimes.' 'With them,'
+  says Dr. Lingard, 'the Saxon was no better than a pagan bearing
+  the name of a <span class="pagenum"><a name="page3" id=
+  "page3"></a>[pg 3]</span> Christian. They refused to return his
+  salutation, to join in prayer with him in the church, to sit with
+  him at the same table, to abide with him under the same roof. The
+  remnant of his meals and the food over which he had made the sign
+  of the cross they threw to their dogs or swine; the cup out of
+  which he had drunk they scoured with sand, as if it had
+  contracted defilement from his lips.'</p>
+
+  <p>It is not the Celtic memory only that is tenacious of national
+  wrong. The Saxon was doomed to drink to the dregs the same bitter
+  cup which he administered so unmercifully to the Briton. His
+  Teutonic blood saved him from no humiliation or insult. The
+  Normans seized all the lands, all the castles, all the pleasant
+  mansions, all the churches and monasteries. Even the Saxon saints
+  were flung down out of their shrines and trampled in the dust
+  under the iron heel of the Christian conqueror. Everything Saxon
+  was vile, and the word 'Englishry' implied as much contempt and
+  scorn as the word 'Irishry' in a later age. In fact, the
+  subjugated Saxons gradually became infected with all the vices
+  and addicted to all the social disorders that prevailed among the
+  Irish in the same age; only in Ireland the anarchy endured much
+  longer from the incompleteness of the conquest and the absence of
+  the seat of supreme government, which kept the races longer
+  separate and antagonistic. Perhaps the most humiliating notice of
+  the degrading effects of conquest on the noble Saxon race to be
+  found in history, is the language in which Giraldus Cambrensis,
+  the reviler of the Irish Celt, contrasts them with his
+  countrymen, the Welsh. 'Who dare,' he says, 'compare the English,
+  the most degraded of all races under heaven, with the Welsh? In
+  their own country they are the serfs, the veriest slaves of the
+  Normans. In ours whom else have we for our herdsmen, shepherds,
+  cobblers, skinners, cleaners of our dog kennels, ay, even of our
+  privies, but Englishmen? Not to mention their original treachery
+  to the Britons, that hired by them to defend them they turned
+  upon them in spite of their oaths and engagements, they are to
+  this day given to treachery and murder.' <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page4" id="page4"></a>[pg 4]</span> The lying
+  Saxon was, according to this authority, a proverbial
+  expression.</p>
+
+  <p>The Saxon writers lamented their miserable subjection in a
+  monotonous wail for many generations. So late as the seventeenth
+  century an English author speaks in terms of compassion of the
+  disinherited and despoiled families who had sunk into the
+  condition of artisans, peasants, and paupers. 'This,' says M.
+  Thierry, 'is the last sorrowful glance cast back through the mist
+  of ages on that great event which established in England a race
+  of kings, nobles, and warriors of foreign extraction. The reader
+  must figure to himself, not a mere change of political rule, not
+  the triumph of one of two competitors, but the intrusion of a
+  nation into the bosom of another people which it came to destroy,
+  and the scattered fragments of which it retained as an integral
+  portion of the new system of society, in the <i>status</i> merely
+  of personal property, or, to use the stronger language of records
+  and deeds, <i>a clothing of the soil</i>. He must not picture to
+  himself on the one hand the king and despot; on the other simply
+  his subjects, high and low, rich and poor, all inhabiting
+  England, and consequently all English. He must bear in mind that
+  there were two distinct nations&mdash;the old Anglo-Saxon race
+  and the Norman invaders, dwelling intermingled on the same soil;
+  or, rather, he might contemplate two countries&mdash;the one
+  possessed by the Normans, wealthy and exonerated from public
+  burdens, the other enslaved and oppressed with a land
+  tax&mdash;the former full of spacious mansions, of walled towns,
+  and moated castles&mdash;the latter occupied with thatched
+  cabins, and ancient walls in a state of dilapidation. This
+  peopled with the happy and the idle, with soldiers, courtiers,
+  knights, and nobles&mdash;that with miserable men condemned to
+  labour as peasants and artisans. On the one side he beholds
+  luxury and insolence, on the other poverty and envy&mdash;not the
+  envy of the poor at the sight of opulence and men born to
+  opulence, but that malignant envy, although justice be on its
+  side, which the despoiled cannot but entertain on looking upon
+  the spoilers. Lastly, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page5" id=
+  "page5"></a>[pg 5]</span> to complete the picture, these two
+  countries are in some sort interwoven with each other&mdash;they
+  meet at every point, and yet they are more distinct, more
+  completely separated, than if the ocean rolled between them.'</p>
+
+  <p>Does not this picture look very like Ireland? To make it more
+  like, let us imagine that the Norman king had lived in Paris, and
+  kept a viceroy in London&mdash;that the English parliament were
+  subordinate to the French parliament, composed exclusively of
+  Normans, and governed by Norman undertakers for the benefit of
+  the dominant State&mdash;that the whole of the English land was
+  held by ten thousand Norman proprietors, many of them
+  absentees&mdash;that all the offices of the government, in every
+  department, were in the hands of Normans&mdash;that, differing in
+  religion with the English nation, the French, being only a tenth
+  of the population, had got possession of all the national
+  churches and church property, while the poor natives supported a
+  numerous hierarchy by voluntary contributions&mdash;that the
+  Anglo-Norman parliament was bribed and coerced to abolish itself,
+  forming a union of England with France, in which the English
+  members were as one to six. Imagine that in consequence of
+  rebellions the land of England had been confiscated three or four
+  times, after desolating wars and famines, so that all the native
+  proprietors were expelled, and the land was parcelled out to
+  French soldiers and adventurers on condition that the foreign
+  'planters' should assist in keeping down 'the mere English' by
+  force of arms. Imagine that the English, being crushed by a cruel
+  penal code for a century, were allowed to reoccupy the soil as
+  mere tenants-at-will, under the absolute power of their French
+  landlords. If all this be imagined by English legislators and
+  English writers, they will be better able to understand the Irish
+  land question, and to comprehend the nature of 'Irish
+  difficulties,' as well as the justice of feeble, insincere, and
+  baffled statesmen in casting the blame of Irish misery and
+  disorder on the unruly and barbarous nature of Irishmen. They
+  will recollect that the aristocracy of Ireland are the
+  high-spirited descendants of conquerors, with the <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page6" id="page6"></a>[pg 6]</span> instinct
+  of conquest still in their blood. The parliament which enacted
+  the Irish land laws was a parliament composed almost exclusively
+  of men of this dominant race. They made all political power
+  dependent on the ownership of land, thus creating for themselves
+  a monopoly which it is not in human nature to surrender without a
+  struggle.</p>
+
+  <p>The possession of this monopoly, however, fully accounts for
+  two things&mdash;the difficulty which the landlords feel in
+  admitting the justice of the tenant's claims for the legal
+  recognition of the value which his labour has added to the soil,
+  and the extreme repugnance with which they regard any legislation
+  on the subject. Besides, the want of sympathy with the people, of
+  earnestness and courage in meeting the realities of the case, is
+  conspicuous in all attempts of the kind during the last
+  half-century. Those attempts have been evasive, feeble,
+  abortive&mdash;concessions to the demand that <i>something</i>
+  must be done, but so managed that nothing should be done to
+  weaken the power of the eight thousand proprietors over the mass
+  of the nation dependent on the land for their existence. Hence
+  has arisen a great amount of jealousy, distrust, and irritability
+  in the landlord class towards the tenantry and their
+  advocates.</p>
+
+  <p>The Irish race, to adopt Thierry's language, are full of
+  'malignant envy' towards the lords of the soil; not because they
+  are rich, but because they have the people so completely in their
+  power, so entirely at their mercy for all that man holds most
+  dear. The tenants feel bitterly when they think that they have no
+  legal right to live on their native land. They have read the
+  history of our dreadful civil wars, famines, and confiscations.
+  They know that by the old law of Ireland, and by custom from
+  times far beyond the reach of authentic history, the clans and
+  tribes of the Celtic people occupied certain districts with which
+  their names are still associated, and that the land was
+  inalienably theirs. Rent or tribute they paid, indeed, to their
+  princes, and if they failed the chiefs came with armed followers
+  and helped themselves, driving away <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page7" id="page7"></a>[pg 7]</span> cows,
+  sheep, and horses sufficient to meet their demand, or more if
+  they were unscrupulous, which was 'distress' with a vengeance.
+  But the eviction of the people even for non-payment of rent, and
+  putting other people in their place, were things never heard of
+  among the Irish under their own rulers. The chief had his own
+  mensal lands, as well as his tribute, and these he might forfeit.
+  But as the clansmen could not control his acts, they could never
+  see the justice of being punished for his misdeeds by the
+  confiscation of their lands, and driven from the homes of their
+  ancestors often made doubly sacred by religious associations.</p>
+
+  <p>History, moreover, teaches them that, as a matter of fact, the
+  government in the reign of James I.&mdash;and James himself in
+  repeated proclamations&mdash;assured the people who occupied the
+  lands of O'Neill and O'Donnell at the time of their flight that
+  they would be protected in all their rights if they remained
+  quiet and loyal, which they did. Yet they were nearly all removed
+  to make way for the English and Scotch settlers.</p>
+
+  <p>Thus, historical investigators have been digging around the
+  foundations of Irish landlordism. They declare that those
+  foundations were cemented with blood, and they point to the many
+  wounds still open from which that blood issued so profusely. The
+  facts of the conquest and confiscation were hinted at by the
+  Devon Commissioners as accounting for the peculiar difficulties
+  of the Irish land question, and writers on it timidly allude to
+  'the historic past' as originating influences still powerful in
+  alienating landlords and tenants, and fostering mutual distrust
+  between them. But the time for evasion and timidity has passed.
+  We must now honestly and courageously face the stern realities of
+  this case. Among these realities is a firm conviction in the
+  minds of many landlords that they are in no sense trustees for
+  the community, but that they have an absolute power over their
+  estates&mdash;that they can, if they like, strip the land clean
+  of its human clothing, and clothe it with sheep or cattle
+  instead, or lay it bare and desolate, let it lapse into a
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page8" id="page8"></a>[pg
+  8]</span> wilderness, or sow it with salt. That is in reality the
+  terrific power secured to them by the present land code, to be
+  executed through the Queen's writ and by the Queen's
+  troops&mdash;a power which could not stand a day if England did
+  not sustain it by overwhelming military force.</p>
+
+  <p>Another of the realities of the question is the no less
+  inveterate conviction in the tenants' mind that the absolute
+  power of the landlord was originally a usurpation effected by the
+  sword. Right or wrong, they believe that the confiscations were
+  the palpable violation of the natural rights of the people whom
+  Providence placed in this country. With bitter emphasis they
+  assert that no set of men has any divine right to root a nation
+  out of its own land. Painful as this state of feeling is, there
+  is no use in denying that it exists. Here, then, is the deep
+  radical difference that is to be removed. Here are the two
+  conflicting forces which are to be reconciled. This is the real
+  Irish land question. All other points are minor and of easy
+  adjustment. The people say, and, I believe, sincerely, that they
+  are willing to pay a fair rent, according to a public
+  valuation&mdash;not a rent imposed arbitrarily by one of the
+  interested parties, which might be raised so as to ruin the
+  occupier. The feelings of these two parties often clash so
+  violently, there is such instinctive distrust between them, the
+  peace and prosperity of the country depend so much on their
+  coming to terms and putting an end to their long-standing feud,
+  that it is still more imperatively necessary than in the Church
+  question, that a third party, independent, impartial, and
+  authoritative, should intervene and heal the breach.</p>
+
+  <p>There was one phrase constantly ringing in the ears of the
+  Devon Commissioners, and now, after nearly a generation has
+  passed away, it is ringing in the ears of the nation louder than
+  ever&mdash;'<i>the want of tenure</i>.' All the evidence went to
+  show that the want of security paralysed industry and impeded
+  social progress. It seems strange that any evidence should be
+  thought necesary to prove that a man will not sow if he does not
+  hope to reap, and that he will not build <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page9" id="page9"></a>[pg 9]</span> houses for
+  strangers to enjoy. This would be taken as an axiom anywhere out
+  of Ireland. Of all the people in Europe, the Irish have suffered
+  most from the oppression of those who, from age to age, had power
+  in the country. Whoever fought or conquered, they were always the
+  victims; and it is a singular fact that their sufferings are
+  scarcely ever noticed by the contemporary annalists, even when
+  those annalists were ecclesiastics. The extent to which they were
+  slaughtered in the perpetual wars between the native chiefs, and
+  in the wars between those chiefs and the English, is something
+  awful to contemplate, not to speak of the wholesale destruction
+  of life by the famines which those wars entailed. On several
+  occasions the Celtic race seemed very nearly extinct. The penal
+  code, with all its malign influence, had one good effect. It
+  subdued to a great extent the fighting propensities of the
+  people, and fused the clans into one nation, purified by
+  suffering. Since that time, in spite of occasional visitations of
+  calamity, they have been steadily rising in the social scale, and
+  they are now better off than ever they were in their whole
+  history. When we review the stages by which they have risen, we
+  cannot but feel at times grieved and indignant at the
+  opportunities for tranquillising and enriching the country which
+  were lost through the ignorance, apathy, bigotry, and selfishness
+  of the legislature. There was no end of commissions and select
+  committees to inquire into the condition of the agricultural
+  population, whenever Parliament was roused by the prevalence of
+  agrarian outrages. They reported, and there the matter ended.
+  There were always insuperable difficulties when the natives were
+  to be put in a better position. Between 1810 and 1814, for
+  example, a commission reported four times on the condition of the
+  Irish bogs. They expressed their entire conviction of the
+  practicability of cultivating with profit an immense extent of
+  land lying waste. In 1819, in 1823, in 1826, and in 1830, select
+  committees inquired into and reported on drainage, reclamation of
+  bogs and marshes, on roads, fisheries, emigration, and other
+  schemes for giving employment to the <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page10" id="page10"></a>[pg 10]</span>
+  redundant population that had been encouraged to increase and
+  multiply in the most reckless manner, while 'war prices' were
+  obtained for agricultural produce, and the votes of the
+  forty-shilling freeholders were wanted by the landlords. When, by
+  the Emancipation Act in 1829, the forty-shilling franchise was
+  abolished, the peasant lost his political value. After the war,
+  when the price of corn fell very low, and, consequently, tillage
+  gave place to grazing, labourers became to the middleman an
+  encumbrance and a nuisance that must be cleared off the land,
+  just as weeds are plucked up and flung out to wither on the
+  highway. Then came Lord Devon's Land Commission, which inquired
+  on the eve of the potato failure and the great famine. The Irish
+  population was now at its highest figure&mdash;between eight and
+  nine millions. Yet, though there had been three bad seasons, it
+  was clearly proved at that time that by measures which a wise and
+  willing legislature would have promptly passed, the whole surplus
+  population could have been profitably employed.</p>
+
+  <p>In this great land controversy, on which side lies the truth?
+  Is it the fault of the people, or the fault of the law, that the
+  country is but half cultivated, while the best of the peasantry
+  are emigrating with hostile feelings and purposes of vengeance
+  towards England? As to the landlords, as a class, they use their
+  powers with as much moderation and mercy as any other class of
+  men in any country ever used power so vast and so little
+  restrained. The best and most indulgent landlords, the most
+  genial and generous, are unquestionably the old nobility, the
+  descendants of the Normans and Saxons, those very conquerors of
+  whom we have heard so much. The worst, the most harsh and
+  exacting, are those who have purchased under the Landed Estates
+  Court&mdash;strangers to the people, who think only of the
+  percentage on their capital. We had heard much of the necessity
+  of capital to develope the resources of the land. The capital
+  came, but the development consists in turning tillage lands into
+  pasture, clearing out the labouring population and <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page11" id="page11"></a>[pg 11]</span> sending
+  them to the poorhouse, or shipping them off at a few pounds per
+  head to keep down the rates. And yet is it not possible to set
+  all our peasantry to work at the profitable cultivation of their
+  native land? Is it not possible to establish by law what many
+  landlords act upon as the rule of their estates&mdash;namely, the
+  principle that no man is to be evicted so long as he pays a fair
+  rent, and the other principle, that whenever he fails, he is
+  entitled to the market value by public sale of all the property
+  in his holding beyond that fair rent? The hereditary principle,
+  rightly cherished among the landlords, so conservative in its
+  influence, ought to be equally encouraged among the tenants. The
+  man of industry, as well as the man of rank, should be able to
+  feel that he is providing for his children, that his farm is at
+  once a bank and an insurance office, in which all his minute
+  daily deposits of toil and care and skill will be safe and
+  productive. This is the way to enrich and strengthen the State,
+  and to multiply guarantees against revolution&mdash;not by
+  consolidation of farms and the abandonment of tillage, not by
+  degrading small holders into day labourers, levelling the
+  cottages and filling the workhouses.</p>
+
+  <p>If the legislature were guided by the spirit that animates
+  Lord Erne in his dealings with his tenantry, the land question
+  would soon be settled to the satisfaction of all parties. 'I
+  think,' said his lordship, 'as far as possible, every tenant on
+  my estate may call his farm his castle, as long as he conducts
+  himself honestly, quietly, and industriously; and, should he wish
+  to leave in order to find a better landlord, I allow him to sell
+  his farm, provided he pleases me in a tenant. Therefore, if a man
+  lays out money on his farm judiciously, he is certain to receive
+  back the money, should he wish to go elsewhere.' He mentioned
+  three cases of sale which occurred last year. One tenant sold a
+  farm of seventy acres in bad order for 570<i>l.</i>, another
+  thirty acres for 300<i>l.</i>, and a third the same number of
+  acres in worse condition for 200<i>l.</i> The landlord lost
+  nothing by these changes. His rent was paid up, and in each case
+  he got a good tenant for <span class="pagenum"><a name="page12"
+  id="page12"></a>[pg 12]</span> a bad one. Lord Erne is a just
+  man, and puts on no more than a fair rent. But all landlords are
+  not just, as all tenants are not honest. Even where tenant-right
+  is admitted in name, it is obvious that the rent may be raised so
+  high as to make the farm worth nothing in the market. To give to
+  the tenant throughout the country generally the pleasant feeling
+  that his farm is his castle, which he can make worth more money
+  every day he rises, there must be a public letting valuation, and
+  this the State could easily provide. And then there should be the
+  right of sale to the highest solvent bidder.</p>
+
+  <p>This might be one way of securing permanent tenure, or
+  stimulating the industry and sustaining the thrift of the farmer.
+  But the nature of the different tenures, and the effect of each
+  in bracing up or relaxing the nerves of industry, will be the
+  object of deliberation with the Government and the legislature.
+  It is said that, in the hands of small farmers, proprietorship
+  leads to endless subdivision; that long leases generally cause
+  bad husbandry; that tenants-at-will often feel themselves more
+  secure and safe than a contract could make them; that families
+  have lived on the same farm for generations without a scrape of a
+  pen except the receipt for rent. On the other hand, there is the
+  general cry of 'want of tenure;' there is the custom of serving
+  notices to quit, sometimes for other reasons than non-payment of
+  rent; there are occasional barbarities in the levelling of
+  villages, and dragging the aged and the sick from the old
+  roof-tree, the parting from which rends their heart-strings; and,
+  above all, there is the feeling among the peasantry which makes
+  them look without horror on the murder of a landlord or an agent
+  who was a kind and benevolent neighbour; and, lastly, the
+  paramount consideration for the legislature, that a large portion
+  of the people are disaffected to the State, and ready to join its
+  enemies, and this almost solely on account of the state of the
+  law relating to land. Hence the necessity of settling the
+  question as speedily as possible, and the duty of all who have
+  the means to contribute <span class="pagenum"><a name="page13"
+  id="page13"></a>[pg 13]</span> something towards that most
+  desirable consummation, which seems to be all that is wanted to
+  make Irishmen of every class work together earnestly for the
+  welfare of their country. It is admitted that no class of men in
+  the world has improved more than the Irish landlords during the
+  last twenty years. Let the legislature restore confidence between
+  them and the people by taking away all ground for the suspicion
+  that they wish to extirpate the Celtic race.</p>
+
+  <p>Nor was this suspicion without cause, as the following history
+  will too clearly prove. A very able English writer has said: 'The
+  policy of all the successive swarms of settlers was to extirpate
+  the native Celtic race, but every effort made to break up the old
+  framework of society failed, for the new-comers soon became
+  blended with and undistinguishable from the mass of the
+  people&mdash;being obliged to ally themselves with the native
+  chieftains, rather than live hemmed in by a fiery ring of angry
+  septs and exposed to perpetual war with everything around them.
+  Merged in the great Celtic mass, they adopted Irish manners and
+  names, yet proscribed and insulted the native inhabitants as an
+  inferior race. Everything liberal towards them is intercepted in
+  its progress.</p>
+
+  <p>'The past history of Ulster is but a portion of Scottish
+  history inserted into that of Ireland&mdash;a stone in the Irish
+  mosaic of an entirely different quality and colour from the
+  pieces that surround it.</p>
+
+  <p>'Thus it came to pass that, through the confiscation of their
+  lands and the proscription of their religion, popery was worked
+  by a most vehement process into the blood and brain of the Irish
+  nation.'</p>
+
+  <p>It has been often said that the Irish must be an inferior
+  race, since they allowed themselves to be subjugated by some
+  thousands of English invaders. But it should be recollected,
+  first, that the conquest, commenced by Henry II. in the twelfth
+  century, was not completed till the seventeenth century, when the
+  King's writ ran for the first time through <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page14" id="page14"></a>[pg 14]</span> the
+  province of Ulster, the ancient kingdom of the O'Neills; in the
+  second place, the weakness of the Celtic communities was not so
+  much the fault of the men as of their institutions, brought with
+  them from the East and clung to with wonderful tenacity. So long
+  as they had boundless territory for their flocks and herds, and
+  could always move on 'to pastures new,' they increased and
+  multiplied, and allowed the sword and the battle-axe to rest,
+  unless when a newly elected chief found it necessary to give his
+  followers 'a hosting'&mdash;which means an expedition for
+  plunder. Down to the seventeenth century, after five hundred
+  years' contact with the Teutonic race, they were essentially the
+  same people as they were when the ancient Greeks and Romans knew
+  them. They are thus described by Dr. Mommsen in his 'History of
+  Rome:'&mdash;'Such qualities&mdash;those of good soldiers and of
+  bad citizens&mdash;explain the historical fact that the Celts
+  have shaken all States and have <i>founded none</i>. Everywhere
+  we find them ready to rove, or, in other words, to march,
+  preferring movable property to landed estate, and gold to
+  everything else; following the profession of arms as a system of
+  organised pillage, or even as a trade for hire, and with such
+  success that even the Roman historian, Sallust, acknowledges that
+  the Celts bore off the prize from the Romans in feats of arms.
+  They were the true 'soldiers of fortune' of antiquity, as
+  pictures and descriptions represent them, with big but sinewy
+  bodies, with shaggy hair and long moustaches&mdash;quite a
+  contrast to the Greeks and Romans, who shaved the upper
+  lip&mdash;in the variegated embroidered dresses which in combat
+  were not unfrequently thrown off, with a broad gold ring round
+  their neck, wearing no helmets and without missile weapons of any
+  sort, but furnished instead with an immense shield, a long
+  ill-tempered sword, a dagger and a lance, all ornamented with
+  gold, for they were not unskilful in working in metals.
+  Everything was made subservient to ostentation&mdash;even wounds,
+  which were often enlarged for the purpose of boasting a broader
+  scar. Usually they fought on foot, but certain tribes on
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page15" id="page15"></a>[pg
+  15]</span> horseback, in which case every free man was followed
+  by two attendants, likewise mounted. War-chariots were early in
+  use, as they were among the Libyans and Hellenes in the earliest
+  times. Many a trait reminds us of the chivalry of the middle
+  ages, particularly the custom of single combat, which was foreign
+  to the Greeks and Romans. Not only were they accustomed in war to
+  challenge a single enemy to fight, after having previously
+  insulted him by words and gestures; in peace also they fought
+  with each other in splendid equipments, as for life or death.
+  After such feats carousals followed in due course. In this way
+  they led, whether under their own or a foreign banner, a restless
+  soldier life, constantly occupied in fighting and in their
+  so-called feats of heroism. They were dispersed from
+  <i>Ireland</i> and Spain to Asia Minor, but all their enterprises
+  melted away like snow in spring, and they nowhere created a great
+  state or developed a distinctive culture of their own.' Such were
+  the people who once almost terminated the existence of Rome, and
+  were afterwards with difficulty repulsed from Greece, who became
+  masters of the most fertile part of Italy and of a fair province
+  in the heart of Asia Minor, who, after their Italian province had
+  been subdued, inflicted disastrous blows on successive Roman
+  generals, and were only at last subjugated by C&#230;sar
+  himself in nine critical and sometimes most dangerous campaigns,
+  B.C. 51.</p>
+
+  <p>Niebuhr observes that at that time the form of government was
+  everywhere an hereditary monarchy, which, when C&#230;sar
+  went into Gaul, had been swallowed up, as had the authority of
+  the Senate, in the anarchy of the nobles. Their freedom was
+  lawlessness; an inherent incapacity of living under the dominion
+  of laws distinguishes them as barbarians from the Greeks and
+  Italians. As individuals had to procure the protection of some
+  magnate in order to live in safety, so the weaker tribes took
+  shelter under the patronage of a more powerful one. For they were
+  a disjointed multitude; and when any people had in this manner
+  acquired an extensive <span class="pagenum"><a name="page16" id=
+  "page16"></a>[pg 16]</span> sovereignty, they exercised it
+  arbitrarily until its abuses became intolerable, or their
+  subjects were urged by blind hatred of their power to fall off
+  from them, and gather round some new centre. The sole bond of
+  union was the Druidical hierarchy which, at least in
+  C&#230;sar's time, was common to both nations. Both of them
+  paid obedience to its tribunal, which administered justice once a
+  year&mdash;an institution which probably was not introduced till
+  long after the age of migrations, when the expulsion of the
+  vanquished had ceased to be regarded as the end of war, and which
+  must have been fostered by the constant growth of lawlessness in
+  particular states&mdash;being upheld by the <i>ban</i>, which
+  excluded the contumacious from all intercourse in divine worship
+  and in daily life with the faithful. The huge bodies, wild
+  features, and long shaggy hair of the men, gave a ghastliness to
+  their aspect. This, along with their fierce courage, their
+  countless numbers, and the noise made by an enormous multitude of
+  horns and trumpets, struck the armies arrayed against them with
+  fear and amazement. If these, however, did not allow their terror
+  to overpower them, the want of order, discipline, and
+  perseverance would often enable an inferior number to vanquish a
+  vast host of the barbarians. Besides, they were but ill equipped.
+  Few of them wore any armour; their narrow shields, which were of
+  the same height with their bodies, were weak and clumsy; they
+  rushed upon their enemies with broad thin battle-swords of bad
+  steel, which the first blow upon iron often notched and rendered
+  useless. Like true savages, they destroyed the inhabitants, the
+  towns, and the agriculture of the countries they conquered. They
+  cut off the heads of the slain, and tied them by the hair to the
+  manes of their horses. If a skull belonged to a person of rank,
+  they nailed it up in their houses and preserved it as an heirloom
+  for their posterity, as the nobles in rude ages do stag-horns.
+  Towns were rare amongst them; the houses and the villages, which
+  were very numerous, were mean, the furniture wretched&mdash;a
+  heap of straw covered with skins served both for a bed and a
+  seat. They did not cultivate <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page17" id="page17"></a>[pg 17]</span> corn save for a very
+  limited consumption, for the main part of their food was the milk
+  and the flesh of their cattle. These formed their wealth. Gold,
+  too, they had in abundance, derived partly from the sandy beds of
+  their rivers, partly from some mines which these had led them to
+  discover. It was worn in ornaments by every Gaul of rank. In
+  battle he bore gold chains on his arms and heavy gold collars
+  round his neck, even when the upper part of his body was in other
+  respects quite naked. For they often threw off their
+  parti-coloured chequered cloaks, which shone with all the hues of
+  the rainbow, like the picturesque dress of their kinspeople the
+  Highlanders, who have laid aside the trousers of the ancient
+  Gauls. Their duels and gross revels are an image of the rudest
+  part of the middle ages. Their debauches were mostly committed
+  with beer and mead; for vines and all the plants of southern
+  regions were as yet total strangers to the north of the Alps,
+  where the climate in those ages was extremely severe; so that
+  wine was rare, though of all the commodities imported it was the
+  most greedily bought up.</p>
+
+  <p>Ulster was known in ancient times as one of the five Irish
+  'kingdoms,' and remained unconquered by the English till the
+  reign of James I., when the last prince of the great house of
+  O'Neill, then Earl of Tyrone, fled to the Continent in company
+  with O'Donel, Earl of Tyrconnel, head of another very ancient
+  sept. Up to that period the men of Ulster proudly regarded
+  themselves as 'Irish of the Irish and Catholic of the Catholics.'
+  The inhabitants were of mixed blood, but, as in the other
+  provinces of the island, the great mass of the people, as well as
+  the ruling classes, were of Celtic origin. Those whom
+  ethnologists still recognise as aborigines, in parts of Connaught
+  and in some mountainous regions, an inferior race, are said to be
+  the descendants of the Firbolgs, or Belgae, who formed the third
+  immigration. They were followed and subdued by the Tuatha de
+  Danans&mdash;men famed for their gigantic power and supernatural
+  skill&mdash;a race of demigods, who still live in the
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page18" id="page18"></a>[pg
+  18]</span> national superstitions. The last of the ancient
+  invasions was by the Gael or Celt, known as the Milesians and
+  Scoti. The institutions and customs of this people were
+  established over the whole island, and were so deeply rooted in
+  the soil that their remnants to this day present the greatest
+  obstacles to the settlement of the land question according to the
+  English model, and on the principles of political economy, which
+  run directly counter to Irish instincts. It is truly wonderful
+  how distinctly the present descendants of this race preserve the
+  leading features of their primitive character. In France and
+  England the Celtic character was moulded by the power and
+  discipline of the Roman Empire. To Ireland this modifying
+  influence never extended; and we find the Ulster chiefs who
+  fought for their territories with English viceroys 280 years ago
+  very little different from the men who followed Brennus to the
+  sack of Home, and encountered the legions of Julius
+  C&#230;sar on the plains of Gaul.</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Prendergast observes, in the introduction to his
+  'Cromwellian Settlement' that when the companions of Strongbow
+  landed in the reign of Henry II. they found a country such as
+  C&#230;sar had found in Gaul 1200 years before. A thousand
+  years had passed over the island without producing the slightest
+  social progress&mdash;'the inhabitants divided into tribes on the
+  system of the clansmen and chiefs, without a common Government,
+  suddenly confederating, suddenly dissolving, with Brehons,
+  Shaunahs, minstrels, bards, and harpers, in all unchanged, except
+  that for their ancient Druids they had got Christian priests. Had
+  the Irish remained honest pagans, Ireland perhaps had remained
+  unconquered still. Round the coast strangers had built seaport
+  towns, either traders from the Carthaginian settlements in Spain,
+  or outcasts from their own country, like the Greeks that built
+  Marseilles. At the time of the arrival of the French and Flemish
+  adventurers from Wales, they were occupied by a mixed Danish and
+  French population, who supplied the Irish with groceries,
+  including the wines of Poitou, the latter in such abundance that
+  they had no need of vineyards.'</p><span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page19" id="page19"></a>[pg 19]</span>
+
+  <p>If vineyards had been needed, we may be sure they would not
+  have been planted, for the Irish Celts planted nothing. Neither
+  did they build, except in the simplest and rudest way, improving
+  their architecture from age to age no more than the beaver or the
+  bee. Mr. Prendergast is an able, honest, and frank writer; yet
+  there is something amusingly Celtic in the flourish with which he
+  excuses the style of palaces in which the Irish princes delighted
+  to dwell. 'Unlike England,' he says, 'then covered with castles
+  on the heights, where the French gentlemen secured themselves and
+  their families against the hatred of the churls and villains, as
+  the English peasantry were called, the dwellings of the Irish
+  chiefs were of wattles or clay. It is for robbers and foreigners
+  to take to rocks and precipices for security; for native rulers,
+  there is no such fortress <i>as justice and humanity</i>.' This
+  is very fine, but surely Mr. Prendergast cannot mean that the
+  Irish chiefs were distinguished by their justice and humanity.
+  The following touch is still grander:&mdash;'The Irish, like the
+  wealthiest and highest of the present day, loved detached houses
+  surrounded by fields and woods. Towns and their walls they looked
+  upon as tombs or sepulchres, &amp;c.' As to fields, there were
+  none, because the Irish never made fences, their patches of
+  cultivated land being divided by narrow strips of green sod.
+  Besides, they lived in villages, which were certainly surrounded
+  by woods, because the woods were everywhere, and they furnished
+  the inhabitants with fuel and shelter, as well as materials for
+  building their huts.</p>
+
+  <p>But further on this able author expresses himself much more in
+  accordance with the truth of history, when he states that the
+  'Irish enemy' was no <i>nation</i> in the modern sense of the
+  word, but a race divided into many nations or tribes,
+  <i>separately</i> defending their lands from the English barons
+  in the immediate neighbourhood. There had been no ancient
+  national government displaced, no dynasty overthrown; the Irish
+  had <i>no national flag</i>, nor any capital city as the
+  metropolis of their common country, nor any common <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page20" id="page20"></a>[pg 20]</span>
+  administration of law.' He might have added that they had no
+  <i>mint</i>. There never was an Irish king who had his face
+  stamped on a coin of his realm. Some stray pieces of money found
+  their way into the country from abroad, but up to the close of
+  the sixteenth century the rudest form of barter prevailed in
+  Ulster, and accounts were paid not in coins but in cows. Even the
+  mechanical arts which had flourished in the country before the
+  arrival of the Celts had gradually perished, and had disappeared
+  at the time of the English invasion. Any handy men could build a
+  house of mud and wattles. Masons, carpenters, smiths, painters,
+  glaziers, &amp;c., were not wanted by a people who despised stone
+  buildings as prisons, and abhorred walled towns as sepulchres.
+  Spinning and weaving were arts cultivated by the women, each
+  household providing materials for clothing, which was little used
+  in warm weather, and thrown off when fighting or any other
+  serious work was to be done.</p>
+
+  <p>I should be sorry to disparage the Celtic race, or any other
+  race, by exaggerating their bad qualities or suppressing any
+  reliable testimony to their merits. But with me the truth of
+  history is sacred. Both sides of every case should be fairly
+  stated. Nothing can be gained by striving to hide facts which may
+  be known to every person who takes the trouble to study the
+  subject. I write in the interest of the people&mdash;of the
+  toiling masses; and I find that they were oppressed and degraded
+  by the ruling classes long before the Norman invader took the
+  place of the Celtic chief. And it is a curious fact that when the
+  Cromwellians turned the Catholic population out of their homes
+  and drove them into Connaught, they were but following the
+  example set them by the Milesian lords of the soil centuries
+  before.</p>
+
+  <p>The late Mr. Darcy Magee, a real lover of his country, in his
+  Irish history points out this fact. The Normans found the
+  population divided into two great classes&mdash;the free tribes,
+  chiefly if not exclusively Celtic, and the unfree tribes,
+  consisting of the descendants of the subjugated races, or of
+  clans once free, reduced to servitude by the sword, and
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page21" id="page21"></a>[pg
+  21]</span> the offspring of foreign mercenary soldiers. 'The
+  unfree tribes,' says Mr. Darcy Magee, 'have left no history.
+  Under the despotism of the Milesian kings, it was high treason to
+  record the actions of the conquered race, so that the Irish
+  Belgae fared as badly in this respect at the hands of the
+  Milesian historians as the latter fared in after times from the
+  chroniclers of the Normans. We only know that such tribes were,
+  and that their numbers and physical force more than once excited
+  the apprehension of the children of the conquerors. One thing is
+  certain&mdash;the jealous policy of the superior race never
+  permitted them to reascend the plane of equality from which they
+  had been hurled at the very commencement of the Milesian
+  ascendency.'</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Haverty, another Catholic historian, learned, accurate,
+  and candid, laments the oppression of the people by their native
+  rulers. 'Those who boasted descent from the Scytho-Spanish hero
+  would have considered themselves degraded were they to devote
+  themselves to any less honourable profession than those of
+  soldiers, <i>ollavs</i>, or physicians; and hence the cultivation
+  of the soil and the exercise of the mechanic arts were left
+  almost exclusively to the <i>Firbolgs</i> and the
+  <i>Tuatha-de-Danans</i>&mdash;the former people, in particular,
+  being still very numerous, and forming the great mass of the
+  population in the west. These were ground down by high rents and
+  the exorbitant exactions of the dominant race, <i>in order to
+  support their unbounded hospitality</i> and defray the expenses
+  of costly assemblies; but this oppression must have caused
+  perpetual discontent, and the hard-working plebeians, as they
+  were called, easily perceived that their masters were running
+  headlong to destruction, and that it only required a bold effort
+  to shake off their yoke.' Then follows an account of a civil war,
+  one of the leaders of the revolution being elected king at its
+  termination. Carbry reigned five years, during which time there
+  was no rule or order, and the country was a prey to every
+  misfortune. 'Evil was the state of Ireland during his reign;
+  fruitless her corn, for there used to be but one <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page22" id="page22"></a>[pg 22]</span> grain
+  on the stalk; and fruitless her rivers; her cattle without milk;
+  her fruit without plenty, for there used to be but one acorn on
+  the oak.'</p>
+
+  <p>Dr. Lynch, author of <i>Cambrensis Eversus</i>, expresses his
+  astonishment at the great number of ancient Irish kings, most of
+  whom were cut off by a violent death, each hewing his way to the
+  throne over the body of his predecessor. But upon applying his
+  mind to the more profound consideration of the matter, he found
+  nothing more wonderful in the phenomenon 'than that the human
+  family should proceed from one man&mdash;the overflowing harvest
+  from a few grains of seed, &amp;c.' His learned translator, the
+  Rev. Matthew Kelly, of Maynooth, sees proof of amendment in the
+  fact that between 722 and 1022 twelve Irish kings died a natural
+  death. This candid and judicious writer observes in a
+  note&mdash;'It appears from the Irish and English annals that
+  there was perpetual war in Ireland during more than 400 years
+  after the invasion. It could not be called a war of races, except
+  perhaps during the first century, for English and Irish are
+  constantly found fighting under the same banner, according to the
+  varying interests of the rival lords and princes of both nations.
+  This was the case even from the commencement.'<a id=
+  "footnotetag1" name="footnotetag1"></a><a href=
+  "#footnote1"><sup>1</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>Many persons have wondered at the success of small bands of
+  English invaders. Why did not the Irish nation rise <i>en
+  masse</i>, and drive them into the sea? The answer is easy. There
+  was no Irish nation. About half a million of people were
+  scattered over the island in villages, divided into tribes
+  generally at war with one another, each chief ready to accept
+  foreign aid against his adversary&mdash;some, perhaps, hoping
+  thereby to attain supremacy in their clans, and others, who were
+  pretenders, burning to be avenged of those who had supplanted
+  them. It was religion that first gave the Irish race a common
+  cause. In the very year of the English invasion (1171) there were
+  no fewer than twenty predatory excursions or battles among the
+  Irish chiefs themselves, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page23"
+  id="page23"></a>[pg 23]</span> exclusive of contests with the
+  invaders. Hence the Pope said&mdash;'<i>Gens se interimit mutua
+  c&#230;de</i>.' The Pope was right.</p>
+
+  <p>The clergy exerted themselves to the utmost in trying to
+  exorcise the demon of destruction and to arrest the work of
+  extermination. Not only the <i>Bashall Isa</i>, or 'the staff of
+  Jesus,' but many other relics were used with the most solemn
+  rites, to impress the people with a sense of the wickedness of
+  their clan-fights, and to induce them to keep the peace, but in
+  vain. The King of Connaught once broke a truce entered into under
+  every possible sanction of this kind, trampling upon all, that he
+  might get the King of Meath into his clutches. Hence the Rev. Mr.
+  Kelly is constrained to say&mdash;'It is now generally admitted
+  by Catholic writers that however great the efforts of the Irish
+  clergy to reform their distracted country in the eleventh and
+  twelfth centuries, the picture of anarchy drawn by Pope Adrian is
+  hardly overcharged.' Indeed, some Catholic writers have confessed
+  that the anarchy would never have been terminated except by
+  foreign conquest establishing a strong central government. This,
+  however, was not accomplished till after a struggle of centuries,
+  during which, except in brief intervals, when a strong prince was
+  able to protect his people, the national demoralisation grew
+  worse and worse. An Oxford priest, who kept a school at Limerick,
+  writing so late as 1566 of the Irish nobles, says&mdash;'Of late
+  they spare neither churches nor hallowed places, but thence also
+  they fill their hands with spoil&mdash;yea, and sometimes they
+  set them on fire and kill the men that there lie hidden.'</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Froude, following the Irish MSS. in the Rolls House, has
+  presented graphic pictures of the disorders of the Irishry in the
+  reign of Queen Mary. 'The English garrison,' he says, 'harassed
+  and pillaged the farmers of Meath and Dublin; the chiefs made
+  forays upon each other, killing, robbing, and burning. When the
+  war broke out between England and France, there were the usual
+  conspiracies and uprisings of <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page24" id="page24"></a>[pg 24]</span> nationality; the young
+  Earl of Kildare, in reward to the Queen who had restored him to
+  his rank, appearing as the natural leader of the patriots.
+  Ireland was thus happy in the gratification of all its natural
+  tendencies. The Brehon law readvanced upon the narrow limits to
+  which, by the exertions of Henry VIII., the circuits of the
+  judges had been extended. And with the Brehon law came anarchy as
+  its inseparable attendant.'</p>
+
+  <p>The correctness of this view is too well attested by the
+  records which the learned historian brings to light, adopting the
+  quaint and expressive phraseology of the old writers whom he
+  quotes. For example:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'The lords and gentiles of the Irish Pale that were not
+  governed under the Queen's laws were compelled to keep and
+  maintain a great number of idle men of war to rule their people
+  at home, and exact from their neighbours abroad&mdash;working
+  everyone his own wilful will for a law&mdash;to the spoil of his
+  country, and decay and waste of the common weal of the same. The
+  idle men of war ate up altogether; the lord and his men took what
+  they pleased, destroying their tenants, and themselves never the
+  better. The common people, having nothing left to lose, became as
+  idle and careless in their behaviour as the rest, stealing by day
+  and robbing by night. Yet it was a state of things which they
+  seemed all equally to enjoy, and high and low alike were always
+  ready to bury their own quarrels, to join against the Queen and
+  the English.'</p>
+
+  <p>At the time when the crown passed to Elizabeth the qualities
+  of the people were thus described by a correspondent of the
+  council, who presents the English view of the Irishry at that
+  time:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'The appearance and outward behaviour of the Irish showeth
+  them to be fruits of no good tree, for they exercise no virtue
+  and refrain and forbear from no vice, but think it lawful to do
+  every man what him listeth. They neither love nor dread God, nor
+  yet hate the devil. They are worshippers of images and open
+  idolaters. Their common <span class="pagenum"><a name="page25"
+  id="page25"></a>[pg 25]</span> oath they swear is by books,
+  bells, and other ornaments which they do use as holy religion.
+  Their chief and solemnest oath is by their lord or master's hand,
+  which whoso forsweareth is sure to pay a fine or sustain a worse
+  turn. The Sabbath-day they rest from all honest exercises, and
+  the week days they are not idle, but worse occupied. They do not
+  honour their father and mother as much as they do reverence
+  strangers. For every murder that they commit they do not so soon
+  repent, for whose blood they once shed, they lightly never cease
+  killing all that name. They do not so commonly commit adultery;
+  not for that they profess or keep chastity, but for that they
+  seldom or never marry, and therefore few of them are lawful
+  heirs, by the law of the realm, to the lands they possess. They
+  steal but from the strong, and take by violence from the poor and
+  weak. They know not so well who is their neighbour as who they
+  favour; with him they will witness in right and wrong. They covet
+  not their neighbours' good, but command all that is their
+  neighbours' as their own. Thus they live and die, and there is
+  none to teach them better. There are no ministers. Ministers will
+  not take pains where there is no living to be had, neither church
+  nor parish, but all decayed. People will not come to inhabit
+  where there is no defence of law.'</p>
+
+  <p>After six years of <i>discipline and improvement</i> Sir Henry
+  Sidney, in 1566, described the state of the four shires, the
+  Irish inhabitants, and the English garrison, in the following
+  terms:&mdash;'The <i>English Pale</i> is overwhelmed with
+  vagabonds&mdash;stealth and spoil daily carried out of
+  it&mdash;the people miserable&mdash;not two gentlemen in the
+  whole of it able to lend 20<i>l.</i> They have neither horse nor
+  armour, nor apparel, nor victual. The soldiers be so beggerlike
+  as it would abhor a general to look on them; yet so insolent as
+  to be intolerable to the people, so rooted in idleness as there
+  is no hope by correction to amend them, yet so allied with the
+  Irish, I dare not trust them in a forte, or in any dangerous
+  service.'</p>
+
+  <p>A sort of 'special correspondent' or 'commissioner,' as we
+  should call him now, furnished to Cecil a detailed account of
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page26" id="page26"></a>[pg
+  26]</span> the social condition of the people, which of course he
+  viewed with English eyes. He found existing among them a general
+  organisation wherever the Irish language was spoken&mdash;the
+  remnants of a civilisation very ancient, but now fast tending to
+  ruin. Next to the chiefs were the priesthood, and after them came
+  a kind of intellectual hierarchy, consisting of four classes of
+  spiritual leaders and teachers, which were thus described. The
+  first was called the Brehon, or the judge. These judges took
+  'pawns' of both the parties, and then judged according to their
+  own discretion. Their property was neutral, and the Irishmen
+  would not prey upon them. They had great plenty of cattle, and
+  they harboured many vagabonds and idle persons. They were the
+  chief maintainers of rebels, but when the English army came to
+  their neighbourhood they fled to the mountains and woods 'because
+  they would not succour them with victuals and other necessaries.'
+  The next sort was called <i>Shankee</i>, who had also great
+  plenty of cattle wherewith they succoured the rebels. They made
+  the ignorant men of the country believe that they were descended
+  from Alexander the Great, or Darius, or C&#230;sar, 'or some
+  other notable prince, which made the ignorant people run mad, and
+  care not what they did.' This, the correspondent remarked, 'was
+  very hurtful to the realm.' Not less hurtful were the third sort
+  called <i>Denisdan</i>, who not only maintained the rebels, but
+  caused those that would be true to become
+  rebellious&mdash;'thieves, extortioners, murderers, raveners,
+  yea, and worse if it was possible.' These seem to have been the
+  historians or chroniclers of the tribe. If they saw a young man,
+  the descendant of an O' or a Mac, with half a dozen followers,
+  they forthwith made a rhyme about his father and his ancestors,
+  numbering how many heads they had cut off, how many towns they
+  had burned, how many virgins they had deflowered, how many
+  notable murders they had done, comparing them to Hannibal, or
+  Scipio, or Hercules, or some other famous
+  person&mdash;'wherewithal the poor fool runs mad, and thinks
+  indeed it is so.' Then he will gather a lot of rascals about him,
+  and get a fortune-teller <span class="pagenum"><a name="page27"
+  id="page27"></a>[pg 27]</span> to prophesy how he is to speed.
+  After these preliminaries he betakes himself with his followers
+  at night to the side of a wood, where they lurk till morning. And
+  when it is daylight, then will they go to the poor villages, not
+  sparing to destroy young infants and aged people; and if a woman
+  be ever so great with child, her will they kill, burning the
+  houses and corn, and ransacking the poor cots; then will they
+  drive away all the kine and plough-horses, with all the other
+  cattle. Then must they have a bagpipe blowing before them, and if
+  any of the cattle fortune to wax weary or faint they will kill
+  them rather than it should do the owner good; and if they go by
+  any house of friars, or religious house, they will give them two
+  or three beeves, and they will take them and pray for them, yea,
+  and praise their doings, and say, 'His father was accustomed so
+  to do, wherein he will rejoice.' The fourth class consisted of
+  'poets.' These men had great store of cattle, and 'used all the
+  trade of the others with an addition of prophecies. They were
+  maintainers of witches and other vile matters, to the blasphemy
+  of God, and to the impoverishing of the commonwealth.'</p>
+
+  <p>These four septs were divided in all places of the four
+  quarters of Ireland, and some of the islands beyond Ireland, as
+  Aran, the land of the Saints, Innisbuffen, Innisturk, Innismain,
+  and Innisclare. These islands, he added, were under the rule of
+  O'Neill, and they were 'very pleasant and fertile, plenty of
+  wood, water, and arable ground, pastures, and fish, and a very
+  temperate air.' On this description Mr. Froude remarks in a
+  note&mdash;'At present they are barren heaps of treeless moors
+  and mountains. They yield nothing but scanty oat crops and
+  potatoes, and though the seas are full of fish as ever, there are
+  no hands to catch them. <i>The change is a singular commentary
+  upon modern improvements</i>.' There were many branches belonging
+  to the four septs, continues the credulous reporter, who was
+  evidently imposed upon, like many of his countrymen in modern
+  times with better means of information. For example, 'there was
+  the branch of Gogath, the glutton, of <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page28" id="page28"></a>[pg 28]</span> which
+  one man would eat half a sheep at a sitting. There was another
+  called the Carrow, a gambler, who generally went about naked,
+  carrying dice and cards, and he would play the hair off his head.
+  Then there was a set of women called Goyng women, blasphemers of
+  God, who ran from country to country, sowing sedition among the
+  people.'<a id="footnotetag2" name="footnotetag2"></a><a href=
+  "#footnote2"><sup>2</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Froude says that this 'picture of Ireland' was given by
+  some half Anglicised, half Protestantised Celt, who wrote what he
+  had seen around him, careless of political philosophy, or of fine
+  phrases with which to embellish his diction. But if he was a
+  Celt, I think his description clearly proves that he must have
+  been a Celt of some other country than the one upon whose state
+  he reports. Judging from internal evidence, I should say that he
+  could not be a native; for an Irishman, even though a convert to
+  Anglicanism, and anxious to please his new masters, could
+  scarcely betray so much ignorance of the history of his country,
+  so much bigotry, such a want of candour and discrimination. If
+  Mr. Froude's great work has any fault, it is his unconscious
+  prejudice against Ireland. He knows as well as anyone the working
+  of the feudal system and the clan system in Scotland in the same
+  age. He knows with what treachery and cruelty murders were
+  perpetrated by chiefs and lairds, pretenders and
+  usurpers&mdash;how anarchy, violence, and barbarism reigned in
+  that land; yet, when he is dealing with a similar state of things
+  in Ireland, he uniformly takes it as proof of an incurable
+  national idiosyncrasy, and too often generalises from a few
+  cases. For example, in speaking of Shane O'Neill, who killed his
+  half-brother, Matthew Kelly, Baron of Dungannon, in order to
+  secure the succession for himself, he says&mdash;'<i>They manage
+  things strangely in Ireland.</i> The old O'Neill, instead of
+  being irritated, saw in this exploit a proof of commendable
+  energy. He at once took Shane into favour, and, had he been able,
+  would have given him his dead brother's rights.'</p>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote1" name="footnote1"></a><b>Footnote 1:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag1">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>Vol. i. p. 216.</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote2" name="footnote2"></a><b>Footnote 2:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag2">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>Froude's History, of England, vol. viii. chap. vii.</p>
+  </blockquote><span class="pagenum"><a name="page29" id=
+  "page29"></a>[pg 29]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+
+  <h3>THE RULE OF THE O'NEILLS.</h3>
+
+  <p>Shane O'Neill was a man of extraordinary ability and
+  tremendous energy, as the English found to their cost. He was
+  guilty of atrocious deeds; but he had too many examples in those
+  lawless times encouraging him to sacrifice the most sacred ties
+  to his ambition. He resolved to seize the chieftainship by
+  deposing his father and banishing him to the Pale, where, after
+  passing some years in captivity, he died. He was, no doubt, urged
+  to do this, lest by some chance the son of the baron of Dungannon
+  should be adopted by England as the rightful heir, and made Earl
+  of Tyrone. This title he spurned, and proclaimed himself the
+  O'Neill, the true representative of the ancient kings of Ulster,
+  to which office he was elected by his people, taking the usual
+  oath with his foot upon the sacred stone. This was an open
+  defiance of English power, and he prepared to abide the
+  consequences. He thought the opportunity a favourable one to
+  recover the supremacy of his ancestors over the O'Donels. He
+  accordingly mustered a numerous army, and marched into Tyrconnel,
+  where he was joined by Hugh O'Donel, brother of Calvagh, the
+  chief, with other disaffected persons of the same clan. O'Donel
+  had recourse to stratagem. Having caused his cattle to be driven
+  out of harm's way, he sent a spy into the enemy's camp, who mixed
+  with the soldiers, and returning undiscovered, he undertook to
+  guide O'Donel's army to O'Neill's tent, which was distinguished
+  by a great watch-fire, and guarded by six galloglasses on one
+  side and as many Scots on the other. The <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page30" id="page30"></a>[pg 30]</span> camp,
+  however, was taken by surprise in the dead of night, and
+  O'Neill's forces, careless or asleep, were slaughtered and routed
+  without resistance. Shane himself fled for his life, and,
+  swimming across three rivers, succeeded in reaching his own
+  territory. This occurred the year before he cast off his
+  allegiance to England. He was required to appear before Elizabeth
+  in person to explain the grounds on which he had claimed the
+  chieftainship. He consented, on condition that he got a
+  safe-conduct and money for the expenses of his journey. At the
+  same time he sent a long letter to the Queen, complaining of the
+  treatment he had received, and defending his pretensions. The
+  letter is characteristic of the man and of the times. He said:
+  'The deputy has much ill-used me, your Majesty; and now that I am
+  going over to see you, I hope you will consider that I am but
+  rude and uncivil, and do not know my duty to your Highness, nor
+  yet your Majesty's laws, but am one brought up in wildness, far
+  from all civility. Yet have I a good will to the commonwealth of
+  my country; and please your Majesty to send over two
+  commissioners that you can trust, that will take no bribes, nor
+  otherwise be imposed on, to observe what I have done to improve
+  the country, and hear what my accusers have to say; and then let
+  them go into the Pale, and hear what the people say of your
+  soldiers, with their horses, and their dogs, and their
+  concubines. Within this year and a half, three hundred farmers
+  are come from the English Pale to live in my country, where they
+  can be safe.</p>
+
+  <p>'Please your Majesty, your Majesty's money here is not so good
+  as your money in England, and will not pass current there. Please
+  your Majesty to send me three thousand pounds in English money to
+  pay my expenses in going over to you, and when I come back I will
+  pay your deputy three thousand pounds Irish, such as you are
+  pleased to have current here. Also I will ask your Majesty to
+  marry me to some gentlewoman of noble blood meet for my vocation.
+  I will make Ireland all that your Majesty wishes for <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page31" id="page31"></a>[pg 31]</span> you. I
+  am very sorry your Majesty is put to such expense. If you will
+  trust it to me, I will undertake that in three years you will
+  have a revenue, where now you have continual loss.'</p>
+
+  <p>Shane suspected evil designs on the part of the English, and
+  not without reason. The object of the summons to England was to
+  detain him there with 'gentle talk' till Sussex could return to
+  his command with an English army powerful enough to subjugate
+  Ulster. For this purpose such preparations were made by the
+  English Government in men and money, 'that rebellion should have
+  no chance; and,' says Mr. Froude, 'so careful was the secresy
+  which was observed, to prevent Shane from taking alarm, that a
+  detachment of troops sent from Portsmouth sailed with sealed
+  orders, and neither men nor officers knew that Ireland was their
+  destination till they had rounded the Land's End.' The English
+  plans were well laid. Kildare, whom Elizabeth most feared, had
+  accepted her invitation to go to London, and thus prevented any
+  movement in the south, while O'Donel was prepared to join the
+  English army on its advance into Ulster; and the Scots,
+  notwithstanding their predilection for Mary Stuart, were expected
+  to act as Argyle and his sister should direct. But Shane had a
+  genius for intrigue as well as Elizabeth, and he was far more
+  rapid than her generals in the execution of his plans. By a
+  master-stroke of policy he disconcerted their arrangements. He
+  had previously asked the Earl of Argyle to give him his daughter
+  in marriage, in order that he might strengthen his alliance with
+  the Ulster Scots. It is true that she had been already married to
+  his rival, O'Donel; but that was a small difficulty in his way.
+  The knot was tied, but he had no hesitation in cutting it with
+  his sword. 'The countess' was well educated for her time. She was
+  also a Protestant, and the government had hopes that her
+  influence would be favourable to 'civility and the Reformation'
+  among the barbarians of the north. But whatever advantages the
+  presence of the fair Scottish missionary might bring,
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page32" id="page32"></a>[pg
+  32]</span> Shane O'Neill did not see why they should not be all
+  his own, especially as he had managed somehow to produce a
+  favourable impression on her heart. Accordingly he made a dash
+  into Tyrconnel, and carried off both the lady and her husband to
+  his stronghold, Shane's Castle, on the banks of Lough Neagh. Her
+  Scotch guard, though fifteen hundred strong, had offered no
+  resistance. O'Donel was shut up in a prison, and his wife became
+  the willing paramour of the captor. 'The affront to McConnell was
+  forgiven or atoned for by private arrangement, and the sister of
+  the Earl of Argyle&mdash;an educated woman for her time, not
+  unlearned in Latin, speaking French and Italian, counted sober,
+  wise, and no less subtle&mdash;had betrayed herself and her
+  husband. The O'Neills, by this last manoeuvre, became supreme in
+  Ulster. Deprived of their head, the O'Donels sank into
+  helplessness. The whole force of the province, such as it was,
+  with the more serious addition of several thousand Scotch
+  marauders, was at Shane's disposal, and thus provided, he thought
+  himself safe in defying England to do its worst.'<a id=
+  "footnotetag3" name="footnotetag3"></a><a href=
+  "#footnote3"><sup>1</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>Meantime, Sussex had arrived in Dublin preceded by his English
+  forces. He made a rapid preliminary movement to the north, and
+  seized the Cathedral of Armagh, in order to make it a fortified
+  dep&#244;t for his stores. He then fell back into Meath,
+  where he was joined by Ormond with flying companies of
+  galloglasses. Soon after a singular attack was made on the
+  English garrison at Armagh. Seeing a number of kernes scattered
+  about the town, the officer in command sallied out upon them,
+  when O'Neill suddenly appeared, accompanied by the Catholic
+  Archbishop, on a hill outside the walls. 'The English had but
+  time to recover their defences when the whole Irish army, led by
+  a procession of monks, and every man carrying a fagot, came on to
+  burn the cathedral over their heads. The monks sang a mass; the
+  primate walked three times up and down the lines, willing the
+  rebels to go forward, for God was on their side. Shane swore a
+  great oath not to turn his back <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page33" id="page33"></a>[pg 33]</span> while an Englishman was
+  alive; and with scream and yell his men came on. <i>Fortunately
+  there were no Scots among them.</i> The English, though
+  out-numbered ten to one, stood steady in the churchyard, and,
+  after a sharp hand-to-hand fight, drove back the howling crowd.
+  The Irish retired into the friars' houses outside the cathedral
+  close, set them on fire, and ran for their lives.'</p>
+
+  <p>'So far,' adds Mr. Froude, 'all was well. After this there was
+  no more talk of treating, and by the 18th, Sussex and Ormond were
+  themselves at Armagh with a force&mdash;had there been skill to
+  direct it&mdash;sufficient to have swept Tyrone from border to
+  border.'</p>
+
+  <p>The English historian exults in the valour of the small
+  garrison of his countrymen, well-disciplined and sheltered behind
+  a strong wall, in resisting the assault of a howling multitude of
+  mere Irish, and he observes significantly, that 'fortunately
+  there were no <i>Scots</i> among them.' But he is obliged
+  immediately after to record an Irish victory so signal that,
+  according to the lord deputy himself, 'the fame of the English
+  army so hardly gotten, was now vanished.' Yet Mr. Froude does
+  not, in this, lay the blame of defeat upon the <i>nationality</i>
+  of the vanquished. It is only the Irish nation that is made the
+  scape-goat in such cases.</p>
+
+  <p>It was July, but the weather was wet, the rivers were high,
+  Ormond was ill, Sussex would not leave his friend, and so the
+  English army stayed in town doing nothing till the end of the
+  month, when their failing provisions admonished them that an
+  Irish hosting would be desirable. O'Neill, who seems to have been
+  aware of the state of things, presented the appropriate
+  temptation. Spies brought the lord deputy word that in the
+  direction of Cavan there were herds of cows, which an active
+  party might easily capture. These spies, with ardent professions
+  of loyalty, offered to guide the English troops to the place
+  where the booty would be found, their object being to draw them
+  among bogs and rivers where they might be destroyed. The lord
+  deputy did not think it necessary to accompany this host,
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page34" id="page34"></a>[pg
+  34]</span> which consisted of 200 horse, 500 men-at-arms, and
+  some hundreds of the loyal Irish of the Pale. Shane intended to
+  attack them the first night while resting on their march. But
+  they escaped by an alteration of the route. Next morning they
+  were marching on the open plain, miles from any shelter of hill
+  or wood, when the Irish chief, with less than half their number,
+  pursued them, and fell upon the cavalry in the rear, with the
+  cry, '<i>Laundarg Aboo</i>&mdash;the Bloody Hand&mdash;Strike for
+  O'Neill!' The English cavalry commanded by Wingfield, seized with
+  terror, galloped into the ranks of their own men-at-arms, rode
+  them down, and extricated themselves only to fly panic-stricken
+  from the field to the crest of an adjoining hill. Meantime,
+  Shane's troopers rode through the broken ranks, cutting down the
+  footmen on all sides. The yells and cries were heard far off
+  through the misty morning air. Fitzwilliam, who had the chief
+  command, was about a mile in advance at the head of another body
+  of cavalry, when a horseman was observed by him, galloping wildly
+  in the distance and waving his handkerchief as a signal. He
+  returned instantly, followed by his men, and flung himself into
+  the <i>m&#234;le&#233;</i>. Shane receiving such a charge
+  of those few men, and seeing more coming after, ran no farther
+  risk, blew a recall note, and withdrew unpursued. Fitzwilliam's
+  courage alone prevented the army from being annihilated. Out of
+  500 English 50 lay dead, and 50 more were badly wounded. The
+  survivors fell back to Armagh 'so <i>dismayed</i> as to be unfit
+  for farther service.' Pitiable were the lamentations of the lord
+  deputy to Cecil on this catastrophe. It was, said he, 'by
+  cowardice the dreadfullest beginning that ever was seen in
+  Ireland. Ah! Mr. Secretary, what unfortunate star hung over me
+  that day to draw me, that never could be persuaded to be absent
+  from the army at any time&mdash;to be then absent for a little
+  disease of another man? <i>The rearward was the best and picked
+  soldiers in all this land.</i> If I or any stout man had been
+  that day with them, we had made an end of Shane&mdash;which is
+  now farther off than ever it was. Never before durst Scot or
+  Irishman look <span class="pagenum"><a name="page35" id=
+  "page35"></a>[pg 35]</span> on Englishmen in plain or wood since
+  I was here; and now Shane, in a plain three miles away from any
+  wood, and where I would have asked of God to have had him, hath,
+  with 120 horse, and a few Scots and galloglasse, <i>scarce half
+  in numbers</i>, charged our whole army, and by the cowardice of
+  one wretch whom I hold dear to me as my own brother, was like in
+  one hour to have left not one man of that army alive, and after
+  to have taken me and the rest at Armagh. The fame of the English
+  army, so hardly gotten, is now vanished, and I, wretched and
+  dishonoured, by the vileness of other men's deeds.'</p>
+
+  <p>This is real history that Mr. Froude has given us. It places
+  the actors before us, enables us to discern their characters,
+  tells us who they are and what they have done. It shows also the
+  value and the necessity of documentary evidence for establishing
+  the truth of history. How different from the vague, uncertain,
+  shadowy representations derived from oral tradition, or mere
+  reports, though contemporary, circulated from mouth to mouth, and
+  exaggerated according to the interests of one party or the other.
+  Let us for illustration compare Mr. Froude's vivid picture of
+  this battle, so disastrous to the English, with the account given
+  of the same event by the Annalists called the Four Masters. These
+  writers had taken great pains to collect the most authentic
+  records of the various Irish tribes from the invasion by Henry
+  II. to the period of which we are writing. They were intensely
+  Irish, and of course glad of any opportunity of recording events
+  creditable to the valour of their countrymen. They lived in
+  Donegal, under the protection of O'Donel, but they showed
+  themselves quite willing to do full justice to his great rival
+  O'Neill. The presence of the lord deputy, the Earl of Ormond, and
+  other great men at Armagh, with a select English army, would
+  naturally have roused their attention, and when that army was
+  encountered and vanquished in the open field by the Irish
+  general, we should have expected that the details of such a
+  glorious event <span class="pagenum"><a name="page36" id=
+  "page36"></a>[pg 36]</span> would have been collected with the
+  greatest care from the accounts of eye-witnesses. The bards and
+  historiographers should have been on the alert to do justice to
+  their country on so great an occasion. They were on the spot,
+  they were beside the victors, and they had no excuse whatever for
+  ignorance. Yet here is the miserably cold, <i>jejune</i>, feeble,
+  and imperfect record which we find in the Annals of the Four
+  Masters:&mdash;'The Lord Justice of Ireland, namely Thomas
+  Fitzwalter (Sussex), marched into Tyrone to take revenge for the
+  capture of Caloach O'Donel, and also for his own quarrels with
+  the country. He encamped with a great army at Armagh, and
+  constructed deep entrenchments and impregnable ramparts about the
+  great church of Armagh, which he intended to keep constantly
+  guarded. O'Neill, <i>i.e.</i> John, having received intelligence
+  of this, sent a party of his faithful men and friends with
+  Caloach O'Donel to guard and keep him from the Lord Justice, and
+  they conveyed him from one island to another, in the recesses and
+  sequestered places of Tyrone. After some time the Lord Justice
+  sent out from the camp at Armagh, a number of his captains with
+  1000 men to take some prey and plunder in Oriel. O'Neill, having
+  received private information and intelligence of those great
+  troops marching into Oriel, proceeded privately and silently to
+  where they were, and came up to them after they had collected
+  their prey; a battle ensued in which many were slain on both
+  sides; and finally the preys were abandoned, and fell into the
+  hands of their original possessors on that occasion.'</p>
+
+  <p>That is the whole account of the most signal victory over the
+  English that had crowned the arms of Ulster during those wars!
+  Not a word of the disparity of the forces, or the flight of the
+  English cavalry, or the slaughter of the Englishmen-at-arms, or
+  the humiliation and disabled condition of the garrison at Armagh.
+  Equally unsatisfactory is the record of the subsequent march
+  through Tyrone by Sussex, in the course of which his army
+  slaughtered 4000 head of cattle, which they could not drive away.
+  Of this <span class="pagenum"><a name="page37" id=
+  "page37"></a>[pg 37]</span> tremendous destruction of property
+  the Four Masters do not say a word. Such omissions often occur in
+  their annals, even when dealing with contemporary events.
+  Uncritical as they were and extremely credulous, how can we trust
+  the records which they give of remote ages?</p>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote3" name="footnote3"></a><b>Footnote 1:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag3">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>Froude, Ibid.</p>
+  </blockquote><span class="pagenum"><a name="page38" id=
+  "page38"></a>[pg 38]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+  <h3>O'NEILL, SOVEREIGN OF ULSTER.</h3>
+
+  <p>The moral atmosphere of Elizabeth's court was not favourable
+  to public virtue. Strange to say at this time Lord Pembroke
+  seemed to be the only nobleman connected with it whose patriotism
+  could be depended on; and, according to Cecil, there was not
+  another person, 'no not one' who did not either wish well to
+  Shane O'Neill, or so ill to the Earl of Sussex as 'rather to
+  welcome the news than regret the English loss!' It would be
+  difficult to find 'intriguing factiousness' baser than this even
+  in barbarous Ireland. The success of O'Neill, however, had raised
+  him high in the opinion of the Queen, who proposed, through the
+  Earl of Kildare, to leave him in possession of all his
+  territories, and let him govern the Irish 'according to Irish
+  ideas' if he would only become her vassal. Sussex had returned to
+  Dublin with the remnant of his army, while Fitzwilliam was
+  dispatched to London to explain the disaster, bearing with him a
+  petition from the Irish Council, that the troops who had been
+  living in free quarters on the tenants of the Pale should be
+  recalled or disbanded. 'Useless in the field and tyrannical to
+  the farmer, they were a burden on the English exchequer, and
+  answered no purpose but to make the English name detested.'</p>
+
+  <p>To O'Neill the Queen sent a pardon, with a safe conduct to
+  England, if he could be prevailed on to go. In the meantime Shane
+  sent a message to the lord deputy, demanding the removal of the
+  garrison from Armagh. One of his messengers, Neill Grey
+  communicated secretly with Lord <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page39" id="page39"></a>[pg 39]</span> Sussex, affecting to
+  dislike rebellion, and intimating that he might help the English
+  to get rid of his master. The lord deputy, without the least
+  scruple or apparent consciousness of the criminality or disgrace
+  of the proceeding, actually proposed to this man that he should
+  murder O'Neill. This villanous purpose he avows in his letter to
+  the Queen. 'In fine,' said he, 'I breake with him to kill Shane;
+  and bound myself by my oath to see him have a hundred marcs of
+  land by the year to him, and to his heirs, for his reward. He
+  seemed desirous to serve your Highness, and to have the land; but
+  fearful to do it, doubting his own escape after with safety,
+  which he confessed and promised to do by any means he might,
+  escaping with his life. What he will do I know not, but I assure
+  your Highness he may do it without danger if he will. And if he
+  will not do that he may in your service, there will be done <i>to
+  him</i> what others may. God send your Highness a good end.'</p>
+
+  <p>This English nobleman was, it seems, pious as well as
+  honourable, and could mingle prayers with his plots for
+  assassination. Mr. Froude suggests extenuating circumstances:
+  'Lord Sussex, it appears, regarded Shane as a kind of wolf, whom
+  having failed to capture in fair chase he might destroy by the
+  first expedient that came to his hand.' And 'English honour, like
+  English coin, lost something of its purity in the sister island.'
+  Of course; it was the Irish atmosphere that did it all. But
+  Sussex was not singular in this mode of illustrating English
+  honour. A greater than he, the chivalrous Sir Walter Raleigh,
+  wrote to a friend in Munster, recommending the treacherous
+  assassination of the Earl of Desmond, as perfectly justifiable.
+  And this crime, for which an ignorant Irishman would be hanged,
+  was deliberately suggested by the illustrious knight whilst
+  sitting quietly in his English study.<a id="footnotetag4" name=
+  "footnotetag4"></a><a href="#footnote4"><sup>1</sup></a> But what
+  perplexes the historian most of all is that the Queen of England
+  showed no resentment at the infamous proposal of Sussex. 'It is
+  most sadly certain, however, that Sussex was continued
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page40" id="page40"></a>[pg
+  40]</span> in office, and inasmuch as it will be seen that he
+  repeated the experiment a few months later, his letter could not
+  have been received with any marked condemnation.' Yet Elizabeth
+  was never in Ireland.</p>
+
+  <p>Fitzwilliam, however, returned with reinforcements of troops
+  from Berwick, with which the deputy resolved to repair the credit
+  of the English arms, and to set the Irish an example of civilised
+  warfare. How did he do this? Dispatching provisions by sea to
+  Lough Foyle, he succeeded this time in marching through Tyrone,
+  'and in destroying on his way 4,000 cattle, which he was unable
+  to carry away. He had left Shane's cows to rot where he had
+  killed them; and thus being without food, and sententiously and
+  characteristically concluding that man by his policy might
+  propose, but God at His will did dispose; Lord Sussex fell back
+  by the upper waters of Lough Erne, sweeping the country before
+  him.' When the Irish peasantry saw the carcasses of their cattle
+  rotting along the roads, while their children were famished for
+  want of milk, they must have been most favourably impressed with
+  the blessings of British rule! Shane, instead of encountering the
+  deputy on his own territory, amused himself burning villages in
+  Meath. Neither of those rulers&mdash;those chief protectors of
+  the people&mdash;seems to have been conscious that he was doing
+  anything wrong in destroying the homes and the food of the
+  wretched inhabitants, whom they alternately scourged. On the
+  contrary, the extent of devastation which they were able to
+  effect was supposed to put them in a better position for meeting
+  together, and treating as honourable and gallant representatives
+  of their respective nations.</p>
+
+  <p>In accordance with the desire of the Queen, Shane, fresh from
+  the work of destruction in the Pale, was invited to a conference
+  with Kildare. They met at Dundalk, and the Irish chief consented
+  to wait upon Elizabeth in London, being allowed to name his own
+  conditions. In doing so he implied 'that he was rather conferring
+  a favour than receiving one, and that he was going to England as
+  a <span class="pagenum"><a name="page41" id="page41"></a>[pg
+  41]</span> victorious enemy permitting himself to be
+  conciliated.' He demanded a safe-conduct so clearly worded that,
+  whatever was the result of his visit, he should be free to
+  return; he required 'a complete amnesty for his past misdeeds,
+  and he stipulated that Elizabeth should pay all expenses for
+  himself and his retinue; the Earls of Ormond, Desmond, and
+  Kildare must receive him in state at Dundalk, and escort him to
+  Dublin; Kildare must accompany him to England; and, most
+  important of all, Armagh Cathedral must be evacuated. He did not
+  anticipate treachery; and either he would persuade Elizabeth to
+  recognise him, and thus prove to the Irish that rebellion was the
+  surest road to prosperity and power, or, at worst, by venturing
+  into England, and returning unscathed, he would show them that
+  the Government might be defied with more than impunity.'<a id=
+  "footnotetag5" name="footnotetag5"></a><a href=
+  "#footnote5"><sup>2</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>These terms, so humiliating to English pride, were advocated
+  in the Council 'for certain secret respects;' and even Sir
+  William Cecil was not ashamed to say, 'that, in Shane's absence
+  from Ireland,' <i>something might be cavilled against him or
+  his</i>, for non-observing the covenants on his side; and so the
+  pact being infringed, the matter might be used as should be
+  thought fit. With this understanding Elizabeth wrote, making all
+  the ignominious concessions demanded, save one, the evacuation of
+  the cathedral. Shane replied in lofty terms that, although for
+  the Earl of Sussex he would not mollify one iota of his
+  agreement, yet he would consent at the request of her Majesty.
+  'Thus,' says Mr. Froude, 'with the Earl of Kildare in attendance,
+  a train of galloglasse, 1,000<i>l.</i> in hand, and a second
+  1,000<i>l.</i> awaiting for him in London, the champion of Irish
+  freedom sailed from Dublin, and appeared on the second of January
+  at the English court.'</p>
+
+  <p>It is stated that Cecil, Pembroke, and Bacon, received him
+  privately on his arrival, instructed him how to behave in the
+  royal presence, gave him the promised money, and endeavoured to
+  impress upon him the enormity of his <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page42" id="page42"></a>[pg 42]</span>
+  offences. But, to every appeal made to his conscience, Shane
+  answered by a counter appeal about money; 2,000<i>l.</i> was a
+  poor present from so great a Queen; he was sure their honours
+  would give him a few more hundreds. He agreed, however, to make a
+  general confession of his sins in Irish and English; and, thus
+  tutored, Elizabeth received him in state on January 6, 1562,
+  attended by the Council, the peers, the foreign ambassadors,
+  bishops, aldermen, dignitaries of all kinds, who gazed 'as if at
+  the exhibition of some wild animal of the desert.' The scene is
+  very graphically described by Mr. Froude: 'O'Neill stalked in,
+  his saffron mantle sweeping round and round him, his hair curling
+  on his back, and clipped short below the eyes, which gleamed from
+  under it with a grey lustre, frowning, fierce, and cruel. Behind
+  him followed his galloglasse, bare-headed and fair-haired, with
+  shirts of mail which reached their knees, a wolf-skin flung
+  across their shoulders, and short broad battle-axes in their
+  hands. At the foot of the throne the chief paused, bent forward,
+  threw himself on his face upon the ground, and then, rising upon
+  his knees, spoke aloud in Irish!' Camden says he 'confessed his
+  crime and rebellion with howling,' and Mr. Froude adds that, to
+  his hearers, the sound of the words 'was as the howling of a
+  dog.' He said:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'Oh! my most dread sovereign lady and queen, like as I Shane
+  O'Neill, your Majesty's subject of your realm of Ireland, have of
+  long time desired to come into the presence of your Majesty to
+  acknowledge my humble and bounden subjection, so am I now here
+  upon my knees by your gracious permission, and do most humbly
+  acknowledge your Majesty to be my sovereign lady and Queen of
+  England, France, and Ireland; and I do confess that, for lack of
+  civil education, I have offended your Majesty and your laws, for
+  the which I have required and obtained your Majesty's pardon. And
+  for that I most humbly, from the bottom of my heart, thank your
+  Majesty, and still do with all humbleness require the continuance
+  of the same; and I faithfully <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page43" id="page43"></a>[pg 43]</span> promise here before
+  Almighty God and your Majesty, and in presence of all these your
+  nobles, that I intend, by God's grace, to live hereafter in the
+  obedience of your Majesty as a subject of your land of
+  Ireland.</p>
+
+  <p>'And because this my speech, being Irish, is not well
+  understanded, I have caused this my submission to be written in
+  English and Irish, and thereto have set my hand and seal; and to
+  these gentlemen, my kinsmen and friends, I most humbly beseech
+  your Majesty to be merciful and gracious.'</p>
+
+  <p>Camden remarks that the bare-headed galloglasse, with long
+  dishevelled hair, crocus-dyed shirts, wide sleeves, short
+  jackets, shaggy cloaks, &amp;c., were objects of great wonder to
+  the Londoners; while the hauteur of the Irish prince excited the
+  merriment of the courtiers, who styled him 'O'Neill the Great,
+  cousin to St. Patrick, friend to the Queen of England, enemy to
+  all the world besides.' Notwithstanding Shane's precautions with
+  respect to the safe-conduct, English artifice outdid Irish
+  cunning. With all their horror of the Jesuits, Elizabeth's
+  ministers in this case practised mental reservation. True, the
+  Government had promised to permit him to return to Ireland, but
+  then the time of his stay had not been specified. Various
+  pretexts were invented to detain him. He must be recognised as
+  his father's heir; the cause must be pleaded before the English
+  judges; the young Baron of Dungannon must come over and be heard
+  on the other side. O'Neill was told that he had been sent for,
+  while Cecil wrote privately to Fitzwilliam to keep him safe in
+  Ireland. While the prince was thus humoured with vain excuses, he
+  was occupied in pleading his own cause by flattering
+  communications to the Queen, 'whose fame was spoken of throughout
+  the world.' He wished to study the wisdom of her government, that
+  he might know better how to order himself in civil polity. He was
+  most urgent that her Majesty would give him 'some noble English
+  lady for a wife, with augmentation of living suitable.' If she
+  would give him his father's earldom, he <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page44" id="page44"></a>[pg 44]</span> would
+  make her the undisputed sovereign of willing subjects in Ulster;
+  he would drive away all her enemies, save her from all further
+  expense, and secure for her a great increase of revenue. He
+  begged in the meantime, that he might be allowed to attend her
+  favourite, Lord Robert Cecil, in order to learn 'to ride after
+  the English fashion, to run at the tilt, to hawk, to shoot, and
+  use such other good exercises as the said good lord was most apt
+  unto.' Thus month after month passed away, and Shane was still
+  virtually a prisoner. 'At length,' says Mr. Froude, 'the false
+  dealing produced its cruel fruit, the murder of the boy who was
+  used as the pretext for the delay. Sent for to England, yet
+  prevented from obeying the command, the young Baron of Dungannon
+  was waylaid at the beginning of April in a wood near Carlingford
+  by Turlogh O'Neill. He fled for his life, with the murderers
+  behind him, till he reached the bank of a deep river, which he
+  could not swim, and there he was killed.'</p>
+
+  <p>This event brought matters to a crisis, and Shane's cause was
+  triumphant. By articles entered into between him and the Queen it
+  was agreed that he was to be constituted captain or governor of
+  Tyrone 'in the same manner as other captains of the said nation
+  called O'Nele's had rightfully executed that office in the time
+  of King Henry VIII. And, moreover, he was to enjoy and have the
+  name and title of O'Nele, with the like authority as any other of
+  his ancestors, with the service and homage of all the lords and
+  captains called <i>urraughts</i>, and other nobles of the said
+  nation of O'Nele.' All this was upon the condition 'that he and
+  his said nobles should truly and faithfully, from time to time,
+  serve her Majesty, and, where necessary, wage war against all her
+  enemies in such manner as the Lord Lieutenant for the time being
+  should direct.' The title of O'Neill, however, was to be
+  contingent on the decision of Parliament as to the validity of
+  the letters-patent of Henry VIII. Should that decision be
+  unfavourable, he was to enjoy his powers and prerogatives under
+  the style and title of the Earl of Tyrone, with feudal
+  jurisdiction over the northern <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page45" id="page45"></a>[pg 45]</span> counties. The Pale was to
+  be no shelter to any person whom he might demand as a malefactor.
+  If any Irish lord or chief did him wrong, and the deputy failed
+  within twenty-one days to exact reparation, Shane might raise an
+  army and levy war on his private account. An exception was made
+  on behalf of the loyal O'Donel, whose cause was to be submitted
+  to the arbitration of the Irish earls. The 'indenture' between
+  the Queen and O'Neill was signed by the high contracting parties,
+  and bears date April 30, 1562. The English historian indignantly
+  remarks: 'A rebel subject treating as an equal with his sovereign
+  for the terms on which he would remain in his allegiance was an
+  inglorious spectacle; and the admission of Shane's pretensions to
+  sovereignty was one more evidence to the small Ulster chiefs that
+  no service was worse requited in Ireland than fidelity to the
+  English crown. The Maguires, the O'Reillys, the
+  O'Donels&mdash;all the clans who had stood by Sussex in the
+  preceding summer&mdash;were given over to their enemy bound hand
+  and foot. But Elizabeth was weary of the expense, and sick of
+  efforts which were profitless as the cultivation of a quicksand.
+  True it was that she was placing half Ireland in the hands of an
+  adulterous, murdering scoundrel, but the Irish liked to have it
+  so, and she forced herself to hope that he would restrain himself
+  for the future within the bounds of decency.'<a id="footnotetag6"
+  name="footnotetag6"></a><a href="#footnote6"><sup>3</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>In that hope she was soon disappointed. Shane with his
+  galloglasse returned in glory, his purse lined with money and
+  honour wreathed about his brows. He told the northern chiefs that
+  he had gone to England not to lose but to win, and that they must
+  henceforth submit to his authority, or feel his power. The
+  O'Donels, relying on English promises, dared to refuse allegiance
+  to the O'Neill, whereupon, without consulting the lord deputy,
+  'he called his men to arms and marched into Tyrconnel, killing,
+  robbing, and burning in the old style through farm and castle.'
+  The Irish historians, however, make excuses for O'Neill,
+  affirming that he <span class="pagenum"><a name="page46" id=
+  "page46"></a>[pg 46]</span> was released from his obligations by
+  the bad faith of the lord deputy. He it was who gave him a safe
+  conduct to Dublin, that he might take the oath of allegiance
+  according to promise; but the document was so ingeniously worded
+  that its meaning might be twisted so as to make him a prisoner.
+  He was informed of this treachery, and, as Mr. Froude remarks,
+  'Shane was too cunning a fish, and had been too lately in the
+  meshes, to be caught again in so poor a snare.' A most attractive
+  bait was provided by Sussex in the person of his sister, who had
+  been brought over to Dublin, and who might be won by the great
+  northern chief if he would only come up to the viceregal court to
+  woo her. 'Shane glanced at the tempting morsel with wistful eyes.
+  Had he trusted himself in the hands of Sussex he would have had a
+  short shrift for a blessing and a rough nuptial knot about his
+  neck. At the last moment a little bird carried the tale to his
+  ear. He had been advertized out of the Pale that the lady was
+  brought over only to entrap him, and if he came to the deputy he
+  should never return.' He therefore excused himself by alleging
+  that his duty to the Queen forbade him to leave the province
+  while it was in such a disturbed condition, the disturbance being
+  caused chiefly by his own predatory excursions into the
+  territories of the O'Donels and Maguires.</p>
+
+  <p>Shane took charge of the affairs of the Church as well as of
+  the State. The Catholic primate refusing to acknowledge Elizabeth
+  as the head of the Church, the see was declared vacant, and a
+  <i>cong&#233; d'&#233;lire</i> was sent down for the
+  appointment of 'Mr. Adam Loftus,' an Englishman, who came over as
+  the lord deputy's chaplain. The answer returned and reported by
+  Sussex to the Queen was 'that the chapter there, whereof the
+  greater part were Shane O'Neill's horsemen, were so sparkled and
+  out of order that they could by no means be assembled for the
+  election. In the meantime the lord deputy began to apprehend that
+  O'Neill aspired, not without some hope of success, to the
+  sovereignty of the whole island. It was found that he was in
+  correspondence <span class="pagenum"><a name="page47" id=
+  "page47"></a>[pg 47]</span> with the Pope, and the Queen of
+  Scots, and the King of Spain. No greater danger, wrote Sussex,
+  had ever been in Ireland. He implored the Queen not to trifle
+  with it, declaring that he wished some abler general to take the
+  command, not from any want of will, 'for he would spend his last
+  penny and his last drop of blood for her Majesty.' Right and left
+  Shane was crushing the petty chiefs, who implored the protection
+  of the Government. Maguire requested the deputy to write to him
+  in English, not in Latin, because the latter language was well
+  known, and but few of the Irish had any knowledge of the former,
+  in which therefore the secrets of their correspondence would be
+  more safe. Here is a specimen of his English: 'I know well that
+  within these four days the sayed Shan will come to dystroy me
+  contrey except your Lordshypp will sette some remedy in the
+  matter.' He did indeed go down into Fermanagh with 'a great
+  hoste.' As Maguire refused to submit, Shane 'bygan to wax mad,
+  and to cawsse his men to bran all his corn and howsses.' He
+  spared neither church nor sanctuary; three hundred women and
+  children were piteously murdered, and Maguire himself, clean
+  banished, as he described it, took refuge with the remnant of his
+  people in the islands on the lake, whither Shane was making boats
+  to pursue him. 'Help me, your lordship,' the hunted wretch cried,
+  in his despair, to Sussex. 'Ye are lyke to make hym the strongest
+  man of all Erlond, for every man wyll take an exampull by the
+  gratte lostys; take hyd to yourself by thymes, for he is lyke to
+  have all the power from this place thill he come to the wallys of
+  Gallway to rysse against you.'<a id="footnotetag7" name=
+  "footnotetag7"></a><a href="#footnote7"><sup>4</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>It is the boast of the Irish that when Shane had subdued all
+  his opponents, he ruled Tyrone for some time with such order,
+  'that if a robbery was committed within his territory, he either
+  caused the property to be restored, or reimbursed the loser out
+  of his own treasury.'<a id="footnotetag8" name=
+  "footnotetag8"></a><a href=
+  "#footnote8"><sup>5</sup></a></p><span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page48" id="page48"></a>[pg 48]</span>
+
+  <p>The perplexity of the Government in this critical emergency is
+  vividly described by Mr. Froude: 'Elizabeth knew not which way to
+  turn. Force, treachery, conciliation had been tried successively,
+  and the Irish problem was more hopeless than ever. In the dense
+  darkness of the prospects of Ulster there was a solitary gleam of
+  light. Grown insolent with prosperity, Shane had been dealing too
+  peremptorily with the Scots; his countess, though compelled to
+  live with him, and to be the mother of his children, had felt his
+  brutality and repented of her folly, and perhaps attempted to
+  escape. In the daytime, when he was abroad marauding, she was
+  coupled like a hound to a page or a horse-boy, and only released
+  at night when he returned to his evening orgies. The fierce
+  Campbells were not men to bear tamely these outrages from a
+  drunken savage on the sister of their chief, and Sussex conceived
+  that if the Scots, by any contrivance, were separated from Shane,
+  they might be used as a whip to scourge him.'</p>
+
+  <p>At length Sussex, determined to crush the arch-rebel, marched
+  northward in April, 1563, with a mixed force of English and
+  Irish, ill-armed, ill-supplied, dispirited and almost disloyal.
+  The diary of the commander-in-chief is, perhaps, the funniest on
+  record: 'April 6: The army arrived at Armagh. April 8: The army
+  marches back to Newry to bring up stores and ammunition left
+  behind. April 11: The army advances again to Armagh, where it
+  waits for galloglasse and kerne from the Pale. April 14: The
+  commander-in-chief answers a letter from James M'Connell. April
+  15: The army goes upon Shane's cattle, of which it takes enough
+  to serve it, but would have taken more if it had had
+  galloglasse.' Next day it returns to Armagh. There it waits three
+  days for the galloglasse, and then sends back for them to Dublin.
+  On April 20, again writes M'Connell, because he did not come
+  according to promise. April 21: The army surveys the Trough
+  mountains. April 22: The pious commander winds up the glorious
+  record in these words: <span class="pagenum"><a name="page49" id=
+  "page49"></a>[pg 49]</span> 'To Armagh with the spoil taken which
+  would have been much more if we had had galloglasse, and because
+  St. George even forced me, her Majesty's lieutenant, to return to
+  divine service that night. April 23: Divine service.'
+  Subsequently his lordship's extreme piety caused him the loss of
+  300 horses, which he na&#239;vely confesses thus: 'Being
+  Easter time, and he having travelled the week before, and Easter
+  day till night, thought fit to give Easter Monday to prayer, and
+  in this time certain churls stole off with the horses.' To this
+  Mr. Froude adds the pertinent remark: 'The piety which could
+  neglect practical duty for the outward service of devotion, yet
+  at the same time could make overtures to Neil Greg to assassinate
+  his master, requires no very lenient consideration.'</p>
+
+  <p>In connexion with the Irish Church Disestablishment Bill Lord
+  Elcho proposed Solomon's plan of settling the dispute of the two
+  mother Churches about Ireland. He would cut the country in two,
+  establishing Protestantism in the north and Catholicism in the
+  south. When an experienced member of the House of Commons makes
+  such a proposition in this age, we should not be surprised that
+  Sir Thomas Cusack in the year 1563 proposed to Queen Elizabeth
+  that Ireland should be divided into four provinces, each with a
+  separate president, either elected by the people or chosen in
+  compliance with their wishes. O'Neill was to have the north, the
+  Clanrickards the west, the O'Briens or Desmonds the south, and
+  thus the English might be allowed the undisturbed enjoyment of
+  the Pale. This notable scheme for settling the Irish question was
+  actually adopted by the Queen, and she wrote to Sussex, stating
+  that, as his expedition to the north had resulted only in giving
+  fresh strength to the enemy, she 'had decided to come to an end
+  of the war of Ulster by agreement rather than by force.' To Shane
+  she was all compliance. He had but to prove himself a good
+  subject, and he might have any pre-eminence which her Majesty
+  could grant without doing any other person wrong. 'If he desired
+  to have a council established at Armagh, he <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page50" id="page50"></a>[pg 50]</span> should
+  himself be the president of that council; if he wished to drive
+  the Scots out of Antrim, her own troops would assist in the
+  expulsion; if he was offended with the garrison in the cathedral,
+  she would gladly see peace maintained in a manner less expensive
+  to herself. To the primacy he might name the person most
+  agreeable to himself, and with the primacy, as a matter of
+  course, even the form of maintaining the Protestant Church would
+  be abandoned also. In return for these concessions the Queen
+  demanded only that Shane, to save her honour, should sue for them
+  as a favour instead of demanding them as a right. The rebel chief
+  consented without difficulty to conditions which cost him
+  nothing, and after an interview with Cusack, O'Neill wrote a
+  formal apology to Elizabeth, and promised for the future to be
+  her Majesty's true and faithful subject. Indentures were drawn up
+  on December 17, in which the Ulster sovereignty was transferred
+  to him in everything but the name, and the treaty required only
+  Elizabeth's signature, when a second dark effort was made to cut
+  the knot of the Irish difficulty.'<a id="footnotetag9" name=
+  "footnotetag9"></a><a href="#footnote9"><sup>6</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>This second 'dark effort' was nothing less than an attempt to
+  murder O'Neill by means of poison. He could not be conquered; he
+  could not be out-manoeuvred; he could not be assassinated in the
+  ordinary way. But the resources of Dublin Castle, and of English
+  ingenuity, were not exhausted. The lord deputy was of course
+  delighted with the reconciliation which had been effected with
+  the Ulster prince. What could be more natural than to send him a
+  present of the choicest wine from the viceregal cellars?
+  certainly few presents could be more agreeable. Shane and his
+  household quaffed the delicious beverage freely enough we may be
+  sure, without the slightest suspicion that there was death in the
+  cup. But the wine was mingled with poison. Those who drank it
+  were quickly at the point of death. O'Neill might thank his good
+  constitution for his recovery from an illness almost mortal. The
+  crime was traced to an Englishman named Smith, who, if employed
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page51" id="page51"></a>[pg
+  51]</span> by Lord Sussex, did not betray the guilty secret. Mr.
+  Froude admits that the suspicion cannot but cling to him that
+  this second attempt at murder was not made without his
+  connivance; 'nor,' he adds, 'can Elizabeth herself be wholly
+  acquitted of responsibility. She professed the loudest
+  indignation, but she ventured no allusion to his previous
+  communication with her, and no hint transpires of any previous
+  displeasure when the proposal had been made openly to herself.
+  The treachery of an English nobleman, the conduct of the inquiry,
+  and the anomalous termination of it, would have been incredible
+  even in Ireland, were not the original correspondence extant, in
+  which the facts are not denied.'</p>
+
+  <p>O'Neill of course complained loudly to the Queen, whereupon
+  she directed that a strict investigation should take place, in
+  order that the guilty parties should be found out and punished,
+  'of what condition soever the same should be.' In writing to the
+  lord deputy she assumed that Smith had been committed to prison
+  and would be brought to condign punishment. That person, after
+  many denials, at length confessed his guilt, and said that his
+  object was to rid his country of a dangerous enemy. This motive
+  was so good in the eye of the Government that it saved the life
+  of the culprit. Sir Thomas Cusack, writing to Cecil, March 22,
+  1564, says, 'I persuaded O'Neill to forget the matter, whereby no
+  more talk should grow of it; seeing there is no law to punish the
+  offender other than by discretion and imprisonment, which O'Neill
+  would little regard except the party might be executed by death,
+  and that the law doth not suffer. So as the matter be wisely
+  pacified, it were well done to leave it.' Shane was probably
+  aware that Smith was but an instrument, who would be readily
+  sacrificed as a peace-offering.</p>
+
+  <p>The sketch which Mr. Froude gives of Ulster and its wild
+  sovereign at this time is admirably picturesque. 'Here then, for
+  the present, the story will leave Shane safely planted on the
+  first step of his ambition, in all but the <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page52" id="page52"></a>[pg 52]</span> title,
+  sole monarch of the North. He built himself a fort on an island
+  in Lough Neagh, which he called <i>Foogh-ni-gall</i>, or, Hate of
+  Englishmen, and grew rich on the spoils of his enemies, the only
+  strong man in Ireland. He administered justice after a paternal
+  fashion, permitting no robbers but himself; when wrong was done
+  he compelled restitution, or at his own cost redeemed the harm
+  "to the loser's contentation." Two hundred pipes of wine were
+  stored in his cellars; 600 men-at-arms fed at his table, as it
+  were his janissaries; and daily he feasted the beggars at his
+  gate, saying, it was meet to serve Christ first. Half wolf, half
+  fox, he lay couched in his Castle of Malepartuis, with his
+  emissaries at Rome, at Paris, and at Edinburgh. In the morning he
+  was the subtle pretender to the Irish throne; in the afternoon,
+  when the wine was in him, he was a dissolute savage, revelling in
+  sensuality with his unhappy countess, uncoupled from her horseboy
+  to wait upon his pleasure. He broke loose from time to time to
+  keep his hand in practice. At Carlingford, for example, he swept
+  off one day 200 sheep and oxen, while his men violated sixty
+  women in the town; but Elizabeth looked away and endeavoured not
+  to see. The English Government had resolved to stir no sleeping
+  dogs in Ireland till a staff was provided to chastise them if
+  they would bite. Terence Daniel, the dean of those rough-riding
+  canons of Armagh, was installed as primate; the Earl of Sussex
+  was recalled to England; and the new archbishop, unable to
+  contain his exultation at the blessed day which had dawned upon
+  his country, wrote to Cecil to say how the millennium had come at
+  last, glory be to God!'</p>
+
+  <p>As a picture of Irish savage life this is very good. But the
+  historian has presented a companion picture of English civilised
+  life, which is not at all inferior. Sir Thomas Wroth and Sir
+  Nicholas Arnold were sent over to reform the Pale. They were
+  stern Englishmen, impatient of abuses among their own countrymen,
+  and having no more sympathy for Irishmen than for wolves. In the
+  Pale they found that peculation had grown into a custom; the most
+  barefaced <span class="pagenum"><a name="page53" id=
+  "page53"></a>[pg 53]</span> frauds had been converted by habit
+  into rights: and a captain's commission was thought ill-handled
+  if it did not yield, beyond the pay, 500<i>l.</i> a year. They
+  received pay for each hundred men, when only sixty were on the
+  roll. The soldiers, following the example of their leaders,
+  robbed and ground the peasantry. In fact, the Pale was 'a
+  weltering sea of corruption&mdash;the captains out of credit, the
+  soldiers mutinous, the English Government hated; every man
+  seeking his own, and none that which was Christ's.' The
+  purification of the Pale was left to Arnold, 'a hard, iron,
+  pitiless man, careful of things and careless of phrases,
+  untroubled with delicacy, and impervious to Irish enchantments.
+  The account books were dragged to light, where iniquity in high
+  places was registered in inexorable figures. The hands of Sir
+  Henry Ratcliffe, the brother of Sussex, were not found clean.
+  Arnold sent him to the Castle with the rest of the offenders.
+  Deep, leading drains were cut through the corrupting mass. The
+  shaking ground grew firm, and honest healthy human life was again
+  made possible. With the provinces beyond the Pale, Arnold meddled
+  little, save where, taking a rough view of the necessities of the
+  case, he could help the Irish chiefs to destroy each other.'</p>
+
+  <p>To Cecil, Arnold wrote thus: 'I am with all the wild Irish at
+  the same point I am at with bears and ban-dogs; when I see them
+  fight, so they fight earnestly indeed, and tug each other well, I
+  care not who has the worst.' 'Why not, indeed?' asks Mr. Froude;
+  'better so than hire assassins! Cecil, with the modesty of
+  genius, confessed his ignorance of the country, and his inability
+  to judge; yet, in every opinion which he allowed himself to give,
+  there was always a certain nobility of tone and sentiment.'
+  Nobility was scarcely necessary to induce a statesman to revolt
+  against the policy of Arnold. A little Christianity, nay a slight
+  touch of humanity, would have sufficed for that purpose. Sussex
+  was a nobleman, and considered himself, no doubt, a very godly
+  man, but everyone must admit that, in all heroic qualities, he
+  was incomparably beneath the uncultured <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page54" id="page54"></a>[pg 54]</span> Shane
+  O'Neill, while in baseness and wickedness he was not far behind
+  his northern foe, 'half wolf, half fox.' Cecil, however, was a
+  man of a very different stamp from Sussex. Evidently shocked at
+  the prevailing English notions about the value of Irish life, he
+  wrote to Arnold: 'You be of that opinion which many wise men are
+  of, from which I do not dissent, being an Englishman; but being,
+  as I am, a Christian man, I am not without some perplexity, to
+  enjoy of such cruelties.'</p>
+
+  <p>The work of reform, however, did not prove so easy a task.
+  Arnold's vigour was limited by his powers. The paymasters
+  continued to cheat the Government by false returns. The
+  Government allowed the pay to run in arrear, the soldiers
+  revenged themselves by oppressing and plundering the people; and
+  'so came to pass this wonderful phenomenon, that <i>in O'Neill's
+  country</i> alone in Ireland&mdash;defended as it was from
+  attacks from without, and enriched with the plunder of the
+  Pale&mdash;<i>were the peasantry prosperous, or life or property
+  secure</i>.' This fact might suggest to the English historian
+  that the evils of Ireland do not all proceed from blood or race;
+  and that the Saxon may be placed in circumstances which make him
+  as false, as dishonest, as lazy, as disordered, as worthless as
+  the Celt, and that even men of 'gentle blood' may become as base
+  as their most plebeian servants. Nor did zeal for religious
+  reformation redeem the defects of the Anglo-Irish rulers. The
+  Protestant bishops were chiefly agitated by the vestment
+  controversy. 'Adam Loftus, the titular primate, to whom,' says
+  Mr. Froude, 'sacked villages, ravished women, and famine-stricken
+  skeletons crawling about the fields, were matters of everyday
+  indifference, shook with terror at the mention of a surplice.'
+  Robert Daly wrote in anguish to Cecil, in dismay at the
+  countenance to 'Papistry,' and at his own inability to prolong a
+  persecution which he had happily commenced. An abortive 'devise
+  for the better government of Ireland' gives us some insight into
+  the condition of the people. 'No poor persons should be
+  <i>compelled</i> any more <span class="pagenum"><a name="page55"
+  id="page55"></a>[pg 55]</span> to work or labour by the day, or
+  otherwise, without meat, drink, wages, or some other allowance
+  during the time of their labour; no earth tillers, nor any others
+  inhabiting a dwelling, under any lord, should be distrained or
+  punished, in body or goods, for the faults of their landlord; nor
+  any honest man lose life or lands without fair trial by
+  parliamentary attainder, according to the ancient laws of England
+  and Ireland.' Surely it was no proof of incurable perversity of
+  nature, that the Irish peasantry were discontented and
+  disaffected, under the horrid system of oppression and slavery
+  here laid before the English Government.</p>
+
+  <p>As remedial measures, it was proposed that a true servant of
+  God should be placed in every parish, from Cape Clear to the
+  Giant's Causeway; that the children should be taught the New
+  Testament and the Psalms in Latin, 'that they, being infants,
+  might savour of the same in age as an old cask doth;' that there
+  should be a university for the education of the clergy, 'and such
+  godly discipline among them that there should be no more
+  pluralities, no more abuse of patronage, no more neglect, or
+  idleness, or profligacy.' Mr. Froude's reflection upon this
+  projected policy is highly characteristic:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'Here was an ideal Ireland painted on the retina of some
+  worthy English minister; but the real Ireland was still the old
+  place. As it was in the days of Brian Boroihme and the Danes, so
+  it was in the days of Shane O'Neill and Sir Nicholas Arnold; and
+  the Queen, who was to found all these fine institutions, cared
+  chiefly to burden her exchequer no further in the vain effort
+  <i>to drain the black Irish morass</i>, fed as it was from the
+  perennial fountains of Irish NATURE.'<a id="footnotetag10" name=
+  "footnotetag10"></a><a href="#footnote10"><sup>7</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>The Queen, however, thought it more prudent to let Shane have
+  his way in Ulster. To oblige him, she would remove the Protestant
+  primate, Loftus, to Dublin, and appoint his own nominee and
+  friend, Terence Daniel. The Pope had sent a third archbishop for
+  the same see, named Creagh; <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page56" id="page56"></a>[pg 56]</span> but, when passing through
+  London, he was arrested, and incarcerated in the Tower, 'where he
+  lay in great misery, cold, and hunger, without a penny, without
+  the means of getting his single shirt washed, and without gown or
+  hose.' At last he made his escape by gliding over the walls into
+  the Thames. The events of 1565 made the English Government more
+  than ever anxious to come to terms with the chieftain 'whom they
+  were powerless to crush.' Since the defeat of the Earl of Sussex,
+  continues Mr. Froude, 'Shane's influence and strength had been
+  steadily growing. His return unscathed from London, and the
+  fierce attitude which he assumed on the instant of his
+  reappearance in Ulster, convinced the petty leaders that to
+  resist him longer would only ensure their ruin. O'Donel was an
+  exile in England, and there remained unsubdued in the North only
+  the Scottish colonies of Antrim, which were soon to follow with
+  the rest. O'Neill lay quiet through the winter. With the spring
+  and the fine weather, when the rivers fell and the ground dried,
+  he roused himself out of his lair, and with his galloglasse and
+  kerne, and a few hundred harquebussmen, he dashed suddenly down
+  upon the Red-shanks, and broke them utterly to pieces. Six or
+  seven hundred were killed in the field, James M'Connell and his
+  brother, Sorleyboy, were taken prisoners, and, for the moment,
+  the whole colony was swept away. James M'Connell, himself badly
+  wounded in the action, died a few months later, and Shane was
+  left undisputed sovereign of Ulster.'</p>
+
+  <p>Primate Daniel announced to the Queen this 'glorious victory
+  over a malicious and dangerous people' who were gradually
+  fastening on the country; and Sir Thomas Cusack urged that now
+  was the time to make O'Neill a friend for ever, an advice which
+  was backed up by the stern Arnold. 'For what else could be done?
+  The Pale,' he pleaded, 'is poor and unable to defend itself. If
+  he do fall out before the beginning of next summer, there is
+  neither outlaw, rebel, murderer, thief, nor any lewd nor
+  evil-disposed person&mdash;of whom God knoweth there is plenty
+  swarming in every quarter <span class="pagenum"><a name="page57"
+  id="page57"></a>[pg 57]</span> among the wild Irish, yea and in
+  our own border too&mdash;which would not join to do what mischief
+  they might.'</p>
+
+  <p>But Shane did not wait for further royal overtures. He saw
+  that with the English Government might was right, and that the
+  justice of his cause shone out more brightly in proportion to the
+  increase of his power. Thus encouraged in his course of
+  aggression and conquest, he seized the Queen's Castles of Newry
+  and Dundrum. He then marched into Connaught, demanding the
+  tribute due of old time 'to them that were kings in that realm.'
+  He exacted pledges of obedience from the western chiefs, and
+  spoiled O'Rourke's country, and returned to Tyrone driving before
+  him 4,000 head of cattle. While proceeding at this rate he wrote
+  soothing and flattering words to the Queen. It was for her
+  majesty he was fighting; he was chastising her enemies and
+  breaking stiff-necked chiefs into her yoke; and he begged that
+  she would not credit any stories which his ill-willers might
+  spread abroad against him. On the contrary he hoped she would
+  determine his title and rule without delay, and grant him, in
+  consideration of his good services, some augmentation of living
+  in the Pale. Elizabeth, however, excused his conduct, saying 'we
+  must allow something for his wild bringing-up, and not expect
+  from him what we should expect from a perfect subject. If he mean
+  well he shall have all his reasonable requests granted.'</p>
+
+  <p>But there was among Elizabeth's advisers a statesman who felt
+  that this sort of policy would never do. Sir Henry Sidney, on
+  being requested to take charge of the Government of Ireland,
+  urged the absolute necessity of a radical change. The power of
+  O'Neill, and such rulers as he, must be utterly broken, and that
+  by force, at whatever cost. And this, he argued, would not only
+  be sound policy but true economy. The condition of Ireland was
+  unexampled; free from foreign invasion, the sovereignty of the
+  Queen not denied, yet the revenue so mean and scanty that 'great
+  yearly treasures were carried out of the realm of England to
+  satisfy the stipends of the officers and soldiers required for
+  the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page58" id="page58"></a>[pg
+  58]</span> governance of the same.' He must have 10,000<i>l.</i>
+  or 12,000<i>l.</i> to pay out-standing debts and put the army in
+  proper condition. As for his own remuneration, the new viceroy,
+  as he could expect nothing from the Queen, would be content with
+  permission to export six thousand kerseys and clothes, free of
+  duty.</p>
+
+  <p>Sir Henry Sidney struck out the only line of policy by which
+  the English government of Ireland could be made successful or
+  even possible. He said: 'To go to work by force will be
+  chargeable, it is true; but if you will give the people justice
+  and minister law among them, and exercise the sword of the
+  sovereign, and put away the sword of the subject, <i>omnia
+  h&#230;c adjicientur vobis</i>&mdash;you shall drive the now
+  man of war to be an husbandman, and he that now liveth like a
+  lord to live like a servant, and the money now spent in buying
+  armour, and horses, and waging of war, shall be bestowed in
+  building of towns and houses. By ending these incessant wars ere
+  they be aware, you shall bereave them both of force and beggary,
+  and make them weak and wealthy. Then you can convert the military
+  service due from the lords into money; then you can take up the
+  fisheries now left to the French and the Spaniards; then you can
+  open and work your mines, and the people will be able to grant
+  you subsidies.'<a id="footnotetag11" name=
+  "footnotetag11"></a><a href="#footnote11"><sup>8</sup></a> When
+  the lord deputy arrived in Ireland he found a state of things in
+  the Pale far worse than he could have imagined. It was 'as it
+  were overwhelmed with vagabonds; plunder and spoils daily carried
+  out of it; the people miserable; not two gentlemen in the whole
+  of it able to lend 20<i>l.</i>; without horse, armour, apparel,
+  or victual. The soldiers were worse than the people: so
+  beggarlike as it would abhor a general to look on them; never a
+  married wife among them, and therefore so allied with Irishwomen
+  that they betrayed secrets, and could not be trusted on dangerous
+  service; so insolent as to be intolerable; so rooted in idleness
+  as there was no hope by correction to amend them.' In Munster a
+  man might ride twenty or <span class="pagenum"><a name="page59"
+  id="page59"></a>[pg 59]</span> thirty miles and find no houses
+  standing in a country which he had known as well inhabited as
+  many counties in England. 'In Ulster,' Sidney wrote, 'there
+  tyrannizeth the prince of pride; Lucifer was never more puffed up
+  with pride and ambition than that O'Neill is; he is at present
+  the only strong and rich man in Ireland, and he is the dangerest
+  man and most like to bring the whole estate of this land to
+  subversion and subjugation either to him or to some foreign
+  prince, that ever was in Ireland.' He invited this Lucifer to
+  come into the Pale to see him, and Shane at first agreed to meet
+  him at Dundalk, but on second thoughts he politely declined, on
+  the ground that the Earl of Sussex had twice attempted to
+  assassinate him, and but for the Earl of Kildare would have put a
+  lock upon his hands when he was passing through Dublin to
+  England. Hence his 'timorous and mistrustful people' would not
+  trust him any more in English hands. In fact O'Neill despised any
+  honours the Queen could confer upon him. 'When the wine was in
+  him he boasted that he was in blood and power better than the
+  best of their earls, and he would give place to none but his
+  cousin of Kildare, because he was of his own house. They had made
+  a wise earl of M'Carthymore, but Shane kept as good a man as he.
+  Whom was he to trust? Sussex gave him a safe-conduct and then
+  offered him the courtesy of a handlock. The Queen had told him
+  herself that, though he had got a safe-conduct to come and go,
+  the document did not say when he was to go; and, in order to get
+  away from London, he was obliged to agree to things against his
+  honour and profit, and he would never perform them while he
+  lived.' That treachery drove him into war. 'My ancestors,' he
+  said, 'were kings of Ulster; and Ulster is mine, and shall be
+  mine. O'Donel shall never come into his country, nor Bagenal into
+  Newry, nor Kildare into Dundrum, or Lecale. They are now mine.
+  With this sword I won them, with this sword I will keep them.'
+  Sidney, indignant at these pretensions, wrote thus to Leicester:
+  'No Atila nor Yotila, no Vandal nor Goth that ever was, was more
+  to be <span class="pagenum"><a name="page60" id="page60"></a>[pg
+  60]</span> dreaded for over-running any part of Christendom, than
+  this man is for over-running and spoiling of Ireland. If it be an
+  angel of heaven that will say that ever O'Neill will be a good
+  subject till he be thoroughly chastised, believe him not, but
+  think him a spirit of error. Surely if the queen do not chastise
+  him in Ulster, he will chase all hers out of Ireland. Her majesty
+  must make up her mind to the expense, and chastise this
+  cannibal.' He therefore demanded money that he might pay the
+  garrison and get rid of the idle, treacherous, incorrigible
+  soldiers which were worse than none. Ireland, he said, would be
+  no small loss to the English crown. It was never so likely to be
+  lost as then, and he would rather die than that it should be lost
+  during his government. The queen, however, sent money with the
+  greatest possible reluctance, and was strangely dissatisfied with
+  this able and faithful servant, even when his measures were
+  attended with signal success.</p>
+
+  <p>In the meantime O'Neill zealously espoused the cause of Mary
+  Queen of Scots. His friendship with Argyle grew closer, and he
+  proposed that it should be cemented by a marriage. 'The countess'
+  was to be sent away, and Shane was to be united to the widow of
+  James M'Connell, whom he had killed&mdash;who was another
+  half-sister of Argyle, and whose daughter he had married already
+  and divorced. Sidney wrote, that was said to be the earl's
+  practice; and Mr. Froude, who has celebrated the virtues of Henry
+  VIII., takes occasion from this facility of divorce to have
+  another fling at 'Irish nature.' He says:&mdash;'The Irish
+  chiefs, it seemed, three thousand years behind the world,
+  retained the habits and the moralities of the Greek princes in
+  the tale of Troy, when the bride of the slaughtered husband was
+  the willing prize of the conqueror; and when only a rare
+  Andromache was found to envy the fate of a sister</p>
+
+  <blockquote>
+    <p>Who had escaped the bed of some victorious lord.'</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <p>After a brief and brilliant campaign, in which Shane 'swept
+  round by Lough Erne, swooped on the remaining <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page61" id="page61"></a>[pg 61]</span> cattle
+  of Maguire, and struck terror and admiration into the Irishry,'
+  he wrote a letter to Charles IX. of France, inviting his
+  co-operation in expelling the heretics, and bringing back the
+  country to the holy Roman see. The heretic Saxons, he said, were
+  the enemies of Almighty God, the enemies of the holy Church of
+  Rome, the King's enemies, and his. 'The time is come when we all
+  are confederates in a common bond to drive the invader from our
+  shores, and we now beseech your Majesty to send us 6,000
+  well-armed men. If you will grant our request there will soon be
+  no Englishmen left alive among us, and we will be your Majesty's
+  subjects ever more.' This letter was intercepted, and is now
+  preserved among the Irish MSS.</p>
+
+  <p>Sidney resolved to adopt a new plan of warfare. His campaigns
+  would not be mere summer forays, mere inroads of devastation
+  during the few dry weeks of August and September. He would wait
+  till the harvest was gathered in, place troops in fortresses, and
+  continue hostilities through the winter. He adopted this course
+  because 'in the cold Irish springs, the fields were bare, the
+  cattle were lean, and the weather was so uncertain that neither
+  man nor horse could bear it, whereas in August <i>food everywhere
+  was abundant</i>, and the soldiers would have time to become
+  hardened to their work.' They could winter somewhere on the Bann;
+  harry Tyrone night and day without remission, and so break Shane
+  to the ground and ruin him. There was no time to be lost. Maguire
+  had come into Dublin, reporting that his last cottage was in
+  ashes, and his last cow driven over the hill into Shane's
+  country; while Argyle, with the whole disposable force of the
+  western isles, was expected to join him in summer. O'Neill
+  himself, after an abortive attempt to entrap Sidney at Dundalk,
+  made a sudden attack on that town in July; but his men were
+  beaten back, 'and eighteen heads were left behind to grin
+  hideously over the gates.' He then returned to Armagh and burned
+  the cathedral to the ground, to prevent its being again occupied
+  by an English garrison. He next sent a swift messenger to
+  Desmond, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page62" id=
+  "page62"></a>[pg 62]</span> calling for a rising in Munster. 'Now
+  was the time or never' to set upon the enemies of Ireland. If
+  Desmond failed, or turned against his country, God would avenge
+  it on him. But Desmond's reply was an offer to the deputy 'to go
+  against the rebel with all his power. The Scots also held back.'
+  Shane offered them all Antrim to join him, all the cattle in the
+  country, and the release of Sorleyboy from captivity; but Antrim
+  and its cattle they believed that they could recover for
+  themselves, and James M'Connell had left a brother Allaster, who
+  was watching with eager eyes for an opportunity to revenge the
+  death of his kinsman, and the dishonour with which Shane had
+  stained his race.</p>
+
+  <p>In the meantime troops and money came over from England, and
+  on September 17, Colonel Randolph was at the head of an army in
+  Lough Foyle; and the lord deputy took the field accompanied by
+  Kildare, the old O'Donel, Shane Maguire, and O'Dogherty. So that
+  this war against O'Neill was waged for the dispossessed Irish
+  chiefs as well as for England. Armagh city they found a mere heap
+  of blackened stones. Marching without obstruction to Ben brook,
+  one of O'Neill's best and largest houses, which they found
+  'utterly burned and razed to the ground,' thence they went on
+  towards Clogher, 'through pleasant fields, and villages so well
+  inhabited as no Irish county in the realm was like it.' The
+  Bishop of Clogher was out with Shane in the field. 'His
+  well-fattened flock were devoured by Sidney's men as by a flight
+  of Egyptian locusts.' 'There we stayed,' said Sidney, 'to destroy
+  the corn; we burned the country for 124 miles compass, and we
+  found by experience that now was the time of the year to do the
+  rebel most harm.' But he says not a word of the harm he was doing
+  to the poor innocent peasantry, whose industry had produced the
+  crops, to the terrified women and children whom he was thus
+  consigning to a horrible lingering death by famine. This was a
+  strange commencement of his own programme to treat the people
+  with justice.</p>
+
+  <p>The lord deputy expected to meet Randolph at Lifford;
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page63" id="page63"></a>[pg
+  63]</span> but struck with the singular advantages presented by
+  Derry, then an island, for a military position, he pitched his
+  tents there, and set the troops to work in erecting
+  fortifications. Nothing then stood on the site of the present
+  city, save a decrepid and deserted monastery of Augustine monks,
+  which was said to have been built in the time of St. Columba.</p>
+
+  <p>Sidney stayed a few days at Derry, and then, leaving Randolph
+  with 650 men, 350 pioneers, and provisions for two months, he
+  marched on to Donegal. This was once a thriving town, inhabited
+  by English colonists. At the time of Sidney's arrival it was a
+  pile of ruins, 'in the midst of which, like a wild beast's den,
+  strewed round with mangled bones, rose the largest and strongest
+  castle which he had seen in Ireland. It was held by one of
+  O'Donel's kinsmen, to whom Shane, to attach him to his cause, had
+  given his sister to wife. At the appearance of the old chief with
+  the English army, it was immediately surrendered. O'Donel was at
+  last rewarded for his fidelity and sufferings; and the whole
+  tribe, with eager protestations of allegiance, gave sureties for
+  their future loyalty.' Sidney next directed his march to
+  Ballyshannon, and on by the coast of Sligo. Passing over the bogs
+  and mountains of Mayo, they came into Roscommon, and then,
+  'leaving behind them as fruitful a country as was in England or
+  Ireland all utterly waste,' the army crossed the Shannon at
+  Athlone, swimming 'for lack of a bridge.' The results of this
+  progress are thus summed up by Mr. Froude. 'Twenty castles had
+  been taken as they went along and left in hands that could be
+  trusted. In all that long and painful journey Sidney was able to
+  say that there had not died of sickness but three persons; men
+  and horses were brought back in full health and strength, while
+  her majesty's honour was re-established among the Irishry, and
+  grown to no small veneration&mdash;"an expedition comparable only
+  to Alexander's journey into Bactria," wrote an admirer of Sidney
+  to Cecil&mdash;revealing what to Irish eyes appeared the
+  magnitude of the difficulty, and forming a measure of the effect
+  which it produced. The <span class="pagenum"><a name="page64" id=
+  "page64"></a>[pg 64]</span> English deputy had bearded Shane in
+  his stronghold, burned his houses, pillaged his people, and had
+  fastened a body of police in the midst of them, to keep them
+  waking in the winter nights. He had penetrated the hitherto
+  impregnable fortresses of mountain and morass; the Irish who had
+  been faithful to England were again in safe possession of their
+  lands and homes. The weakest, maddest, and wildest Celts were
+  made aware that, when the English were once roused to effort,
+  they could crush them as the lion crushes the jackal.'<a id=
+  "footnotetag12" name="footnotetag12"></a><a href=
+  "#footnote12"><sup>9</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>O'Neill had followed the lord deputy to Lifford, and then
+  marched on to the Pale, expecting to retaliate upon the invaders
+  with impunity. But he was encountered by Warren St. Leger, lost
+  200 men, and was at first hunted back over the border. He again
+  returned, however, with 'a main army,' burned several villages,
+  and in a second fight with St. Leger, compelled the English to
+  retire, 'for lack of more aid;' but they held together in good
+  order, and Shane, with the Derry garrison in his rear, durst not
+  follow far from home in pursuit. 'Before he could revenge himself
+  on Sidney, before he could stir against the Scots, before he
+  could strike a blow at O'Donel, he must pluck out the barbed dart
+  which was fastened in his unguarded side.'</p>
+
+  <p>In order to accomplish this object, he hovered cautiously
+  about the Foyle, watching for an opportunity to attack the
+  garrison. But Randolph fell upon him by surprise, and after a
+  short sharp action, the O'Neills gave way. O'Dogherty with his
+  Irish horse chased the flying crowd of his countrymen, killing
+  every person he caught; and Shane lost 400 men, the bravest of
+  his warriors. The English success was dearly bought, for Randolph
+  leading the pursuit, was struck by a random shot, and fell dead
+  from his horse.</p>
+
+  <p>Before the Irish chief could recover from this great disaster,
+  Sidney 'struck in again beyond Dundalk, burning his farms and
+  capturing his castles. The Scots came in <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page65" id="page65"></a>[pg 65]</span> over
+  the Bann, wasting the country all along the river side. Allaster
+  M'Connell, like some chief of Sioux Indians, sent to the captain
+  of Knockfergus an account of the cattle that he had driven, and
+  <i>the wives and bairns</i> that he had slain. Like swarms of
+  angry hornets, these avenging savages drove their stings in the
+  now maddened and desperate Shane on every point where they could
+  fasten; while in December the old O'Donel came out over the
+  mountains from Donegal, and paid back O'Neill with interest for
+  his stolen wife, his pillaged country, and his own long
+  imprisonment and exile. The tide of fortune had turned too late
+  for his own revenge: worn out with his long sufferings, he fell
+  from his horse, at the head of his people, with the stroke of
+  death upon him; but before he died, he called his kinsmen about
+  him, and prayed them to be true to England and their queen, and
+  Hugh O'Donel, who succeeded to his father's command, went
+  straight to Derry, and swore allegiance to the English crown.</p>
+
+  <p>'Tyrone was now smitten in all its borders. Magennis was the
+  last powerful chief who still adhered to Shane's fortunes; the
+  last week in the year Sidney carried fire and sword through his
+  country, and left him not a hoof remaining. It was to no purpose
+  that Shane, bewildered by the rapidity with which disasters were
+  piling themselves upon him, cried out now for pardon and peace;
+  the deputy would not answer his letter, and nothing was talked of
+  but his extirpation by war only.'<a id="footnotetag13" name=
+  "footnotetag13"></a><a href="#footnote13"><sup>10</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>The war, however, was interrupted by a singular calamity that
+  befel the Derry garrison. By the death of their commander left 'a
+  headless people,' they suffered from want of food and clothing.
+  They also became the prey of a mysterious disease, against which
+  no precautions could guard, which no medicine could cure, and by
+  which strong men were suddenly struck dead. By the middle of
+  November 'the flux was reigning among them wonderfully;' many of
+  the best men went away because there was none to stay them. The
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page66" id="page66"></a>[pg
+  66]</span> secret of the dreadful malady&mdash;something like the
+  cholera&mdash;was discovered in the fact that the soldiers had
+  built their sleeping quarters over the burial-ground of the
+  abbey, 'and the clammy vapour had stolen into their lungs and
+  poisoned them.' The officer who succeeded to the command applied
+  the most effectual remedy. He led the men at once into the pure
+  air of the enemies' country, and they returned after a few days
+  driving before them 700 horses and 1,000 cattle. He assured
+  Sidney, that with 300 additional men, he could so hunt the rebel,
+  that ere May was passed, he should not show his face in Ulster.
+  But the 'Black Death' returned after a brief respite; and, says
+  Mr. Froude, in the reeking vapour of the charnel-house, it was
+  indifferent whether its victims returned in triumph from a
+  stricken field, or were cooped within their walls by hordes of
+  savage enemies. By the middle of March there were left out of
+  1,100 but 300 available to fight. Reinforcements had been raised
+  at Liverpool, but they were countermanded when on the point of
+  sailing. The English council was discussing the propriety of
+  removing the colony to the Bann, when accident finished the work
+  which the plague had begun, and spared them the trouble of
+  deliberation. The huts and sheds round the monastery had been
+  huddled together for the convenience of fortification. At the end
+  of April, probably after a drying east wind, a fire broke out in
+  a blacksmith's forge, which spread irresistibly through the
+  entire range of buildings. The flames at last reached the powder
+  magazine: thirty men were blown to pieces by the explosion, and
+  the rest, paralysed by this last addition to their misfortunes,
+  made no more effort to extinguish the conflagration. St. Loo,
+  with all that remained of that ill-fated party, watched from
+  their provision boats in the river the utter destruction of the
+  settlement which had begun so happily, and then sailed drearily
+  away to find a refuge in Knockfergus. Such was the fate of the
+  first efforts for the building of Londonderry; and below its
+  later glories, as so often happens in this world, lay the bones
+  of many a hundred <span class="pagenum"><a name="page67" id=
+  "page67"></a>[pg 67]</span> gallant men who lost their lives in
+  laying its foundations. Elizabeth, who in the immediate pressure
+  of calamity resumed at once her noble nature, 'perceiving the
+  misfortune not to come of treason, but of God's ordinance,' bore
+  it well; she was willing to do that should be wanting to repair
+  the loss; and Cecil was able to write cheerfully to Sidney,
+  telling him to make the best of the accident and let it stimulate
+  him to fresh exertions.'<a id="footnotetag14" name=
+  "footnotetag14"></a><a href="#footnote14"><sup>11</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>In the meantime Shane O'Neill, hard pressed on every side,
+  earnestly implored the cardinals of Lorraine and Guise, in the
+  name of their great brother the duke, to bring the
+  <i>Fleur-de-lys</i> to the rescue of Ireland from the grasp of
+  the ungodly English. 'Help us,' he cried, blending
+  <i>Irish-like</i> flattery with entreaty: 'when I was in England,
+  I saw your noble brother, the Marquis d'Elboeuf, transfix two
+  stags with a single arrow. If the most Christian king will not
+  help us, move the pope to help us. I alone in this land sustain
+  his cause.' To propitiate his holiness, Primate Daniel was
+  dismissed to the ranks of the army, and Creagh received his
+  crosier, and was taken into O'Neill's household.</p>
+
+  <p>'All was done,' says the English historian, 'to deserve favour
+  in earth and heaven, but all was useless. The Pope sat silent or
+  muttering his anathemas with bated breath. The Guises had work
+  enough on hand at home to heed the <i>Irish wolf</i>, whom the
+  English, having in vain attempted to trap or poison, were driving
+  to bay with more lawful weapons.' His own people, divided and
+  dispirited, began now to desert the failing cause. In May, by a
+  concerted movement, the deputy with the light horse of the Pale
+  overran Tyrone, and robbed the farmers of 3,000 cattle, while the
+  O'Donels mustered their forces for a great contest with Shane,
+  now struggling, almost hopelessly, to maintain his supremacy. The
+  O'Neills and O'Donels met on the banks of the Foyle near Lifford.
+  The former were superior in number, being about 3,000 men. After
+  a brief fight 'the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page68" id=
+  "page68"></a>[pg 68]</span> O'Neills broke and fled; the enemy
+  was behind them, the river was in front; and when the Irish
+  battle cries had died away over moor and mountain, but 200
+  survived of those fierce troopers, who were to have cleared
+  Ireland for ever from the presence of the Saxons. For the rest,
+  the wolves were snarling over their bodies, and the seagulls
+  whirling over them with scream and cry, as they floated down to
+  their last resting-place beneath the quiet waters of Lough Foyle.
+  Shane's foster-brethren, faithful to the last, were all killed;
+  he himself with half-a-dozen comrades rode for his life, pursued
+  by the avenging furies. His first desperate intention was to
+  throw himself at Sidney's feet, <i>with a slave's collar upon his
+  neck</i>; but his secretary, Neil M'Kevin, persuaded him that his
+  cause was not yet absolutely without hope. Sorleyboy was still a
+  prisoner in the castle at Lough Neagh, the Countess of Argyle had
+  remained with her ravisher through his shifting fortunes, had
+  continued to bear him children, and notwithstanding his many
+  infidelities, was still attached to him. M'Kevin told him that
+  for their sakes, or at their intercession, he might find shelter
+  and perhaps help among the kindred of the M'Connells.'</p>
+
+  <p>Acting on this advice, O'Neill took his prisoner, 'the
+  countess, his secretary, and fifty men to the camp of Allaster
+  M'Connell, in the far extremity of Antrim. He was received with
+  dissembled gratulatory words.' For two days all went on well, and
+  an alliance was talked of. But the vengeance of his hosts was
+  with difficulty suppressed. The great chief who was now in their
+  power, had slain their leaders in the field, had divorced James
+  M'Connell's daughter, had kept a high-born Scottish lady as his
+  mistress, and had asked Argyle to give him for a wife M'Connell's
+  widow, who, to escape the dishonour, had remained in concealment
+  at Edinburgh. On the third evening, Monday June 2, when the wine
+  and the whiskey had gone freely round, and the blood in Shane's
+  veins had warmed, Gilespie M'Connell, who had watched him from
+  the first with an ill-boding <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page69" id="page69"></a>[pg 69]</span> eye, turned round upon
+  M'Kevin, and asked scornfully, 'whether it was he who had bruited
+  abroad that the lady his aunt did offer to come from Scotland to
+  Ireland to marry with his master?'</p>
+
+  <p>M'Kevin meeting scorn with scorn said, that if his aunt was
+  Queen of Scotland she might be proud to match with the O'Neill.
+  'It is false,' the fierce Scot shouted; 'my aunt is too honest a
+  woman to match with her husband's murderer.'</p>
+
+  <p>'Shane, who was perhaps drunk, heard the words, and forgetting
+  where he was, flung back the lie in Gilespie's throat. Gilespie
+  sprung to his feet, ran out of the tent, and raised the slogan of
+  the Isles. A hundred dirks flashed into the moonlight, and the
+  Irish, wherever they could be found, were struck down and
+  stabbed. Some two or three found their horses and escaped, all
+  the rest were murdered; and Shane himself, gashed with fifty
+  wounds, was wrapped in a kern's old shirt, and flung into a pit,
+  dug hastily among the ruined arches of Glenarm. Even there, what
+  was left of him was not allowed to rest. Four days later, Piers,
+  the captain of Knockfergus, hacked the head from the body, and
+  carried it on a spear's point through Drogheda to Dublin, where,
+  staked upon a pike, it bleached on the battlements of the castle,
+  a symbol to the Irish world of the fate of Celtic heroes.'<a id=
+  "footnotetag15" name="footnotetag15"></a><a href=
+  "#footnote15"><sup>12</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Froude might have added: Celtic heroes struck down by
+  Celtic hands. No lord deputy could boast of a victory over Shane
+  O'Neill in the field. Irish traitors in English pay, Irish clans
+  moved by vengeance, did the work of England in the destruction of
+  the great principality of the O'Neills, and it was by
+  <i>their</i> swords, not by English valour, that Sidney
+  'recovered Ireland for the crown of Elizabeth.' Whatever may have
+  been the faults of Shane O'Neill, and no doubt they were very
+  great, though not to be judged of by the morality of the
+  nineteenth century, his talents, his force of character, his
+  courage and capacity <span class="pagenum"><a name="page70" id=
+  "page70"></a>[pg 70]</span> as a general, deserved more
+  favourable notice from Mr. Froude, who, in almost every sentence
+  of his graphic and splendid descriptions, betrays an animosity to
+  the Celtic race, very strange in an author so enlightened, and
+  evincing, with this exception, such generous sympathies. After so
+  often reviling the great Irish champion by comparing him to all
+  sorts of wild beasts, the historian thus concludes:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'So died Shane O'Neill, one of those champions of Irish
+  nationality, who under varying features have repeated themselves
+  in the history of that country with periodic regularity. At once
+  a <i>drunken ruffian</i>, and a keen and fiery patriot, the
+  representative in his birth of the line of the ancient kings, the
+  ideal in his character of all which Irishmen most admired,
+  regardless in his actions of the laws of God and man, yet the
+  devoted subject in his creed of the holy Catholic Church; with an
+  eye which could see far beyond the limits of his own island, and
+  a tongue which could touch the most passionate chords of the
+  Irish heart; the like of him has been seen many times in that
+  island, and the like of him may be seen many times again till the
+  Ethiopian has changed his skin, and the leopard his spots.
+  Numbers of his letters remain, to the Queen, to Sussex, to
+  Sidney, to Cecil, and to foreign princes; far-reaching, full of
+  pleasant flattery and promises which cost him nothing, but
+  showing true ability and insight. Sinner though he was, he too in
+  his turn was sinned against; in the stained page of Irish misrule
+  there is no second instance in which an English ruler stooped to
+  treachery, or to the infamy of attempted assassination; and it is
+  not to be forgotten that Lord Sussex, who has left under his own
+  hand the evidence of his own baseness, continued a trusted and
+  favoured councillor of Elizabeth, while Sidney, who fought Shane
+  and conquered him in the open field, found only suspicion and
+  hard words.'</p>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote4" name="footnote4"></a><b>Footnote 1:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag4">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>See Life of Sir Walter Raleigh.</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote5" name="footnote5"></a><b>Footnote 2:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag5">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>Froude.</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote6" name="footnote6"></a><b>Footnote 3:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag6">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>Froude.</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote7" name="footnote7"></a><b>Footnote 4:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag7">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>Wright's Elizabeth, vol. i. p. 73.</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote8" name="footnote8"></a><b>Footnote 5:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag8">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>Haverty's History of Ireland, p. 300.</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote9" name="footnote9"></a><b>Footnote 6:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag9">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>Froude, vol. viii. p. 48.</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote10" name="footnote10"></a><b>Footnote 7:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag10">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>Vol. viii. p. 377.</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote11" name="footnote11"></a><b>Footnote 8:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag11">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>Opinions of Sir H. Sidney, Irish MSS., Rolls House; Froude,
+    p. 385.</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote12" name="footnote12"></a><b>Footnote 9:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag12">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>Vol. viii. p. 407.</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote13" name="footnote13"></a><b>Footnote 10:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag13">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>Froude, p. 413.</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote14" name="footnote14"></a><b>Footnote 11:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag14">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>Page 410.</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote15" name="footnote15"></a><b>Footnote 12:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag15">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>Froude, p. 418, &amp;c.</p>
+  </blockquote><span class="pagenum"><a name="page71" id=
+  "page71"></a>[pg 71]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+  <h3>EXTERMINATING WARS.</h3>
+
+  <p>Mr. Froude's magnificent chapter on Ireland, in the eleventh
+  volume of his history, just published, ought to be studied by
+  every member of the legislature before parliament meets. If a
+  nation has a conscience, England must feel remorse for the deeds
+  done in her name in Ireland; and ought to make amends for them,
+  if possible. The historian has well described the policy of Queen
+  Elizabeth. She was at times disposed to forbearance, but 'she
+  made impossible the obedience she enjoined. Her deputies and her
+  presidents, too short-sighted to rule with justice, were driven
+  to cruelty in spite of themselves. It was easier to kill than to
+  restrain. Death was the only gaoler which their finances could
+  support, while the Irish in turn lay in wait to retaliate upon
+  their oppressors, and atrocity begat atrocity in hopeless
+  continuity.'</p>
+
+  <p>Whenever there was a failing in any enterprise, the queen
+  conceived 'a great misliking of the whole matter;' but success
+  covered a multitude of sins. When the Irish were powerful, and
+  the colony was in danger, she thought it 'a hard matter to
+  subvert the customs of the people which they had enjoyed, to be
+  ruled by the captains of their own nation. Let the chiefs sue for
+  pardon, and submit to her authority, and she would let them have
+  their seignories, their captaincies, their body-guards, and all
+  the rest of their dignities, with power of life and death over
+  their people. But,' says Mr. Froude, 'it was the curse of the
+  English rule that it never could adhere consistently to any
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page72" id="page72"></a>[pg
+  72]</span> definite principle. It threatened, and failed to
+  execute its threats. It fell back on conciliation, and yet
+  immediately, by some injustice or cruelty, made reliance on its
+  good faith impossible.'</p>
+
+  <p>Essex seemed to understand well the nature and motive of the
+  queen's professions, and he resolved to make some bold attempts
+  to win back her favour. He had made a sudden attack on Sir Brian
+  O'Neill of Clandeboye, with troops trained in the wars of the Low
+  Countries, and in a week he brought him to abject submission,
+  which he expressed by saying that 'he had gone wickedly astray,
+  wandering in the wilderness like a blind beast.' But it was the
+  misfortune of Sir Brian, or M'Phelim, that he still held his own
+  territory, which had been granted by the queen to Essex. 'The
+  attempt to deprive him had been relinquished. He had surrendered
+  his lands, and the queen, at Essex's own intercession, had
+  reinstated him as tenant under the crown. It seems, however, as
+  if Essex had his eye still upon the property.' Under such
+  circumstances, it was easy to assume that O'Neill was still
+  playing false. So he resolved that he should not be able to do so
+  any longer. 'He determined to make sure work with so fickle a
+  people.' He returned to Clandeboye, as if on a friendly visit.
+  Sir Brian and Lady O'Neill received him with all hospitality. The
+  Irish Annalists say that they gave him a banquet. They not only
+  let him off safe, but they accompanied him to his castle at
+  Belfast. There he was very gracious. A high feast was held in the
+  hall; and it was late in the night when the noble guest and his
+  wife retired to their lodging outside the walls. When they were
+  supposed to be asleep, a company of soldiers surrounded the house
+  and prepared to break the door. 'The O'Neills flew to arms. The
+  cry rang through the village, and the people swarmed out to
+  defend their chief; but surprised, half-armed, and outnumbered,
+  they were overpowered and cut to pieces. Two hundred men were
+  killed. The Four Masters add that the women were slain. The
+  chieftain's wife had female attendants with her, and <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page73" id="page73"></a>[pg 73]</span> no one
+  was knowingly spared. The tide being out, a squadron of horse was
+  sent at daybreak over the water into the "Ardes," from which, in
+  a few hours, they returned with 3,000 of Sir Brian's cattle, and
+  with a drove of stud mares, of which the choicest were sent to
+  Fitzwilliam. Sir Brian himself, his brother, and Lady O'Neill,
+  were carried as prisoners to Dublin, where they were soon after
+  executed.'<a id="footnotetag16" name="footnotetag16"></a><a href=
+  "#footnote16"><sup>1</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>Essex did not miscalculate the probable effect of this
+  exploit. It raised him high in the estimation of the Anglo-Irish
+  of the Pale. 'The taint of the country was upon him; he had made
+  himself no better than themselves, and was the hero of the hour.'
+  The effect of such conduct and such a spirit in the rulers, may
+  be imagined. A few weeks later, Sir Edward Fitton wrote: 'I may
+  say of Ireland, that it is quiet; but if universal oppression of
+  the mean sort by the great; if murder, robberies, burnings make
+  an ill commonwealth, then I cannot say we are in a good case ...
+  Public sentiment in Dublin, however, was unanimous in its
+  approbation. Essex was the man who would cauterize the
+  long-standing sores. There was a soldier in Ireland at last who
+  understood the work that was to be done, and the way to set about
+  it. Beloved by the soldiers, admirable alike for religion,
+  nobility, and courtesy, altogether the queen's, and not bewitched
+  by the factions of the realm, the governor of Ulster had but to
+  be armed with supreme power, and the long-wished-for conquest of
+  Ireland would be easily and instantly achieved.'</p>
+
+  <p>These feelings were not unnatural to the party in Dublin, now
+  represented by the men who recently declared that they rejoiced
+  in the election of a Fenian convict in Tipperary, and declared
+  that they would vote for such a candidate in preference to a
+  loyal man. But how did Queen Elizabeth receive the news of the
+  treacherous and atrocious massacre at Belfast? She was not
+  displeased. 'Her occasional disapprobation of severities of this
+  kind,' says Mr. Froude, 'was confined to cases to which the
+  attention of Europe <span class="pagenum"><a name="page74" id=
+  "page74"></a>[pg 74]</span> happened to be especially directed.
+  She told Essex that he was a great ornament of her nobility, she
+  wished she had many as ready as he to spend their lives for the
+  benefit of their country.'</p>
+
+  <p>Thus encouraged by his sovereign, and smarting under the
+  reproach of cowardice cast on him by Leicester, Essex determined
+  to render his name illustrious by a still more signal deed of
+  heroism. After an unprovoked raid on the territories of O'Neill
+  in Tyrone, carrying off cattle and slaughtering great numbers of
+  innocent people whom his soldiers hunted down, he perpetrated
+  another massacre, which is certainly one of the most infamous
+  recorded in history. A great number of women and children, aged
+  and sick persons, had fled from the horrors that reigned on the
+  mainland, and taken refuge in the island of Rathlin. The story of
+  their tragic fate is admirably told by Mr. Froude:&mdash;'The
+  situation and the difficulty of access had thus long marked
+  Rathlin as a place of refuge for Scotch or Irish fugitives, and,
+  besides its natural strength, it was respected as a sanctuary,
+  having been the abode at one time of St. Columba. A mass of
+  broken masonry, on a cliff overhanging the sea, is a remnant of
+  the castle in which Robert Bruce watched the leap of the
+  legendary spider. To this island, when Essex entered Antrim,
+  M'Connell and other Scots had sent their wives and children,
+  their aged and their sick, for safety. On his way through
+  Carrickfergus, when returning to Dublin, the earl ascertained
+  that they had not yet been brought back to their homes. The
+  officer in command of the English garrison (it is painful to
+  mention the name either of him, or of any man concerned in what
+  ensued) was John Norris, Lord Norris's second son, so famous
+  afterwards in the Low Countries, grandson of Sir Henry Norris,
+  executed for adultery with Anne Boleyn. Three small frigates were
+  in the harbour. The summer had been hot and windless; the sea was
+  smooth, there was a light and favourable air from the east; and
+  Essex directed Norris to take a company of soldiers with him,
+  cross over, and&mdash;'</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page75"
+  id="page75"></a>[pg 75]</span>
+
+  <p>What? Bring those women and children, those sick and aged
+  folk, back to their homes? Essex had made peace by treaty with
+  the O'Neill. He had killed or chased away every man that could
+  disturb the peace; and an act of humanity like this would have
+  had a most conciliatory effect, and ought to recommend the hero
+  to the queen, who should be supposed to have the heart as well as
+  the form of a woman.</p>
+
+  <p>No; the order was, to go over '<i>and kill whatever he could
+  find!</i>' Mr. Froude resumes: 'The run of the Antrim coast was
+  rapidly and quietly accomplished. Before an alarm could be given,
+  the English had landed, close to the ruins of the church which
+  bears St. Columba's name. Bruce's castle was then standing, and
+  was occupied by a score or two of Scots, who were in charge of
+  the women. But Norris had brought cannon with him. The weak
+  defences were speedily destroyed, and after a severe assault, in
+  which several of the garrison were killed, the chief who was in
+  command offered to surrender, if he and his people were allowed
+  to return to Scotland. The conditions were rejected. The Scots
+  yielded at discretion, and every living creature in the place,
+  except the chief and his family (who were probably reserved for
+  ransom), was immediately put to the sword. Two hundred were
+  killed in the castle. It was then discovered that several hundred
+  more, chiefly mothers and their little ones, were hidden in the
+  caves about the shore. There was no remorse, nor even the
+  faintest shadow of perception that the occasion called for it.
+  They were hunted out as if they had been seals or otters, and all
+  destroyed. Sorleyboy and other chiefs, Essex coolly wrote, had
+  sent their wives and children into the island, "which be all
+  taken and executed to the number of six hundred. Sorleyboy
+  himself," he continued, "stood upon the mainland of the Glynnes
+  and saw the taking of the island, and was likely to have run mad
+  for sorrow, tearing and tormenting himself, and saying that he
+  there lost all that he ever had!" The impression left upon the
+  mind by this horrible story, is increased by the <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page76" id="page76"></a>[pg 76]</span>
+  composure with which even the news of it was received.
+  "Yellow-haired Charley," wrote Essex to the queen, "might tear
+  himself for his pretty little ones and their <i>dam</i>," but in
+  Ireland itself the massacre was not specially distinguished in
+  the general system of atrocity. Essex described it himself as one
+  of the exploits with which he was most satisfied; and Elizabeth,
+  in answer to his letters, bade him tell John Norris, "the
+  executioner of his well-designed enterprise, that she would not
+  be unmindful of his services."'</p>
+
+  <p>I have transcribed this narrative partly for the sake of the
+  reflection with which Mr. Froude concludes. He says: 'But though
+  passed over and unheeded at the time, and lying buried for three
+  hundred years, the bloody stain comes back to the light again,
+  not in myth or legend, but in the original account of the
+  nobleman by whose command the deed was done; and when the history
+  of England's dealings with Ireland settles at last into its final
+  shape, that hunt among the caves at Rathlin will not be
+  forgotten.'<a id="footnotetag17" name=
+  "footnotetag17"></a><a href="#footnote17"><sup>2</sup></a> It was
+  for services like these that Essex got the barony of Farney, in
+  the county Monaghan. He had mortgaged his English estates to the
+  queen for 10,000<i>l.</i>,and after his plundering expeditions in
+  Ireland he went home to pay his debts.</p>
+
+  <p>Further on Mr. Froude has another reflection connected with
+  the death of Essex, supposed to have been poisoned, as his widow
+  immediately after married Leicester. He says: 'Notwithstanding
+  Rathlin, Essex was one of the noblest of living Englishmen, and
+  that such a man could have ordered such a deed, being totally
+  unconscious of the horror of it, is not the least instructive
+  feature in the dreadful story.' It is certainly a strange fact
+  that nearly all the official murderers who ruled in Ireland in
+  those times were intensely religious, setting to their own class
+  a most edifying example of piety. Thus, from the first,
+  Protestantism was presented to the Irish in close connexion with
+  brutal inhumanity and remorseless cruelty. Essex, when dying, was
+  described by <span class="pagenum"><a name="page77" id=
+  "page77"></a>[pg 77]</span> the bystanders as acting 'more like a
+  divine preacher or heavenly prophet than a man.' His opinion of
+  the religious character of his countrymen was most unfavourable.
+  'The Gospel had been preached to them,' he said, 'but they were
+  neither Papists nor Protestants&mdash;of no religion, but full of
+  pride and iniquity. There was nothing but infidelity, infidelity,
+  infidelity!&mdash;atheism, atheism!&mdash;no religion, no
+  religion!' What such tiger-like slaughterers of women and
+  children, such ruthless destroyers, could have meant by religion
+  is a puzzle for philosophers.</p>
+
+  <p>Sidney reluctantly resumed the office of viceroy in 1575.
+  Tirlogh O'Neill congratulated the Government on his appointment,
+  'wretched Ireland needing not the sword, but sober, temperate,
+  and humane administration.' Though it was winter, the new deputy
+  immediately commenced a progress through the provinces. Going
+  first to Ulster, he saw Sorleyboy, and gave him back Rathlin. He
+  paid a friendly visit to the O'Neill, who gave him an assurance
+  of his loyalty. Leinster he found for the most part 'waste, burnt
+  up and destroyed.' He proceeded by Waterford to Cork. He was
+  received everywhere with acclamation. 'The wretched people,' says
+  Mr. Froude, how truly!&mdash;'sanguine then, as ever, in the
+  midst of sorrow, looked on his coming as the inauguration of a
+  new and happier era.' So, in later times, they looked on the
+  coming of Chesterfield, and Fitzwilliam, and Anglesey. But the
+  good angel was quickly chased away by the evil
+  demon&mdash;invoked under the name of the 'Protestant Interest.'
+  The Munster and the Connaught chiefs all thronged to Sidney's
+  lev&#233;es, weary of disaffection, and willing to be loyal,
+  if their religion were not interfered with, 'detesting their
+  barbarous lives,'&mdash;promising rent and service for their
+  lands. 'The past was wiped out. Confiscation on the one hand, and
+  rebellion on the other, were to be heard of no more. A clean page
+  was turned.' Even the Catholic bishops were tractable, and the
+  viceroy got 'good and honest juries in Cork, and with their help
+  twenty-four malefactors were honourably condemned and
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page78" id="page78"></a>[pg
+  78]</span> hanged.' Enjoying an ovation as he passed on to
+  Limerick and Galway, he found many grievances to be
+  redressed&mdash;'plenty of burnings, rapes, murders, besides such
+  spoil in goods and cattle as in number might be counted infinite,
+  and in quantity innumerable.'</p>
+
+  <p>Sir William Drury was appointed president of Munster; and he
+  was determined that in his case the magistrate should not bear
+  the sword in vain. Going round the counties as an itinerant
+  judge, he gleaned the malefactors Sidney had left, and hanged
+  forty-three of them in Cork. One he pressed to death for
+  declining to plead to his indictment. Two M'Sweenys, from Kerry,
+  were drawn and quartered. At Limerick he hanged forty-two, and at
+  Kilkenny thirty-six, among which he said were 'some good ones,'
+  as a sportsman might say, bagging his game. He had a difficulty
+  with 'a blackamoor and two witches,' against whom he found no
+  statute of the realm, so he dispatched them 'by natural law.'
+  Although Jeffreys, at the Bloody Assizes, did not come near
+  Drury, the latter found it necessary to apologise to the English
+  Government for the paucity of his victims, saying, 'I have chosen
+  rather with the snail tenderly to creep, than with the hare
+  swiftly to run.' With the Government in Ireland, as Mr. Froude
+  has well remarked, 'the gallows is the only preacher of
+  righteousness.'</p>
+
+  <p>But the gallows was far too slow, as an instrument of reform
+  and civilisation, for Malby, president of Connaught; and as
+  modern evictors in that province and elsewhere have chosen
+  Christmas as the most appropriate season for pulling down
+  dwellings, extinguishing domestic fires, and unhousing women and
+  children, so Malby chose the same blessed season for his
+  'improvements' in 1576. It is such a model for dealing with the
+  Fenians and tenants on the Tory plan, that I transcribe his own
+  report, which Mr. Froude has found among the Irish MSS. 'At
+  Christmas,' he wrote, 'I marched into their territory, and
+  finding courteous dealing with them had like to have cut my
+  throat, I thought good to take another course; and so with
+  determination <i>to consume <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page79" id="page79"></a>[pg 79]</span> them with fire and sword,
+  sparing neither old nor young</i>, I entered their mountains. I
+  burnt all their corn and houses, and committed to the sword all
+  that could be found, where were slain at that time above sixty of
+  their best men, and among them the best leaders they had. This
+  was Shan Burke's country. Then I burnt Ulick Burke's country. In
+  like manner I assaulted a castle where the garrison surrendered.
+  I put them to the misericordia of my soldiers. They were all
+  slain. Thence I went on, sparing none which came in my way, which
+  cruelty did so amaze their followers, that they could not tell
+  where to bestow themselves. Shan Burke made means to me to pardon
+  him and forbear killing of his people. I would not hearken, but
+  went on my way. The gentlemen of Clanrickard came to me. I found
+  it was but dallying to win time, so I left Ulick as little corn
+  and as few houses standing as I left his brother; and what people
+  was found had as little favour as the other had. <i>It was all
+  done in rain and frost and storm</i>, journeys in such weather
+  bringing them the sooner to submission. They are humble enough
+  now, and will yield to any terms we like to offer them.'</p>
+
+  <p>And so Malby and his soldiers enjoyed a merry Christmas; and
+  when Walsingham read his letters, giving an account of his
+  civilising progress, to the Queen, she, too, must have enjoyed a
+  fresh sensation, a new pleasure amidst the festivities and
+  gallantries of her brilliant court. Mr. Froude has rendered a
+  timely service in this Christmas time to the Coercionists, the
+  Martial Law men, and the Habeas Corpus Suspension men of our own
+  day. He has shown them their principles at work and carried out
+  with a vengeance, and with what results! He has admirably
+  sketched the progress of English rule in Ireland up to that
+  time&mdash;a rule unchanged in principle to the present hour,
+  though restrained in its operation by the spirit of the age. Mr.
+  Froude says: 'When the people were quiet, there was the rope for
+  the malefactors, and death by the natural law for those whom the
+  law written could not touch. When they broke out, <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page80" id="page80"></a>[pg 80]</span> there
+  was the blazing homestead, and death by the sword for all, not
+  for the armed kerne only, but for the aged and infirm, the
+  nursing mother and the baby at her breast. These, with ruined
+  churches, and Irish rogues for ministers,&mdash;these, and so far
+  <i>only</i> these were the symbols of the advance of English
+  rule; yet even Sidney could not order more and more severity, and
+  the president of Munster was lost in wonder at the detestation
+  with which the English name was everywhere regarded. Clanrickard
+  was sent to Dublin, and the deputy wished to hang him, but he
+  dared not execute an earl without consulting his mistress, and
+  Elizabeth's leniency in Ireland, as well as England, was alive
+  and active towards the great, although it was dead towards the
+  poor. She could hear without emotion of the massacres at Rathlin
+  or Slievh Broughty; but the blood of the nobles, who had betrayed
+  their wretched followers into the rebellion for which they
+  suffered, was for ever precious in her sight. She forbade Sidney
+  to touch him.'<a id="footnotetag18" name=
+  "footnotetag18"></a><a href="#footnote18"><sup>3</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>Next came the great Desmond Rebellion, by which Munster was
+  desolated. The Pope had encouraged an expedition against the
+  heretics in Ireland, and some Spanish forces joined in the
+  enterprise. It was organised by an English ecclesiastic, named
+  Sanders, and an exiled Geraldine, named Fitzmaurice of Kerry,
+  both able and energetic men. The Spaniards landed at Dingle in
+  1579. In a few days all Kerry and Limerick were up, and the woods
+  between Mallow and the Shannon 'were swarming with howling
+  kerne.' 'The rebellion,' wrote Waterhouse, 'is the most perilous
+  that ever began in Ireland. Nothing is to be looked for but a
+  general revolt.' Malby took the command against them, joined by
+  one of the Burkes, Theobald, who when he saw Fitzmaurice struck
+  by a ball and staggering in his saddle, rode at him and cut him
+  down. The Papal standard was unfolded in this battle. Malby then
+  burnt the Desmonds' country, killing all the human beings he met,
+  up to the walls of Askeaton. When opportunity offered,
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page81" id="page81"></a>[pg
+  81]</span> Desmond retaliated by sacking and burning Youghal. For
+  two days the Geraldines revelled in plunder; they violated the
+  women and murdered all who could not escape. At length Elizabeth
+  was roused to the greatness of the danger, her parsimony was
+  overcome. A larger force was drawn into Ireland than had ever
+  been assembled there for a century. Ormond, the hereditary enemy
+  of Desmond, was appointed commander-in-chief; and Burghley,
+  writing to him in the name of the queen, concluded thus: 'So now
+  I will merely say, Butler aboo, against all that cry in the new
+  language&mdash;Papa aboo, and God send your hearts' desire to
+  banish and vanquish those cankered Desmonds!' The war now raged,
+  and, as usual, the innocent people, the cultivators of the soil,
+  were the first victims. 'We passed through the rebel countries,'
+  wrote Pelham, 'in two companies, burning with fire <i>all
+  habitations, and executing the people</i> wherever we found
+  them.' Mr. Froude says: '<i>Alone</i> of all the English
+  commanders he expressed remorse at the work.' Well, if the
+  creatures they destroyed were horses, dogs, or cats, we should
+  expect a man of ordinary human feelings to be shocked at the
+  wholesale butchery. But the beings slaughtered were men and women
+  and children&mdash;Christians found unarmed and defenceless in
+  their dwellings. Let the English imagine such a war carried on in
+  Kent or Yorkshire, by Irish invaders, killing in the name of the
+  Pope. The Irish Annalists say that Pelham and Ormond killed the
+  blind and the aged, women and children, sick and idiots, sparing
+  none.</p>
+
+  <p>The English, as usual, had help from an Irish chief in the
+  work of destruction. Ormond had in his train M'Carthymore, 'who,
+  believing Desmond's day to be done, hoped, by making himself
+  useful, to secure a share of the plunder.' Dividing their forces,
+  Pelham marched on to Dingle, 'destroying as he went, with Ormond
+  parallel to him on the opposite side of the bay, the two parties
+  watching each other's course at night across the water by the
+  flames of the burning cottages!'</p>
+
+  <p>The fleet was waiting at Dingle. There was a merry
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page82" id="page82"></a>[pg
+  82]</span> meeting of the officers. 'Here,' says Sir Nicholas
+  White, 'my lord justice and I gathered cockles for our
+  supper.'<a id="footnotetag19" name="footnotetag19"></a><a href=
+  "#footnote19"><sup>4</sup></a> The several hunting parties
+  compared notes in the evening. Sometimes the sport was bad. On
+  one occasion Pelham reported that his party had hanged a priest
+  in the Spanish dress. 'Otherwise,' he says, 'we took small prey,
+  and killed less people, though we reached many places in our
+  travel!' At Killarney they found the lakes full of salmon. In one
+  of the islands there was an abbey, in another a parish church, in
+  another a castle, 'out of which there came to them a fair lady,
+  the rejected wife of Lord Fitzmaurice.' Even the soldiers were
+  struck with the singular loveliness of the scene. 'A fairer
+  land,' one of them said, 'the sun did never shine upon&mdash;pity
+  to see it lying waste in the hands of traitors.' Mr. Froude, who
+  deals more justly by the Irish in his last volumes, replies: 'Yet
+  it was by those traitors that the woods whose beauty they so
+  admired had been planted and fostered. Irish hands, unaided by
+  English art or English wealth, had built Muckross and Innisfallen
+  and Aghadoe, and had raised the castles on whose walls the modern
+  poet watched the splendour of the sunset.'</p>
+
+  <p>Ormond was the arch-destroyer of his countrymen. In a report
+  of his services he stated that in this one year 1580, he had put
+  to the sword 'forty-six captains and leaders, with 800 notorious
+  traitors and malefactors, <i>and above</i> 4,000 other
+  people.'<a id="footnotetag20" name="footnotetag20"></a><a href=
+  "#footnote20"><sup>5</sup></a> In that year the great Desmond
+  wrote to Philip of Spain that he was a homeless wanderer. 'Every
+  town, castle, village, farm-house belonging to him or his people
+  had been destroyed. There was no longer a roof standing in
+  Munster to shelter him.' Hunted like a wolf through the
+  mountains, he was at last found sleeping in a hut and killed. In
+  vain his wife pleaded with Ormond, and threw herself on his
+  protection. Even she was not spared. Mr. Froude gives an
+  interesting account of Desmond's last hours. He was hunted down
+  into the mountains between Tralee and the Atlantic. M'Sweeny had
+  sheltered him and fed him <span class="pagenum"><a name="page83"
+  id="page83"></a>[pg 83]</span> through the summer, though a large
+  price was set on his head; and when M'Sweeny was gone, killed by
+  an Irish dagger, the earl's turn could not be distant. Donell
+  M'Donell Moriarty had been received to grace by Ormond, and had
+  promised to deserve his pardon. This man came to the captain of
+  Castlemayne, gave information of the hiding-place, a band was
+  sent&mdash;half-a-dozen English soldiers and a few Irish kerne,
+  who stole in the darkness along the path which followed the
+  stream&mdash;the door was dashed in, and the last Earl of Desmond
+  was killed in his bed.</p>
+
+  <p>Ormond had recourse to a horrible device to extinguish the
+  embers of the rebellion. It was carrying out to a diabolical
+  extent the policy of setting one Irishman against another. If the
+  terror-stricken wretches hoped for pardon, they must deserve it,
+  by murdering their relations. Accordingly sacks full of the heads
+  of reputed rebels were brought in daily. Yet concerning him Mr.
+  Froude makes this singular remark: 'To Ormond the Irish were
+  human beings with human rights. To the English they were
+  <i>vermin, to be cleared from off the earth</i> by any means that
+  offered.'</p>
+
+  <p>Consequently, when it was proposed to make Ormond viceroy, the
+  Pale was in a ferment. How could any man be fit to represent
+  English power in Dublin Castle, who regarded the Irish as human
+  beings! Not less curious is the testimony which the historian
+  bears to the character of the English exterminators. He says,
+  'They were honourable, high-minded men, full of natural
+  tenderness and gentleness, to every one with whom they were
+  placed in <i>human relations</i>. The Irish, unfortunately, they
+  looked upon as savages who had refused peace and protection when
+  it was offered to them, and were now therefore to be <i>rooted
+  out and destroyed</i>.' A reformer in 1583, however, suggested a
+  milder policy. He recommended that 'all Brehons, carraghs, bards,
+  rhymers, friars, monks, jesuits, pardoners, nuns, and such-like
+  should be executed by martial law, and that with this clean sweep
+  the work of death might end, <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page84" id="page84"></a>[pg 84]</span> and a new era be ushered
+  in with universities and schools, a fixed police, and
+  agriculture, and good government.'</p>
+
+  <p>When the English had destroyed all the houses and churches,
+  burnt all the corn, and driven away all the cattle, they were
+  disgusted at the savage state in which the remnant of the
+  peasantry lived. A gentleman named Andrew Trollope gave
+  expression to this feeling thus: 'The common people ate flesh if
+  they could steal it, if not they lived on shamrock and carrion.
+  They never served God or went to church; they had no religion and
+  no manners, but were in all things more barbarous and beast-like
+  than any other people. No governor shall do good here,' he said,
+  'except he show himself a Tamerlane. If hell were open and all
+  the evil spirits abroad, they could never be worse than these
+  Irish rogues&mdash;rather dogs, and worse than dogs, for dogs do
+  but after their kind, and they degenerate from all
+  humanity.'<a id="footnotetag21" name="footnotetag21"></a><a href=
+  "#footnote21"><sup>6</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>The population of Ireland was then by slaughter and famine
+  reduced to about 600,000, one-eighth of the population of
+  England; but far too many, in the estimation of their English
+  rulers. Brabason succeeded Malby in Connaught, and surpassed him
+  in cruelty. The Four Masters say: 'Neither the sanctuary of the
+  saint, neither the wood nor the forest valley, the town nor the
+  lawn, was a shelter from this captain and his people, till the
+  whole territory was destroyed by him.' In the spring of 1582 St.
+  Leger wrote from Cork: 'This country is so ruined as it is well
+  near unpeopled by the murders and spoils done by the traitors on
+  the one side, and by the killing and spoil done by the soldiers
+  on the other side, together with the great mortality in town and
+  country, which is such as the like hath never been seen. There
+  has died by famine only not so few as 30,000 in this province in
+  less than half a year, besides others that are hanged and
+  killed.'</p>
+
+  <p>At length the world began to cry shame on England; and Lord
+  Burghley was obliged to admit that the English in Ireland had
+  outdone the Spaniards in ferocious and blood-thirsty persecution.
+  Remonstrating with Sir H. Wallop, <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page85" id="page85"></a>[pg 85]</span> ancestor of Lord
+  Portsmouth, he said that the 'Flemings had not such cause to
+  rebel against the oppression of the Spaniards, as the Irish
+  against the tyranny of England.' Wallop defended the Government;
+  the causes of the rebellion were not to be laid at the door of
+  England at all. They were these, 'the great affection they
+  generally bear to the Popish religion, which agreeth with their
+  humour, that having committed murder, incest, thefts, with all
+  other execrable offences, by hearing a mass, confessing
+  themselves to a priest, or obtaining the Pope's pardon, they
+  persuade themselves that they are forgiven, and, hearing mass on
+  Sunday or holyday, they think all the week after they may do what
+  heinous offence soever and it is dispensed withal.' Trollope said
+  they had no religion. Wallop said they had too much religion. But
+  their nationality was worse than their creed. Wallop adds, 'They
+  also much hate our nation, partly through the general mislike or
+  disdain one nation hath to be governed by another; partly that we
+  are contrary to them in religion; and lastly, they seek to have
+  the government among themselves.'</p>
+
+  <p>The last was the worst of all. Elizabeth wished to heal the
+  wounds of the Irish nation by appointing Ormond lord deputy. He
+  was a nobleman of Norman descent. His family had been true to
+  England for centuries. He had commanded her armies during this
+  exterminating war, and, being a native of the country, he would
+  be best fitted to carry on the work of conciliation after so much
+  slaughter. But, says Mr. Froude, 'from every English officer
+  serving in the country, every English settler, every bishop of
+  the Anglo-Irish Church, there rose one chorus of remonstrance and
+  indignation; to them it appeared as a proposal now would appear
+  in Calcutta to make the Nizam Viceroy of India.'<a id=
+  "footnotetag22" name="footnotetag22"></a><a href=
+  "#footnote22"><sup>7</sup></a> Wallop wrote that if he were
+  appointed, there would be 'no dwelling in the country for any
+  Englishman.'</p>
+
+  <p>The fear that a merciful policy might be adopted towards
+  Ireland sorely troubled Wallop and Archbishop Loftus; but
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page86" id="page86"></a>[pg
+  86]</span> they were comforted by a great prize&mdash;an
+  archbishop fell into their hands. Dr. Hurley refused to give
+  information against others. Walsingham suggested that he should
+  be put to the torture. To him Archbishop Loftus wrote with
+  unction. 'Not finding that easy method of examination do any
+  good, we made command to Mr. Waterhouse and Mr. Secretary Fenton
+  to put him to the torture, such as your honour advised us, which
+  was to <i>toast his feet</i> against the fire with hot boots.' He
+  confessed something. They asked permission to execute him by
+  martial law. The queen took a month to consider. She recommended
+  an ordinary trial for high treason, and if the jury did not do
+  its duty, they might take the shorter way. She wished for no more
+  torture, but 'for what was past her majesty accepted in good part
+  their careful travail, and greatly commended their doings.' The
+  Irish judges had repeatedly decided that there was no case
+  against Archbishop Hurley; but on June 19, 1584, Loftus and
+  Wallop wrote to Walsingham, 'We gave warrant to the
+  knight-marshal to do execution upon him, which accordingly was
+  performed, and thereby the realm rid of a most pestilent
+  member.'<a id="footnotetag23" name="footnotetag23"></a><a href=
+  "#footnote23"><sup>8</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>This was the last act of these two lords justices. Sir John
+  Perrot, the new viceroy, made a speech which sent a ray of hope
+  athwart the national gloom. It was simply that the people might
+  thenceforth expect a little justice and protection. He told the
+  natives that 'as natural-born subjects of her majesty she loved
+  them as her own people. He wished to be suppressed and
+  universally abolished throughout the realm the name of a churle
+  and the crushing of a churle; affirming that, however the former
+  barbarous times had desired it and nourished it, yet he held it
+  tyrannous both in name and manner, and therefore would extirpate
+  it, and use in place of it the titles used in England, namely,
+  husbandmen, franklins or yeomen.' 'This was so plausible,' wrote
+  Sir G. Fenton, 'that it was carried throughout the whole realm,
+  in less time than might be thought credible, if
+  expressed.'</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page87" id=
+  "page87"></a>[pg 87]</span>
+
+  <p>The extirpation of the Munster Geraldines, in the right line,
+  according to the theory of the 'Undertakers' and the law of
+  England in general, vested in the queen the 570,000 acres
+  belonging to the late earl. Proclamation was accordingly made
+  throughout England, inviting 'younger brothers of good families'
+  to undertake the plantation of Desmond&mdash;each planter to
+  obtain a certain scope of land, on condition of settling
+  thereupon so many families&mdash;'none of the native Irish to be
+  admitted' Under these conditions, Sir Christopher Hatton took up
+  10,000 acres in Waterford; Sir Walter Raleigh 12,000 acres,
+  partly in Waterford and partly in Cork; Sir William Harbart, or
+  Herbert, 13,000 acres in Kerry; Sir Edward Denny 6,000 in the
+  same county; Sir Warren St. Leger, and Sir Thomas Norris, 6,000
+  acres each in Cork; Sir William Courtney 10,000 acres in
+  Limerick; Sir Edward Fitton 11,500 acres in Tipperary and
+  Waterford, and Edmund Spenser 3,000 acres in Cork, on the
+  beautiful Blackwater. The other notable Undertakers were the
+  Hides, Butchers, Wirths, Berkleys, Trenchards, Thorntons,
+  Bourchers, Billingsleys, &amp;c. Some of these grants, especially
+  Raleigh's, fell in the next reign to Richard Boyle, the so-called
+  '<i>great</i> Earl of Cork '&mdash;probably the most pious
+  hypocrite to be found in the long roll of the 'Munster
+  Undertakers.'</p>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote16" name="footnote16"></a><b>Footnote 1:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag16">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>Froude, vol. xi. p. 179.</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote17" name="footnote17"></a><b>Footnote 2:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag17">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>History of England, vol. xi. p. 184.</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote18" name="footnote18"></a><b>Footnote 3:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag18">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>Vol. xi, p. 197.</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote19" name="footnote19"></a><b>Footnote 4:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag19">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>Carew Papers; Froude, vol. xi. p. 225.</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote20" name="footnote20"></a><b>Footnote 5:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag20">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>Carew Papers; Froude, vol. xi. p. 225.</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote21" name="footnote21"></a><b>Footnote 6:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag21">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>Froude, vol. xi. p. 246.</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote22" name="footnote22"></a><b>Footnote 7:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag22">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>Ibid. p. 202.</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote23" name="footnote23"></a><b>Footnote 8:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag23">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>Froude, vol. xi. p. 264.</p>
+  </blockquote><span class="pagenum"><a name="page88" id=
+  "page88"></a>[pg 88]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+  <h3>AN IRISH CRUSADE.</h3>
+
+  <p>In 1602, the Lord Deputy Mountjoy, in obedience to
+  instructions from the Government in London, marched to the
+  borders of Ulster with a considerable force, to effect, if he
+  could, the arrest of Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, or to bring
+  him to terms. Since the defeat of the Irish and Spanish
+  confederacy at Kinsale, O'Neill comforted himself with the
+  assurance that Philip III. would send another expedition to
+  Ireland to retrieve the honour of his flag, and avenge the
+  humiliation it had sustained, owing to the incompetency or
+  treachery of Don Juan d'Aquila. That the king was inclined to aid
+  the Irish there can be no question; 'for Clement VIII., then
+  reigning in the Vatican, pressed it upon him as a sacred duty,
+  which he owed to his co-religionists in Ireland, whose efforts to
+  free themselves from Elizabeth's tyranny, the pontiff pronounced
+  to be a <i>crusade</i> against the most implacable heretic of the
+  day.'<a id="footnotetag24" name="footnotetag24"></a><a href=
+  "#footnote24"><sup>1</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>If Mr. Meehan's authorities may be relied upon, Queen
+  Elizabeth was, in intention at least, a murderer as well as a
+  heretic. He states that while she was gasping on her cushions at
+  Richmond, gazing on the haggard features of death, and vainly
+  striving to penetrate the opaque veil of the future, she
+  commanded Secretary Cecil to charge Mountjoy to entrap Tyrone
+  into a submission, on diminished rank as Baron of Dungannon, and
+  with lessened territory; or if possible, to have his head, before
+  engaging <span class="pagenum"><a name="page89" id=
+  "page89"></a>[pg 89]</span> the royal word. It was to accomplish
+  either of these objects, that Mountjoy marched to the frontier of
+  the north. 'Among those employed to murder O'Neill in cold blood,
+  were Sir Geoffry Fenton, Lord Dunsany, and <i>Henry Oge
+  O'Neill.</i> Mountjoy bribed one Walker, an Englishman, and a
+  ruffian calling himself Richard Combus, to make the attempt, but
+  they all failed.'<a id="footnotetag25" name=
+  "footnotetag25"></a><a href="#footnote25"><sup>2</sup></a>
+  Finding it impossible to procure the assassination of 'the sacred
+  person of O'Neill, who had so many eyes of jealousy about him,'
+  he wrote to Cecil from Drogheda, that nothing prevented Tyrone
+  from making his submission but mistrust of his personal safety
+  and guarantee for maintenance commensurate to his princely rank.
+  The lords of Elizabeth's privy council empowered Mountjoy to
+  treat with O'Neill on these terms, and to give him the required
+  securities. Sir Garret Moore and Sir William Godolphin were
+  entrusted with a commission to effect this object. But while the
+  lord deputy, with a brilliant retinue, was feasting at Mellifont,
+  a monastery bestowed by Henry VIII. on an ancestor of Sir Garret
+  Moore, by whom it was transformed into a 'fair mansion,' half
+  palace, half fortress, a courier arrived from England, announcing
+  the death of the queen. Nevertheless the negotiations were
+  pressed on in her name, the fact of her decease being carefully
+  concealed from the Irish. Tyrone had already sent his secretary,
+  Henry O'Hagan, to announce to the lord deputy that he was about
+  to come to his presence. Accordingly on March 29, he surrendered
+  himself to the two commissioners at Tougher, within five miles of
+  Dungannon. On the following evening he reached Mellifont, when,
+  being admitted to the lord deputy's presence, 'he knelt, as was
+  usual on such occasions;' and made penitent submission to her
+  majesty. Then, being invited to come nearer to the deputy, he
+  repeated the ceremony, if we may credit Fynes Moryson, in the
+  same humiliating attitude, thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'I, Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, do absolutely submit myself
+  to the queen's mercy, imploring her gracious <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page90" id="page90"></a>[pg 90]</span>
+  commiseration, imploring her majesty to mitigate her just
+  indignation against me. I do avow that the first motives of my
+  rebellion were neither malice nor ambition; but that I was
+  induced by fear of my life, to stand upon my guard. I do
+  therefore most humbly sue her majesty, that she will vouchsafe to
+  restore to me my former dignity and living. In which state of a
+  subject, I vow to continue for ever hereafter loyal, in all true
+  obedience to her royal person, crown, and prerogatives, and to be
+  in all things as dutifully conformable thereunto as I or any
+  other nobleman of this realm is bound by the duty of a subject to
+  his sovereign, utterly renouncing the name and title of O'Neill,
+  or any other claim which hath not been granted to me by her
+  majesty. I abjure all foreign power, and all dependency upon any
+  other potentate but her majesty. I renounce all manner of
+  dependency upon the King of Spain, or treaty with him or any of
+  his confederates, and shall be ready to serve her majesty against
+  him or any of his forces or confederates. I do renounce all
+  challenge or intermeddling with the Uriaghts, or fostering with
+  them or other neighbour lords or gentlemen outside my country, or
+  exacting black-rents of any Uriaghts or bordering lords. I resign
+  all claim and title to any lands but such as shall now be granted
+  to me by her majesty's letters patent. Lastly, I will be content
+  to be advised by her majesty's magistrates here, and will assist
+  them in anything that may tend to the advancement of her service,
+  and the peaceable government of this kingdom, the abolishing of
+  barbarous customs, the clearing of difficult passes, wherein I
+  will employ the labours of the people of my country in such
+  places as I shall be directed by her majesty, or the lord deputy
+  in her name; and I will endeavour for myself and the people of my
+  country, to erect civil habitations such as shall be of greater
+  effect to preserve us against thieves, and any force but the
+  power of the state.'</p>
+
+  <p>To this act of submission Tyrone affixed his sign manual, and
+  handed it to the deputy, who told him he must write to Philip
+  III. of Spain, to send home his son Henry, who had <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page91" id="page91"></a>[pg 91]</span> gone
+  with Father M'Cawell to complete his studies in Salamanca. The
+  deputy also insisted that he should reveal all his negotiations
+  with the Spanish court, or any other foreign sovereign with whom
+  he maintained correspondence; and when the earl assured him that
+  all these requirements should be duly discharged, the lord deputy
+  in the queen's name promised him her majesty's pardon to himself
+  and followers, to himself the restoration of his earldom and
+  blood with new letters patent of all his lands, excepting the
+  country possessed by Henry Oge O'Neill, and the Fews belonging to
+  Tirlough Mac Henry O'Neill, both of whom had recently taken
+  grants of their lands, to be holden immediately from the queen.
+  It was further covenanted that Tyrone should give 300 acres of
+  his land to the fort of Charlmont, and 300 more to that of
+  Mountjoy, as long as it pleased her majesty to garrison said
+  forts. Tyrone assented to all these conditions, and then received
+  the accolade from the lord deputy, who, a few months before, had
+  written to Queen Elizabeth, that he hoped to be able to send her
+  that ghastliest of all trophies&mdash;her great rebel's head!</p>
+
+  <p>On April 4, the lord deputy returned to Dublin accompanied by
+  the great vassal whom he fancied he had bound in inviolable
+  loyalty to the English throne. To make assurance doubly sure, the
+  day after James was proclaimed, Tyrone repeated the absolute
+  submission made at Mellifont, the name of the sovereign only
+  being changed. He also despatched a letter to the King of Spain
+  stating that he had held out as long as he could, in the vain
+  hope of being succoured by him, and finally when deserted by his
+  nearest kinsmen and followers, he was enforced as in duty bound
+  to declare his allegiance to James I., in whose service and
+  obedience he meant to live and die.</p>
+
+  <p>The importance of this act of submission will appear from a
+  manifesto issued by O'Neill three years before, dated Dungannon,
+  November 16, 1599, and subscribed 'O'Neill.' This remarkable
+  document has been published for the first time by Father
+  Meehan.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page92" id=
+  "page92"></a>[pg 92]</span>
+
+  <p>'<i>To the Catholics of the towns in Ireland.</i></p>
+
+  <p>'Using hitherto more than ordinary favour towards all my
+  countrymen, who generally by profession are Catholics, and that
+  naturally I am inclined to affect [esteem] you, I have for these
+  and other considerations abstained my forces from tempting to do
+  you hindrance, and because I did expect that you would enter into
+  consideration of the lamentable state of our poor country, most
+  tyrannically oppressed, and of your own gentle consciences, in
+  maintaining, relieving and helping the enemies of God and our
+  country in wars infallibly tending to the promotion of heresy:
+  But now seeing you are so obstinate in that which hereunto you
+  continued of necessity, I must use severity against you (whom
+  otherwise I most entirely love) in reclaiming you by compulsion.
+  My tolerance and happy victories by God's particular favour
+  doubtless obtained could work no alteration in your consciences,
+  notwithstanding the great calamity and misery, whereunto you are
+  most likely to fall by persevering in that damnable state in
+  which hereunto you have lived. Having commiseration on you I
+  thought it good to forewarn you, requesting every of you to come
+  and join with me against the enemies of God and our poor country.
+  If the same you do not, I will use means to spoil you of all your
+  goods, but according to the utmost of my power shall work what I
+  may to dispossess you of all your lands, because you are the
+  means whereby wars are maintained against the exaltation of the
+  Catholic faith. Contrariwise, whosoever it shall be that shall
+  join with me, upon my conscience, and as to the contrary I shall
+  answer before God, I will employ myself to the utmost of my power
+  in their defence and for the extirpation of heresy, the planting
+  of the Catholic religion, the delivery of our country of infinite
+  murders, wicked and detestable policies by which this kingdom was
+  hitherto governed, nourished in obscurity and ignorance,
+  maintained in barbarity and incivility, and consequently of
+  infinite evils which were too lamentable to be rehearsed.
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page93" id="page93"></a>[pg
+  93]</span> And seeing these are motives most laudable before any
+  men of consideration, and before the Almighty most meritorious,
+  which is chiefly to be expected, I thought myself in conscience
+  bound, seeing God hath given me some power to use all means for
+  the reduction of this our poor afflicted country into the
+  Catholic faith, which can never be brought to any good pass
+  without either your destruction or helping hand; hereby
+  protesting that I neither seek your lands or goods, neither do I
+  purpose to plant any in your places, if you will adjoin with me;
+  but will extend what liberties and privileges that heretofore you
+  have had if it shall stand in my power, giving you to understand
+  upon my salvation that chiefly and principally I fight for the
+  Catholic faith to be planted throughout all our poor country, as
+  well in cities as elsewhere, as manifestly might appear by that I
+  rejected all other conditions proffered to me this not being
+  granted. I have already by word of mouth protested, and do now
+  hereby protest, that if I had to be King of Ireland without
+  having the Catholic religion which before I mentioned, I would
+  not the same accept. Take your example by that most Catholic
+  country, France, whose subjects for defect of Catholic faith did
+  go against their most natural king, and maintained wars till he
+  was constrained to profess the Catholic religion, duly submitting
+  himself to the Apostolic See of Rome, to the which doubtless we
+  may bring our country, you putting your helping hand with me to
+  the same. As for myself I protest before God and upon my
+  salvation I have been proffered oftentimes such conditions as no
+  man seeking his own private commodity could refuse; but I seeking
+  the public utility of my native country will prosecute these wars
+  until that generally religion be planted throughout all Ireland.
+  So I rest, praying the Almighty to move your flinty hearts to
+  prefer the commodity and profit of our country, before your own
+  private ends.'</p>
+
+  <p>As a crusader, the O'Neill was a worthy disciple of the King
+  of Spain. The Catholics of the south had no wish to engage in a
+  religious war, but the northern chief aspiring to <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page94" id="page94"></a>[pg 94]</span> the
+  sovereignty of the whole island, resolved to reclaim them by
+  compulsion, seeing that his tolerance and happy victories had
+  worked no change in their consciences, and they still persevered
+  in that 'damnable state' in which they had lived. From his entire
+  love and commiseration he forewarned them that if they did not
+  come and join him against the enemies of God and 'our poor
+  country,' he would not only despoil them of all their goods, but
+  dispossess them of all their lands. The extirpation of heresy,
+  the planting of the Catholic religion, he declared could never be
+  brought to any good pass without either the destruction or the
+  help of the Catholics in the towns of the south and west. He did
+  not want their lands or goods, nor did he intend to plant others
+  in their places <i>if they would adjoin with him</i>. Pointing to
+  the example of France, he vowed that he would prosecute those
+  wars until the Catholic religion should be planted throughout all
+  Ireland, praying that God would move their flinty hearts to join
+  him in this pious and humane enterprise. In those times when
+  religious wars had been raging on the continent, when the whole
+  power of Spain was persistently employed to exterminate
+  Protestants with fire and sword and every species of cruelty, it
+  is not at all surprising that a chief like O'Neill, leading such
+  a wild warlike life in Ulster, should persuade himself that he
+  would be glorifying God and serving his country by destroying the
+  Catholic inhabitants of the towns, that is all the most civilised
+  portion of the community, because they would not join him in
+  robbing and killing the Protestants. But it is not a little
+  surprising that an enlightened, learned, and liberal Catholic
+  priest, writing in Dublin in the year 1868, should give his
+  deliberate sanction to this unchristian and barbarous policy. Yet
+  Father Meehan writes: 'But no; not even the dint of that
+  manifesto, <i>with the ring of true steel in its every line</i>,
+  could strike a spark out of their hearts, for they were
+  chalky.'<a id="footnotetag26" name="footnotetag26"></a><a href=
+  "#footnote26"><sup>3</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>It was very natural that the English Government should act
+  upon the same principle of intolerance, especially when
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page95" id="page95"></a>[pg
+  95]</span> they had the plea of state necessity. They did not yet
+  go the length of exterminating Catholicity by the means with
+  which the O'Neill threatened his peaceable and industrious
+  co-religionists in the towns.</p>
+
+  <p>All they required was that the Catholics should cease to
+  harbour their priests, and that they should attend the Protestant
+  churches. Remarking upon the proclamation of Chichester to this
+  effect Mr. Meehan says:&mdash;'Apart from the folly of the king,
+  who had taken into his head that an entire nation should, at his
+  bidding, apostatise from the creed of their forefathers, the
+  publishing such a manifesto in Dungannon, in Donegal, and
+  elsewhere was a bitter insult to the northern chieftains, whose
+  wars were <i>crusades</i>,&mdash;the natural consequence of
+  faith,&mdash;stimulated by the Roman Pontiffs, assisted by Spain,
+  then the most Catholic kingdom in the world.' Does not Mr. Meehan
+  see that crusading is a game at which two can play? And if wars
+  which were crusades were the natural consequence of the Catholic
+  faith, were stimulated by the Roman Pontiffs, and assisted by
+  Spain, for the purpose of destroying the power of England,
+  everywhere as well as in Ireland, and abolishing the
+  Reformation,&mdash;does it not follow as a necessary consequence
+  that the English Government must in sheer self-defence have waged
+  a war of extermination against the Catholic religion, and have
+  regarded its priests as mortal enemies? No better plea for the
+  English policy in Ireland was ever offered by any Protestant
+  writer than this language, intended as a condemnation, by a very
+  able priest in our own day. It was no doubt extreme folly for
+  King James I. to expect that a nation, or a single individual,
+  should apostatise at his bidding; but it was equal folly in the
+  King of Spain to expect Protestants to apostatise at his bidding;
+  and if possible still greater folly for O'Neill to expect the
+  Catholic citizens of Munster to join him in the bloody work of
+  persecution. It was, then, the Spanish policy stimulated by the
+  Sovereign Pontiff that was the standing excuse of the cruel
+  intolerance and rancorous religious animosity which have
+  continued to <span class="pagenum"><a name="page96" id=
+  "page96"></a>[pg 96]</span> distract Irish society down to our
+  own time. Persecution is alien to the Irish race. The malignant
+  <i>virus</i> imported from Spain poisoned the national blood,
+  maddened the national brain, and provoked the terrible system of
+  retaliation that was embodied in the Penal Code, and which,
+  surviving to our own time, still defends itself by the old
+  plea&mdash;the intrusion of a foreign power attempting to
+  overrule the government of the country.</p>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote24" name="footnote24"></a><b>Footnote 1:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag24">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>Fate and Fortunes of the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell. By
+    the Rev. P.C. Meehan, M.R.I.A.</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote25" name="footnote25"></a><b>Footnote 2:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag25">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>See Life and Letters of Florence M'Carthy. By D. M'Carthy,
+    Esq.</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote26" name="footnote26"></a><b>Footnote 3:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag26">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>Page 34.</p>
+  </blockquote><span class="pagenum"><a name="page97" id=
+  "page97"></a>[pg 97]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+  <h3>THE LAST OF THE IRISH PRINCES.</h3>
+
+  <p>The accession of James I. produced a delirium of joy in the
+  Catholics of the south. Their bards had sung that the blood of
+  the old Celtic monarchs circulated in his veins, their clergy
+  told them that as James VI. of Scotland he had received supplies
+  of money from the Roman court, and above all Clement VIII. then
+  reigning, had sent to congratulate him on his accession, having
+  been solicited by him to favour his title to the crown of
+  England, which the Pope guaranteed to do on condition that James
+  promised not to persecute the Catholics. The consequence was that
+  the inhabitants of the southern towns rose <i>en masse</i>
+  without waiting for authority, forced open the gates of the
+  ancient churches, re-erected the altars and used them for the
+  public celebration of worship. The lord deputy was startled by
+  intelligence to this effect from Waterford, Limerick, Cork,
+  Lismore, Kilkenny, Clonmel, Wexford, &amp;c. The cathedrals,
+  churches, and oratories were seized by the people and clergy,
+  Father White, Vicar-Apostolic of Waterford, being the leader in
+  this movement, going about from city to city for the purpose of
+  'hallowing and purifying' the temples which Protestantism had
+  desecrated.</p>
+
+  <p>The mayors of the cities were rebuked by Mountjoy as seditious
+  and mutinous in setting up 'the public exercise of the Popish
+  religion,' and he threatened to encamp speedily before Waterford,
+  'to suppress insolences and see peace and obedience maintained.'
+  The deputy kept his word, and on May 4, 1603, he appeared before
+  Waterford at the head <span class="pagenum"><a name="page98" id=
+  "page98"></a>[pg 98]</span> of 5,000 men, officered by Sir R.
+  Wingfield, and others who had distinguished themselves during
+  Tyrone's war. 'There is among the family pictures at
+  Powerscourt,' says Mr. Meehan, 'a portrait of this distinguished
+  old warrior, whose lineal descendant, the present noble lord, has
+  always proved most generous to his Catholic tenantry.' The
+  reverend gentleman gives an amusing sketch of a theological
+  encounter between the old warrior and Father White and a
+  Dominican friar, who came forth to the camp under a safe-conduct,
+  both wearing their clerical habits and preceded by a
+  cross-bearer. The soldiers jeered at the sacred symbol, and
+  called it an idol. Father White indignantly resented the outrage,
+  when Sir Richard Wingfield threatened to put an end to the
+  controversy by running his sword through the Vicar-Apostolic.
+  'The deputy however was a bookish man, at one period of his life
+  inclined to Catholicity, and he listened patiently to Father
+  White on the right of resisting or disobeying the natural prince;
+  but when the latter quoted some passage thereanent in the works
+  of St. Augustine, Mountjoy caused to be brought to him out of his
+  tent the identical volume, and showed to the amazement of the
+  bystanders, that the context explained away all the priest had
+  asserted.' The noble theologian told Father White that he was a
+  traitor, worthy of condign punishment for bringing an idol into a
+  Christian camp and for opening the churches by the Pope's
+  authority. Father White appeared in the camp a second time that
+  day, making a most reasonable request. He fell on his knees
+  before the deputy, begging liberty of conscience, free and open
+  exercise of religion, protesting that the people would be ready
+  to resist all foreign invasion were that granted; and finally
+  beseeching that some of the ruined churches might be given to the
+  Catholics, who were ready to rebuild them, and pay for them a
+  yearly rent into his majesty's exchequer. But the deputy was
+  inexorable, and all he would grant was leave to wear clerical
+  clothes, and celebrate mass in private houses. Mountjoy entered
+  Waterford, received from the citizens the <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page99" id="page99"></a>[pg 99]</span> oath of
+  allegiance, and made over the city churches to the small section
+  of Protestants. At the same time he sent despatches to other
+  towns ordering the authorities to evict the Roman Catholics from
+  the places of worship. And then proceeding to Cork, and thence
+  through Cashel to Dublin, he undid all that the clergy had done
+  with respect to the churches, 'leaving perhaps to future
+  statesmen,' writes Father Meehan, 'living above the atmosphere of
+  effete prejudices, the duty of restoring to the Catholics of
+  Ireland those grand old temples, which were never meant to
+  accommodate a fragment of its people.'<a id="footnotetag27" name=
+  "footnotetag27"></a><a href="#footnote27"><sup>1</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>When Mountjoy returned to Dublin he found that he had been
+  created Lord Lieutenant of Ireland with two-thirds of the
+  deputy's allowance, Sir George Carew, appointed deputy during his
+  absence in England, receiving the other third together with his
+  own pay as treasurer-at-war. Mountjoy was also informed that the
+  royal pardon had been granted to Tyrone under the great seal, and
+  that all other grants made to him by the lord deputy had been
+  confirmed. The king concluded by requesting that he would induce
+  Tyrone to go with him to London, adding, 'as we think it very
+  convenient for our service, and require you so to do; and if not
+  that at least you bring his son.' Along with these instructions
+  came a protection for O'Neill and his retinue. It was supposed
+  that James felt grateful to the Ulster chieftain for the services
+  he had rendered him during the late queen's reign; and it is
+  stated by Craik that after the victory of the Blackwater, he sent
+  his secretary O'Hagan to Holyrood, to signify to his majesty that
+  if he supplied him with money and munitions he would instantly
+  march on Dublin, proclaim him King of Ireland, and set the crown
+  upon his head.</p>
+
+  <p>In compliance with the sovereign's request, Mountjoy, with a
+  brilliant suite, accompanied by Tyrone and Rory O'Donel, embarked
+  in May 1603, and sailed for Holyhead. But when they had sighted
+  the coast of Wales, the pinnace was driven back by adverse winds,
+  and nearly wrecked in a <span class="pagenum"><a name="page100"
+  id="page100"></a>[pg 100]</span> fog at the Skerries. They landed
+  safe, however, at Beaumaris, whence they rode rapidly to Chester,
+  where they stopped for the night, and were entertained by the
+  mayor. The king's protection for the O'Neill was not uncalled
+  for. Whenever he was recognised in city or hamlet, the populace,
+  notwithstanding their respect for Mountjoy, the hero of the hour,
+  pursued the earl with bitter insults, and stoned him as he passed
+  along. Throughout the whole journey to London, the Welsh and
+  English women assailed him with their invectives. Not
+  unnaturally, for 'there was not one among them but could name
+  some friend or kinsman whose bones lay buried far away in some
+  wild pass or glen of Ulster, where the object of their
+  maledictions was more often victor than vanquished.'<a id=
+  "footnotetag28" name="footnotetag28"></a><a href=
+  "#footnote28"><sup>2</sup></a> The king, however, gave the Irish
+  chiefs a gracious reception, having issued a proclamation that he
+  had restored them to his favour, and that they should be 'of all
+  men honourably received.' This excited intense disgust amongst
+  English officers who had been engaged in the Irish wars. Thus Sir
+  John Harrington, writing to a bishop, said: 'I have lived to see
+  that damnable rebel, Tyrone, brought to England, honoured and
+  well liked. Oh, what is there that does not prove the inconstancy
+  of worldly matters! How I did labour after that knave's
+  destruction! I adventured perils by sea and land, was near
+  starving, eat horseflesh in Munster, and all to quell that man,
+  who now smileth in peace at those who did hazard their lives to
+  destroy him; and now doeth Tyrone dare us old commanders with his
+  presence and protection.'</p>
+
+  <p>In fact the favour of the king went to an excess fatal to its
+  object, by conceding powers incompatible with his own
+  sovereignty, leading to disorders and violence, and exciting
+  jealousy and mortal enmity in those who were charged with the
+  government in Ireland. The lords of the Privy Council, with the
+  king's consent, gave O'Neill authority for martial law, 'to be
+  executed upon any offenders that shall live under him, the better
+  to keep them in obedience.' It was ordered that the king's
+  garrisons should not meddle <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page101" id="page101"></a>[pg 101]</span> with him or his
+  people. The king also invested O'Donel with all the lands and
+  rights of ancient time belonging to his house, excepting abbeys
+  and other spiritual livings, the castle and town of Ballyshannon,
+  and 1,000 acres adjoining the fishing there. He also received the
+  style and title of Earl of Tyrconnel, with remainder to his
+  brother Caffar, the heirs male apparent being created Barons of
+  Donegal. He was formally installed in Christ Church Cathedral on
+  the 29th of September following, in presence of Archbishop Loftus
+  and a number of high officials. Tyrone, however, was dogged by
+  spies while he was in London, and one Atkinson swore informations
+  to the effect that he was in the habit of entertaining a Jesuit
+  named Archer, who was intriguing with the foreign enemies of
+  England, and who was held by Irish royalists for 'the most bloody
+  and treacherous traitor, who could divert Tyrone and all the rest
+  from the king, and thrust them again into actual rebellion.'</p>
+
+  <p>In the meantime, Sir George Carew was pursuing a policy in
+  Ireland which must of necessity involve the north in fresh
+  troubles. In his letters to England, he complained that the
+  country 'so swarmed with priests, Jesuits, seminarists, friars,
+  and Romish bishops, that if speedy means were not used to free
+  the kingdom of this wicked rabble, which laboured to draw the
+  subjects' hearts from their due obedience to their prince, much
+  mischief would burst forth in very short time. For,' he said,
+  'there are here so many of this wicked crew, that are able to
+  disquiet four of the greatest kingdoms in Christendom. It is high
+  time they were banished from hence, and none to receive, or aid,
+  or relieve them. Let the judges and officers be sworn to the
+  supremacy; let the lawyers go to the church and show conformity,
+  or not plead at the bar; and then the rest by degrees will
+  shortly follow.'</p>
+
+  <p>Carew was succeeded as deputy by Sir Arthur Chichester,
+  descended from a family of great antiquity in Devon. He had
+  served in Ireland as governor of Carrickfergus, admiral of Lough
+  Neagh, and commander of the Fort of Mountjoy. <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page102" id="page102"></a>[pg 102]</span>
+  Father Meehan describes him as malignant and cruel, with a
+  physiognomy repulsive and petrifying; a Puritan of the most rigid
+  character, utterly devoid of sympathy, solely bent on his own
+  aggrandisement, and seeking it through the plunder and
+  persecution of the Irish chieftains. That is the Irish view of
+  his character. How far he deserved it the reader will be able to
+  judge by his acts. He was evidently a man of strong will, an able
+  administrator and organiser; and he set himself at once, and
+  earnestly, to the establishment of law and order in the conquered
+  territories of the Irish princes. He sent justices of assize
+  throughout Munster and Connaught, reducing the 'countries or
+  regions' into shire-ground, abolishing cuttings, cosheries,
+  spendings, and other customary exactions of the chiefs, by which
+  a complete revolution was effected. He issued a proclamation, by
+  the king's order, commanding all the Catholics, under penalties,
+  to assist at the Church of England service; proscribing priests,
+  and other ecclesiastical persons ordained by authority from the
+  see of Home; forbidding parents to send their children to
+  seminaries beyond the seas, or to keep as private tutors other
+  than those licensed by the Protestant archbishop or bishop. If
+  any priest dared to celebrate mass, he was liable to a fine of
+  200 marks, and a year's imprisonment; while to join the
+  <i>Romish</i> Church was to become a traitor, and to be subject
+  to a like penalty. Churchwardens were to make a monthly report of
+  persons absent from church, and to whet the zeal of wardens and
+  constables, for each conviction of offending parties, they were
+  to have a reward of forty shillings, to be levied out of the
+  recusant's estate and goods. Catholics might escape these
+  penalties by quitting the country, and taking the oath of
+  abjuration, by which they bound themselves to abjure the land and
+  realm of James, King of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland,
+  to hasten towards a certain port by the most direct highway, to
+  diligently seek a passage, and tarry there but one flood and ebb.
+  According to one form, quoted by Mr. Meehan, the oath concluded
+  thus: <span class="pagenum"><a name="page103" id=
+  "page103"></a>[pg 103]</span> 'And, unless I can have it (a
+  passage) in such a place, I will go every day into the sea up to
+  my knees, essaying to pass over, so God me help and His holy
+  judgment.'</p>
+
+  <p>The deputy found some difficulty in bending the consciences of
+  the Dublin people to the will of the sovereign in matters of
+  faith; but the said will was to be enforced <i>circa sacra</i> at
+  all hazards; so he summoned sixteen of the chief citizens and
+  aldermen before the Privy Council, and censured them for their
+  recusancy, imprisoned them in the castle during pleasure,
+  inflicting upon six a fine of 100<i>l.</i> each, and upon three
+  50<i>l.</i> each. The king was delighted with this evangelical
+  method of extending reformed religion in Ireland. Congratulating
+  his deputy, he expressed a hope that many, by such means, would
+  be brought to conformity in religion, who would hereafter 'give
+  thanks to God for being drawn by so gentle a constraint to their
+  own good.' The 'gentle constraint' was imposed in all directions.
+  The Privy Council decreed that none but a member of the Church of
+  England could hold any office under the Crown. The old Catholic
+  families of the Pale humbly remonstrated, and their chief men
+  were flung into prison. Sir Patrick Barnwell, their agent, was
+  sent to London by order of the king, and was forthwith committed
+  to the Tower for contempt. Henry Usher, then Archbishop of
+  Armagh, carried out the system of exclusion in his own diocese,
+  which included the territories of Tyrone. All 'Papists' were
+  forbidden to assist at mass, on pain of forfeiture of their goods
+  and imprisonment. In a like manner, the Catholic worship was
+  prohibited even in the residence of the Earl of Tyrconnel. He and
+  Tyrone strongly remonstrated against this violation of the royal
+  word, that they and their people might have liberty for their
+  worship in private houses. The answer was decided. His majesty
+  had made up his mind to disallow liberty of worship, and his
+  people, whether they liked it or not, should repair to their
+  parish churches.</p>
+
+  <p>In addition to this religious grievance, which excited the
+  bitterest feelings of discontent, the two earls were subjected
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page104" id="page104"></a>[pg
+  104]</span> to the most irritating annoyances. They complained
+  that their people were plundered by sheriffs, under-sheriffs,
+  officers, and soldiers; and that even their domestic privacy was
+  hourly violated, that their remonstrances were unheeded, and
+  their attempts to obtain legal remedies were frustrated. At the
+  same time their vassals were encouraged to repudiate their
+  demands for tribute and rent. Bishop Montgomery of Derry was a
+  dangerous neighbour to O'Neill. Meeting him one day at Dungannon,
+  the earl said: 'My lord, you have two or three bishopricks, and
+  yet you are not content with them, but seek the lands of my
+  earldom.'</p>
+
+  <p>'My lord,' replied the bishop, 'your earldom is swollen so big
+  with the lands of the Church, that it will burst if it be not
+  vented.' If he had confined his venting operations to the chiefs,
+  and abstained from bleeding the poor people, it would have been
+  better for Protestantism. For we read that he sent bailiffs
+  through the diocese of Raphoe, to levy contributions for the
+  Church. 'For every cow and plough-horse, 4<i>d.</i>; as much out
+  of every colt and calf, to be paid twice a year; and half-a-crown
+  a quarter of every shoemaker, carpenter, smith, and weaver in the
+  whole country; and 8<i>d.</i> a year for every married
+  couple.'</p>
+
+  <p>This bishop seems to have been greatly impressed with the
+  'commodities' of O'Cahan's country, which he describes with much
+  unction in a letter to the Earl of Salisbury. He said that the
+  country was 'large, pleasant, and fruitful; twenty-four miles in
+  length between Lough Foyle and the Bann; and in breadth, from the
+  sea-coast towards the lower parts of Tyrone, 14 miles.' He states
+  that O'Cahan was able to assist the Earl of Tyrone, during his
+  war, with 1,200 foot and 300 horse, the ablest men that Ulster
+  yielded; and, by the confession of gentlemen of the first
+  plantation, had oftener put them to their defence than any enemy
+  they had to do with, not suffering them to cut a bough or build a
+  cabin without blows. When Tyrone was driven to his fastness,
+  Glenconkeine, O'Cahan sent him 100 horse and 300 foot, and yet
+  made good his own country against <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page105" id="page105"></a>[pg 105]</span> the army lying round
+  about him, adding, that his defection 'did undo the earl, who, as
+  he had his country sure behind him, cared little for anything the
+  army could do to him.' The bishop was, therefore, very anxious
+  that Tyrone should not have any estate in O'Cahan's country,
+  'since he was of great power to offend or benefit the poor infant
+  city of Derry, its new bishop and people, cast out far from the
+  heart and head into the remotest part of Ireland, where life
+  would be unsafe until the whole region was well settled with
+  civil subjects. If this be not brought to pass, we may say:
+  "<i>fuimus Troes,&mdash;fuit Ilium</i>."'<a id="footnotetag29"
+  name="footnotetag29"></a><a href=
+  "#footnote29"><sup>3</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>The defection of O'Cahan was, no doubt, a very serious matter
+  to O'Neill. Their case was referred for adjudication to the lord
+  deputy, Chichester, before whom they personally pleaded. Their
+  contradictory statements, and the eagerness of each for the
+  support of a ruler whom they regarded as a common enemy, accounts
+  for the facility with which their power was ultimately destroyed.
+  They at the same time throw much light on the condition of Ulster
+  before the confiscation of James I., proving that it was by no
+  means so poor and wild and barren a region as it is generally
+  represented by modern writers. The two chiefs had a personal
+  altercation at the council table, and O'Neill so far lost his
+  temper as to snatch a paper out of the hand of O'Cahan. Whereupon
+  Sir John Davis remarked: 'I rest assured, in my own conceit, that
+  I shall live to see Ulster the best reformed province in this
+  kingdom; and as for yourself, my lord, I hope to live to see you
+  the best reformed subject in Ireland.' To this the haughty chief
+  replied with warmth, that he hoped 'the attorney-general would
+  never see the day when injustice should be done him by
+  transferring his lands to the Crown, and thence to the bishop,
+  who was intent on converting the whole territory into his own
+  pocket.'</p>
+
+  <p>Acting under the advice of the bishop, O'Cahan employed a
+  skilful hand to draw up a statement of his case, which was
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page106" id="page106"></a>[pg
+  106]</span> presented on May 2, 1607, in the form of 'the humble
+  petition of Donald Ballagh O'Cahan, chief of his name,' addressed
+  to the lord deputy and council. He declared that for 3,000 years
+  and upwards, he and his ancestors had been possessed of a country
+  called 'O'Cahan's country,' lying between the river Bann and
+  Lough Foyle, without paying any rent, or other acknowledgment
+  thereof to O'Neill, saving that his ancestors were wont to aid
+  O'Neill twice a year if he had need, with risings of 100 horse
+  and 300 foot, for which O'Cahan had in return O'Neill's whole
+  suit of apparel, the horse that he rode upon, and 100 cows in
+  winter. He also paid 21 cows every year in the name of
+  <i>Cios'righ</i>, the king's rent, or the king's rent-cess. He
+  alleged that Queen Elizabeth had granted him his country to be
+  held immediately from her majesty at the accustomed rent, by
+  virtue of which he enjoyed it for one whole year without paying,
+  or being craved payment, of any rent or duty, until the Earl of
+  Tyrone, on his return from England, alleged that he had got
+  O'Cahan's country by patent, from the king, who had made him
+  vassal to Tyrone and his heirs for ever, imposing the annual
+  payment of 100 cows, with the yearly rent of 200<i>l.</i> He had
+  also claimed the fishing of the Bann; he preyed yearly upon other
+  parts of his country, and drew from him his best tenants. He
+  therefore prayed for the protection of the lord deputy against
+  these unjust demands and usurpations.</p>
+
+  <p>On the 23rd of the same month, O'Neill made a counter
+  statement to the following effect: O'Cahan had no estate in the
+  territory that was by a corruption of speech called O'Cahan's
+  country; nor did he or any of his ancestors ever hold the said
+  lands but as tenants at sufferance, servants and followers to the
+  defendant and his ancestors. His grandfather Con O'Neill was
+  seised in fee of those lands before he surrendered to Henry
+  VIII., 'and received yearly, and had thereout, as much rents,
+  cutting, spending and all other duties as of any other lands
+  which he had in demesne,' within the province of Ulster and
+  territory of Tyrone, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page107" id=
+  "page107"></a>[pg 107]</span> and that after Con's surrender the
+  territories were all re-granted with the rents, customs, duties,
+  &amp;c. as before. He was ready to prove that the ancestors of
+  O'Cahan never enjoyed the premises at any time, but at the will
+  and sufferance of O'Neill and his ancestors. A few days after, he
+  despatched a memorial to the king setting forth his grievances,
+  in which he stated that there were so many that sought to deprive
+  him of the greatest part of the residue of his territory that
+  without his majesty's special consideration he should in the end
+  have nothing to support his 'estate' or rank. For the Lord Bishop
+  of Derry, not content with the great living the king had bestowed
+  upon him, sought to have the greater part of the earl's lands, to
+  which none of his predecessors had ever laid claim. And he also
+  set on others to question his titles which had never before
+  before doubted. He therefore humbly besought the king to direct
+  that new letters patent should be made out re-conveying to him
+  and his heirs the lands in dispute, being, he said, 'such a
+  favour as is appointed by your majesty to be extended to such of
+  your subjects of this kingdom as should be suitors for the same,
+  amongst whom I will during my life endeavour to deserve to be in
+  the number of the most faithful, whereunto not only duty, but
+  also your majesty's great bounty, hath ever obliged me.'</p>
+
+  <p>This was dated at Mellifont on May 26, 1607. It does not
+  appear that any answer was received to his appeals to the king,
+  nor is it likely that it served his cause, for it is seldom safe
+  to appeal from an agent or deputy to the supreme authority. The
+  Privy Council in Dublin, however, made a report confirming to
+  some extent the claims put forth by Tyrone. A jury had been
+  appointed to inquire into the boundaries and limits of the lands
+  granted by Queen Elizabeth, and they found that they extended
+  from the river Fuin to Lough Foyle, and from Lough Foyle by the
+  sea-shore to the Bann, and thence to the east of Lough Neagh.
+  Within these limits they found that there existed the territory
+  called O'Cahan's, Glenconkeine and Killetragh, <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page108" id="page108"></a>[pg 108]</span>
+  which were not the lands of the O'Neills, '<i>but held by tenants
+  having estates in them equivalent to estates of freehold</i>.'
+  The jury could not determine what rents the tenants of said lands
+  were accustomed to pay, but they found generally that all lands
+  within the limits of Tyrone, except the lands of the church,
+  rendered to O'Neill bonnaght or free quarters for armed
+  retainers, 'rising out, cutting and spending.' The parties,
+  however, did not abide by the decision of the privy council, but
+  kept up their contention in the courts of law. It was quite clear
+  that matters could not remain long in that unsettled state, with
+  so many adventurers thirsting for the possession of land, which
+  was lying comparatively idle. It was thought desirable to appoint
+  a president of Ulster, as there had been a president of Munster.
+  The Earl of Tyrone applied to the king for the office, evidently
+  fearing that if Chichester were appointed, he must share the fate
+  of the Earl of Desmond. On the other hand, it was felt that with
+  his hereditary pretensions, impracticable temper, and vast
+  influence with the people, it would be impossible to establish
+  the English power on a permanent basis until he was got out of
+  the way. This was not difficult, with unprincipled adventurers
+  who were watching for opportunities to make their fortunes in
+  those revolutionary times. Among these was a person named St.
+  Lawrence, Baron of Howth. This man worked cunningly on the mind
+  of the lord deputy, insinuating that O'Neill was plotting treason
+  and preparing for a Spanish invasion. He even went so far as to
+  write an anonymous letter, revealing an alleged plot of O'Neill's
+  to assassinate the lord deputy. It was addressed to Sir William
+  Usher, clerk of the council, and the writer began by saying that
+  it would show him, though far severed from him in religion, how
+  near he came home to him in honesty. He was a Catholic, and
+  professed to reveal what he had heard among Catholic gentlemen,
+  'after the strictest conditions of secresy.' The conspirators
+  were, in the first place, to murder or poison the lord deputy
+  when he came to Drogheda, 'a place thought apt and secure
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page109" id="page109"></a>[pg
+  109]</span> to act the same.' They thought it well to begin with
+  him, because his authority, wisdom, and valour stood only in the
+  way of their first attempts. Next after him they were to cut off
+  Sir Oliver Lambert, whom for his own judgment in the wars, his
+  sudden resolution, and undertaking spirit, they would not suffer
+  to live. These two lights thus put out, they would neither fear
+  nor value any opposite in the kingdom. The small dispersed
+  garrisons must either through hunger submit themselves to their
+  mercy, or be penned up as sheep to the shambles. They held the
+  castle of Dublin for their own, neither manned nor victualled,
+  and readily surprised. The towns were for them, the country with
+  them, the great ones abroad prepared to answer the first alarm.
+  The Jesuits warranted from the Pope and the Catholic king would
+  do their parts effectually, and Spanish succours would not be
+  wanting. These secrets greatly troubled the sensitive conscience
+  of Lord Howth. From the time he was entrusted with them, he said,
+  'till I resolved to give you this caveat, my eyelids never
+  closed, my heart was a fire, my soul suffered a thousand thousand
+  torments; yet I could not, nor cannot persuade my conscience, in
+  honesty, to betray my friends, or spill their bloods, when this
+  timely warning may prevent the mischief.' In conclusion, he said,
+  'though I reverence the mass and the Catholic religion equal with
+  the devoutest of them, I will make the leaders of this dance know
+  that I prefer my country's good before their busy and ambitious
+  humours.' It is related of this twenty-second baron of Howth,
+  known as Sir Christopher St. Lawrence, that having served in
+  Ulster under Essex, and accompanied him in his flight to England,
+  he proposed to murder Lord Grey de Wilton, lest he should
+  prejudice the queen's mind against her former favourite, if he
+  got access to her presence before him; that he had commanded a
+  regiment of infantry under Mountjoy, and that when that regiment
+  was disbanded, he became discontented, not having got either
+  pension or employment; that having gone as a free lance to the
+  Low Countries, and failed to advance <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page110" id="page110"></a>[pg 110]</span>
+  himself there as he expected, through the interest of Irish
+  ecclesiastics, he returned to England, and skulked about the
+  ante-chambers of Lord Salisbury, waiting upon Providence, when he
+  hit upon the happy idea of the revelations which he conveyed
+  under the signature of' A.B.'<a id="footnotetag30" name=
+  "footnotetag30"></a><a href="#footnote30"><sup>4</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>After some time he acknowledged the authorship of the letter
+  privately, but refused to come forth publicly as an informer, nor
+  was he able to produce any corroboration of the improbable story.
+  Ultimately, however, when pressed by Chichester, he induced his
+  friend Baron Devlin to swear an information to the same effect,
+  revealing certain alleged conversations of O'Neill. In the
+  meantime St. Lawrence cunningly worked upon the fears of the
+  earl, giving him to understand that his ruin was determined on,
+  and that he had better consult his safety, by leaving the
+  country. It appears that he received intimations to the same
+  effect from his correspondents in Spain and in London. At all
+  events, he lost heart, became silent, moody, and low-spirited,
+  suspecting foul play on the part of the king, who was very urgent
+  that he should be brought over to London, in which case Tyrone
+  was led to believe that he would certainly be sent to the Tower,
+  and probably lose his head. With such apprehensions, he came to
+  the conclusion that it was idle to struggle any longer against
+  the stream.</p>
+
+  <p>He had for some weeks been engaged quietly making preparations
+  for his flight. He had given directions to his steward to collect
+  in advance one half of his Michaelmas rents, leading the lord
+  deputy to think that he did so either to provide funds for his
+  journey to London, or to defray the expenses of his son's
+  projected marriage with the daughter of Lord Argyle. Meanwhile a
+  vessel had been purchased by Cu-Connaught Maguire, and Bath, the
+  captain of this vessel, assured the Earl of Tyrconnel, whom he
+  met at Ballyshannon, that he also would lose his life or liberty
+  if he did not abandon the country with O'Neill. On September 8,
+  Tyrone took leave of the lord deputy, and then spent a
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page111" id="page111"></a>[pg
+  111]</span> day and night at Mellifont with his friend Sir Garret
+  Moore, who was specially dear to him as the fosterer of his son
+  John. The earl took his leave with unusual emotion, and after
+  giving his blessing according to the Irish fashion to every
+  member of his friend's household, he and his suite took horse and
+  rode rapidly by Dundalk, over the Fews to Armagh, where he rested
+  a few hours, and then proceeded to Creeve, one of his crannoges
+  or island habitations, where he was joined by his wife and other
+  members of his family. Sir Oliver Lambert in a communication to
+  the Irish Government, relating to the affairs of Ulster, made
+  some interesting allusions to O'Neill. He states that he had
+  apologised for having appealed to the king in the case between
+  him and O'Cahan, and said that he felt much grieved in being
+  called upon so suddenly to go to England, when on account of his
+  poverty he was not able to furnish himself as became him for such
+  a journey and for such a presence. In all things else, said Sir
+  Oliver, 'he seemed very moderate and reasonable, albeit he never
+  gave over to be a general solicitor in all causes concerning his
+  country and people however criminal.' He thought the earl had
+  been much abused by persons who had cunningly terrified, and
+  diverted him from going to the king; 'or else he had within him a
+  thousand witnesses testifying that he was as deeply engaged in
+  these secret treasons as any of the rest, whom they knew or
+  suspected.' At all events he had received information on the
+  previous day from his own brother Sir Cormac O'Neill, from the
+  primate, from Sir Toby Caulfield and others, that the earl had
+  taken shipping with his lady, the Baron of Dungannon, his eldest
+  son, and two others of his children, John and Brien, both under
+  seven years old, the Earl of Tyrconnel, and his son and heir, an
+  infant, not yet a year old, his brother Caffar O'Donel, and his
+  son an infant two years old, 'with divers others of their nearest
+  and trusted followers and servants, as well men as women, to the
+  number of between thirty and forty persons.'</p>
+
+  <p>The Rev. Mr. Meehan gives graphic details of the flight
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page112" id="page112"></a>[pg
+  112]</span> of his two heroes. Arrived at Rathmullen they found
+  Maguire and Captain Bath laying stores of provisions on board the
+  ship that had come into Lough Swilly under French colours. Here
+  they were joined by Rory, Earl of Tyrconnel. At noon on Friday
+  they all went on board and lifted anchor, but kept close to the
+  shore waiting for the boats' crews, who were procuring water and
+  fuel; but they had to wait till long after sunset, when the boats
+  came with only a small quantity of wood and water. According to a
+  fatality which makes one Irishman's extremity another Irishman's
+  opportunity, the foraging party was set upon by M'Sweeny of
+  Fanad, who churlishly prevented them getting a sufficient supply
+  of these necessaries. This barbarous conduct is accounted for by
+  Mr. Meehan, from the fact, that this M'Sweeny had recently taken
+  a grant of his lands from the crown. At midnight, September 14,
+  1607, they spread all sail and made for the open sea, intending,
+  however, to land on the Island of Arran, off the coast of
+  Donegal, to provide themselves with more water and fuel. The
+  entire number of souls on board this small vessel, says O'Keenan
+  in his narrative, was ninety-nine, having little sea store, and
+  being otherwise miserably accommodated. Unable to make the island
+  of Arran, owing to a gale then blowing off the land, and fearing
+  to be crossed by the king's cruisers, they steered for the
+  harbour of Corunna in Spain. But for thirteen days, continues
+  O'Keenan, 'the sea was angry, and the tempest left us no rest;
+  and the only brief interval of calm we enjoyed, was when O'Neill
+  took from his neck a golden crucifix containing a relic of the
+  true cross, and trailed it in the wake of the ship. At that
+  moment, two poor merlins with wearied pinions sought refuge in
+  the rigging of our vessel, and were captured for the noble
+  ladies, who nursed them with tenderest affection.' After being
+  tempest-tossed for three weeks, they dropped anchor in the
+  harbour of Quilleboeuf in France, having narrowly escaped
+  shipwreck, their only remaining provisions being one gallon of
+  beer and a cask of water. <span class="pagenum"><a name="page113"
+  id="page113"></a>[pg 113]</span> They proceeded to Brussels and
+  thence to Louvain, where splendid accommodation was provided for
+  them. In several of the cities through which they passed they
+  received ovations, their countrymen clerical and military having
+  prepared for their reception with the greatest zeal and devotion.
+  The King of Spain was of course friendly, but to avoid giving
+  offence to King James he discouraged the stay of the exiles in
+  his dominions, and they found their final resting-place at Rome,
+  where the two earls were placed upon the Pope's civil list,
+  which, however, they did not long continue to burden. Tyrconnel
+  fell a victim to the malaria, and died on July 28, 1608.
+  'Sorrowful it was,' say the Four Masters, 'to contemplate his
+  early eclipse, for he was a generous and hospitable lord, to whom
+  the patrimony of his ancestors seemed nothing for his feastings
+  and spending.' His widow received a pension of 300<i>l.</i> a
+  year out of his forfeited estates. O'Neill survived his brother
+  earl eight years, having made various attempts to induce the King
+  of Spain to aid him in the recovery of his patrimony. He died in
+  1616, in the seventy-sixth year of his age. Sir Francis
+  Cottington, announcing the event from Madrid, said, 'The Earl of
+  Tyrone is dead at Rome; by whose death this king saves 500 ducats
+  every month, for so much pension he had from here, well paid him.
+  Upon the news of his death, I observed that all the principal
+  Irish entertained in several parts of this kingdom are repaired
+  unto this court.'</p>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote27" name="footnote27"></a><b>Footnote 1:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag27">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>Page 30.</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote28" name="footnote28"></a><b>Footnote 2:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag28">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>Father Meehan.</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote29" name="footnote29"></a><b>Footnote 3:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag29">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>Meehan, p. 79.</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote30" name="footnote30"></a><b>Footnote 4:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag30">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>Meehan, p. 103.</p>
+  </blockquote><span class="pagenum"><a name="page114" id=
+  "page114"></a>[pg 114]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+  <h3>GOVERNMENT APPEALS TO THE PEOPLE.</h3>
+
+  <p>The flight of the earls caused great consternation to the
+  Irish Government. Letters were immediately despatched to the
+  local authorities at every port to have a sharp look out for the
+  fugitives, and to send out vessels to intercept them, should they
+  be driven back by bad weather to any part of the coast. At the
+  same time the lord deputy sent a despatch to the Government in
+  London, deprecating censure for an occurrence so unexpected, and
+  so much to be regretted, because of the possibility of its
+  leading to an invasion by the Spaniards. In other respects it was
+  regarded by the principal members of the Irish Government, and
+  especially by the officials in Ulster, as a most fortunate
+  occurrence. For example, Sir Oliver Lambert, in his report to the
+  lords of the council, already referred to, said:&mdash;'But now
+  these things are fallen out thus, contrary to all expectation or
+  likelihood, by the providence of God I hope, over this miserable
+  people, for whose sake it may be he hath sent his majesty this
+  rare and unlocked for occasion: whereby he may now at length,
+  with good apprehension and prudent handling, repair an error
+  which was committed in making these men proprietary lords of so
+  large a territory, without regard of the poor freeholders'
+  rights, or of his majesty's service, and the commonwealth's, that
+  are so much interested in the honest liberty of that sort of men,
+  which now, in time, I commend unto your lordships' grave
+  consideration and wisdom, and will come to that which nearest
+  concerns ourselves and the whole.'</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page115" id="page115"></a>[pg 115]</span>
+
+  <p>According to Sir John Davis, in his letter to the first
+  minister, Lord Salisbury, Tyrone could not be reconciled in his
+  heart to the English Government, because 'he ever lived like a
+  free prince, or, rather, like an absolute tyrant, there. The law
+  of England, and the ministers thereof, were shackles and
+  handlocks unto him.' He states that <i>after the Irish
+  manner</i>, he made all the tenants of his land <i>villeins</i>.
+  'Therefore to evict any part of that land from him was as
+  grievous unto him as to pinch away the quick flesh from his body
+  ... Besides,' the attorney-general added, 'as for us that are
+  here, we are glad to see the day wherein the countenance and
+  majesty of the law, as civil government, hath banished Tyrone out
+  of Ireland, which the best army in Europe, and the expense of two
+  millions of sterling pounds did not bring to pass. And we hope
+  his majesty's happy government will work a greater miracle in
+  this kingdom, than ever St. Patrick did; for St. Patrick did only
+  banish the poisonous worms, but suffered the men full of poison
+  to inhabit the land still; but his majesty's blessed genius will
+  banish all that generation of vipers out of it, and make it, ere
+  it be long, a right fortunate island.'</p>
+
+  <p>Again, Sir Geoffry Fenton, writing to Salisbury on the same
+  subject, says, 'And now I am to put your lordship in mind what a
+  door is open to the king, if the opportunity be taken, and well
+  converted, not only to pull down for ever these two proud houses
+  of O'Neill and O'Donel, but also to bring in colonies to plant
+  both countries, to a great increasing of his majesty's revenues,
+  and to establish and settle the countries perpetually in the
+  crown; besides that many well-deserving servitors may be
+  recompensed in the distribution; a matter to be taken to heart,
+  for that it reaches somewhat to his majesty's conscience and
+  honour to see these poor servitors relieved, whom time and the
+  wars have spent, even unto their later years, and now, by this
+  commodity, may be stayed and comforted without charges to his
+  majesty.' This advice was quite in accordance with the views of
+  the prime minister, who in a letter to Chichester said, 'I do
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page116" id="page116"></a>[pg
+  116]</span> think it of great necessity that those countries be
+  made the king's by this accident; that there be a mixture in the
+  plantation, the <i>natives</i> made his majesty's tenants of
+  part, but the rest to be divided among those that will
+  <i>inhabit</i>; and in no case any man is suffered to embrace
+  more than is visible he can and will <i>manure</i>. That was an
+  oversight in the plantation of Munster, where 12,000 acres were
+  commonly allotted to bankrupts and country gentlemen, that never
+  knew the disposition of the Irish; so as God forbid that those
+  who have spent their blood in the service should not of all
+  others be preferred.' It was because this idea of manuring, i.e.
+  residence and cultivation, was carried out in Ulster, that the
+  plantation has proved so successful. But Davis would allow but
+  small space comparatively to the natives, whom he compared to
+  weeds which, if too numerous, would choke the wheat. With him the
+  old inhabitants were simply a nuisance from the highest to the
+  lowest; and if there were no other way of getting rid of them, he
+  would no doubt have adopted the plan recommended by Lord Bacon,
+  who said, 'Some of the chiefest of the Irish families should be
+  transported to England, and have recompense there for their
+  possessions in Ireland, till they were cleansed from their blood,
+  incontinency, and theft, which were not the lapses of particular
+  persons, but the very laws of the nation.' The Lord Deputy
+  Chichester, however, agreed thoroughly with his attorney-general,
+  for he certainly made no more account of rooting out the 'mere
+  Irish' from their homes than if they were the most noxious kinds
+  of weeds or vermin. 'If,' said he, writing to Lord Salisbury, 'I
+  have observed anything during my stay in this kingdom, I may say
+  it is not <i>lenity</i> and good works that will reclaim the
+  Irish, but <i>an iron rod</i>, and severity of justice, for the
+  restraint and punishment of those firebrands of sedition, <i>the
+  priests</i>; nor can we think of any other remedy but to proclaim
+  <i>them, and their relievers and harbourers, traitors</i>.'</p>
+
+  <p>Considering that those Englishmen were professedly Christian
+  rulers, engaged in establishing the reformed <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page117" id="page117"></a>[pg 117]</span>
+  religion, the accounts which they give with perfect coolness of
+  their operations in this line, are among the most appalling
+  passages to be met with in the world's history. For instance, the
+  lord deputy writes: 'I have often said and written, it is
+  <i>famine that must consume the Irish</i>, as our <i>swords</i>
+  and other endeavours worked not that, speedy effect which is
+  expected; <i>hunger</i> would be a better, because a speedier,
+  weapon to employ against them than the sword.' He spared no means
+  of destruction, but combined all the most fearful scourges for
+  the purpose of putting out of existence the race of people whom
+  God in his anger subjected to his power. Surely the spirit of
+  cruelty, the genius of destruction, must have been incarnate in
+  the man who wrote thus: 'I burned all along the Lough (Neagh)
+  within four miles of Dungannon, and killed 100 people, sparing
+  none, of what quality, age, or sex soever, besides <i>many burned
+  to death</i>. We killed man, <i>woman and child</i>, horse,
+  beast, and whatsoever we could find.'</p>
+
+  <p>At the time of the flight of the earls, however, he was very
+  anxious about the safety of the kingdom. He was aware that the
+  people were universally discontented, he had but few troops in
+  the country, and little or no money in the treasury, so that in
+  case of a sudden invasion, it was quite possible that the
+  maddened population would rise and act in their own way upon his
+  own merciless policy of extermination. He therefore hastened to
+  issue a proclamation for the purpose of reassuring the
+  inhabitants of Ulster, and persuading them that they would not
+  suffer in any way by the desertion of their chiefs. In this
+  proclamation, headed by 'The <i>Lord Deputy and Counsell</i>,' it
+  was stated that Tyrone and Tyrconnel and their companions had
+  lately embarked themselves at Lough Swilly and had secretly and
+  suddenly departed out of this realm without license or notice.
+  The Government was as yet uncertain about their purpose or
+  destination. But inasmuch as the manner of their departure,
+  considering the quality of their persons, might raise many doubts
+  in the minds of his majesty's loving subjects <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page118" id="page118"></a>[pg 118]</span> in
+  those parts, and especially the common sort of people inhabiting
+  the counties of Tyrone and Tyrconnel, who might suppose they were
+  in danger to suffer prejudice in their <i>lands</i> and goods for
+  the contempt or offence of the earls,&mdash;they were solemnly
+  assured that they had nothing whatever to fear. The words of the
+  proclamation on this point are: 'We do therefore in his majesty's
+  name declare, proclaim, and publish that all and every his
+  majesty's good and loyal subjects inhabiting those countries of
+  Tyrone and Tyrconnel shall and may quietly and securely possess
+  and enjoy all and singular <i>their lands and goods</i> without
+  the trouble or molestation of any of his majesty's officers or
+  ministers or any other person or persons whatsoever as long as
+  they disturb not his majesty's peace, but live as dutiful and
+  obedient subjects. And forasmuch as the said earls to whom his
+  majesty, reposing special trust in their loyalty, had committed
+  the government of the said several countries are now undutifully
+  departed, therefore his Majesty doth graciously receive all and
+  every of his said loyal subjects into his own immediate safeguard
+  and protection, giving them full assurance to defend them and
+  every of them by his kingly power from all violence or wrong,
+  which any loose persons among themselves or any foreign force
+  shall attempt against them. And to that end, we the lord deputy
+  and council have made choice of certain commissioners as well
+  Irish as English, residing in the said several countries, not
+  only to preserve the public peace there, but also to administer
+  speedy and indifferent justice to all his majesty's loving
+  subjects in those parts, which shall have any cause of complaint
+  before them.' All governors, mayors, sheriffs, justices of peace,
+  provost-marshals, bailiffs, constables, and all other his
+  majesty's ministers whatsoever were strictly charged to use their
+  utmost endeavours faithfully and diligently to keep the people in
+  their duty and obedience to his majesty and the laws of the
+  realm.</p>
+
+  <p>The assurance thus given that the subjects and tenants of the
+  absconding princes should securely possess and enjoy their lands
+  and be protected from all oppression under the <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page119" id="page119"></a>[pg 119]</span>
+  sceptre of King James would have been very satisfactory had the
+  royal promise been realised, but conciliation was then absolutely
+  necessary, for the lord deputy himself stated that 'the kingdom
+  had not been in the like danger these hundred years, as we have
+  but few friends and no means of getting more.' The foregoing
+  proclamation was issued from Rathfarnham on September 10. On
+  November 9 following, another proclamation of a general nature
+  was published and widely circulated in order to justify the
+  course the Government adopted. According to this document it was
+  known to all the world 'how infinitely' the fugitive earls had
+  been obliged to the king for his singular grace and mercy in
+  giving them free pardon for many heinous and execrable treasons,
+  above all hope that they could in reason conceive, and also in
+  restoring the one to his lands and honours justly forfeited, and
+  in raising the other 'from a very mean estate to the degree and
+  title of an earl, giving him withal large possessions for the
+  support of that honour, before either of them had given any proof
+  of loyalty, or merited the least favour.' Even in the point of
+  religion, which served as a cloak for all their treasons, they
+  got no provocation or cause of grievance. For these and other
+  causes it was announced that his majesty would seize and take
+  into his hands all the lands and goods of the said fugitives. But
+  he would, notwithstanding, extend such grace and favour to the
+  loyal inhabitants of their territories that none of them should
+  be 'impeached, troubled, or molested in <i>their own lands</i>,
+  goods, or bodies, they continuing in their loyalty, <i>and
+  yielding unto his majesty such rents and duties as shall be
+  agreeable to justice and equity</i>.' This assurance was repeated
+  again emphatically in these words: 'His most excellent majesty
+  doth take all the good and loyal inhabitants of the said
+  countries, together with their wives and children, land and
+  goods, into his own immediate protection, to defend them in
+  general against all rebellions and invasions, and to right them
+  in all their wrongs and oppressions, offered or to be offered
+  unto them by any person whatsoever, etc.'</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page120" id="page120"></a>[pg 120]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+
+  <h3>THE CASE OF THE FUGITIVE EARLS.</h3>
+
+  <p>Before proceeding to notice the manner in which these promises
+  of justice, equity, and protection to the occupiers of the land
+  were fulfilled, it is well to record here the efforts made by
+  King James and his ambassador to discredit the fugitive earls on
+  the Continent, and the case which they made out for themselves in
+  the statement of wrongs and grievances which they addressed to
+  the king soon after. There was great alarm in England when news
+  arrived of the friendly reception accorded to the Irish chiefs by
+  the continental sovereigns through whose dominions they passed,
+  and especially by the King of Spain, who was suspected of
+  intending another invasion of Ireland. Consequently the most
+  active preparations were made to meet the danger. In every street
+  of the metropolis drums were beating for recruits, and large
+  detachments were sent in all possible haste to reinforce the
+  Irish garrisons. Sir Charles Cornwallis was then English
+  ambassador at Madrid; and lest his diplomatic skill should not be
+  up to the mark, James himself sent him special and minute
+  instructions as to the manner in which he should handle the
+  delicate subjects he had to bring before the Spanish sovereign.
+  There has been seldom a better illustration of the saying, that
+  the use of speech is to conceal thought, than in the
+  representations which the ambassador was instructed to make about
+  Irish affairs. Indeed Cornwallis had already shown that he
+  scarcely needed to be tutored by his sovereign. In a preliminary
+  despatch he had sent an account of his conversation with Philip
+  III.'s secretary of <span class="pagenum"><a name="page121" id=
+  "page121"></a>[pg 121]</span> state about the fugitive earls. He
+  told him that though they had been guilty of rebellions and
+  treasons they had not only been pardoned, but loaded with
+  dignities such as few or none of the king's ancestors had ever
+  bestowed on any of the Irish nation. He had conferred upon them
+  an absolute and, 'in a manner, unlimited government in their own
+  countries, nothing wanting to their ambitions but the name of
+  kings, and neither crossed in anything concerning their civil
+  government, nor so much as in act or imagination molested, or in
+  any sort questioned with, for their consciences and religion.' He
+  thought therefore that they would never have fled in such a way,
+  unless they had been drawn to Spain by large promises in the hope
+  of serving some future turns.</p>
+
+  <p>The secretary listened to this insinuation with much
+  impatience, and declared solemnly, laying his hand on his breast
+  with an oath, that of the departure and intention of the earls
+  there was no more knowledge given to the king or any of his state
+  than to the ambassador himself. He added that there had been much
+  consumption of Spanish treasure by supporting strangers who had
+  come from all parts. In particular they had a bitter taste of
+  those who had come from James's dominions; and they would have
+  suffered much more, 'if they had not made a resolute and
+  determined stop to the running of that fountain and refused to
+  give ear to many overtures.' The ambassador expressed his
+  satisfaction at this assurance, and then endeavoured to show how
+  unworthy those Irish princes were of the least encouragement.
+  Their flight was the result of madness, they departed without any
+  occasion of 'earthly distaste' or offence given them by their
+  sovereign, whose position towards the Irish was very different
+  from that of the late queen. Elizabeth had employed against their
+  revolts and rebellions only her own subjects of England, who were
+  not accustomed either to the diet of that savage country, or to
+  the bogs, and other retreats which that wild people used. But
+  now, the king his master, being possessed of Scotland, had in
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page122" id="page122"></a>[pg
+  122]</span> that country, 'near adjoining to the north part of
+  Ireland, a people of their own fashion, diet, and disposition,
+  that could walk their bogs as well as themselves, live with their
+  food, and were so well practised and accustomed in their own
+  country to the like, that they were as apt to pull them out of
+  their dens and withdrawing places, as ferrets to draw rabbits out
+  of their burrows.' Moreover all other parts of Ireland were now
+  reduced to such obedience, and so civil a course, and so well
+  planted with a mixture of English, that there was not a man that
+  showed a forehead likely to give a frown against his majesty, or
+  his government. Cornwallis went on to plead the incomparable
+  virtues of the king his master, among which liberality and
+  magnificence were not the least. But if he had given largely, it
+  was upon a good exchange, for he had sowed money, which of itself
+  can do nothing, and had reaped hearts that can do all. As for the
+  alleged number of 'groaning Catholics,' he assured the secretary
+  that there were hardly as many hundreds as the fugitives reckoned
+  thousands.</p>
+
+  <p>According to his report the minister heard him with great
+  attention, and at the conclusion protested, that he joined with
+  him in opinion that those fugitives were dangerous people and
+  that the Jesuits were turbulent and busy men. He assured him on
+  the word of a caballero, that his majesty and council had fully
+  determined never to receive or treat any more of those 'straying
+  people;' as they had been put to great inconvenience and cost,
+  how to deliver themselves from those Irish vagabonds, and
+  continual begging pretenders.</p>
+
+  <p>This despatch, dated October 28, 1607, was crossed on the way
+  by one from the English minister Salisbury, dated the 27th,
+  giving the king's instructions 'concerning those men that are
+  fled into Spain.' Cornwallis was directed not to make matters
+  worse than they really were, because the end must be good, 'what
+  insolencies soever the Jesuits and pack of fugitives there might
+  put on. King James knew that this remnant of the northern Irish
+  traitors had been as <span class="pagenum"><a name="page123" id=
+  "page123"></a>[pg 123]</span> full of malice as flesh and blood
+  could be, no way reformed by the grace received, but rather
+  sucking poison out of the honey thereof.' He knew also that they
+  had absolutely given commission to their priests and others to
+  abandon their sovereign if Spain would entertain their cause. But
+  this he could not demonstrably prove <i>in foro judicii</i>,
+  though clear <i>in foro conscienti&#230;</i>, and therefore
+  punishment would savour of rigour. So long as things were in that
+  state his majesty was obliged to suffer adders in his bosom, and
+  give them means to gather strength to his own prejudice, whereas
+  now the whole country which they had possessed would be made of
+  great use both for strength and profit to the king. What follows
+  should be given in his majesty's own words:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'Those poor creatures who knew no kings but those petty lords,
+  under the burden of whose tyranny they have ever groaned, do now
+  with great applause desire to be protected by the immediate
+  power, and to receive correction only from himself, so as if the
+  council of Spain shall conceive that they have now some great
+  advantage over this state, where it shall appear what a party
+  their king may have if he shall like to support it, there may be
+  this answer: that those Irish without the King of Spain are poor
+  worms upon earth; and that when the King of Spain shall think it
+  time to begin with Ireland, the king my master is more like than
+  Queen Elizabeth was, to find a wholesomer place of the King of
+  Spain's, where he would be loath to hear of the English, and to
+  show the Spaniards who shall be sent into Ireland as fair a way
+  as they were taught before. In which time the more you speak of
+  the base, insulting, discoursing fugitives, the more proper it
+  will be for you. In the meantime upon their departure, not a man
+  hath moved, neither was there these thirty years more universal
+  obedience than there is now. Amongst the rest of their barbarous
+  lies I doubt not but they will pretend protection for religion,
+  and breach of promise with them; wherein you may safely protest
+  this, that for any, of all those that are gone, there never was
+  so much as an offer made to search their
+  consciences.'</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page124" id=
+  "page124"></a>[pg 124]</span>
+
+  <p>Not content with the labours of his ambassadors at the various
+  continental courts, to damage the cause of the Irish earls, the
+  king issued a proclamation, which was widely dispersed abroad.
+  His majesty said he thought it better to clear men's judgments
+  concerning the fugitives, 'not in respect of any worth or value
+  in these men's persons, being base and rude in their original,'
+  but to prevent any breach of friendship with other princes. For
+  this purpose he declared that Tyrone and Tyrconnel had not their
+  creation or possessions in regard of any lineal or lawful descent
+  from ancestors of blood or virtue, but were only conferred by the
+  late queen and himself for some reasons of state. Therefore, he
+  judged it needless to seek for many arguments 'to confirm
+  whatsoever should be said of these men's corruption and
+  falsehood, whose heinous offences remained so fresh in memory
+  since they declared themselves so very monsters in nature, as
+  they did not only withdraw themselves from their personal
+  obedience to their sovereign, but were content to sell over their
+  native country, to those who stood at that time in the highest
+  terms of hostility with the crowns of England and Ireland.'
+  'Yet,' adds the king, 'to make the absurdity and ingratitude of
+  the allegation above mentioned so much the more clear to all men
+  of equal judgment, we do hereby profess in word of a king that
+  there was never so much as any shadow of molestation, nor purpose
+  of proceeding in any degree against them for matter concerning
+  religion:&mdash;such being their condition and profession, to
+  think murder no fault, marriage of no use, nor any man worthy to
+  be esteemed valiant that did not glory in rapine and oppression,
+  as we should have thought it an unreasonable thing to trouble
+  them for any different point in religion, before any man could
+  perceive by their conversation that they made truly conscience of
+  any religion. The king thought these declarations sufficient to
+  disperse and to discredit all such untruths as these contemptible
+  creatures, so full of infidelity and ingratitude, should
+  discharge against him and his just and moderate proceedings, and
+  which should procure unto them no better usage than they would
+  wish <span class="pagenum"><a name="page125" id="page125"></a>[pg
+  125]</span> should be afforded to any such pack of rebels born
+  their subjects and bound unto them in so many and so great
+  obligations.'</p>
+
+  <p>Such was the case of the English Government presented to the
+  world by the king and his ministers. Let us now hear what the
+  personages so heartily reviled by them had to say for themselves.
+  The Rev. C.P. Meehan has brought to light the categorical
+  narratives, which the earls dictated, and which had lain
+  unpublished among the 'old historic rolls,' in the Public Record
+  Office, London. These documents are of great historic interest,
+  as are many other state-papers now first published in his
+  valuable work.<a id="footnotetag31" name=
+  "footnotetag31"></a><a href="#footnote31"><sup>1</sup></a>
+  O'Neill's defence is headed, 'Articles Exhibited by the Earl of
+  Tyrone to the King's Most Excellent Majesty, declaring certain
+  Causes of Discontent offered Him, by which he took occasion to
+  Depart His Country.' The statement is divided into twenty items,
+  of which the following is the substance: It was proclaimed by
+  public authority in his manor of Dungannon, that none should hear
+  mass upon pain of losing his goods and imprisonment, and that no
+  ecclesiastical person should enjoy any cure or dignity without
+  swearing the oath of supremacy and embracing the contrary
+  religion, and those who refused so to do were actually deprived
+  of their benefices and dignities, in proof of which the earl
+  referred to the lord deputy's answer to his own petition, and to
+  the Lord Primate of Ireland, who put the persecuting decree into
+  execution. The Earl of Devon, then lord-lieutenant, had taken
+  from him the lands of his ancestors called the Fews, in Armagh,
+  and given them to other persons. He was deprived of the annual
+  tribute of sixty cows from Sir Cahir O'Dogherty's country called
+  Inishowen, which tribute had never been brought into question
+  till James's reign. The same lord-lieutenant had taken from him
+  the fishings of the Bann, which always belonged to his ancestors,
+  and which he was forced to purchase again. Portions of his
+  territory had been taken 'under colour of church-lands, a thing
+  never in any man's memory heard of before.' One <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page126" id="page126"></a>[pg 126]</span>
+  Robert Leicester an attorney had got some more of the earl's
+  land, which he transferred to Captain Leigh. 'So as any captain
+  or clerk had wanted means, and had no other means or device to
+  live, might bring the earl in trouble for some part or parcel of
+  his living, falsely inventing the same, to be concealed or
+  church-land.' The Archbishop of Armagh and the Bishop of Derry
+  and Clogher claimed the best part of the earl's whole estate, as
+  appertaining to their bishoprics, 'which was never moved by any
+  other predecessors before, other than that they had some
+  <i>chiefry</i> due to them, in most part of all his living, and
+  would now have the whole land to themselves as their domain
+  lands, not content with the benefit of their ancient registers,
+  which the earl always offered, and was willing to give without
+  further question. O'Cahan, 'one of the chiefest and principalest
+  of the earl's tenants, was set upon by certain of his majesty's
+  privy council, as also by his highness's counsel-at-law, to
+  withdraw himself and the lands called <i>Iraght-I-Cahan</i> from
+  the earl, being a great substance of his living;' and this
+  although O'Cahan had no right to the property except as his
+  <i>tenant at will</i>, yielding and paying all such rents, dues,
+  and reservations as the other tenants did. He complained that at
+  the council table in Dublin it was determined to take two-thirds
+  of O'Cahan's country from him; and he perceived by what Sir John
+  Davis said, that they had determined to take the other third
+  also. They further made claim in his majesty's behalf to four
+  other parcels of the earl's land, which he named, being the
+  substance of all that was left, and began their suit for the same
+  in the court of exchequer. In fine he felt that he could not
+  assure himself of anything by the letters patent he had from the
+  king. Whenever he had recourse to law his proceedings were
+  frustrated by the government; so that he could not get the
+  benefit of his majesty's laws, or the possession of his lands;
+  'and yet any man, of what degree soever, obtained the extremity
+  of the law with favour against him, in any suit.' Although the
+  king had allowed him to be lieutenant of his country, yet he had
+  no more command <span class="pagenum"><a name="page127" id=
+  "page127"></a>[pg 127]</span> there than his boy; the worst man
+  that belonged to the sheriff could command more than he, and that
+  even in the earl's own house. If they wanted to arrest any one in
+  the house they would not wait till he came out, but burst open
+  the doors, and 'never do the earl so much honour in any respect
+  as once to acquaint him therewith, or to send to himself for the
+  party, though he had been within the house when they would
+  attempt these things; and if any of the earl's officers would by
+  his direction order or execute any matter betwixt his own
+  tenants, with their own mutual consent, they would be driven not
+  only to restore the same again, but also be first amerced by the
+  sheriff, and after indicated as felons, and so brought to trial
+  for their lives for the same; so as the earl in the end could
+  scarce get any of his servants that would undertake to levy his
+  rents.' According to law the sheriff should be a resident in the
+  county, have property there, and be elected by the nobility and
+  chief gentlemen belonging to it; but the law was set aside by the
+  lord deputy, who appointed as sheriffs for the counties Tyrone
+  and Armagh Captain Edmund Leigh and one Marmaduke Whitechurch,
+  dwelling in the county of Louth, both being retainers, and very
+  dear friends to the Knight-marshal Bagenal, who was the only man
+  that urged the earl to his last troubles. Of all these things
+  'the earl did eftsoons complain to the lord deputy, and could get
+  no redress, but did rather fare the worse for his complaints, in
+  respect they were so little regarded.'</p>
+
+  <p>The earl understanding that earnest suit had been made to his
+  majesty for the presidentship of Ulster, made bold to write to
+  the king, humbly beseeching him not to grant any such office to
+  any person over himself, 'suspecting it would be his overthrow,
+  as by plain experience he knew the like office to be the utter
+  overthrow of others of his rank in other provinces within the
+  realm of Ireland.' He also wrote to the Earl of Salisbury, who
+  replied that the earl was not to tie his majesty to place or
+  displace officers at his (the earl's) pleasure in any of his
+  majesty's kingdoms. <span class="pagenum"><a name="page128" id=
+  "page128"></a>[pg 128]</span> This was not the earl's meaning,
+  but it indicated to him pretty plainly that he had no favour to
+  expect from that quarter. The office was intended for Sir Arthur
+  Chichester, and he much feared that it would be used for his
+  destruction without his majesty's privity. Therefore, seeing
+  himself envied by those who should be his protectors, considering
+  the misery sustained by others through the oppression of the like
+  government, he resolved to sacrifice all rather than live under
+  that yoke.</p>
+
+  <p>The next item is very characteristic. The earl's nephew Brian
+  M'Art happened to be in the house of Turlough M'Henry, having two
+  men in his company. Being in a merry humour, some dispute arose
+  between him and a kinsman of his own, who 'gave the earl's nephew
+  a blow of a club on the head, and tumbled him to the ground;
+  whereupon, one of his men standing by and seeing his master down,
+  did step up with the fellow and gave him some three or four stabs
+  of a knife, having no other weapon, and the master himself, as it
+  was said, gave him another, through which means the man came to
+  his death. Thereupon, the earl's nephew and his two men were
+  taken and kept in prison till the next sessions holden in the
+  county Armagh, where his men were tried by a jury of four
+  innocent and mere ignorant people, having little or no substance,
+  most of them being bare soldiers and not fit, as well by the
+  institution of law in matters of that kind as also through their
+  own insufficiency, to be permitted or elected to the like charge;
+  and the rest foster-brethren, followers, and very dear friends to
+  the party slain, that would not spare to spend their lives and
+  goods to revenge his death. Yet all that notwithstanding were
+  they allowed, and the trial of these two gentlemen committed to
+  them, through which means, and the vigorous threatening and
+  earnest enticements of the judges, they most shamefully condemned
+  to die, and the jury in a manner forced to find the matter murder
+  in each of them, and that, not so much for their own offences, as
+  thinking to make it an evidence against the master, who was in
+  prison in the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page129" id=
+  "page129"></a>[pg 129]</span> Castle of Dublin, attending to be
+  tried the last Michaelmas term, whose death, were it right or
+  wrong, was much desired by the lord deputy.</p>
+
+  <p>Again, the earl had given his daughter in marriage to O'Cahan
+  with a portion of goods. After they had lived together for eight
+  years, O'Cahan was induced to withdraw himself from the earl, and
+  at the same time, by the procurement of his setters on, he turned
+  off the earl's daughter, kept her fortune to himself, and married
+  another. The father appealed to the lord deputy for justice in
+  vain. He then took proceedings against O'Cahan, at the assizes in
+  Dungannon. But the defendant produced a warrant from the lord
+  deputy, forbidding the judges to entertain the question, as it
+  was one for the Lord Bishop of Derry. The Bishop of Derry,
+  however, was the chief instigator of the divorce, and therefore
+  no indifferent judge in the case. Thus the earl's cause was
+  frustrated, and he could get no manner of justice therein, no
+  more than he obtained in many other weighty matters that
+  concerned him. The next complaint is about outrages committed by
+  one Henry Oge O'Neill, one Henry M'Felemey and others, who at the
+  instigation of the lord deputy, 'farther to trouble the earl,'
+  went out as a wood-kerne to rob and spoil the earl and his
+  nephew, and their tenants. They committed many murders, burnings,
+  and other mischievous acts, and were always maintained and
+  manifestly relieved amongst the deputy's tenants and their
+  friends in Clandeboye, to whom they openly sold the spoils. They
+  went on so for the space of two years, and the earl could get no
+  justice, till at length they murdered one of the deputy's own
+  tenants. Then he saw them prosecuted, and the result was, that
+  the earl cut them all off within a quarter of a year after. But
+  the lord deputy was not at all pleased with this. Therefore he
+  picked up 'a poor rascally knave' and brought him to Dublin,
+  where he persuaded him to accuse above threescore of the earl's
+  tenants of relieving rebels with meat, although it was taken from
+  them by force. For the rebels killed their cattle in <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page130" id="page130"></a>[pg 130]</span> the
+  fields, and left them dead there, not being able to carry them
+  away; burnt their houses, took what they could of their household
+  stuff, killed and mangled themselves. 'Yet were they, upon report
+  of that poor knave, who was himself foremost in doing these
+  mischiefs, all taken and brought to their trial by law, where
+  they were, through their innocency, acquitted, to their no small
+  cost; so as betwixt the professed enemy, and the private envy of
+  our governors, seeking thereby to advance themselves, there was
+  no way left for the poor subject to live.'</p>
+
+  <p>One Joice Geverard, a Dutchman, belonging to the deputy, was
+  taken prisoner on his way from Carrickfergus to Toome, and he was
+  compelled to pay to his captors a ransom of 30<i>l.</i> For this
+  the lord deputy assessed 60<i>l.</i> on the county, and appointed
+  one-half of it to be taken from O'Neil's tenants, being of
+  another county, and at least twelve miles distant from the scene
+  of the outrage, perpetrated by a wood-kerne, 'and themselves
+  being daily killed and spoiled by the said wood-kerne, and never
+  no redress had to them.' Several outrages and murders perpetrated
+  by the soldiers are enumerated; but they were such as might have
+  been expected in a state bordering on civil war, which was then
+  the condition of the province. If, however, Tyrone is to be
+  believed, the rulers themselves set the example of disorder. Sir
+  Henry Folliott, governor of Ballyshannon, in the second year of
+  his majesty's reign, came with force of arms, and drove away 200
+  cows from the earl's tenants, 'and killed a good gentleman, with
+  many other poor men, women, and children; and besides that, there
+  died of them above 100 persons with very famine, for want of
+  their goods; whereof the earl never had redress, although the
+  said Sir Henry could show no reasonable cause for doing the
+  same.'</p>
+
+  <p>Finally the earl saw that the lord deputy was very earnest to
+  aggravate and search out matters against him, touching the
+  staining of his honour and dignity, scheming to come upon him
+  with some forged treason, and thereby to bereave him of both his
+  life and living. The better to compass this <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page131" id="page131"></a>[pg 131]</span> he
+  placed his 'whispering companion,' Captain Leigh, as sheriff in
+  the county, 'so as to be lurking after the earl, to spy if he
+  might have any hole in his coat.' Seeing then that the lord
+  deputy, who should be indifferent, not only to him but to the
+  whole realm, having the rod in his own power, did seek his
+  destruction, he esteemed it a strife against the stream for him
+  to seek to live secure in that kingdom, and therefore of both
+  evils he did choose the least, and thought it better rather to
+  forego his country and lands, till he had further known his
+  majesty's pleasure&mdash;to make an honourable escape with his
+  life and liberty only, than by staying with dishonour and
+  indignation to lose both life, liberty, and country, which much
+  in very deed he feared. Indeed the many abuses 'offered' him by
+  Sir John Davis, 'a man more fit to be a stage player than a
+  counsel,' and other inferior officers, might be sufficient causes
+  to provoke any human creature, not only to forego a country, were
+  it ever so dear to him, but also the whole world, to eschew the
+  like government. And thus he concludes his appeal to his 'most
+  dread sovereign:' 'And so referring himself, and the due
+  consideration of these, and all other his causes, to your
+  majesty's most royal and princely censure, as his only protector
+  and defender, against all his adversaries, he most humbly taketh
+  his leave, and will always, as in bounden duty, pray.'</p>
+
+  <p>The Earl of Tyrconnel's statement contains no less than
+  forty-four items under the following heading: 'A note, or brief
+  collection of the several exactions, wrongs, and grievances, as
+  well spiritual as temporal, wherewith the Earl of Tyrconnel
+  particularly doth find himself grieved and abused by the king's
+  law ministers in Ireland, from the first year of his majesty's
+  reign until this present year of 1607: to be presented to the
+  king's most excellent majesty.'</p>
+
+  <p><i>Imprimis</i>, all the priests and religious persons
+  dwelling within the said earl's territories were daily pursued
+  and persecuted by his majesty's officers. Sir Arthur Chichester
+  told him, in the presence of divers noblemen and gentlemen,
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page132" id="page132"></a>[pg
+  132]</span> that he must resolve to go to church, or he would be
+  forced to go. This was contrary to the toleration which had been
+  till then enjoyed, and he resolved rather to abandon lands and
+  living, yea, all the kingdoms of the earth, with the loss of his
+  life, than to be forced utterly against his conscience to any
+  such practice.</p>
+
+  <p>When Sir George Carew was lord deputy, Captain Nicholas Pynnar
+  and Captain Basil Brook, officers of the king's forces at
+  Lifford, plundered the earl's tenants there, taking from them 150
+  cows, besides as many sheep and swine as they pleased. Not
+  satisfied with this spoil, they most tyrannically stripped 100
+  persons of all their apparel. These outrages the earl complained
+  of 'in humble wise' to the lord deputy, and could find no remedy;
+  for the same year the garrisons of Lough Foyle, and Ballyshannon
+  took from the earl's tenants 400 cows for the victualling of the
+  soldiers; and although the English council wrote to the lord
+  deputy, requiring him to pay for the cattle in English money, the
+  payment was never made. When, in pursuance of a promise made to
+  him by the lord deputy, he appeared before the king, to get new
+  letters patent of his territories, &amp;c., his property, in
+  Sligo, Tyrawly, Moylurg, Dartry, Sir Cahir O'Dogherty's country,
+  and all Sir Nial O'Donel's lands, were excepted and kept from
+  him, together with the castle of Ballyshannon and 1,000 acres of
+  land, and the whole salmon-fishing of the river Erne, worth
+  800<i>l.</i> a year, 'the same castle being one of the earl's
+  chieftest mansion houses.' They also took from him 1,000 acres of
+  his best land, and joined it to the garrison of Lifford for the
+  king's use, without any compensation. There were seven sheriffs
+  sent into Tyrconnel, by each of which there was taken out of
+  every cow and plough-horse 4<i>d.</i>, and as much out of every
+  colt and calf twice a year, and half-a-crown a quarter of every
+  shoemaker, carpenter, smith, and weaver in the whole country, and
+  eight pence a year for every married couple.'</p>
+
+  <p>Sir Nial O'Donel was committed to prison by Tyrconnel, for
+  usurping the title of O'Donel and taking his herds and
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page133" id="page133"></a>[pg
+  133]</span> tenants. 'He broke loose from prison and killed some
+  of his Majesty's subjects. For this the earl prosecuted him under
+  a special warrant from the lord deputy; but notwithstanding all
+  this, Carew gave warrants to Captains Pynnar, Brook, and Bingley,
+  to make reprisals upon the earl's tenants for the pretender's
+  use. Accordingly three English companies joining with nine score
+  of Sir Nial's men, seized and carried away 500 cows, 60 mares, 30
+  plough-horses, 13 horses, besides food and drink to support the
+  assailants for six weeks. They were guilty of many other
+  extortions, the country being extremely poor after the wars, and
+  17 of the earl's tenants were hindered from ploughing that
+  season. A certain horse-boy, who was sentenced to be hanged for
+  killing one Cusack, was promised his life by Sir George Carew, if
+  he accused Tyrconnel as having employed him to commit the murder.
+  The boy did make the accusation, which served no purpose 'but to
+  accelerate his hanging.' Thus betrayed, he declared at the
+  gallows, and in the presence of 400 persons, the sheriff of the
+  county, and the portreve of Trim, he retracted the false
+  confession. A similar attempt was made with an Englishman, who
+  was kept a close prisoner without food, drink, or light, in order
+  to get him to accuse the earl of Cusack's murder. All such, with
+  many other of the said Carew's cruel and tyrannical proceedings,
+  the earl showed to the council in England, which promised to give
+  satisfaction by punishing the said Carew, who at his arrival in
+  England did rather obtain greater favours than any reprehension
+  or check of his doings, so as the earl was constrained to take
+  <i>patience</i> for a full satisfaction of his wrongs.</p>
+
+  <p>Sir Henry Docwra, governor of Derry, levied 100<i>l.</i> off
+  Tyrconnel's tenants for the building of a church in that city,
+  but the money was applied by Sir Henry to his own use. Carew
+  ordered the troops under Sir H. Docwra, Sir H. Folliott, Sir
+  Ralph Constable, Sir Thomas Roper, and Captain Doddington, to be
+  quartered for three months upon Tyrconnel's people, 'where they
+  committed many <span class="pagenum"><a name="page134" id=
+  "page134"></a>[pg 134]</span> rapes, and used many extortions,
+  which the earl showed, and could neither get payment for their
+  victuals nor obtain that they should be punished for their sundry
+  rapes and extortions.' Indeed there was never a garrison in
+  Tyrconnel that did not send at their pleasure private soldiers
+  into the country to fetch, now three beeves, now four, as often
+  as they liked, until they had taken all; and when the earl
+  complained, Carew seemed rather to flout him than any way to
+  right him. Sir H. Folliott's company on one occasion took from
+  his tenants thirty-eight plough-horses, which were never restored
+  or paid for; at another time they took twenty-one, and again
+  fourteen. This being done in the spring of the year the tenants
+  were hindered from ploughing as before. During a whole year
+  Folliott took for the use of his own house, regularly every
+  month, six beeves and six muttons, without any manner of payment.
+  Captain Doddington and Captain Cole made free with the people's
+  property in the same manner.</p>
+
+  <p>'All these injuries he laid in a very humble manner before the
+  lord deputy, but instead of obtaining redress he was dismissed by
+  him in a scoffing manner, and even a lawyer whom he employed was
+  threatened by Carew in the following terms:&mdash;that he and his
+  posterity should smart for his doings until the seventh
+  generation; so that all the earl's business was ever since left
+  at random, and no lawyer dared plead in his cause.'</p>
+
+  <p>Tyrconnel killed some rebels, and captured their chief, whom
+  his men carried to Sir H. Folliott to be executed. Sir Henry
+  offered to spare his life if he could accuse the earl of any
+  crime that might work his overthrow. He could not, and he was
+  hanged. In order to settle a dispute between the earl and Sir
+  Nial, the English <i>prot&#233;g&#233;</i> and pretender
+  to the chieftainship, twelve tenants of each were summoned to be
+  examined by the king's officers in the neighbourhood. 'The earl's
+  men were not examined, but locked up in a room; and the
+  vice-governor, upon the false deposition of Sir Nial's men,
+  directed warrants, and sent <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page135" id="page135"></a>[pg 135]</span> soldiers to the number
+  of 300, to bring all the earl's tenants unto Sir Nial, to the
+  number of 340 persons, who paid half-a-crown a piece, and
+  12<i>d.</i> for every cow and garron, as a fee unto the captains,
+  whereby they lost their ploughing for the space of twenty-eight
+  days, the soldiers being in the country all the while. One
+  Captain Henry Vaughan, being sheriff in the year 1605, got a
+  warrant to levy 150<i>l.</i> to build a sessions house. He built
+  the house of timber and wattles. It was not worth 10<i>l</i>, and
+  it fell in three months. Nevertheless he levied every penny of
+  the money, and the people had to meet a similar demand the next
+  year, to build another house. It was a rule with the governors of
+  the local garrisons to offer his life to every convict about to
+  be executed, and also a large reward, if he could accuse the earl
+  of some detestable crime. No less than twenty-seven persons
+  hanged in Connaught and Tyrone were offered pardon on this
+  condition. He was at the same sessions called to the bar for
+  hanging some wood-kerne, although he had authority from the king
+  to execute martial law. Shortly after, by the lord deputy's
+  orders, the horse and foot soldiers under Docwra and Folliott
+  were cessed upon the country, where they for four months
+  remained, and paid nothing for their charges of horse-meat or
+  man's meat.' In the year 1606 the lord deputy came to
+  Ballyshannon, where, being at supper, he demanded of the earl
+  what right he had to the several territories he claimed. He
+  replied that his ancestors had possessed them for 1,300 years,
+  and that the duties, rents, and homages were duly paid during
+  that time. Whereupon the lord deputy said, 'the earl was unworthy
+  to have them, he should never enjoy them, the State was sorry to
+  have left so much in his possession, and he should take heed to
+  himself or else the deputy would make his pate ache.' The matters
+  in dispute between him and Sir Nial being referred on that
+  occasion to the lord deputy, both parties having submitted their
+  papers for examination, every case was decided against Tyrconnel,
+  all his challenges frustrated, 300<i>l.</i> damages imposed, and
+  his <span class="pagenum"><a name="page136" id="page136"></a>[pg
+  136]</span> papers burned; while Sir Nial's papers were privately
+  given back to him. The result was that at the next sessions Sir
+  Nial had the benefit of all his papers, his opponent having
+  nothing to show to the contrary. The fishery of Killybegs, worth
+  500<i>l.</i> a season, had belonged to Tyrconnel's ancestors for
+  1,300 years. But it was taken from him without compensation, by
+  Sir Henry Folliott and the Bishop of Derry, with the ultimate
+  sanction of the lord deputy, who confirmed the bishop in
+  possession 'both for that season and for all times ensuing.' Sir
+  H. Folliott on one occasion took away for his carriage the horses
+  that served the earl's house with fuel and wood for fire, 'and
+  the soldiers, scorning to feed the horses themselves, went into
+  the earl's house, and forcibly took out one of his boys to lead
+  them, and ran another in the thigh with a pike for refusing to go
+  with him.' He had a number of tenants, who held their lands 'by
+  lease of years for certain rents.' Yet the lord deputy sent
+  warrants to them, directing them to pay no rents, and requiring
+  the Governor of Derry 'to raise the country from time to time,
+  and resist and hinder the earl from taking up his rents.'</p>
+
+  <p>To crown all, when Tyrconnel made a journey into the Pale to
+  know the reason why he was debarred from his rents, he lodged on
+  his way in the Abbey of Boyle. He had scarcely arrived there when
+  the constable of the town, accompanied by twenty soldiers, and
+  all the churls of the place, surrounded and set fire to the house
+  where he lay, he having no company within but his page and two
+  other serving men. 'But it befell, through the singular
+  providence of Almighty God, whose fatherly care he hath ever
+  found vigilant over him, that he defended himself and his house
+  against them all the whole night long, they using on the other
+  side all their industry and might to fire it, and throwing in of
+  stones and staves in the earl's face, and running their pikes at
+  him and swords until they had wounded him, besides his other
+  bruisings, with stones and staves in six places; they menacing to
+  kill him, affirming that he was a traitor to the king, and that
+  it was the best service that could <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page137" id="page137"></a>[pg 137]</span> be rendered to his
+  majesty to kill him. And that all this is true, Sir Donough
+  O'Conor, who was taken prisoner by the same men, because he would
+  not assist them in their <i>facinorous</i> and wicked design of
+  killing the earl, will justify; but in the morning the earl was
+  rescued by the country folk, which conveyed him safely out of the
+  town. And when the earl complained, and showed his wounds unto
+  the lord deputy, he promised to hang the constable and ensign,
+  but afterwards did not once deign so much as to examine the
+  matter or call the delinquents to account, by reason whereof the
+  earl doth verily persuade himself&mdash;which his surmise was
+  afterwards confirmed in time, by the credible report of
+  many&mdash;that some of the State were sorry for his escape, but
+  specially Sir Oliver Lambert, who had purposely drawn the plot of
+  the earl's ruin.'</p>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote31" name="footnote31"></a><b>Footnote 1:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag31">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>Page 192.</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <p>[Transcriber's note: marker for following footnote is missing
+  in the original]</p>[Footnote: Meehan's Earls of Tyrone and
+  Tyrconnel, pp. 192-224.] <span class="pagenum"><a name="page138"
+  id="page138"></a>[pg 138]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+
+  <h3>THE CONFISCATION OF ULSTER.</h3>
+
+  <p>Sir Toby Caulfield, accompanied by the sheriffs of Tyrone and
+  Tyrconnel, followed quickly the proclamation of the lord deputy
+  to the people of Ulster, and took possession of the houses,
+  goods, and chattels of the fugitive earls. Sir Toby was further
+  empowered to act as receiver over the estates, taking up the
+  rents according to the Irish usage until other arrangements could
+  be made. His inventory of the effects of O'Neill in the castle of
+  Dungannon is a curious document, showing that according to the
+  ideas of those times in the matter of furniture 'man wants but
+  little here below.' The following is a copy of the document taken
+  from the memorandum roll of the exchequer by the late Mr.
+  Ferguson. It is headed, '<i>The Earl of Tyrone's goods, viz.</i>'
+  The spelling is, however, modernised, and ordinary figures
+  substituted for Roman numerals.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page139" id="page139"></a>[pg 139]</span>
+
+  <table summary="Goods" align="center">
+    <caption>
+      <i>The Earl of Tyrone's Goods, viz.</i>
+    </caption>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left"></td>
+
+      <td align="center">&pound;.</td>
+
+      <td align="center"><i>s.</i></td>
+
+      <td align="center"><i>d.</i></td>
+
+      <td align="left"></td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Small steers, 9 at 10<i>s.</i></td>
+
+      <td align="right">4</td>
+
+      <td align="left">10</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">60 hogs, at 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></td>
+
+      <td align="right">7</td>
+
+      <td align="right">10</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">2 long tables, 10<i>s.</i></td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">2 long forms, 5<i>s.</i>; an old bedstead,
+      5<i>s.</i></td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">An old trunk, 3<i>s.</i>; a long stool,
+      12<i>d.</i></td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">3 hogsheads of salt, 28<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>;
+      all valued at</td>
+
+      <td align="right">4</td>
+
+      <td align="right">12</td>
+
+      <td align="right">6</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">A silk jacket</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+
+      <td align="right">13</td>
+
+      <td align="right">4</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">8 vessels of butter, containing 4-1/2
+      barrels</td>
+
+      <td align="right">5</td>
+
+      <td align="right">17</td>
+
+      <td align="right">6</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">2 iron spikes</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+
+      <td align="right">2</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">A powdering tub</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+
+      <td align="right">6</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">2 old chests</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+
+      <td align="right">4</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">A frying-pan and a dripping-pan</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+
+      <td align="right">3</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">5 pewter dishes</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+
+      <td align="right">5</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">A casket, 2<i>d.</i>; a comb and comb case,
+      18<i>d.</i></td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+
+      <td align="right">1</td>
+
+      <td align="right">8</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">2 dozen of trenchers and a basket</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+
+      <td align="right">10</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">2 eighteen-bar ferris</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+
+      <td align="right">6</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">A box and 2 drinking glasses</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+
+      <td align="right">1</td>
+
+      <td align="right">3</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">A trunk 1; a pair of red taffeta curtains 1;
+      other pair of green</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">  satin curtains</td>
+
+      <td align="right">4</td>
+
+      <td align="right">5</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">A brass kettle</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+
+      <td align="right">8</td>
+
+      <td align="right">6</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">'A payer of covyrons'</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+
+      <td align="right">5</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">2 baskets with certain broken earthen dishes
+      and some waste</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">  spices</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+
+      <td align="right">2</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Half a pound of white and blue starch</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+
+      <td align="right">4</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">A vessel with 11 gallons of vinegar</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+
+      <td align="right">3</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">17 pewter dishes</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+
+      <td align="right">15</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">3 glass bottles</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+
+      <td align="right">1</td>
+
+      <td align="right">6</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">2 stone jugs, whereof 1 broken</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+
+      <td align="right">6</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">A little iron pot</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+
+      <td align="right">1</td>
+
+      <td align="right">6</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">A great spit</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+
+      <td align="right">1</td>
+
+      <td align="right">6</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">6 garrons at 80<i>s.</i> apiece</td>
+
+      <td align="right">9</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">19 stud mares, whereof [some] were claimed
+      by Nicholas</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">  Weston, which were restored to him by
+      warrant, 30<i>l.</i> 9<i>s.</i></td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">  being proved to be his own, and so
+      remaineth</td>
+
+      <td align="right">17</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+    </tr>
+  </table>
+
+  <p>With respect to rents, Sir Toby Caulfield left a memorandum,
+  stating that there was no certain portion of Tyrone's land let to
+  any of his tenants that paid him rent, and that such rents as he
+  received were paid to him partly in money and partly in victuals,
+  as oats, oatmeal, butter, hogs, and sheep. The money-rents were
+  chargeable on all the cows, milch or in calf, which grazed on his
+  lands, at the rate of a shilling a quarter each. The cows were to
+  be numbered in May and November by the earl's officers, and 'so
+  the rents were taken up at said rate for all the cows that were
+  so numbered, except only the heads and principal men of the
+  <i>creaghts</i>, as they enabled them to live better than the
+  common multitude under them, whom they caused to pay the said
+  rents, which amounted to about twelve hundred sterling Irish a
+  year.</p>
+
+  <p>'The butter and other provisions were usually paid by those
+  styled horsemen&mdash;O'Hagans, O'Quins, the O'Donnillys,
+  O'Devolins, and others.' These were a sort of <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page140" id="page140"></a>[pg 140]</span>
+  middle men, and to some of them an allowance was made by the
+  Government. 'Thus for example, Loughlin O'Hagan, formerly
+  constable of the castle of Dungannon, received in lieu thereof a
+  portion of his brother Henry's goods, and Henry O'Hagan's wife
+  and her children had all her husband's goods, at the suit of her
+  father Sir G. O'Ghy O'Hanlon, who had made a surrender of all his
+  lands to the crown.'</p>
+
+  <p>The cattle were to be all numbered over the whole territory in
+  one day, a duty which must have required a great number of men,
+  and sharp men too; for, if the owners were dishonestly inclined,
+  and were as active in that kind of work as the peasantry were
+  during the anti-tithe war in our own time, the cattle could be
+  driven off into the woods or on to the lands of a neighbouring
+  lord. However, during the three years that Caulfield was
+  receiver, the rental amounted to 12,000<i>l.</i> a year, a
+  remarkable fact considering the enormous destruction of property
+  that had taken place during the late wars, and the value of money
+  at that time.</p>
+
+  <p>A similar process was adopted with regard to the property of
+  O'Donel, and guards were placed in all the castles of the two
+  chiefs. In order that their territories might pass into the
+  king's possession by due form of law, the attorney-general, Sir
+  John Davis, was instructed to draw up a bill of indictment for
+  treason against the fugitive earls and their adherents. With this
+  bill he proceeded to Lifford, accompanied by a number of
+  commissioners, clerks, sheriffs, and a strong detachment of horse
+  and foot. At Lifford, the county town of Donegal, a jury was
+  empanelled for the trial of O'Donel, consisting of twenty-three
+  Irishmen and ten Englishmen. Of this jury Sir Cahir O'Dogherty
+  was foreman. He was the lord of Inishowen, having the largest
+  territories in the county next to the Earl of Tyrconnel. The bill
+  being read in English and Irish, evidence was given, wrote the
+  attorney-general, 'that their guilty consciences, and fear of
+  losing their heads, was the cause of their flight.' The jury,
+  however, had exactly the same sort of difficulty that troubled
+  the juries in our late Fenian trials about finding the accused
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page141" id="page141"></a>[pg
+  141]</span> guilty of compassing the death of the sovereign. But
+  Sir John laboured to remove their scruples by explaining the
+  legal technicality, and arguing that, 'whoso would take the
+  king's crown from his head would likewise, if he could, take his
+  head from his shoulders; and whoever would not suffer the king to
+  reign, if it lay in his power, would not suffer the king to
+  live.' The argument was successful with the jury. In all the
+  conflicts between the two races, whether on the field of battle
+  or in the courts of law, the work of England was zealously done
+  by Celtic agents, who became the eager accusers, the perfidious
+  betrayers, and sometimes the voluntary assassins of men of their
+  own name, kindred, and tribe.</p>
+
+  <p>The commissioners next sat at Strabane, a town within two or
+  three miles of Lifford, where a similar jury was empanelled for
+  the county Tyrone, to try O'Neill. One of the counts against him
+  was that he had treasonably taken upon him the name of O'Neill.
+  In proof of this a document was produced: 'O'Neill bids M'Tuin to
+  pay 60<i>l.</i>' It was also alleged that he had committed a
+  number of murders; but his victims, it was alleged, were
+  criminals ordered for execution in virtue of the power of life
+  and death with which he had been invested by the queen. He was
+  found guilty, however; and Henry Oge O'Neill, his kinsman, who
+  was foreman of the jury, was complimented for his civility and
+  loyalty, although he belonged to that class concerning which Sir
+  John afterwards wrote, 'It is as natural for an Irish lord to be
+  a thief as it is for the devil to be a liar, of whom it was
+  written, he was a liar and a murderer from the beginning.'</p>
+
+  <p>True bills having been found by the grand juries, proceedings
+  were taken in the Court of King's Bench to have the fugitive
+  earls and their followers attainted of high treason. The names
+  were:&mdash;'Hugh earl of Tyrone, Rory earl of Tyrconnel, Caffar
+  O'Donel, Cu Connaught Maguire, Donel Oge O'Donel, Art Oge,
+  Cormack O'Neill, Henry O'Neill, Henry Hovenden, Henry O'Hagan,
+  Moriarty O'Quinn, John Bath, Christopher Plunket, John O'Punty
+  O'Hagan, Hugh O'Galagher, Carragh O'Galagher, John and Edmund
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page142" id="page142"></a>[pg
+  142]</span> M'Davitt, Maurie O'Multully, Donogh O'Brien, M'Mahon,
+  George Cashel, Teigue O'Keenen, and many other false traitors,
+  who, by the instigation of the devil, did conspire and plot the
+  destruction and death of the king, Sir Arthur Chichester,
+  &amp;c.; and did also conspire to seize by force of arms the
+  castles of Athlone, Ballyshannon, Duncannon, co. Wexford,
+  Lifford, co. Donegal, and with that intent did sail away in a
+  ship, to bring in an army composed of foreigners to invade the
+  kingdom of Ireland, to put the king to death, and to dispose him
+  from the style, title, power, and government of the Imperial
+  crown.'</p>
+
+  <p>The lord deputy and his officers, able, energetic, farseeing
+  men, working together persistently for the accomplishment of a
+  well-defined purpose, were drawing the great net of English law
+  closer and closer around the heads of the Irish clans, who
+  struggled gallantly and wildly in its fatal meshes. The episode
+  of Sir Cahir O'Dogherty is a romance. On the death of Sir John
+  O'Dogherty, the O'Donel, in accordance with Irish custom, caused
+  his brother Phelim Oge to be inaugurated Prince of Inishowen,
+  because Cahir, his son, was then only thirteen years of age, too
+  young to command the sept. But this arrangement did not please
+  his foster brothers, the M'Davitts, who proposed to Sir Henry
+  Docwra, governor of Derry, that their youthful chief should be
+  adopted as the queen's O'Dogherty; and on this condition they
+  promised that he and they would devote themselves to her
+  majesty's service. The terms were gladly accepted. Sir Cahir was
+  trained by Docwra in martial exercises, in the arts of civility,
+  and in English literature. He was an apt pupil. He grew up strong
+  and comely; and he so distinguished himself before he was sixteen
+  years of age in skirmishes with his father's allies, that Sir
+  Henry wrote of him in the following terms: 'The country was
+  overgrown with ancient oak and coppice. O'Dogherty was with me,
+  alighted when I did, kept me company in the greatest heat of the
+  fight, behaved himself bravely, and with a great deal of love and
+  affection; so much so, that I <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page143" id="page143"></a>[pg 143]</span> recommended him at my
+  next meeting with the Lord Deputy Mountjoy, for the honour of
+  knighthood, which was accordingly conferred upon him.' The young
+  knight went to London, was well received at court, and obtained a
+  new grant of a large portion of the O'Dogherty's country. He
+  married a daughter of Lord Gormanstown, a catholic peer of the
+  Pale, distinguished for loyalty to the English throne, resided
+  with his bride at his Castle of Elagh, or at Burt, or Buncranna,
+  keeping princely state, not in the old Irish fashion, but in the
+  manner of an English nobleman of the period; hunting the red deer
+  in his forest, hawking, or fishing in the teeming waters of Lough
+  Foyle, Lough Swilly, and the Atlantic, which poured their
+  treasures around the promontory of which he was the lord. His
+  intimate associates were officers and favourites of the king.</p>
+
+  <p>Docwra had given up the government of Derry and retired to
+  England. He was succeeded by Sir George Paulet, a man of violent
+  temper. Sir Cahir had sold 3,000 acres of land, which was to be
+  planted with English; and, in order to perfect the deed of sale,
+  it was necessary to have the document signed before the governor
+  of Derry. It had been reported to the lord deputy that Sir Cahir,
+  not content with his position, intended to leave the country,
+  probably with the design of joining the fugitive earls in an
+  attempt to destroy the English power in Ireland. He was therefore
+  summoned before the lord deputy; and Lord Gormanstown, Thomas
+  Fitzwilliam of Merrion, and himself, were obliged to give
+  security that he should not quit Ireland without due notice and
+  express permission. This restraint had probably irritated his hot
+  impetuous spirit, and made it difficult for him to exercise due
+  self-control when he came in contact with the English governor of
+  Derry, with whom his relations were not improved by the
+  suspicions now attaching to his loyalty. Accordingly, while the
+  legal forms of the transfer were being gone through, the young
+  chief made a remark extremely offensive to Paulet, which was
+  resented by a blow in the face with his clenched fist. Instead of
+  returning <span class="pagenum"><a name="page144" id=
+  "page144"></a>[pg 144]</span> the blow, young O'Dogherty hurried
+  away to consult the M'Davitts, whose advice was that the insult
+  he received must be avenged by blood. The affair having been
+  immediately reported to the lord deputy, who apprehended that
+  mischief would come of it, he sent a peremptory summons to Sir
+  Cahir, requiring him to appear in Dublin, 'to free himself of
+  certain rumours and reports touching disloyal courses into which
+  he had entered, contrary to his allegiance to the king, and
+  threatening the overthrow of many of his majesty's subjects.' His
+  two sureties were also written to, and required to 'bring in his
+  body.' But O'Dogherty utterly disregarded the lord deputy's
+  order. Taking counsel with Nial Garve O'Donel, he resolved to
+  seize Culmore Fort, Castle Doe, and other strong places; and then
+  march on Derry, and massacre the English settlers in the market
+  square.</p>
+
+  <p>Towards the close of April, Sir Cahir invited Captain Harte,
+  governor of Culmore Castle, on the banks of the Foyle, about four
+  miles from Derry, with his wife and infant child, of which he was
+  the godfather, to dine with him at his Castle of Elagh.</p>
+
+  <p>The entertainment was sumptuous, and the pleasures of the
+  table protracted to a late hour. After dinner the host took his
+  guest into a private apartment, and told him that the blow he had
+  received from Paulet demanded a bloody revenge. Harte
+  remonstrated; O'Dogherty's retainers rushed in, and, drawing
+  their swords and skeines, declared that they would kill his wife
+  and child in his presence, unless he delivered up the castle of
+  Culmore. The governor was terrified, but he refused to betray his
+  trust. Sir Cahir, commanding the armed men to retire, locked the
+  chamber door, and kept his guest imprisoned there for two hours,
+  hoping that he would yield when he had time for reflection. But
+  finding him still inflexible, O'Dogherty grew furious, and vented
+  his rage in loud and angry words. Mrs. Harte, hearing the
+  altercation, and suspecting foul play, rushed into the room, and
+  found Sir Cahir enforcing his appeal with a naked <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page145" id="page145"></a>[pg 145]</span>
+  sword pointed at her husband's throat. She fell on the floor in a
+  swoon. Lady O'Dogherty ran to her assistance, raised her up, and
+  assured her that she knew nothing of her husband's rash design.
+  The latter then thrust the whole party down-stairs, giving orders
+  to his men to seize Captain Harte. Meantime, Lady Harte fell on
+  her knees, imploring mercy, but the only response was an oath
+  that she and her husband and child should be instantly butchered
+  if Culmore were not surrendered. What followed shall be related
+  in the words of Father Meehan: 'Horrified by this menace, she
+  consented to accompany him and his men to the fort, where they
+  arrived about midnight. On giving the pass word the gate was
+  thrown open by the warder, whose suspicions were lulled when Lady
+  Harte told him that her husband had broken his arm and was then
+  lying in Sir Cahir's house. The parley was short, and the
+  followers of Sir Cahir, rushing in to the tower, fell on the
+  sleeping garrison, slaughtered them in their beds, and then made
+  their way to an upper apartment where Lady Harte's brother,
+  recently come from England, was fast asleep. Fearing that he
+  might get a bloody blanket for his shroud, Lady Harte followed
+  them into the room, and implored the young man to offer no
+  resistance to the Irish, who broke open trunks, presses and other
+  furniture, and seized whatever valuables they could clutch. Her
+  thoughtfulness saved the lives of her children and her brother;
+  for as soon as Sir Cahir had armed his followers with matchlocks
+  and powder out of the magazine, he left a small detachment to
+  garrison Culmore, and then marched rapidly on Derry, where he
+  arrived about two o'clock in the morning. Totally unprepared for
+  such an irruption, the townsfolk were roused from their sleep by
+  the bagpipes and war-shout of the Clan O'Dogherty, who rushed
+  into the streets, and made their way to Paulet's house, where Sir
+  Cahir, still smarting under the indignity of the angry blow,
+  satisfied his vow of vengeance by causing that unhappy gentleman
+  to be hacked to death with the pikes and skeines of Owen
+  O'Dogherty and others of his kindred. After plundering the houses
+  of <span class="pagenum"><a name="page146" id="page146"></a>[pg
+  146]</span> the more opulent inhabitants, seizing such arms as
+  they could find, and reducing the young town to a heap of ashes,
+  Sir Cahir led his followers to the palace of Montgomery the
+  bishop, who fortunately for himself was then absent in Dublin.
+  Not finding him, they captured his wife, and sent her, under
+  escort, to Burt Castle, whither Lady O'Dogherty, her
+  sister-in-law and infant daughter, had gone without warders for
+  their protection. It was on this occasion that Phelim M'Davitt
+  got into Montgomery's library and set fire to it, thus destroying
+  hundreds of valuable volumes, printed and manuscript, a feat for
+  which he is not censured&mdash;we are sorry to have to
+  acknowledge it&mdash;by Philip O'Sullivan in his account of the
+  fact. Elated by this successful raid, Sir Cahir called off his
+  followers and proceeded to beleaguer Lifford, where there was a
+  small garrison of English who could not be induced to surrender,
+  although suffering severely from want of provisions. Finding all
+  his attempts to reduce the place ineffectual, he sent for the
+  small force he had left in Culmore to join the main body of his
+  partisans, and then marched into M'Swyne Doe's country.'</p>
+
+  <p>Meantime news of these atrocities reached Dublin, and the lord
+  deputy immediately sent a force of 3,000 men, commanded by Sir
+  Richard Wingfield, Sir Thomas Roper, and Sir Toby Caulfield, with
+  instructions to pursue the revolted Irish into their fastnesses
+  and deal with them summarily. He himself set out to act with the
+  troops, and on reaching Dundalk published a proclamation, in
+  which he offered pardon to all who laid down their arms, or would
+  use them in killing their associates. He took care, however, to
+  except Phelim M'Davitt from all hope of mercy, consigning him to
+  be dealt with by a military tribunal. The English force in the
+  interval had made their way into O'Dogherty's country, and coming
+  before Culmore, found it abandoned by the Irish, who, unable to
+  carry off the heavy guns, took the precaution of burying them in
+  the sea. Burt Castle surrendered without a blow. Wingfield
+  immediately liberated the inmates, and sent Bishop Montgomery's
+  wife to her husband, and Lady <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page147" id="page147"></a>[pg 147]</span> O'Dogherty, her infant
+  daughter and sister-in-law, to Dublin Castle. As for Sir Cahir,
+  instead of going to Castle Doe, he resolved to cross the path of
+  the English on their march to that place, and coming up with them
+  in the vicinity of Kilmacrenan, he was shot dead by a soldier.
+  The death of the young chieftain spread panic among his
+  followers, most of whom flung away their arms, betook themselves
+  to flight, and were unmercifully cut down. Sir Cahir's head was
+  immediately struck off and sent to Dublin, where it was struck
+  upon a pole at the east gate of the city.</p>
+
+  <p>O'Dogherty's country was now confiscated, and the lord deputy,
+  Chichester, was rewarded with the greatest portion of his lands.
+  But what was to be done with the people? In the first instance
+  they were driven from the rich lowlands along the borders of
+  Lough Foyle and Lough Swilly, and compelled to take refuge in the
+  mountain fastnesses which stretched to a vast extent from Moville
+  westward along the Atlantic coast. But could those 'idle kerne
+  and swordsmen,' thus punished with loss of lands and home for the
+  crimes of their chief, be safely trusted to remain anywhere in
+  the neighbourhood of the new English settlers? Sir John Davis and
+  Sir Toby Caulfield thought of a plan by which they could get rid
+  of the danger. The illustrious Gustavus Adolphus was then
+  fighting the battles of Protestantism against the house of
+  Austria. In his gallant efforts to sustain the cause of the
+  Reformation every true Irish Protestant sympathised, and none
+  more than the members of the Irish Government. To what better
+  use, then, could the 'loose Irish kerne and swordsmen' of Donegal
+  be turned than to send them to fight in the army of the King of
+  Sweden? Accordingly 6,000 of the able-bodied peasantry of
+  Inishown were shipped off for this service. Sir Toby Caulfield,
+  founder of the house of Charlemont, was commissioned to muster
+  the men and have them transported to their destination, being
+  paid for their keep in the meantime. A portion of his account ran
+  thus: 'For the dyett of 80 of said soldiers for 16 daies, during
+  which tyme they were <span class="pagenum"><a name="page148" id=
+  "page148"></a>[pg 148]</span> kept in prison in Dungannon till
+  they were sent away, at iiii<sup>d</sup> le peece per diem; allso for dyett
+  of 72 of said men kept in prison at Armagh till they were sent
+  away to Swethen, at iiii<sup>d</sup> le peece per diem,' &amp;c., &amp;c.
+  Caulfield was well rewarded for these services; and Captain
+  Sandford, married to the niece of the first Earl of Charlemont,
+  obtained a large grant of land on the same score. This system of
+  clearing out the righting men among the Irish was continued till
+  1629, when the lord deputy, Falkland, wrote that Sir George
+  Hamilton, a papist, then impressing soldiers in Tyrone and
+  Antrim, was opposed by one O'Cullinan, a priest, who was rash
+  enough to advise the people to stay at home and have nothing to
+  do with the Danish wars. For this he was arrested, committed to
+  Dublin Castle, tortured and then hanged.</p>
+
+  <p>With regard to the immediate followers of O'Dogherty in his
+  insane course, many of the most prominent leaders were tried by
+  court-martial and executed. Others were found guilty by ordinary
+  course of law. Among these was O'Hanlon, Sir Cahir's
+  brother-in-law. Pie was hanged at Armagh; and his youthful wife
+  was found by a soldier, 'stripped of her apparel, in a wood,
+  where she perished of cold and hunger, being lately before
+  delivered of a child.' M'Davitt, the firebrand of the rebellion,
+  was convicted and executed at Derry. At Dungannon Shane, Carragh
+  O'Cahan was found guilty by 'a jury of his <i>kinsmen</i>' and
+  executed in the camp, his head being stuck upon the castle of
+  that place&mdash;the castle from which his brother was mainly
+  instrumental in driving its once potent lord into exile. At the
+  same place a monk, who was a chief adviser of the arch-rebel,
+  saved his life and liberty by tearing off his religious habit,
+  and renouncing his allegiance to the Pope. Father Meehan states
+  that many of the clergy, secular and regular, of Inishown might
+  have saved their lives by taking the oath of supremacy. It was a
+  terrible time in Donegal. No day passed without the killing and
+  taking of some of the dispersed rebels, one betraying another to
+  get his own pardon, and the goods of the party betrayed,
+  according to a proviso in the <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page149" id="page149"></a>[pg 149]</span> deputy's proclamation.
+  Among the informers was a noble lady, the mother of Hugh Roe
+  O'Donel and Rory Earl of Tyronnel, who accused Nial Garve, her
+  own son-in-law, of complicity in O'Dogherty's revolt, for which
+  she got a grant of some hundreds of acres in the neighbourhood of
+  Kilmacrenan.</p>
+
+  <p>The insurgent leaders and the dangerous kerne having been
+  effectually cleared off in various ways, the whole territory of
+  Inishown was overrun by the king's troops. The lord deputy, Sir
+  Arthur Chichester, with a numerous retinue, including the
+  attorney-general, sheriffs, lawyers, provosts-martial, engineers,
+  and 'geographers,' made a grand 'progress,' and penetrated for
+  the first time the region which was to become the property of his
+  family. It was a strange sight to the poor Irish that were
+  suffered to remain. 'As we passed through the glens and forests,'
+  wrote Sir John Davis, 'the wild inhabitants did as much wonder to
+  see the king's deputy as the ghosts in Virgil did to see
+  &#198;neas alive in hell.' In this exploring tour a thorough
+  knowledge of the country was for the first time obtained, and the
+  attorney-general could report that 'before Michaelmas he would be
+  ready to present to his majesty a perfect survey of six whole
+  counties which he now hath in actual possession in the province
+  of Ulster, of greater extent of land than any prince in Europe
+  hath in his own hands to dispose of.' A vast field for
+  plantation! But Sir John Davis cautioned the Government against
+  the mistakes that caused the failure of former settlements,
+  saying, that if the number of the Scotch and English who were to
+  come to Ireland did not much exceed that of the natives, the
+  latter would quickly 'overgrow them, as weeds overgrow corn.'</p>
+
+  <p>O'Cahan, who was charged with complicity in O'Dogherty's
+  outbreak, or with being at least a sympathiser, had been
+  arrested, and was kept, with Nial Garve, a close prisoner in
+  Dublin Castle. An anonymous pamphleteer celebrated the victories
+  that had been achieved by the lord deputy, giving to his work the
+  title, 'The Overthrow of an Irish Rebel,' having for its
+  frontispiece a tower with portcullis, and the <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page150" id="page150"></a>[pg 150]</span>
+  O'Dogherty's head impaled in the central embrazure. The spirit of
+  the narrative may be inferred from the following passage: 'As for
+  Tyrone and Co., or Tyrconnel, they are already fled from their
+  coverts, and I hope they will never return; and for other false
+  hearts, the chief of note is O'Cahan, Sir Nial Garve, and his two
+  brothers, with others of their condition. They have holes
+  provided for them in the castle of Dublin, where I hope they are
+  safe enough from breeding any cubs to disquiet and prey upon the
+  flock of honest subjects.'</p>
+
+  <p>O'Cahan and his companion, however, tried to get out of the
+  hole, although the lord deputy kept twenty men every night to
+  guard the castle, in addition to the ordinary ward, and two or
+  three of the guards lay in the same rooms with the prisoners.
+  Their horses had arrived in town, and all things were in
+  readiness. But their escape was hindered by the fact that Shane
+  O'Carolan, who had been acquitted of three indictments, cast
+  himself out of a window at the top of the castle by the help of
+  his mantle, which broke before he was half way down; and though
+  he was presently discovered, yet he escaped about supper time.
+  'Surely,' exclaimed the lord deputy, 'these men do go beyond all
+  nations in the world for desperate escapes!' The prisoners were
+  subsequently conveyed to the Tower, where they remained many
+  years closely confined, and where they ended their days. Sir
+  Allen Apsley, in 1623, made a report of the prisoners then in his
+  custody, in which he said, 'There is here Sir Nial Garve O'Donel,
+  a man that was a good subject during the late queen's time, and
+  did as great service to the state as any man of his nation. He
+  has been a prisoner here about thirteen years. His offence is
+  known specially to the Lord Chichester. Naghtan, his son, was
+  taken from Oxford and committed with his father. I never heard
+  any offence he did.'</p>
+
+  <p>While O'Cahan was in prison, commissioners sat in his mansion
+  at Limavaddy, including the Primate Usher, Bishop Montgomery of
+  Derry, and Sir John Davis. They <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page151" id="page151"></a>[pg 151]</span> decided that by the
+  statute of 11 Elizabeth, which it was supposed had been cancelled
+  by the king's pardon, all his territory had been granted to the
+  Earl of Tyrone, and forfeited by his flight. It was, therefore,
+  confiscated. Although sundry royal and viceregal proclamations
+  had assured the tenants that they would not be disturbed in their
+  possessions, on account of the offences of their chiefs, it was
+  now declared that all O'Cahan's country belonged to the crown,
+  and that neither he nor those who lived under him had any estate
+  whatever in the lands. Certain portions of the territory were set
+  apart for the Church, and handed over to Bishop Montgomery. 'Of
+  all the fair territory which once was his, Donald Balagh had not
+  now as much as would afford him a last resting-place near the
+  sculptured tomb of Cooey-na-gall. O'Cahan got no sympathy, and he
+  deserved none; for he might have foreseen that the Government to
+  which he sold himself would cast him off as an outworn tool, when
+  he could no longer subserve their wicked purposes.'<a id=
+  "footnotetag32" name="footnotetag32"></a><a href=
+  "#footnote32"><sup>1</sup></a> 'Thus were the O'Cahans
+  dispossessed by the colonists of Derry, to whom their broad lands
+  and teeming rivers were passed, <i>mayhap</i> for ever. Towards
+  the close of the Cromwellian war in Ireland, the Duchess of
+  Buckingham, passing through Limavaddy, visited its ancient
+  castle, then sadly dilapidated, and, entering one of the
+  apartments, saw an aged woman wrapped in a blanket, and crouching
+  over a peat fire, which filled the room with reeking smoke. After
+  gazing at this pitiful spectacle, the duchess asked the miserable
+  individual her name; when the latter, rising and drawing herself
+  up to her full height, replied, "I am the wife of the
+  O'Cahan."'[Father Meehan dedicates his valuable work to the lord
+  chancellor of Ireland, the Right Hon. Thomas O'Hagan,&mdash;the
+  first Catholic chancellor since the Revolution. Descended from
+  the O'Hagans, who were hereditary justiciaries and secretaries to
+  the O'Neill, he is, by universal consent, one of the ablest and
+  most accomplished judges that ever adorned the Irish Bench. His
+  ancestors were involved in the fortunes of Tyrone. How strange
+  that the representative of the judicial and literary clan of
+  ancient Ulster should now be the head of the Irish
+  magistracy!]</p>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote32" name="footnote32"></a><b>Footnote 1:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag32">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>Meehan, p. 317.</p>
+  </blockquote><span class="pagenum"><a name="page152" id=
+  "page152"></a>[pg 152]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+
+  <h3>THE PLANTATION OF ULSTER.</h3>
+
+  <p>In the account which the lord deputy gave of the flight of
+  Tyrone and Tyrconnel, he referred to the mistake that had been
+  committed in making these men proprietary lords of so large a
+  territory, '<i>without regard to the poor freeholders' rights, or
+  of his majesty's service, or the commonwealths, that are so much
+  interested in the honest liberty of that sort of men</i>.' And he
+  considered it a providential circumstance that the king had now
+  an opportunity of repairing that error, and of relieving the
+  natives from the exactions and tyranny of their former barbarous
+  lords. How far this change was a benefit to the honest
+  freeholders and the labouring classes may be seen from the
+  reports of Sir Toby Caulfield to the lord deputy, as to his
+  dealings with those people. He complains of his ill success in
+  the prosecution of the wood-kerne. He had done his best, and all
+  had turned to nothing. When the news of the plantation came, he
+  had no hope at all, for the people then said it would be many of
+  their cases to become wood-kerne themselves out of necessity, 'no
+  other means being left for them to keep being in this world than
+  to live as long as they could by scrambling.' They hoped,
+  however, that so much of the summer being spent before the
+  commissioners came down, 'so great cruelty would not be showed as
+  to remove them upon the edge of winter from their houses, and in
+  the very season when they were employed in making their harvest.
+  They held discourse among themselves, that if this course had
+  been taken with them in war time, it had had some colour of
+  justice; but being <span class="pagenum"><a name="page153" id=
+  "page153"></a>[pg 153]</span> pardoned, and their land given
+  them, and they having lived under law ever since, and being ready
+  to submit themselves to the mercy of the law, for any offence
+  they can be charged withal, since their pardoning, they conclude
+  it to be the greatest cruelty that was ever inflicted upon any
+  people.'</p>
+
+  <p>It is no wonder that Sir Toby was obliged to add to his report
+  this assurance: 'There is not a more discontented people in
+  Christendom.' It is difficult to conceive how any people in
+  Christendom could be contented, treated as they were, according
+  to this account, which the officer of the Government did not
+  deny; for surely no people, in any Christian country, were ever
+  the victims of such flagrant injustice, inflicted by a Government
+  which promised to relieve them from the cruel exactions of their
+  barbarous chiefs&mdash;a Government, too, solemnly pledged to
+  protect them in the unmolested enjoyment of their houses and
+  lands. How little this policy tended to strengthen the Government
+  appears from a confession made about the same time by the lord
+  deputy himself. He wrote: 'The hearts of the Irish are against
+  us: we have only a handful of men in entertainment so ill paid,
+  that everyone is out of heart, and our resources so discredited,
+  by borrowing and not repaying, that we cannot take up
+  1,000<i>l.</i> in twenty days, if the safety of the kingdom
+  depended upon it. The Irish are hopeful of the return of the
+  fugitives, or invasion from foreign parts.'</p>
+
+  <p>But the safety of England, do what she might in the way of
+  oppression, lay then, as it lay often since, and ever will lie,
+  in the tendency to division, and the instability of the Celtic
+  character. The Rev. Mr. Meehan, with all his zeal for Irish
+  nationality, admits this failing of the people with his usual
+  candour. He says: 'These traits, so peculiar to the Celtic
+  character, have been justly stigmatised by a friendly and
+  observant Italian (the Nuncio Rinuccini) who, some thirty years
+  after the period of which we are writing, tells us that the
+  native Irish were behind the rest of Europe in the knowledge of
+  those things that tended to their material
+  improvement&mdash;indifferent agriculturists, living from hand to
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page154" id="page154"></a>[pg
+  154]</span> mouth&mdash;caring more for the sword than the
+  plough&mdash;good Catholics, though by nature barbarous&mdash;and
+  placing their hopes of deliverance from English rule on foreign
+  intervention. For this they were constantly straining their eyes
+  towards France or Spain, and, no matter whence the ally came,
+  were ever ready to rise in revolt. One virtue,
+  however&mdash;intensest love of country&mdash;more or less
+  redeemed these vices, for so they deserve to be called; but to
+  establish anything like strict military discipline or
+  organisation among themselves, it must be avowed they had no
+  aptitude.' This, says Mr. Meehan, 'to some extent, will account
+  for the apathy of the Northern Catholics, while the undertakers
+  were carrying on the gigantic eviction known as the plantation of
+  Ulster; for, since Sir Cahir O'Dogherty's rebellion till 1615,
+  there was only one attempt to resist the intruders, an abortive
+  raid on the city of Derry, for which the meagre annals of that
+  year tell us, six of the Earl of Tyrone's nearest kinsmen were
+  put to death. Withal the people of Ulster were full of hope that
+  O'Neill would return with forces to evict the evicters, but the
+  farther they advanced into this agreeable perspective, the more
+  rapidly did its charms disappear.</p>
+
+  <p>The proclamations against wood-kerne present a curious picture
+  of these 'plantation' times. The lord deputy, in council,
+  understood that 'many idle kerne, loose and masterless men, and
+  other disordered persons, did range up and down in sundry parts
+  of this kingdom, being armed with swords, targets, pikes, shot,
+  head-pieces, horsemen's staves, and other warlike weapons, to the
+  great terror of his majesty's well-disposed subjects, upon whom
+  they had committed many extortions, murders, robberies, and other
+  outrages. Hence divers proclamations had been published in his
+  majesty's name, commanding that no person of what condition
+  soever, travelling on horseback, should presume to carry more
+  arms than one sword or rapier and dagger; and that no person
+  travelling on foot should carry any weapons at all. Twenty days
+  were allowed for giving the <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page155" id="page155"></a>[pg 155]</span> arms to the proper
+  officers. If the proclamation was not obeyed within that time,
+  the arms were to be seized for the king's use, and the bearers of
+  them committed to prison.</p>
+
+  <p>On July 21, 1609, a commission was issued by the crown to make
+  inquisition concerning the forfeited lands in Ulster after the
+  flight of the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnel. The commissioners
+  included the Lord-Deputy Chichester, the Archbishops of Armagh
+  and Dublin, Sir John Davis, attorney-general; Sir William
+  Parsons, surveyor-general, and several other public
+  functionaries. This work done, King James, acting on the advice
+  of his prime minister, the Earl of Salisbury, took measures for
+  the plantation of Ulster, a project earnestly recommended by
+  statesmen connected with Ireland, and for which the flight of
+  O'Neill and O'Donel furnished the desired opportunity. The city
+  of London was thought to be the best quarter to look to for funds
+  to carry on the plantation. Accordingly, Lord Salisbury had a
+  conference with the lord mayor, Humphry Weld, Sir John Jolles,
+  and Sir W. Cockaine, who were well acquainted with Irish affairs.
+  The result was the publication of 'Motives and Reasons to induce
+  the City of London to undertake the Plantation in the North of
+  Ireland.'</p>
+
+  <p>The inducements were of the most tempting character. It is
+  customary to speak of Ulster, before the plantation, as something
+  like a desert, out of which the planters created an Eden. But the
+  picture presented to the Londoners was more like the land which
+  the Israelitish spies found beyond Jordan&mdash;a land flowing
+  with milk and honey. Among 'the land commodities which the North
+  of Ireland produceth' were these:&mdash;the country was well
+  watered generally by abundance of springs, brooks, and rivers.
+  There was plenty of fuel&mdash;either wood, or 'good and
+  wholesome turf.' The land yielded 'store of all necessary for
+  man's sustenance, in such a measure as may not only maintain
+  itself, but also furnish the city of London yearly with manifold
+  provision, especially for their fleets&mdash;namely, with beef,
+  pork, fish, rye, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page156" id=
+  "page156"></a>[pg 156]</span> bere, peas, and beans.' It was not
+  only fit for all sorts of husbandry, but it excelled for the
+  breeding of mares and the increase of cattle; whence the
+  Londoners might expect 'plenty of butter, cheese, hides, and
+  tallow,' while English sheep would breed abundantly there. It was
+  also held to be good in many places for madder, hops, and woad.
+  It afforded 'fells of all sorts in great quantity, red deer,
+  foxes, sheep, lambs, rabbits, martins and squirrels,' &amp;c.
+  Hemp and flax grew more naturally there than elsewhere, which,
+  being well regarded, would give provision for canvas, cables,
+  cording, besides thread, linen cloth, and all stuffs made of
+  linen yarn, 'which are more fine and plentiful there than in all
+  the rest of the kingdom.' Then there were the best materials of
+  all sorts for building, with 'the goodliest and largest timber,
+  that might compare with any in his majesty's dominions;' and,
+  moreover, the country was 'very plentiful in honey and wax.'</p>
+
+  <p>The sea and the rivers vied with the land in the richness of
+  their produce. 'The sea fishing of that coast was very plentiful
+  of all manner of usual sea fish&mdash;there being yearly, after
+  Michaelmas, for taking of herrings, above seven or eight score
+  sail of his majesty's subjects and strangers for lading, besides
+  an infinite number of boats for fishing and killing.'</p>
+
+  <p>The corporation were willing to undertake the work of
+  plantation if the account given of its advantages should prove to
+  be correct. With the caution of men of business, they wished to
+  put the glowing representations of the Government to the test of
+  an investigation by agents of their own. So they sent over 'four
+  wise, grave, and discreet citizens, to view the situation
+  proposed for the new colony.' The men selected were John Broad,
+  goldsmith; Robert Treswell, painter-stainer; John Rowley, draper;
+  and John Munns, mercer. On their return from their Irish mission
+  they presented a report to the Court of Common Council, which was
+  openly read. The report was favourable. A company was to be
+  formed in London for conducting the <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page157" id="page157"></a>[pg 157]</span>
+  plantation. Corporations were to be founded in Derry and
+  Coleraine, everything concerning the colony to be managed and
+  performed in Ireland by the advice and direction of the company
+  in London. It was agreed between the Privy Council and the City
+  that the sum of 20,000<i>l.</i> should be levied, 15,000<i>l.</i>
+  for the intended plantation, and 5,000<i>l.</i> 'for the clearing
+  of private men's interest in the things demanded.' That 200
+  houses should be built in Derry, and room left for 300 more.
+  'That 4,000 acres lying on the Derry side, next adjacent to the
+  wherry, should be laid thereunto&mdash;bog and barren mountain to
+  be no part thereof, but to go as waste for the city; the same to
+  be done by indifferent commissioners.'</p>
+
+  <p>The royal charters and letters clearly set forth the objects
+  of the plantation. James I., in the preamble of the charter to
+  the town of Coleraine, thus described his intentions in disposing
+  of the forfeited lands to English undertakers: 'Whereas there can
+  be nothing more worthy of a king to perform than to establish the
+  true religion of Christ among men hitherto depraved and almost
+  lost in superstition; to improve and cultivate by art and
+  industry countries and lands uncultivated and almost desert, and
+  not only to stock them with honest citizens and inhabitants, but
+  also to strengthen them with good institutions and ordinances,
+  whereby they might be more safely defended not only from the
+  corruption of their morals but from their intestine and domestic
+  plots and conspiracies, and also from foreign violence: And
+  whereas the province of Ulster in our realm of Ireland, for many
+  years past, hath grossly erred from the true religion of Christ
+  and divine grace, and hath abounded with superstition, insomuch
+  that for a long time it hath not only been harassed, torn, and
+  wasted by private and domestic broils but also by foreign arms:
+  We therefore, deeply and heartily commiserating the wretched
+  state of the said province, have esteemed it to be a work worthy
+  of a Christian prince, and of our royal office, to stir up and
+  recal the same province from superstition, rebellion, calamity,
+  and poverty, which heretofore have <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page158" id="page158"></a>[pg 158]</span> horribly raged
+  therein, to religion, obedience, strength, and prosperity. And
+  whereas our beloved and faithful subjects the mayor and
+  commonalty and citizens of our city of London, burning with a
+  flagrant zeal to promote such our pious intention in this behalf,
+  have undertaken a considerable part of the said plantation in
+  Ulster, and are making progress therein'.</p>
+
+  <p>King James, having heard very unsatisfactory reports of the
+  progress of the plantation, wrote a letter to the lord deputy in
+  1612, strongly complaining of the neglect of the 'Londoners' to
+  fulfil the obligations they had voluntarily undertaken. He had
+  made 'liberal donations of great proportions of those lands to
+  divers British undertakers and servitors, with favourable tenures
+  and reservations for their better encouragement; but hitherto
+  neither the safety of that country, nor the planting of religion
+  and civility among those rude and barbarous people, which were
+  the principal motives of that project, and which he expected as
+  the only fruits and returns of his bounty, had been as yet any
+  whit materially effected. He was not ignorant how much the real
+  accomplishment of the plantation concerned the future peace and
+  safety of that kingdom; but if there was no reason of state to
+  press it forward, he would yet pursue and effect that object with
+  the same earnestness, 'merely for the goodness and morality of
+  it; esteeming the settling of religion, the introducing of
+  civility, order, and government among a barbarous and unsubjected
+  people, to be acts of piety and glory, and worthy also a
+  Christian prince to endeavour.'</p>
+
+  <p>The king therefore ordered that there should be a strict
+  inquiry into the work done, because 'the Londoners pretended the
+  expense of great sums of money in that service, and yet the
+  outward appearance of it was very small.' The lord deputy was
+  solemnly charged to give him a faithful account without care or
+  fear to displease any of his subjects, English or Scottish, of
+  what quality soever.'</p>
+
+  <p>Sir Josias Bodley was the commissioner appointed for this
+  purpose. He reported very unfavourably, in consequence of
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page159" id="page159"></a>[pg
+  159]</span> which his majesty called upon the Irish society and
+  the several companies to give him an account of their
+  stewardship. He also wrote again to the lord deputy in 1615. The
+  language the king uses is remarkable, as proving the
+  <i>trusteeship</i> of the companies. Referring to Bodley's report
+  he said:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'We have examined, viewed, and reviewed, with our own eye,
+  every part thereof, and find greatly to our discontentment the
+  slow progression of that plantation; some few only of our British
+  undertakers, servitors, and natives having as yet proceeded
+  effectually by the accomplishment of such things in all points as
+  are required of them by the articles of the plantation; the rest,
+  and by much the greatest part, having either done nothing at all,
+  or so little, or, by reason of the slightness thereof, to so
+  little purpose, that the work seems rather to us to be forgotten
+  by them, and to perish under their hand, than any whit to be
+  advanced by them; some having begun to build and not planted,
+  others begun to plant and not built, and all of them, in general,
+  retaining the Irish still upon their lands, the avoiding of which
+  was the fundamental reason of that plantation. We have made a
+  collection of their names, as we found their endeavours and
+  negligences noted in the service, which we will retain as a
+  memorial with us, and they shall be sure to feel the effects of
+  our favour and disfavour, as there shall be occasion. It is well
+  known to you that if we had intended only (as it seems most of
+  them over-greedily have done) our present profit, we might have
+  converted those large territories to our escheated lands, to the
+  great improvement of the revenue of our crown there; but we chose
+  rather, for the safety of that country and the civilizing of that
+  people, to part with the inheritance of them at extreme
+  undervalues, and to make a plantation of them; and since we were
+  merely induced thereunto out of reason of state, we think we may
+  without any breach of justice make bold with their rights who
+  have neglected their duties in a service of so much importance
+  unto us, and by the same law and reason of state resume into
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page160" id="page160"></a>[pg
+  160]</span> our hands their lands who have failed to perform,
+  according to our original intention, the articles of plantation,
+  and bestow them upon some other men more active and worthy of
+  them than themselves: and the time is long since expired within
+  which they were bound to have finished to all purposes their
+  plantation, so that we want not just provocation to proceed
+  presently with all rigour against them.'</p>
+
+  <p>He gave them a year to pull up their arrears of work, and in
+  conclusion said to Chichester: 'My lord, in this service I expect
+  that zeal and uprightness from you, that you will spare no flesh,
+  English or Scottish; for no private man's worth is able to
+  counterbalance the particular safety of a kingdom, which this
+  plantation, well accomplished, will procure.'</p>
+
+  <p>Two or three years later, Captain Pynnar was sent to survey
+  the lands that had been granted to the undertakers, and to report
+  upon the improvements they had effected. A few notices from his
+  report will give an idea of the state of Ulster at the
+  commencement of this great social revolution:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>Armagh was one of the six counties confiscated by James I. The
+  territory had belonged to the O'Neills, the O'Hanlons, the
+  O'Carrols, and M'Kanes, whose people were all involved more or
+  less in the fortunes of the Earl of Tyrone, who wielded sovereign
+  power over this portion of Ulster. The plantation scheme was said
+  to be the work of the Privy Council of Ireland, and submitted by
+  them for the adoption of the English Government. It was part of
+  the plan that all the lands escheated in each county should be
+  divided into four parts, whereof two should be subdivided into
+  proportions consisting of about 1,000 acres a piece; a third part
+  into proportions of 1,500 acres; and the fourth in proportions of
+  2,000 acres. Every proportion was to be made into a parish, a
+  church was to be erected on it, and the minister endowed with
+  glebe land. If an incumbent of a parish of 1,000 acres he was to
+  have sixty; if of 1,500 acres, ninety; and if 2,000 acres, he was
+  to have 120 acres; and the whole tithes and <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page161" id="page161"></a>[pg 161]</span>
+  duties of every parish should be allotted to the incumbent as
+  well as the glebe. The undertakers were to be of several sorts.
+  1st, English and Scotch, who were to plant their proportions with
+  English and Scotch tenants; 2nd, servitors in Ireland, who might
+  take English or Scotch tenants at their choice; 3rd, natives of
+  the county, who were to be freeholders.</p>
+
+  <p>With respect to the disposal of the natives, it was arranged
+  that the same course should be adopted as in the county of
+  Tyrone, which was this: some were to be planted upon two of the
+  small proportions, and upon the glebes; others upon the land of
+  Sir Art O'Neill's sons and Sir Henry Oge O'Neill's sons, 'and of
+  such other Irish as shall be thought fit to have any
+  <i>freeholds</i>; some others upon the portions of such servitors
+  as are not able to inhabit these lands with English or Scotch
+  tenants, especially of <i>such as best know how to rule and order
+  the Irish</i>. But the swordsmen (that is, the armed retainers or
+  soldiers of the chiefs) are to be transplanted into such other
+  parts of the kingdom as, by reason of the wastes therein, are
+  fittest to receive them, namely, into Connaught and some parts of
+  Munster, where they are to be dispersed, and not planted together
+  in one place; and such swordsmen, who have not followers or
+  cattle of their own, to be disposed of in his majesty's service.'
+  This provision about planting the swordsmen, however, was not
+  carried out. The whole county of Armagh was found to contain
+  77,300 acres of arable and pasture land, which would make 60
+  proportions. That county, as well as other parts of ancient
+  Ireland, was divided into ballyboes, or townlands, tracts of
+  tillage land surrounding the native villages unenclosed, and held
+  in <i>rundale</i>, having ranges of pasture for their cattle,
+  which were herded in common, each owner being entitled to a
+  certain number of 'collops' in proportion to his arable land. As
+  these ballyboes were not of equal extent, the English made the
+  division of land by acres, and erected boundary
+  fences.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page162" id=
+  "page162"></a>[pg 162]</span>
+
+  <p>The primate's share in this county was 2,400 acres. The glebes
+  comprised 4,650 acres; the College of Dublin got 1,200, and the
+  Free School at Armagh 720; Sir Turlough M'Henry possessed 9,900
+  acres, and 4,900 had been granted to Sir Henry Oge O'Neill. After
+  these deductions, there were for the undertakers 55,620 acres,
+  making in all forty-two proportions.</p>
+
+  <p>Number one in the survey is the estate of William Brownlow,
+  Esq., which contained two proportions, making together 2,500
+  acres. Pynar reported as follows: 'Upon the proportion of
+  Ballenemony there is a strong stone house within a good island;
+  and at Dowcoran there is a very fair house of stone and brick,
+  with good lyme, and hath a strong bawne of timber and earth with
+  a pallizado about it. There is now laid in readiness both lyme
+  and stone, to make a bawne thereof, the which is promised to be
+  done this summer. He hath made a very fair town, consisting of
+  forty-two houses, all which are inhabited with English families,
+  and the streets all paved clean through; also two water-mills and
+  a wind-mill, all for corn, and he hath store of arms in his
+  house.'</p>
+
+  <p>Pynar found 'planted and estated' on this territory 57
+  families altogether, who were able to furnish 100 men with arms,
+  there not being one Irish family upon all the land. There was,
+  however, a number of sub-tenants, which accounts for the fact
+  that there was 'good store of tillage.' Five of the English
+  settlers were freeholders, having 120 acres each; and there were
+  52 leaseholders, whose farms varied in size from 420 acres to 5;
+  six of them holding 100 acres and upwards. This was the
+  foundation of the flourishing town of Lurgan.</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Obens had 2,000 acres obtained from William Powell, the
+  first patentee. He had built a bawne of sods with a pallizado of
+  boards ditched about. Within this there was a 'good fair house of
+  brick and lyme,' and near it he had built four houses, inhabited
+  by English families. There were twenty settlers, who with their
+  under-tenants were able <span class="pagenum"><a name="page163"
+  id="page163"></a>[pg 163]</span> to furnish forty-six armed men.
+  This was the beginning of Portadown.</p>
+
+  <p>The fourth lot was obtained from the first patentee by Mr.
+  Cope, who had 3,000 acres. 'He built a bawne of lyme and stone
+  180 feet square, 14 feet high, with four flankers; and in three
+  of them he had built very good lodgings, which were three stories
+  high.' He erected two water-mills and one wind-mill, and near the
+  bawne he had built fourteen houses of timber, which were
+  inhabited by English families. This is now the rich district of
+  Lough Gall.</p>
+
+  <p>It should be observed here that, in all these crown grants,
+  the patentees were charged crown rents only for the <i>arable</i>
+  lands conveyed by their title-deeds, bogs, wastes, mountain, and
+  unreclaimed lands of every description being thrown in
+  gratuitously; amounting probably to ten or fifteen times the
+  quantity of demised ground set down in acres. Lord Lurgan's
+  agent, Mr. Hancock, at the commencement of his evidence before
+  the Devon Commission, stated that 'Lord Lurgan is owner of about
+  24,600 acres, with a population of 23,800, under the census of
+  1841'&mdash;that is, by means of original reclamation, drainage,
+  and other works of agricultural improvement, Mr. Brownlow's 2,500
+  acres of the year 1619, had silently grown up to 24,600 acres,
+  and his hundred swordsmen, or pikemen, the representatives of 57
+  families, with a few subordinates, had multiplied to 23,800
+  souls. Now Mr. Hancock founds the tenant-right custom upon the
+  fact that few, if any, of the 'patentees were wealthy;' we may
+  therefore fairly presume that the <i>settlers built their own
+  houses, and made their own improvements at their own expense</i>,
+  contrary to the English practice.' As the population increased,
+  and 'arable' land became valuable, bogs, wastes, and barren land
+  were gradually reclaimed and cultivated, through the hard labour
+  and at the cost of the occupying tenantry, until the possessions
+  of his descendants have spread over ten times the area nominally
+  demised by the crown to their progenitor. This process went on
+  all over the province.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page164"
+  id="page164"></a>[pg 164]</span>
+
+  <p>Sixteen years passed away, and in the opinion of the
+  Government the London companies and the Irish Society, instead of
+  reforming as Irish planters, went on from bad to worse.
+  Accordingly, in 1631, Charles I. found it necessary to bring them
+  into the Star Chamber. In a letter to the lords justices he
+  said:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'Our father, of blessed memory, in his wisdom and singular
+  care, both to fortify and preserve that country of Ireland from
+  foreign and inward forces, and also for the better establishment
+  of true religion, justice, civility, and commerce, found it most
+  necessary to erect British plantations there; and, to that end,
+  ordained and published many politic and good orders, and for the
+  encouragement of planters gave them large proportions and
+  privileges. Above the rest, his grace and favour was most
+  enlarged to the Londoners, who undertook the plantation of a
+  considerable part of Ulster, and were specially chosen for their
+  ability and professed zeal to public works; and yet
+  advertisements have been given from time to time, not only by
+  private men, but by all succeeding deputies, and by commissioners
+  sent from hence and chosen there, and being many of them of our
+  council, that the <i>Londoners for private lucre</i> have broken
+  and neglected both their general printed ordinances and other
+  particular directions given by us and our council here, so as if
+  they hall escape unpunished all others will be heartened to do
+  the like, and in the end expose that our kingdom to former
+  confusions and dangers; for prevention whereof we have, upon
+  mature advice of our councillors for those causes, caused them to
+  be questioned in our high court of Star-chamber here, whence
+  commission is now sent to examine witnesses, upon
+  interrogatories, for discovery of the truth; and because we
+  understand that the Londoners heretofore prevailed with some,
+  from whom we expected better service, that in the return of the
+  last commission many things agreed under the hands of most
+  commissioners were not accordingly certified: Now that our
+  service may not surfer by like partiality, we will and require
+  you to have an especial eye to <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page165" id="page165"></a>[pg 165]</span> this business; and
+  take care that this commission be faithfully executed, and that
+  no practice or indirect means be used, either to delay the return
+  or to frustrate the ends of truth in every interrogatory.'</p>
+
+  <p>This proceeding on the part of the crown was ascribed to the
+  influence of Bishop Bramhall, who had come over with Lord
+  Strafford as his chaplain. The result was, that in 1632 the whole
+  county of Londonderry was sequestrated, and the rents levied for
+  the king's use, the Bishop of Derry being appointed receiver and
+  authorised to make leases. The lord chancellor, with the
+  concurrence of the other judges, decreed that the letters patent
+  should be surrendered and cancelled. This decree was duly
+  executed.</p>
+
+  <p>Cromwell reinstated the companies in their possessions, and
+  Charles II., instead of reversing the forfeiture, granted a new
+  charter. This charter founded a system of protection and
+  corporate exclusiveness, the most perfect perhaps that ever
+  existed in the three kingdoms. He began by constituting
+  Londonderry a county, and Derry city a corporation&mdash;to be
+  called Londonderry. He named the aldermen and burgesses, who were
+  to hold their offices during their natural lives. He placed both
+  the county and city under the control of 'the Irish Society,'
+  which was then definitely formed. He appointed Sir Thomas Adams
+  first governor, and John Saunders, deputy governor. He also
+  appointed the twenty-four assistants, all citizens of London. He
+  invested the society with full power 'to send orders and
+  directions from, this kingdom of England into the said realm of
+  Ireland, by letters or otherwise, for the ordering, directing,
+  and disposing of all and all manner of matters and things
+  whatsoever of and concerning the same plantation, or the
+  disposition or government thereof. The grant of property was most
+  comprehensive:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'We also will, and, by these presents for us, our heirs and
+  successors, do give, grant, and confirm to the said society of
+  the governor and assistants [London] of the new plantation in
+  Ulster within the realm of Ireland, and their successors:
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page166" id="page166"></a>[pg
+  166]</span> 'All that the city, fort, and town of Derry, and all
+  edifices and structures thereof, with the appurtenances, in the
+  county of the city of Derry aforesaid, in the province of Ulster,
+  in our realm of Ireland; and also the whole island of Derry, with
+  the appurtenances, and all lands and the whole ground within the
+  island of Derry aforesaid, in the said county of the city of
+  Derry, otherwise Londonderry, within the province of Ulster, in
+  our aforesaid realm of Ireland. And also all those lands next
+  adjacent to the said city or town of Derry, lying and being on or
+  towards the west part of the river of Loughfoyle, containing by
+  estimation four thousand acres, besides bog and barren mountains,
+  which said bog and barren mountains may be had and used as waste
+  to the same city belonging. And also all that portion and
+  proportion of land by the general survey of all the lands in the
+  aforesaid late county of Coleraine, now Londonderry, heretofore
+  taken, called the great proportion of Boughtbegg, lying and being
+  in the barony or precinct of Coleraine, now Londonderry, within
+  the province of Ulster aforesaid, in our said realm of Ireland;
+  that is to say, all lands, tenements, and other hereditaments,
+  called and known by the names, and situate, lying, and being in
+  or within the several towns, villages, hamlets, places,
+  balliboes, or parcels of land following, that is to say:
+  Hacketbegg, being two balliboes of land; Aglakightagh, being two
+  balliboes of land; Altybryan, being one balliboe of land;
+  Bratbooly, being one balliboe of land; Hackmoore, being one
+  balliboe of land; Tirecurrin, being one balliboe of land;
+  Edermale, being one balliboe of land; Lennagorran, being one
+  balliboe of land; Knockmult, being one balliboe of land;
+  Boughtmore, being one balliboe of land; Boughtbegg, being one
+  balliboe of land, &amp;c.</p>
+
+  <p>'We will also, and by these presents for us, our heirs and
+  successors, do grant and confirm to the said society of the
+  governor and assistants [London] of the new plantation in Ulster,
+  and their successors, that they and their successors, and also
+  all their assigns, deputies, ministers, and servants shall and
+  may have full liberty of fishing, hawking, and <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page167" id="page167"></a>[pg 167]</span>
+  fowling in all the places, tenements, shores, and coasts
+  aforesaid, at their will and pleasure.</p>
+
+  <p>'And that it shall and may be lawful to and for them and every
+  of them to draw and dry their nets, and pack the fishes there
+  taken upon any part of the shores and coasts aforesaid where they
+  shall fish; and the salmons and other fishes there taken to take
+  thence and carry away without any impediment, contradiction, or
+  molestation of us or others whomsoever, wheresoever it shall
+  happen to be done.</p>
+
+  <p>'And that in like manner they may have the several fishings
+  and fowlings within the city of Londonderry aforesaid, and in all
+  lands and tenements before mentioned to be granted and confirmed
+  to the said society of the governor and assistants [London] of
+  the new plantation in Ulster and their successors, and in the
+  river and water of Loughfoile, to the ebb of the sea, and in the
+  river or water of Bann to Loughneagh.'</p>
+
+  <p>The grants were made without any reservation in favour of the
+  tenants or the old inhabitants, saving some portions of land
+  given by letters patent by his grandfather to 'certain <i>Irish
+  gentlemen</i> in the said county of Londonderry, heretofore
+  inhabiting and residing, and who were heretofore made
+  freeholders, and their successors, under a small yearly rent,'
+  which was to be paid to the Irish Society. Even the Irish
+  gentlemen were not allowed to hold their ancient inheritance
+  directly under the crown. I am informed that there is but one
+  Roman Catholic landed gentleman now remaining in the whole
+  province of Ulster.</p>
+
+  <p>The Londoners had extraordinary privileges as traders. They
+  had free quarters in every port throughout the kingdom, while
+  they treated all but the members of their own body as
+  'foreigners.' They knew nothing of reciprocity:&mdash;'And
+  further we will, and, by these presents for us, our heirs and
+  successors, do grant and confirm to the said mayor and commonalty
+  and citizens of our city of Londonderry aforesaid, that all
+  citizens of the said city of Londonderry and liberty of the same
+  (as much as in us is) be for ever quit <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page168" id="page168"></a>[pg 168]</span> and
+  free, and all their things throughout all Ireland, of all tolls,
+  wharfage, murage, anchorage, beaconage, pavage, pontage, piccage,
+  stallage, passage, and lestage, and of all other tolls and
+  duties.'</p>
+
+  <p>The 'foreigners,' including all his majesty's subjects but the
+  favoured few within the walls of Derry, were forbidden to buy or
+  sell, or practise any trade in this sanctuary of freedom and
+  head-centre of 'civility.' 'And that merchants and others which
+  are not of the freedom of the city of Londonderry aforesaid shall
+  not sell by retail any wines or other wares whatsoever within the
+  same city of Londonderry, the suburbs, liberties, or franchises
+  of the same, upon pain of forfeiture for the things so bought, or
+  the value thereof, to the use of the mayor and commonalty and
+  citizens of the city of Londonderry aforesaid. And also that no
+  person being a foreigner from the freedom of the city aforesaid
+  shall use or exercise within the same city, liberties or suburbs
+  of the same, any art, mystery, or manual occupation whatsoever,
+  to make his gain and profit thereof, upon pain of forfeiture of
+  forty shillings for every time wherein such person shall use or
+  exercise within the said city of Londonderry, liberties, and
+  suburbs of the same, any art, mystery, or manual occupation as
+  aforesaid.'</p>
+
+  <p>Foreigners were not allowed to buy from or sell to foreigners,
+  and there was to be no market for the accommodation of the
+  unprivileged inhabitants within seven miles of the city.</p>
+
+  <p>Similar exclusive privileges were conferred upon the
+  corporation of Coleraine. Such was the system established by the
+  City of London in its model communities in Ireland&mdash;normal
+  schools of freedom, fountains of civilising and Christianising
+  influences which were to reclaim and convert the barbarous and
+  superstitious natives into loyal subjects and enlightened
+  Protestants! What the natives beheld in Londonderry was, in fact,
+  a royal organisation of selfishness, bigotry, and monopoly, of
+  the most intensely exclusive and repulsive character. In one
+  sense the Londoners in <span class="pagenum"><a name="page169"
+  id="page169"></a>[pg 169]</span> Derry showed that they
+  peculiarly prized the blessings of civilisation, for they kept
+  them all to themselves. The fountain was flowing in the most
+  tempting manner before the thirsty Irish, but let them dare to
+  drink of it at their peril! A fine which no Irishman was then
+  able to pay must be the penalty for every attempt at
+  civilisation!</p>
+
+  <p>The representatives of Derry and Coleraine were not only
+  elected without cost, but paid for their attendance in
+  Parliament.</p>
+
+  <p>From the very beginning, the greatest possible care was taken
+  to keep out the Irish. The society, in 1615, sent precepts to all
+  the companies requiring each of them to send one or two artisans,
+  with their families, into Ulster, to settle there; and directions
+  were also given, in order that Derry might not in future be
+  peopled with Irish, that twelve Christ's Hospital and other poor
+  children should be sent there as apprentices and servants, and
+  the inhabitants were to be prohibited from taking Irish
+  apprentices. Directions were also given to the companies, to
+  repair the churches on their several proportions, and furnish the
+  ministers with a bible, common-prayer book, and a communion cup.
+  The trades which the society recommended as proper to introduce
+  into Ulster were, weavers of common cloth, fustians, and new
+  stuffs, felt-makers and trimmers of hats, and hat-band makers,
+  locksmiths and farriers, tanners and fellmongers, iron makers,
+  glass-makers, pewterers, coast fishermen, turners, basket-makers,
+  tallow-chandlers, dyers, and curriers.</p>
+
+  <p>The Christ's Hospital children arrived safe, and became the
+  precious seed of the 'prentice boys.</p>
+
+  <p>In 1629 the following return was made of the total
+  disbursements by the Londoners in Derry from January 2, 1609, to
+  this year:&mdash;</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page170" id=
+  "page170"></a>[pg 170]</span>
+
+  <table summary="" align="center">
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left"></td>
+
+      <td align="center">&pound;</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">For 77-1/2 houses at 140<i>l.</i> a
+      house</td>
+
+      <td align="right">10,850</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">For 33 houses at 80<i>l.</i> a house</td>
+
+      <td align="right">2,680</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">For the Lord Bishop's house</td>
+
+      <td align="right">500</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">For the walls and fortifications</td>
+
+      <td align="right">8,357</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">For digging the ditch and filling earth for
+      the rampire</td>
+
+      <td align="right">1,500</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">For levelling earth to lay the rampire</td>
+
+      <td align="right">500</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">For building a faggot quay at the
+      water-gate</td>
+
+      <td align="right">100</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">For two quays at the lime kilns</td>
+
+      <td align="right">10</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">For the building of the town house</td>
+
+      <td align="right">500</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">For the quays at the ferry</td>
+
+      <td align="right">60</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">For carriage and mounting the ordnance</td>
+
+      <td align="right">40</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">For arms</td>
+
+      <td align="right">558</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">For a guardhouse</td>
+
+      <td align="right">50</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">For the platforms for bulwarks</td>
+
+      <td align="right">300</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">For some work done at the old church</td>
+
+      <td align="right">40</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">For some work done at the town pike</td>
+
+      <td align="right">6</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">For sinking 22 cellars, and sundry of the
+      houses not done</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">  at first, at 20<i>s.</i> cellar, one with
+      another</td>
+
+      <td align="right">440</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">For the building of lime kilns</td>
+
+      <td align="right">120</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left"></td>
+
+      <td align="right">26,611</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left"></td>
+
+      <td align="right">______</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Sum total, as given in the Commissioners'
+      account</td>
+
+      <td align="right">27,197</td>
+    </tr>
+  </table>
+
+  <p>The exclusive and protective system utterly failed to
+  accomplish its purpose in keeping out the Irish.</p>
+
+  <p>Sir Thomas Phillips made a muster-roll in 1622, in which he
+  gives 110 as the number of settlers in the city of Derry capable
+  of bearing arms. There are but two Irish names in the
+  list&mdash;Ermine M'Swine, and James Doherty. The first, from his
+  Christian name, seemed to have been of mixed blood, the son of a
+  judge, which would account for his orthodoxy. But his presence
+  might have reminded the citizens unpleasantly of the Irish
+  battle-axes. Never were greater pains taken to keep a community
+  pure than within the sacred precincts of the Derry walls; and
+  never was Protestantism more tenderly fostered by the
+  state&mdash;so far as secular advantages could do it. The natives
+  were treated as 'foreigners.' No trade was permitted except by
+  the chartered British. They were free of tolls all over the land,
+  and for their sake restrictions were placed on everybody that
+  could in any way interfere with their worldly interests. So
+  complete was the system of exclusion kept up by the English
+  Government and the London corporation, in this grand experiment
+  for planting religion and civility among a barbarous people,
+  that, so late as the year 1708, the Derry <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page171" id="page171"></a>[pg 171]</span>
+  corporation considered itself nothing more or less than <i>a
+  branch of the City of London</i>! In that year they sent an
+  address to the Irish Society, to be presented through them to the
+  queen. 'In this address they stated themselves to be a branch of
+  the City of London. The secretary was ordered to wait upon the
+  lord lieutenant of Ireland with the address and entreat the
+  favour of his lordship's advice concerning the presenting of the
+  same to her majesty.' A few days after it was announced that the
+  address had been graciously received, and published in the
+  <i>Gazette</i>.</p>
+
+  <p>The Irish were kept out of the enclosed part of the city till
+  a late period. In the memory of the present generation there was
+  no Catholic house within the walls, and I believe it is not much
+  longer since the Catholic servants within the sacred enclosure
+  were obliged to go outside at night to sleep among their
+  kinsfolk. The English garrison did not multiply very fast. In
+  1626 there were only 109 families in the city, of which five were
+  families of soldiers liable to be removed. Archbishop King stated
+  that in 1690 the whole of the population of the parish, including
+  the Donegal part, was about 700.</p>
+
+  <p>But the irrepressible Irish increased and multiplied around
+  the walls with alarming rapidity. The tide of native population
+  rose steadily against the ramparts of exclusion, and could no
+  more be kept back than the tide in the Foyle. In the general
+  census of 1800 there were no returns from Derry. But in 1814 it
+  was stated in a report by the deputation from the Irish Society,
+  that the population amounted at that time to 14,087 persons. This
+  must have included the suburbs. In the census of 1821 the city
+  was found to have 9,313 inhabitants. The city and suburbs
+  together contained 16,971.</p>
+
+  <p>The report of the commissioners of public instruction in 1831
+  made a startling disclosure as to the effect of the system of
+  exclusion in this 'branch of the City of London.' In the parish
+  of Templemore (part of) there were&mdash;</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page172" id="page172"></a>[pg 172]</span>
+
+  <table summary="" align="center">
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Members of the Established Church</td>
+
+      <td align="right">3,166</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Presbyterians</td>
+
+      <td align="right">5,811</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Roman Catholics</td>
+
+      <td align="right">9,838</td>
+    </tr>
+  </table>
+
+  <p>The report of 1834 gave the Roman Catholics, 10,299; the
+  Presbyterians, 6,083; and the Church only 3,314.</p>
+
+  <table summary="" align="center">
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">The figures now are&mdash;Catholics</td>
+
+      <td align="right">12,036</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Protestants of all denominations</td>
+
+      <td align="right">8,839</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Majority of Irish and Catholics in this</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">  'branch of the City of London'</td>
+
+      <td align="right">3,197</td>
+    </tr>
+  </table>
+
+  <p>This majority is about equal to the whole number which the
+  exclusive system, with all its 'protection' and 'bounties,' could
+  produce for the Established Church in the course of two
+  centuries! If the Irish had been admitted to the Pale of English
+  civilisation, and instructed in the industrial arts by the
+  settlers, the results with respect to religion might have been
+  very different. In the long run the Church of Rome has been the
+  greatest gainer by coercion. Derry has been a miniature
+  representation of the Establishment. The 'prentice boys, like
+  their betters, must yield to the spirit of the age, and submit
+  with the best grace they can to the rule of religious
+  equality.</p>
+
+  <p>The plantation was, however, wonderfully successful on the
+  whole. In thirty years, towns, fortresses, factories, arose,
+  pastures, ploughed up, were converted into broad corn-fields,
+  orchards, gardens, hedges, &amp;c. were planted. How did this
+  happen? 'The answer is that it sprang from the security of tenure
+  which the plantation settlement supplied. The landlords were in
+  every case bound to make fixed estates to their tenants at the
+  risk of sequestration and forfeiture. Hence their power of
+  selling their plantation rights and improvements. This is the
+  origin of Ulster tenant-right.'</p>
+
+  <p>Yet the work went on slowly enough in some districts. The
+  viceroy, Chichester, was not neglected in the distribution of the
+  spoils. He not only got the O'Dogherty's country, Innishown, but
+  a large tract in Antrim, including the towns of Carrickfergus and
+  Belfast. An English tourist <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page173" id="page173"></a>[pg 173]</span> travelling that way in
+  1635 gives a quaint description of the country in that transition
+  period:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>On July 5 he landed at Carrickfergus, where he found that Lord
+  Chichester had a stately house, 'or rather like a prince's
+  palace.' In Belfast, he said, my Lord Chichester had another
+  <i>daintie</i>, stately palace, which, indeed, was the glory and
+  beauty of the town. And there were also <i>daintie</i> orchards,
+  gardens, and walks planted. The Bishop of Dromore, to whom the
+  town of Dromore entirely belonged, lived there in a 'little
+  timber house.' He was not given to hospitality, for though his
+  chaplain was a Manchester man, named Leigh, he allowed his
+  English visitor to stop at an inn over the way. 'This,' wrote the
+  tourist, 'is a very dear house, 8<i>d.</i> ordinary for
+  ourselves, 6<i>d.</i> for our servants, and we were overcharged
+  in <i>beere</i>.' The way thence to Newry was most difficult for
+  a stranger to find out. 'Therein he wandered, and, being lost,
+  fell among the Irish <i>touns</i>.' The Irish houses were the
+  poorest cabins he had seen, erected in the middle of fields and
+  grounds which they farmed and rented. 'This,' he added, 'is a
+  wild country, not inhabited, planted, nor enclosed.' He gave an
+  Irishman 'a groat' to bring him into the way, yet he led him,
+  like a villein, directly out of the way, and so left him in the
+  lurch.</p>
+
+  <p>Leaving Belfast, this Englishman said: 'Near hereunto, Mr.
+  Arthur Hill, son and heir of Sir Moyses Hill, hath a brave
+  plantation, which he holds by lease, and which has still forty
+  years to come. The plantation, it is said, doth yield him
+  1,000<i>l.</i> per annum. Many Lancashire and Cheshire men are
+  here planted. They sit upon a rack-rent, and pay 5<i>s.</i> or
+  6<i>s.</i> for good ploughing land, which now is clothed with
+  excellent good <i>corne</i>.'</p>
+
+  <p>According to the Down survey, made twenty-two years later,
+  Dromore had not improved: 'There are no buildings in this parish;
+  only Dromore, it being a market town, hath some old thatched
+  houses and a ruined church standing in it. What other buildings
+  are in the parish are nothing but removeable
+  <i>creaghts</i>.'</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page174" id=
+  "page174"></a>[pg 174]</span>
+
+  <p>To the economist and the legislator, the most interesting
+  portions of the state papers of the 16th and 17th centuries are,
+  undoubtedly, those which tell us how the people lived, how they
+  were employed, housed, and fed, what measure of happiness fell to
+  their lot, and what were the causes that affected their welfare,
+  that made them contented and loyal, or miserable and disaffected.
+  Contemporary authors, who deal with social phenomena, are also
+  read with special interest for the same reason. They present
+  pictures of society in their own time, and enable us to conceive
+  the sort of life our forefathers led, and to estimate, at least
+  in a rough way, what they did for posterity.</p>
+
+  <p>Harris was moved to write his 'History of Down' by indignation
+  at the misrepresentations of the English press of his day. They
+  had the audacity to say that 'the Irish people were uncivilised,
+  rude, and barbarous; that they delighted in butter
+  <i>tempered</i> with oatmeal, and sometimes flesh without bread,
+  which they ate raw, having first pressed the blood out of it; and
+  drank down large draughts of usquebaugh for digestion, reserving
+  their little corn for the horses; that their dress and habits
+  were no less barbarous; that cattle was their chief wealth; that
+  they counted it no infamy to commit robberies, and that in their
+  view violence and murder were in no way displeasing to God; that
+  the country was overgrown with woods, which abounded in wolves
+  and other voracious animals,' &amp;c. It was, no doubt, very
+  provoking that such stories should be repeated 130 years after
+  the plantation of Ulster, and Harris undertook, with laudable
+  patriotism, to show 'how far this description of Ireland was
+  removed from the truth, from the present state of only one county
+  in the kingdom.' The information which the well-informed writer
+  gives is most valuable, and very much to the purpose of our
+  present inquiry.</p>
+
+  <p>More than half the arable ground was then (in 1745) under
+  tillage, affording great quantities of oats, some rye and wheat,
+  and 'plenty of barley,' commonly called English <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page175" id="page175"></a>[pg 175]</span> or
+  spring barley, making excellent malt liquor, which of late, by
+  means of drying the grain with Kilkenny coals, was exceedingly
+  improved. The ale made in the county was distinguished for its
+  fine colour and flavour. The people found the benefit of '<i>a
+  sufficient tillage</i>, being not obliged to take up with the
+  poor unwholesome diet which the commonalty of Munster and
+  Connaught had been forced to in the late years of scarcity; and
+  sickness and mortality were not near so great as in other
+  provinces of the kingdom.'</p>
+
+  <p>Yet the county Down seemed very unfavourable for tillage. The
+  economists of our time, perhaps our viceroys too, would say it
+  was only fit for bullocks and sheep. It was 'naturally coarse,
+  and full of hills; the air was sharp and cold in winter, with
+  earlier frosts than in the south, the soil inclined to
+  <i>wood</i>, unless constantly ploughed and kept open, and the
+  low grounds degenerated into morass or bog where the drains were
+  neglected. Yet, by the constant labour and industry of the
+  inhabitants, the morass grounds had of late, by burning and
+  proper management, produced surprisingly large crops of rye and
+  oats. Coarse lands, manured with lime, had answered the farmers'
+  views in wheat, and yielded a great produce, and wherever marl
+  was found there was great store of barley. The staple commodity
+  of the county was linen, due care of which manufacture brought
+  great wealth among the people. Consequently the county was
+  observed to be 'populous and flourishing, though it did not
+  become amenable to the laws till the reign of Queen Elizabeth,
+  nor fully till the reign of James I.' The English habit,
+  language, and manners almost universally prevailed. 'Irish,' says
+  Harris, 'can be heard only among the inferior rank of <i>Irish
+  Papists</i>, and even that little diminishes every day, by the
+  great desire the poor natives have that their children should be
+  taught to read and write in the English tongue in the Charter, or
+  other English Protestant schools, to which they willingly send
+  them.' The author exults in the progress of Protestantism. There
+  were but two Catholic gentlemen in the <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page176" id="page176"></a>[pg 176]</span>
+  county who had estates, and their income was very moderate. When
+  the priests were registered in 1704 there were but thirty in the
+  county. In 1733 the books of the hearth-money collectors
+  showed&mdash;</p>
+
+  <table summary="" align="center">
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Protestant families in the county Down</td>
+
+      <td align="right">14,000</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Catholic families</td>
+
+      <td align="right">5,210</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Total Protestants, reckoning five a
+      family</td>
+
+      <td align="right">70,300</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Total Catholics</td>
+
+      <td align="right">26,050</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left"></td>
+
+      <td align="right">______</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Protestant majority</td>
+
+      <td align="right">44,250</td>
+    </tr>
+  </table>
+
+  <p>Our author, who was an excellent Protestant of the 18th
+  century type, with boundless faith in the moral influence of the
+  Charter schools, would be greatly distressed if he could have
+  lived in these degenerate days, and seen the last religious
+  census, which gives the following figures for the county of
+  Down:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <table summary="" align="center">
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Protestants of all denominations</td>
+
+      <td align="right">202,026</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Catholics</td>
+
+      <td align="right">97,240</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left"></td>
+
+      <td align="right">_______</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Total population</td>
+
+      <td align="right">299,266</td>
+    </tr>
+  </table>
+
+  <p>The total number of souls in the county in the year 1733 was
+  96,350. These figures show that the population was more than
+  trebled in 130 years, and that the Catholics have increased
+  nearly fourfold.</p>
+
+  <p>The history of the Hertfort estate illustrates every phase of
+  the tenant-right question. It contains 66,000 acres, and
+  comprises the barony of Upper Massereene, part of the barony of
+  Upper Belfast, in the county of Antrim, and part of the baronies
+  of Castlereagh and Lower Iveagh, in the county of Down;
+  consisting altogether of no less than 140 townlands. It extends
+  from Dunmurry to Lough Neagh, a distance of about fourteen miles
+  as the crow flies. When the Devon commission made its inquiry,
+  the population upon this estate amounted to about 50,000. It
+  contains mountain land, and the mountains are particularly wet,
+  because, unlike the mountains in other parts of the country, the
+  substratum is a stiff retentive clay. At that time there was not
+  a spot of mountain or bog upon Lord Hertfort's <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page177" id="page177"></a>[pg 177]</span>
+  estate that was not let by the acre. About one-third of the land
+  is of first-rate quality; there are 15,000 or 16,000 acres of
+  mountain, and about the same quantity of land of medium
+  quality.</p>
+
+  <p>In the early part of Elizabeth's reign this property formed a
+  section of the immense territory ruled over by the O'Neills. One
+  of these princes was called the Captain of <i>Kill-Ultagh</i>. In
+  those times, when might was right, this redoubtable chief levied
+  heavy contributions on the settlers, partly in retaliation for
+  aggressions and outrages perpetrated by the English upon his own
+  people. The queen, with the view of effecting a reconciliation,
+  requested the lord deputy, Sir H. Sidney, to pay the Irish chief
+  a visit. He did so, but his welcome was by no means gratifying.
+  In fact, O'Neill would not condescend to receive him at all. His
+  reason for exhibiting a want of hospitality so un-Irish was
+  this:&mdash;He said his 'home had been pillaged, his lands swept
+  of their cattle, and his vassals shot like wild animals.' The
+  lord deputy, in his notes of the northern tour, written in
+  October, 1585, says:&mdash;'I came to Kill-Ultagh, which I found
+  rich and plentiful, after the manner of these countries. But the
+  captain was proud and insolent; he would not come to me, nor have
+  I apt reason to visit him as I would. But he shall be paid for
+  this before long; I will not remain in his debt.' The 'apt
+  reason' for carrying out this threat soon occurred. Tyrone had
+  once more taken the field against the queen; the captain joined
+  his relative; all his property was consequently forfeited, and
+  handed over to Sir Fulke Conway, a Welsh soldier of some
+  celebrity. Sir Fulke died in 1626, and his brother, who was a
+  favourite of Charles I., succeeded to the estate, to which his
+  royal patron added the lands of Derryvolgie, thus making him lord
+  of nearly 70,000 statute acres of the broad lands of Down and
+  Antrim. The Conways brought over a number of English and Welsh
+  families, who settled on the estate, and intermarrying with the
+  natives, a race of sturdy yeomen soon sprang up. The Conways were
+  good landlords, and greatly beloved by the <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page178" id="page178"></a>[pg 178]</span>
+  people. With the addition made to the property the king conferred
+  upon the fortunate recipient of his bounty the title of Baron. At
+  the close of 1627, Lord Conway began the erection of a castle
+  (finished in 1630) on a picturesque mount overlooking the Lagan,
+  and commanding a view of the hills of Down. During the struggles
+  of 1641 the castle was burned down, together with the greater
+  part of the town, which up to this time was called Lisnagarvah,
+  but thenceforth it received the name of Lisburn. Very little,
+  however, had been done by the settlers when the outbreak
+  occurred, for an English traveller in 1635 remarked that 'neither
+  the town nor the country thereabouts was <i>planted</i>, being
+  almost all woods and moorish.' About a month after the breaking
+  out of the rebellion the king's forces, under Sir George Rawdon,
+  obtained a signal victory over the Irish commanded by Sir Phelim
+  O'Neill, Sir Con M'Guinness, and General Plunket. In 1662 the
+  town obtained a charter of incorporation from Charles II., and
+  sent two members to the Irish parliament, the church being at the
+  same time made the cathedral for Down and Connor. The Conway
+  estates passed to the Seymours in this way. Popham Seymour, Esq.,
+  was the son of Sir Edward Seymour, fourth baronet, described by
+  Bishop Burnet as 'the ablest man of his party, the first speaker
+  of the House of Commons that was not bred to the law; a graceful
+  man, bold and quick, and of high birth, being the elder branch of
+  the Seymour family.' Popham Seymour inherited the estates of the
+  Earl of Conway, who was his cousin, under a will dated August 19,
+  1683, and assumed in consequence the surname of Conway. This
+  gentleman died unmarried, and was succeeded by his brother
+  Francis, who was raised to the peerage in 1703 by the title of
+  Baron Conway, of Kill-Ultagh, county Antrim. His eldest son, the
+  second baron, was created Viscount Beauchamp and Earl of Hertfort
+  in 1750. In 1765 he was Viceroy of Ireland, and in 1793 he was
+  created Marquis of Hertfort. The present peer, born in the year
+  1800, is the fourth marquis, having succeeded his father in
+  1842.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page179" id=
+  "page179"></a>[pg 179]</span>
+
+  <p>Lisburn is classic ground. It represents all sorts of historic
+  interest. On this hill, now called the Castle Gardens, the
+  Captain of Kill-Ultagh mustered his galloglasse. Here, amid the
+  flames of the burning town, was fought a decisive battle between
+  the English and the Irish, one of the Irish chiefs in that
+  encounter being the ancestor of the restorer of St. Patrick's
+  Cathedral. The battle lasted till near midnight, when the Irish
+  were put to flight, leaving behind them dead and wounded thrice
+  the number of the entire garrison. Here, on this mount, stood
+  William III. in June, 1690. I saw in the church the monument of
+  Jeremy Taylor, and the pulpit from which the most eloquent of
+  bishops delivered his immortal sermons. I saw the tablet erected
+  by his mother to the memory of Nicholson, the young hero of
+  Delhi, and those of several other natives of Lisburn who have
+  contributed, by their genius and courage, to promote the fame and
+  power of England. Among the rest Lieutenant Dobbs, who was killed
+  in an encounter with Paul Jones, the American pirate, in
+  Carrickfergus Bay.</p>
+
+  <p>I received a hospitable welcome from a loyal gentleman in the
+  house which was the residence of General Munroe, the hero of '98,
+  and saw the spot in the square where he was hanged in view of his
+  own windows. But I confess that none of the monuments of the past
+  excited so much interest in my mind as the house of Louis
+  Crommelin, the Huguenot refugee, who founded the linen
+  manufacture at Lisburn. That house is now occupied by Mr. Hugh
+  M'Call, author of 'Our Staple Manufactures,' who worthily
+  represents the intelligence, the public spirit, and patriotism of
+  the English and French settlers, with a dash of the Irish ardour,
+  a combination of elements which perhaps produces the best
+  'staple' of character. I stood upon the identical oak floor upon
+  which old Crommelin planned and worked, and in the grave-yard Mr.
+  M'Call deciphered for me the almost obliterated inscriptions,
+  recording the deaths of various members of the Crommelin family.
+  Their leader, Louis himself, died in July, 1727, aged 75
+  years.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page180" id=
+  "page180"></a>[pg 180]</span>
+
+  <p>The revocation of the Edict of Nantes drove three quarters of
+  a million of Protestants out of France. A great number settled in
+  London, where they established the arts of silk-weaving in
+  Spitalfields and of fancy jewellery in St. Giles's. About 6,000
+  fled to Ireland, of whom many settled in Dublin, where they
+  commenced the silk manufacture, and where one of them, La Touche,
+  opened the first banking establishment. Wherever they settled
+  they were missionaries of industry, and examples of perseverance
+  and success in skilled labour, as well as integrity in commerce.
+  Many of those exiles settled in Lisburn, and the colony was
+  subsequently joined by Louis Crommelin, a native of Armandcourt
+  near St. Quentin, where for several centuries his forefathers had
+  carried on the flaxen manufacture on their own extensive
+  possessions in the province of Picardy. Foreseeing the storm of
+  persecution, the family had removed to Holland, and, at the
+  personal request of the Prince of Orange, Louis came over to take
+  charge of the colonies of his countrymen, which had been
+  established in different parts of Ireland. The linen trade had
+  flourished in this country from the earliest times. Linen formed,
+  down to the reign of Elizabeth, almost the only dress of the
+  population, from the king down&mdash;saffron-coloured, and worn
+  in immense flowing robes, occasionally wrapped in various forms
+  round the body. Lord Stafford had exerted himself strenuously to
+  improve the fabric by the forcible introduction of better looms;
+  but little had been done in this direction till the Huguenots
+  came and brought their own looms, suited for the manufacture of
+  fine fabrics. Mark Dupre, Nicholas de la Cherois, Obre, Rochet,
+  Bouchoir, St. Clair, and others, whose ashes lie beside the
+  Lisburn Cathedral and in the neighbouring churchyards, and many
+  of whose descendants still survive among the gentry and
+  manufacturers of Down and Antrim, were, with Crommelin, the chief
+  promoters of the linen trade which has wrought such wonders in
+  the province of Ulster. Lord Conway granted the Lisburn colonists
+  a site for a place of worship, which was known as <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page181" id="page181"></a>[pg 181]</span> the
+  French Church, and stood on the ground now occupied by the
+  Court-house in Castle Street. The Government paid 60<i>l.</i> a
+  year to their first minister, Charles de la Valade, who was
+  succeeded by his relative, the Rev. Saumarez du Bourdieu,
+  distinguished as a divine and a historian. His father was
+  chaplain to the famous Schomberg, and when he fell from his horse
+  mortally wounded the reverend gentleman carried him in his arms
+  to the spot on which he died a short time after. Talent was
+  hereditary in this family, the Rev. John du Bourdieu, rector of
+  Annahilt, was author of the Statistical Surveys of Down and
+  Antrim, published by the Royal Dublin Society. Referring to his
+  ancestors he says that his father had been fifty-six years
+  minister of the French Church in Lisburn. Mr. M'Call states that,
+  for some time before his death in 1812, he held the living of
+  Lambeg, the members of the French Church having by that time
+  merged into union with the congregation of the Lisburn Cathedral.
+  A similar process took place in Dublin, Portarlington, and
+  elsewhere, the descendants of the Huguenots becoming zealous
+  members of the Established Church.</p>
+
+  <p>Du Bourdieu informs us that Louis Crommelin obtained a patent
+  for carrying on and improving the linen manufacture, with a grant
+  of 800<i>l.</i> per annum, as interest of 10,000<i>l.</i>, to be
+  advanced by him as a capital for carrying on the same;
+  200<i>l.</i> per annum for his trouble; 120<i>l.</i> per annum
+  for three assistants; and 160<i>l.</i> for the support of the
+  chaplain. Mr. M'Call, in his book, copies the following note of
+  payments made by the Government from 1704 to 1708:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <table summary="" align="center">
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left"></td>
+
+      <td align="right">&pound;</td>
+
+      <td align="right"><i>s.</i></td>
+
+      <td align="right"><i>d.</i></td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Louis Crommelin, as overseer of linen
+      manufacture</td>
+
+      <td align="right">470</td>
+
+      <td align="right">19</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">W. Crommelin, salary and rent of Kilkenny
+      factory</td>
+
+      <td align="right">451</td>
+
+      <td align="right">6</td>
+
+      <td align="right">7</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Louis Crommelin, to repay him for sums
+      advanced to</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">  flax dressers and reed makers, and for
+      services of</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">  French ministers</td>
+
+      <td align="right">2,225</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Louis Crommelin, for individual expenses and
+      for sums</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">  paid Thomas Turner, of Lurgan, for buying
+      flax-seed</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">  and printing reports</td>
+
+      <td align="right">993</td>
+
+      <td align="right">4</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Louis Crommelin, three years' pension</td>
+
+      <td align="right">600</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">French minister's two years' pension</td>
+
+      <td align="right">120</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left"></td>
+
+      <td align="right">______</td>
+
+      <td align="right">___</td>
+
+      <td align="right">___</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Total</td>
+
+      <td align="right">&pound;4,860</td>
+
+      <td align="right">9</td>
+
+      <td align="right">7</td>
+    </tr>
+  </table><span class="pagenum"><a name="page182" id=
+  "page182"></a>[pg 182]</span>
+
+  <p>It should be mentioned, that when the owner of Lisburn, then
+  Earl of Hertfort, held the office of lord lieutenant in 1765,
+  with his son, Viscount Beauchamp, as chief secretary, he rendered
+  very valuable services to the linen trade, and was a liberal
+  patron of the damask manufacture, which arrived at a degree of
+  perfection hitherto unequalled, in the hands of Mr. William
+  Coulson, founder of the great establishment of that name which
+  still flourishes in Lisburn, and from whom not only the court of
+  St. James's but foreign courts also received their table linen.
+  Du Bourdieu mentions that Lisburn and Lurgan were the great
+  markets for cambrics&mdash;the name given to cloth of this
+  description, which was then above five shillings a yard; under
+  that price it was called lawn. In that neighbourhood cambric had
+  been made which sold for 1<i>l.</i> 2<i>s.</i> 9<i>d.</i> a yard
+  unbleached. The principal manufacturing establishments in
+  addition to Messrs. Coulsons' are those of the Messrs. Richardson
+  and Co. and the Messrs. Barbour.</p>
+
+  <p>Lord Dufferin has written the ablest defence of the Irish
+  landlords that has ever appeared. In that masterly work he says:
+  'But though a dealer in land and a payer of wages, I am above all
+  things an Irishman, and as an Irishman I rejoice in any
+  circumstance which tends to strengthen the independence of the
+  tenant farmer, or to add to the comfort of the labourer's
+  existence.' If titles and possessions implied the inheritance of
+  religion and blood, Lord Dufferin ought indeed to be 'Irish of
+  the Irish' as the men of Ulster in the olden times proudly called
+  themselves. On the railroad from Belfast to Bangor there is a
+  station constructed with singular beauty, like the castellated
+  entrance to a baronial hall, and on the elaborately chiselled
+  stone we read 'Clandeboye.' Under the railway from Graypoint on
+  Belfast Lough runs a carriage-drive two miles long, to the famous
+  seat of the O'Neills, where his lordship's mansion is situated,
+  enclosed among aged trees, remembrancers of the past. Perhaps,
+  there is no combination of names in the kingdom more suggestive
+  of the barbaric power of the middle ages and <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page183" id="page183"></a>[pg 183]</span> the
+  most refined culture of modern civilisation. The avenue, kept
+  like a garden walk, with a flourishing plantation on each side,
+  was cut through some of the best farms on the estate, and must
+  have been a work of great expense. Taking this in connection with
+  other costly improvements, among which are several picturesque
+  buildings for the residence of workmen&mdash;model lodging-houses
+  resembling fancy villas at the seaside&mdash;we can understand
+  how his lordship, within the last fifteen years, has paid away in
+  wages of labour the immense sum of 60,000<i>l.</i>, at the rate
+  of 4,000<i>l.</i> a year.</p>
+
+  <p>The Abbot of Bangor never gave employment like that. William
+  O'Donnon, the last of the line, was found in the thirty-second
+  year of Henry VIII. to be possessed of thirty-one townlands in
+  Ards and Upper Clandeboye, the grange of Earbeg in the county
+  Antrim, the two Copeland Islands, the tithes of the island of
+  Raghery, three rectories in Antrim, three in Down, and a townland
+  in the Isle of Man. The abbey, some of the walls of which still
+  remain, adjoining the parish church, was built early in the
+  twelfth century. We are informed by Archdall, that it had so gone
+  to ruin in 1469 through the neglect of the abbot, that he was
+  evicted by order of Pope Paul II., who commanded that the friars
+  of the third order of St. Francis should immediately take
+  possession of it, which was accordingly done, says Wadding, by
+  Father Nicholas of that order. The whole of the possessions were
+  granted by James I. to James Viscount Clandeboye.</p>
+
+  <p>Bangor was one of the most celebrated schools in Ireland when
+  this island was said to have been 'the <i>quiet</i> abode of
+  learning and sanctity.' As to the quiet, I could never make out
+  at what period it existed, nor how the 'thousands' of students at
+  Bangor could have been supported. The Danes came occasionally up
+  the lough and murdered the monks <i>en masse</i>, plundering the
+  shrines. But the greatest scourges of the monasteries in Down and
+  elsewhere were, not the foreign pagans and pirates, but the
+  professedly Christian chiefs of their own country. It appears,
+  therefore, that <span class="pagenum"><a name="page184" id=
+  "page184"></a>[pg 184]</span> neither the Irish clergy nor the
+  people have much reason to regret the flight of the Celtic
+  princes and nobles, who were utterly unable to fulfil the duties
+  of a government; and who did little or nothing but consume what
+  the industry of the peasants, under unparalleled difficulties,
+  produced. The people of Clandeboye and Dufferin might have been
+  proud that their chief received 40<i>l.</i> a year as a tribute
+  or blackmail from Lecale, that he might abstain from visiting the
+  settlers there with his galloglasse; but Lord Dufferin, the
+  successor of the O'Neill of Clandeboye, spends among the
+  peasantry of the present day 4,000<i>l.</i> a year in wages. And
+  how different is the lot of the people! Not dwelling in wattled
+  huts under the oaks of the primeval forest, but in neat slated
+  houses, with whitewashed walls, looking so bright and pretty in
+  the sunshine, like snowdrops in the distant landscape. On the
+  hill between Bangor and Newtownards, Lord Dufferin has erected a
+  beautiful tower, from which, reclining on his couch, he can see
+  the country to an immense extent, from the mountains of Antrim to
+  the mountains of Mourne, Strangford Lough, Belfast Lough, the
+  Antrim coast, and Portpatrick at the other side of the Channel,
+  all spread out before him like a coloured map.</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page185" id="page185"></a>[pg 185]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+
+  <h3>THE REBELLION OF 1641.</h3>
+
+  <p>The Rebellion of 1641&mdash;generally called a
+  'massacre'&mdash;was undoubtedly a struggle on the part of the
+  exiled nobles and clergy and the evicted peasants to get
+  possession of their estates and farms, which had been occupied by
+  the British settlers for nearly a generation. They might probably
+  have continued to occupy them in peace, but for the fanaticism of
+  the lords justices, Sir John Parsons and Sir John Borlace. It was
+  reported and believed that, at a public entertainment in Dublin,
+  Parsons declared that in twelve months no more Catholics should
+  be seen in that country. The English Puritans and Scottish
+  Covenanters were determined never to lay down their arms till
+  they had made an end of Popery. Pym, the celebrated Puritan
+  leader, avowed that the policy of his party was not to leave a
+  priest alive in the land. Meantime, the Irish chiefs were busy
+  intriguing at Rome, Madrid, Paris, and other continental
+  capitals, clamouring for an invasion of Ireland, to restore
+  monarchy and Catholicity&mdash;to expel the English planters from
+  the forfeited lands. Philip III. of Spain encouraged these
+  aspirations. He had an Irish legion under the command of Henry
+  O'Neill, son of the fugitive Earl of Tyrone. It was reported
+  that, in 1630 there were in the service of the Archduchess, in
+  the Spanish Netherlands alone, 100 Irish officers able to command
+  companies, and 20 fit to be colonels. There were many others at
+  Lisbon, Florence, Milan, and Naples. They had in readiness 5,000
+  or 6,000 stand of arms laid up at Antwerp, bought out of the
+  deduction of their monthly <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page186" id="page186"></a>[pg 186]</span> pay. The banished
+  ecclesiastics formed at every court a most efficient diplomatic
+  corps, the chief of these intriguers being the celebrated Luke
+  Wadding. Religious wars were popular in those times, and the
+  invasion of Ireland would be like a crusade against heresy. But
+  with the Irish chiefs the ruling passion was to get possession of
+  their homes and their lands. The most active spirit among these
+  was Roger, or Rory O'Moore, a man of high character, great
+  ability, handsome person, and fascinating manners. With him were
+  associated Conor Maguire, Costelloe M'Mahon, and Thorlough
+  O'Neill, Sir Phelim O'Neill, Sir Con Magennis, Colonel Hugh
+  M'Mahon, and the Rev. Dr. Heber M'Mahon. O'Moore visited the
+  country, went through the several provinces, and, by
+  communicating with the chiefs personally, organised the
+  conspiracy to expel the British and recover the kingdom for
+  Charles II. and the Pope.</p>
+
+  <p>The plan agreed upon by the confederates was this:&mdash;A
+  rising when the harvest was gathered in; a simultaneous attack on
+  all the English fortresses; the surprise of Dublin Castle, said
+  to contain arms for 12,000 men; and to obtain for these objects
+  all possible aid, in officers, men, and arms, from the Continent.
+  The rising took place on the night of October 22, 1641. It might
+  have been completely successful if the Castle of Dublin had been
+  seized. It seemed an easy prey, for it was guarded only by a few
+  pensioners and forty halberdiers, who would be quickly
+  overpowered. But the plot was made known to the lords justices by
+  an informer when on the eve of execution.</p>
+
+  <p>Sir Phelim O'Neill was one of those 'Irish gentlemen' who, by
+  royal favour, were permitted to retain some portions of their
+  ancient patrimonies. At this time he was in possession of
+  thirty-eight townlands in the barony of Dungannon, county Tyrone,
+  containing 23,000 acres, then estimated to be worth
+  1,600<i>l.</i> a-year, equal to some 10,000<i>l.</i> of our
+  money. Charles Boulton held by lease from the same chief 600
+  acres, at a yearly rent of 29<i>l.</i> for sixty years, in
+  consideration of a fine of 1,000<i>l.</i> In 1641 this property
+  yielded a profit rent <span class="pagenum"><a name="page187" id=
+  "page187"></a>[pg 187]</span> of 150<i>l.</i> a year. Three
+  townlands in the same barony were claimed by George Rawden of
+  Lisnagarvagh, as leased to him by Sir Phelim under the rent of
+  100<i>l.</i>, estimated to be worth 50<i>l.</i> per annum.</p>
+
+  <p>Sir Phelim might, therefore, have been content, so far as
+  property was concerned. But, setting aside patriotism, religion,
+  and ambition, it is likely enough that he distrusted the
+  Government, and feared the doom pronounced in Dublin Castle
+  against all the gentlemen of his creed and race. At all events he
+  put himself at the head of the insurrection in Ulster. He and the
+  officers under his command, on the night of the 22nd, surprised
+  and captured the forts of Charlemont and Mountjoy. The towns of
+  Dungannon, Newry, Carrickmacross, Castleblaney, Tandragee fell
+  into the hands of the insurgents, while the O'Reillys and
+  Maguires overran Cavan and Fermanagh. Sir Conor Magennis wrote
+  from Newry to the Government officers in Down: 'We are for our
+  lives and liberties. We desire no blood to be shed; but, if you
+  mean to shed our blood, be sure we shall be as ready as you for
+  that purpose.' And Sir Phelim O'Neill issued the following
+  proclamation:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'These are to intimate and make known unto all persons
+  whatsoever, in and through the whole country, the true intent and
+  meaning of us whose names are hereunto subscribed: 1. That the
+  first assembling of us is nowise intended against our sovereign
+  lord the king, nor hurt of any of his subjects, either English or
+  Scotch; but only for the defence and libertie of ourselves and
+  the Irish natives of this kingdom. And we further declare that
+  whatsoever hurt hitherto hath been done to any person shall be
+  presently repaired; and we will that every person forthwith,
+  after proclamation hereof, make their speedy repaire unto their
+  own houses, under paine of death, that no further hurt be done
+  unto any one under the like paine, and that this be proclaimed in
+  all places.</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>'PHELIM O'NEILL.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>'At Dungannon, the 23rd October, 1641.'</p>
+    </div>
+  </div><span class="pagenum"><a name="page188" id=
+  "page188"></a>[pg 188]</span>
+
+  <p>It is easy for an insurgent chief to give such orders to a
+  tumultuous mass of excited, vindictive, and drunken men, but not
+  so easy to enforce them. The common notion among Protestants,
+  however, that a midnight massacre of all the Protestant settlers
+  was intended, or attempted, is certainly unfounded. Though
+  horrible outrages were committed on both sides, the number of
+  them has been greatly exaggerated. Mr. Prendergast quotes some
+  contemporary authorities, which seem to be decisive on this
+  point. In the same year was published by 'G.S., minister of God's
+  word in Ireland,' 'A Brief Declaration of the Barbarous and
+  Inhuman Dealings of the Northern Irish Rebels ...; written to
+  excite the English Nation to relieve our poor Wives and Children
+  that have escaped the Rebels' savage Cruelties.'</p>
+
+  <p>This author says, it was the intention of the Irish to
+  massacre all the English. On Saturday they were to disarm them;
+  on Sunday to seize all their cattle and goods; on Monday, at the
+  watchword 'Skeane,' they were to cut all the English throats. The
+  former they executed; the third only (that is the massacre) they
+  failed in.</p>
+
+  <p>That the massacre rested hitherto in intention only is further
+  evident from the proclamation of the lords justices of February
+  8, 1642; for, while offering large sums for the heads of the
+  chief northern gentlemen in arms (Sir Phelim O'Neill's name
+  heading the list with a thousand pounds), the lords justices
+  state that the massacre had failed. Many thousands had been
+  robbed and spoiled, dispossessed of house and lands, many
+  murdered on the spot; but the chief part of their plots (so the
+  proclamation states), and amongst them a universal massacre, had
+  been disappointed.</p>
+
+  <p>But, says Mr. Prendergast, after Lord Ormond and Sir Simon
+  Harcourt, with the English forces, in the month of April, 1642,
+  had burned the houses of the gentry in the Pale, and committed
+  slaughters of unarmed men, and the Scotch forces, in the same
+  month, after beating off Sir Phelim O'Neill's army at Newry,
+  drowned and shot men, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page189" id=
+  "page189"></a>[pg 189]</span> women, and priests, in that town,
+  who had surrendered on condition of mercy, then it was that some
+  of Sir Phelim O'Neill's wild followers in revenge, and in fear of
+  the advancing army, massacred their prisoners in some of the
+  towns in Tyrone. The subsequent cruelties were not on one side
+  only, and were magnified to render the Irish detestable, so as to
+  make it impossible for the king to seek their aid without ruining
+  his cause utterly in England. The story of the massacre, invented
+  to serve the politics of the hour, has been since kept up for the
+  purposes of interest. No inventions could be too monstrous that
+  served to strengthen the possession of Irish confiscated
+  lands.</p>
+
+  <p>'A True Relation of the Proceedings of the Scots and English
+  Forces in the North of Ireland,' published in 1642, states that
+  on Monday, May 5, the common soldiers, without direction from the
+  general-major, took some eighteen of the Irish women of the town
+  [Newry], stripped them naked, threw them into the river, and
+  drowned them, shooting some in the water. More had suffered so,
+  but that some of the common soldiers were made examples of.</p>
+
+  <p>'A Levite's Lamentation,' published at the same time, thus
+  refers to those atrocities: 'Mr. Griffin, Mr. Bartly, Mr.
+  Starkey, all of Ardmagh, and murdered by these bloudsuckers on
+  the sixth of May. For, about the fourth of May, as I take it, we
+  put neare fourty of them to death upon the bridge of the Newry,
+  amongst which were two of the Pope's pedlers, two seminary
+  priests, in return of which they slaughtered many prisoners in
+  their custody.'</p>
+
+  <p>A curious illustration of the spirit of that age is given in
+  the fact that an English officer threw up his commission in
+  disgust, because the Bishop of Meath, in a sermon delivered in
+  Christ Church, Dublin, in 1642, pleaded for mercy to Irish women
+  and children.</p>
+
+  <p>The unfortunate settlers fled panic-stricken from their homes,
+  leaving behind their goods, and, in many cases, their clothes;
+  delicate women with little children, weary and footsore, hurried
+  on to some place of refuge. In Cavan they <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page190" id="page190"></a>[pg 190]</span>
+  crowded the house of the illustrious Bishop Bedell, at Kilmore.
+  Enniskillen, Derry, Lisburn, Belfast, Carrickfergus, with some
+  isolated castles, were still held by the English garrisons, and
+  in these the Protestant fugitives found succour and protection.
+  Before their flight they were in such terror that, according to
+  the Rev. Dr. Maxwell, rector of Tynan, for three nights no cock
+  was heard to crow, no dog to bark. The city of London sent four
+  ships to Londonderry with all kinds of provisions, clothing, and
+  accoutrements for several companies of foot, and abundance of
+  ammunition. The twelve chief companies sent each two pieces of
+  ordnance. No doubt these liberal and seasonable supplies
+  contributed materially to keep the city from yielding to the
+  insurgent forces by which it was besieged.</p>
+
+  <p>Meantime the Government in Dublin lost not a moment in taking
+  the most effectual measures for crushing the rebellion. Lord
+  Ormond, as lieutenant-general, had soon at his disposal 12,000
+  men, with a fine train of field artillery, provided by Strafford
+  for his campaign in the north of England. The king, who was in
+  Scotland, procured the dispatch of 1,500 men to Ulster; and
+  authorised Lords Chichester and Clandeboye to raise regiments
+  among their tenants. Thus the 'Scottish army' was increased to
+  about 5,000 foot, with cavalry in proportion. The Irish, on the
+  other hand, were ill-provided with arms and ammunition. They were
+  not even provided with pikes, for they had not time to make them.
+  The military officers counted upon did not appear, though they
+  had promised to be on the field at fourteen days' notice. Rory
+  O'Moore, like 'Meagher of the sword' in 1848, had never seen
+  service; and Sir Phelim O'Neill, like Smith O'Brien, was only a
+  civilian when he assumed the high-sounding title of 'Lord General
+  of the Catholic army in Ulster.' He also took the title of 'the
+  O'Neill.' The massacre of a large number of Catholics by the
+  Carrickfergus garrison, driving them over the cliffs into the sea
+  at the point of the bayonet, madly excited the Irish thirst for
+  blood. Mr. Darcy Magee admits that, from this date forward
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page191" id="page191"></a>[pg
+  191]</span> till the arrival of Owen Roe O'Neill, the war assumed
+  a ferocity of character foreign to the nature of O'Moore,
+  O'Reilly, and Magennis. 'That Sir Phelim permitted, if he did not
+  in his gusts of stormy passion instigate, those acts of cruelty
+  which have stained his otherwise honourable conduct, is too true;
+  but he stood alone among his confederates in that crime, and that
+  crime stands alone in his character. Brave to rashness and
+  disinterested to excess, few rebel chiefs ever made a more heroic
+  end out of a more deplorable beginning.' The same eulogy would
+  equally apply to many of the English generals. Cruelty was their
+  only crime. The Irish rulers of those times, if not taken by
+  surprise, felt at the outbreak of open rebellion much as the army
+  feels at the breaking out of a war, in some country where plenty
+  of prize money can be won, where the looting will be rich and the
+  promotion rapid. Relying with confidence on the power of England
+  and the force of discipline, they knew that the active defenders
+  of the Government would be victorious in the end, and that their
+  rewards would be estates. The more rebellions, the more forfeited
+  territory, the more opportunities to implicate, ruin, and despoil
+  the principal men of the hated race. The most sober writer,
+  dealing with such facts, cannot help stirring men's blood while
+  recording the deeds of the heroes who founded the English system
+  of government in Ireland, and secured to themselves immense
+  tracts of its most fertile soil. What then must be the effect of
+  the eloquent and impassioned denunciations of such writers as Mr.
+  Butt, Mr. A.M. Sullivan, and Mr. John Mitchell, not to speak of
+  the 'national press'? Yet the most fiery patriot utters nothing
+  stronger on the English rule in Ireland than what the Irish may
+  read in the works of the greatest statesmen and most profound
+  thinkers in England. The evil is in the facts, and the facts
+  cannot be suppressed because they are the roots of our present
+  difficulties. Mr. Darcy Magee, one of the most moderate of Irish
+  historians, writing far away from his native land, not long
+  before he fell by the bullet of <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page192" id="page192"></a>[pg 192]</span> the assassin&mdash;a
+  martyr to his loyalty&mdash;sketches the preliminaries of
+  confiscation at the commencement of this civil war.</p>
+
+  <p>In Munster, their chief instruments were the aged Earl of
+  Cork, still insatiable as ever for other men's possessions, and
+  the president, St. Leger: in Leinster, Sir Charles Coote. Lord
+  Cork prepared 1,100 indictments against men of property in his
+  province, which he sent to the speaker of the Long Parliament,
+  with an urgent request that they might be returned to him, with
+  authority to proceed against the parties named as outlaws. In
+  Leinster, 4,000 similar indictments were found in the course of
+  two days by the free use of the rack with witnesses. Sir John
+  Read, an officer of the king's bedchamber, and Mr. Barnwall of
+  Kilbrue, a gentleman of threescore and six, were among those who
+  underwent the torture. When these were the proceedings of the
+  tribunals in peaceable cities, we may imagine what must have been
+  the excesses of the soldiery in the open country. In the south,
+  Sir William St. Leger directed a series of murderous raids upon
+  the peasantry of Cork, which at length produced their natural
+  effect. Lord Muskerry and other leading recusants, who had
+  offered their services to maintain the peace of the province,
+  were driven by an insulting refusal to combine for their own
+  protection. The 1,100 indictments of Lord Cork soon swelled their
+  ranks, and the capture of the ancient city of Cashel, by Philip
+  O'Dwyer, announced the insurrection of the south. Waterford soon
+  after opened its gates to Colonel Edmund Butler; Wexford declared
+  for the Catholic cause, and Kilkenny surrendered to Lord
+  Mountgarret. In Wicklow, Coote's troopers committed murders such
+  as had not been equalled since the days of the pagan Northmen.
+  Little children were carried aloft writhing on the pikes of these
+  barbarians, whose worthy commander confessed that 'he liked such
+  frolics.' Neither age nor sex was spared, and an ecclesiastic was
+  especially certain of instant death. Fathers Higgins and White of
+  Naas, in Kildare, were given up by Coote to these 'lambs,'
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page193" id="page193"></a>[pg
+  193]</span> though, each had been granted a safe-conduct by his
+  superior officer, Lord Ormond. And these murders were taking
+  place at the very time when the Franciscans and Jesuits of Cashel
+  were protecting Dr. Pullen, the Protestant chancellor of that
+  cathedral and other Protestant prisoners; while also the castle
+  of Cloughouter, in Cavan, the residence of Bishop Bedell, was
+  crowded with Protestant fugitives, all of whom were carefully
+  guarded by the chivalrous Philip O'Reilly.</p>
+
+  <p>In Ulster, by the end of April, there were 19,000 troops,
+  regulars and volunteers, in the garrison or in the field. Newry
+  was taken by Monroe and Chichester. Magennis was obliged to
+  abandon Down, and McMahon Monaghan; Sir Phelim was driven to burn
+  Armagh and Dungannon and to take his last stand at Charlemont. In
+  a severe action with Sir Robert and Sir William Stewart, he had
+  displayed his usual courage with better than his usual fortune,
+  which, perhaps, we may attribute to the presence with him of Sir
+  Alexander McDonnell, brother to Lord Antrim, the famous
+  <i>Colkitto</i> of the Irish and Scottish wars. But the severest
+  defeat which the confederates had was in the heart of Leinster,
+  at the hamlet of Kilrush, within four miles of Athy. Lord Ormond,
+  returning from a second reinforcement of Naas and other Kildare
+  forts, at the head, by English account, of 4,000 men, found on
+  April 13 the Catholics of the midland counties, under Lords
+  Mountgarrett, Ikerrin, and Dunboyne, Sir Morgan Cavenagh, Rory
+  O'Moore, and Hugh O'Byrne, drawn up, by his report 8,000 strong,
+  to dispute his passage. With Ormond were the Lord Dillon, Lord
+  Brabazon, Sir Richard Grenville, Sir Charles Coote, and Sir T.
+  Lucas. The combat was short but murderous. The confederates left
+  700 men, including Sir Morgan Cavenagh and some other officers,
+  dead on the field; the remainder retreated in disorder, and
+  Ormond, with an inconsiderable diminution of numbers, returned in
+  triumph to Dublin. For this victory the Long Parliament, in a
+  moment of enthusiasm, voted the lieutenant-general a jewel worth
+  500<i>l.</i> If any satisfaction could be <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page194" id="page194"></a>[pg 194]</span>
+  derived from such an incident, the violent death of their most
+  ruthless enemy, Sir Charles Coote, might have afforded the
+  Catholics some consolation. That merciless soldier, after the
+  combat at Kilrush, had been employed in reinforcing Birr and
+  relieving the castle of Geashill, which the Lady Letitia of
+  Offally held against the neighbouring tribe of O'Dempsey. On his
+  return from this service he made a foray against a Catholic
+  force, which had mustered in the neighbourhood of Trim; here, on
+  the night of the 7th of May, heading a sally of his troop, he
+  fell by a musket shot&mdash;not without suspicion of being fired
+  from his own ranks. His son and namesake, who imitated him in all
+  things, was ennobled at the Restoration by the title of the Earl
+  of Mountrath.</p>
+
+  <p>The Long Parliament would not trust the king with an army in
+  Ireland. They consequently took the work of subjugation into
+  their own hands. Having confiscated 2,500,000 acres of Irish
+  land, they offered it as security to 'adventurers' who would
+  advance money to meet the cost of the war. In February, 1642, the
+  House of Commons received a petition 'of divers well affected' to
+  it, offering to raise and maintain forces at their own charge
+  'against the rebels of Ireland, and afterwards to receive their
+  recompense out of the rebels' estates.' Under the act 'for the
+  speedy reducing of the rebels' the adventurers were to carry over
+  a brigade of 5,000 foot and 500 horse, and to have the right of
+  appointing their own officers. And they were to have estates
+  given to them at the following rates: 1,000 acres for
+  200<i>l.</i> in Ulster, for 300<i>l.</i> in Connaught, for
+  450<i>l.</i> in Munster, and 600<i>l.</i> in Leinster. The rates
+  per acre were 4<i>s.</i>, 6<i>s.</i>, 8<i>s.</i>, and 12<i>s.</i>
+  in those provinces respectively.</p>
+
+  <p>The nature of the war, and the spirit in which it was
+  conducted, may be inferred from the sort of weapons issued from
+  the military stores. These included scythes with handles and
+  rings, reaping-hooks, whetstones, and rubstones. They were
+  intended for cutting down the growing corn, that the people might
+  be starved into submission, or forced to quit the country. The
+  commissary of stores was <span class="pagenum"><a name="page195"
+  id="page195"></a>[pg 195]</span> ordered to issue Bibles to the
+  troops, one Bible for every file, that they might learn from the
+  Old Testament the sin and danger of sparing idolaters.</p>
+
+  <p>The rebellion in Ulster had almost collapsed before the end of
+  the year. The tens of thousands who had rushed to the standard of
+  Sir P. O'Neill were now reduced to a number of weak and
+  disorganised collections of armed men taking shelter in the
+  woods. The English garrisons scoured the neighbouring counties
+  with little opposition, and where they met any they gave no
+  quarter. Sir William Cole, ancestor of the Earl of Enniskillen,
+  proudly boasted of his achievement in having 7,000 of the rebels
+  famished to death within a circuit of a few miles of his
+  garrison. Lord Enniskillen is an excellent landlord, but the
+  descendants of the remnant of the natives on his estate do not
+  forget how the family obtained its wealth and honours. The
+  Government, however, seemed to have good reason to congratulate
+  itself that the war was over with the Irish. To these Sir Phelim
+  O'Neill had shown that there is something in a name: but if the
+  name does not represent real worth and fitness for the work
+  undertaken, it is but a shadow. It was so in Sir Phelim's
+  O'Neill's case. Though he had courage, he was a poor general. But
+  another hero of the same name soon appeared to redeem the honour
+  of his race, and to show what the right man can do. At a moment
+  when the national cause seemed to be lost, when the Celtic
+  population in Ulster were meditating a wholesale emigration to
+  the Scottish Highlands&mdash;'a word of magic effect was
+  whispered from the sea-coast to the interior.' Colonel Owen Roe
+  O'Neill had arrived off Donegal with a single ship, a single
+  company of veterans, 100 officers, and a quantity of ammunition.
+  He landed at Doe Castle, proceeded to the fort of Charlemont, met
+  the heads of the clans at Clones in Monaghan, was elected
+  general-in-chief of the Catholic forces, and at once set about
+  organising an army. The Catholics of the whole kingdom had joined
+  a confederation, which held its meetings at Kilkenny.
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page196" id="page196"></a>[pg
+  196]</span> A general assembly was convened for October 23, 1642.
+  The peerage was represented by fourteen lords and eleven bishops.
+  Generals were appointed for each of the other provinces, Preston
+  for Leinster, Barry for Munster, and Burke for Connaught. With
+  the Anglo-Irish portion of the confederacy the war was Catholic,
+  and the object religious liberty. With them there was no
+  antipathy or animosity to the English. There was the Pope's
+  Nuncio and his party, thinking most of papal interests, and there
+  was the national party, who had been, or were likely to be, made
+  landless. The king, then at Oxford, was importuned by the
+  confederation on the one side and the Puritans on the other; one
+  petitioning for freedom of worship, the other for the suppression
+  of popery. Pending these appeals there was a long cessation
+  between the Irish belligerents.</p>
+
+  <p>Ormond had amused the confederates with negotiations for a
+  permanent peace and settlement, from spring till midsummer, when
+  Charles, dissatisfied with these endless delays, dispatched to
+  Ireland a more hopeful ambassador. This was Herbert, Earl of
+  Glamorgan, one of the few Catholics remaining among the English
+  nobility, son and heir to the Marquis of Worcester, and
+  son-in-law to Henry O'Brien, Earl of Thomond. Of a family
+  devoutly attached to the royal cause, to which it is said they
+  had contributed not less than 200,000<i>l.</i>, Glamorgan's
+  religion, his rank, his Irish connections, the intimate
+  confidence of the king which he was known to possess, all marked
+  out his embassy as one of the utmost importance.</p>
+
+  <p>The earl arrived in Dublin about August 1, and, after an
+  interview with Ormond, proceeded to Kilkenny. On the 28th of that
+  month, preliminary articles were agreed to and signed by the earl
+  on behalf of the king, and by Lords Montgarrett and Muskerry on
+  behalf of the confederates. It was necessary, it seems, to get
+  the concurrence of the Viceroy to these terms, and accordingly
+  the negotiators on both sides repaired to Dublin. Here Ormond
+  contrived to detain them ten long weeks in discussions on the
+  articles relating to religion; it was the 12th of November when
+  they <span class="pagenum"><a name="page197" id="page197"></a>[pg
+  197]</span> returned to Kilkenny, with a much modified treaty. On
+  the next day, the 13th, the new Papal Nuncio, a prelate who, by
+  his rank, his eloquence, and his imprudence, was destined to
+  exercise a powerful influence on the Catholic councils, made his
+  public entry into that city.</p>
+
+  <p>This personage was John Baptist Rinuccini, Archbishop of Fermo
+  in the marches of Ancona, which see he had preferred to the more
+  exalted dignity of Florence.</p>
+
+  <p>From Limerick, borne along on his litter, such was the
+  feebleness of his health, he advanced by slow stages to Kilkenny,
+  escorted by a guard of honour, despatched on that duty by the
+  supreme council.</p>
+
+  <p>The pomp and splendour of his public entry into the Catholic
+  capital was a striking spectacle. The previous night he slept at
+  a village three miles from the city, for which he set out early
+  on the morning of November 13, escorted by his guard and a vast
+  multitude of the people. Five delegates from the supreme council
+  accompanied him. A band of fifty students, mounted on horseback,
+  met him on the way, and their leader, crowned with laurel,
+  recited some congratulatory Latin verses. At the city gate he
+  left the litter and mounted a horse richly housed; here the
+  procession of the clergy and the city guilds awaited him: at the
+  market cross, a Latin oration was delivered in his honour, to
+  which he graciously replied in the same language. From the cross
+  he was escorted to the cathedral, at the door of which he was
+  received by the aged bishop, Dr. David Rothe. At the high altar
+  he intonated the <i>Te Deum</i>, and gave the multitude the
+  apostolic benediction. Then he was conducted to his lodgings,
+  where he was soon waited upon by Lord Muskerry and General
+  Preston, who brought him to Kilkenny Castle, where, in the great
+  gallery, which elicited even a Florentine's admiration, he was
+  received in stately formality by the president of the
+  council&mdash;Lord Mountgarrett. Another Latin oration on the
+  nature of his embassy was delivered by the Nuncio, responded to
+  by Heber, Bishop of Clogher, and so the ceremony of reception
+  ended.<a id="footnotetag33" name="footnotetag33"></a><a href=
+  "#footnote33"><sup>1</sup></a></p><span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page198" id="page198"></a>[pg 198]</span>
+
+  <p>After a long time spent in negotiations, the celebrated
+  Glamorgan treaty was signed by Ormond for the king, and Lord
+  Muskerry and the other commissioners for the confederates. It
+  conceded, in fact, all the most essential claims of the
+  Irish&mdash;equal rights as to property, in the army, in the
+  universities, and at the bar; gave them seats in both houses and
+  on the bench; authorised a special commission of oyer and
+  terminer, composed wholly of confederates; and declared that 'the
+  independency of the parliament of Ireland on that of England'
+  should be decided by declaration of both houses 'agreeably to the
+  laws of the kingdom of Ireland.' In short, this final form of
+  Glamorgan's treaty gave the Irish Catholics, in 1646, all that
+  was subsequently obtained, either for the church or the country,
+  in 1782, 1793, or 1829. 'Though some conditions were omitted, to
+  which Rinuccini and a majority of the prelates attached
+  importance, Glamorgan's treaty was, upon the whole, a charter
+  upon which a free church and a free people might well have stood,
+  as the fundamental law of their religious and civil
+  liberties.'</p>
+
+  <p>General O'Neill was greatly annoyed at these delays. Political
+  events in England swayed the destiny of Ireland then as now. The
+  poor vacillating, double-dealing king was delivered to the
+  Puritans, tried, and executed. But before Cromwell came to smash
+  the confederation and everything papal in Ireland, the Irish
+  chief gladdened the hearts of his countrymen by the glorious
+  victory of Benburb, one of the most memorable in Irish
+  history.</p>
+
+  <p>In a naturally strong position, the Irish, for four hours,
+  received and repulsed the various charges of the Puritan horse.
+  Then as the sun began to descend, pouring its rays upon the
+  enemy, O'Neill led his whole force&mdash;five thousand men
+  against eight&mdash;to the attack. One terrible onset swept away
+  every trace of resistance. There were counted on the field 3,243
+  of the Covenanters, and of the Catholics but 70 killed and 100
+  wounded. Lord Ardes, and 21 Scottish officers, 32 standards,
+  1,500 draught horses, and all the guns and tents, were captured.
+  Monroe fled to <span class="pagenum"><a name="page199" id=
+  "page199"></a>[pg 199]</span> Lisburn and thence to
+  Carrickfergus, where he shut himself up till he could obtain
+  reinforcements. O'Neill forwarded the captured colours to the
+  Nuncio at Limerick, by whom they were solemnly placed in the
+  choir of St. Mary's Cathedral, and afterwards, at the request of
+  Pope Innocent, sent to Rome. The <i>Te Deum</i> was chanted in
+  the confederate capital; penitential psalms were sung in the
+  northern fortresses. 'The Lord of Hosts,' wrote Monroe, 'has
+  rubbed shame on our faces till once we are humbled.' O'Neill
+  emblazoned the cross and keys on his banner with the Red Hand of
+  Ulster, and openly resumed the title originally chosen by his
+  adherents at Clones, 'the Catholic Army.'</p>
+
+  <p>The stage of Irish politics now presented the most
+  extraordinary complications political and military. The
+  confederation was occupied with endless debates and dissensions.
+  Commanders changed positions so rapidly, the several causes for
+  which men had been fighting became so confused in the
+  unaccountable scene-shifting, giving glimpses now of the king,
+  now of the commonwealth, and now of the pope, that no one knew
+  what to do, or what was to be the end. The nuncio went home in
+  disgust that his blessings and his curses, which he dispensed
+  with equal liberality, had so little effect.</p>
+
+  <p>At length appeared an actor who gave a terrible unity to the
+  drama of Irish politics. Cromwell left London in July 1649, 'in a
+  coach drawn by six gallant Flanders mares,' and made a grand
+  progress to Bristol. He landed at Ring's End, near Dublin, on
+  August 14. He entered the city in procession and addressed the
+  people from 'a convenient place,' accompanied by his son Henry,
+  Blake, Jones, Ireton, Ludlow, Hardress, Waller, and others. The
+  history of Cromwell's military exploits in Ireland is well known.
+  I pass on, therefore, to notice the effects of the war on the
+  condition of the people.</p>
+
+  <p>As usual, in such cases, the destruction of the crops and
+  other provisions by the soldiers, brought evil to the conquerors
+  as well as to their victims. There had been a fifteen
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page200" id="page200"></a>[pg
+  200]</span> years' war in Ulster, when James I. ascended the
+  throne, and it left the country waste and desolate. Sir John
+  Davis, his attorney-general, asserted the unquestionable fact
+  that perpetual war had been continued between the two nations for
+  'four hundred and odd years,' and had always for its object to
+  'root out the Irish.' James was to put an end to this war, and,
+  as we have seen, the lord deputy promised the people 'estates' in
+  their holdings. The effect of this promise, as recorded by Davis,
+  is remarkable. 'He thus made it a year of jubilee to the poor
+  inhabitants, because every man was to return to his own house,
+  and be restored to his ancient possessions, and they all went
+  home rejoicing.'</p>
+
+  <p>Poor people! they soon saw the folly of putting their trust in
+  princes. Now, after a seven years' war, the nation was again
+  visited with famine, and the country converted into a wilderness.
+  Three-fourths of the cattle had been destroyed; and the
+  commissioners for Ireland reported to the council in England in
+  1651, that four parts in five of the best and most fertile land
+  in Ireland lay waste and uninhabited, stating that they had
+  encouraged the Irish to till the land, promising them the
+  enjoyment of the crops. They had also given orders 'for enforcing
+  those that were removed to the mountains to return.' The soldiers
+  were employed to till the lands round their posts. Corn had to be
+  imported to Dublin from Wales. So scarce was meat that a widow
+  was obliged to petition the authorities for permission to kill a
+  lamb; and she was 'permitted and lycensed to kill and dresse so
+  much lambe as shall be necessary for her own eating, not
+  exceeding three lambes for this whole year, notwithstanding any
+  declaration of the said Commissioners of Parliament to the
+  contrary.'<a id="footnotetag34" name="footnotetag34"></a><a href=
+  "#footnote34"><sup>2</sup></a> This privilege was granted to Mrs.
+  Buckley in consideration of 'her old age and weakness of body.'
+  In 1654 the Irish revenue from all sources was only
+  198,000<i>l.</i>, while the cost of the army was 500,000<i>l.</i>
+  A sort of conditional amnesty was granted from necessity, pending
+  the decision of Parliament, and on May 12, 1652, <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page201" id="page201"></a>[pg 201]</span> the
+  Leinster army of the Irish surrendered on terms signed at
+  Kilkenny, which were adopted successively by the other principal
+  armies between that time and the September following, when the
+  Ulster forces surrendered. By these Kilkenny articles, all except
+  those who were guilty of the first blood were received into
+  protection on laying down their arms; those who should not be
+  satisfied with the conclusions the Parliament might come to
+  concerning the Irish nation, and should desire to transport
+  themselves with their men to serve any foreign state in amity
+  with the Parliament, should have liberty to treat with their
+  agents for that purpose. But the Commissioners undertook
+  faithfully to mediate with the Parliament that they might enjoy
+  such a remnant of their lands as might make their lives
+  comfortable at home, or be enabled to emigrate.</p>
+
+  <p>The Cromwellian administration in Ireland effected a
+  revolution unparalleled in history. Its proceedings have been
+  well summarised by Mr. Darcy Magee:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>The Long Parliament, still dragging out its days under the
+  shadow of Cromwell's great name, declared in its session of 1652
+  the rebellion in Ireland 'subdued and ended,' and proceeded to
+  legislate for that kingdom as a conquered country. On August 12
+  they passed their Act of Settlement, the authorship of which was
+  attributed to Lord Orrery, in this respect the worthy son of the
+  first Earl of Cork. Under this act there were four chief
+  descriptions of persons whose status was thus settled: 1. All
+  ecclesiastics and royalist proprietors were exempted from pardon
+  of life or estate. 2. All royalist commissioned officers were
+  condemned to banishment, and the forfeit of two-thirds of their
+  property, one-third being retained for the support of their wives
+  and children. 3. Those who had not been in arms, but could be
+  shown, by a parliamentary commission, to have manifested 'a
+  constant, good affection' to the war, were to forfeit one-third
+  of their estates, and receive 'an equivalent' for the remaining
+  two-thirds west of the Shannon. 4. All husbandmen and others of
+  the inferior <span class="pagenum"><a name="page202" id=
+  "page202"></a>[pg 202]</span> sort, 'not possessed of lands or
+  goods exceeding the value of 10<i>l.</i>,' were to have a free
+  pardon, on condition also of transporting themselves across the
+  Shannon.</p>
+
+  <p>This last condition of the Cromwellian settlement
+  distinguished it, in our annals, from every other proscription of
+  the native population formerly attempted. The great river of
+  Ireland, rising in the mountains of Leitrim, nearly severs the
+  five western counties from the rest of the kingdom. The province
+  thus set apart, though one of the largest in superficial extent,
+  had also the largest proportion of waste and water, mountain and
+  moorland. The new inhabitants were there to congregate from all
+  the other provinces before the first day of May, 1654, under
+  penalty of outlawry and all its consequences; and when there,
+  they were not to appear within two miles of the Shannon, or four
+  miles of the sea. A rigorous passport system, to evade which was
+  death without form of trial, completed this settlement, the
+  design of which was to shut up the remaining Catholic inhabitants
+  from all intercourse with mankind, and all communion with the
+  other inhabitants of their own country.</p>
+
+  <p>A new survey of the whole kingdom was also ordered, under the
+  direction of Dr. William Petty, the fortunate economist who
+  founded the house of Lansdowne. By him the surface of the kingdom
+  was estimated at 10,500,000 plantation acres, three of which were
+  deducted for waste and water. Of the remainder, above 5,000,000
+  were in Catholic hands, in 1641; 300,000 were church and college
+  lands; and 2,000,000 were in possession of the Protestant
+  settlers of the reigns of James and Elizabeth. Under the
+  Protectorate, 5,000,000 acres were confiscated; this enormous
+  spoil, two-thirds of the whole island, went to the soldiers and
+  adventurers who had served against the Irish, or had contributed
+  to the military chest, since 1641&mdash;except 700,000 acres
+  given in 'exchange' to the banished in Clare and Connaught; and
+  1,200,000 confirmed to 'innocent Papists.' Such was the complete
+  uprooting of the ancient tenantry or clansmen from their original
+  holdings, that, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page203" id=
+  "page203"></a>[pg 203]</span> during the survey, orders of
+  parliament were issued to bring back individuals from Connaught
+  to point out the boundaries of parishes in Munster. It cannot be
+  imputed among the sins so freely laid to the historical account
+  of the native legislature, that an Irish parliament had any share
+  in sanctioning this universal spoliation. Cromwell anticipated
+  the union of the kingdoms by 150 years, when he summoned, in
+  1653, that assembly over which 'Praise-God Barebones' presided;
+  members for Ireland and Scotland sat on the same benches with the
+  commons of England. Oliver's first deputy in the government of
+  Ireland was his son-in-law Fleetwood, who had married the widow
+  of Ireton; but his real representative was his fourth son Henry
+  Cromwell, commander-in-chief of the army. In 1657, the title of
+  lord deputy was transferred from Fleetwood to Henry, who united
+  the supreme civil and military authority in his own person until
+  the eve of the restoration, of which he became an active
+  partisan. We may thus properly embrace the five years of the
+  Protectorate as a period of Henry Cromwell's administration.</p>
+
+  <p>In the absence of a parliament, the government of Ireland was
+  vested in the deputy, the commander-in-chief, and four
+  commissioners, Ludlow, Corbett, Jones, and Weaver. There was,
+  moreover, a high court of justice, which perambulated the
+  kingdom, and exercised an absolute authority over life and
+  property greater than even Strafford's Court of Star Chamber had
+  pretended to. Over this court presided Lord Lowther, assisted by
+  Mr. Justice Donnellan, by Cooke, solicitor to the parliament on
+  the trial of King Charles, and the regicide Reynolds. By this
+  court, Sir Phelim O'Neill, Viscount Mayo, and Colonels O'Toole
+  and Bagnall were condemned and executed; children of both sexes
+  were captured by thousands, and sold as slaves to the
+  tobacco-planters of Virginia and the West Indies. Sir William
+  Petty states that 6,000 boys and girls were sent to those
+  islands. The number, of all ages, thus transported, was estimated
+  at 100,000 souls. As to the 'swordsmen' who <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page204" id="page204"></a>[pg 204]</span> had
+  been trained to fighting, Petty, in his <i>Political Anatomy</i>,
+  records that 'the chiefest and most eminentest of the nobility
+  and many of the gentry had taken conditions from the King of
+  Spain, and had transported 40,000 of the most active, spirited
+  men, most acquainted with the dangers and discipline of war.' The
+  chief commissioners in Dublin had despatched assistant
+  commissioners to the provinces. The distribution which they made
+  of the soil was nearly as complete as that of Canaan among the
+  Israelites; and this was the model which the Puritans had always
+  before their minds. Where a miserable residue of the population
+  was required to till the land for its new owners, they were
+  tolerated as the Gibeonites had been by Joshua. Irish gentlemen
+  who had obtained pardons were obliged to wear a distinctive mark
+  on their dress on pain of death. Persons of inferior rank were
+  distinguished by a black spot on the right cheek. Wanting this,
+  their punishment was the branding-iron or the gallows.</p>
+
+  <p>No vestige of the Catholic religion was allowed to exist.
+  Catholic lawyers and schoolmasters were silenced. All
+  ecclesiastics were slain like the priests of Baal. Three bishops
+  and 300 of the inferior clergy thus perished. The bedridden
+  Bishop of Kilmore was the only native clergyman permitted to
+  survive. If, in mountain recesses or caves, a few peasants were
+  detected at mass, they were smoked out and shot.</p>
+
+  <p>Thus England got rid of a race concerning which Mr.
+  Prendergast found this contemporary testimony in a MS. in Trinity
+  College library, Dublin, dated 1615:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'There lives not a people more hardy, active, and painful ...
+  neither is there any will endure the miseries of warre, as
+  famine, watching, heat, cold, wet, travel, and the like, so
+  naturally and with such facility and courage that they do. The
+  Prince of Orange's excellency uses often publiquely to deliver
+  that the Irish are souldiers the first day of their birth. The
+  famous Henry IV., late king of France, said there would prove no
+  nation so resolute martial men as they, would they be ruly and
+  not too headstrong. And Sir <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page205" id="page205"></a>[pg 205]</span> John Norris was wont
+  to ascribe this particular to that nation above others, that he
+  never beheld so few of any country as of Irish that were idiots
+  and cowards, which is very notable.'</p>
+
+  <p>At the end of 1653, the parliament made a division of the
+  spoil among the conquerors and the adventurers; and, on September
+  26, an act was passed for the new planting of Ireland by English.
+  The Government reserved for itself the towns, the church lands,
+  and the tithes, the established church, hierarchy and all, having
+  been utterly abolished. The four counties of Dublin, Kildare,
+  Carlow, and Cork were also reserved. The amount due to the
+  adventurers was 360,000<i>l.</i> This they divided into three
+  lots, of which 110,000<i>l.</i> was to be satisfied in Munster,
+  205,000<i>l.</i> in Leinster, and 45,000<i>l.</i> in Ulster, and
+  the moiety of ten counties was charged with their
+  payment&mdash;Waterford, Limerick, and Tipperary, in Munster;
+  Meath, Westmeath, King's and Queen's Counties, in Leinster; and
+  Antrim, Down, and Armagh, in Ulster. But, as all was required by
+  the Adventurers Act to be done by lot, a lottery was appointed to
+  be held in Grocers' Hall, London, for July 20, 1653, to begin at
+  8 o'clock in the morning, when lots should be first drawn in
+  which province each adventurer was to be satisfied, not exceeding
+  the specified amounts in any province; lots were to be drawn,
+  secondly, to ascertain in which of the ten counties each
+  adventurer was to receive his land&mdash;the lots not to exceed
+  in Westmeath 70,000<i>l.</i>, in Tipperary 60,000<i>l.</i>, in
+  Meath 55,000<i>l.</i>, in King's and Queen's Counties
+  40,000<i>l.</i> each, in Limerick 30,000<i>l.</i>, in Waterford
+  20,000<i>l.</i>, in Antrim, Down, and Armagh 15,000<i>l.</i>
+  each. And, as it was thought it would be a great encouragement to
+  the adventurers (who were for the most part merchants and
+  tradesmen), about to plant in so wild and dangerous a country,
+  not yet subdued, to have soldier planters near them, these ten
+  counties, when surveyed (which was directed to be done
+  immediately, and returned to the committee for the lottery at
+  Grocers' Hall), were to be divided, each county by baronies, into
+  two <span class="pagenum"><a name="page206" id="page206"></a>[pg
+  206]</span> moieties, as equally as might be, without dividing
+  any barony. A lot was then to be drawn by the adventurers, and by
+  some officer appointed by the Lord General Cromwell on behalf of
+  the soldiery, to ascertain which baronies in the ten counties
+  should be for the adventurers, and which for the soldiers.</p>
+
+  <p>The rest of Ireland, except Connaught, was to be set out
+  amongst the officers and soldiers for their arrears, amounting to
+  1,550,000<i>l.</i>, and to satisfy debts of money or provisions
+  due for supplies advanced to the army of the commonwealth
+  amounting to 1,750,000<i>l.</i> Connaught being by the parliament
+  reserved and appointed for the habitation of the Irish nation,
+  all English and Protestants having lands there, who should desire
+  to remove out of Connaught into the provinces inhabited by the
+  English, were to receive estates in the English parts, of equal
+  value, in exchange.</p>
+
+  <p>The next thing was to clear out the remnant of the
+  inhabitants, and the overture to this performance was the
+  following merciful proclamation:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'The Parliament of the Commonwealth of England having by one
+  act lately passed (entitled an Act for the Settling of Ireland)
+  declared that <i>it is not their intention to extirpate this
+  whole nation</i>, but that mercy and pardon for life and estate
+  be extended to all husbandmen, plowmen, labourers, artificers,
+  and others of the inferior sort, in such manner as in and by the
+  said Act is set forth: for the better execution of the said Act,
+  and that timely notice may be given to all persons therein
+  concerned, it is ordered that the Governor and Commissioners of
+  Revenue, or any two or more of them, within every precinct in
+  this nation, do cause the said Act of Parliament with this
+  present declaration to be published and proclaimed in their
+  respective precincts <i>by beat of drumme and sound of
+  trumpett</i>, on some markett day, within tenn days after the
+  same shall come unto them within their respective precincts.</p>
+
+  <p>'Dated at the Castle of Kilkenny, this 11th October, 1652.</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>'EDMUND LUDLOW, MILES CORBET,</p>
+
+      <p>'JOHN JONES, R. WEAVER.'</p>
+    </div>
+  </div><span class="pagenum"><a name="page207" id=
+  "page207"></a>[pg 207]</span>
+
+  <p>A letter from Dublin, dated December 21, 1654, four days
+  before Christmas, says the 'transplantation is now far advanced,
+  the men being gone to prepare their new habitations in Connaught.
+  Their wives and children and dependants have been, and are,
+  packing away after them apace, and all are to be gone by the 1st
+  of March next.' In another letter the writer
+  <i>na&#239;vely</i> remarks, 'It is the nature of this people
+  to be rebellious, and they have been so much the more disposed to
+  it, having been highly exasperated to it by the transplanting
+  work.' The temper of the settlers towards the natives may be
+  inferred from a petition to the lord deputy and council of
+  Ireland, praying for the enforcement of the original order
+  requiring the removal of all the Irish nation into Connaught,
+  except boys of fourteen and girls of twelve. 'For we humbly
+  conceive,' say the petitioners, 'that the proclamation for
+  transplanting only the proprietors, and such as have been in
+  arms, will neither answer the end of safety nor what else is
+  aimed at thereby. For the first purpose of the transplantation is
+  to prevent those of natural principles' (i.e. of natural
+  affections) 'becoming one with these Irish, as well in affinity
+  as idolatry, as many thousands did who came over in Elizabeth's
+  time, many of which have had a deep hand in all the late murders
+  and massacres. And shall we join in affinity,' they ask, 'with a
+  people of these abominations? Would not the Lord be angry with us
+  till He consumes us, having said&mdash;"the land which ye go to
+  possess is an unclean land, because of the filthiness of the
+  people who dwell therein. Ye shall not, therefore, give your sons
+  to their daughters, nor take their daughters to your sons," as it
+  is in Ezra ix. 11, 12, 14. "Nay, ye shall surely root them out,
+  lest they cause you to forsake the Lord your God." Deut. c. vii.
+  &amp;c.'</p>
+
+  <p>In this way they hoped that 'honest men' would be encouraged
+  to come and live amongst them, because the other three provinces
+  (that is, all the island but Connaught) would be free of
+  'tories,' when there was none left to harbour or relieve them.
+  They would have made a clean <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page208" id="page208"></a>[pg 208]</span> sweep of Munster,
+  Leinster, and Ulster, so that 'the saints' might inherit the land
+  without molestation. If any Protestant friends of the Irish
+  objected to this thorough mode of effecting the work of Irish
+  regeneration, Colonel Lawrence 'doubted not but God would enable
+  that authority yet in being to let out that dram of rebellious
+  bloud, and cure that fit of sullenness their advocate speaks
+  of.'</p>
+
+  <p>The commissioners appointed to effect the transplantation were
+  painfully conscious of their unworthiness to perform so holy a
+  work, and Were overwhelmed with a sense of their weakness in the
+  midst of such tremendous difficulties, so that they were
+  constrained to say: 'The child is now come to the birth, and much
+  is desired and expected, but there is no strength to bring
+  forth.' They therefore fasted and humbled themselves before the
+  Lord, inviting the officers of the army to join them in lifting
+  up prayers, 'with strong crying and tears, to Him to whom nothing
+  is too strong, that His servants, whom He had called forth in
+  this day to act in these great transactions, might be made
+  faithful, and carried on by His own outstretched arm, against all
+  opposition and difficulty, to do what was pleasing in His
+  sight.'</p>
+
+  <p>It is true they had this consolation, 'that the chiefest and
+  eminentest of the nobility and many of the gentry had taken
+  conditions from the king of Spain, and had transported 40,000 of
+  the most active, spirited men, most acquainted with the dangers
+  and discipline of war.' The priests were all banished. The
+  remaining part of the whole nation was scarce one-sixth of what
+  they were at the beginning of the war, so great a devastation had
+  God and man brought upon that land; and that handful of natives
+  left were poor labourers, simple creatures, whose sole design was
+  to live and maintain their families.'</p>
+
+  <p>Of course there were many exceptions to this rule. There were
+  some of the upper classes remaining, described in the
+  certificates which all the emigrants were obliged to procure,
+  like Sir Nicholas Comyn, of Limerick, 'who was numb at one side
+  of his body of a dead palsy, accompanied <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page209" id="page209"></a>[pg 209]</span> only
+  by his lady, Catherine Comyn, aged thirty-five years,
+  flaxen-haired, middle stature; and one maid servant, Honor
+  M'Namara, aged twenty years, brown hair, middle stature, having
+  no substance,' &amp;c. From Tipperary went forth James, Lord
+  Dunboyne, with 21 followers, and having 4 cows, 10 garrons, and 2
+  swine. Dame Catherine Morris, 35 followers, 10 cows, 16 garrons,
+  19 goats, 2 swine. Lady Mary Hamilton, of Roscrea, with 45
+  persons, 40 cows, 30 garrons, 46 sheep, 2 goats. Pierce, Lord
+  Viscount Ikerrin, with 17 persons, having 16 acres of winter
+  corn, 4 cows, 5 garrons, 14 sheep, 2 swine, &amp;c. There were
+  other noblemen, lords of the Pale, descended from illustrious
+  English ancestors, the Fitzgeralds, the Butlers, the Plunkets,
+  the Barnwells, the Dillons, the Cheevers, the Cusacks, &amp;c.,
+  who petitioned, praying that their flight might not be in the
+  winter, or alleging that their wives and children were sick, that
+  their cattle were unfit to drive, or that they had crops to get
+  in. To them dispensations were granted, provided the husbands and
+  parents were in Connaught building huts, &amp;c., and that not
+  more than one or two servants remained behind to look after the
+  respective herds and flocks, and to attend to the gathering in
+  and threshing of the corn. And some few, such as John Talbot de
+  Malahide, got a pass for safe travelling from Connaught to come
+  back, in order to dispose of their corn and goods, giving
+  security to return within the time limited. If they did not
+  return they got this warning in the month of March&mdash;that the
+  officers had resolved to fill the jails with them, 'by which this
+  bloody people will know that they (the officers) are not
+  degenerated from English principles. Though I presume we should
+  be very tender of hanging any except leading men, yet we shall
+  make no scruple of sending them to the West Indies,' &amp;c.
+  Accordingly when the time came, all the remaining crops were
+  seized and sold; there was a general arrest of all
+  'transplantable persons. All over the three provinces, men and
+  women were hauled out of their beds in the dead hour of night to
+  prison, till the jails <span class="pagenum"><a name="page210"
+  id="page210"></a>[pg 210]</span> were choked.' In order to
+  further expedite the removal of the nobility and gentry, a
+  court-martial sat in St. Patrick's Cathedral, and ordered the
+  lingering delinquents, who shrunk from going to Connaught, to be
+  hanged, with a placard on the breast and back of each
+  victim&mdash;'<i>For not transplanting.'</i></p>
+
+  <p>Scully's conduct at Ballycohy, was universally execrated. But
+  what did he attempt to do? Just what the Cromwellian officers did
+  at the end of a horrid civil war 200 years ago, with this
+  difference in favour of Cromwell, that Scully did not purpose to
+  'transplant,' He would simply uproot, leaving the uprooted to
+  perish on the highway. His conduct was as barbarous as that of
+  the Cromwellian officers. But what of Scully? He is nothing. The
+  all-important fact is, that, in playing a part worse than
+  Cromwellian, he, <i>acting according to English law, was
+  supported by all the power of the state</i>; and if the men who
+  defended their homes against his attack had been arrested and
+  convicted, Irish judges would have consigned them to the gallows;
+  and they might, as in the Cromwellian case, have ordered a
+  placard to be put on their persons:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <blockquote>
+    <p>'FOR NOT TRANSPLANTING!'</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <p>In fact the Cromwellian commissioners did nothing more than
+  carry out fully the <i>principles</i> of our present land code.
+  Nine-tenths of the soil of Ireland are held by tenants at will.
+  It is constantly argued in the leading organs of English opinion,
+  that the power of the landlords to resume possession of their
+  estates, and turn them into pastures, evicting all the tenants,
+  is <i>essential</i> to the rights of property. This has been said
+  in connection with the great absentee proprietors. According to
+  this theory of proprietorship, the only one recognised by law,
+  Lord Lansdowne may legally spread desolation over a large part of
+  Kerry; Lord Fitzwilliam may send the ploughshare of ruin through
+  the hearths of half the county Wicklow; Lord Digby, in the King's
+  County, may restore to the bog of Allen vast tracts reclaimed
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page211" id="page211"></a>[pg
+  211]</span> during many generations by the labour of his tenants;
+  and Lord Hertfort may convert into a wilderness the district
+  which the descendants of the English settlers have converted into
+  the garden of Ulster. If any or all of those noblemen took a
+  fancy, like Colonel Bernard of Kinnitty or Mr. Allen Pollok, to
+  become graziers and cattle-jobbers on a gigantic scale, the
+  Government would be compelled to place the military power of the
+  state at their disposal, to evict the whole population in the
+  queen's name, to drive all the families away from their homes, to
+  demolish their dwellings, and turn them adrift on the highway,
+  without one shilling compensation. Villages, schools, churches
+  would all disappear from the landscape; and, when the grouse
+  season arrived, the noble owner might bring over a party of
+  English friends to see his '<i>improvements!</i>' The right of
+  conquest so cruelly exercised by the Cromwellians is in this year
+  of grace <i>a legal right</i>; and its exercise is a mere
+  question of expediency and discretion. There is not a landlord in
+  Ireland who may not be a Scully if he wishes. It is not law or
+  justice, it is not British power, that prevents the enactment of
+  Cromwellian scenes of desolation in every county of that
+  unfortunate country. It is self-interest, with humanity, in the
+  hearts of good men, and the dread of assassination in the hearts
+  of bad men, that prevent at the present moment the immolation of
+  the Irish people to the Moloch of territorial despotism. It is
+  the effort to render impossible those human sacrifices, those
+  holocausts of Christian households, that the priests of feudal
+  landlordism denounce so frantically with loud cries of
+  '<i>confiscation</i>.'</p>
+
+  <p>The 'graces' promised by Charles I. in 1628 demonstrate the
+  real wretchedness of the country to which they were deceitfully
+  offered, and from which they were treacherously withdrawn. From
+  them we learn that the Government soldiers were a terror to more
+  than the king's enemies, that the king's rents were collected at
+  the sword's point, and that numerous monopolies and oppressive
+  taxes impoverished the country. There was little security for
+  estates in any <span class="pagenum"><a name="page212" id=
+  "page212"></a>[pg 212]</span> part of Ireland, and none at all
+  for estates in Connaught. No man could sue out livery for his
+  lands without first taking the oath of the royal supremacy. The
+  soldiers enjoyed an immunity in the perpetration of even capital
+  crimes, for the civil power could not touch them. Those who were
+  married, or had their children baptized, by Roman Catholic
+  priests, were liable to fine and censure. The Protestant bishops
+  and clergy were in great favour and had enormous privileges. The
+  patentees of dissolved religious houses claimed exemption from
+  various assessments. The ministers of the Established Church were
+  entitled to the aid of the Government in exacting reparation for
+  clandestine exercises of spiritual jurisdiction by Roman Catholic
+  priests, and actually appear to have kept private prisons of
+  their own. They exacted tithes from Roman Catholics of everything
+  titheable. The eels of the rivers and lakes, the fishes of the
+  sea paid them toll. The dead furnished the mortuary fees to the
+  'alien church' in the shape of the best clothes which the
+  wardrobe of the defunct afforded. The government of Wentworth,
+  better known as the Earl of Strafford, is highly praised by high
+  churchmen and admirers of Laud, but was execrated by the Irish,
+  who failed to appreciate the mercies of his star-chamber court,
+  or to recognise the justice of his fining juries who returned
+  disagreeable verdicts. The list of grievances, transmitted by the
+  Irish House of Peers in 1641 to the English Government, cannot be
+  regarded as altogether visionary, for it was vouched by the names
+  of lords, spiritual and temporal, whose attachment to the English
+  interest was undoubted. The lord chancellor (Loftus), the
+  archbishop of Dublin (Bulkeley), the bishops of Meath, Clogher,
+  and Killala were no rebels, and yet they protested against the
+  grievances inflicted on Ireland by the tyranny of Strafford.
+  According to these contemporary witnesses, the Irish nobles had
+  been taxed beyond all proportion to the English nobles; Irish
+  peers had been sent to prison although not impeached of treason
+  or any capital offence; the deputy had managed to <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page213" id="page213"></a>[pg 213]</span> keep
+  all proxies of peers in the hands of his creatures, and thus to
+  sway the Upper House to his will; the trade of the kingdom had
+  been destroyed; and the 'graces' of 1628 had been denied to the
+  nation, or clogged by provisoes which rendered them a mockery.
+  And yet, in the face of such evidence of misery and
+  misgovernment, the Archbishop of Dublin asserted in a charge to
+  his clergy, that 'all contemporary writers agree in describing
+  the flourishing condition of the island, and its rapid advance in
+  civilisation and wealth, when all its improvement was brought to
+  an end by the catastrophe of the Irish rebellion of
+  1641'&mdash;the very year in which the Irish Houses of Lords and
+  Commons agreed in depicting the condition of Ireland as utterly
+  miserable!</p>
+
+  <p>But Archbishop Trench not only contradicts the authentic
+  contemporary records, in picturing as halcyon days one of the
+  most wretched periods of Irish history, but also wrongfully
+  represents one of the saddest episodes of that history. He
+  reminded his clergy 'that the number of Protestants who were
+  massacred by the Roman Catholics during the rebellion was, by the
+  most moderate estimate, set down as 40,000.' His grace seems to
+  have been unacquainted with the contemporary evidence collected
+  by the Protestant historian Warner, who examined the depositions
+  of 1641, on which the story of the massacre was based, and found
+  the estimate of those who perished in the so-called massacre to
+  have been enormously exaggerated. He calculated the number of
+  those killed, 'upon evidence collected within two years after the
+  rebellion broke out,' at 4,028, besides 8,000 said to have
+  perished through bad usage. The parliament commissioners in
+  Dublin, writing in 1652 to the commissioners in England, say
+  that, 'besides 848 families, there were killed, hanged, burned,
+  and drowned 6,062. Thus there were two estimates&mdash;one of
+  12,000, the other of 10,000&mdash;each of which was far lower
+  than the estimate of 40,000, which his grace calls 'the most
+  moderate.' It turns out, moreover, that the argument based by
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page214" id="page214"></a>[pg
+  214]</span> Archbishop Trench on the false estimate of those said
+  to have been massacred, is wholly worthless for the purpose
+  intended by his grace. The disproportion of Protestants to Roman
+  Catholics, which appears by the census of 1861, cannot be
+  accounted for by the statistics of 1641&mdash;be those statistics
+  true or false. For the proportion of Protestants to Roman
+  Catholics was higher in 1672&mdash;thirty years after the alleged
+  massacre&mdash;than in 1861. The Protestants in 1672, according
+  to Sir W. Petty, numbered 300,000, and the Roman Catholics
+  800,000; while in 1861 there were found in Ireland only 1,293,702
+  Protestants of all denominations to 4,505,265 Roman Catholics. It
+  follows from these figures, as has been already remarked by Dr.
+  Maziere Brady, that there has been a relative decrease of
+  Protestants, as compared with Roman Catholics, of 395,772
+  persons. And this relative decrease was in no way
+  affected&mdash;inasmuch as it took place since the year
+  1672&mdash;by the alleged massacre of 1641.</p>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote33" name="footnote33"></a><b>Footnote 1:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag33">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>Darcy Magee, vol. ii. p. 128.</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote34" name="footnote34"></a><b>Footnote 2:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag34">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>Prendergast, the Cromwellian Settlement, p. 16.</p>
+  </blockquote><span class="pagenum"><a name="page215" id=
+  "page215"></a>[pg 215]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+
+  <h3>THE PURITAN PLANTATION.</h3>
+
+  <p>It is a fearful thing to undertake the destruction of a nation
+  by slaughter, starvation, and banishment. When we read of such
+  enormities, perpetrated by some 'scourge of God,' in heathen
+  lands and distant ages, we are horrified, and we thank Providence
+  that it is our lot to be born in a Christian country. But what
+  must the world think of our Christianity when they read of the
+  things that, in a most Bible-reading age, Englishmen did in
+  Ireland?</p>
+
+  <p>The work of transplanting was slow, difficult, and intensely
+  painful to the Irish, for Connaught was bleak, sterile, and
+  desolate, and the weather was inclement. The natural protectors
+  of many families had been killed or banished, and the women and
+  children clung with frantic fondness to their old homes. But for
+  the feelings of such afflicted ones the conquerors had no
+  sympathy. On the contrary, they believed that God, angry at their
+  lingering, sent his judgments as a punishment. Mr. Prendergast
+  has published a number of letters, written at the time by the
+  English authorities and others, from which some interesting
+  matters may be gleaned. The town of Cashel had got a dispensation
+  to remain. 'But,' says the writer, 'the Lord, who is a jealous
+  God, and more knowing of, as well as jealous against their
+  iniquity than we, by a fire on the 23rd inst. hath burned down
+  the whole town in little less than a quarter of an hour, except a
+  few houses that a few English lived in,' &amp;c. In consequence
+  of the delay, the Irish began to break <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page216" id="page216"></a>[pg 216]</span> into
+  'torying' (plundering). 'The tories fly out and increase. What
+  strange people, not to starve in peace.' To be inclined to
+  plunder under such circumstances, with so gracious a Government,
+  must be held to be a proof of great natural depravity, as well as
+  of a peculiar incapacity to respect, or even to understand, the
+  rights of property.</p>
+
+  <p>At length, however, the land was ready for the enjoyment of
+  the officers and soldiers. On August 20, 1655, the lord deputy,
+  Fleetwood, thus addressed one of the officers:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'Sir,&mdash;In pursuance of his highness's command, the
+  council here with myself and chief officers of the army having
+  concluded about disbanding part of the army, in order to
+  lessening the present charge, it is fit that your troope be one.
+  And, accordingly, I desire you would march such as are willing to
+  plant of them into the barony of Shelmaliere, in the county of
+  Wexford, at or before the first day of September, where you shall
+  be put into possession of your lands, for your arrears, according
+  to the rates agreed on by the committee and agents. As also you
+  shall have, upon the place wherein you are, so much money as
+  shall answer the present three months' arrear due to you and your
+  men, but to continue no longer the pay of the army than upon the
+  muster of this August. The sooner you march your men the better;
+  thereby you will be enabled to make provision for the winter.'
+  After some sweetening hints that they will be perhaps paid
+  hereafter as a militia he concludes:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'And great is your mercy, that after all your hardships and
+  difficulties you may sit down, and, if the Lord give His
+  blessing, may reape some fruits of your past services. Do not
+  think it a blemish or underrating of your past services, that you
+  are now disbanded; but look upon it as of the Lord's appointing,
+  and with cheerfulness submit thereunto; and the blessing of the
+  Lord be upon you all, and keep you in His fear, and give you
+  hearts to observe your past experience of signal appearances. And
+  that this fear may be seen in your hearts, and that you may be
+  kept from the sins and pollutions which God hath so eminently
+  witnessed <span class="pagenum"><a name="page217" id=
+  "page217"></a>[pg 217]</span> against in those whose possessions
+  you are to take up, is the desire of him who is</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>'Your very affectionate friend, to love and serve you,</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>'CHARLES FLEETWOOD.'</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>He congratulated them that, 'having by the blessing of God
+  obtained their peace, they might sit down in the enjoyment of the
+  enemies' fields and houses, which they planted not nor built not.
+  They had no reason to repent their services, considering how
+  great an issue God had given.' Yet many refused to settle, and
+  sold their debentures to their officers. What could they do with
+  the farms? They had no horses or ploughs, no cattle to stock the
+  land, no labourers to till it. Above all, they had no women.
+  Flogging was the punishment for amours with Irish girls, and
+  marriage with the idolatrous race was forbidden under heavy
+  penalties. Hence the soldiers pretended that their wives were
+  converted to Protestantism. But this was to be tested by a strict
+  examination of each as to the state of her soul, and the means by
+  which she had been enlightened. If she did not stand the test,
+  her husband was degraded in rank, and, if disbanded, he was
+  liable to be sent to Connaught with the fair seducer. The charms
+  of the Irish women, however, proved irresistible, and the hearts
+  of the pious rulers were sorely troubled by this danger.</p>
+
+  <p>'In 1652, amongst the first plans for paying the army their
+  arrears in land, it was suggested there should be a law that any
+  officers or soldiers marrying Irishwomen should lose their
+  commands, forfeit their arrears, and be made incapable of
+  inheriting lands in Ireland. No such provision, however, was
+  introduced into the act, because it provided against this danger
+  more effectually by ordering the women to transplant, together
+  with the whole nation, to Connaught. Those in authority, however,
+  ought never to have let the English officers and soldiers come in
+  contact with the Irishwomen, or should have ordered another army
+  of young Englishwomen over, if they did not intend this provision
+  to be <span class="pagenum"><a name="page218" id=
+  "page218"></a>[pg 218]</span> nugatory. Planted in a wasted
+  country, amongst the former owners and their families, with
+  little to do but to make love, and no lips to make love to but
+  Irish, love or marriage must follow between them as necessarily
+  as a geometrical conclusion follows from the premises. For there
+  were but few who (in the language of a Cromwellian patriot),</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i10">&mdash;&mdash;'rather than turne</p>
+
+      <p>From English principles, would sooner burne;</p>
+
+      <p>And rather than marrie an Irish wife,</p>
+
+      <p>Would batchellers remain for tearme of life.'</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>About forty years after the Cromwellian Settlement, and just
+  seven years after the Battle of the Boyne, the following was
+  written: 'We cannot so much wonder at this [the quick
+  "degenerating" of the English of Ireland], when we consider how
+  many there are of the children of Oliver's soldiers in Ireland
+  who cannot speak one word of English. And (which is strange) the
+  same may be said of some of the children of King William's
+  soldiers who came but t'other day into the country. This
+  misfortune is owing to the marrying Irishwomen for want of
+  English, who come not over in so great numbers as are requisite.
+  'Tis sure that no Englishman in Ireland knows what his children
+  may be as things are now; they cannot well live in the country
+  without growing Irish; for none take such care as Sir Jerome
+  Alexander [second justice of the Common Pleas in Ireland from
+  1661 to his death in 1670], who left his estate to his daughter,
+  but made the gift void if she married any Irishman;' Sir Jerome
+  including in this term 'any lord of Ireland, any archbishop,
+  bishop, prelate, any baronet, knight, esquire, or gentleman of
+  Irish extraction or descent, born and bred in Ireland, or having
+  his relations and means of subsistence there,' and expressly, of
+  course, any 'Papist.'&mdash;'True Way to render Ireland happy and
+  secure; or, a Discourse, wherein 'tis shown that 'tis the
+  interest both of England and Ireland to encourage foreign
+  Protestants to plant in Ireland; in a letter to the Hon. Robert
+  Molesworth.'<a id="footnotetag35" name=
+  "footnotetag35"></a><a href=
+  "#footnote35"><sup>1</sup></a></p><span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page219" id="page219"></a>[pg 219]</span>
+
+  <p>The impossibility of getting a sufficient number of settlers
+  from England to cultivate the land, produce food, and render the
+  estates worth holding, led to some fraudulent transactions for
+  the benefit of the natives who were 'loath to leave.' The
+  officers in various counties got general orders giving
+  dispensations from the necessity of planting with English
+  tenants, and liberty to take Irish, provided they were not
+  proprietors or swordsmen. But the proprietors who had established
+  friendships with their conquerors secretly became tenants under
+  them to parts of their former estates, ensuring thereby the
+  connivance of their new landlords against their transplantation.
+  On June 1, 1655, the commissioners for the affairs of Ireland
+  (Fleetwood, lord deputy, one of them), being then at Limerick,
+  discovered this fraud, and issued a peremptory order revoking all
+  former dispensations for English proprietors to plant with Irish
+  tenants; and they enjoined upon the governor of Limerick and all
+  other officers the removing of the proprietors thus sheltered and
+  their families into Connaught, on or before that day three weeks.
+  But, happily, says Mr. Prendergast, all penal laws against a
+  nation are difficult of execution. The officers still connived
+  with many of the poor Irish gentry and sheltered them, which
+  caused Fleetwood, then commander of the parliament forces in
+  Ireland, upon his return to Dublin, and within a fortnight after
+  the prescribed limit for their removal was expired, to thunder
+  forth from Dublin Castle a severe reprimand to all officers thus
+  offending. Their neglect to search for and apprehend the
+  transplantable proprietors was denounced as a great dishonour and
+  breach of discipline of the army; and their entertaining any of
+  them as tenants was declared a hindrance to the planting of
+  Ireland with English Protestants. 'I do therefore,' the order
+  continued, 'hereby order and declare, that if any officer or
+  soldier under my command shall offend by neglect of his duty in
+  searching for and apprehending all such persons as by the
+  declaration of November 30, 1654, are to transplant themselves
+  into Connaught; or by entertaining them as <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page220" id="page220"></a>[pg 220]</span>
+  tenants on his lands, or as servants under him, he shall be
+  punished by the articles of war as negligent of his duty,
+  according to the demerit of such his neglect.'</p>
+
+  <p>The English parliament resolved to clear out the population of
+  all the principal cities and seaport towns, though nearly all
+  founded and inhabited by Danes or English, and men of English
+  descent. In order to raise funds for the war, the following towns
+  were offered to English merchants for sale at the prices
+  annexed:&mdash;Limerick, with 12,000 acres contiguous, for
+  30,000<i>l.</i>, and a rent of 625<i>l.</i> payable to the state;
+  Waterford, with 1,500 acres contiguous, at the same rate; Galway,
+  with 10,000 acres, for 7,500<i>l.</i>, and a rent of
+  520<i>l.</i>; Wexford, with 6,000 acres, for 5,000<i>l.</i>, and
+  a rent of 156<i>l.</i> 4<i>s.</i></p>
+
+  <p>There were no bidders; but still the Government adhered to its
+  determination to clear out the Irish, and supply their place with
+  a new English population. Artisans were excepted, but strictly
+  limited in number, each case being particularly described and
+  registered, while dispensations were granted to certain useful
+  persons, on the petition of the settlers who needed their
+  services.</p>
+
+  <p>On July 8 in the same year, the governor of Clonmel was
+  authorised to grant dispensations to forty-three persons in a
+  list annexed, or as many of them as he should think fit, being
+  artificers and workmen, to stay for such time as he might judge
+  convenient, the whole time not to exceed March 25, 1655. On June
+  5, 1654, the governor of Dublin was authorised to grant licences
+  to such inhabitants to continue in the city (notwithstanding the
+  declaration for all Irish to quit) as he should judge convenient,
+  the licences to contain the name, age, colour of hair,
+  countenance, and stature of every such person; and the licence
+  not to exceed twenty days, and the cause of their stay to be
+  inserted in each licence. Petitions went up from the old native
+  inhabitants of Limerick; from the fishermen of Limerick; from the
+  mayor and inhabitants of Cashel, who were all ordered to
+  transplant; but, notwithstanding these orders, many of them
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page221" id="page221"></a>[pg
+  221]</span> still clung about the towns, sheltered by the
+  English, who found the benefit of their services.</p>
+
+  <p>The deserted cities of course fell speedily into ruins. Lord
+  Inchiquin, president of Munster, put many artisans, menial
+  servants, grooms, &amp;c. in the houses, to take care of them in
+  Cork; still about 3,000 good houses in that city, and as many in
+  Youghal, out of which the owners had been driven, were destroyed
+  by the soldiers, who used the timber for fuel. The council
+  addressed the following letter to Secretary Thurloe:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>'Dublin Castle, March 4, 1656.</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>'Right Honourable,&mdash;The council, having lately taken into
+  their most serious consideration what may be most for the
+  security of this country, and the encouragement of the English to
+  come over and plant here, did think fitt that all Popish
+  recusants, as wel proprietors as others, whose habitations are in
+  any port-towns, walled-towns, or garrisons, and who did not
+  before the 15th of September 1643 (being the time mentioned in
+  the act of 1653 for the encouragement of adventurers and
+  soldiers), and ever since profess the Protestant religion, should
+  remove themselves and their families out of all such places, and
+  two miles at the least distant therefrom, before the 20th of May
+  next; and being desirous that the English people may take notice,
+  that by this means there will be both security and conveniency of
+  habitation for such as shall be willing to come over as planters,
+  they have commanded me to send you the enclosed declaration, and
+  to desire you that you will take some course, whereby it may be
+  made known unto the people for their encouragement to come over
+  and plant in this country.</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>'Your humble servant,</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>'THOMAS HERBERT, Clerk of the Council.'</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>On July 23, 1655, the inhabitants of Galway were commanded to
+  quit the town for ever by the 1st of November following, the
+  owners of houses getting compensation at eight years'
+  purchase.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page222" id=
+  "page222"></a>[pg 222]</span>
+
+  <p>'On October 30, this order was executed. All the inhabitants,
+  except the sick and bedrid, were at once banished, to provide
+  accommodation for English Protestants, whose integrity to the
+  state should entitle them to be trusted in a place of such
+  importance; and Sir Charles Coote, on November 7, received the
+  thanks of the Government for clearing the town, with a request
+  that he would remove the sick and bedrid as soon as the season
+  might permit, and take care that the houses while empty were not
+  spoiled by the soldiery. The town was thus made ready for the
+  English. There was a large debt of 10,000<i>l.</i>, due to
+  Liverpool for their loss and suffering for the good cause. The
+  eminent deservings and losses of the city of Gloucester also had
+  induced the parliament to order them 10,000<i>l.</i>, to be
+  satisfied in forfeited lands in Ireland. The commissioners of
+  Ireland now offered forfeited houses in Galway, rated at ten
+  years' purchase, to the inhabitants of Liverpool and Gloucester,
+  to satisfy their respective debts, and they were both to arrange
+  about the planting of it with English Protestants. To induce them
+  to accept the proposal, the commissioners enlarged upon the
+  advantages of Galway. It lay open for trade with Spain, the
+  Straits, the West Indies, and other places; no town or port in
+  the three nations, London excepted, was more considerable. It had
+  many noble uniform buildings of marble, though many of the houses
+  had become ruinous by reason of the war, and the waste done by
+  the impoverished English dwelling there. No Irish were permitted
+  to live in the city, nor within three miles of it. If it were
+  only properly inhabited by English, it might have a more hopeful
+  gain by trade than when it was in the hands of the Irish that
+  lived there. There never was a better opportunity of undertaking
+  a plantation and settling manufacturers there than the present,
+  and they suggested that it might become another Derry.'<a id=
+  "footnotetag36" name="footnotetag36"></a><a href=
+  "#footnote36"><sup>2</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>Some writers, sickened with the state of things in Ireland,
+  and impatient of the inaction of our rulers, and of the
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page223" id="page223"></a>[pg
+  223]</span> tedious forms of constitutional government, have
+  exclaimed: 'Oh for one day of Oliver Cromwell!' Well, Ireland had
+  him and his worthy officers for many years. They had
+  opportunities, which never can be hoped for again, of rooting out
+  the Irish and their religion. '<i>Thorough</i>' was their word.
+  They dared everything, and shrunk from no consequences. They
+  found Dublin full of Catholics; and on June 19, 1651, Mr. John
+  Hewson had the felicity of making the following report on the
+  state of religion in the Irish metropolis:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'Mr. Winter, a godly man, came with the commissioners, and
+  they flock to hear him with great desire; besides, there is in
+  Dublin, since January last, about 750 Papists forsaken their
+  priests and the masse, and attends the public ordinances, I
+  having appointed Mr. Chambers, a minister, to instruct them at
+  his own house once a week. They all repaire to him with much
+  affection, and desireth satisfaction. And though Dublin hath
+  formerly swarmed with Papists, I know none (now) there but one,
+  who is a chirurgeon, and a peaceable man. It is much hoped the
+  glad tidings of salvation will be acceptable in Ireland, and that
+  this savage people may see the salvation of God.'</p>
+
+  <p>Political economists tell us that when population is greatly
+  thinned by war, or pestilence, or famine, Nature hastens to fill
+  up the void by the extraordinary fecundity of those who remain.
+  The Irish must have multiplied very fast in Connaught during the
+  Commonwealth; and the mixture of Saxon and Celtic blood resulting
+  from the union of the Cromwellian soldiers with the daughters of
+  the land must have produced a numerous as well as a very vigorous
+  breed in Wexford, Kilkenny, Tipperary, Waterford, Cork, East and
+  West Meath, King's and Queen's Counties, and Tyrone. But these
+  were not 'wholly a right seed.' This was to be found only in the
+  union of English with English, newly arrived from the land of the
+  free. The more precious this seed was, the more care there should
+  be in bringing it into the field. This matter constituted one of
+  the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page224" id="page224"></a>[pg
+  224]</span> great difficulties of the plantation. There were
+  plenty of Irish midwives: they might have been affectionate and
+  careful, possibly skilful; but if they had any good quality, the
+  council could not see it. On the contrary, it gave them credit
+  for many bad qualities, the worst of all being their idolatry and
+  disloyalty. It was really dreadful to think of English mothers
+  and their infants being at the mercy of Irish nurses.
+  Consequently, after much deliberation, and 'laying the matter
+  before the Lord' in prayer, it was resolved to bring over a state
+  nurse from England, and to her special care were to be entrusted
+  all the <i>accouchements</i> in the city of Dublin. Endowed with
+  such a monopoly, it was natural enough that she should be an
+  object of envy and dislike to those midwives whom she had
+  supplanted. She was therefore annoyed and insulted while passing
+  through the streets. To put a stop to these outrages, a
+  proclamation was issued from Dublin Castle for her special
+  protection, which began thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p><i>By the Commissioners of Parliament for the Affairs of
+  Ireland</i>.</p>
+
+  <p>'Whereas we are informed by divers persons of repute and
+  godliness, that Mrs. Jane Preswick hath, through the blessing of
+  God, been very successful within Dublin and parts about, through
+  the carefull and skillfull discharge of her midwife's duty, and
+  instrumental to helpe sundry poore women who needed her helpe,
+  which bathe abounded to the comfourte and preservation of many
+  English women, who (being come into a strange country) had
+  otherwise been destitute of due helpe, and necessitated to expose
+  their lives to the mercy of Irish midwives, ignorant in the
+  profession, and bearing little good will to any of the English
+  nation, which being duly considered, we thought fitt to evidence
+  this our acceptance thereof, and willingness that a person so
+  eminently qualified for publique good and so well reported of for
+  piety and knowledge in her art should receive encouragement and
+  protection,' &amp;c.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page225"
+  id="page225"></a>[pg 225]</span>
+
+  <p>Cromwell and his ministers did not hesitate about applying
+  heroic remedies for what they conceived to be grievances. The
+  Irish parliament was abolished, like the Irish churches, the
+  Irish cities, and everything else that could be called Irish,
+  except the thing for which they fought&mdash;<i>the land</i>,
+  which was to be Irish no more. The new England which the
+  Protector established in the Island of Saints was represented,
+  like Scotland, in the united parliament at
+  Westminster&mdash;which first assembled in 1657. In that
+  parliament, Major Morgan represented the county of Wicklow. In
+  speaking against some proposed taxation for Ireland, he said,
+  among other things, the country was under very heavy charges for
+  rewards paid for the destruction of three beasts&mdash;the wolf,
+  the priest, and the tory. 'We have three beasts to destroy,' he
+  said, 'that lay burdens upon us. The first is a wolf, on whom we
+  lay 5<i>l.</i> a head if a dog, and 10<i>l.</i> if a bitch. The
+  second beast is a priest, on whose head we lay 10<i>l.</i>; if he
+  be eminent, more. The third beast is a tory, on whose head, if he
+  be a public tory, we lay 20<i>l.</i>; and 40<i>s.</i> on a
+  private tory. Your army cannot catch them: the Irish bring them
+  in; brothers and cousins cut one another's throats.'</p>
+
+  <p>In May, 1653, the council issued the following printed
+  declaration. 'Upon serious consideration had of the great
+  multitudes of poore swarming in all parts of this nacion,
+  occasioned by the devastation of the country, and by the habits
+  of licentiousness and idleness which the generality of the people
+  have acquired in the time of this rebellion; insomuch that
+  frequently some are found feeding on carrion and
+  weeds,&mdash;some starved in the highways, and many times poor
+  children who have lost their parents, or have been deserted by
+  them, are found exposed to and some of them fed upon <i>by
+  ravening wolves and other beasts and birds of prey.</i>'</p>
+
+  <p>No wonder the wolves multiplied and became very bold, when
+  they fed upon such dainty fare as Irish children! By what
+  infatuation, by what diabolical fanaticism were those rulers
+  persuaded that they were doing God a service, or discharging
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page226" id="page226"></a>[pg
+  226]</span> the functions of a Government, in carrying out such a
+  policy, and consigning human beings to such a fate!</p>
+
+  <p>By a printed declaration of June 29, 1653, published July 1,
+  1656,<a id="footnotetag37" name="footnotetag37"></a><a href=
+  "#footnote37"><sup>3</sup></a> the commanders of the various
+  districts were to appoint days and times for hunting the wolf;
+  and persons destroying wolves and bringing their heads to the
+  commissioners of the revenue of the precinct were to receive for
+  the head of a bitch wolf, 6 <i>l</i>; of a dog wolf, 5 <i>l</i>;
+  for the head of every cub that preyed by himself, 40<i>s.</i>;
+  and for the head of every sucking cub, 10 <i>s</i>: The
+  assessments on several counties to reimburse the treasury for
+  these advances became, as appears from Major Morgan's speech, a
+  serious charge. In corroboration it appears that in March, 1655,
+  there was due from the precinct of Galway 243<i>l.</i> 5<i>s.</i>
+  4<i>d.</i> for rewards paid on this account. But the most curious
+  evidence of their numbers is that lands lying only nine miles
+  north of Dublin were leased by the state in the year 1653, under
+  conditions of keeping a hunting establishment with a pack of wolf
+  hounds for killing the wolves, part of the rent to be discounted
+  in wolves' heads, at the rate in the declaration of June 29,
+  1653. Under this lease Captain Edward Piers was to have all the
+  state lands in the barony of Dunboyne in the county of Meath,
+  valued at 543<i>l.</i> 8<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i>, at a rent greater
+  by 100<i>l.</i> a year than they then yielded in rent and
+  contribution, for five years from May 1 following, on the terms
+  of maintaining at Dublin and Dunboyne three wolf-dogs, two
+  English mastiffs, a pack of hounds of sixteen couple (three
+  whereof to hunt the wolf only), a knowing huntsman, and two men
+  and one boy. Captain Piers was to bring to the commissioners of
+  revenue at Dublin a stipulated number of wolf-heads in the first
+  year and a diminishing number every year; but for every wolf-head
+  whereby he fell short of the stipulated number, 5<i>l.</i> was to
+  be defalked from his salary.<a id="footnotetag38" name=
+  "footnotetag38"></a><a href=
+  "#footnote38"><sup>4</sup></a></p><span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page227" id="page227"></a>[pg 227]</span>
+
+  <p>Twenty pounds was paid for the discovery of a priest, the
+  second 'burdensome beast,' and to harbour him was death. Again I
+  avail myself of the researches of Mr. Prendergast, to give a few
+  orders on this subject.</p>
+
+  <p>'<i>August</i> 4, 1654.&mdash;Ordered, on the petition of
+  Roger Begs, priest, now prisoner in Dublin, setting forth his
+  miserable condition by being nine months in prison, and desiring
+  liberty to go among his friends into the country for some relief;
+  that he be released upon giving sufficient security that within
+  four months he do transport himself to foreign parts, beyond the
+  seas, never to return, and that during that time he do not
+  exercise any part of his priestly functions, nor move from where
+  he shall choose to reside my above five miles, without
+  permission. Ordered, same date, on the petition of William Shiel,
+  priest, that the said William Shiel being old, lame, and weak,
+  and not able to travel without crutches, he be permitted to
+  reside in Connaught where the Governor of Athlone shall see
+  fitting, provided, however, he do not remove one mile beyond the
+  appointed place without licence, nor use his priestly
+  function.'</p>
+
+  <p>At first the place of transportation was Spain.
+  Thus:&mdash;'<i>February</i> 1, 1653. Ordered that the Governor
+  of Dublin take effectual course whereby the priests now in the
+  several prisons of Dublin be forthwith shipped with the party
+  going for Spain; and that they be delivered to the officers on
+  shipboard for that purpose: care to be taken that, under the
+  colour of exportation, they be not permitted to go into the
+  country.'</p>
+
+  <p>'<i>May</i> 29, 1654.&mdash;Upon reading the petition of the
+  Popish priests now in the jails of Dublin; ordered, that the
+  Governor of Dublin take security of such persons as shall
+  undertake the transportation of them, that they shall with the
+  first opportunity be shipped for some parts in amity with the
+  Commonwealth, provided the five pounds for each of the said
+  priests due to the persons that took them, pursuant to the tenor
+  of a declaration dated January 6, 1653, be first paid or
+  secured.'</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page228" id=
+  "page228"></a>[pg 228]</span>
+
+  <p>The commissioners give reasons for this policy, which are
+  identical with what we hear constantly repeated at the present
+  day in Ireland and England and in most of the newspapers
+  conducted by Protestants. For two centuries the burden of all
+  comments on Irish affairs is 'the country would be happy but for
+  priests and agitators.' 'Hang or banish the priests!' cry some
+  very amiable and respectable persons, 'and then we shall have
+  peace.' 'We can make nothing of those priests,' says the
+  improving landlord, or agent, 'they will not look us straight in
+  the face.'</p>
+
+  <p>On December 8, 1655, in a letter from the commissioners to the
+  Governor of Barbadoes, advising him of the approach of a ship
+  with a cargo of proprietors deprived of their lands, and then
+  seized for not transplanting, or banished for having no visible
+  means of support, they add that amongst them were three priests;
+  and the commissioners particularly desire they may be so employed
+  as they may not return again where that sort of people are able
+  to do much mischief, having so great an influence over the Popish
+  Irish, and alienating their affections from the present
+  Government. 'Yet these penalties did not daunt them, or prevent
+  their recourse to Ireland. In consequence of the great increase
+  of priests towards the close of the year 1655, a general arrest
+  by the justices of the peace was ordered, under which, in April,
+  1656, the prisons in every part of Ireland seem to have been
+  filled to overflowing. On May 3, the governors of the respective
+  precincts were ordered to send them with sufficient guards from
+  garrison to garrison to Carrickfergus, to be there put on board
+  such ship as should sail with the first opportunity for the
+  Barbadoes. One may imagine the pains of this toilsome journey by
+  the petition of one of them. Paul Cashin, an aged priest,
+  apprehended at Maryborough, and sent to Philipstown on the way to
+  Carrickfergus, there fell desperately sick, and, being also
+  extremely aged, was in danger of perishing in restraint for want
+  of friends and means of relief. On August 27, 1656, the
+  commissioners, having ascertained the truth of his petition,
+  ordered him <span class="pagenum"><a name="page229" id=
+  "page229"></a>[pg 229]</span> sixpence a day during his sickness;
+  and (in answer probably to this poor prisoner's prayer to be
+  spared from transportation) their order directed that it should
+  be continued to him in his travel thence (after his recovery) to
+  Carrickfergus, in order to his transportation to the
+  Barbadoes.'</p>
+
+  <p>At Carrickfergus the horrors of approaching exile seem to have
+  shaken the firmness of some of them; for on September 23, 1656,
+  Colonel Cooper, who had the charge of the prison, reporting that
+  several would under their hands renounce the Pope's supremacy,
+  and frequent the Protestant meetings and no other, he was
+  directed to dispense with the transportation, if they could give
+  good Protestant security for the sincerity of their
+  professions.</p>
+
+  <p>As for the third beast&mdash;the tory, the following extract
+  gives an idea of the class to which he belonged, or, rather, from
+  which he sprang.</p>
+
+  <p>'And whereas the children, grandchildren, brothers, nephews,
+  uncles, and next pretended heirs of the persons attainted, do
+  remain in the provinces of Leinster, Ulster, and Munster, having
+  little or no visible estates or subsistence, but living only and
+  coshering upon the common sort of people who were tenants to or
+  followers of the respective ancestors of such persons, waiting an
+  opportunity, as may justly be supposed, to massacre and destroy
+  the English who, as adventurers or souldiers, or their tenants,
+  are set down to plant upon the several lands and estates of the
+  persons so attainted,' they are to transplant or be transported
+  to the English plantations in America.'<a id="footnotetag39"
+  name="footnotetag39"></a><a href=
+  "#footnote39"><sup>5</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>No wonder that Mr. Prendergast exclaims:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'But how must the feelings of national hatred have been
+  heightened, by seeing every where crowds of such unfortunates,
+  their brothers, cousins, kinsmen, and by beholding the whole
+  country given up a prey to hungry insolent soldiers and
+  adventurers from England, mocking their wrongs, and triumphing in
+  their own irresistible power!'</p><span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page230" id="page230"></a>[pg 230]</span>
+
+  <p>Every possible mode of repression that has been devised at the
+  present time as a remedy for Ribbonism was then tried with
+  unflinching determination. John Symonds, an English settler, was
+  murdered near the garrison town of Timolin, in the county
+  Kildare. All the Irish inhabitants of the town and neighbourhood
+  were immediately transported to Connaught as a punishment for the
+  crime. A few months after two more settlers were murdered at
+  Lackagh.</p>
+
+  <p>'All the Irish in the townland of Lackagh were seized; four of
+  them by sentence of court-martial were hanged for the murder, or
+  for not preventing it; and all the rest, thirty-seven in number,
+  including two priests, were on November 27 delivered to the
+  captain of the "Wexford" frigate, to take to Waterford, there to
+  be handed over to Mr. Norton, a Bristol merchant, to be sold as
+  bond slaves to the sugar-planters in the Barbadoes. Among these
+  were Mrs. Margery Fitzgerald, of the age of fourscore years, and
+  her husband, Mr. Henry Fitzgerald of Lackagh; although (as it
+  afterwards appeared) the tories had by their frequent robberies
+  much infested that gentleman and his tenants&mdash;discovery that
+  seems to have been made only after the king's restoration.'</p>
+
+  <p>The penalties against the tories themselves were to allow them
+  no quarter when caught, and to set a price upon their heads. The
+  ordinary price for the head of a tory was 40<i>s.</i>; for
+  leaders of tories, or distinguished men, it varied from
+  5<i>l.</i> to 30<i>l.</i></p>
+
+  <p>'But,' continues Mr. Prendergast, 'a more effective way of
+  suppressing tories seems to have been to induce them, as already
+  mentioned, to betray or murder one another&mdash;a measure
+  continued after the Restoration, during the absence of
+  parliaments, by acts and orders of state, and re-enacted by the
+  first parliament summoned after the Revolution, when in that and
+  the following reigns almost every provision of the rule of the
+  parliament of England in Ireland was re-enacted by the
+  parliaments of Ireland, composed of the soldiers and adventurers
+  of Cromwell's day, or new <span class="pagenum"><a name="page231"
+  id="page231"></a>[pg 231]</span> English and Scotch capitalists.
+  In 1695 any tory killing two other tories proclaimed and on their
+  keeping was entitled to pardon&mdash;a measure which put such
+  distrust and alarm among their bands on finding one of their
+  number so killed, that it became difficult to kill a second.
+  Therefore, in 1718, it was declared sufficient qualification for
+  pardon for a tory to kill one of his fellow-tories. This law was
+  continued in 1755 for twenty-one years, and only expired in 1776.
+  Tory-hunting and tory-murdering thus became common pursuits. No
+  wonder, therefore, after so lengthened an existence, to find
+  traces of the tories in our household words. Few, however, are
+  now aware that the well-known Irish nursery rhymes have so truly
+  historical a foundation:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>'Ho! brother Teig, what is your story?'</p>
+
+      <p>'I went to the wood and shot a tory:'</p>
+
+      <p>'I went to the wood, and shot another;'</p>
+
+      <p>'Was it the same, or was it his brother?'</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>'I hunted him in, and I hunted him out,</p>
+
+      <p>Three times through the bog, and about and about;</p>
+
+      <p>Till out of a bush I spied his head,</p>
+
+      <p>So I levelled my gun and shot him dead.'</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>After the war of 1688, the tories received fresh accessions,
+  and, a great part of the kingdom being left waste and desolate,
+  they betook themselves to these wilds, and greatly discouraged
+  the replanting of the kingdom by their frequent murders of the
+  new Scotch and English planters; the Irish 'choosing rather' (so
+  runs the language of the act) 'to suffer strangers to be robbed
+  and despoiled, than to apprehend or convict the offenders.' In
+  order, therefore, for the better encouragement of strangers to
+  plant and inhabit the kingdom, any persons presented as tories,
+  by the gentlemen of a county, and proclaimed as such by the lord
+  lieutenant, might be shot as outlaws and traitors; and any
+  persons harbouring them were to be guilty of high treason.<a id=
+  "footnotetag40" name="footnotetag40"></a><a href=
+  "#footnote40"><sup>6</sup></a> Rewards were offered for the
+  taking or killing of them; and the inhabitants of the barony, of
+  the ancient native race, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page232"
+  id="page232"></a>[pg 232]</span> were to make satisfaction for
+  all robberies and spoils. If persons were maimed or dismembered
+  by tories, they were to be compensated by 10<i>l.</i>; and the
+  families of persons murdered were to receive 30<i>l.</i>'</p>
+
+  <p>The Restoration at length brought relief and enlargement to
+  the imprisoned Irish nation. They rushed across the Shannon to
+  see their old homes; they returned to the desolated cities, full
+  of hope that the king for whom they had suffered so much would
+  reward their loyalty, by giving them back their
+  inheritances&mdash;the 'just satisfaction' promised at Breda to
+  those who had been unfairly deprived of their estates. The Ulster
+  Presbyterians also counted on his gratitude for their devotion to
+  his cause, notwithstanding the wrongs inflicted on them by
+  Strafford and the bishops in the name of his father. But they
+  were equally doomed to disappointment. Coote and Broghill reigned
+  in Dublin Castle as lords justices. The first parliament
+  assembled in Dublin for twenty years, contained an overwhelming
+  majority of undertakers, adventurers, and Puritan representatives
+  of boroughs, from which all the Catholic electors had been
+  excluded. 'The Protestant interest,' a phrase of tremendous
+  potency in the subsequent history of Ireland, counted 198 members
+  against 64 Catholics in the Commons, and in the Lords 72 against
+  21 peers. A court was established under an act of parliament in
+  Dublin, to try the claims of 'nocent' and 'innocent' proprietors.
+  The judges, who were Englishmen, declared in their first session
+  that 168 were innocent to 19 nocent. The Protestant interest was
+  alarmed; and, through the influence of Ormond, then lord
+  lieutenant, the duration of the court was limited, and when it
+  was compelled to close its labours, only 800 out of 3,000 cases
+  had been decided. If the proportions of nocent and innocent were
+  the same, an immense number of innocent persons were deprived of
+  their property. In 1675, fifteen years after the Restoration, the
+  English settlers were in possession of 4,500,000 acres, while the
+  old owners retained 2,250,000 acres. By an act passed in 1665, it
+  was declared <span class="pagenum"><a name="page233" id=
+  "page233"></a>[pg 233]</span> that no Papist, who had not already
+  been adjudged innocent, should ever be entitled to claim any
+  lands or settlements.'</p>
+
+  <p>Any movement on the part of the Roman Catholics during this
+  reign, and indeed, ever since, always raised an alarm of the
+  'Protestant interest' in danger. While the panic lasted the
+  Catholics were subjected to cruel restrictions and privations.
+  Thus Ormond, by proclamation, prohibited Catholics from entering
+  the castle of Dublin, or any other fortress; from holding fairs
+  or markets within the walls of fortified towns, and from carrying
+  arms to such places. By another proclamation, he ordered all the
+  <i>relatives</i> of known 'tories' to be arrested and banished
+  the kingdom, within fourteen days, unless such tories were killed
+  or surrendered within that time. There was one tory for whose
+  arrest all ordinary means failed. This was the celebrated Redmond
+  O'Hanlon, still one of the most popular heroes with the Irish
+  peasantry. He was known on the continent as Count O'Hanlon, and
+  was the brother of the owner of Tandragee, now the pretty Irish
+  seat of the Duke of Manchester. As no one would betray this
+  outlaw, who levied heavy contributions from the settlers in
+  Ulster, it was alleged and believed that the viceroy hired a
+  relative to shoot him. 'Count O'Hanlon,' says Mr. D. Magee, 'a
+  gentleman of ancient lineage, as accomplished as Orrery, or
+  Ossory, was indeed an outlaw to the code then in force; but the
+  stain of his cowardly assassination must for ever blot the
+  princely escutcheon of James, Duke of Ormond.'<a id=
+  "footnotetag41" name="footnotetag41"></a><a href=
+  "#footnote41"><sup>7</sup></a></p>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote35" name="footnote35"></a><b>Footnote 1:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag35">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>Cromwellian Settlement, p. 130.</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote36" name="footnote36"></a><b>Footnote 2:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag36">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>The Cromwellian Settlement.</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote37" name="footnote37"></a><b>Footnote 3:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag37">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>A/84, p. 255. Republished 7th July, 1656.&mdash;'Book of
+    Printed Declarations of the Commissioners for the Affairs of
+    Ireland.' British Museum.</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote38" name="footnote38"></a><b>Footnote 4:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag38">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>Cromwellian Settlement, p. 154.</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote39" name="footnote39"></a><b>Footnote 5:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag39">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>Act for Attainder of the Rebels in Ireland, passed 1656.
+    Scobell's 'Acts and Ordinances.'</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote40" name="footnote40"></a><b>Footnote 6:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag40">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>The Cromwellian Settlement, p. 163, &amp;c.</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote41" name="footnote41"></a><b>Footnote 7:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag41">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>See 'The Tory War of Ulster,' by John P. Prendergast, author
+    of 'The Cromwellian Settlement.' This pamphlet abounds in the
+    most curious information, collected from judicial records,
+    descriptive of Ireland from the Restoration to the
+    Revolution&mdash;A.D. 1660-1690.</p>
+  </blockquote><span class="pagenum"><a name="page234" id=
+  "page234"></a>[pg 234]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+
+  <h3>THE PENAL CODE, A NEW SYSTEM OF LAND-WAR.</h3>
+
+  <p>The accession of James II. was well calculated to have an
+  intoxicating effect on the Irish race. He was a Catholic, he
+  undertook to effect a counter-reformation. He would restore the
+  national hierarchy to the position from which it had been dragged
+  down and trampled under the feet of the Cromwellians. He would
+  give back to the Irish gentry and nobility their estates; and to
+  effect this glorious revolution, he relied upon the faith and
+  valour of the Irish. The Protestant militia were disarmed, a
+  Catholic army was formed; the corporations were thrown open to
+  Catholics. Dublin and other corporations, which refused to
+  surrender their exclusive charters, were summarily deprived of
+  their privileges; Catholic mayors and sheriffs, escorted by
+  troops, went in state to their places of worship. The Protestant
+  chancellor was dismissed to make way for a Catholic, Baron Rice.
+  The plate of Trinity College was seized as public property. The
+  Protestants, thoroughly alarmed by these arbitrary proceedings,
+  fled to England in thousands. Many went to Holland and joined the
+  army of the Prince of Orange. Dreadful stories were circulated of
+  an intended invasion of England by wild Irish regiments under
+  Tyrconnel. There was a rumour of another massacre of the English,
+  and of the proposed repeal of the act of settlement. Protestants
+  who could not cross the channel fled to Enniskillen and to Derry,
+  which closed its gates and prepared for its memorable siege.
+  James, who had fled to France, plucked up courage to go to
+  Ireland, and make a stand there in defence of his crown. His
+  progress from Kinsale to Dublin was an ovation. Fifteen royal
+  chaplains scattered <span class="pagenum"><a name="page235" id=
+  "page235"></a>[pg 235]</span> blessings around him; Gaelic songs
+  and dances amused him; he was flattered in Latin orations, and
+  conducted to his capital under triumphal arches. In Dublin the
+  trades turned out with new banners; two harpers played at the
+  gate by which he entered; the clergy in their robes chanted as
+  they went: and forty young girls, dressed in white, danced the
+  ancient <i>rinka</i>, scattering flowers on the newly sanded
+  streets. Tyrconnell, now a duke, the judges, the mayor and the
+  corporation, completed the procession, which moved beneath arches
+  of evergreens, and windows hung with 'tapestry and cloth of
+  arras.' The recorder delivered to his majesty the keys of the
+  city, and the Catholic primate, Dominick Maguire, waited in his
+  robes to conduct him to the royal chapel, where the <i>Te
+  Deum</i> was sung. On that day the green flag floated from the
+  main tower of the castle, bearing the motto, 'Now or
+  never&mdash;now and for ever.'</p>
+
+  <p>The followers of James, according to Grattan, 'though papists,
+  were not slaves. They wrung a constitution from King James before
+  they accompanied him to the field.' A constitution wrung from
+  such a man was not worth much. His parliament passed an act for
+  establishing liberty of conscience, and ordering every man to pay
+  tithes to his own clergy only, with some other measures of
+  relief. But he began to play the despot very soon. The Commons
+  voted him the large subsidy of 20,000<i>l.</i> He doubled the
+  amount by his own mere motion. He established a bank, and by his
+  own authority decreed a bank monopoly. He debased the coinage,
+  and fixed the prices of merchandise by his own will. He appointed
+  a provost and librarian in Trinity College without the consent of
+  the senate, and attempted to force fellows and scholars on the
+  university contrary to the statutes. The events which followed
+  are well known to all readers of English history. Our concern is
+  with their effects on the land question.</p>
+
+  <p>One of the measures passed by this parliament was an act
+  repealing the act of settlement. But, soon after the Revolution,
+  measures were taken to render that settlement firmer than ever.
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page236" id="page236"></a>[pg
+  236]</span> A commission was appointed to enquire into the
+  forfeited estates; and the consequence was that 1,060,792 acres
+  were declared escheated to the crown. In 1695 King William, in
+  his speech, read to the Irish parliament, assured them that he
+  was intent upon the firm settlement of Ireland upon a Protestant
+  basis. He kept his word, for when he died there did not remain in
+  the hands of Catholics one-sixth of the land which their
+  grandfathers held, even after the passing of the act of
+  settlement. The acts passed for securing the Protestant interest
+  formed the series known as the penal code, which was in force for
+  the whole of the eighteenth century. It answered its purpose
+  effectually; it reduced the nation to a state of poverty,
+  degradation, and slavishness of spirit unparalleled in the
+  history of Christendom, while it made the small dominant class a
+  prodigy of political and religious tyranny. Never was an
+  aristocracy, as a body, more hardened in selfishness, more
+  insolent in spirit; never was a church more negligent of duty,
+  more intensely and ostentatiously secular. Both church and state
+  reeked with corruption.</p>
+
+  <p>The plan adopted for degrading the Catholics, and reducing all
+  to one plebeian level, was most ingenious. The ingenuity indeed
+  may be said to be Satanic, for it debased its victims morally as
+  well as socially and physically. It worked by means of treachery,
+  covetousness, perfidy, and the perversion of all natural
+  affections. The trail of the serpent was over the whole system.
+  For example, when the last Duke of Ormond arrived as lord
+  lieutenant in 1703, the Commons waited on him with a bill 'for
+  discouraging the further growth of Popery,' which became law,
+  having met his decided approval. This act provided that if the
+  son of a Catholic became a Protestant, the father should be
+  incapable of selling or mortgaging his estate, or disposing of
+  any portion of it by will. If a child ever so young professed to
+  be a Protestant, it was to be taken from its parents, and placed
+  under the guardianship of the nearest Protestant relation.</p>
+
+  <p>The sixth clause renders Papists incapable of purchasing
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page237" id="page237"></a>[pg
+  237]</span> any manors, tenements, hereditaments, or any rents or
+  profits arising out of the same, or of holding any lease of
+  lives, or other lease whatever, for any term exceeding thirty-one
+  years. And with respect even to such limited leases, it further
+  enacts, that if a Papist should hold a farm producing a profit
+  greater than <i>one-third of the amount of the rent</i>, his
+  right to such should immediately cease, and pass over entirely to
+  the first Protestant who should discover the rate of profit. The
+  seventh clause prohibits Papists from succeeding to the
+  properties or estates of their Protestant relations. By the tenth
+  clause, the estate of a Papist, not having a Protestant heir, is
+  ordered to be gavelled, or divided in equal shares between
+  <i>all</i> his children. The sixteenth and twenty-fourth clauses
+  impose the oath of abjuration, and the sacramental test, as a
+  qualification for office, and for voting at elections. The
+  twenty-third clause deprives the Catholics of Limerick and Galway
+  of the protection secured to them by the articles of the treaty
+  of Limerick. The twenty-fifth clause vests in the crown all
+  advowsons possessed by Papists.</p>
+
+  <p>A further act was passed, in 1709, imposing additional
+  penalties. The first clause declares that no Papist shall be
+  capable of holding an annuity for life. The third provides, that
+  the child of a Papist, on conforming, shall at once receive an
+  annuity from his father; and that the chancellor shall compel the
+  father to discover, upon oath, the full value of his estate, real
+  and personal, and thereupon make an order for the support of such
+  conforming child or children, and for securing such a share of
+  the property, after the father's death, as the court shall think
+  fit. The fourteenth and fifteenth clauses secure jointures to
+  Popish wives who shall conform. The sixteenth prohibits a Papist
+  from teaching, even as assistant to a Protestant master. The
+  eighteenth gives a salary of 30<i>l.</i> per annum to Popish
+  priests who shall conform. The twentieth provides rewards for the
+  discovery of Popish prelates, priests, and teachers, according to
+  the following whimsical scale:&mdash;For discovering an
+  archbishop, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page238" id=
+  "page238"></a>[pg 238]</span> bishop, vicar-general, or other
+  person, exercising any foreign ecclesiastical jurisdiction,
+  50<i>l.</i>; for discovering each regular clergyman, and each
+  secular clergyman, not registered, 20<i>l.</i>; and for
+  discovering each Popish schoolmaster or usher, 10<i>l.</i></p>
+
+  <p>In judging the Irish peasantry, we should try to estimate the
+  effects of such a system on any people for more than a century.
+  It will account for the farmer's habit of concealing his
+  prosperity, and keeping up the appearance of poverty, even if he
+  had not reason for it in the felonious spirit of appropriation
+  still subsisting under legal sanction. We are too apt to place to
+  the account of race or religion the results of malignant or
+  blundering legislation. We are not without examples of such
+  results in England itself.</p>
+
+  <p>In the winter of 1831-2, a very startling state of things was
+  presented. In a period of great general prosperity, that portion
+  of England in which the poor laws had their most extensive
+  operation, and in which by much the largest expenditure of
+  poor-rates had been made, was the scene of daily riot and nightly
+  incendiarism. There were ninety-three parishes in four counties,
+  of which the population was 113,147, and the poor-law expenditure
+  81,978<i>l.</i>, or 14<i>s.</i> 5<i>d.</i> per head; and there
+  were eighty parishes in three other counties, the population of
+  which was 105,728, and the poor-law expenditure 30,820<i>l.</i>,
+  or 5<i>s.</i> 9<i>d.</i> a head. In the counties in which the
+  poor-law expenditure was large, the industry and skill of the
+  labourers were passing away, the connection between the master
+  and servant had become precarious, the unmarried were defrauded
+  of their fair earnings, and riots and incendiarism prevailed. In
+  the counties where the expenditure was comparatively small, there
+  was scarcely any instance of disorder; mutual attachment existed
+  between the workman and his employer; the intelligence, skill,
+  and good conduct of the labourers were unimpaired, or increased.
+  This striking social contrast was only a specimen of what
+  prevailed throughout large districts, and generally throughout
+  the south and north of England, and it proved that, either
+  through the inherent vice of the <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page239" id="page239"></a>[pg 239]</span> system, or gross
+  mal-administration in the southern counties, the poor-law had the
+  most demoralising effect upon the working classes, while it was
+  rapidly eating up the capital upon which the employment of labour
+  depended. This fact was placed beyond question by a commission of
+  enquiry, which was composed of individuals distinguished by their
+  interest in the subject, and their intimate knowledge of its
+  principles and details. Its labours were continued incessantly
+  for two years. Witnesses most competent to give information were
+  summoned from different parts of the country. The commissioners
+  had before them documentary evidence of every kind calculated to
+  throw light on the subject. They personally visited localities,
+  and examined the actual operation of the system on the spot; and
+  when they could not go themselves, they called to their aid
+  assistant commissioners, some of whom extended their enquiries
+  into Scotland, Guernsey, France, and Flanders; while they also
+  collected a vast mass of interesting evidence from our
+  ambassadors and diplomatic agents in different countries of
+  Europe and America. It was upon the report of this commission of
+  enquiry that the act was founded for the amendment and better
+  administration of the laws relating to the poor in England and
+  Wales (4 and 5 William IV., cap. 76). A more solid foundation for
+  a legislative enactment could scarcely be found. The importance
+  of the subject fully warranted all the expense and labour by
+  which it was obtained.</p>
+
+  <p>One of the most astounding facts established by the enquiry
+  was the wide-spread demoralisation which had developed itself in
+  certain districts. Home had lost its sanctity. The ties that bind
+  parents and children were loosened, and natural affection gave
+  place to intense selfishness, which often manifested itself in
+  the most brutal manner. Workmen grew lazy and dishonest. Young
+  women lost the virtue which is not only the point of honour with
+  their sex, but the chief support of all other virtues. Not only
+  women of the working classes, but in some cases even <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page240" id="page240"></a>[pg 240]</span>
+  substantial farmers' daughters, and sometimes those who were
+  themselves the actual owners of property, had their illegitimate
+  children as charges on the parish, regularly deducting the cost
+  of their maintenance from their poor-rate, neither they nor their
+  relatives feeling that to do so was any disgrace. The system must
+  have been fearfully vicious that produced such depravation of
+  moral feeling, and such a shocking want of self-respect.</p>
+
+  <p>Dr. Burn has given a graphic sketch of the duties of an
+  overseer under the old poor-law system in England. 'His office is
+  to keep an extraordinary watch to prevent people from coming to
+  inhabit without certificates; to fly to the justices to remove
+  them. Not to let anyone have a farm of 10<i>l.</i> a year. To
+  warn the parishioners, if they would have servants, to hire them
+  by the month, the week, or the day, rather than by any way that
+  can give them a settlement; or if they do hire them for a year,
+  then to endeavour to pick a quarrel with them before the year's
+  end, and so to get rid of them. To maintain their poor as cheaply
+  as they possibly can, and not to lay out twopence in prospect of
+  any future good, but only to serve the present necessity. To
+  bargain with some sturdy person to take them by the lump, who yet
+  is not intended to take them, but to hang over them <i>in
+  terrorem</i>, if they shall complain to the justices for want of
+  maintenance. To send them out into the country a begging. To bind
+  out poor children apprentices, no matter to whom, or to what
+  trade; but to take special care that the master live in another
+  parish. To move heaven and earth if any dispute happen about a
+  settlement; and, in that particular, to invert the general rule,
+  and stick at no expense. To pull down cottages: <i>to drive out
+  as many inhabitants, and admit as few, as they possibly can; that
+  is, to depopulate the parish, in order to lessen the
+  poor's-rate</i>. To be generous, indeed, sometimes, in giving a
+  portion with the mother of a bastard child to the reputed father,
+  on condition that he will marry her, or with a poor widow,
+  <i>always provided that the husband</i> be settled elsewhere; or
+  if a poor <span class="pagenum"><a name="page241" id=
+  "page241"></a>[pg 241]</span> man with a large family happen to
+  be industrious, they will charitably assist him in taking a farm
+  in some neighbouring parish, and give him 10<i>l.</i> to pay his
+  first year's rent with, that they may thus for ever get rid of
+  him and his progeny.'</p>
+
+  <p>The effect of this system was actually to depopulate many
+  parishes. The author of a pamphlet on the subject, Mr. Alcock,
+  stated that the gentlemen were led by this system to adopt all
+  sorts of expedients to hinder the poor from marrying, to
+  discharge servants in their last quarter, to evict small tenants,
+  and pull down cottages; so that several parishes were in a manner
+  depopulated, while England complained of a want of useful hands
+  for agriculture, manufactories, for the land and sea service.
+  'When the minister marries a couple,' he said, 'he rightly prays
+  that they may be fruitful in the procreation of children; but
+  most of the parishioners pray for the very contrary, and perhaps
+  complain of him for marrying persons, that, should they have a
+  family of children, might likewise become chargeable.' Arthur
+  Young also described the operation of the law in his time, in
+  clearing off the people, and causing universally 'an open war
+  against cottages.' Gentlemen bought them up whenever they had an
+  opportunity, and immediately levelled them with the ground, lest
+  they should become 'nests of beggars' brats.' The removal of a
+  cottage often drove the industrious labourer from a parish where
+  he could earn 15<i>s.</i> a week, to one where he could earn but
+  10<i>s.</i> As many as thirty or forty families were sent off by
+  removals in one day. Thus, as among the Scotch labourers of the
+  present day, marriage was discouraged; the peasantry were cleared
+  off the land, and increasing immorality was the necessary
+  consequence.</p>
+
+  <p>There was another change in the old system, by which the
+  interests of the influential classes were made to run in favour
+  of the 'beggars' nests,' which were soon at a premium. The
+  labourer was to be paid, not for the value of his labour, but
+  according to the number of his family; the prices of <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page242" id="page242"></a>[pg 242]</span>
+  provisions being fixed by authority, and the guardians making up
+  the difference between what the wages would buy and what the
+  family required.</p>
+
+  <p>The allowance scales issued from time to time were framed on
+  the principle that every labourer should have a gallon loaf of
+  standard wheaten bread weekly for every member of his family, and
+  one over. The effect of this was, that a man with six children,
+  who got 9<i>s.</i> a week wages, required nine gallon loaves, or
+  13<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> a week, so that he had a pension of
+  4<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> over his wages. Another man, with a wife
+  and five children, so idle and disorderly that no one would
+  employ him, was entitled to eight gallon loaves for their
+  maintenance, so that he had 12<i>s.</i> a week to support him.
+  The increase of allowance according to the number of children
+  acted as a direct bounty upon marriage. The report of the
+  Committee of the House of Commons on labourers' wages, printed in
+  1824, describes the effect of this allowance system in paralysing
+  the industry of the poor. 'It is obvious,' remarked the
+  committee, 'that a disinclination to work must be the consequence
+  of so vicious a system. He whose subsistence is secure without
+  work, and who cannot obtain more than a mere sufficiency by the
+  hardest work, will naturally be an idle and careless labourer.
+  Frequently the work done by four or five such labourers does not
+  amount to what might easily be performed by a single labourer at
+  task work. A surplus population is encouraged: men who receive
+  but a small pittance know that they have only to marry and that
+  pittance will be increased proportionally to the number of their
+  children. When complaining of their allowance, they frequently
+  say, "We will marry, and then you must maintain us." This system
+  secures subsistence to all; to the idle as well as the
+  industrious; to the profligate as well as the sober; and, as far
+  as human interests are concerned, all inducements to obtain a
+  good character are taken away. The effects have corresponded with
+  the cause: able-bodied men are found slovenly at their work, and
+  dissolute in their hours of relaxation; a <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page243" id="page243"></a>[pg 243]</span>
+  father is negligent of his children, the children do not think it
+  necessary to contribute to the support of their parents; the
+  employer and employed are engaged in personal quarrels; and the
+  pauper, always relieved, is always discontented. Crime advances
+  with increasing boldness; and the parts of the country where this
+  system prevails are, in spite of our gaols and our laws, filled
+  with poachers and thieves.' Mr. Hodges, chairman of the West Kent
+  quarter sessions, in his evidence before the emigration
+  committee, said, 'Formerly, working people usually stayed in
+  service till they were twenty-five, thirty, and thirty-five years
+  of age, before they married; whereas they now married frequently
+  under age. Formerly, these persons had saved 40<i>l.</i> and
+  50<i>l.</i> before they married, and they were never burdensome
+  to the parish; now, they have not saved a shilling before their
+  marriage, and become immediately burdensome.'</p>
+
+  <p>The farmers were not so discontented with this allowance
+  system as might be supposed, because a great part of the burden
+  was cast upon other shoulders. The tax was laid indiscrimately
+  upon all fixed property; so that the occupiers of villas,
+  shopkeepers, merchants, and others who did not employ labourers,
+  had to pay a portion of the wages for those that did. The farmers
+  were in this way led to encourage a system which fraudently
+  imposed a heavy burden upon others, and which, by degrading the
+  labourers, and multiplying their numbers beyond the real demand
+  for them, must, if allowed to run its full course, have
+  ultimately overspread the whole country with the most abject
+  poverty and wretchedness.</p>
+
+  <p>There was another interest created which tended to increase
+  the evil. In the counties of Suffolk, Sussex, Kent, and generally
+  through all the south of England, relief was given in the shape
+  of house accommodation, or free dwellings for the poor. The
+  parish officers were in the habit of paying the rent of the
+  cottages; the rent was therefore high and sure, and consequently
+  persons who had small pieces of ground were induced to cover them
+  with those buildings. <span class="pagenum"><a name="page244" id=
+  "page244"></a>[pg 244]</span> On this subject Mr. Hodges, the
+  gentleman already referred to, remarks: 'I cannot forbear urging
+  again that any measure having for its object the relief of the
+  parishes from their over population, must of necessity become
+  perfectly useless, unless the act of parliament contains some
+  regulations with respect to the erecting and maintaining of
+  cottages. I am quite satisfied that the erecting of cottages has
+  been a most serious evil throughout the country. The getting of
+  the cottage tempts young people of seventeen and eighteen years
+  of age, and even younger, to marry. It is notorious that almost
+  numberless cottages have been built by persons speculating on the
+  parish rates for their rents.'</p>
+
+  <p>The evils of this system had reached their height in the years
+  1831-2. That was a time when the public mind was bent upon
+  reforms of all sorts, without waiting for the admission from the
+  Tories that the grievances of which the nation complained were
+  'proved abuses.' The reformers were determined no longer to
+  tolerate the state of things, in which the discontent of the
+  labouring classes was proportioned to the money disbursed in
+  poor-rates, or in voluntary charities; in which the young were
+  trained in idleness, ignorance, and vice&mdash;the able-bodied
+  maintained in sluggish and sensual indolence&mdash;the aged and
+  more respectable exposed to all the misery incident to dwelling
+  in such society as that of a large workhouse without discipline
+  or classification&mdash;the whole body of inmates subsisting on
+  food far exceeding both in kind and amount, not merely the diet
+  of the independent labourer, but that of the majority of the
+  persons who contributed to their support. The farmer paid
+  10<i>s.</i> in the pound in poor-rates, and was in addition
+  compelled to employ supernumerary labourers not required on his
+  farm, at a cost of from 100<i>l.</i> to 250<i>l.</i> a year; the
+  labourer had no need to hasten himself to seek work, or to please
+  his master, or to put a restraint upon his temper, having all the
+  slave's security for support, without the slave's liability to
+  punishment. The parish paid parents for nursing their little
+  children, and children for supporting their aged parents,
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page245" id="page245"></a>[pg
+  245]</span> thereby destroying in both parties all feelings of
+  natural affection and all sense of Christian duty.</p>
+
+  <p>I hope I shall be excused in giving, from a former work of my
+  own, these home illustrations to prove that bad laws can degrade
+  and demoralize a people in a comparatively short time, in spite
+  of race and creed and public opinion; and that, where class
+  interests are involved, the most sacred rights of humanity are
+  trampled in the mire of corruption. Even now the pauperism
+  resulting of necessity from the large-farm system is degrading
+  the English people, and threatening to rot away the foundations
+  of society. On this subject I am glad to find a complete
+  corroboration of my own conclusions in a work by one of the
+  ablest and most enlightened Christian ministers in England, the
+  Rev. Dr. Rigg. He says:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'Notwithstanding a basis of manly, honest, and often generous
+  qualities, the common character of all the uneducated and
+  unelevated classes of the English labouring population includes,
+  as marked and obvious features, improvidence, distrust of their
+  superiors, discontent at their social position, and a predominant
+  passion for gross animal gratification. Of this general character
+  we regard the rude, heavy, unhopeful English peasant, who knows
+  no indulgence or relaxation but that of the ale-house, and lives
+  equally without content and without ambition, as affording the
+  fundamental type, which, like all other things English, possesses
+  a marked individuality. It differs decidedly from the Irish type
+  of peasant degradation. Something of this may be due to the
+  effect of race. The Kelt and the Saxon may be expected to differ.
+  Yet we think but little stress is to be laid upon this. There is,
+  probably, much more Keltic blood in the southern and western
+  counties of England, and, also, more Saxon blood in some of the
+  southern and even western parts of Ireland, than has been
+  generally supposed. We apprehend that a Saxon population, under
+  the same conditions as the southern and western Irish peasantry,
+  would have grown up into very much the same sort of people as the
+  Irish have been; while a Keltic population, <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page246" id="page246"></a>[pg 246]</span>
+  exposed to the same influences, through successive generations,
+  as the midland and southern peasantry of England, would not have
+  been essentially different at the present day from the actual
+  cultivators of the soil.</p>
+
+  <p>'The Irish peasant is poorer and yet more reckless than the
+  Englishman; but he is not so sullen or so spiritless. His body is
+  not so muscular or so strongly-set as that of the Anglo-Saxon
+  husbandman, on whose frame the hard and unintermitted toil of
+  thirty generations has stamped its unmistakable impress, and,
+  correspondently, he is a less persevering and less vigorous
+  labourer; but, as a general rule, his stature is taller and his
+  step far more free and elastic than that of the sturdy but slow
+  and stunted labourer of our southern counties. There are wild
+  mountainous districts of the west, indeed, in which the lowest
+  type of the Irish peasantry is found, that must be taken as
+  exceptions to our general statement; and as many from those
+  regions cross the Channel to tramp through England in the complex
+  character of mendicant labourers, no doubt some have received
+  from them an impression as to the Irish peasantry very different
+  from what our observations are intended to convey. But no one can
+  have travelled through the south of Ireland without having
+  noticed what we state. The Tipperary and Kilkenny peasantry are
+  proverbially tall; Connemara has been famed for its "giants," and
+  many of both sexes throughout the south, are, spite of their
+  rags, fine figures, and graceful in their movements. While
+  looking at them, we have ceased to wonder at what has been
+  regarded as no better than the arch-agitator's blarney, when he
+  spoke of the Irish as the "finest pisantry in the world;" and we
+  have even felt saddened as we mentally contrasted with what we
+  saw before us the bearing and appearance of our own southern
+  labourers. For the tattered Irish peasant, living in a mud hovel,
+  is, after all, a gentleman in his bearing; whereas there is
+  generally either a cringing servility or a sullen doggedness in
+  the demeanour of the south Saxon labourer. The Irishman is,
+  besides, far more intelligent and <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page247" id="page247"></a>[pg 247]</span> ready-witted than the
+  Saxon husbandman. The fact is that the Irishman, if underfed, has
+  not been overworked. His life has not been one of unceasing and
+  oppressive labour. Nor has his condition been one of perpetual
+  servitude. With all his poverty, he has been, to a considerable
+  extent, his own master. Half-starved, or satisfying his appetite
+  on light and innutritious fare,&mdash;far worse housed and clad
+  than the poorest English labourer, often, indeed, almost
+  half-naked,&mdash;oppressed by middle-men, exactors of rack-rent;
+  with all this the Irish cottier has been, from father to son, and
+  from generation to generation, <i>a tenant, and not merely a day
+  labourer</i>.'<a id="footnotetag42" name=
+  "footnotetag42"></a><a href="#footnote42"><sup>1</sup></a></p>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote42" name="footnote42"></a><b>Footnote 1:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag42">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>'Essays for the Times, on Ecclesiastical and Social
+    Subjects,' by James H. Rigg, D.D. London, 1866.</p>
+  </blockquote><span class="pagenum"><a name="page248" id=
+  "page248"></a>[pg 248]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+
+  <h3>ULSTER IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.</h3>
+
+  <p>Let us, then, endeavour to get rid of the pernicious delusions
+  about race and religion in dealing with this Irish land question.
+  Identity of race and substantial agreement in religion did not
+  prevent the Ulster landlords from uprooting their tenants when
+  they fancied it was their interest to banish them&mdash;to
+  substitute grazing for tillage, and cattle for a most industrious
+  and orderly peasantry.</p>
+
+  <p>The letters of Primate Boulter contain much valuable
+  information on the state of Ulster in the last century, and
+  furnish apt illustrations of the land question, which, I fancy,
+  will be new and startling to many readers. Boulter was lord
+  primate of Ireland from 1724 to 1738. He was thirteen times one
+  of the lords justices. As an Englishman and a good churchman, he
+  took care of the English interests and of the establishment. The
+  letters were written in confidence to Sir Robert Walpole and
+  other ministers of state, and were evidently not intended for
+  publication. An address 'to the reader' from some friend, states
+  truly that they give among other things an impartial account of
+  'the distressed state of the kingdom for want of <i>tillage</i>,
+  the vast sums of money sent out of the nation for corn, flour,
+  &amp;c., the dismal calamities thereon, the want of trade and the
+  regulation of the English and other coins, to the very great
+  distress of all the manufacturers,' &amp;c. They show that he was
+  a man of sound judgment, public-spirited, and very moderate and
+  impartial for the times in which he lived. His evidence with
+  regard to the relations of landlord and tenant in Ulster is
+  exceedingly valuable at the present moment. Lord Dufferin could
+  not <span class="pagenum"><a name="page249" id="page249"></a>[pg
+  249]</span> have read the letters when he wrote his book;
+  otherwise I should think his apology for the landlords of the
+  last century would have been considerably modified.</p>
+
+  <p>Primate Boulter repeatedly complained to Walpole, the Duke of
+  Newcastle, and other ministers, that the Ulster farmers were
+  deserting the country in large numbers, emigrating to the United
+  States, then British colonies, to the West Indies, or to any
+  country where they hoped to get the means of living, in many
+  cases binding themselves to work for a number of years <i>as
+  slaves</i> in payment of their passage out. The desire to quit
+  the country of their birth is described by the primate as a
+  mania. Writing to the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1728 he
+  says:&mdash;'We are under great trouble here about a frenzy that
+  has taken hold of very great numbers to leave this country for
+  the West Indies, and we are endeavouring to learn what may be the
+  reasons of it, and the proper remedies.' Two or three weeks later
+  he reported to the Duke of Newcastle that for several years past
+  some agents from the colonies in America, and several masters of
+  ships, had gone about the country 'and deluded the people with
+  stories of great plenty and estates to be had for going for in
+  those parts of the world.' During the previous summer more than
+  3,000 men, women, and children had been shipped for the West
+  Indies. Of these, not more than one in ten were men of substance.
+  The rest hired themselves for their passage, or contracted with
+  masters of ships for four years' servitude, 'selling themselves
+  as servants for their subsistence.' The whole north was in a
+  ferment, people every day engaging one another to go next year to
+  the West Indies. 'The humour,' says the primate, 'has spread like
+  a contagious distemper, and the people will hardly hear anybody
+  that tries to cure them of their madness. The worst is that it
+  affects only <i>Protestants</i>, and reigns chiefly in the North,
+  which is the seat of our linen manufacture.'</p>
+
+  <p>As the Protestant people, the descendants of the English and
+  Scotch who had settled in the country in the full assurance that
+  they were building homes for their posterity, <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page250" id="page250"></a>[pg 250]</span> were
+  thus deserting those homes in such multitudes, their pastors sent
+  a memorial to the lord lieutenant, setting forth the grievances
+  which they believed to be the cause of the desertion. On this
+  memorial the primate wrote comments to the English Government,
+  and, in doing so, he stated some astounding facts as to the
+  treatment of the people by their landlords. He was a cautious
+  man, thoroughly acquainted with the facts, and writing under a
+  sense of great responsibility. In order to understand some of
+  those facts, we should bear in mind that the landlords had laid
+  down large portions of their estates in pasture, to avoid the
+  payment of tithes, and that this burden was thrown entirely upon
+  the tenants who tilled the land. Now, let my readers mark what
+  the primate states as to their condition. He says:&mdash;'If a
+  landlord takes too great a portion of the profits of a farm for
+  his share by way of rent (as the tithe will light on the tenant's
+  share), the tenant will be impoverished; but then it is not the
+  tithe, but the increased rent that undoes the farmer. And,
+  indeed, in this country, where I fear the tenant hardly ever has
+  more than one-third of the profits he makes of his farm for his
+  share, and too often but a <i>fourth</i>, or, perhaps, a <i>fifth
+  part</i>, as the tenant's share is charged with the tithe, his
+  case is, no doubt, hard, but it is plain from what side the
+  hardship arises.' What the gentlemen wanted to be at, according
+  to the primate, was, that they might go on raising their rents,
+  and that the clergy should receive their old payments. He admits,
+  however, that the tenants were sometimes cited to the
+  ecclesiastical courts, and if they failed to appear there, they
+  stood excommunicated; and he adds, 'possibly when a writ <i>de
+  excommunicato capiendo</i> is taken out, and they find they have
+  7<i>l.</i> or 8<i>l.</i> to pay, <i>they run away</i>, for the
+  greatest part of the occupiers of the land here are so poor, that
+  an extraordinary stroke of 8<i>l.</i> or 10<i>l.</i> falling on
+  them is certain ruin to them.' He further states that, to his own
+  knowledge, many of the clergy had chosen rather to lose their
+  'small dues' than to be at a certain great expense in getting
+  them, 'and at an <span class="pagenum"><a name="page251" id=
+  "page251"></a>[pg 251]</span> uncertainty whether the farmer
+  would not at last <i>run away without paying anything</i>.'</p>
+
+  <p>Such was the condition of the Protestants of Ulster during the
+  era of the penal code; and it is a curious fact that it was the
+  Presbyterians and not the Catholics that were forced by the
+  exactions of the Protestant landlords and the clergy to run away
+  from the country which their forefathers had been brought over to
+  civilize. But there was another fact connected with the condition
+  of Ulster which I dare say will be almost incredible to many
+  readers. The tenantry, so cruelly rack-rented and impoverished,
+  were reduced by two or three bad seasons to a state bordering
+  upon famine. There was little or no corn in the province. The
+  primate set on foot a subscription in Dublin, to which he himself
+  contributed very liberally. The object was to buy food to supply
+  the necessities of the north, and to put a stop to 'the great
+  desertion' they had been threatened with. He hoped that the
+  landlords would 'do <i>their</i> part by remitting some arrears,
+  or making some abatement of their rents.' As many of the tenants
+  had eaten the oats they should have sowed their lands with, he
+  expected the landlords would have the good sense to furnish them
+  with seed; if not, a great deal of land would lie waste that
+  year. And where were the provisions got? Partly in Munster, where
+  corn was very cheap and abundant. But the people of Cork,
+  Limerick, Waterford, and Clonmel objected to have their
+  provisions sent away, although they were in some places 'as cheap
+  again as in the north; but where dearest, at least one-third part
+  cheaper.' Riotous mobs broke open the store-houses and cellars,
+  setting what price they pleased upon the provisions. And, what
+  between those riots and the prevalence of easterly winds, three
+  weeks elapsed before the 3,000<i>l.</i> worth of oats, oatmeal,
+  and potatoes could be got down to relieve the famishing people of
+  the north, which then seemed black enough, even to its own
+  inhabitants. Hence the humane primate was obliged to write: 'The
+  humour of going to America still continues, and the scarcity
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page252" id="page252"></a>[pg
+  252]</span> of provisions certainly makes many quit us. There are
+  now seven ships at Belfast that are carrying off 1,000 passengers
+  thither, and if we knew how to stop them, as most of them can
+  neither get victuals nor work at home, it would be cruel to do
+  it.'</p>
+
+  <p>The Presbyterian clergy suffered greatly from the
+  impoverishment of their people. Several of them who had been
+  receiving a stipend of 50<i>l.</i> a year, had their incomes
+  reduced to less than 15<i>l.</i> In their distress they appealed
+  to the primate, and, staunch churchman as he was, they found in
+  him a kind and earnest advocate. Writing to Sir Robert Walpole,
+  on March 31, 1729, he pleaded for the restoration of 400<i>l.</i>
+  a year, which had been given to the non-conforming clergy of
+  Ireland from the privy purse, in addition to the 1,200<i>l.</i>
+  royal bounty, which, it appears, had been suspended for two
+  years, owing to the death of the late king. 'They are sensible,'
+  said his grace, 'there is nothing due to them, nor do they make
+  any such claim; but as the calamities of this kingdom are at
+  present very great, and by the desertion of many of their people
+  to America, and the poverty of the greatest part of the rest,
+  their contributions, particularly in the north, are very much
+  fallen off, it would be a great instance of his majesty's
+  goodness if he would consider their present distress.' In our own
+  days a Presbyterian minister would be considered to deserve well
+  of his country if he emigrated to America, and took with him as
+  many of the people as he could induce to forsake their native
+  land. But what was the great plea which Primate Boulter urged on
+  the English Minister on behalf of the Presbyterian clergy of his
+  day? It was, that they had exerted their influence to prevent
+  emigration. 'It is,' he said, 'but doing them justice to affirm
+  that they are very well affected to his majesty and his royal
+  family, and by the best enquiries I could make, do their best
+  endeavours to keep their congregations from deserting the
+  country, not more than one or two of the younger ministers having
+  anyways encouraged the humour now prevailing here. And his
+  majesty's goodness in giving them some extraordinary <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page253" id="page253"></a>[pg 253]</span>
+  relief on this occasion of their present great distress would
+  undoubtedly make them <i>more active to retain their people
+  here</i>. I cannot help mentioning on this occasion that, what
+  with scarceness of corn in the north, <i>and the loss of all
+  credit there</i>, and by the numbers that go, or talk of going,
+  to America, and with the disturbances in the south, this kingdom
+  is at present in a deplorable condition.'</p>
+
+  <p>In a statement previously made to the Bishop of London, the
+  Irish primate earnestly solicited his correspondent to use his
+  influence to prevent the Irish landlords from passing a law to
+  strip the established clergy of their rights with respect to the
+  tithe of agistment. They had entered into a general combination,
+  and formed a stock purse to resist the payment of tithe, except
+  by the poor tenants who tilled the soil, a remarkable contrast to
+  the zeal of the landlords of our own time in defending church
+  property against 'spoliation' by the imperial legislature, and to
+  the liberality with which many of them are now contributing to
+  the Sustentation Fund. How shall we account for the change? Is it
+  that the landlords of the present day are more righteous than
+  their grandfathers? Or is it that the same principle of
+  self-interest which led the proprietors of past times to grind
+  the tenantry and rob the Church, now operates in forms more
+  consistent with piety and humanity, and by its subtle influence
+  illustrates the maxim of the poet&mdash;</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>Self-love and social is the same.</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>However that may be, the primate contented himself in this
+  letter with a defence of the Church, in which he admitted matters
+  of real grievance, merely alluding to other grievances, 'such as
+  raising the rents unreasonably, the oppression by justices of the
+  peace, seneschals, and other officers in the country.'</p>
+
+  <p>From the pictures of the times he presents we should not be
+  surprised at his statement to the Duke of Newcastle, that the
+  people who went to America made great complaints of the
+  oppressions they suffered, and said that those oppressions
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page254" id="page254"></a>[pg
+  254]</span> were one reason of their going. When he went on his
+  visitation, in 1726, he 'met all the roads full of whole families
+  that had left their homes to beg abroad,' having consumed their
+  stock of potatoes two months before the usual time. During the
+  previous year many hundreds had perished of famine. What was the
+  cause of this misery, this desolating process going on over the
+  plains of Ulster? The archbishop accounts for it by stating that
+  many persons had let large tracts of land, from 3,000 to 4,000
+  acres, which were stocked with cattle, and had no other
+  inhabitants on their land than so many cottiers as were necessary
+  to look after their sheep and black cattle, '<i>so that, in some
+  of the finest counties, in many places there is neither house nor
+  cornfield to be seen in ten or fifteen miles' travelling</i>, and
+  daily in some counties many gentlemen, as their leases fall into
+  their hands, tie up their tenants from tillage; and this is one
+  of the main causes why so many venture to go into foreign service
+  at the hazard of their lives if taken, because they cannot get
+  land to till at home.'</p>
+
+  <p>My readers should remember that the industrious, law-abiding,
+  bible-loving, God-fearing people, who were thus driven by
+  oppression from the fair fields of Ulster, which they had
+  cultivated, and the dwellings which they had erected, to make way
+  for sheep and cattle&mdash;because it was supposed by the
+  landlords that sheep and cattle paid better&mdash;were the
+  descendants of British settlers who came to the country under a
+  royal guarantee <i>of freeholds and permanent tenures</i>. Let
+  them picture to their minds this fine race of honest, godly
+  people, rack-rented, crushed, evicted, heart-broken&mdash;men,
+  women, and children&mdash;Protestants, Saxons, cast out to perish
+  as the refuse of the earth, by a set of landed proprietors of
+  their own race and creed; and learn from this most instructive
+  fact that, if any body of men has the power of making laws to
+  promote its own interest, no instincts of humanity, no dictates
+  of religion, no restraints of conscience can be relied upon to
+  keep them from acting with ruthless barbarity, and doing more to
+  ruin their country than a foreign invader <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page255" id="page255"></a>[pg 255]</span>
+  could accomplish by letting loose upon it his brutal soldiers.
+  How much more earnestly would Boulter have pleaded with the prime
+  minister of England on behalf of the wretched people of Ulster if
+  he could have foreseen that ere long those Presbyterian
+  emigrants, with the sense of injustice and cruel wrong burning in
+  their hearts, would be found fighting under the banner of
+  American independence&mdash;the bravest and fiercest soldiers of
+  freedom which the British troops encountered in the American war.
+  History is continually repeating itself, yet how vainly are its
+  lessons taught! The same legal power of extermination is still
+  possessed by the Irish landlords after sixty-nine years of
+  imperial legislation. Our hardy, industrious people, naturally as
+  well disposed to royalty as any people in the world, are still
+  crowding emigrant ships in all our ports, deserting their country
+  with the same bitter feelings that animated the Ulster men a
+  century ago, hating our Government with a mortal hatred, and
+  ready to fight against it under a foreign flag! We have no
+  Primate Boulter now in the Protestant hierarchy to plead the
+  cause of an unprotected tenantry; but we have the press, which
+  can concentrate upon the subject the irresistible force of public
+  opinion.</p>
+
+  <p>As a churchman, Primate Boulter naturally regarded the land
+  question in its bearings on the interests of the Establishment.
+  Writing to Sir Robert Walpole in 1737 he said that he had in vain
+  represented to the landlords that, by destroying the tithe of
+  agistment, they naturally discouraged tillage, lessened the
+  number of people, and raised the price of provisions. By running
+  into cattle they caused the young men to enlist in foreign
+  service for bread, there being no employment for them at home,
+  'where two or three hands can look after some hundreds of acres
+  stocked with cattle.' And by this means, said the primate, 'a
+  great part of our churches are neglected; in many places five,
+  six, or seven parishes bestowed on one incumbent, who, perhaps,
+  with all his tithes, scarce gets 100<i>l.</i> a year.' But there
+  was at that time a member of the Irish House of Commons who was
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page256" id="page256"></a>[pg
+  256]</span> capable of taking a more enlarged view of the Irish
+  question. This was Mr. Arthur Dobbs, who belonged to an old and
+  honourable Ulster family&mdash;the author of a book on the
+  'North-west Passage to India,' and of a very valuable work on the
+  'Trade of Great Britain and Ireland.' He was intimately
+  acquainted with the working of the Irish land system, for he had
+  been many years agent of the Hertfort estate, one of the largest
+  in Ireland. There is among Boulter's letters an introduction of
+  Mr. Dobbs to Sir Robert Walpole, recommending him as a person of
+  good sense, who had applied himself to the improvement of trade,
+  and to the making of our colonies in America of more advantage
+  than they had hitherto been. He was afterwards made Governor of
+  North Carolina. I have mentioned these facts in the hope of
+  securing the attention of landlords and statesmen to the
+  following passage from his book accounting for the deplorable
+  condition of the province of Ulster at that time, and the
+  emigration of its industrious and wealth-producing inhabitants.
+  In my humble opinion it furnishes irresistible arguments in
+  favour of a measure which should settle the Irish land question
+  in such a manner that it would speak to the people of Ireland in
+  the words of holy writ: 'And they shall build houses, and inhabit
+  them; and they shall plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them.
+  They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant
+  and another eat.' Mr. Dobbs says:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'How can a tenant improve his land when he is convinced that,
+  after all his care and toil, his improvements will be overrated,
+  and he will be obliged to shift for himself? Let us place
+  ourselves in his situation and see if we should think it
+  reasonable to improve for another, if those improvements would be
+  the very cause of our being removed from the enjoyment of them. I
+  believe we should not. Industry and improvements go very heavily
+  on when we think we are not to have the property in either. What
+  can be expected, then, from covenants to improve and plant, when
+  the person to do it knows he is to have <i>no property in
+  them</i>? <span class="pagenum"><a name="page257" id=
+  "page257"></a>[pg 257]</span> There will be no concern or care
+  taken to preserve them, and they will run to ruin as fast as made
+  or planted. What was it induced so many of the commonalty lately
+  to go to America but high rents, bad seasons, and want of good
+  tenures, or a permanent property in their land? This kept them
+  poor and low, and they scarce had sufficient credit to procure
+  necessaries to subsist or till their ground. They never had
+  anything to store, all was from hand to mouth; so one or two bad
+  crops broke them. Others found their stock dwindling and decaying
+  visibly, and so removed before all was gone, while they had as
+  much left as would pay their passage, and had little more than
+  what would carry them to the American shore.</p>
+
+  <p>'This, it may be allowed, was the occasion of the poor farmers
+  going who had their rents lately raised. But it may be objected
+  that was not the reason why rich farmers went, and those who had
+  several years in beneficial leases still unexpired, who sold
+  their bargains and removed with their effects. But it is plain
+  they all went for the same reason; for these last, from <i>daily
+  examples before them</i>, saw the present occupiers dispossessed
+  of their lands at the expiration of their leases, and no
+  preference given to them; so they expected it would soon be their
+  own case, to avoid which, and make the most of the years still
+  unexpired, they sold, and carried their assets with them to
+  procure a settlement in a country where they had reason to expect
+  a permanent property.'</p>
+
+  <p>It is a curious fact that sentiments very similar were
+  published by one of Cromwell's officers about a century before.
+  The plea which he put forth for the Irish tenant in the
+  dedication of his work on Ireland to the Protector, has been
+  repeated ever since by the tenants, but repeated in vain: Captain
+  Bligh, the officer alluded to, said: 'The first prejudice is,
+  that if a tenant be at ever so great pains or cost for the
+  improvement of his land, he doth thereby but occasion a greater
+  rack-rent upon himself, or else invests his landlord with his
+  cost and labour <i>gratis</i>, or at least lies at his landlord's
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page258" id="page258"></a>[pg
+  258]</span> mercy for requital; which occasions a neglect of all
+  good husbandry, to his own, the land, the landlord, and the
+  commonwealth's suffering.' Now, this, I humbly conceive, might be
+  removed, if there were a law enacted, by which every landlord
+  should be obliged either to give him reasonable allowance for his
+  clear improvement, or else suffer him <i>or his</i> to enjoy it
+  so much longer or till he hath had a proportionable
+  requital.'</p>
+
+  <p>But although Primate Boulter protested against the conduct of
+  the landlords&mdash;all Episcopalians&mdash;who were ruining the
+  church as well as the country, the established clergy, as a body,
+  were always on the side of the oppressors.</p>
+
+  <p>The Test Act placed the Presbyterians, like the Papists, in
+  the position of an inferior race. 'In the city of Londonderry
+  alone, which Presbyterian valour had defended, ten out of twelve
+  aldermen, and twenty out of twenty-four burgesses, were thrust
+  out of the corporation by that act, which placed an odious mark
+  of infamy upon at least one-half the inhabitants of the kingdom.'
+  Presbyterians could not legally keep a common school. The
+  <i>Edinburgh Review</i> says: 'All the settlements, from first to
+  last, had the effect of making the cause of the church and the
+  cause of the landlords really one. During the worst days of
+  landlord oppression it never identified itself with the interests
+  of the people, but uniformly sustained the power and privileges
+  of the landlords.'</p>
+
+  <p>It was vain to expect justice from the Irish parliament. The
+  people of Ireland never were governed exclusively, or at all, by
+  her own Sovereign, her own Lords, and her own Commons. Ireland
+  was 'in the custody of England,' just as much before the Union as
+  during the last sixty-seven years. Even during the few brief
+  years of her spasmodic 'independence,' the mass of the nation
+  formed no part of the 'Commons of Ireland.' It was still, as it
+  always had been, a sham parliament&mdash;a body representing the
+  colonial aristocracy&mdash;acting as undertakers for the
+  Government of England, for whose interest exclusively this island
+  was to <span class="pagenum"><a name="page259" id=
+  "page259"></a>[pg 259]</span> be ruled. Provided this result was
+  secured, it did not matter much, at the other side of the
+  Channel, how the Irish people were treated. Indeed, they were not
+  recognised as the people of Ireland, or any part thereof. Even
+  philosophic liberals, like Lord Charlemont, were shocked at the
+  idea of a Papist getting into the Irish House of Commons; and the
+  volunteer system was shattered by this insane animosity of the
+  ruling race against the subject nation. The antipathy was as
+  strong as the antipathy between the whites and the negroes in the
+  West Indies and the United States. Hence the remorseless spirit
+  in which atrocities were perpetrated in 1798. Mr. Daunt has shown
+  that a large proportion of the Irish House of Lords consisted of
+  men who were English to all intents and purposes&mdash;many of
+  them by birth, and many by residence, and, no doubt, they always
+  came over with reluctance to what Lord Chancellor Clare called
+  'our damnable country.' It may be that in some years after the
+  abolition of the Establishment&mdash;after some experience of the
+  <i>r&#233;gime</i> of religious equality&mdash;the two races
+  in this island will learn to act together so harmoniously as to
+  give a fair promise that they could be safely trusted with
+  self-legislation. But the '<i>self</i>' must be one body animated
+  by one spirit; not two bodies, chained together, irritated by the
+  contact, fiercely struggling against one another, eternally
+  reproaching one another about the mutual wrongs of the past, and
+  not unfrequently coming to blows, like implacable duellists shut
+  up in a small room, each determined to kill or be killed. If
+  England were to let go her hold even now, something like this
+  would be the Irish 'situation.' The abiding force of this
+  antipathy, in the full light of Christianity, is awful.</p>
+
+  <p>In his 'Life, Letters, and Speeches of Lord Plunket,' the Hon.
+  David Plunket states that, when his grandfather entered the Irish
+  parliament, 'the English Government had nearly abandoned the
+  <i>sham</i> of treating the Irish parliament as an independent
+  legislature; the treasury benches were filled with placemen and
+  pensioners. All efforts tending to <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page260" id="page260"></a>[pg 260]</span> reform of parliament
+  or concession to the Catholics had been given up as useless.
+  Grattan and some of his immediate followers had seceded from an
+  assembly too degraded to appreciate their motives, or to be
+  influenced by their example; and whatever remained of
+  independence in the House of Commons ministers still laboured to
+  bring under their control. Scarcely thirty votes appeared in
+  opposition on the most important divisions, while Government
+  could at any time readily whip a majority of 100.'</p>
+
+  <p>According to a Government return made in 1784, by Pitt's
+  direction, 116 nomination seats were divided between some 25
+  proprietors. Lord Shannon returned no less than 16 members, and
+  the great family of Ponsonby returned 14; Lord Hillsborough, 9,
+  the Duke of Leinster, 7, and the Castle itself 12. Eighty-six
+  seats were <i>let out</i> by the owners, in consideration of
+  titles, offices, and pensions. No less than 44 seats were
+  occupied by placemen, 32 by gentlemen who had promises of
+  pensions, 12 by gentlemen who stood out for higher prices from
+  Government. The regular opposition appears to have been limited
+  to 82 votes, of which 30 belonged to Whig nominees, and the rest
+  to the popular party.</p>
+
+  <p>It is, then, easy to account for the state of public feeling
+  which Mr. Plunket, with these facts and figures before him, so
+  well describes. He says truly that if it were possible to appeal
+  to the country under these circumstances, the people would not
+  have responded. 'Gloomy and desperate, they had lost all
+  confidence in their parliament, and looked to other quarters for
+  deliverance from the <i>intolerable tyranny</i> under which they
+  suffered. There can be no doubt that this anarchy and disgrace
+  were in a great degree the result of a misgovernment, ancient and
+  recent, <i>which seems to have been always adopted with a view to
+  bring out strongly the worst elements of the Irish character</i>;
+  but it was at that time said, and no doubt believed by the
+  Opposition, that the ministry of the day had deliberately planned
+  and accomplished the disorganisation of the Irish people and
+  their <span class="pagenum"><a name="page261" id=
+  "page261"></a>[pg 261]</span> parliament, in order to enable them
+  to carry out their favourite project of the Union.'</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Plunket, after describing the classes of 'representatives'
+  that his grandfather had to deal with in the Irish House of
+  Commons, further says: 'It is true that this corrupt assembly
+  cannot fairly be looked upon as the mirror of national character
+  and national honour. The members of the majority who voted for
+  the Union <i>were not</i> the representatives of the people,
+  <i>but the hired servants of the Minister, for the Parliament had
+  been packed for the purpose</i>.'</p>
+
+  <p>Towards the close of the century, however, the French
+  Revolution, the American war, and the volunteer movement, had
+  begun to cause some faint stirring of national life in the inert
+  mass of the Roman Catholic population, which the penal code had
+  '<i>dis-boned</i>.' Up to this time they were not even thought of
+  in the calculations of politicians. According to Dean Swift,
+  Papists counted no more in politics than the women and children.
+  Macaulay uses a still more contemptuous comparison to express the
+  estimate in which they were held in those times, saying, that
+  their lords and masters would as soon have consulted their
+  poultry and swine on any political question. Nevertheless, during
+  the excitement of the volunteer movement, some of the poor Celts
+  began to raise their heads, and presumed to put the question to
+  the most liberal portion of the ruling race&mdash;'Are we not
+  men? Have not we also some rights?' The appeal was responded to
+  in the Irish parliament, and in 1793 the elective franchise was
+  conceded to Roman Catholics. It was the first concession, and the
+  least that could be granted. But the bare proposal excited the
+  utmost indignation in the Tory party, and especially in the
+  Dublin corporation, where the Orange spirit was rampant. That
+  body adopted an address to the Protestants of Ireland, which
+  bears a remarkable resemblance in its spirit and style to
+  addresses lately issued by Protestant Defence Associations. Both
+  speak in the kindest terms of their Roman Catholic
+  fellow-subjects, disclaim all intention of depriving them of any
+  advantages they <span class="pagenum"><a name="page262" id=
+  "page262"></a>[pg 262]</span> enjoy under our glorious
+  constitution, declaring that their objects are purely
+  <i>defensive</i>, and that they want merely to guard that
+  constitution against the aggressions of the Papacy quite as much
+  for the sake of Roman Catholics as for the sake of Protestants.
+  'Countrymen and friends,' said the Dublin Tories, seventy-five
+  years ago, 'the firm and manly support which we received from you
+  when we stood forward in defence of the Protestant Ascendancy,
+  deserves our warmest thanks. We hoped that the sense of the
+  Protestants of Ireland, declared upon that occasion, would have
+  convinced our Roman Catholic fellow-subjects that the pursuit of
+  political power was for them a vain pursuit; for, though the
+  liberal and enlightened mind of the Protestant receives pleasure
+  at seeing the Catholic exercise his religion with freedom, enjoy
+  his property in security, and possess the highest degree of
+  personal liberty, yet, experience has taught us that, without the
+  ruin of the Protestant establishment, the Catholic cannot be
+  allowed the smallest influence in the state.'</p>
+
+  <p>Those men were as thoroughly convinced as their descendants,
+  who protest against concession to-day, that all our Protestant
+  institutions would go to perdition, if Papists, although then
+  mere serfs, were allowed to vote for members of parliament. They
+  were equally puzzled to know why Roman Catholics were
+  discontented, or what more their masters could reasonably do for
+  them to add to the enviable happiness of their lot. 'We entreat
+  you,' the Dublin corporation said to their Protestant brethren
+  throughout the country&mdash;'we entreat you to join with us in
+  using every honest means of persuading the Roman Catholics to
+  rest content with the most perfect toleration of their religion,
+  the fullest security of their property, and the most complete
+  personal liberty; but, by no means, now or hereafter, to attempt
+  any interference in the government of the kingdom, as such
+  interference would be incompatible with the Protestant
+  Ascendancy, which we have resolved with our lives and fortunes to
+  maintain.' Lest any doubt should exist as to <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page263" id="page263"></a>[pg 263]</span> what
+  they meant by 'Protestant Ascendancy,' they expressly defined it.
+  They resolved that it consisted in a Protestant King of Ireland;
+  a Protestant Parliament, Protestant electors and Government;
+  Protestant benches of justice; a Protestant hierarchy; the army
+  and the revenue, through all their branches and details,
+  Protestant; and this system supported by a connection with the
+  Protestant realm of Britain.</p>
+
+  <p>The power of the political franchise to elevate a degraded
+  people, to convert slaves into men, is exhibited before the eyes
+  of the present generation in the Southern States of America; even
+  where differences of race and colour are most marked, and where
+  the strongest natural antipathies are to be overcome. We may
+  judge from this what must have been the effect of this concession
+  on the Irish Celts. The forty-shilling freeholders very soon
+  became objects of consideration with their landlords, who were
+  anxious to extend their political influence in their respective
+  counties, for the representation of which the great proprietors
+  had many a fierce contest. The abolition of this franchise by the
+  Emancipation Act made that measure a grievance instead of a
+  relief to the peasantry, for the landlords were now as anxious to
+  get rid of the small holders as they had been to increase them so
+  long as they served their political purpose. It was one of the
+  great drawbacks which deprived emancipation of the healing effect
+  it would otherwise have produced. If&mdash;as Pitt
+  intended&mdash;that measure had formed part of the Union
+  arrangements; if the forty-shilling freeholders had been spared,
+  and the priesthood had been endowed, we should never have had an
+  agitation for repeal or even for the separation of the church
+  from the state. Pitt's plan of the Union included the abolition
+  of Protestant Ascendancy.</p>
+
+  <p>Edmund Burke, in one of his letters on Ireland, said: 'A word
+  has been lately struck in the mint of the castle of Dublin.
+  Thence it was conveyed to the Tholsel, or city hall, where having
+  passed the touch of the corporation, so respectably stamped and
+  vouched, it soon became current in parliament, and was carried
+  back by the speaker of the <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page264" id="page264"></a>[pg 264]</span> House of Commons, in
+  great pomp, as an offering of homage from whence it came. That
+  word is Ascendancy. The word is not absolutely new.' He then
+  gives its various meanings, and first shows what it does
+  <i>not</i> signify in the new sense. Not influence obtained by
+  love or reverence, or by superior management and dexterity; not
+  an authority derived from wisdom or virtue, promoting the
+  happiness and freedom of the Roman Catholic people; not by
+  flattering them, or by a skilful adaptation to their humours and
+  passions. It means nothing of all these. Burke then shows what it
+  does mean. 'New ascendancy is old mastership. It is neither more
+  nor less than the resolution of one sect of people in Ireland to
+  consider themselves the sole citizens in the commonwealth, and to
+  keep a dominion over the rest, by reducing them to absolute
+  slavery under a military power; and thus fortified in their
+  power, to divide the public estate, which is the result of
+  general contribution, as a military booty, solely among
+  themselves. This ascendancy, by being a <i>Protestant</i>
+  ascendancy, does not better it, from a combination of a note or
+  two more in this anti-harmonic scale. By the use that is
+  frequently made of the term, and the policy that is grafted on
+  it, the name Protestant becomes nothing more or better than the
+  name of a persecuting faction, with a relation of some sort of
+  theological hostility to others, but without any sort of
+  ascertained tenets of its own, upon the ground of which it
+  persecutes other men; for the patrons of this Protestant
+  ascendancy neither do nor can, by anything positive, define or
+  describe what they mean by the word Protestant.... The whole is
+  nothing but pure and perfect malice. It is indeed a perfection in
+  that kind, belonging to beings of a higher order than man, and to
+  them we ought to leave it.... Let three millions of people but
+  abandon all that they and their ancestors have been taught to
+  believe sacred, and to forswear it publicly in terms the most
+  degrading, and nothing more is required of them.... The word
+  <i>Protestant</i> is the charm that locks up in a dungeon of
+  servitude three millions of people.</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page265" id="page265"></a>[pg 265]</span>
+
+  <p>Every thoughtful reader of the debates in parliament on the
+  state of Ireland, must have been struck with the difference of
+  opinion between the Liberals and the Conservatives, as to the
+  facts of the case. A still more violent difference was presented
+  in the British parliament, in the year 1797, when there were
+  great debates in both houses on the subject, and when the facts
+  were still more glaring, one of them being that the reign of
+  terror established by the Irish Government prevented the press
+  from reporting the maddening atrocities which the ruling faction
+  was daily perpetrating against the mass of the king's subjects.
+  The debate arose in the Lords, on a motion by Lord Moira for an
+  address to the king on the state of Ireland. He described the
+  horrors of which he had been recently a witness, but softened the
+  recital, lest he should shock his hearers too much. Orange
+  loyalty was then licensed and let loose upon the defenceless
+  Roman Catholic population in Ulster. Lord Gosford's description
+  of the scenes of desolation in his own county, Armagh, is well
+  known. He did what he could to prevent the burning of Roman
+  Catholic houses, and the personal injuries inflicted upon the
+  unfortunate inhabitants, while their Orange neighbours chased
+  them out of the country, giving them Cromwell's alternative. But
+  his mercy injured his reputation, and he felt obliged to protest
+  solemnly that he was a loyal man, and that he wished to uphold
+  Protestant ascendancy in Ireland as much as any of his accusers.
+  He only asked that the poor Catholic should be allowed to live in
+  peace. In the debate referred to, Lord Moira declared that
+  ninety-one householders had been banished from one of his own
+  estates; and many of them wounded in their persons. The
+  discontent, he said, was not confined to one sect. He ascribed
+  the state of things to the recall of Lord Fitzwilliam, which
+  crushed the hopes of the Catholics, and gave unbounded licence to
+  the yeomanry, who were empowered to act with a vigour beyond the
+  law; to turn out, banish, or kill the king's subjects, on mere
+  suspicion, often prompted by private malice, and having no
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page266" id="page266"></a>[pg
+  266]</span> better warrant than anonymous information. But for
+  all this the Irish parliament and the new reactionary viceroy
+  freely granted acts of indemnity. According to Earl Fitzwilliam
+  'whole parishes, baronies, and even counties, were declared to be
+  out of the king's peace.'</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Fox brought forward a similar motion in the House of
+  Commons, pleading the cause of justice and humanity in a noble
+  speech, and boldly affirming principles of government for
+  Ireland, which Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Chichester Fortescue, and Mr.
+  Bright are now endeavouring to have carried out by the imperial
+  parliament after seventy years of concession, extorted by three
+  rebellions. Mr. Fox expressed his abhorrence of 'the truly
+  diabolical maxim' of '<i>Divide el impera</i>,' by which the
+  government of Ireland was conducted. He hoped that the discontent
+  which threatened the separation of Ireland would be dissipated
+  without the necessity of war. 'But now,' he said, 'the extremity
+  of rigour has been tried&mdash;the severity of despotism has been
+  let loose&mdash;and the Government is driven to that state when
+  the laws are not to be put into execution, but to be superseded.'
+  The motion was seconded by Sir Francis Burdett, who said:
+  'Whoever has seen Ireland, has seen a country where the fields
+  are desolated, and the prisons overflowing with the victims of
+  oppression&mdash;has seen the shocking contrast between a
+  profligate, extravagant Government, and an enslaved and
+  impoverished people.' The motion was rejected by a majority of
+  136. Lord Moira made a last and an almost despairing appeal on
+  November 22, in the same year. In his speech he said: 'I have
+  seen in that country a marked distinction made between the
+  English and the Irish. I have seen troops that have been sent
+  full of this prejudice, that every inhabitant of that kingdom is
+  a rebel to the British Government. I have seen the most wanton
+  insults practised upon men of all ranks and conditions. I have
+  seen the most grievous oppression exercised, in consequence of a
+  presumption that the person who was the unfortunate object of
+  such oppression was in hostility to the Government; and yet that
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page267" id="page267"></a>[pg
+  267]</span> has been done in a part of the country as quiet and
+  as free from disturbance as the city of London. He who states
+  these things should be prepared with proofs. I am prepared with
+  them.' He then went into a number of horrifying details, and
+  concluded as follows: 'You say that the Irish are insensible to
+  the benefits of the British constitution, and you withhold all
+  these benefits from them. You goad them with harsh and cruel
+  punishments, and a general infliction of insult is thrown upon
+  the kingdom. I have seen, my lords, a conquered country held by
+  military force; <i>but never did I see in any conquered country
+  such a tone of insult as has been adopted by Great Britain
+  towards Ireland</i>. I have made a last effort. I acquit my
+  conscience; I have done my duty.'</p>
+
+  <p>In subsequent debates, the following sentiments were uttered
+  by the leading Whig statesmen of the day: 'The treatment of
+  Ireland,' said Mr. Fox, 'was such as to harrow up the soul. It
+  was shocking to think that a nation of brothers was thus to be
+  trampled on like the most remote colony of conquered
+  strangers.... The Irish people have been scourged by the iron
+  hand of oppression, and subjected to the horrors of military
+  execution, and are now in a situation too dreadful for the mind
+  to contemplate without dismay. After the inhuman dragooning and
+  horrible executions, the recital of which makes the blood run
+  cold&mdash;after so much military cruelty, not in one, but in
+  almost every part of the country&mdash;is it possible for this
+  administration to procure unanimity in Ireland?' On March 22,
+  1798, the Duke of Bedford moved an address to the king, asking
+  him to change his ministers, and alluding to the state of
+  Ireland, as it was before the breaking out of the Rebellion. He
+  said: 'Were I to enter into a detail of the atrocities which have
+  been committed in Ireland, the picture would appal the stoutest
+  heart. It could be proved that the most shocking cruelties have
+  been perpetrated; but what could be expected if men kept in
+  strict discipline were all at once allowed to give loose to their
+  fury and their passions?'</p><span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page268" id="page268"></a>[pg 268]</span>
+
+  <p>Lord Holland was persuaded that his majesty's ministers could
+  not tranquillise Ireland even by conciliation. 'How could they
+  conciliate whose concessions are always known to be the
+  concessions of weakness and of fear, and who never granted to the
+  Irish&mdash;the most generous people upon earth,&mdash;anything
+  without a struggle or resistance?' Lord William Russell, in June
+  following, said: 'A man's loyalty was to be estimated by the
+  desire he testified to imbrue his hands in his brother's blood.'
+  Sheridan asked: 'After being betrayed, duped,
+  insulted&mdash;disappointed in their dearest hopes, and again
+  thrown into the hands of the rulers they detested and despised,
+  was it impossible they should feel emotions of indignation? The
+  struggle is not one of partial disaffection, but it is a contest
+  between the people and the Government.' Mr. Tierney said: 'It was
+  certain the people were in arms against the Government, nor was
+  it easy to conceive how&mdash;having been scourged, burnt, and
+  massacred&mdash;they could have any other feeling than aversion
+  to that Government.'</p>
+
+  <p>Every motion on the subject in both houses was rejected by
+  overwhelming majorities. So little impression did the reports of
+  the appalling facts which were of daily occurrence in Ireland
+  make upon that Tory Government, that the speeches of ministers
+  read exactly like the speeches of Mr. Disraeli, Mr. Hardy, Lord
+  Mayo, and Mr. Warren, in the past session. Lord Grenville, the
+  home secretary, professed the most profound respect for the
+  independence of the Irish parliament, and he could not think of
+  interfering in the least with its privileges, however the empire
+  might suffer from its excesses. 'The motion of Lord Moira was not
+  only unnecessary, it was highly mischievous.' He dwelt on the
+  improved state of Ireland, and the tranquillity of the people. If
+  there were partial excesses on the part of the military, they
+  were unavoidable, and could only be deplored. 'He was unable to
+  discern what should alienate the affections of Ireland. For the
+  whole space of thirty years his majesty's Government had been
+  distinguished by the same uniform <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page269" id="page269"></a>[pg 269]</span> tenderness of regard,
+  by the same undeviating adherence to the mild principles of a
+  conciliatory system.... If any cruelties had been practised, they
+  must have been resisted by a high-spirited people. Were there no
+  courts of justice? The conduct of the lord lieutenant was highly
+  commendable. The system recommended by Lord Moira would only tend
+  to villify the Irish Government.' Then came the fatal
+  announcement which sounded the death-knell of thousands of the
+  Irish people, and caused the destruction of millions' worth of
+  property. The home secretary said: 'The contrary system must,
+  therefore, be persevered in; and to the spirited exertions of the
+  British military should we owe the preservation of Irish laws, of
+  Irish property, and of Irish lives!'</p>
+
+  <p>To this the Marquis of Downshire added 'that he was not afraid
+  of the effects of coercion. Every concession had been made that
+  could be made towards Ireland. Every Catholic was as free as the
+  safety of the state would admit. Were the Catholics to have an
+  equal share in the government with the Protestants, the
+  Government and the country would be lost.'</p>
+
+  <p>I will conclude by quoting the remarks of Mr. Fox, referred to
+  above: 'If you do not allay their discontent, there is no way but
+  force to keep them in obedience. Can you convince them by the
+  musket that their principles are false? Can you prove to them by
+  the bayonet that their pretensions are unjust? Can you
+  demonstrate to them by martial law that they enjoy the blessings
+  of a free constitution? No, it is said, but they may be deterred
+  from the prosecution of the objects which you have determined to
+  refuse. But on what is this founded? On the history of Ireland
+  itself? No; for the history of Ireland proves that, though
+  repeatedly subdued, it could not be kept in awe by force; and the
+  late examples will prove the effect which severity may be
+  expected to produce.... I would therefore concede; and if I found
+  I had not conceded enough, I would concede more. I know of no way
+  of governing <span class="pagenum"><a name="page270" id=
+  "page270"></a>[pg 270]</span> mankind, but by conciliating
+  them.... My wish is that the whole people of Ireland should have
+  the same principles, the same system, the same operation of
+  government. ... I would have the whole Irish government regulated
+  by Irish notions and Irish prejudices; and I firmly believe,
+  according to an Irish expression, the more she is under Irish
+  government, the more she will be bound to English interests. ...
+  I say, therefore, try conciliation, but do not have recourse to
+  arms.' He warned and implored in vain. The Union had been
+  determined on; and it was thought that it could be effected only
+  after the prostration of civil war, into which, therefore, the
+  unfortunate people were goaded.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page271" id="page271"></a>[pg 271]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER XV.</h2>
+
+  <h3>POVERTY AND COERCION.</h3>
+
+  <p>We are now in the nineteenth century, without any relief for
+  the Irish peasantry. The rebellion of '98, so cruelly crushed,
+  left an abiding sense of terror in the hearts of the Roman
+  Catholic population. Their condition was one of almost hopeless
+  prostration. The Union was effected without the promised relief
+  from their religious disabilities which was to be one of its
+  essential conditions. The established church was secured, the
+  rights of property were secured, but there was no security for
+  the mass of the people. Domestic politics were almost forgotten
+  in the gigantic struggle with Napoleon, which exhausted the
+  energies of the empire. Any signs of political life that showed
+  themselves in Ireland were connected with Catholic emancipation,
+  and the visit of George IV., in 1820, held forth promises of
+  relief which excited unbounded joy. The king loved his Irish
+  subjects, and would never miss an opportunity of realising the
+  good wishes for their happiness which he had so often and so
+  fervently expressed to his Whig friends, when he was Prince
+  Regent. O'Connell's agitation commenced soon after, and in nine
+  years after the royal visit emancipation was extorted by the
+  dread of civil war, frankly avowed by the Duke of Wellington and
+  Sir Robert Peel. But this boon left the masses nearly where they
+  had been, only more conscious of their power, and more determined
+  to use it, in the removal of their grievances.</p>
+
+  <p>Lord Redesdale, writing to Lord Eldon in 1821, said:&mdash;'In
+  England the machine goes on almost of itself, and therefore
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page272" id="page272"></a>[pg
+  272]</span> a bad driver may manage it tolerably well. It is not
+  so in Ireland. The country requires great exertion to bring it
+  into a state of order and submission to law. The whole
+  population&mdash;high and low, rich and poor, Catholic and
+  Protestant&mdash;must all be brought to obedience to law; all
+  must be taught to look up to the law for protection. The gentry
+  are ready enough to attend grand juries, to obtain presentments
+  for their own benefit, but they desert the quarter-sessions of
+  the peace. The first act of a constable in arresting must not be
+  to knock down the prisoner; and many, many reforms must be made,
+  which only can be effected by a judicious and able Government
+  <i>on the spot</i>. Ireland, in its present state, cannot be
+  governed in England. If insubordination compels you to give, how
+  are you to retain by law what you propose to maintain while
+  insubordination remains? It can only be by establishing
+  completely the empire of the law.'</p>
+
+  <p>Sir Archibald Alison ascribed the unhappy relations of classes
+  in Ireland to what he calls 'the atrocious system of
+  confiscation, which, in conformity with feudal usages, the
+  victors introduced on every occasion of rebellion against their
+  authority.' Sir George Nicholls has shown, in his valuable
+  history of the Irish poor law, that as early as 1310 the
+  parliament assembled at Kilkenny resolved that none should keep
+  Irish, or kern, in time of peace to live upon the poor of the
+  country; 'but those which will have them shall keep them at their
+  own charges, so that the free tenants and farmers be not charged
+  with them.' And 130 years afterwards, the parliament assembled in
+  Dublin declared that divers of the English were in the habit of
+  maintaining sundry thieves, robbers, and rebels, and that they
+  were to be adjudged traitors for so doing, and suffer
+  accordingly. In 1450, this class of depredators had increased
+  very much, and by their 'thefts and manslaughters caused the land
+  to fall into decay, poverty wasting it every day more and more;
+  whereupon it was ordained that it should be lawful for every
+  liege man to kill or take notorious thieves, and <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page273" id="page273"></a>[pg 273]</span>
+  thieves found robbing, spoiling, or breaking houses; and that
+  every man that kills or takes any such thieves shall have one
+  penny of every plough, and one farthing of every cottage within
+  the barony where the manslaughter is done, for every thief.'
+  These extracts show a very barbarous state of society, but Sir
+  George Nicholls remarks that at the same period the condition of
+  England and Scotland was very similar, save only that that of
+  Ireland was aggravated by the civil conflicts between the
+  colonists and the natives. There were some efforts made in
+  Ireland, by various enactments, to put down this evil, and to
+  provide employment for the large numbers that were disposed to
+  prey upon the industry of their neighbours, by robbery, beggary,
+  and destruction of property. But while there was a legal
+  provision made for the poor in England, there was none in
+  Ireland, where the people were, <i>en masse</i>, deprived of the
+  means of self-support by the action of the Government. Hence, so
+  late as the year 1836, the poor-law commissioners reported to the
+  following effect:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>It appeared that in Great Britain the agricultural families
+  constituted little more than a fourth, whilst in Ireland they
+  constituted about two-thirds, of the whole population; that there
+  were in Great Britain, in 1831, 1,055,982 agricultural labourers;
+  in Ireland, 1,131,715, although the cultivated land of Great
+  Britain amounted to about 34,250,000 acres and that of Ireland
+  only to about 14,600,000. So that there were in Ireland about
+  five agricultural labourers for every two that there were for the
+  same quantity of land in Great Britain. It further appeared that
+  the agricultural progress of Great Britain was more than four
+  times that of Ireland; in which agricultural wages varied from
+  sixpence to one shilling a day; the average of the country being
+  about eightpence-halfpenny; and that the earnings of the
+  labourers came, on an average of the whole class, to from two
+  shillings to two and sixpence a week or thereabouts for the year
+  round. Thus circumstanced, the commissioners observed, 'It is
+  impossible for the able-bodied in general to provide <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page274" id="page274"></a>[pg 274]</span>
+  against sickness or the temporary absence of employment, or
+  against old age, or the destitution of their widows and children
+  in the contingent event of their own premature decease. A great
+  portion of them are, it is said, insufficiently provided with the
+  commonest necessaries of life. Their habitations are wretched
+  hovels, several of a family sleep together on straw, or upon the
+  bare ground, sometimes with a blanket, sometimes even without so
+  much to cover them; their food commonly consists of dry potatoes,
+  and with these they are at times so scantily supplied as to be
+  obliged to stint themselves to one spare meal in the day. There
+  are even instances of persons being driven by hunger to seek
+  sustenance in wild herbs. They sometimes get a herring or a
+  little milk, but they never get meat except at Christmas, Easter,
+  and Shrovetide. Some go in search of employment to Great Britain,
+  during the harvest; others wander through Ireland with the same
+  view. The wives and children of many are occasionally obliged to
+  beg; but they do so reluctantly and with shame, and in general go
+  to a distance from home, that they may not be known. Mendicity,
+  too, is the sole resource of the aged and impotent of the poorer
+  classes in general, when children or relatives are unable to
+  support them. To it, therefore, crowds are driven for the means
+  of existence, and the knowledge that such is the fact leads to an
+  indiscriminate giving of alms, which encourages idleness,
+  imposture, and general crime.' Such was the wretched condition of
+  the great body of the labouring classes in Ireland; 'and with
+  these facts before us,' the commissioners say, 'we cannot
+  hesitate to state that we consider remedial measures requisite to
+  ameliorate the condition of the Irish poor. What those measures
+  should be is a question complicated, and involving considerations
+  of the deepest importance to the whole body of the people, both
+  in Ireland and Great Britain.'</p>
+
+  <p>Sir George Nicholls, who had been an English poor-law
+  commissioner, was sent over to Ireland to make preliminary
+  enquiries. He found that the Irish peasantry had generally
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page275" id="page275"></a>[pg
+  275]</span> an appearance of apathy and depression, seen in their
+  mode of living, their habitations, their dress and conduct; they
+  seemed to have no pride, no emulation, to be heedless of the
+  present and careless of the future. They did not strive to
+  improve their appearance or add to their comforts: their cabins
+  were slovenly, smoky, dirty, almost without furniture, or any
+  article of convenience or common decency. The woman and her
+  children were seen seated on the floor, surrounded by pigs and
+  poultry: the man lounging at the door, which could be approached
+  only through mud and filth: the former too slatternly to sweep
+  the dirt and offal from the door, the latter too lazy to make a
+  dry footway, though the materials were close at hand. If the
+  mother were asked why she did not keep herself and her children
+  clean with a stream of water running near the cabin, her answer
+  invariably was&mdash;Sure, how can we help it? We are so poor.'
+  The husband made the same reply, while smoking his pipe at the
+  fire or basking in the sunshine. Sir George Nicholls rightly
+  concluded that poverty was not the sole cause of this state of
+  things. He found them also remarkable for their desultory and
+  reckless habits. Though their crops were rotting in the fields
+  from excessive wet, and every moment of sunshine should be taken
+  advantage of, yet if there was a market, a fair, or a funeral, a
+  horse-race, a fight, or a wedding, forgetting everything else,
+  they would hurry off to the scene of excitement. Working for
+  wages was rare and uncertain, and hence arose a disregard of the
+  value of time, a desultory, sauntering habit, without industry or
+  steadiness of application. 'Such,' he proceeds, 'is too generally
+  the character and such the habits of the Irish peasantry; and it
+  may not be uninstructive to mark the resemblance which these bear
+  to the character and habits of the English peasantry in the
+  pauperised districts, under the abuses of the old poor law.
+  Mendicancy and indiscriminate almsgiving have produced in Ireland
+  results similar to what indiscriminate relief produced in
+  England&mdash;the like reckless disregard of the future, the like
+  idle and disorderly conduct, and the same proneness <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page276" id="page276"></a>[pg 276]</span> to
+  outrage having then characterised the English pauper labourer
+  which are now too generally the characteristics of the Irish
+  peasant. An abuse of a good law caused the evil in the one case,
+  and a removal of that abuse is now rapidly effecting a remedy. In
+  the other case the evil appears to have arisen rather from the
+  want than the abuse of a law; but the corrective for both will, I
+  believe, be found to be essentially the same.'</p>
+
+  <p>The expectation that such a neglected people, made wretched by
+  bad land laws, should be loyal, was surely unreasonable. For
+  them, it might be said, there was no Government, no protection,
+  no encouragement. There could not be more tempting materials for
+  agitators to work upon. Lord Cloncurry vividly sketches the state
+  of things resulting from the want of principle and earnestness
+  among politicians in dealing with Irish questions at that
+  time.</p>
+
+  <p>'From the Union up to the year 1829, the type of British
+  colonial government was the order of the day. The Protestants
+  were upheld as a superior caste, and paid in power and official
+  emoluments for their services in the army of occupation. During
+  the second viceroyalty of Lord Anglesea, an effort was made by
+  him to evoke the energies of the whole nation for its own
+  regeneration. That effort was defeated by the conjoint influence
+  of the cowardice of the English cabinet, the petulance of Mr.
+  Stanley, and the unseasonable violence and selfishness of the
+  lately emancipated popular leaders. Upon Lord Anglesea's recall
+  the modern Whig model of statemanship was set up and followed:
+  popular grievances were allowed to remain unredressed; the
+  discontent and violence engendered by those grievances were used
+  from time to time for party purposes; the people were hung and
+  bayoneted when their roused passions exceeded the due measure of
+  factious requirement; and the state patronage was employed to
+  stimulate and to reward a staff of demagogues, by whom the masses
+  were alternately excited to madness, and betrayed, according to
+  the necessities of the English factions. When Russells and Greys
+  were out or in <span class="pagenum"><a name="page277" id=
+  "page277"></a>[pg 277]</span> danger, there were free promises of
+  equal laws and privileges and franchises for oppressed Ireland;
+  the minister expectant or trembling for his place, spoke loudly
+  of justice and compensation, of fraternity and freedom. To these
+  key-notes the place-hunting demagogue pitched his brawling. His
+  talk was of pike-making, and sword-fleshing, and monster
+  marching. The simple people were goaded into a madness, the end
+  whereof was for them suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, the
+  hulks, and the gallows; for their stimulators, silk gowns and
+  commissionerships and seats on the bench. Under this treatment
+  the public mind became debauched; the lower classes, forced to
+  bear the charges of agitation, as well as to suffer its
+  penalties, lost all faith in their social future; they saw not
+  and looked not beyond the momentary excitement of a procession or
+  a monster meeting.'</p>
+
+  <p>Sir Robert Peel, when introducing the Emancipation Bill, had
+  to confess the utter failure of the coercive policy which had
+  been so persistently pursued. He showed that Ireland had been
+  governed, since the Union, almost invariably by coercive acts.
+  There was always some political organisation antagonistic to the
+  British Government. The Catholic Association had just been
+  suppressed; but another would soon spring out of its ashes, if
+  the Catholic question were not settled. Mr. O'Connell had boasted
+  that he could drive a coach-and-six through the former act for
+  its suppression; and Lord Eldon had engaged to drive 'the meanest
+  conveyance, even a donkey cart, through the act of 1829.' The new
+  member for Oxford (Sir Robert Inglis) also stated that
+  twenty-three counties in Ireland were prepared to follow the
+  example of Clare. 'What will you do,' asked Sir Robert Peel,
+  'with that power, that tremendous power, which the elective
+  franchise, exercised under the control of religion, at this
+  moment confers upon the Roman Catholics? What will you do with
+  the thirty or forty seats that will be claimed in Ireland by the
+  persevering efforts of the agitators, directed by the Catholic
+  Association, and carried out by the agency of every priest and
+  bishop in Ireland?' If <span class="pagenum"><a name="page278"
+  id="page278"></a>[pg 278]</span> Parliament began to recede there
+  could be no limit to the retrogression. Such a course would
+  produce a reaction, violent in proportion to the hopes that had
+  been excited. Fresh rigours would become necessary; the
+  re-enactment of the penal code would not be sufficient. They must
+  abolish trial by jury, or, at least, incapacitate Catholics from
+  sitting on juries. 2,000,000 of Protestants must have a complete
+  monopoly of power and privilege in a country which contained
+  5,000,000 of Catholics, who were in most of the country four to
+  one&mdash;in some districts twenty to one&mdash;of the
+  Protestants. True, there were difficulties in the way of a
+  settlement. 'But,' asked Sir Robert Peel, 'what great measure,
+  which has stamped its name upon the era, has ever been carried
+  without difficulty?</p>
+
+  <p>At the present moment there is a loud cry in the English press
+  for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, and for the old
+  remedy, coercion. Those who raise the cry would do well to read
+  Mr. Shiel's speech at the Clare election in 1828. He
+  said:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'We have put a great engine into action, and applied the
+  entire force of that powerful machinery which the law has placed
+  under our control. We are masters of the passions of the people,
+  and we have employed our dominion with a terrible effect. But,
+  sir, do you, or does any man here, imagine that we could have
+  acquired this formidable ability to sunder the strongest ties by
+  which the different classes of society are fastened, unless we
+  found the materials of excitement in the state of society itself?
+  Do you think that Daniel O'Connell has himself, and by the single
+  powers of his own mind, unaided by any external co-operation,
+  brought the country to this great crisis of agitation? Mr.
+  O'Connell, with all his talent for excitation, would have been
+  utterly powerless and incapable, unless he had been allied with a
+  great conspirator against the public peace; and I will tell you
+  who that confederate is&mdash;it is the law of the land itself
+  that has been Mr. O'Connell's main associate, and that ought to
+  be denounced as the mighty agitator of Ireland. The rod
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page279" id="page279"></a>[pg
+  279]</span> of oppression is the wand of this enchanter, and the
+  book of his spells is the penal code? Break the wand of this
+  political Prospero, and take from him the volume of his magic,
+  and he will evoke the spirits which are now under his control no
+  longer. But why should I have recourse to illustration, which may
+  be accounted fantastical, in order to elucidate what is in itself
+  so plain and obvious? Protestant gentlemen, who do me the honour
+  to listen to me, look, I pray you, a little dispassionately at
+  the real causes of the events which have taken place amongst
+  you.... In no other country, except in this, would such a
+  revolution have been effected. Wherefore? Because in no other
+  country are the people divided by the law from their superiors,
+  and cast into the hands of a set of men who are supplied with the
+  means of national excitement by the system of government under
+  which we live. Surely, no man can believe that such an anomalous
+  body as the Catholic Association could exist excepting in a
+  community that has been alienated from the state by the state
+  itself. The discontent and the resentment of 7,000,000 of the
+  population have generated that domestic government which sways
+  public opinion, and uses the national passions as the instruments
+  of its will. It would be utterly impossible, if there were no
+  exasperating distinctions amongst us, to create any artificial
+  causes of discontent. Let men declaim for a century, and if they
+  have no real grievance their harangues will be empty sound and
+  idle air. But when what they tell the people is true&mdash;when
+  they are sustained by substantial facts, effects are produced of
+  which what has taken place at this election is only an example.
+  The whole body of the people having been previously excited, the
+  moment any incident such as this election occurs, all the popular
+  passions start simultaneously up, and bear down every obstacle
+  before them. Do not, therefore, be surprised that the peasantry
+  should throw off their allegiance when they are under the
+  operation of emotions which it would be wonderful if they could
+  resist. The feeling by which they are actuated would make them
+  not only vote against their <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page280" id="page280"></a>[pg 280]</span> landlord, but would
+  make them scale the batteries of a fortress, and mount the
+  breach; and, gentlemen, give me leave to ask you whether, after
+  due reflection upon the motives by which your vassals (for so
+  they are accounted) are governed, you will be disposed to
+  exercise any measure of severity in their regard?'</p>
+
+  <p>The greatest warrior of the age rebuked the men who cried in
+  that day that the sword should be the arbiter of the Irish
+  question; and Sir Robert Peel, in his own vindication of the
+  Emancipation Act, said:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'I well know that there are those upon whom such
+  considerations as these to which I have been adverting will make
+  but a faint impression. Their answer to all such appeals is the
+  short, in their opinion the conclusive, declaration&mdash;" The
+  Protestant constitution in church and state must be maintained at
+  all hazards, and by any means; the maintenance of it is a
+  question of principle, and every concession or compromise is the
+  sacrifice of principle to a low and vulgar expediency." This is
+  easily said; but how was Ireland to be governed? How was the
+  Protestant constitution in church and state to be maintained in
+  that part of the empire? Again I can anticipate the
+  reply&mdash;"By the overwhelming sense of the people of Great
+  Britain; by the application, if necessary, of physical force for
+  the maintenance of authority; by the employment of the organised
+  strength of government, the police and the military, to enforce
+  obedience to the law." I deliberately affirm that a minister of
+  the crown, responsible at the time of which I am speaking for the
+  public peace and the public welfare, would have grossly and
+  scandalously neglected his duty if he had failed to consider
+  whether it might not be possible that the fever of political and
+  religious excitement which was quickening the pulse and
+  fluttering the bosom of the whole Catholic population&mdash;which
+  had inspired the serf of Clare with the resolution and energy of
+  a free man&mdash;which had, in the twinkling of an eye, made all
+  considerations of personal gratitude, ancient family connection,
+  local preferences, the fear of worldly <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page281" id="page281"></a>[pg 281]</span>
+  injury, the hope of worldly advantage, subordinate to the
+  all-absorbing sense of religious obligation and public
+  duty&mdash;whether, I say, it might not be possible that the
+  contagion of that feverish excitement might spread beyond the
+  barriers which, under ordinary circumstances, the habits of
+  military obedience and the strictness of military discipline
+  opposed to all such external influences.'</p>
+
+  <p>The officer who commanded the military force in Clare during
+  the election, testified, as the result of his observation there,
+  that, even in the constabulary and the army, the sympathies of a
+  common cause, political and religious, could not be altogether
+  repressed, and that implicit reliance could not long be placed on
+  the effect of discipline and the duty of obedience. On July 20,
+  Lord Anglesea wrote as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'We hear occasionally of the Catholic soldiers being
+  ill-disposed, and entirely under the influence of the priests.
+  One regiment of infantry is said to be divided into Orange and
+  Catholic factions. It is certain that, on July 12, the guard at
+  the castle had Orange lilies about them.' On July 26, the viceroy
+  wrote another letter, from which the following is an
+  extract:&mdash;'The priests are using very inflammatory language,
+  and are certainly working upon the Catholics of the army. I think
+  it important that the dep&#244;ts of Irish recruits should be
+  gradually removed, under the appearance of being required to join
+  their regiments, and that whatever regiments are sent here should
+  be those of Scotland, or, at all events, of men not recruited
+  from the south of Ireland. I desired Sir John Byng to convey this
+  opinion to Lord Hill.'</p>
+
+  <p>Emancipation was carried, and the people were disaffected
+  still. And why should they not be disaffected still? Emancipation
+  had done nothing for them. The farmers were still at the mercy of
+  the landlords, whose pride they humbled at the hustings of Clare
+  and Waterford. They were still tormented by the tithe-proctor
+  seizing the tenth of all that their labour produced on the land.
+  The labourers were still wretched, deprived of the forty-shilling
+  freehold, which <span class="pagenum"><a name="page282" id=
+  "page282"></a>[pg 282]</span> protected them from the horrors of
+  eviction and of transportation in a floating hell across the
+  Atlantic. I well remember the celebrated anti-tithe war in 1831,
+  as well as the system by which it was provoked, and I can bear
+  witness to the accuracy of the following description of the
+  tithe-proctor by Henry Grattan. He said:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'The use of the tithe-farmer is to get from the parishioners
+  what the parson would be ashamed to demand, and so enable the
+  parson to absent himself from his duty. The powers of the
+  tithe-farmer are summary laws and ecclesiastical courts; his
+  livelihood is extortion; his rank in society is generally the
+  lowest; and his occupation is to pounce on the poor in the name
+  of the Lord! He is a species of wolf left by the shepherd to take
+  care of the flock in his absence.' A single tithe-proctor had on
+  one occasion processed 1,100 persons for tithes, nearly all of
+  the lower order of farmers or peasants, the expense of each
+  process being about 8<i>s.</i> They had heard of opinions
+  delivered in parliament, on the platform, and from the press by
+  Protestant statesmen of the highest consideration, that it was a
+  cruel oppression to extort in that manner from the majority of
+  the tillers of the soil the tenth of its produce, in order to
+  support the clergy of another church, who, in many cases, had no
+  flocks, or only a few followers, who were well able to pay for
+  their own religious instruction. The system would be intolerable
+  even were the state clergy the pastors of the majority; but as
+  the proportion between the Protestants and the Roman Catholics
+  was in many parts as one to ten, and in some as one to twenty,
+  the injustice necessarily involved in the mode of levying the
+  impost was aggravated a hundredfold. It would be scarcely
+  possible to devise any mode of levying an impost more
+  exasperating, which came home to the bosoms of men with more
+  irritating, humiliating, and maddening power, and which violated
+  more recklessly men's natural sense of justice. If a plan were
+  devised for the purpose of driving men into insurrection, nothing
+  could be more effectual than the tithe-proctor <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page283" id="page283"></a>[pg 283]</span>
+  system. Besides, it tended directly to the impoverishment of the
+  country, retarding agricultural improvement and limiting
+  production. If a man kept all his land in pasture, he escaped the
+  impost; but the moment he tilled it, he was subjected to a tax of
+  ten per cent. on the gross produce. The valuation being made by
+  the tithe-proctor&mdash;a man whose interest it was to defraud
+  both the tenant and the parson&mdash;the consequence was, that
+  the gentry and the large farmers, to a great extent, evaded the
+  tax, and left the small occupiers to bear nearly the whole
+  burden; they even avoided mowing the meadows in some cases,
+  because then they should pay tithe for the hay.</p>
+
+  <p>There was besides a tax called church cess, levied by
+  Protestants in vestry meetings upon Roman Catholics for cleaning
+  the church, ringing the bell, washing the minister's surplice,
+  purchasing bread and wine for the communion, and paying the
+  salary of the parish clerk. This tax was felt to be a direct and
+  flagrant violation of the rights of conscience, and of the
+  principles of the British constitution; and against it there was
+  a determined opposition, which manifested itself in tumultuous
+  and violent assemblages at the parish churches all over the
+  country on Easter Monday, when the rector or his curate, as
+  chairman of the meeting, came into angry collision with flocks
+  who disowned him, and denounced him as a tyrant, a persecutor,
+  and a robber.</p>
+
+  <p>But the tithe impost was the one most grievously felt, and at
+  last the peasantry resolved to resist it by force.</p>
+
+  <p>Nothing could be more violent than the contrasts presented at
+  this time in the social life of Ireland. On the one side there
+  was a rapid succession of atrocities and tragedies fearful to
+  contemplate: the bailiffs, constabulary, and military driving
+  away cattle, sheep, pigs, and geese to be sold by public auction,
+  to pay the minister who had no congregation to whom he could
+  preach the gospel; the cattle-prisons or 'pounds' surrounded by
+  high walls, but uncovered, wet and dirty, crowded with all sorts
+  of animals, cold and starved, and uttering doleful sounds; the
+  driving <span class="pagenum"><a name="page284" id=
+  "page284"></a>[pg 284]</span> away of the animals in the night
+  from one farm to another to avoid seizures; the auctions without
+  bidders, in the midst of groaning and jeering multitudes; the
+  slaughter of policemen, and in some instances of clergymen, with
+  fiendish expressions of hatred and yells of triumph; the mingling
+  of fierce passions with the strongest natural affections; the
+  exultation in murder as if it were a glorious deed of war; the
+  Roman Catholic press and platform almost justifying those deeds
+  of outrage and blood; the mass of the Roman Catholic population
+  sustaining this insurrection against the law with their support
+  and sympathy and prayers, as if it were a holy war, in which the
+  victims were martyrs. On the other side were presented pictures
+  which excited the deepest interest of the Protestant community
+  throughout the United Kingdom. We behold the clergyman and his
+  family in the glebe-house, lately the abode of plenty, comfort,
+  and elegance, a model of domestic happiness and gentlemanly life;
+  but the income of the rector fell off, till he was bereft of
+  nearly all his means. In order to procure the necessaries of life
+  for his family, he was obliged to part with the cows that gave
+  milk for his household, the horse and car, which were necessary
+  in the remote place where his glebe-house was situated, and
+  everything that could be spared, till at length he was obliged to
+  make his greatest sacrifice, and to send his books&mdash;the dear
+  and valued companions of his life&mdash;to Dublin, to be sold by
+  auction. His boys could no longer be respectably clad, his wife
+  and daughters were obliged to part with their jewellery and all
+  their superfluities. There was no longer wine or medicine, that
+  the mother was accustomed to dispense kindly and liberally to the
+  poor around her, in their sickness and sorrow, without
+  distinction of creed.</p>
+
+  <p>The glebe, which once presented an aspect of so much comfort
+  and ease and affluence, now looked bare and desolate and void of
+  life. But for the contributions of Christian friends at a
+  distance, many of those once happy little centres of Christian
+  civilisation&mdash;those well-springs of consolation to the
+  afflicted&mdash;must have been abandoned to the overwhelming
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page285" id="page285"></a>[pg
+  285]</span> sand of desolation swept upon them by the hurricane
+  of the anti-tithe agitation.</p>
+
+  <p>During this desperate struggle, force was employed on several
+  occasions with fatal effect. At Newtownbarry, in the county of
+  Wexford, some cattle were impounded by a tithe-proctor. The
+  peasantry assembled in large numbers to rescue them, when they
+  came into collision with the yeomanry, who fired, killing twelve
+  persons. It was a market day, and a placard was posted on the
+  walls: 'There will be an end of church plunder; your pot,
+  blanket, and pig will not hereafter be sold by auction to support
+  in luxury, idleness, and ease persons who endeavour to make it
+  appear that it is essential to the peace and prosperity of the
+  country and your eternal salvation, while the most of you are
+  starving. Attend to an auction of your neighbours' cattle.' At
+  Carrickshock there was a fearful tragedy. A number of writs
+  against defaulters were issued by the court of exchequer, and
+  entrusted to the care of process-servers, who, guarded by a
+  strong body of police, proceeded on their mission with secrecy
+  and dispatch. Bonfires along the surrounding hills, however, and
+  shrill whistles soon convinced them that the people were not
+  unprepared for their visitors. But the yeomanry pushed boldly on.
+  Suddenly an immense assemblage of peasantry, armed with scythes
+  and pitchforks, poured down upon them. A terrible hand-to-hand
+  struggle ensued, and in the course of a few moments eighteen of
+  the police, including the commanding officer, were slaughtered.
+  The remainder consulted safety and fled, marking the course of
+  their retreat by the blood that trickled from their wounds. A
+  coroner's jury pronounced this deed of death as 'wilful murder'
+  against some persons unknown. A large government reward was
+  offered, but it failed to produce a single conviction. At
+  Castlepollard, in Westmeath, on the occasion of an attempted
+  rescue, the chief constable was knocked down. The police fired,
+  and nine or ten persons were killed. One of the most lamentable
+  of these conflicts occurred at Gurtroe, near Rathcormac, in the
+  county of Cork. Archdeacon <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page286" id="page286"></a>[pg 286]</span> Ryder brought a number
+  of the military to recover the tithes of a farm belonging to a
+  widow named Ryan. The assembled people resisted, the military
+  were ordered to fire, eight persons were killed and thirteen
+  wounded; and among the killed was the widow's son.</p>
+
+  <p>These disorders appealed with irresistible force to the
+  Government and the legislature, to put an end to a system fraught
+  with so much evil, and threatening the utter disruption of
+  society in Ireland. In the first place, something must be done to
+  meet the wants of the destitute clergy and their families.
+  Accordingly, Lord Stanley brought in a bill, in May 1832,
+  authorising the lord lieutenant of Ireland to advance
+  60,000<i>l.</i> as a fund for the payment of the clergy, who were
+  unable to collect their tithes for the year 1831. This measure
+  was designed to meet the present necessity, and was only a
+  preliminary to the promised settlement of the tithe question. It
+  was therefore passed quickly through both Houses, and became law
+  on June 1. But the money thus advanced was not placed on the
+  consolidated fund.</p>
+
+  <p>The Government took upon itself the collection of the arrears
+  of tithes for that one year. It was a maxim with Lord Stanley
+  that the people should be made to respect the law; that they
+  should not be allowed to trample upon it with impunity. The
+  odious task thus assumed, produced a state of unparalleled
+  excitement. The people were driven to frenzy, instead of being
+  frightened by the chief secretary becoming
+  tithe-collector-general, and the army being employed in its
+  collection. They knew that the king's speech had recommended the
+  settlement of the tithe question. They had heard of the evidence
+  of Bishop Doyle and other champions, exposing what they believed
+  to be the iniquity of the tithe system. They had seen the
+  condemnation of it in the testimony of the Protestant Archbishop
+  of Dublin, who declared his conviction that it could not be
+  collected except at the point of the bayonet, and by keeping up a
+  chronic war between the Government and the Roman Catholic people.
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page287" id="page287"></a>[pg
+  287]</span> They had been told that parliamentary committees had
+  recommended the complete extinction of tithes, and their
+  commutation into a rent-charge. Their own leaders had everywhere
+  resolved:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'That it was a glaring wrong to compel an impoverished
+  Catholic people to support in pampered luxury the richest clergy
+  in the world&mdash;a clergy from whom, the Catholics do not
+  experience even the return of common gratitude&mdash;a clergy
+  who, in times past, opposed to the last the political freedom of
+  the Irish people, and at the present day are opposed to reform
+  and a liberal scheme of education for their countrymen. The
+  ministers of the God of charity should not, by misapplication of
+  all the tithes to their own private uses, thus deprive the poor
+  of their patrimony; nor should ministers of peace adhere with
+  such desperate tenacity to a system fraught with dissension,
+  hatred, and ill-will.' The first proceeding of the Government to
+  recover the tithes, under the act of June 1, was therefore the
+  signal for general war. Bonfires blazed upon the hills, the
+  rallying sounds of horns were heard along the valleys, and the
+  mustering tread of thousands upon the roads, hurrying to the
+  scene of a seizure or an auction. It was a bloody campaign; there
+  was considerable loss of life, and the Church and the Government
+  thus became more obnoxious to the people than ever. Lord Stanley
+  being the commander-in-chief on one side, and Mr. O'Connell on
+  the other, the contest was embittered by their personal
+  antipathies. It was found that the amount of the arrears for the
+  year 1831 was 104,285<i>l.</i>, and that the whole amount which
+  the Government was able to levy, after putting forth its strength
+  in every possible way, was 12,000<i>l.</i>, the cost of
+  collection being 15,000<i>l.</i>, so the Government was not able
+  to raise as much money as would pay the expenses of the campaign.
+  This was how Lord Stanley illustrated his favourite sentiment
+  that the people should be made to respect the law. But the
+  Liberal party among the Protestants fully sympathised with the
+  anti-tithe recusants.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page288"
+  id="page288"></a>[pg 288]</span>
+
+  <p>Of course the Government did not persevere in prosecutions
+  from which no parties but the lawyers reaped any advantage;
+  consequently, all processes under the existing law were
+  abandoned. It was found that, after paying to the clergy the
+  arrears of 1831 and 1832, and what would be due in 1833, about a
+  million sterling would be required, and this sum was provided by
+  an issue of exchequer bills. The reimbursement of the advance was
+  to be effected by a land tax. Together with these temporary
+  arrangements to meet the exigency of the case, for the payment of
+  the clergy and the pacification of Ireland, an act was passed to
+  render tithe composition in Ireland compulsory and permanent. But
+  Ireland was not yet pacified.<a id="footnotetag43" name=
+  "footnotetag43"></a><a href="#footnote43"><sup>1</sup></a></p>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote43" name="footnote43"></a><b>Footnote 1:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag43">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>The foregoing sketch of the tithe war was written by the
+    author seven years ago for Cassell's <i>History of England</i>,
+    from which it is now extracted.</p>
+  </blockquote><span class="pagenum"><a name="page289" id=
+  "page289"></a>[pg 289]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
+
+  <h3>THE FAMINE.</h3>
+
+  <p>It had often been predicted by writers on the state of
+  Ireland, that, owing to the rottenness at the foundation of the
+  social fabric, it would come down with a crash some day. The
+  facts reported by the census commissioners of 1841 showed that
+  this consummation could not be far off. Out of a population of
+  8,000,000, there were 3,700,000 above the age of five years who
+  could neither read nor write; while nearly three millions and a
+  half lived in mud cabins, badly thatched with straw, having each
+  but one room, and often without either a window or a chimney.
+  These figures indicate a mass of ignorance and poverty, which
+  could not be contemplated without alarm, and the subject was,
+  therefore, constantly pressed upon the attention of parliament.
+  As usual in cases of difficulty, the Government, feeling that
+  something should be done, and not knowing what to do, appointed
+  in 1845 a commission to enquire into the relations between
+  landlords and tenants, and the condition of the working classes.
+  At the head of this commission was the Earl of Devon, a
+  benevolent nobleman, whose sympathies were on the side of the
+  people. Captain Kennedy, the secretary to the commissioners,
+  published a digest of the report of the evidence, which presented
+  the facts in a readable form, and was the means of diffusing a
+  large amount of authentic information on the state of Ireland.
+  The commissioners travelled through the country, held courts of
+  enquiry, and examined witnesses of all classes. As the result of
+  their extensive intercourse with the farming <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page290" id="page290"></a>[pg 290]</span>
+  classes, and their own observations, they were enabled to state
+  that in almost every part of Ireland unequivocal symptoms of
+  improvement, in spite of many embarrassing and counteracting
+  circumstances, continually presented themselves to the view, and
+  that there existed a very general and increasing spirit and
+  desire for the promotion of such improvement, from which the most
+  beneficial results might fairly be expected.</p>
+
+  <p>Indeed, speaking of the country generally, they add: 'With
+  some exceptions, which are unfortunately too notorious, we
+  believe that at no former period did so active a spirit of
+  improvement prevail; nor could well directed measures for the
+  attainment of that object have been proposed with a better
+  prospect of success than at the present moment.'</p>
+
+  <p>But this improvement produced no sensible effect upon the
+  condition of the labouring people. However brightly the sun of
+  prosperity might gild the eminences of society, the darkness of
+  misery and despair settled upon the masses below. The
+  commissioners proceed: 'A reference to the evidence of most of
+  the witnesses will show that the agricultural labourer of Ireland
+  continues to suffer the greatest privations and hardships; that
+  he continues to depend upon casual and precarious employment for
+  subsistence; that he is still badly housed, badly fed, badly
+  clothed, and badly paid for his labour. Our personal experience
+  and observation during our enquiry have afforded us a melancholy
+  confirmation of these statements; and we cannot forbear
+  expressing our strong sense of the patient endurance which the
+  labouring classes have generally exhibited under sufferings
+  greater, we believe, than the people of any other country in
+  Europe have to sustain.' It was deeply felt that the well-being
+  of the whole United Kingdom depended upon the removal of the
+  causes of this misery and degradation; for if the Irish people
+  were not elevated, the English working classes must be brought
+  down to their level. The facility of travelling afforded by
+  railways and steam-boats caused such constant intercourse between
+  England and Ireland, that Irish ignorance, <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page291" id="page291"></a>[pg 291]</span>
+  beggary, and disease, with all their contagion, physical and
+  moral, would be found intermingling with the British population.
+  It would be impossible to prevent the half-starved Irish
+  peasantry from crossing the Channel, and seeking employment, even
+  at low wages, and forming a pestiferous Irish quarter in every
+  town and city. The question, then, was felt to be one whose
+  settlement would brook no further delay.</p>
+
+  <p>It was found that the potato was almost the only food of the
+  Irish millions, and that it formed their chief means of obtaining
+  the other necessaries of life. A large portion of this crop was
+  grown under the system, to which the poorest of the peasantry
+  were obliged to have recourse, notwithstanding the minute
+  subdivision of land. There were in 1841, 691,000 farms in Ireland
+  exceeding one acre in extent. Nearly one half of these were under
+  five acres each. The number of proprietors in fee was estimated
+  at 8,000&mdash;a smaller number, in proportion to the extent of
+  territory, than in any other country of Western Europe except
+  Spain. In Connaught, several proprietors had 100,000 acres each,
+  the proportion of small farms being greater there than in the
+  rest of Ireland. The total number of farms in the province was
+  155,842, and of these 100,254 consisted of from one to five
+  acres. If all the proprietors were resident among their tenantry,
+  and were in a position to encourage their industry and care for
+  their welfare, matters would not have been so bad; but most of
+  the large landowners were absentees. It frequently happened that
+  the large estates were held in strict limitation, and they were
+  nearly all heavily encumbered. The owners preferred living in
+  England or on the Continent, having let their lands on long
+  leases, or in perpetuity to 'middlemen,' who sublet them for as
+  high rents as they could get. Their tenants again sublet, so that
+  it frequently happened that two, three, or four landlords
+  intervened between the proprietor and the occupying tenant, each
+  deriving an interest from the land. The head landlord, therefore,
+  though <span class="pagenum"><a name="page292" id=
+  "page292"></a>[pg 292]</span> ever so well disposed, had no power
+  whatever to help the occupying tenants generally, and of those
+  who had the power very few felt disposed. There were extensive
+  districts without a single resident proprietor.</p>
+
+  <p>For a few weeks after the blight of the potato crop in 1846
+  the cottiers and small farmers managed to eke out a subsistence
+  by the sale of their pigs and any little effects they had. But
+  pigs, fowl, furniture, and clothing soon went, one after another,
+  to satisfy the cravings of hunger. The better class of farmers
+  lived upon their corn and cattle; but they were obliged to
+  dismiss their servants, and this numerous class became the first
+  victims of starvation; for when they were turned off, they were
+  refused admission by their relations, who had not the means of
+  feeding them. Tailors, shoemakers, and other artisans who worked
+  for the lower orders, lost their employment, and became destitute
+  also. While the means of support failed upon every side, and food
+  rose to such enormous prices that everything that could possibly
+  be eaten was economised, so that the starving dogs were drowned
+  from compassion, the famine steadily advanced from the west and
+  south to the east and north, till it involved the whole
+  population in its crushing grasp. It was painfully interesting to
+  mark the progress of the visitation, even in those parts of the
+  country where its ravages were least felt. The small farmer had
+  only his corn, designed for rent and seed: he was obliged to take
+  it to the mill to ward off starvation. The children of the poor,
+  placed on short allowance, were suffering fearfully from hunger.
+  Mothers, heart-broken and worn down to skeletons, were seen on
+  certain days proceeding in groups to some distant dep&#244;t,
+  where Indian meal was to be had at reduced prices, but still
+  double that of the ordinary market. As they returned to their
+  children, with their little bags on their heads, a faint joy lit
+  up their famine-stricken features.</p>
+
+  <p>When the visitors entered a village their first question was:
+  'How many deaths?' '<i>The hunger is upon us</i>,' was
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page293" id="page293"></a>[pg
+  293]</span> everywhere the cry; and involuntarily they found
+  themselves regarding this hunger as they would an epidemic,
+  looking upon starvation as a disease. In fact, as they passed
+  along, their wonder was, not that the people died, but that they
+  lived; and Mr. W.G. Forster, in his report, said: 'I have no
+  doubt whatever, that in any other country the mortality would
+  have been far greater; and that many lives have been prolonged,
+  perhaps saved, by the long apprenticeship to want in which the
+  Irish peasant has been trained, and by that lovely, touching
+  charity which prompts him to share his scanty meal with his
+  starving neighbour. But the springs of this charity must be
+  rapidly dried up. Like a scourge of locusts, <i>the hunger</i>
+  daily sweeps over fresh districts, eating up all before it. One
+  class after another is falling into the same abyss of
+  ruin.'<a id="footnotetag44" name="footnotetag44"></a><a href=
+  "#footnote44"><sup>1</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>The same benevolent gentleman describes the domestic scenes he
+  saw in Connaught, where the poor Celts were carried off in
+  thousands:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'We entered a cabin. Stretched in one dark corner, scarcely
+  visible from the smoke and rags that covered them, were three
+  children huddled together, lying there because they were too weak
+  to rise, pale and ghastly; their little limbs, on removing a
+  portion of the covering, perfectly emaciated; eyes sunk, voice
+  gone, and evidently in the last stage of actual starvation.
+  Crouched over the turf embers was another form, wild and all but
+  naked, scarcely human in appearance. It stirred not nor noticed
+  us. On some straw, soddened upon the ground, moaning piteously,
+  was a shrivelled old woman, imploring us to give her something,
+  baring her limbs partly to show how the skin hung loose from her
+  bones, as soon as she attracted our attention. Above her, on
+  something like a ledge, was a young woman with sunken cheeks, a
+  mother, I have no doubt, who scarcely raised her eyes in answer
+  to our enquiries; but pressed her hand upon her forehead, with a
+  look of unutterable anguish and despair. Many cases were widows,
+  whose <span class="pagenum"><a name="page294" id=
+  "page294"></a>[pg 294]</span> husbands had been recently taken
+  off by the fever, and thus their only pittance obtained from the
+  public works was entirely cut off. In many the husbands or sons
+  were prostrate under that horrid disease&mdash;the result of
+  long-continued famine and low living&mdash;in which first the
+  limbs and then the body swell most frightfully, and finally
+  burst. We entered upwards of fifty of these tenements. The scene
+  was invariably the same, differing in little but the manner of
+  the sufferers, or of the groups occupying the several corners
+  within. The whole number was often not to be distinguished, until
+  the eye having adapted itself to the darkness, they were pointed
+  out, or were heard, or some filthy bundle of rags and straw was
+  seen to move. Perhaps the poor children presented the most
+  piteous and heart-rending spectacle. Many were too weak to stand,
+  their little limbs attenuated, except where the frightful
+  swellings had taken the place of previous emaciation. Every
+  infantile expression had entirely departed; and, in some reason
+  and intelligence had evidently flown. Many were remnants of
+  families, crowded together in one cabin; orphaned little
+  relatives taken in by the equally destitute, and even
+  strangers&mdash;for these poor people are kind to each other,
+  even to the end. In one cabin was a sister, just dying, lying
+  beside her little brother, just dead. I have worse than this to
+  relate; but it is useless to multiply details, and they are, in
+  fact, unfit.'</p>
+
+  <p>In December, 1846, Father Mathew wrote to Mr. Trevelyan, then
+  secretary of the treasury, that men, women, and children were
+  gradually wasting away. They filled their stomachs with
+  cabbage-leaves, turnip-tops, &amp;c., to appease the cravings of
+  hunger. There were then more than 5,000 half-starved wretches
+  from the country begging in the streets of Cork. When utterly
+  exhausted, they crawled to the workhouse to die. The average of
+  deaths in that union was then over a hundred a week.</p>
+
+  <p>From December 27, in 1846, to the middle of April, in 1847,
+  the number of human beings that died in the Cork <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page295" id="page295"></a>[pg 295]</span>
+  workhouse was 2,130! And in the third week of the following month
+  the free interments in the Mathew cemetery had risen to
+  277&mdash;as many as sixty-seven having been buried in one day.
+  The destruction of human life in other workhouses of Ireland kept
+  pace with the appalling mortality in the Cork workhouse.
+  According to official returns, it had reached in April the weekly
+  average of twenty-five per 1,000 inmates; the actual number of
+  deaths being 2,706 for the week ending April 3, and 2,613 in the
+  following week. Yet the number of inmates in the Irish workhouses
+  was but 104,455 on April 10.</p>
+
+  <p>The size of the unions was a great impediment to the working
+  of the poor law. They were three times the extent of the
+  corresponding divisions in England. In Munster and Connaught,
+  where there was the greatest amount of destitution, and the least
+  amount of local agency available for its relief, the unions were
+  much larger than in the more favoured provinces of Ulster and
+  Leinster. The union of Ballina comprised a region of upwards of
+  half a million acres, and within its desert tracts the famine
+  assumed its most appalling form, the workhouse being more than
+  forty miles distant from some of the sufferers. As a measure of
+  precaution, the Government had secretly imported and stored a
+  large quantity of Indian corn, as a cheap substitute for the
+  potato, which would have served the purpose much better had the
+  people been instructed in the best modes of cooking it. It was
+  placed in commissariat, along dep&#244;ts the western coast
+  of the island, where the people were not likely to be supplied on
+  reasonable terms through the ordinary channels of trade. The
+  public works consisted principally of roads, on which, the men
+  were employed as a sort of supplement to the poor law. Half the
+  cost was a free grant from the treasury, and the other half was
+  charged upon the barony in which the works were undertaken. The
+  expense incurred under the 'Labour Rate Act, 9 and 10 Viet. c.
+  107,' amounted to 4,766,789<i>l.</i> It was almost universally
+  admitted, when the pressure was over, that the system of public
+  works adopted <span class="pagenum"><a name="page296" id=
+  "page296"></a>[pg 296]</span> was a great mistake; and it seems
+  wonderful that such grievous blunders could have been made with
+  so many able statesmen and political economists at the head of
+  affairs and in the service of the Government. The public works
+  undertaken consisted in the breaking up of good roads to level
+  hills and fill hollows, and the opening of new roads in places
+  where they were not required&mdash;works which the people felt to
+  be useless, and at which they laboured only under strong
+  compulsion, being obliged to walk to them in all weathers for
+  miles, in order to earn the price of a breakfast of Indian meal.
+  Had the labour thus comparatively wasted been devoted to the
+  draining, sub-soiling, and fencing of the farms, connected with a
+  comprehensive system of arterial drainage, immense and lasting
+  benefit to the country would have been the result, especially as
+  works so well calculated to ameliorate the soil, and guard
+  against the moisture of the climate, might have been connected
+  with a system of instruction in agricultural matters of which the
+  peasantry stood so much in need, and to the removal of the gross
+  ignorance which had so largely contributed to bring about the
+  famine. As it was, enormous sums were wasted. Much needless
+  hardship was inflicted on the starving people in compelling them
+  to work in frost and rain when they were scarcely able to walk,
+  and, after all the vast outlay, very few traces of it remained in
+  permanent improvements on the face of the country. The system of
+  government relief works failed chiefly through the same
+  difficulty which impeded every mode of relief, whether public or
+  private&mdash;namely, the want of machinery to work it. It was
+  impossible suddenly to procure an efficient staff of officers for
+  an undertaking of such enormous magnitude&mdash;the employment of
+  a whole people. The overseers were necessarily selected in haste;
+  many of them were corrupt, and encouraged the misconduct of the
+  labourers. In many cases the relief committees, unable to prevent
+  maladministration, yielded to the torrent of corruption, and
+  individual members only sought to benefit their own dependants.
+  The people everywhere flocked to the public works; labourers,
+  cottiers, artisans, fishermen, <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page297" id="page297"></a>[pg 297]</span> farmers, men, women,
+  and children&mdash;all, whether destitute or not, sought for a
+  share of the public money. In such a crowd, it was almost
+  impossible to discriminate properly. They congregated in masses
+  on the roads, idling under the name of work, the really destitute
+  often unheeded and unrelieved because they had no friend to
+  recommend them. All the ordinary employments were neglected;
+  there was no fishing, no gathering of sea-weed, no collecting of
+  manure. The men who had employment feared to lose it by absenting
+  themselves for any other object; those unemployed spent their
+  time in seeking to obtain it. The whole industry of the country
+  seemed to be engaged in road-making. It became absolutely
+  necessary to put an end to it, or the cultivation of the land
+  would be neglected. Works undertaken on the spur of the moment,
+  not because they were needful, but merely to employ the people,
+  were in many cases ill chosen, and the execution equally
+  defective. The labourers, desirous to protract their employment,
+  were only anxious to give as little labour as possible, in which
+  their overlookers or gangers in many cases heartily agreed. The
+  favouritism, the intimidation, the wholesale jobbing practised in
+  many cases were shockingly demoralising.</p>
+
+  <p>In order to induce the people to attend to their ordinary
+  spring work, and put in the crops, it was found necessary to
+  adopt the plan of distributing free rations. On March 20,
+  therefore, a reduction of twenty per cent. of the numbers
+  employed on the works took place, and the process of reduction
+  went on until the new system of gratuitous relief was brought
+  into full operation. The authority under which this was
+  administered was called the 'Temporary Relief Act,' which came
+  into full operation in the month of July, when the destitution
+  was at its height, and three millions of people received their
+  daily rations. Sir John Burgoyne truly describes this as 'the
+  grandest attempt ever made to grapple with famine over a whole
+  country.' Never in the history of the world were so many persons
+  fed in such a manner by the public bounty. It was a most anxious
+  time&mdash;a time of tremendous labour and responsibility to
+  those <span class="pagenum"><a name="page298" id=
+  "page298"></a>[pg 298]</span> who had the direction of this vast
+  machinery. A member of the Board of Works thus describes the
+  feeling which no doubt pervaded most of those that were
+  officially connected with the administration of relief: 'I hope
+  never to see such a winter and spring again. I can truly say, in
+  looking back upon it even now, that it appears to me not a
+  succession of weeks and days, but one long continuous day, with
+  occasional intervals of night-mare sleep. Rest one could never
+  have, when one felt that in every minute lost a score of men
+  might die.' Mr. Trevelyan was then secretary of the treasury, and
+  it was well that a man so enlightened, energetic, and benevolent
+  occupied the post at such a time. He was indefatigable in his
+  efforts to mitigate the calamity, and he wrote an interesting
+  account of 'The Irish Crisis' in the <i>Edinburgh Review</i>.
+  Having presented the dark side of the picture in faithfully
+  recording the abuses that had prevailed, it is right to give Mr.
+  Trevelyan's testimony as to the conduct of the relief committees
+  during this supreme hour of the nation's agony. 'It is a fact
+  very honourable to Ireland that among upwards of 2,000 local
+  bodies to whom advances were made under this act, there is not
+  one to which, so far as the Government is informed, any suspicion
+  of embezzlement attaches.'</p>
+
+  <p>The following statement of the numbers receiving rations, and
+  the total expenditure under the act in each of the four
+  provinces, compared with the amount of population, and the annual
+  value assessed for poor-rate, may serve to illustrate the
+  comparative means and destitution of each province:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <table summary="" align="center">
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left"></td>
+
+      <td align="center">Population</td>
+
+      <td align="center">Valuation</td>
+
+      <td align="center">Greatest</td>
+
+      <td align="center">Total</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left"></td>
+
+      <td align="center"></td>
+
+      <td align="center"></td>
+
+      <td align="center">Number of</td>
+
+      <td align="center">Expenditure</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left"></td>
+
+      <td align="center"></td>
+
+      <td align="center"></td>
+
+      <td align="center">Rations given</td>
+
+      <td align="center"></td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left"></td>
+
+      <td align="center"></td>
+
+      <td align="center"></td>
+
+      <td align="center">out</td>
+
+      <td align="center"></td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left"></td>
+
+      <td align="center"></td>
+
+      <td align="center">&pound;</td>
+
+      <td align="center"></td>
+
+      <td align="center">&pound;</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Ulster</td>
+
+      <td align="right">2,386,373</td>
+
+      <td align="right">3,320,133</td>
+
+      <td align="right">346,517</td>
+
+      <td align="right">170,508</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Leinster</td>
+
+      <td align="right">1,973,731</td>
+
+      <td align="right">4,624,542</td>
+
+      <td align="right">450,606</td>
+
+      <td align="right">308,068</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Munster</td>
+
+      <td align="right">2,396,161</td>
+
+      <td align="right">1,465,643</td>
+
+      <td align="right">1,013,826</td>
+
+      <td align="right">671,554</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Connaught</td>
+
+      <td align="right">1,418,859</td>
+
+      <td align="right">1,465,643</td>
+
+      <td align="right">745,652</td>
+
+      <td align="right">526,048</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left"></td>
+
+      <td align="left">&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+
+      <td align="left">&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+
+      <td align="left">&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+
+      <td align="left">&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left"></td>
+
+      <td align="right">8,175,124</td>
+
+      <td align="right">13,187,421</td>
+
+      <td align="right">2,556,601</td>
+
+      <td align="right">1,676,268</td>
+    </tr>
+  </table><span class="pagenum"><a name="page299" id=
+  "page299"></a>[pg 299]</span>
+
+  <p>Private benevolence did wonders in this crisis. The British
+  Association raised and distributed 269,302<i>l.</i> The queen's
+  letter, ordering collections in the English churches, produced
+  200,738<i>l.</i> But the bounty of the United States of America
+  transcended everything. The supplies sent across the Atlantic
+  were on a scale unparalleled in the history of the world.</p>
+
+  <p>Meetings were held in Philadelphia, Washington, New York, and
+  other cities, in quick succession, presided over by the first men
+  in the country. All through the States the citizens evinced an
+  intense interest, and a noble generosity worthy of the great
+  Republic. The railway companies carried free of charge all
+  packages marked 'Ireland.' Public carriers undertook the
+  gratuitous delivery of packages intended for the relief of Irish
+  distress. Storage to any extent was offered on the same terms.
+  Ships of war, without their guns, came to the Irish shores on a
+  mission of peace and mercy, freighted with food for British
+  subjects. Cargo after cargo followed in rapid succession, until
+  nearly 100 separate shipments had arrived, our Government having
+  consented to pay the freight of all donations of food forwarded
+  from America, which amounted in the whole to 33,000<i>l.</i> The
+  quantity of American food consigned to the care of the Society of
+  Friends was nearly 10,000 tons, the value of which was about
+  100,000<i>l.</i> In addition to all this, the Americans remitted
+  to the Friends' Committee 16,000<i>l.</i> in money. They also
+  sent 642 packages of clothing, the precise value of which could
+  not be ascertained. There was a very large amount of remittances
+  sent to Ireland, during the famine, by the Irish in the United
+  States. Unfortunately, there are no records of those remittances
+  prior to 1848; but since that time we are enabled to ascertain a
+  large portion of them, though not the whole, and their amount is
+  something astonishing. The following statement of sums remitted
+  by emigrants in America to their families in Ireland, was printed
+  by order of Parliament:&mdash;During <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page300" id="page300"></a>[pg 300]</span> the
+  years 1848, 460,180<i>l.</i>; 1849, 540,619<i>l.</i>; 1850,
+  957,087<i>l.</i>; 1851, 990,811<i>l.</i></p>
+
+  <p>The arrival of the American ships naturally excited great
+  interest at the various ports. 'On Monday, April 13,' writes Mr.
+  Maguire, 'a noble sight might be witnessed in Cork
+  harbour&mdash;the sun shining its welcome on the entrance of the
+  unarmed war-ship Jamieson, sailing in under a cloud of snowy
+  canvas, her great hold laden with bread-stuffs for the starving
+  people of Ireland. It was a sight that brought tears to many an
+  eye, and prayers of gratitude to many a heart. It was one of
+  those things which one nation remembers of another long after the
+  day of sorrow has passed. Upon the warm and generous people to
+  whom America literally broke bread and sent life, this act of
+  fraternal charity, so gracefully and impressively offered,
+  naturally produced a profound and lasting impression, the
+  influence of which is felt at this moment.'</p>
+
+  <p>The clergy, Protestant and Roman Catholic, almost the only
+  resident gentry in several of the destitute districts, worked
+  together on the committees with commendable zeal, diligence, and
+  unanimity. Among the Roman Catholic clergy, Father Mathew was at
+  that time by far the most influential and popular. The masses of
+  the peasantry regarded him as almost an inspired apostle. During
+  the famine months, he exerted himself with wonderful energy and
+  prudence, first, in his correspondence with different members of
+  the Government, earnestly recommending and urging the speedy
+  adoption of measures of relief; and next, in commending those
+  measures to the people, dissuading the hungry from acts of
+  violence, and preaching submission and resignation under that
+  heavy dispensation of Providence. Of this there are ample proofs
+  in the letters published by Mr. Maguire, M.P. 'It is not to
+  harrow your feelings, dear Mr. Trevelyan,' he wrote, 'I tell this
+  tale of woe. No; but to excite your sympathy in behalf of our
+  miserable peasantry. It is rumoured that the capitalists in the
+  corn and flour trade are endeavouring to induce the Government
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page301" id="page301"></a>[pg
+  301]</span> not to protect the people from famine, but to leave
+  them at their mercy. I consider this a cruel and unjustifiable
+  interference. I am so unhappy at the prospect before us, and so
+  horror-struck by the apprehension of our destitute people falling
+  into the ruthless hands of the corn and flour traders, that I
+  risk becoming troublesome, rather than not lay my humble opinions
+  before you.' Again: 'I hail with delight the humane, the
+  admirable measures for relief announced by my Lord John Russell;
+  they have given universal satisfaction. But of what avail will
+  all this be, unless the wise precautions of Government will
+  enable the toiling workman, after exhausting his vigour during a
+  long day to earn a shilling, to purchase with that shilling a
+  sufficiency of daily food for his generally large and helpless
+  family?' Father Mathew earnestly pleaded for out-door relief, in
+  preference to the workhouse, foreseeing the danger of sundering
+  the domestic bonds, which operate so powerfully as moral
+  restraints in Ireland. The beautiful picture which he drew of the
+  Irish peasant's home in his native land was not too highly
+  coloured, as applied to the great majority of the
+  people:&mdash;'The bonds of blood and affinity, dissoluble by
+  death alone, associate in the cabins of the Irish peasantry, not
+  only the husband, wife, and children, but the aged parents and
+  the married couple and their destitute relatives, even to the
+  third and fourth degree of kindred. God forbid that political
+  economists should dissolve these ties! should violate these
+  beautiful charities of nature and the gospel! I have often found
+  my heart throb with delight when I beheld three or four
+  generations seated around the humble board and blazing hearth;
+  and I offered a silent prayer to the great Father of all that the
+  gloomy gates of the workhouse should never separate those whom
+  such tender social chains so fondly link together.'</p>
+
+  <p>The following is a tabular view of the whole amount of
+  voluntary contributions during the Irish famine, which deserves a
+  permanent record for the credit of our common
+  humanity:&mdash;</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page302" id=
+  "page302"></a>[pg 302]</span>
+
+  <table summary="" align="center">
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left"></td>
+
+      <td align="center">&pound;</td>
+
+      <td align="center"><i>s.</i></td>
+
+      <td align="center"><i>d.</i></td>
+
+      <td align="center">&pound;</td>
+
+      <td align="center"><i>s.</i></td>
+
+      <td align="center"><i>d.</i></td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Local contributions officially reported</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">    in 1846</td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right">104,689</td>
+
+      <td align="right">18</td>
+
+      <td align="right">1</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Local contributions officially reported</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">    in 1847</td>
+
+      <td align="left"></td>
+
+      <td align="left"></td>
+
+      <td align="left"></td>
+
+      <td align="right">199,569</td>
+
+      <td align="right">4</td>
+
+      <td align="right">1</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">British Relief Association, total
+      received</td>
+
+      <td align="right">470,041</td>
+
+      <td align="right">1</td>
+
+      <td align="right">1</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">    say five-sixths for Ireland</td>
+
+      <td align="left"></td>
+
+      <td align="left"></td>
+
+      <td align="left"></td>
+
+      <td align="right">391,700</td>
+
+      <td align="right">17</td>
+
+      <td align="right">8</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">General Central Relief Committee,</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">    College Green</td>
+
+      <td align="right">83,934</td>
+
+      <td align="right">17</td>
+
+      <td align="right">11</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">  Less received from British Relief</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">    Association</td>
+
+      <td align="right">20,190</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left"></td>
+
+      <td align="right">_______</td>
+
+      <td align="right">___</td>
+
+      <td align="right">___</td>
+
+      <td align="right">63,744</td>
+
+      <td align="right">17</td>
+
+      <td align="right">11</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Irish Relief Association, Sackville</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">    Street</td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right">42,446</td>
+
+      <td align="right">5</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Relief Committee of the Society of</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">    Friends, London</td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right">42,905</td>
+
+      <td align="right">12</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Central Relief Committee of the</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">    Society of Friends, Dublin</td>
+
+      <td align="right">198,313</td>
+
+      <td align="right">15</td>
+
+      <td align="right">3</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">  Less received from Committee of the</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">    Society of Friends in London,</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">    and interest</td>
+
+      <td align="right">39,249</td>
+
+      <td align="right">19</td>
+
+      <td align="right">11</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left"></td>
+
+      <td align="right">_______</td>
+
+      <td align="right">___</td>
+
+      <td align="right">___</td>
+
+      <td align="right">159,063</td>
+
+      <td align="right">15</td>
+
+      <td align="right">4</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Indian Relief Fund</td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right">13,919</td>
+
+      <td align="right">15</td>
+
+      <td align="right">2</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">National Club, London</td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right">19,929</td>
+
+      <td align="right">12</td>
+
+      <td align="right">2</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Wesleyan Methodist Relief Fund,</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">    London</td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right">20,056</td>
+
+      <td align="right">14</td>
+
+      <td align="right">4</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Irish Evangelical Society, London</td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right">9,264</td>
+
+      <td align="right">9</td>
+
+      <td align="right">9</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Baptists' Relief Fund, London</td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right">6,141</td>
+
+      <td align="right">11</td>
+
+      <td align="right">2</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Ladies' Irish Clothing Society, London</td>
+
+      <td align="right">9,533</td>
+
+      <td align="right">4</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">  Less received from British Association,
+      &amp;c.</td>
+
+      <td align="right">5,324</td>
+
+      <td align="right">12</td>
+
+      <td align="right">11</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left"></td>
+
+      <td align="right">_______</td>
+
+      <td align="right">___</td>
+
+      <td align="right">___</td>
+
+      <td align="right">4,208</td>
+
+      <td align="right">11</td>
+
+      <td align="right">1</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Ladies' Relief Association for Ireland</td>
+
+      <td align="right">19,584</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+
+      <td align="right">9</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">  Less received from Irish Relief</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">    Association and for sales of</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">    manufactures</td>
+
+      <td align="right">7,659</td>
+
+      <td align="right">6</td>
+
+      <td align="right">7</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left"></td>
+
+      <td align="right">_______</td>
+
+      <td align="right">___</td>
+
+      <td align="right">___</td>
+
+      <td align="right">11,924</td>
+
+      <td align="right">14</td>
+
+      <td align="right">2</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Ladies' Industrial Society for
+      encouragement</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">    of labour among the peasantry</td>
+
+      <td align="right">1,968</td>
+
+      <td align="right">12</td>
+
+      <td align="right">8</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">  Less received from Irish Relief</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">    Association</td>
+
+      <td align="right">1,500</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left"></td>
+
+      <td align="right">_______</td>
+
+      <td align="right">___</td>
+
+      <td align="right">___</td>
+
+      <td align="right">468</td>
+
+      <td align="right">12</td>
+
+      <td align="right">8</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Belfast Ladies' Association for the</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">    relief of Irish Distress</td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right">2,617</td>
+
+      <td align="right">1</td>
+
+      <td align="right">6</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Belfast Ladies' Industrial Association</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">    for Connaught</td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right">4,615</td>
+
+      <td align="right">16</td>
+
+      <td align="right">1</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">There were also two collections in</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">    Belfast for general purposes, the</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">    amount of which exceeded</td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right">10,000</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+    </tr>
+  </table>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote44" name="footnote44"></a><b>Footnote 1:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag44">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>Transactions during the Famine in Ireland, Appendix III.</p>
+  </blockquote><span class="pagenum"><a name="page303" id=
+  "page303"></a>[pg 303]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
+
+  <h3>TENANT-RIGHT IN ULSTER.</h3>
+
+  <p>The Earl of Granard has taken a leading part in the movement
+  for the settling of the land question, having presided at two
+  great meetings in the counties in which he has large estates,
+  Wexford and Longford, supported on each occasion by influential
+  landlords. He was the first of his class to propose that the
+  question should be settled on the basis of tenant-right, by
+  legalising and extending the Ulster custom. A reference to this
+  custom has been frequently made recently, in discussions on the
+  platform and in the press. I have studied the history of that
+  province with care; and I have during the year 1869 gone through
+  several of its counties with the special object of inquiring how
+  the tenant-right operates, and whether, and to what extent, it
+  affords the requisite security to the cultivators of the soil;
+  and it may be of some service that I should give here the result
+  of my enquiries.</p>
+
+  <p>Of the six counties confiscated and planted in Ulster,
+  Londonderry, as I have already remarked, was allotted to the
+  London companies. The aspect of their estates, is on the whole,
+  very pleasing. In the midst of each there is a small town, built
+  in the form of a square, with a market-house and a town-hall in
+  the centre, and streets running off at each side. There are
+  almost invariably three substantial and handsome places of
+  worship&mdash;the parish church, always best and most prominent,
+  the presbyterian meeting-house, and the catholic chapel, with
+  nice manses for the ministers, all built wholly or in part by
+  grants from the companies.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page304" id="page304"></a>[pg 304]</span>
+
+  <p>Complaints were constantly made against the Irish Society for
+  its neglect of its trust, for refusing to give proper building
+  leases, and for wasting the funds placed at its disposal for
+  public purposes. The details are curious and interesting,
+  throwing much light on the social history of the times. The whole
+  subject of its duties and responsibilities, and of its anomalous
+  powers, was fully discussed at a meeting of the principal
+  citizens, most of them strongly Conservative, on the 28th of May,
+  1866. There had been a discussion on the subject in the House of
+  Commons, in which Lord Claud Hamilton, then member for the
+  borough, distinguished himself. Mr. Maguire brought the Society
+  before Parliament in an able speech. The legislature, as well as
+  the public, were then preoccupied with the Church question. But,
+  doubtless, the maiden city will make her voice heard next
+  session, and insist on being released from a guardian who always
+  acted the part of a stepmother.</p>
+
+  <p>The Irish Society has been before three parliamentary
+  tribunals, the Commissioners of Municipal Corporations for
+  England and Wales, the Royal Commission of Enquiry into the state
+  of the Corporation of London, and the Irish Municipal
+  Commissioners. The English Commissioners say:&mdash;'We do not
+  know of any pretext or argument for continuing this municipal
+  supremacy of the Irish Society. A control of this kind maintained
+  at the present day by the municipality of one town in England
+  over another town in Ireland, appears to us so indefensible in
+  principle, that our opinion would not have been changed, even if
+  it were found that hitherto it has been conducted with discretion
+  and forbearance.'</p>
+
+  <p>The Irish commissioners affirmed 'that the Irish Society in
+  their original institution were created for the purpose of
+  forwarding the interests and objects of the Plantation, and not
+  for mere private gain; and that of the large income which they
+  receive from their possessions in Londonderry, a very inadequate
+  and disproportionate share is applied for the public purposes, or
+  other objects connected with the local <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page305" id="page305"></a>[pg 305]</span>
+  interests of the districts from which the revenues of the society
+  are drawn.'</p>
+
+  <p>The corporation of Derry cannot put a bye-law in force till it
+  receives the approval of the Irish Society. And what is this
+  tribunal whose fiat must stamp the decision of the Derry
+  corporation before it can operate in the smallest matter within
+  the municipal boundary? The members are London traders, totally
+  ignorant of Ireland. They are elected for two years, so that they
+  must go out by the time they acquire any information about their
+  trust, to make way for another batch equally ignorant. Having
+  everything to learn during their term of office, if they have
+  time or capacity to learn anything about the matter, they must
+  submit to the guidance of the governor, who is elected virtually,
+  though not formally, for life; and the members of the Derry
+  corporation believe him to be the autocrat of the society. Mr.
+  James P. Hamilton, now the assistant-barrister for Sligo, at the
+  great meeting of the citizens of Derry already mentioned,
+  pronounced the governors to be 'the most ignorant, the most
+  incompetent, and the most careless governors that ever were
+  inflicted on a people.' Mr. Hamilton quoted from the answer of
+  the corporation of London in 1624 to the Privy Council, which
+  required them to convey 4,000 acres to the citizens of Derry. The
+  corporation replied that they had allotted 1,500 acres for the
+  use of the mayor and other civil officers. That was either true
+  or false. If true, by what right did they recall the grant, and
+  re-possess themselves of those lands? By the articles they were
+  bound to make quays, which were not made. They were bound to give
+  bog and mountain for the city common, which they never gave. The
+  corporation had a tract called the sheriffs mountain, but the
+  city was robbed of it by her cruel stepmother, the Irish Society.
+  The society was bound to give 200 acres for a free school, and if
+  this had been done Derry might have had a rich foundation,
+  rivalling Westminster or the Charter School. Mr. Hamilton,
+  conservative as he is, with the heart of a true Irishman,
+  indignantly asks, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page306" id=
+  "page306"></a>[pg 306]</span> 'Why is this national grievance and
+  insult continued for the profit of no one? Their very name is an
+  insult and a mockery&mdash;<i>The Governor and Assistants,
+  London, of the New Plantation in Ulster</i>! What do they govern?
+  They don't govern us in any sense of the word. They merely hold
+  our property in a dead grip, without any profit to themselves,
+  and to our great disadvantage.'</p>
+
+  <p>The city is overwhelmed with debt&mdash;debt for the new
+  quays, debt for the new bridge, debt for the public works of the
+  corporation, which has struggled to improve the city under the
+  incubus of this alien power, contending with debt, want of
+  tenure, and other difficulties, which would all have been avoided
+  if the city had the lands which these Londoners hold in their
+  possession and use as their own pleasure dictates, half the
+  revenues being spent in the management.</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. William Hazlett, a magistrate of Derry, one of its ablest
+  and most respected citizens, stated that from 1818 to 1847 the
+  expenses of management were 60 per cent. The royal commissioners
+  set it down thus&mdash;Total expenditure, 219,898<i>l.</i>;
+  management, 133,912<i>l.</i> The law expenses were, during the
+  same period, 40,000<i>l.</i> 'This item of itself,' says Mr.
+  Hazlett, 'must be considered an intolerable grievance, for it was
+  laid out for the oppression of the people who should have
+  benefited by the funds so squandered in opposing the very parties
+  who supplied the money, with which they were themselves harassed.
+  If a tenant applies for a lease, and the society consents to
+  grant one, it is so hampered with obstructive clauses that his
+  solicitor objects to his signing it, and says that from its
+  nature it could not be made a negotiable instrument on which to
+  raise money. The tenant remonstrates, but the reply of the city
+  is&mdash;"That is our form of lease; you must comply with it or
+  want!" If you go to law with them, they may take you into
+  Chancery, and fight you with your own money.'</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Hazlett gave a remarkable illustration of this, which
+  shows the spirit in which this body thinks proper to fulfil its
+  duties as steward of this property. The Devon Land Commission
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page307" id="page307"></a>[pg
+  307]</span> recommended that leases of lives renewable for ever
+  should be converted into fee-farm grants, which would be a
+  valuable boon to the tenant without any loss to the owner. A bill
+  founded on the recommendation was introduced to parliament. Did
+  the enlightened and liberal Irish Society hail with satisfaction
+  this wise measure of reform? On the contrary, the governor went
+  out of his way to oppose it. Having striven in vain, with all the
+  vast influence of the corporation, to have the bill thrown out,
+  he endeavoured to get the society exempted from its operation.
+  When, in spite of his efforts, the bill became law, the governor
+  utterly refused to act on it, and brought the matter before the
+  Master of the Rolls and the House of Lords. From these renewable
+  leases the society had an income of about 2,500<i>l.</i> yearly.
+  And what amount did they demand&mdash;these moderate and discreet
+  gentleman, 'The Governor and Assistants, London, of the new
+  Plantation of Ulster'&mdash;for their interest in the renewable
+  leases? Not less than 100,000<i>l.</i>, or about 40 years'
+  purchase. In the year 1765, when the city of Derry was fast
+  hastening to decay under this London government, the society was
+  induced by an increase of 37 per cent. on the rent, to grant
+  those renewable leases. 'And but for the granting of those
+  leases,' said Mr. Hazlett, 'we should have no standing-ground in
+  this city, nor should we even have the right to meet in this hall
+  as we do to-day.'</p>
+
+  <p>Other striking facts illustrating the paternal nature of this
+  foreign government of the 'New Plantation' were produced by Mr.
+  Thomas Chambers, a solicitor who had defended the Rev. J.M.
+  Staples in a suit brought by the society, and which cost them
+  40,000<i>l.</i> of the public money to win, after dragging the
+  reverend gentleman from one court to another, regardless of
+  expense. Originally, as we have seen, the city got a grant of
+  4,000 acres for the support of the corporation; but actually
+  received only 1,500, valued then at 60<i>l.</i>, a year. This
+  land was forfeited and transferred to the bishop in the reign of
+  Charles I. Ultimately the bishop gave up the land and the
+  fishery, for which the see received, and still <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page308" id="page308"></a>[pg 308]</span>
+  receives, 250<i>l.</i> a year. The society got, hold of the 1,500
+  acres, and refused to give them back to the city, which, with the
+  alienation of the sheriff's mountain, and the raising of the city
+  rents (in 1820) from 40<i>l.</i> to 600<i>l.</i> a year, left it
+  1,000<i>l.</i> a year worse than it had been previously. The
+  result of this policy of a body which was established for
+  promoting 'civility' in Ireland, was, that the credit of the
+  corporation went down rapidly. Executions were lodged against
+  them, and all their property in quays, markets, &amp;c. was swept
+  away, the bridge being saved only by the intervention of a
+  special act of parliament. In 1831, however, the society granted
+  the corporation an allowance of 700<i>l.</i> When the reformed
+  corporation came in, and found that they were so far emancipated
+  from the thraldom of the London governor that they could go
+  before parliament themselves, the society was constrained to
+  increase its dole to 1,200<i>l.</i> a year.</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Isaac Colhoun, at the meeting referred to, produced from
+  the accounts of the society for the previous year, published in
+  the local papers, the following items:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <table summary="" align="center">
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left"></td>
+
+      <td align="center"><i>&pound;</i></td>
+
+      <td align="center"><i>s.</i></td>
+
+      <td align="center"><i>d.</i></td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Amount of the present increased income</td>
+
+      <td align="right">11,091</td>
+
+      <td align="right">17</td>
+
+      <td align="right">5</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left"></td>
+
+      <td align="right">______</td>
+
+      <td align="right">___</td>
+
+      <td align="right">___</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Incidental expenses as per general agents'
+      account for 1865</td>
+
+      <td align="right">114</td>
+
+      <td align="right">3</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0-1/2</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Law expenses</td>
+
+      <td align="right">492</td>
+
+      <td align="right">7</td>
+
+      <td align="right">11</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Salaries to general agent, deputy,
+      vice-admiral, surveyor,</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">   and others</td>
+
+      <td align="right">926</td>
+
+      <td align="right">16</td>
+
+      <td align="right">6</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Pension to general agent</td>
+
+      <td align="right">250</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Visitation expenses, 1865</td>
+
+      <td align="right">539</td>
+
+      <td align="right">19</td>
+
+      <td align="right">6</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Surveying expenses</td>
+
+      <td align="right">50</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Salary of clerk and porter's wages</td>
+
+      <td align="right">197</td>
+
+      <td align="right">10</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Coal, gas, printing, stationery,
+      advertisements</td>
+
+      <td align="right">449</td>
+
+      <td align="right">11</td>
+
+      <td align="right">5</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Salary to secretary and assistant governor,
+      and 'assistants'</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">  for attendance at 51 meetings</td>
+
+      <td align="right">549</td>
+
+      <td align="right">1</td>
+
+      <td align="right">6</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left"></td>
+
+      <td align="right">______</td>
+
+      <td align="right">___</td>
+
+      <td align="right">___</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left"></td>
+
+      <td align="right">4,094</td>
+
+      <td align="right">1</td>
+
+      <td align="right">6</td>
+    </tr>
+  </table>
+
+  <p>Here, then, is a trust fund amounting to about 12,000<i>l.</i>
+  a year, and the trustees actually spend one-third in its
+  management! And what is its management? What do they do with the
+  money? Mr. Pitt Skipton, D.L., a landed proprietor, who has
+  nothing to gain or lose by the Irish Society, <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page309" id="page309"></a>[pg 309]</span>
+  asks, 'Where is our money laid out now? Not on the estate of the
+  Irish Society, but on the estates of the church and private
+  individuals&mdash;on those of owners like myself who give their
+  tenants perpetuity, because it is their interest to do so. We
+  should wish to see the funds of the society so expended that we
+  could see some memorial of them. But where is there in Derry any
+  monument wholly erected by the society which they were not
+  specially forced to put up by charter, with the exception of a
+  paltry piece of freestone within one of the bastions bearing
+  their own arms.'</p>
+
+  <p>Let us only imagine what the corporation of Derry could do in
+  local improvements with this 12,000<i>l.</i> a year, which is
+  really their own property, or even with the 4,000<i>l.</i> a-year
+  squandered upon themselves by the trustees! Some of these worthy
+  London merchants, it seems, play the <i>r&#244;le</i> of
+  Irish landlords when travelling on the Continent, on the strength
+  of this Derry estate, or their <i>assistantship</i> in its
+  management. 'I object,' says Mr. J.P. Hamilton, 'if I take a
+  little run in the summer vacation to Paris or Brussels, to meet a
+  greasy-looking gentleman from Whitechapel or the Minories, turned
+  out sleek and shining from Moses', and to be told by him that he
+  has a large property in <i>Hireland</i>, in a place called Derry,
+  and that his tenantry are an industrious, thriving set of
+  fellows, quite remarkable for their intelligence, but that it is
+  all owing to his excellent management of his property and his
+  liberality.'</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Hazlett presented a still funnier picture of the Irish
+  'visitations' of the members of the society, with their wives and
+  daughters every summer. Gentlemen in London regard it as a fine
+  lark to get elected to serve in the Irish Society, as that
+  includes a summer trip to Ireland free of expense, with the
+  jolliest entertainment. One gentleman, being asked by another
+  whether he was ever in Ireland, answered&mdash;'No, but I intend
+  to get on the Irish Society next year and then I'll have a trip.
+  What kind of people are they over there? Do they all speak
+  Irish?'</p>
+
+  <p>'Oh, no; they are a very decent, civilised
+  people.'</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page310" id=
+  "page310"></a>[pg 310]</span>
+
+  <p>'Oh, I'm glad they don't speak Irish; for none of us do, of
+  course; but my daughter can speak French.'</p>
+
+  <p>'They had a great siege one time over there?'</p>
+
+  <p>'Oh, yes; the Derry people are proud of the siege.'</p>
+
+  <p>'Ah, yes, I see; happened in the reign of King John, I
+  believe.'</p>
+
+  <p>But the heaviest charge laid at the door of the Irish Society
+  is its persistent refusal to grant proper tenures for building.
+  By this, even more than their reckless squandering of the
+  revenues of a fine estate, which is not their own, they have
+  obstructed the improvement of the city. They might possibly be
+  compelled to refund the wasted property of their ward, but they
+  could never compensate for stunting and crippling her as they
+  have done. Fortunately, there is a standard by which we are able
+  to measure this iniquity with tolerable accuracy. Dr. William
+  Brown, of Derry, testified that it was the universal conviction
+  of the people of Derry, of all classes and denominations, that,
+  by the mismanagement of their trust, the Irish Society had
+  converted the crown grant from the blessing it was intended to
+  be, and which it would have been under a just administration,
+  into something more akin to a curse. For anything that saps the
+  self-reliant and independent spirit of a community must always be
+  a curse. Within the last hundred years Belfast was not in advance
+  of Derry in population, in trade, in capital, or in any other
+  element constituting or conducing to prosperity. Its river was
+  not so navigable, and by no means so well adapted to foreign,
+  especially transatlantic trade. The country surrounding it was
+  not superior in soil, nor the inhabitants in intelligence and
+  enterprise. It had no estate, as Derry had, granted by the crown
+  to assist in the development of civilisation, education, and
+  commerce. Its prospects, then, were inferior to those of Derry.
+  But Belfast had the one thing, most needful of all, that Derry
+  had not. It had equitable building tenures. And of this one
+  advantage, look at the result! 'Belfast is now seven times the
+  size of Derry; and is in possession of a trade and a trade
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page311" id="page311"></a>[pg
+  311]</span> capital which Derry can never hope to emulate, while
+  smothered by the stick-in-the-mud policy of that miserable
+  anachronism the Irish Society.'</p>
+
+  <p>The London companies which have estates in the county Derry
+  claimed to be entitled to all the surplus revenue after the cost
+  of management was deducted. This was the question raised by the
+  celebrated 'Skinners' case,' ultimately decided by the House of
+  Lords. The effect of the decision was, that the society was a
+  trustee, not for the companies but for the public objects defined
+  in the charter and the 'articles of agreement.' Lord Langdale's
+  language on the subject is perfectly clear and explicit. He
+  declared that the Irish Society have not, 'collectively or
+  individually,' any beneficial interest in the estates. In a sense
+  they are trustees. They have important duties to perform; but
+  their powers and duties have all reference to the
+  <i>Plantation</i>, whose object was purely public and
+  political.</p>
+
+  <p>Adverting to this judgment, it is not Derry alone that is
+  interested in the abolition of the Irish Society. Its objects
+  'affected the general welfare of Ireland and the whole realm.'
+  The city of London, in its corporate capacity, had no beneficial
+  interest in the estates. 'The money which it had advanced was
+  early repaid, and the power which remained, or which was
+  considered to remain, was, like that of the society, an entrusted
+  power for the benefit of the plantation and those interested in
+  it. The Irish Society seems to have been little, if anything,
+  more than the representative or instrument of the city for the
+  purposes of the Plantation.'</p>
+
+  <p>I subjoin the text of the concluding part of the judgment in
+  the <i>Skinners' Case</i>, the report of which fills a very bulky
+  volume:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>Lord Langdale said: 'The mistaken views which the society may
+  have subsequently taken of its own situation and duties (and I
+  think that such mistaken views have several times been taken) do
+  not vary the conclusion to be deduced from the charter and the
+  circumstances contemporary with <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page312" id="page312"></a>[pg 312]</span> the grant of the first
+  charter. I am of opinion that the powers granted to the society
+  and the trusts reposed in them were in part of a general and
+  public nature, independent of the private benefit of the
+  companies of London, and were intended by the crown to benefit
+  Ireland and the city of London, by connecting the city of
+  Londonderry and the town of Coleraine and a considerable Irish
+  district with the city of London, and to promote the general
+  purposes of the Plantation, not only by securing the performance
+  of the conditions imposed on ordinary undertakers, but also by
+  the exercise of powers and the performance of trusts not within
+  the scope of those conditions. The charter of Charles II.
+  expressly recites that the property not actually divided was
+  retained for the general operation of the
+  Plantation.'</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page313" id=
+  "page313"></a>[pg 313]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
+
+  <h3>TENANT-RIGHT IN DOWN.</h3>
+
+  <p>If there are sermons in stones I ought to have learned
+  something from the ruins of the castle built by Sir Arthur Hill,
+  the founder of the house of Downshire, in which they show the
+  chamber occupied by William III. while his army was encamped at
+  Blaris Moor. This was once a royal fort, and among the most
+  interesting memorials of the past are the primitive gates, long
+  laid aside from duty, the timber gradually mouldering away from
+  the huge nails, which once added to their massive strength.
+  Hillsborough was incorporated by Charles II., and sent two
+  members to parliament. The Hills rose rapidly in rank and
+  influence. In 1717, Trevor Hill, Esq., was created Viscount of
+  Hillsborough and Baron Hill. In 1756, Wills, the second viscount,
+  was made Earl of Hillsborough, and in 1789 he became Marquis of
+  Downshire.</p>
+
+  <p>Hillsborough is the most perfect picture of a feudal
+  establishment that I know. On one side of the little, quiet,
+  tradeless town are the ruins of the old castle, with its park and
+  its fine ancestral trees, through the thick foliage of which
+  pierces the spire of the church, lofty and beautiful. On the
+  other side, and quite close to the town, is 'the new
+  castle'&mdash;an immense building of cut stone, in the Greek
+  style, two storeys high, shut in by high walls from the view of
+  the townsfolk. Then there is the small market-square, with the
+  court-house in the centre, the hotel at the top, and other
+  buildings of a better class on the opposite side. From the hill,
+  which is crowned by these buildings, descend small <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page314" id="page314"></a>[pg 314]</span>
+  streets, in which dwell the inhabitants, all more or less
+  dependent on the lord of the manor, all cared for by him, and
+  many of them pensioned when disabled by age or infirmity.</p>
+
+  <p>There is a monument erected to the memory of the late
+  marquis's father on a hill to the south of the town. The view
+  from this point is glorious. Belfast lies a little beyond,
+  enveloped in the smoke emitted from its numerous tall chimneys.
+  To the left is the range of the Antrim highlands, continued along
+  the coast of the Lough towards Carrickfergus, and from which the
+  Cave Hill stands out in bold relief, looking down on the numerous
+  pretty villas with which the taste of wealthy manufacturers and
+  merchants has adorned those pleasant suburbs. Westward towards
+  Lough Neagh, swelling gradually&mdash;southward towards Armagh,
+  and round to Newry, the whole surface of the country gently
+  undulating, presents a vast picture of quiet beauty, fertility,
+  and plenty that can be rivalled only in England. The tall crowded
+  stocks along the ridges of the corn-fields attested the abundance
+  of the crops&mdash;the rich greenness and warmth of the landscape
+  showing how well the ground has been drained, manured, and
+  cultivated. The neat, white-walled houses gleaming amidst the
+  verdure of sheltering trees and trimmed hedges tell the
+  thoughtful observer that the people who dwell in this land belong
+  to it, are rooted in it, and ply their industry under the happy
+  feeling that, so far as their old landlords are concerned, their
+  lot is one of 'quietness and assurance for ever.'
+  Nowhere&mdash;even on the high ranges about Newry, where the
+  population is far too dense, where the patchwork cultivation
+  creeps up the mountain side, and the hand of industry snatches a
+  precarious return from a poor, cold, ungrateful soil, amidst
+  desolating tempests and blighting fogs&mdash;not even there did I
+  notice the least trace of evictions or clearances. No black
+  remnant of a wall tells that where sheep now browze and lambs
+  frisk there was once a fireside, where the family affections were
+  cherished, and a home where happy children played in the
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page315" id="page315"></a>[pg
+  315]</span> sunshine. This is the field of capital and
+  enterprise; here we have an aristocracy of wealth, chiefs of
+  industry, each of whom maintains an army of 'hands' more numerous
+  than the swordsmen of Shane O'Neill when he reigned in his castle
+  yonder on the banks of Lough Neagh. But here also is the
+  aristocracy of rank&mdash;lords of ancient lineage, descended
+  from heroes&mdash;men who have left magnificent monuments of
+  their creative genius. They have not only founded great houses,
+  but they have laid deep and broad the foundations of a social
+  system to whose strength and beauty every age has been adding
+  something, and which now wants only one topmost stone to make it
+  perfect.</p>
+
+  <p>I read on the monument to Lord Downshire the expressive motto
+  of the Downshire family&mdash;<i>Per Deum et ferrum obtinui.</i>
+  No family ever made better use of the power thus obtained. The
+  inscription states that the third marquis was 'alike
+  distinguished for patriotism, rectitude of principle, and honesty
+  of purpose. Upholding his station with becoming dignity, he was
+  also mindful of the wants of others, and practised his duties
+  with benevolence and humility, which won the regard of every
+  virtuous mind, adding lustre to his exalted rank.' Although these
+  words were engraved upon a monument by the friends and admirers
+  of their object, they are perfectly true, and they would be
+  equally true of the late marquis.</p>
+
+  <p>Lord Downshire is esteemed as the best of landlords. He
+  charges 33 per cent. less for his land than it is
+  worth&mdash;than the tenants would be able to pay. Tenant-right
+  on his property sells for an enormous amount. He never evicts a
+  tenant, nor even threatens to evict those who vote against him.
+  What he has done for the contentment and prosperity of his
+  tenants, with so much honour and happiness to himself, other
+  landlords may do with like results. The late lord, his father,
+  and his grandfather pursued the same course. They let their lands
+  at a low valuation. They encouraged improvements&mdash;they
+  allowed the free enjoyment of tenant-right; but they refused to
+  allow sub-letting or subdivision <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page316" id="page316"></a>[pg 316]</span> of the land. They
+  consolidated farms only when tenants, unable to retain small,
+  worn-out holdings, wished to sell their tenant-right and depart.
+  The consequence is that there is great competition for land on
+  the Downshire estates. The tenant-right sells easily for
+  30<i>l.</i> to 40<i>l.</i> an Irish acre, the rent being on an
+  average about 28<i>s.</i> If a tenant is not able to pay his way,
+  he is let run on in arrears perhaps for two or three years. Then
+  he feels the necessity of selling; but the arrears are deducted,
+  and also debts that he may owe to his neighbours, before he
+  departs with the proceeds in his pocket.</p>
+
+  <p>The late marquis seems to have been almost idolised by the
+  tenants. On or off the estate, in town or country, I have heard
+  nothing of him but praise of the warmest and most unqualified
+  kind; and, what is more remarkable, his late agent, Mr. Filgate,
+  was universally respected for his fairness in the discharge of
+  his duties. The way in which I heard this spoken of by the people
+  convinces me that there is nothing that wins their confidence so
+  much as strict impartiality, and justice, calmly, kindly, but
+  firmly administered. The people to whom I spoke laid stress on
+  the fact that Mr. Filgate listened quietly to the statements of
+  both sides, carefully enquired into the merits of each, and
+  decided accordingly. There was no favouritism, they said, no
+  partiality; no hasty decision in a fit of anger, or passion, or
+  impatience; no refusal to listen to reason.</p>
+
+  <p>I observed to one of the tenants, 'You admit that the rents
+  are much lower than on other estates, much lower than the value
+  of the lands, and that during the last twenty years the
+  tenant-right has increased in value. Suppose, then, that the
+  marquis should raise the rents, say twenty-five per cent., what
+  would be the consequence? Would they pay the increase willingly?'
+  'Willingly!' he exclaimed, 'no, there would be rebellion! The
+  late lord could do anything with the people; he could raise the
+  country. But you see when they bought the tenant-right they
+  believed they could never be robbed of the value for which they
+  paid by raising the rent.'</p><span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page317" id="page317"></a>[pg 317]</span>
+
+  <p>What can be better than the social picture which Harris
+  presents of the state of society here 130 years ago? 'The
+  inhabitants are warm and well clad at church, fairs, and markets.
+  Tillage and the linen manufacture keep them in constant
+  employment; a busy and laborious life prevents excess and
+  breaches of the laws, which in no part of the kingdom are more
+  reverenced. The people are regular in their attendance on public
+  worship. Few breaches of the peace, felonies, burglaries, or
+  murders come before the judges at the assizes; convictions for
+  capital offences seldom happen. Men travel securely by day, and
+  are afraid of little disturbance at night to keep them on their
+  guard. Every man sits down securely under his vine and his
+  figtree, and enjoys with comfort the fruit of his honest
+  labours.' He ascribes in the main this prosperity to what he
+  calls '<i>the spirit of tillage</i>.' Until that spirit arose in
+  Ulster, the Irish had to send to America for their daily bread,
+  'which,' he says, 'to the astonishment of all Europe, has been
+  often our weakness.' Viewing the whole social condition of the
+  county, he exclaims, 'Such are the happy effects of a
+  well-peopled country, <i>extensive tillage, the linen
+  manufacture, and the Protestant religion</i>.'</p>
+
+  <p>In the first year of the present century, the Dublin Society
+  (not yet 'Royal') employed 'land commissioners' to enquire into
+  the condition of agriculture in the several counties of Ireland.
+  The Rev. John Dubourdieu, rector of Annahilt, in this county, was
+  their commissioner for Down and Antrim. He states that the rent
+  was then on an average 20<i>s.</i> the <i>Irish</i> acre (three
+  equal to five English), allowing for the mountains and bogs,
+  which he computed at 44,658 acres. The rental of the county he
+  sets down at 300,000<i>l.</i> The net annual value of property
+  assessed under the Tenement Valuation Act is now 743,869<i>l.</i>
+  This is considerably under the letting value, it is supposed, 25
+  per cent. If this be so, the county yields to the proprietors a
+  revenue of about 1,000,000<i>l.</i> a year. If we add the value
+  of the tenant-right, and of the fixtures of all
+  sorts&mdash;houses, mills, roads, <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page318" id="page318"></a>[pg 318]</span> bridges&mdash;as well
+  as the movable property and stock, we may get some idea of the
+  enormous aggregate of wealth which the labour of man has created
+  on this strip of wild wooded hills, swampy plains, and bogs.</p>
+
+  <p>Now, what has effected this marvellous change? The tenants,
+  with one voice, exclaim, 'our labour, our capital, our skill, our
+  care, and self-denial. It was we that cleared away the woods
+  which it was so difficult to eradicate. It was we who drained
+  away the bogs and morasses, and by the help of lime and marl
+  converted them into rich land. It was we that built the
+  dwelling-houses and offices. It was we that made the fences, and
+  planted the hedge-rows and orchards. It was we that paid for the
+  making of the roads and bridges. The landlords gave us the wild
+  country to work upon; we have done the rest. Our industry enabled
+  them to build their stately mansions, and we have continued to
+  pay to them their princely revenues. Our forefathers came with
+  them as settlers, that they might "plant" the country with a
+  loyal and industrious race of people, and they came on the
+  assurance that they and their children's children were to remain
+  for ever rooted where they were planted. They did their duty
+  faithfully and well by the land, by the landlords, and by the
+  Government. Where the children that inherited their rights
+  failed, their interest in their farms has been purchased dearly
+  by others of the same race who have taken their places. By what
+  right, then, can they be turned out?'</p>
+
+  <p>It is not possible, if it were desirable, to introduce the
+  'high farming system' in this county. But if possible, would it
+  be desirable? In the eye of a scientific agriculturist it might
+  be better that all those comfortable farm-houses, with the
+  innumerable fences crossing the landscape in every possible form,
+  making all sorts of mathematical figures, presenting the
+  appearance of an immense variegated patchwork&mdash;were levelled
+  and removed so that the plough and all the modern machinery might
+  range unobstructed over hill and vale. But assuredly it would not
+  seem better <span class="pagenum"><a name="page319" id=
+  "page319"></a>[pg 319]</span> to the philanthropist, the
+  Christian, or the statesman. To the chancellor of the exchequer
+  it would make the most serious difference; for a few herds and
+  ploughmen would consume but a very small portion indeed of the
+  excisable articles now used by the tenant farmers of this county.
+  I have taken some notes on the diet of this people which may be
+  instructive.</p>
+
+  <p>At the beginning of the present century the small farmers were
+  generally weavers. There was an obvious incompatibility in the
+  two occupations, and the farms were neglected. Gradually this
+  evil has been corrected, especially since the famine. The weavers
+  have become cottiers, and the farmers have devoted themselves to
+  their agricultural operations exclusively with the more energy
+  since railroads have so facilitated the quick sale of produce,
+  particularly that sort of produce which enables the occupiers to
+  supply the markets with the smaller necessaries of life, and with
+  which large farmers would not trouble themselves. Daily labourers
+  working from 6 A.M., to 6 P.M. in large fields with machinery
+  cannot do the hundreds of little matters which the family of the
+  small holder attends to every hour of the day, often in the
+  night&mdash;and which give work to women and children as well as
+  the men&mdash;work of the most healthful character and most free
+  from demoralizing influences.</p>
+
+  <p>On a farm of fifteen to thirty acres there is constant
+  employment of a profitable kind for the members of a household,
+  including women and children. The effect of good drainage is that
+  farming operations can be carried on through winter, in preparing
+  the ground and putting in wheat and other crops early to supply
+  the markets, when prices are high. Oats, barley, potatoes, flax,
+  turnips claim attention in turn, and then come the weeding and
+  thinning, the turf-making, the hay-making, and all the harvest
+  operations. It is by the ceaseless activity of small farmers in
+  watching over their pigs, poultry, lambs, &amp;c., that the
+  markets are kept so regularly supplied, and that towns grow up
+  and prosper. If Down and Antrim had been divided into farms of
+  thousands of acres each, like Lincolnshire, what would
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page320" id="page320"></a>[pg
+  320]</span> Belfast have become? Little more than a port for the
+  shipping of live stock to Liverpool and Glasgow. Before the
+  famine, the food of the small farmers was generally potatoes and
+  milk three times a day, with a bit of meat occasionally. But salt
+  herrings were the main reliance for giving a flavour to the
+  potato, often 'wet' and bad. After the failure of the potatoes,
+  their place was supplied by oatmeal in the form of 'stirabout.'
+  Indian meal was subsequently found cheaper and more wholesome.
+  But of late years the diet of the farmers in these parts has
+  undergone a complete revolution. There is such brisk demand for
+  butter, eggs, potatoes, and other things that used to be consumed
+  by the family, that they have got into the habit of taking tea,
+  with cakes and other home-made bread twice, or even three times,
+  a day. The demand for tea is, therefore, enormous. There is one
+  grocer's establishment in Belfast which has been able to produce
+  a mixture that suits the taste of the people, and the quantity of
+  tea sold by it is a ton a day. This is the business of but one
+  out of many houses in Belfast. Then there is the brisk trade in
+  such towns as Newtownards, Lisburn, Ballymena, &amp;c. In
+  pastoral districts the towns languish, the people pine in
+  poverty, and the workhouses are in request.</p>
+
+  <p>In a financial point of view, therefore, it is manifestly the
+  interest of the state to encourage 'the spirit of tillage.' It is
+  thus that most will be got out of the ground, that most revenue
+  will be raised, and that the other elements of national power
+  will be most fully developed. How can this encouragement be most
+  effectually given? Security for the farmer is essential&mdash;of
+  what nature should the security be? The phrase 'unexhausted
+  improvements' is often used. But should the legislature
+  contemplate, or make provision for the exhaustion of
+  improvements? Is the improving tenant to be told that his remedy
+  is to retrograde&mdash;to undo what he has done&mdash;to take out
+  of the land all the good he has put in it, and reduce it to the
+  comparative sterility in which he, or those whom he represents,
+  first received it? <span class="pagenum"><a name="page321" id=
+  "page321"></a>[pg 321]</span> Should not the policy of the
+  legislature rather be to keep up improvements of the soil, and
+  its productive power at the highest possible point, and make it
+  the interest of the occupier never to relax in his exertions? The
+  rower will not put forth all his strength unless he believes he
+  will win. In other races, though many start, only one or two can
+  receive the prize. In this race of agricultural improvement all
+  competitors might win ample rewards. But will they put forth all
+  their energies&mdash;is it in human nature that they
+  should&mdash;was it ever done by any people, if the prizes are to
+  be seized, enjoyed, and flaunted before their eyes by others, who
+  may be strangers, and who never helped them by their sympathy in
+  their toilsome course of training and self-denial? It is because
+  the landlords of the county Down have been so often in the same
+  boat with their tenants, and with so much good faith, generous
+  feeling, and cordial sympathy encouraged their exertions, and
+  secured to them their just rewards, that this great county
+  presents to the world such a splendid example of what industry,
+  skill, and capital can accomplish. Is it not possible to extend
+  the same advantages through the whole island without wronging the
+  landlord or degrading the tenant?</p>
+
+  <p>The stranger is at first surprised to see so large a town as
+  Newtownards, with its handsome square, its town-hall, its wide,
+  regular streets, its numerous places of worship, and a population
+  of 9,500, in a place without visible factories, and without
+  communication with the sea, within eight miles of Belfast, and
+  three miles of Bangor, which, though a seaport, is but one-fourth
+  of the size. But although there are no great mills sending forth
+  volumes of smoke, Newtownards is really a manufacturing town.
+  Those clean, regular streets, with their two-storey houses,
+  uniform as a district in the east of London, are inhabited by
+  weavers. In each house there is one loom at least, in most two or
+  three, and in some as many as six. The manufacture of woollen and
+  cotton goods of finer qualities than can be produced by the
+  power-loom is carried on extensively. I saw one man working at
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page322" id="page322"></a>[pg
+  322]</span> a piece of plaid of six colours, a colour on every
+  shuttle, With the help of his wife, who assisted in winding, he
+  was able to earn only 8<i>s.</i> a week by very diligent work
+  from early morning till night. There is a general complaint of
+  the depression of trade at present. Agents, chiefly from Glasgow
+  houses, living in the town, supply the yarn and pay the wages. I
+  was struck with the number of public-houses in all the leading
+  streets. How far they are supported by the weavers I cannot say,
+  but whether or not they can dispense with the glass, they must
+  have their tobacco, and when this luxury is deducted, and a
+  shilling a week for the rent of the cottage, it is hard to
+  understand how a family of six or eight can be supported on the
+  weekly wages. The trade of muslin embroidery once flourished
+  here, and in the pretty little neighbouring town of Comber; but
+  it has so fallen off that now the best hands, plying the needle
+  unceasingly during the long, long day, can earn only three or
+  four shillings a week. Before the invention of machinery for
+  flax-spinning, the manufacture of fine thread by hand-labour was
+  a most profitable employment. Wonders were wrought in this way by
+  female fingers. The author of 'Our Staple Manufactures' states
+  that in 1799, out of a pound and a half of flax, costing
+  10<i>s.</i>, a woman produced yarn of the value of 5<i>l.</i>
+  2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> Miss M'Quillan, of Comber, spun 94 hanks
+  out of one pound of flax, splitting the fibre with her needles to
+  give this degree of fineness.</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>But alas! what a change to the cottage hearth!</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">The song of the wheel's no more&mdash;</p>
+
+      <p>The song that gladdened with guileless mirth</p>
+
+      <p class="i2">The hearths and homes of the poor!</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>But here, and in all the small towns about, they have still
+  the weaving, and it is carried on to a considerable extent by
+  persons who hold a few acres of land, throwing aside the shuttle
+  while putting in the crops and doing the harvest work. Thus
+  combining the two pursuits, these poor people are able, by
+  extraordinary industry, to earn their daily bread; but they can
+  do little more. The weavers, as a <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page323" id="page323"></a>[pg 323]</span> class, appear to be
+  feeble and faded specimens of humanity, remarkably quiet,
+  intelligent, and well-disposed&mdash;a law-abiding people, who
+  shrink from violence and outrage, no matter what may be their
+  grievances. It is cruel to load them too heavily with the burdens
+  of life, and yet I am afraid it is sometimes done, even in this
+  county, unnecessarily and wantonly. What I have said of the
+  Downshire and Londonderry estates, holds good with respect to the
+  estates of the other large proprietors, such as Lord Roden, the
+  kindest of landlords, almost idolised, even by his Catholic
+  tenants; Lord Annesley; the trustees of Lord Kilmurray; Sir
+  Thomas Bateson, and others. But I am sorry to learn that even the
+  great county Down has a share of the two classes which supply the
+  worst species of Irish landlords&mdash;absentees who live
+  extravagantly in England, and merchants who have purchased
+  estates to make as large a percentage as possible out of the
+  investment. It is chiefly, but not wholly, on the estates of
+  these proprietors that cases of injustice and oppression are
+  found. In the first class it is the agent that the tenants have
+  to deal with; and whether he be humane or not matters little to
+  them, for, whatever may be his feelings, the utmost penny must be
+  exacted to keep up the expensive establishments of the landlord
+  in England, to meet the cost of a new building, or the debt
+  incurred by gambling on the turf and elsewhere. Every transaction
+  of the kind brings a fresh demand on the agent, and even if he be
+  not unscrupulous or cruel, he must put on the screw, and get the
+  money at all hazards. I have been assured that it is quite usual,
+  on such estates, to find the tenantry paying the highest rent
+  compatible with the maintenance of bare life. There is in the
+  county of Down a great number of small holders thus struggling
+  for existence. As a specimen let us take the following
+  case:&mdash;A man holds a dozen acres of land, for which he pays
+  2<i>l.</i> 10<i>s.</i> per acre. He labours as no slave could be
+  made to work, in the summer time from five o'clock in the morning
+  till six in the evening. He can hardly scrape together a pound
+  beyond <span class="pagenum"><a name="page324" id=
+  "page324"></a>[pg 324]</span> the rent and taxes. If a bad season
+  comes, he is at starvation point: he falls into arrears with the
+  landlord, and he is forced by the bailiff to sell off his small
+  stock to pay the rent.</p>
+
+  <p>Without the excuse of pecuniary difficulties, the merchant
+  landlord is not a whit less exacting, or more merciful. He looks
+  upon the tenants as he would on so many head of cattle, and his
+  sole consideration is what is the highest penny he can make out
+  of them. Not far from Belfast lived a farmer who cultivated a few
+  acres. Sickness and the support of a widowed sister's family
+  forced him into arrears of rent. Ejectment proceedings were
+  taken, and one day when he returned to his house, he found his
+  furniture thrown out on the road, the sister and family evicted,
+  and the door locked. He was offered as much money as would take
+  him to America, but he would not be allowed to sell the
+  tenant-right. Here is another case illustrative of the manner in
+  which that right is sometimes dealt with:&mdash;A respectable man
+  purchased a farm at 10<i>l.</i> an acre. It was very poor land,
+  much of it unfit for cultivation. Immediately on getting
+  possession a surveyor came and added two acres to the former
+  measurement. The incoming tenant was at the same time informed
+  that the rent was raised to an extent that caused the possession
+  to be a dead loss. On threatening to throw up the concern, some
+  reduction was made, which brought the rent as close as possible
+  to the full letting value.</p>
+
+  <p>I have been told by a well-informed gentleman, whose veracity
+  I cannot doubt, that it is quite common in the county of Down
+  (and indeed I have been told the same thing in other counties) to
+  find an <i>improving</i> tenant paying 2<i>l.</i> to 3<i>l.</i>
+  an acre for land, which he has at his own expense brought up to a
+  good state of cultivation, while the adjoining land of his lazy
+  neighbour&mdash;originally of equal value&mdash;yields only
+  20<i>s.</i> to 35<i>s.</i> an acre. The obvious tendency of this
+  unjust and impolitic course on the part of landlords and agents,
+  is to discourage improvements, to dishearten the <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page325" id="page325"></a>[pg 325]</span>
+  industrious, and to fill the country with thriftless, desponding,
+  and miserable occupiers, living from hand to mouth. There are
+  circumstances under which even selfish men will toil hard, though
+  others should share with them the benefit of their labours; but
+  if they feel that this partnership in the profits of their
+  industry is the result of a system of legalised injustice, which
+  enables unscrupulous men to appropriate at will the whole of the
+  profits, their moral sense so revolts against that system that
+  they resolve to do as little as they possibly can.</p>
+
+  <p>The consequence of these painful relations of landlord and
+  tenant, even in this comparatively happy county, is a perceptible
+  degeneracy in the manhood of the people. Talk to an old
+  inhabitant, who has been an attentive observer of his times, and
+  he will tell you that the vigorous and energetic, the intelligent
+  and enterprising, are departing to more favoured lands, and that
+  this process has produced a marked deterioration in the
+  population within his memory. He can distinctly recollect when
+  there were more than double the present number of strong farmers
+  in the country about Belfast. He declares that, with many
+  exceptions of course, the land is getting into the hands of a
+  second or third class of farmers, who are little more than
+  servants to the small landlords. Even where there are leases,
+  such intelligent observers affirm that they are so over-ridden
+  with conditions that the farmer has no liberty or security to
+  make any great improvements. Were it otherwise he would not think
+  a thirty-one years' lease sufficient for the building of a stone
+  house, that would be as good at the end of a hundred years as at
+  the end of thirty. All the information that I can gather from
+  thoughtful men, who are really anxious for a change that would
+  benefit the landlords as well as themselves, points to the remedy
+  which Lord Granard has suggested, as the most simple, feasible,
+  and satisfactory&mdash;the legalisation and extension of the
+  tenant-right custom. They rejoice that such landlords now
+  proclaim the injustice which the tenant class have so long
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page326" id="page326"></a>[pg
+  326]</span> bitterly felt&mdash;namely, the presumption of law
+  that all the improvements and buildings on the farm belong to the
+  lord of the soil, although the notorious fact is that they are
+  all the work of the tenant.</p>
+
+  <p>And here I will take the opportunity of remarking that the
+  legislature were guilty of strange oversight, or deliberate
+  injustice, in the passing of the Incumbered Estates Act. Taking
+  advantage of an overwhelming national calamity, they forced
+  numbers of gentlemen into a ruinous sale of their patrimonial
+  estates, in order that men of capital might get possession of
+  them. But they made no provision whatever for the protection of
+  the tenants, or of the property which those tenants had created
+  on these estates. Many of those were tenants at will, who built
+  and planted in perfect and well-grounded reliance on the honour
+  and integrity of their old landlords. But in the advertisements
+  for the sale of property under the Landed Estates Court, it was
+  regularly mentioned as an inducement to purchasers of the Scully
+  type that the tenants had no leases. The result of this
+  combination of circumstances bearing against the cultivators of
+  the soil&mdash;the chief producers of national wealth&mdash;is a
+  deep, resentful sense of injustice pervading this class, and
+  having for its immediate objects the landlords and their agents.
+  The tenants don't speak out their feelings, because they dare
+  not. They fear that to offend the <i>office</i> in word or deed
+  is to expose themselves and their children to the infliction of a
+  fine in the shape of increased rent, perhaps at the rate of five
+  or ten shillings an acre in perpetuity.</p>
+
+  <p>One unfortunate effect of the distrust thus generated, is that
+  when enlightened landlords, full of the spirit of improvement,
+  like Lord Dufferin and Lord Lurgan, endeavour, from the most
+  unselfish and patriotic motives, to make changes in the tenures
+  and customs on their estates, they have to encounter an adverse
+  current of popular opinion and feeling, which is really too
+  strong to be effectually resisted. For example: In order to
+  correct the evils resulting <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page327" id="page327"></a>[pg 327]</span> from the undue
+  competition for land among the tenants, they limit the amount per
+  acre which the outgoing tenant is permitted to receive; but the
+  limitation is futile, because the tenants understand one another,
+  and do what they believe to be right behind the landlord's back.
+  The market price is, say, 20<i>l.</i> an acre. The landlord
+  allows 10<i>l.</i>; the balance finds its way secretly into the
+  pocket of the outgoing tenant before he gives up possession. As a
+  gentleman expressed it to me emphatically, 'The outgoing tenant
+  <i>must</i> be satisfied, and he <i>is</i> satisfied.' Public
+  opinion in his own class demands it; and on no other terms would
+  it be considered lucky to take possession of the vacant
+  farm.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page328" id=
+  "page328"></a>[pg 328]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER XIX.</h2>
+
+  <h3>TENANT-RIGHT IN ANTRIM.</h3>
+
+  <p>I find from the Antrim Survey, published in 1812, that at that
+  time leases were general on the Hertfort estate. There were then
+  about 3,600 farmers who held by that tenure, each holding, on an
+  average, twenty English acres, but many farms contained 100 acres
+  or more. Mr. Hugh M'Call, of Lisburn, the able author of 'Our
+  Staple Manufactures,' gives the following estimates of the
+  rental. In 1726, it was 3,500<i>l.</i>; in 1768, it was
+  12,000<i>l.</i>; and for 1869, his estimate is 63,000<i>l.</i>
+  Taking the estimate given by Dean Stannus, as 10<i>l.</i> or
+  12<i>l.</i> an acre, the tenant-right of the estate is worth
+  500,000<i>l.</i> at the very least, probably 600,000<i>l.</i> is
+  the more correct figure. This vast amount of property created by
+  the industry and capital of the tenants, is held at the will of
+  an absentee landlord, who has on several occasions betrayed an
+  utter want of sympathy with the people who lie thus at his mercy.
+  There are tenant farmers on the estate who hold as much as 100 to
+  200 acres, with handsome houses built by themselves, whose
+  interest, under the custom, should amount to 1,500<i>l.</i> and
+  2,500<i>l.</i> respectively, which might be legally swept away by
+  a six months' notice to quit. The owners of this property might
+  be regarded as very independent, but in reality, unless the
+  spirit of martyrdom has raised them above the ordinary feelings
+  of human nature, they will take care to be very humble and
+  submissive towards Lord Hertfort's agents. If words were the same
+  as deeds, if professions were always consistent with practice,
+  the tenants would certainly have nothing to fear; for great pains
+  have been taken from <span class="pagenum"><a name="page329" id=
+  "page329"></a>[pg 329]</span> time to time, both by the landlord
+  and agent, to inspire them with unbounded confidence.</p>
+
+  <p>In the year 1845, the tenants presented an address to Lord
+  Hertfort, in which they said:&mdash;'It is a proud fact, worthy
+  to be recorded, that the tenant-right of the honest and
+  industrious man on your lordship's estate is a certain and
+  valuable tenure to him, so long as he continues to pay his rent.'
+  To this his lordship replied in the following terms:&mdash;'I am
+  happy to find that the encouragement I have given to the
+  improvement of the land generally has been found effectual, and I
+  trust that the advantage to the tenant of the improved system of
+  agriculture will be found to increase; and I beg to assure you
+  that with me the right of the improving tenant shall continue to
+  be as scrupulously respected as it has been hitherto by my
+  ancestors. Your kindness alone, independent of the natural
+  interest which I must ever feel as to everything connected with
+  this neighbourhood, affords a powerful inducement to my coming
+  among you, and I hope to have the pleasure of often repeating my
+  visit.'</p>
+
+  <p>Twenty-four years have since elapsed, and during all that time
+  the marquis has never indulged himself in a repetition of the
+  exquisite pleasure he then enjoyed. At a banquet given in his
+  honour on that occasion, he used the following language, which
+  was, no doubt, published in the <i>Times</i>, and read with great
+  interest in London and Paris:&mdash;'This is one of the most
+  delightful days I ever spent. Trust me, I have your happiness and
+  welfare at heart, and it shall ever be my endeavour to promote
+  the one and contribute to the other.' The parting scene on this
+  occasion must have been very touching; for, in tearing himself
+  away, his lordship said: 'I have now come to the concluding
+  toast. It is, "Merry have we met, and merry may we <i>soon</i>
+  meet again!"'</p>
+
+  <p>The tenants could scarcely doubt the genuineness of their
+  landlord's feelings, for on the same occasion Dean Stannus said:
+  'I feel myself perfectly justified in using the term "a good
+  landlord;" because his lordship's express wish to me often was,
+  "I hope you will always keep me in such a position <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page330" id="page330"></a>[pg 330]</span> that
+  I may be considered the friend of my tenants."' But as he did not
+  return to them, a most respectable deputation waited upon him in
+  London in the year 1850, to present a memorial praying for a
+  reduction of rent on account of the potato blight and other local
+  calamities which had befallen the tenantry. The memorialists
+  respectfully showed 'that under the encouraging auspices of the
+  Hertfort family, and on the faith of that just and equitable
+  understanding which has always existed on this estate&mdash;that
+  <i>no advantage would be taken of the tenant's improvements in
+  adjusting the letting value of land</i>, they had invested large
+  sums of money in buildings and other improvements on their farms,
+  and that this, under the name of tenant-right, was a species of
+  sunk capital that was formerly considered a safe repository for
+  accumulated savings, which could be turned to account at any time
+  of difficulty by its sale, or as a security for temporary
+  advances.' In his reply, Lord Hertfort said, 'I seek not to
+  disturb any interest, much less do I wish to interfere by any
+  plan or arrangement of mine with the tenant-right which my
+  tenants have hitherto enjoyed, and which it is my anxious wish to
+  preserve to them.'</p>
+
+  <p>The faith and hope inspired by these assurances of the
+  landlord were repeatedly encouraged and strengthened by the
+  public declarations of his very reverend agent, Dean Stannus. At
+  a meeting of the Killultagh and Derryvolgie Farming Society, in
+  1849, he stated that he had great pleasure in subscribing to
+  almost everything said by Mr. M'Call. He had taken great pains to
+  convince the late Lord Hertfort that tenant-right was one of the
+  greatest possible boons, <i>as well to the landlords
+  themselves</i> as to the tenants. So advantageous did he regard
+  it to the interest of Lord Hertfort and the tenants, that if it
+  were not preserved he would not continue agent to the estate.
+  Tenant-right was his security for the Marquis of Hertfort's rent,
+  and he would not ask a tenant to relinquish a single rood of land
+  without paying him at the rate of 10<i>l.</i> to 12<i>l.</i> an
+  acre for it.</p>
+
+  <p>Firmly believing in the statements thus emphatically and
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page331" id="page331"></a>[pg
+  331]</span> solemnly made to them from time to time, that on this
+  estate tenant-right was as good as a lease, the tenants went on
+  building houses, and making permanent improvements in Lisburn and
+  elsewhere, depending on this security. And, indeed, the value of
+  such security could scarcely be presented under more favourable
+  circumstances. The absentee landlord receiving such a princely
+  revenue, and absorbed in his Parisian pursuits, seemed to leave
+  everything to his agent. The agent was rector of the parish of
+  Lisburn, a dignitary of the Church, a gentleman of the highest
+  social position, with many excellent points in his character, and
+  pledged before the world, again and again, to respect rigidly and
+  scrupulously the enormous property which a confiding tenantry had
+  invested in this estate. If, under these circumstances, the
+  security of tenant-right fails, where else can it be trusted? If
+  it be proved, by open and public proceedings, that on the
+  Hertfort estate, the distinctly recognised property of the tenant
+  is liable to be seized and wrested from him by the agent, it is
+  clear to demonstration that such property absolutely requires the
+  protection of law. This proof, I am sorry to say, is forthcoming.
+  Let my readers reflect for a moment on what might have been done
+  for Lisburn and the surrounding country if the Marquis of
+  Hertfort had rebuilt his castle and resided among his people.
+  What an impulse to improvement of every kind, what employment for
+  tradesmen of every class, what business for shops might have
+  resulted from the local expenditure of 50,000<i>l.</i> or
+  60,000<i>l.</i> a year! What public buildings would have been
+  erected&mdash;how local institutions would have flourished! The
+  proverb that 'absence makes the heart grow fonder' does not apply
+  to the relations of landlord and tenant. But there is another
+  proverb that applies well&mdash;'Out of sight, out of mind.' Of
+  this I shall now give two or three illustrations. Some years ago,
+  it was discovered that no lease of the Catholic chapel at Lisburn
+  could be found, and in the recollection of the oldest member of
+  the congregation no rent had been paid. Kent, however, was now
+  demanded, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page332" id=
+  "page332"></a>[pg 332]</span> and the parish priest agreed to pay
+  a nominal amount, which places the congregation at the mercy of
+  the office. Ground was asked some time ago to build a
+  Presbyterian Church, but it was absolutely refused. A sum of
+  money was subscribed to build a literary institute, but, though a
+  sort of promise was given for ground to build it on, it was never
+  granted, and the project fell through. Lord Hertfort spends no
+  portion of his vast income where it is earned. His estate is like
+  a farm to which the produce is never returned in the shape of
+  manure, but is all carted off and applied to the enrichment of a
+  farm elsewhere. One might suppose that where such an exhausting
+  process has been going on for so long a time an effort would be
+  made at some sort of compensation, especially at periods of
+  calamity. Yet, when the weavers on his estate were starving,
+  owing to the cotton famine during the American war, his lordship
+  never replied to the repeated applications made to him for help
+  to save alive those honest producers of his wealth. The noble
+  example of Lord Derby and other proprietors in Lancashire failed
+  to kindle in his heart a spark of humanity, not to speak of
+  generous emulation. The sum of 3,000<i>l.</i> was raised in
+  Lisburn, and by friends in Great Britain and America, which was
+  expended in saving the people from going <i>en masse</i> to the
+  workhouse. Behold a contrast! While the great peer, whose family
+  inherited a vast estate for which they never paid a shilling, was
+  deaf to the cries of famishing Christians, whom he was bound by
+  every tie to commiserate and relieve, an American citizen, who
+  owed nothing to Ireland but his birth&mdash;Mr. A.T. Stewart, of
+  New York&mdash;sent a ship loaded with provisions, which cost him
+  5,000<i>l.</i> of his own money, to be distributed amongst Lord
+  Hertfort's starving tenants, and on the return of the ship he
+  took out as many emigrants as he could accommodate, free of
+  charge. The tourist in Ireland is charmed with the appearance of
+  Lisburn&mdash;the rich and nicely cultivated town parks, the
+  fields white as snow with linen of the finest quality, the busy
+  mills, the old trees, the clean streets, the look of comfort in
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page333" id="page333"></a>[pg
+  333]</span> the population, the pretty villas in the country
+  about. Mrs. S.C. Hall says that there is, probably, no town in
+  Ireland where the happy effects of English taste and industry are
+  more conspicuous than at Lisburn. 'From Drumbridge and the banks
+  of the Lagan on one side, to the shores of Lough Neagh on the
+  other, the people are almost exclusively the descendants of
+  English settlers. Those in the immediate neighbourhood of the
+  town were mostly Welsh, but great numbers arrived from the
+  northern English shires, and from the neighbourhood of the
+  Bristol Channel. The English language is perhaps spoken more
+  purely by the populace of this district than by the same class in
+  any other part of Ireland. The neatness of the cottages, and the
+  good taste displayed in many of the farms, are little, if at all,
+  inferior to aught that we find in England, and the tourist who
+  visits Lough Neagh, passing through Ballinderry, will consider it
+  to have been justly designated <i>the garden of the north.</i>
+  The multitude of pretty little villages, scattered over the
+  landscape, each announcing itself by the tapering tower of a
+  church, would almost beguile the traveller into believing that he
+  was passing through a rural district in one of the midland
+  counties of England.'</p>
+
+  <p>We have seen that after General Conway got this land, it was
+  described by an English traveller as still uninhabited&mdash;'all
+  woods and moor.' Who made it the garden of the north? The British
+  settlers and their descendants. And why did they transform this
+  wilderness into fruitful fields? Because they had permanent
+  tenures and fair rents. The rental 150 years ago was
+  3,500<i>l.</i> per annum. Allow that money was three times as
+  valuable then as it is now, and the rental would have been about
+  10,500<i>l.</i> It is now nearly six times that amount. By what
+  means was the revenue of the landlord increased? Was it by any
+  expenditure of his own? Did any portion of the capital annually
+  abstracted from the estate return to it, to fructify and increase
+  its value? Did the landlord drain the swamps, reclaim the moors,
+  build the dwellings and farmhouses, <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page334" id="page334"></a>[pg 334]</span> make
+  the fences, and plant the orchards? He did nothing of the kind.
+  Nor was it agricultural industry alone that increased his
+  revenue. He owes much of the beauty, fertility, and richness of
+  his estate to the linen manufacture, to those weavers to the
+  cries of distress from whose famishing children a few years ago
+  the most noble marquis resolutely turned a deaf ear.</p>
+
+  <p>But, passing from historical matters to the immediate purpose
+  of our enquiry, let it suffice to remark that from Lisburn as a
+  centre the linen trade in all its branches&mdash;flax growing,
+  scutching, spinning, weaving and bleaching&mdash;spread over the
+  whole of the Hertfort estate, giving profitable employment to the
+  tenants, circulating money, enabling them to build and improve
+  and work the estate into the rich and beautiful garden described
+  by Mrs. Hall;&mdash;all this work of improvement has been carried
+  on, all or nearly all the costly investments on the land have
+  been made, without leases and in dependence on tenant-right. We
+  have seen what efforts were made by landlord and agent to
+  strengthen the faith of the tenants in this security. We have
+  seen also from the historical facts I have adduced the sort of
+  people that constitute the population of the borough of Lisburn.
+  If ever there was a population that could be safely entrusted
+  with the free exercise of the franchise it is the population of
+  this town&mdash;so enlightened, so loyal, so independent in
+  means, such admirable producers of national wealth, so naturally
+  attached to British connection. Yet for generations Lisburn has
+  been a pocket borough, and the nominee of the landlord, often a
+  total stranger, was returned as a matter of course. The marquis
+  sent to his agent a <i>cong&#233; d'&#233;lire</i>, and
+  that was as imperative as a similar order to a dean and chapter
+  to elect a bishop. In 1852 the gentleman whom the Lisburn
+  electors were ordered to return was Mr. Inglis, the lord advocate
+  of Scotland. They, however, felt that the time was come when the
+  borough should be opened, and they should be at liberty to
+  exercise their constitutional rights. A meeting of the
+  inhabitants <span class="pagenum"><a name="page335" id=
+  "page335"></a>[pg 335]</span> was therefore held, at which Mr. R.
+  Smith was nominated as the popular candidate. The contest was not
+  political; it was simply the independence of the borough against
+  the <i>office</i>. Dean Stannus, as agent to an absentee
+  landlord, was the most powerful personage in the place, virtually
+  the lord of the manor. Before the election that gentleman
+  published a letter in a Belfast paper contradicting a statement
+  that had appeared to the effect that Lord Hertfort took little
+  interest in the approaching contest, in which letter he said: 'I
+  have the best reason for knowing that his lordship views with
+  intense interest what is passing here, and that he is most
+  anxious for the return of Mr. Inglis, feeling that the election
+  of such a representative (which I am now enabled to say is
+  <i>certain</i>) will do much credit to the borough of Lisburn,
+  and that this <i>unmeaning</i> contest will, at all events, among
+  its other effects, prove to his lordship whom he may regard as
+  his <i>true</i> friends in his future relations with this
+  town.'</p>
+
+  <p>Notwithstanding this warning, so significantly emphasized, the
+  candidate whom the voters selected as their real representative
+  was returned. Now no one can blame the marquis or his agent for
+  wishing that the choice had fallen upon Mr. Inglis. So far as
+  politics were concerned, the contest <i>was</i> unmeaning; but so
+  far as the rights of the people and the loyal working of the
+  British constitution were concerned, the contest was full of
+  meaning, and if the landlord and his agent respected the
+  constitution more than their own personal power they would have
+  frankly acquiesced in the result, feeling that this Protestant
+  and Conservative constituency had conscientiously done its duty
+  to the state. But who could have imagined, after all the solemnly
+  recorded pledges I have quoted, that they would have instantly
+  resolved to punish the independent exercise of the franchise by
+  inflicting an enormous and crushing fine amounting to nothing
+  less than the whole tenant-right property of every adverse voter
+  who had not a lease! Immediately after the election 'notices to
+  quit' were served upon every one of them. In consequence
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page336" id="page336"></a>[pg
+  336]</span> of this outrageous proceeding a public meeting was
+  held, at which a letter from John Millar, Esq., a most
+  respectable and wealthy man (who was unable to attend) was read
+  by the secretary. He said: 'I have at various times purchased
+  places held from year to year, relying on the custom of the
+  country, and on the declared determination of the landlord and
+  his agent to respect such customary rights of property, for the
+  continued possession of it. I have besides taken under the same
+  landlord several fields as town parks, which were in very bad
+  order. These fields I have drained and very much improved. I have
+  always punctually paid the rent charged for the several holdings,
+  and, I think I may venture to say, performed all the duties of a
+  good tenant. At the last election, however, I exercised my right
+  as a citizen of a free country, by giving my votes at
+  Hillsborough and Lisburn in favour of the tenant-right
+  candidates, without reference to the desires or orders of those
+  who have no legal or constitutional right to control the use of
+  my franchise. I have since received from the office a notice to
+  quit, desiring me to give up possession of all my holdings, as
+  tenant from year to year, in the counties of Down and Antrim,
+  without any intimation that I shall receive compensation, and
+  without being able to obtain any explanation of this conduct
+  towards me except by popular rumour.' At the same meeting Mr.
+  Hugh M'Call said that he had looked over some documents and found
+  that the individuals in Lisburn who had received notices to quit
+  held property to the value of 3,000<i>l.</i>, property raised by
+  themselves, or purchased by them with the sanction of the
+  landlord. In one case the agent himself went into the premises
+  where buildings were being erected, and suggested some changes.
+  In fact the improvements were carried out under his inspection as
+  an architect. Yet he served upon that gentleman a notice to quit.
+  Some of the tenants paid the penalty for their votes by
+  surrendering their holdings; others contested the right of
+  eviction on technical points, and succeeded at the quarter
+  sessions. One of the points was, as already <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page337" id="page337"></a>[pg 337]</span>
+  mentioned, that a dean and rector could not be legally a land
+  agent at the same time. It was, indeed, a very ugly fact that the
+  rector of the parish should be thus officially engaged, not only
+  in nullifying the political rights of his own Protestant
+  parishioners, but in destroying their tenant-right, evicting them
+  from their holdings, which <i>they</i> believed to be legal
+  robbery and oppression, accompanied by such flagrant breach of
+  faith as tended to destroy all confidence between man and man,
+  and thus to dissolve the strongest bonds of society. Sad work for
+  a dignitary of the church to be engaged in!</p>
+
+  <p>In April, 1856, there was another contested election. On that
+  occasion the marquis wrote to a gentleman in Lisburn that he
+  would not interfere 'directly or indirectly to influence
+  anybody.' Nevertheless, notices to quit, signed by Mr. Walter L.
+  Stannus, assistant and successor to his father, were extensively
+  served upon tenants-at-will, though it was afterwards alleged
+  that they were only served as matters of form. But what, then,
+  did they mean? They meant that those who had voted against the
+  office had, <i>ipso facto, forfeited their tenant-right
+  property.</i> Many other incidents in the management of the
+  estate have been constantly occurring more recently, tending to
+  show that the most valuable properties created by the
+  tenants-at-will are at the mercy of the landlord, and that
+  tenant-right, so called, is not regarded by him as a matter of
+  <i>right</i> at all, but merely as a <i>favour</i>, to be granted
+  to those who are dutiful and submissive to the office in all
+  matters, political and social. For instance, one farmer was
+  refused permission to sell his tenant-right till he consented to
+  sink 100<i>l.</i> or 200<i>l.</i> in the shares of the Lisburn
+  and Antrim railway, so that, as he believed, he was obliged to
+  throw away his money in order to get his right.</p>
+
+  <p>The enormous power of an office which can deal with property
+  amounting to more than half a million sterling, in such an
+  arbitrary manner, necessarily generates a spirit of wanton and
+  capricious despotism, except where the mind is <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page338" id="page338"></a>[pg 338]</span> very
+  well regulated and the heart severely disciplined by Christian
+  duty. Of this I feel bound to give the following illustration,
+  which I would not do if the fact had not been made public, and if
+  I had not the best evidence that it is undeniable. George
+  Beattie, jun., a grocer's assistant in Lisburn, possessed a
+  beautiful greyhound which he left in charge of George Beattie,
+  sen., his uncle, on departing for America. This uncle possessed a
+  farm on the Hertfort estate, the tenant-right of which he wanted
+  to sell. Having applied to Mr. Stannus for permission, the answer
+  he received was that he would not be allowed to sell until the
+  head of the greyhound was brought to the office. The tenant
+  remonstrated and offered to send the dog away off the estate to
+  relatives, but to no effect. He was obliged to kill the
+  greyhound, and to send its head in a bag to Lord Hertfort's
+  office. It was a great triumph for the agent. What a pretty
+  sensational story he had to tell the young ladies in the refined
+  circles in which he moves. How edifying the recital must have
+  been to the peasantry around him! How it must have exalted their
+  ideas of the civilising influence of land agency. 'It is quite a
+  common thing,' says a gentleman well acquainted with the estate,
+  'when a tenant becomes insolvent, that his tenant-right is sold
+  and employed to pay those of his creditors who may be in favour.
+  I know a lady who made application to have a claim against a
+  small farmer registered in the office, which was done, and she
+  now possesses the security of the man's tenant-right for her
+  money.'</p>
+
+  <p>The case of the late Captain Bolton is the last illustration I
+  shall give in connection with this estate. Captain Bolton resided
+  in Lisburn, and he was one of the most respected of its
+  inhabitants. He was the owner of four houses in that town, a
+  property which he acquired in this way:&mdash;The site of two of
+  them was obtained by the late James Hogg, in lieu of freehold
+  property surrendered. On this ground, his son, Captain Bolton's
+  uncle, built the two houses entirely at his own expense. Two
+  other houses, immediately adjoining, <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page339" id="page339"></a>[pg 339]</span> came
+  into the market, and he purchased the out-going tenant's
+  'good-will' for a sum of about 40<i>l.</i> These houses were
+  thatched, and in very bad condition. He repaired them and slated
+  them, and thus formed a nice uniform block of four workers'
+  houses. Captain Bolton inherited these from his uncle and
+  retained uninterrupted possession till 1852, when he voted for
+  Johnston Smyth at the election of that date. Immediately
+  afterwards he received a notice to quit, an ejectment was brought
+  in due time, the case was dismissed at the quarter sessions, an
+  appeal was lodged, but it was again dismissed at the assizes.
+  Undaunted by these two defeats, the persistent agent served
+  another notice to quit. The captain was a man of peace, whose
+  nerves could not stand such perpetual worrying by litigation, and
+  he was so disgusted with the whole affair that he tied up the
+  keys, and sent them to Lord Hertfort's office. In his ledger that
+  day he made the following entry:&mdash;'Plundered, this 20th
+  December 1854, by our worthy agent to the marquis, because I
+  voted for Smyth and the independence of the
+  borough.&mdash;J.B.'</p>
+
+  <p>The houses remained in the hands of the agent till the next
+  election, when Captain Bolton voted for Mr. Hogg, the office
+  candidate. The conscientious old gentleman&mdash;as good a
+  conservative as Dean Stannus&mdash;voted from principle in both
+  cases and not to please the agent or anyone else. The agent,
+  however, thought proper to regard it as a penitent act, and as
+  the tenant had ceased to be naughty, and had, it was assumed,
+  shown proper deference to his political superiors, he received
+  his houses back again, retaining the possession of them till his
+  death. The profit rent of the houses is 20<i>l.</i> a year.
+  Either this rent belonged to Captain Bolton or to Lord Hertfort.
+  If to Captain Bolton, by what right did Dean Stannus take it from
+  him and give it to the landlord? If to the landlord, by what
+  right did Dean Stannus take it from Lord Hertfort and give it to
+  Captain Bolton?</p>
+
+  <p>However, the latter gentleman having no doubt whatever, first
+  or last, that the property was his own, bequeathed the
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page340" id="page340"></a>[pg
+  340]</span> houses to trustees for the support of a school which
+  he had established in Lisburn. The school, it appears, had been
+  placed in connection with the Church Education Society, and as it
+  did not go on to his satisfaction, he placed it in connection
+  with the National Board of Education, having appointed as his
+  trustees John Campbell, Esq., M.D., William Coulson, Esq., and
+  the Rev. W.J. Clarke, Presbyterian minister, all of Lisburn. Dr.
+  Campbell died soon after, and Mr. Coulson refused to act, so that
+  the burden of the trust fell upon Mr. Clarke, who felt it to be
+  his duty to carry it out to the best of his ability. Dean
+  Stannus, however, was greatly dissatisfied with the last will and
+  testament of Captain Bolton. Yet the dying man had no reason to
+  anticipate that his affectionate pastor would labour with all his
+  might to abolish the trust. Dean Stannus paid the captain a visit
+  on his deathbed, and while administering the consolations of
+  religion he seemed moved even to tears. To a friend who
+  subsequently expressed doubt, the simple-minded old Christian
+  said: 'I will trust the dean that he will do nothing in
+  opposition to my will. He was here a few days ago and wept over
+  me. He loves me, and will carry out my wishes.' The captain died
+  in April, 1867. He was scarcely cold in his grave when the agent
+  of Lord Hertfort took proceedings to eject his trustees, and
+  deprive the schools of the property bequeathed for their support.
+  Not content with this, he took proceedings to get possession of
+  the schoolhouse also, deeming it a sufficient reason for this
+  appropriation of another man's property, this setting aside of a
+  will, this abolition of a trust, that, in his opinion, the
+  schools ought to be under the patronage of the rector, and in
+  connection with the Church Education Society. He had a perfect
+  right to think and say this, and it might be his conscientious
+  conviction that the property would be thus better employed; but
+  he ought to know that the end does not sanctify the means; that
+  he had no right to substitute his own will for that of Captain
+  Bolton, and that he had no right to take advantage of the absence
+  of an act of <span class="pagenum"><a name="page341" id=
+  "page341"></a>[pg 341]</span> parliament to possess himself of
+  the rightful property of other people. Unfortunately, too, he was
+  a judge in his own case, and he did not find it easy to separate
+  the rector of the parish from the agent of the estate. It is a
+  significant fact that when his son, Mr. Stannus, handed his power
+  of attorney to Mr. Otway, the assistant-barrister, that gentleman
+  refused to look at it, saying, 'I have seen it one hundred
+  times;' and the Rev. Mr. Clarke, while waiting in the court for
+  the case to come on, observed that all the ejectment processes
+  were at the suit of the Marquis of Hertfort. The school-house was
+  built by Mr. Bolton, at his own expense twenty-eight years ago,
+  and he maintained it till his death. The Rev. W.J. Clarke, the
+  acting trustee, bravely defended his trust and fought the battle
+  of tenant-right in the courts till driven out by the sheriff. He
+  was then called on to perform the same duty with regard to the
+  school-house. He has done it faithfully and well, and deserves
+  the sympathy of all the friends of freedom, justice, and fair
+  dealing. 'I shall never accept a trust,' he says, in a letter to
+  the <i>Northern Whig</i>&mdash;'I shall never accept a trust, and
+  permit any man, whether nobleman, agent, or bailiff, to alienate
+  that trust, without appealing to the laws of my country; and if
+  the one-sidedness of such laws shall enable Dean and Mr. Stannus
+  to confiscate this property, and turn it from the purpose to
+  which benevolence designed it, then, having defended it to the
+  last, I shall retire from the field satisfied that I have done my
+  duty to the memory of the dead and the educational interests of
+  the living.' Nor can we be surprised at the strong language that
+  he uses when he says: 'The history of the case rivals, for
+  blackness of persecution, anything that has happened in the north
+  of Ireland for many years. But such a course of conduct only
+  recoils on the heads of those who are guilty of it, and it shall
+  be so in this case. The Marquis of Hertfort will not live always,
+  and the power of public opinion may be able to reach his
+  successor, and be felt even in Lisburn.'</p>
+
+  <p>Dean Stannus, in his evidence before the Devon commission,
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page342" id="page342"></a>[pg
+  342]</span> stated that only a small portion of the estate was
+  held by lease. The leases were obtained in a curious way. In 1823
+  a system of fining commenced. If a tenant wanted a lease he was
+  required to pay in cash a fine of 10<i>l.</i> an acre, which was
+  equal to an addition of ten shillings an acre to the rent for
+  twenty years, not counting the interest on the money thus sunk in
+  the land. Yet, such was the desire of the tenants to have a
+  better security than the tenant-right custom, always acknowledged
+  on the estate, that 'every man who had money took advantage of
+  it.' Mr. Gregg, the seneschal of the manor, gave an illustration
+  of the working of this fining system. A tenant sold his farm of
+  fourteen acres for 205<i>l.</i>, eight of the fourteen acres
+  being held at will. The person who bought the farm was obliged to
+  take a lease of the eight acres, and to pay a proportional fine
+  in addition to the sum paid for the tenant-right. Dean Stannus
+  said 'he would wish to see the tenant-right upheld upon the
+  estate of Lord Hertfort, as it always had been. It is that,' he
+  said, 'which has kept up the properties in the north over the
+  properties in other parts of Ireland. It is a security for the
+  rent in the first instance, and reconciles the tenants to much of
+  what are called grievances. If you go into a minute calculation
+  of what they have expended, they are not more than paid for their
+  expenditure.' It transpired in the course of the examination that
+  a man who had purchased tenant-right, and paid a fine of
+  10<i>l.</i> an acre on getting a lease, would have to pay a
+  similar fine over again when getting the lease renewed. The
+  result of these heavy advances was that the middle-class farmers
+  lived in constant pecuniary difficulties. They were obliged to
+  borrow money at six per cent. to pay the rent, but they borrowed
+  it under circumstances which made it nearly 40 per cent., for it
+  was lent by dealers in oatmeal and other things, from whom they
+  were obliged to purchase large quantities of goods at such a high
+  rate that they sold them again at a sacrifice of 33 per cent.</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Joshua Lamb, another witness, stated that the effect
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page343" id="page343"></a>[pg
+  343]</span> of the fining system had been to draw away a great
+  deal of the accumulated capital out of the hands of the tenantry,
+  as well as their anticipated savings for years to come, by which
+  the carrying out of improved methods of agriculture was
+  prevented. Still, the existence of a lease for 31 years doubled
+  the value of the tenant-right. This witness made a remarkable
+  statement. With respect to this custom he said: The 'effect of
+  this arrangement, when duly observed, is to prevent all disputes,
+  quarrels, burnings, and destruction of property, so common in
+  those parts of Ireland where this practice does not prevail.
+  Indeed, so fully are farmers aware of this, that very few, except
+  the most reckless, would venture on taking a farm without
+  obtaining the outgoing tenant's "good-will." Such a proceeding as
+  taking land "over a man's head," as it is termed, is regarded
+  here as not merely dishonourable, but as little better than
+  robbery, and as such held in the greatest detestation.' He added
+  that the justice of this arrangement was obvious&mdash;'because
+  all the buildings, planting, and other improvements, being
+  entirely at the tenant's expense, he has a certain amount of
+  capital sunk in the property, for which, if he parts with the
+  place, he expects to be repaid by the sale of the tenant-right.
+  He knew no case in the county in which the tenant, or those from
+  whom he purchased, had made no improvements.'</p>
+
+  <p>The first marquis occasionally visited the estate, and was
+  proud of the troops of yeomanry and cavalry which had been raised
+  from his tenantry. The second marquis, who died in 1822, was only
+  once in that part of Ireland. The third marquis&mdash;he of
+  Prince Regent notoriety&mdash;never set foot on the property; and
+  the present, who has been reigning over 140 townlands for nearly
+  thirty years, has never been among his subjects except during a
+  solitary visit of three weeks in October, 1845, when, it is said,
+  he came to qualify for his ribbon (K.G.) that he might be able to
+  say to the prime minister that he was a resident landlord. He has
+  resided almost entirely in Paris, cultivating the friendship of
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page344" id="page344"></a>[pg
+  344]</span> Napoleon instead of the welfare of the people who pay
+  him a revenue of 60,000<i>l.</i> a year. Bagatelle, his Paris
+  residence, has, it is said, absorbed Irish rents in its
+  'improvements', till it has been made worth three quarters of a
+  million sterling. If the residence cost so much, fancy may try to
+  conceive the amount of hard-earned money squandered on the
+  luxuries and pleasures of which it is the temple&mdash;the most
+  Elysian spot in the Elysian fields.</p>
+
+  <p>The following curious narrative appeared in a Belfast
+  newspaper, and was founded on a speech made by Dean Stannus at a
+  public meeting.</p>
+
+  <p>The venerable Dean of Ross and his son, Mr. W.T. Stannus, had
+  been deputed to go to Paris to wait on Lord Hertfort, and urge
+  him to assist in the expense of finishing the Antrim Junction
+  Railway. The dean is in his eighty-first year; fifty-one years of
+  his life have been spent in the management of the Hertfort
+  estate, and whatever difference of opinion may exist as to his
+  arrangements with the tenantry, every one who knows anything of
+  the affair must admit that there never existed a more faithful
+  representative of a landowner. On arriving in Paris he found the
+  marquis ill, so much so that neither the dean nor his son could
+  get an interview. For three days the venerable gentleman danced
+  attendance on his chief, and on Monday the fourth attempt was
+  made, the dean sent up his name, and had a reply that 'the
+  marquis was too ill to see anyone.' Next day, however, the
+  marquis condescended to receive his agent, and the subject of the
+  railway was introduced. The dean told him that Lord Erne had
+  given 200,000<i>l.</i> towards the railway projects on his
+  property&mdash;that Lords Lucan, Annesley, and Lifford had
+  contributed largely, and that Lord Downshire had been exceedingly
+  liberal in promoting lines on his estate. But all was vain. The
+  noble absentee, who drains about 60,000<i>l.</i> a year from his
+  Irish property, and who often pays 5,000<i>l.</i> for a picture,
+  refused to lend 15,000<i>l.</i> to aid in finishing a railway,
+  which runs for three-fourths of the mileage through his own
+  estate. During the interview Mr. W.T. Stannus <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page345" id="page345"></a>[pg 345]</span>
+  urged on the marquis that the investment would be the best that
+  could be made, as preference shares paying five per cent. would
+  be allocated to him as security for the amount. All arguments and
+  entreaties, however, were lost on the noble invalid. Even the
+  appeal of the old gentleman who, for more than half a century,
+  had managed the estate so advantageously for the successive
+  owners of that splendid property, was made in vain. 'You never
+  refused me anything before,' urged the dean, 'and I go away in
+  very bad spirits.' What a wonderful history lies in this episode
+  of Irish landlordism. Here is an unmarried nobleman whose income
+  from investments in British and French securities is said to
+  exceed 30,000<i>l.</i> a year, besides the immense revenue of his
+  English and Irish estates, and yet he refuses to part with
+  15,000<i>l.</i> towards aiding in the construction of a railway
+  on his own property.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page346"
+  id="page346"></a>[pg 346]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER XX.</h2>
+
+  <h3>TENANT-RIGHT IN ARMAGH.</h3>
+
+  <p>Among the undertakers in the county of Armagh were the two
+  Achesons, Henry and Archibald, ancestors of Lord Gosford, who
+  founded Market Hill, Richard Houlston, John Heron, William
+  Stanbowe, Francis Sacheverell, John Dillon, John Hamilton, Sir
+  John Davis, Lord Moore, Henry Boucher, Anthony Smith, Lieutenant
+  Poyntz, and Henry M'Shane O'Neill.</p>
+
+  <p>In connection with each of these settlements Pynar uses the
+  phrase, 'I find planted and estated.' What he means is more fully
+  explained in his reference to the precinct of Fews, allotted to
+  Scottish undertakers, where Henry Acheson had obtained 1,000
+  acres. The surveyor says: 'I find a great number of tenants on
+  this land: but not any that have any estates but by promise, and
+  yet they have been many years upon the land. There are nominated
+  to me two freeholders and seventeen leaseholders, all which were
+  with me, and took the oath of supremacy, and petitioned unto me
+  that they might have their leases, the which Mr. Acheson seemed
+  to be willing to perform it unto them presently. These are able
+  to make thirty men with arms. Here is great store of tillage.'
+  The whole of the reports indicate that the Crown required of the
+  undertakers two things. First, that they should themselves reside
+  on the land, that they should build strong houses, fortified with
+  bawns, and keep a certain number of armed men for the defence of
+  the settlement. Secondly, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page347"
+  id="page347"></a>[pg 347]</span> that the English and Scotch
+  settlers who were expected to reclaim the land and build houses,
+  were to have 'estates' in their farms, either as freeholders or
+  lessees. The grants were made to the undertakers on these
+  conditions&mdash;they should be resident, and they should have
+  around them a number of independent yeomanry to defend the king
+  when called upon to do so. Everything connected with the
+  plantation gives the idea of permanent tenures for the settlers.
+  A curious fact is mentioned about Sir John Davis, who had been so
+  active in bringing about the plantation. He obtained a grant for
+  500 acres. 'Upon this,' says Pynar, 'there is nothing at all
+  built, nor so much as an English tenant on the land.' It seems
+  his tenants were all of the class for whose extirpation he
+  pleaded, as weeds that would choke the Saxon crop. Henry M'Shane
+  O'Neill got 1,000 acres at Camlagh, 'but he being lately dead, it
+  was in the hands of Sir Toby Caulfield, who intended to do
+  something upon it, for as yet there was nothing built.' Sir Toby
+  was the ancestor of the Earl of Charlemont, always one of the
+  best landlords in Ulster.</p>
+
+  <p>It is gratifying to find that both the undertakers and the
+  original tenants are still fairly represented&mdash;a
+  considerable number of the former having founded noble houses,
+  and the latter having multiplied and enriched the land to such an
+  extent that, though the population is dense and the farms are
+  generally very small, they are the most prosperous and contented
+  population in the kingdom. Leases were common in this county at
+  the close of the last century, but the terms were
+  short&mdash;twenty-one years and one life. Some had leases for
+  thirty-one years or three lives, and there were some
+  perpetuities. Land was then so valuable that when a small estate
+  came into the market&mdash;large estates hardly ever
+  did&mdash;they brought from twenty-five to thirty years'
+  purchase. The large tracts of church land, which are now among
+  the richest and most desirable in the country, presented at the
+  close of the last century, a melancholy contrast to the farms
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page348" id="page348"></a>[pg
+  348]</span> that surrounded them. The reason is given by Sir
+  Charles Coote. It is most instructive and suggestive at the
+  present time. He says, 'It is very discouraging for a wealthy
+  farmer to have anything to do with church lands, as his
+  improvements cannot even be secured to him during his own life,
+  or the life of his landlord, but he may at any time be deprived
+  of the fruits of his industry, by the incumbent changing his
+  living, as his interest then terminates.' This evil was remedied
+  first by making the leases renewable, on the payment of fines,
+  and, in our own time, an act was passed enabling the tenants to
+  convert their leaseholds into perpetuities. The consequence is,
+  that the church lands now present some of the finest features in
+  the social landscape, occupied by a class of resident gentry, an
+  essential link, in any well-organised society, between the people
+  and the great proprietors. The Board of Trinity College felt so
+  strongly the necessity of giving fixed tenures, if permanent
+  improvements were to be effected on their estates, that, without
+  waiting for a general measure of land reform, they obtained, in
+  1861, a private act of parliament giving them power to grant
+  leases for ninety-nine years. 'The legislature,' says Dr.
+  Hancock, 'thus gave partial effect in the case of one institution
+  to the recommendation which the Land Occupation Commissioners
+  intended to apply to all estates in the hands of public boards in
+  Ireland.'</p>
+
+  <p>Armagh was always free from middlemen. The landlord got what
+  Sir Charles Coote calls a rack rent from the occupying tenant,
+  and it was his interest to divide rather than consolidate farms,
+  because the linen trade enabled the small holder to give a high
+  rent, while the custom of tenant-right furnished an unfailing
+  security for its payment.</p>
+
+  <p>The country, when seen from an elevation, is one continuous
+  patchwork of corn, potatoes, clover, and other artificial
+  grasses. Wonders are wrought in the way of productiveness by
+  rotation of crops and house-feeding. <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page349" id="page349"></a>[pg 349]</span>
+  Cattle are not only fattened much more rapidly than on the
+  richest grazing land, but large quantities of the best manure are
+  produced by the practice of house-feeding. The more northern
+  portions of the county, bordering on Down and Lough Neagh, and
+  along the banks of the rivers Bann and Blackwater, are naturally
+  rich, and have been improved to the highest degree by ages of
+  skilful cultivation. But other parts, particularly the barony of
+  Fews, embracing the high lands stretching to the Newry mountains,
+  and bordering on the County Monaghan, were, about the close of
+  the last century, nearly all covered with heather, and absolutely
+  waste. Sir Charles Coote remarked, in 1804, that it had been then
+  undergoing reclamation. Within the last fifteen years the land
+  had doubled in value, and was set at the average rate of
+  16<i>s.</i> an acre. Mr. Tickell, referring to this county,
+  remarked that the Scotch and English settlers chiefly occupied
+  the lowland districts, and that the natives retired to this poor
+  region, retaining their old language and habits; and he was
+  occasionally obliged to swear interpreters where witnesses or
+  parties came from the Fews, which were 'very wild, and very
+  unlike other parts of the county of Armagh.'</p>
+
+  <p>Now let us see what the industry of the people has done in
+  that wild district. The farms are very small, say from three to
+  ten English acres. They have been so well drained, cleared,
+  sub-soiled, and manured, that the occupier is able to support on
+  one acre as many cattle as on three acres when grazed; while
+  affording profitable employment to the women and children. Great
+  labour has been bestowed in taking down crooked and broad fences.
+  Every foot of ground is cultivated with the greatest care, and in
+  the mountain districts, patches of land among rocks, inaccessible
+  to horses, are tilled by the hand. In many cases in the less
+  exposed districts, two crops in the year are obtained from the
+  same ground, viz., winter tares followed by turnips or cabbages,
+  and rape followed by tares, potatoes, turnips, or cabbages.
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page350" id="page350"></a>[pg
+  350]</span> These crops are succeeded by grain or flax the next
+  year, with which clover is sown for mowing and stall-feeding,
+  yielding two or three cuttings. The green crops are so timed as
+  to give a full supply for house-feeding throughout the year.
+  Nothing is neglected by those skilful and thrifty farmers; the
+  county is famous for orchards, and when I was in the city of
+  Armagh, last autumn, I saw in the market square almost as many
+  loads of apples as of potatoes.</p>
+
+  <p>The connection of large grazing farms with pauperism, as cause
+  and effect, has not received sufficient attention from the
+  friends of social progress. I resolved last year to test this
+  matter by a comparison. We have at present no check upon the
+  legally enforced depopulation of this country except the
+  <i>interest</i> of the landlords, or what they imagine to be
+  their interest. It is well that the question should be determined
+  whether it is really for the benefit of the owners of the land
+  that they should clear it of Christians and occupy it with
+  cattle&mdash;in other words, whether Christians or cattle will
+  pay more rent and taxes. I omit all higher considerations,
+  because some of the most philanthropic and enlightened defenders
+  of the present land system have defended it on this low ground.
+  In order to make the test complete and unexceptionable, I have
+  selected a comparatively poor district for tillage, and one of
+  the richest I could find for grazing, giving all possible natural
+  advantages to Scullyism. But the test would not be fair unless
+  the occupiers of the poorer land had a tolerably secure tenure so
+  long as they paid the highest rent that a reasonable agent could
+  impose. I thought also that possible objections would be obviated
+  if the tenantry were destitute of 'the fostering care of a
+  resident landlord.' Therefore, instead of selecting the tenants
+  of Lord Downshire, or Lord Roden, or Lord Dufferin, I have fixed
+  upon the tenants of Lord Kilmorey, because he and the producers
+  of the rents which he enjoys have never seen one another in the
+  flesh, and they have <span class="pagenum"><a name="page351" id=
+  "page351"></a>[pg 351]</span> never received one word of
+  encouragement or instruction from him in the whole course of
+  their lives. Accordingly, with the Union of Kilkeel, which
+  comprises the Mourne district, I have compared the Union of Trim,
+  which comprises some of the richest grazing land in Ireland.
+  Travellers have noted that population always grows thick on rich
+  lands, while it is sparse on poor lands. No one requires to be
+  told the reason of this.</p>
+
+  <p>The Unions of Kilkeel and Trim have populations very nearly
+  equal&mdash;viz., Kilkeel, 22,614; Trim, 22,918. The total arable
+  land in Kilkeel is 50,000 statute acres, giving 2 1/3 acres on an
+  average for each person, and 14 acres for each holding. Trim
+  contains 119,519 statute acres, giving 5 acres to each person,
+  and 42 to each holding.</p>
+
+  <p>In Mourne the area of land under crops is 20,904 acres (nearly
+  half), giving one acre of tillage to each inhabitant, and 6 acres
+  to each holding of 14 acres. In Trim the area under crops is
+  38,868 acres, giving 2 acres for each inhabitant, and 14 for each
+  holding of 42 acres.</p>
+
+  <p>The significance of these figures is shown by the Government
+  valuation in 1867. The valuation of Mourne Union is
+  40,668<i>l.</i>, the average for each person being 2<i>l.</i> and
+  for each holding 11<i>l.</i> The valuation of Trim is
+  109,068<i>l.</i>, allowing 5<i>l.</i> for each person and
+  38<i>l.</i> for each holding. In other words, the capability of
+  the land of Trim to support population is as five to two when
+  compared with Mourne; but whereas in Mourne 2 1/3 acres support
+  one person, in Trim it takes 5 acres to support one
+  person&mdash;about double the quantity. As the value of the land
+  in Meath is more than double what it is in Mourne, each acre in
+  Meath ought to maintain its man. That is, if Meath were
+  cultivated like Down, its population ought to be <i>five times as
+  large as it is</i>!</p>
+
+  <p>But this is not the whole case. The Mourne population may be
+  too large. With so many families crowded on such a small tract of
+  poor land, the Union must be overwhelmed with pauperism. If so,
+  the case for tenant-right and tillage would <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page352" id="page352"></a>[pg 352]</span> fall
+  to the ground, and Scullyism would be triumphant. Let us see,
+  then, how stands this essential fact. The number of paupers in
+  the workhouse and receiving outdoor relief in the Union of Trim,
+  in 1866, was 2,474. This large amount of pauperism is not
+  peculiar to Trim. It belongs to other Unions of this rich grazing
+  district, which so fully realises the late Lord Carlisle's ideal
+  of Irish prosperity. Navan Union has 3,820 paupers, and Kells has
+  1,306. Now, the population of Trim and Mourne being nearly the
+  same, and Trim being twice as rich as Mourne, and not half as
+  thickly peopled, it follows that Mourne ought to have at least
+  four times as many paupers as Trim&mdash;that is, it ought to
+  have 9,896. But it actually has only 521 persons receiving relief
+  in and out of the workhouse!</p>
+
+  <p>Consequently, Scullyism and grazing produce nearly twenty
+  times the amount of poverty and misery produced by tenant-right
+  and tillage.</p>
+
+  <p>I have not overlooked the difference of race and religion. On
+  the contrary, they were uppermost in my mind when rambling among
+  the nice, clean, comfortable, orderly homesteads of Mourne,
+  reminding me strongly of Forth and Bargy in the county Wexford. I
+  said to the owner and driver of my car, who is a Roman Catholic,
+  'Do the Roman Catholics here keep their houses and farms in as
+  nice order as the Presbyterians?' He answered, 'Why should they
+  not? Are they not the same flesh and blood?'</p>
+
+  <p>According to the census of 1861, the Roman Catholics greatly
+  outnumber the Protestants in this Union. The exact figures
+  are:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <table summary="" align="center">
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Total population of Mourne Union</td>
+
+      <td align="right">22,614</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Protestants of all denominations</td>
+
+      <td align="right">8,080</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Roman Catholics</td>
+
+      <td align="right">14,534</td>
+    </tr>
+  </table>
+
+  <p>The result of this comparison may perhaps make a better
+  impression on the reader's mind if cast in the form of tables, as
+  given on succeeding page.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page353" id="page353"></a>[pg 353]</span>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>Table Headings:</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>Col A. Population in 1861</p>
+
+      <p>Col B. No. of Holdings in 1864</p>
+
+      <p>Col C. Total Area (in Stat. Acres)</p>
+
+      <p>Col D. Area under Crops, 1864 (in Stat. Acres)</p>
+
+      <p>Col E. Valuation in 1807 (in &pound;)</p>
+
+      <p>Col F. No. in Workhouse and receiving Out-door Relief</p>
+
+      <p>Col G. Protestants of all denominations</p>
+
+      <p>Col H. Roman Catholics</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <table summary="" align="center" cellspacing="15">
+    <tr align="center">
+      <th colspan="9">TENANT-RIGHT AND TILLAGE.</th>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Names of Unions</td>
+
+      <td align="center">A.</td>
+
+      <td align="center">B.</td>
+
+      <td align="center">C.</td>
+
+      <td align="center">D.</td>
+
+      <td align="center">E.</td>
+
+      <td align="center">F.</td>
+
+      <td align="center">G.</td>
+
+      <td align="center">H.</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Kilkeel</td>
+
+      <td align="right">22,614</td>
+
+      <td align="right">3,540</td>
+
+      <td align="right">50,000</td>
+
+      <td align="right">20,904</td>
+
+      <td align="right">40,668</td>
+
+      <td align="right">521</td>
+
+      <td align="right">8,080</td>
+
+      <td align="right">14,534</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">  Average for each</td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">    person</td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right">2-1/2</td>
+
+      <td align="right">1</td>
+
+      <td align="right">2</td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">  Average for each</td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">    holding</td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right">14</td>
+
+      <td align="right">6</td>
+
+      <td align="right">11</td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr align="center">
+      <th colspan="9">LARGE FARMS AND GRAZING.</th>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Trim</td>
+
+      <td align="right">22,918</td>
+
+      <td align="right">2,816</td>
+
+      <td align="right">119,519</td>
+
+      <td align="right">38,867</td>
+
+      <td align="right">109,068</td>
+
+      <td align="right">2,474</td>
+
+      <td align="right">1,700</td>
+
+      <td align="right">21,218</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">  Average for each</td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">    person</td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right">5</td>
+
+      <td align="right">2</td>
+
+      <td align="right">5</td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">  Average for each</td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">    person</td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right">42</td>
+
+      <td align="right">14</td>
+
+      <td align="right">38</td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+
+      <td align="right"></td>
+    </tr>
+  </table>
+
+  <p>In Kilkeel Union there were 4,012 acres of flax in 1864, which
+  at 20<i>l.</i> an acre would produce 80,000<i>l.</i>,
+  considerably more than the rental of the entire district. Trim,
+  in that year, produced only 78 acres of flax.</p>
+
+  <p>What everyone wants to know now is this&mdash;whether any
+  measure can be devised that will satisfy the cultivators of the
+  soil without wronging the landlords, or militating against the
+  interests of the state. A measure that will not satisfy the
+  tenants and put an end to their discontent, would be manifestly
+  useless. It would be but adding to the numerous legislative
+  abortions that have gone before it. A man engaged in such
+  enquiries as this, is to ascertain what will satisfy the people.
+  It is for the legislature to determine whether it can be rightly
+  or safely granted. I have, therefore, directed my attention to
+  this point in particular, and I have ascertained beyond question,
+  from the best possible sources of information, that nothing will
+  satisfy the people of this country but what they do not hesitate
+  to name with the most determined emphasis&mdash;'Fixity of
+  Tenure.' Whether they are Protestants or Catholics, Orangemen or
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page354" id="page354"></a>[pg
+  354]</span> Liberals, Presbyterians or Churchmen, this is their
+  unanimous demand, the cry in which they all join to a man. Every
+  case in which tenant-right is disregarded, or in which, while
+  admitted nominally, an attempt is made to evade it, or to fritter
+  it away, excites the bitterest feeling, in which the whole
+  community sympathises.</p>
+
+  <p>They deny, however, that the existing tenant-right is a
+  sufficient security:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>Because it depends on the option of the landlord, and cannot
+  be enforced by law.</p>
+
+  <p>Because even the best disposed landlord may be influenced to
+  alter his policy by the advice of an agent, by the influence of
+  his family, or by the state of his finances.</p>
+
+  <p>Because a good landlord, who knows the tenants and cares for
+  them, may be succeeded by a son who is a 'fast young man,'
+  addicted to the turf and overwhelmed in debt, while the estate
+  gets into the hands of usurers.</p>
+
+  <p>Because in such a case the law affords no protection to the
+  property of the tenant, which his family may have been
+  accumulating on the land since the first of them came over from
+  England or Scotland, and settled around their commander, after
+  helping by their swords to conquer the country, and preserve it
+  to the crown of England.</p>
+
+  <p>Because it is not in human nature to avoid encroaching on the
+  rights and property of others, if it can be done at
+  will&mdash;done legally, and done under the pretext that it is
+  necessary for 'improvement,' and will be a benefit even to those
+  who are despoiled.</p>
+
+  <p>Because the custom is no protection to a man's political
+  rights as a British subject. No tenant farmer can vote against
+  his landlord in obedience to his conscience without the risk of
+  ruining his family. The greater his interest in the land, the
+  larger his investments, the heavier his stake; the greater his
+  accumulations in his bank&mdash;the farm&mdash;the greater will
+  be his dependence, the more complete his political bondage. He
+  has the more to lose. Therefore, if a Conservative, he must vote
+  for a Radical or a Catholic, <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page355" id="page355"></a>[pg 355]</span> who would pull down
+  the Church Establishment; or if a Catholic, he must vote for a
+  'No-popery' candidate, who ignores tenant-right, and against a
+  Liberal statesman, whose life has been devoted to the interests
+  of the country.</p>
+
+  <p>It appears to me that the difficulty of settling this question
+  is much aggravated by the importation of opinions from the United
+  States hostile to the aristocracy; and as this source of
+  discontent and distrust is likely to increase every year, the
+  sooner the settlement is effected the better. What is the use of
+  scolding and reviling the tenant's advocates? Will that weaken
+  one iota the tremendous force of social discontent&mdash;the
+  bitter sense of legal injustice, with which the legislature must
+  deal? And will the legislature deal with it more effectually by
+  shutting its eyes to facts?</p><span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page356" id="page356"></a>[pg 356]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER XXI.</h2>
+
+  <h3>FARNEY&mdash;MR. TRENCH'S 'REALITIES.'</h3>
+
+  <p>When the six Ulster counties were confiscated, and the natives
+  were all deprived of their rights in the soil, the people of the
+  county Cavan resolved to appeal for justice to the English courts
+  in Dublin. The Crown was defended by Sir John Davis. He argued
+  that the Irish could have no legal rights, no property in the
+  land, because they did not enclose it with fences, or plant
+  orchards. True, they had boundary marks for their tillage ground;
+  but they followed the Eastern custom in not building ditches or
+  walls around their farms. They did not plant orchards, because
+  they had too many trees already that grew without planting. The
+  woods were common property, and the apples, if they had any,
+  would be common property too, like the nuts and the acorns.</p>
+
+  <p>The Irish were obliged to submit to the terms imposed by the
+  conquerors, glad in their destitution to be permitted to occupy
+  their own lands as tenants at will. The English undertakers, as
+  we have seen, were bound to deal differently with the English
+  settlers; but their obligations resolved themselves into promises
+  of freeholds and leases which were seldom granted, so that many
+  persons threw up their farms in despair, and returned to their
+  own country.</p>
+
+  <p>In the border county of Monaghan, we have a good illustration
+  of the manner in which the natives struggled to live under their
+  new masters. The successors of some of those masters have in
+  modern times taken a strange fancy to the study of Irish
+  antiquities. Among these is Evelyn P. <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page357" id="page357"></a>[pg 357]</span>
+  Shirley, Esq., who has published 'Some Account of the Territory
+  or Dominion of Farney.' The account is interesting, and, taken in
+  connection with the sequel given to the public by his agent, Mr.
+  W. Steuart Trench, it furnishes an instructive chapter in the
+  history of the land war. The whole barony of Farney was granted
+  by Queen Elizabeth to Walter Earl of Essex in the year 1576, in
+  reward for the massacres already recorded. It was then an almost
+  unenclosed plain, consisting chiefly of coarse pasturage,
+  interspersed with low alder-scrub. When the primitive woods were
+  cut down for fuel, charcoal, or other purposes, the stumps
+  remained in the ground, and from these fresh shoots sprang up
+  thickly. The clearing out of these stumps was difficult and
+  laborious; but it had to be done before anything, but food for
+  goats, could be got out of the land. This was 'the M'Mahons'
+  country,' and the tribe was not wholly subdued till 1606, when
+  the power of the Ulster chiefs was finally broken. The lord
+  deputy, the chancellor, and the lord chief justice passed through
+  Farney on their way to hold assizes for the first time in Derry
+  and Donegal. They were protected by a guard of 'seven score foot,
+  and fifty or three score horse, which,' wrote Sir John Davis, 'is
+  an argument of a good time and a confident deputy; for in former
+  times (when the state enjoyed the best peace and security) no
+  lord deputy did ever venture himself into those parts, without an
+  army of 800 or 1000 men.' At this time Lord Essex had leased the
+  barony of Farney to Evor M'Mahon for a yearly rent of
+  250<i>l.</i> payable in Dublin. After fourteen years the same
+  territory was let to Brian M'Mahon for 1,500<i>l.</i> In the year
+  1636, the property yielded a yearly rent of 2022<i>l.</i>
+  18<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> paid by thirty-eight tenants. A map then
+  taken gives the several townlands and denominations nearly as
+  they are at present. Robert Earl of Essex, dying in 1646, his
+  estates devolved on his sisters, Lady Frances and Lady Dorothy
+  Devereux, the former of whom married Sir W. Seymour, afterwards
+  Marquis of Hertfort, and the latter Sir Henry Shirley, Bart.,
+  ancestor of the present proprietor <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page358" id="page358"></a>[pg 358]</span> of half the barony.
+  Ultimately the other half became the property of the Marquis of
+  Bath. At the division in 1690, each moiety was valued at
+  1313<i>l.</i> 14<i>s.</i> 4-1/2<i>d.</i> Gradually as the lands
+  were reclaimed by the tenants, the rental rose. In 1769 the Bath
+  estate produced 3,000<i>l.</i>, and the Shirley estate
+  5,000<i>l.</i> The total of 8,000<i>l.</i> per annum, from this
+  once wild and barren tract, was paid by middlemen. The natives
+  had not been rooted out, and during the eighteenth century these
+  sub-tenants multiplied rapidly. According to the census in 1841
+  the population of the barony exceeded 44,000 souls, and they
+  contributed by their industry, to the two absentee proprietors,
+  the enormous annual revenue of 40,000<i>l.</i>, towards the
+  production of which it does not appear that either of them, or
+  any person for them, ever invested a shilling.</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. S. Trench was amazed to find 'more than one human being
+  for every Irish acre of land in the barony, and nearly one human
+  being for every 1<i>l.</i> valuation per annum of the land.' The
+  two estates join in the town of Carrickmacross. When Mr. Trench
+  arrived there, March 30, 1843, to commence his duties as Mr.
+  Shirley's agent, he learned that the sudden death of the late
+  agent in the court-house of Monaghan had been celebrated that
+  night by fires on almost every hill on the estate, 'and over a
+  district of upwards of 20,000 acres there was scarcely a mile
+  without a bonfire blazing in manifestation of joy at his
+  decease.' Mr. Trench says, the tenants considered themselves
+  ground down to the last point by the late agent. As he relates
+  the circumstances, the people would seem to be a very savage
+  race; and he gives other more startling illustrations to the same
+  effect as he proceeds. But here, as elsewhere, he does not state
+  all the facts, while those he does state are most artistically
+  dressed up for sensational effect, Mr. Trench himself being
+  always the hero, always acting magnificently, appearing at the
+  right place and at the right moment to prevent some tremendous
+  calamity, otherwise inevitable, and by some mysterious personal
+  influence subduing lawless masses, so <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page359" id="page359"></a>[pg 359]</span> that
+  by a sudden impulse, their murderous rage is converted into
+  admiration, if not adoration. Like the hearers of Herod or of St.
+  Paul, when he flung the viper off his hand, they are ready to cry
+  out, 'He is a god, and not a man.' Of course he, as a Christian
+  gentleman, was always 'greatly shocked,' when these poor wretches
+  offered him petitions on their knees. Still he relates every case
+  of the kind with extraordinary unction, and with a
+  picturesqueness of situation and detail so stagey that it should
+  make Mr. Boucicault's mouth water, and excite the envy of Miss
+  Braddon. Not even she can exceed the author of 'Realities of
+  Irish Life,' in prolonging painful suspense, in piling up the
+  agony, in accumulating horrors, in throwing strong lights on one
+  side of the picture and casting deep shade on the other.</p>
+
+  <p>It is with the greatest reluctance that I thus allude to the
+  work of Mr. Trench. I do so from a sense of duty, because I
+  believe it is one of the most misleading books on Ireland
+  published for many years. It has made false impressions on the
+  public mind in England, which will seriously interfere with a
+  proper settlement of the land question. The mischief would not be
+  so great if the author did not take so much pains to represent
+  his stories as realities 'essentially characteristic of the
+  country.' It is very difficult to account for the exaggeration
+  and embellishment in which he has permitted himself to indulge,
+  with so many professions of conscientious regard for truth. They
+  must have arisen from the habit of reciting the adventures to his
+  friends during a quarter of a century, naturally laying stress on
+  the most sensational passages, while the facts less in keeping
+  with startling effects dropped out of his memory. Very few of the
+  actors in the scenes he describes now survive. Those who do, and
+  who might have a more accurate memory, are either so lauded that
+  it would be ungrateful of them to contradict&mdash;or so artfully
+  discredited as 'virulent' and base that people would not be
+  likely to believe them if their recollections were different.
+  There is one peculiarity about Mr. Trench's dialogues. There were
+  never any witnesses <span class="pagenum"><a name="page360" id=
+  "page360"></a>[pg 360]</span> present. He always took the wild
+  Irishman, on whom he operated so magically, into his private
+  office; or into a private room in the house of the 'subject;' or
+  into a cell alone, if secrets were to be extracted from a
+  Ribbonman in gaol. Even conversations with the gentler sex, who
+  knelt before him as if he were a bishop, were not permitted to
+  reach the ear of his chief clerk. On some matters, however,
+  others have spoken since his book appeared. He is very precise
+  about the trial for an agrarian murder in Monaghan, giving
+  details from his own actual observation. Mr. Butt, Q.C., who was
+  engaged in the case, has published a letter, stating that Mr.
+  Trench was quite mistaken in his account. It seems strange that
+  he did not refresh his memory by looking at a report of the trial
+  in some newspaper file.</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Trench 'adds his testimony to the fact that Ireland is not
+  altogether unmanageable,' that 'justice fully and firmly
+  administered is always appreciated in the end.' And at the
+  conclusion of his volume he says:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'We can scarcely shut our eyes to the fact that the
+  circumstances and feelings which have led to the terrible crime
+  of murder in Ireland, are usually very different from those which
+  have led to murder elsewhere. The reader of the English newspaper
+  is shocked at the list of children murdered by professional
+  assassins, of wives murdered by their husbands, of men murdered
+  for their gold. In Ireland that dreadful crime may almost
+  invariably be traced to a wild feeling of revenge for the
+  national wrongs, to which so many of her sons believe that she
+  has been subjected for centuries.'</p>
+
+  <p>There is a mistake here. No murders are committed in Ireland
+  for 'national wrongs.' The author has gathered together, as in a
+  chamber of horrors, all the cases of assassination that occurred
+  during the years of distress, provoked by the extensive
+  <i>evictions</i> which succeeded the <i>famine</i>, and by the
+  infliction of great hardships on tenants who, in consequence of
+  that dreadful calamity, had fallen into arrears. People who had
+  been industrious, peaceable, and well-conducted were thus
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page361" id="page361"></a>[pg
+  361]</span> driven to desperation; and hence the young men formed
+  lawless combinations and committed atrocious murders. But every
+  one of these murders was agrarian, not national. They were
+  committed in the prosecution of <i>a war</i>, not against the
+  Government, but against the landlords and their agents and
+  instruments. It was a war <i>pro aris et focis</i>, waged against
+  local tyrants, and waged in the only way possible to the
+  belligerents who fought for home and family. Mr. Trench always
+  paints the people who sympathise with their champions as
+  naturally wild, lawless, and savage. If he happens to be in good
+  humour with them, he makes them ridiculous. His son, Mr. Townsend
+  Trench, who did the illustrations for the work, pictures the
+  peasantry as gorillas, always flourishing shillelaghs, and
+  grinning horribly. With rare exceptions, they appear as an
+  inferior race, while the ruling class, and the Trenches in
+  particular, appear throughout the book as demigods, 'lords of the
+  creation,' formed by nature to be the masters and guides and
+  managers of such a silly, helpless people. Nowhere is any censure
+  pronounced upon a landlord, or an agent, with one exception, and
+  this was the immediate predecessor of Mr. Trench at Kenmare. To
+  his gross neglect in allowing God to send so many human beings
+  into the world, he ascribes the chaos of misery and pauperism,
+  which he&mdash;a heaven-born agent&mdash;had to reduce to order
+  and beauty. But there were other causes of the 'poetic
+  turbulence' which he so gloriously quelled, that he might have
+  brought to light, had he thought proper, for the information of
+  English readers. He might have shown&mdash;for the evidence was
+  before him in the report of the Devon Commission&mdash;with what
+  hard toil and constant self-denial, amidst what domestic
+  privations and difficulties, Mr. Shirley's tenants struggled to
+  scrape up for him his 20,000<i>l.</i> a year, and how bitterly
+  they must have felt when the landlord sent an order to add
+  one-third to their rack-rent. I will supply Mr. Trench's lack of
+  service, and quote the evidence of one of those honest and worthy
+  men, given before the Devon Commissioners.</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page362" id="page362"></a>[pg 362]</span>
+
+  <p>Peter Mohun, farmer, a tenant on the Shirley estate, gave the
+  following evidence:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'What family have you?&mdash;I am married, and have two
+  daughters, and my wife, and a servant boy.</p>
+
+  <p>'What rent do you pay?&mdash;Sometime ago I paid 3<i>l.</i>
+  19<i>s.</i> 11<i>d.</i> I was doing well at that time; and then
+  my rent was raised to 5<i>l.</i> 19<i>s.</i> 9<i>d.</i>, and
+  sometimes 6<i>l.</i>, and one year 5<i>l.</i> 19<i>s.</i>
+  6<i>d.</i></p>
+
+  <p>'How do you account for the difference?&mdash;I do not know;
+  perhaps by the bog rent. We had the bog free before, and we were
+  doing well; and then we were cut down from the bog, and we were
+  raised from 3<i>l.</i> 19<i>s.</i> 11<i>d.</i> to 6<i>l.</i> We
+  are beaten down now quite.</p>
+
+  <p>'What does the county-cess come to?&mdash;Sometimes we pay
+  1<i>s.</i> 6-1/2<i>d.</i> an acre, and oftener 1<i>s.</i>
+  7-1/2<i>d.</i>, the half-year.</p>
+
+  <p>'Have you paid your rent pretty punctually?&mdash;Yes, I have
+  done my best so far to pay the rent.</p>
+
+  <p>'How much do you owe now?&mdash;I believe I shall pay the rent
+  directly after May; I am clear till May. I cannot pay it till
+  harvest comes round.</p>
+
+  <p>'How do you get the money to pay the rent?&mdash;When I had my
+  land cheap, and myself a youth, I was a good workman, and did
+  work by the loom, and I would be mowing in the summer season, and
+  earn a good deal, and make a little store for me, which has stood
+  by me. I buy some oats and make meal of it, and I make money in
+  that way. It was not by my land I was paying my rent, but from
+  other sources.</p>
+
+  <p>'How much wheat have you now?&mdash;Half an acre, rather
+  above.</p>
+
+  <p>'How much oats have you?&mdash;Half a rood.</p>
+
+  <p>'How much potato land shall you have?&mdash;Three and a half
+  roods besides the garden.</p>
+
+  <p>'Have you any clover?&mdash;Very near a rood of clover.</p>
+
+  <p>'What is the smallest quantity of land that you think a man
+  who has no other means of support can subsist and pay rent
+  upon?&mdash;I was paying rent well myself when I had three acres,
+  when I was paying 3<i>l.</i> 19<i>s.</i>
+  11<i>d.</i></p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page363" id=
+  "page363"></a>[pg 363]</span>
+
+  <p>'You weave a little?&mdash;Yes, but very little; but there was
+  a good price for the barrel of wheat, and for pigs, and so I made
+  a little store. But as for any man to support himself out of a
+  small farm, at the high price of land, and the price of labour
+  that is going, it is impossible.</p>
+
+  <p>'What is the smallest farm upon which a man can support
+  himself at the present rate of rent, taking a man with five or
+  six children?&mdash;That is a hard question.</p>
+
+  <p>'Supposing a man to pay 35<i>s.</i> an acre, and to have two
+  acres, and to be obliged to live out of the farm, do you think he
+  could do it and pay rent?&mdash;He could not; his land must be
+  very good. Unless he lived near a town, and had cheap land, it
+  would be impossible. But a man with five acres, at a moderate
+  rent, he could support his family upon it.</p>
+
+  <p>'What should you earn at weaving?&mdash;I only weave for my
+  own family. I weave my own shirt.</p>
+
+  <p>'Do your family ever spin any wool and weave
+  it?&mdash;Yes.</p>
+
+  <p>'Do you live upon the Shirley estate?&mdash;Yes.</p>
+
+  <p>'How much bog do you require to keep your house in
+  fuel?&mdash;Half a rood, if it was good; but it is bad bog
+  ground, red mossy turf, white and light; it requires more than
+  the black turf.</p>
+
+  <p>'What do you pay for half a rood of turf?&mdash;It is
+  13<i>s.</i> 4<i>d.</i> for a rood&mdash;that is, 6<i>s.</i>
+  8<i>d.</i> for half a rood. There is 4<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> paid
+  for bad bog.</p>
+
+  <p>'Do you pay anything for the ticket of leave to
+  cut?&mdash;Yes, I do; I have not a ticket unless I pay 6<i>d.</i>
+  for it.</p>
+
+  <p>'That is over and above the 4<i>s.</i>
+  6<i>d.</i>?&mdash;Yes.</p>
+
+  <p>'Did you ever pay more than 6<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i> for the bog
+  in the late agent's time?&mdash;He took the good bog off us; we
+  were paying 6<i>s.</i> 8<i>d.</i> for it. They left us to the bad
+  bog, and we do not pay so high for that.</p>
+
+  <p>'Was the good bog dearer or cheaper than the bad bog at
+  4<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>?&mdash;Half a rood of the good bog was
+  worth half an acre or an acre of the other. The bad bog smokes so
+  we have often to leave the house: we cannot stay in it unless
+  there is a good draught in the chimney.'</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page364" id="page364"></a>[pg 364]</span>
+
+  <p>The Rev. Thomas Smollan, P.P., has published a letter to the
+  Earl of Dunraven, a Catholic Peer, to whom Mr. Trench has
+  dedicated his book. In this letter the parish priest of Farney
+  says:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'In pages 63 and 64 Mr. Trench tells his readers that on the
+  very night the news of the late agent's sudden death, in the
+  county courthouse of Monaghan, reached Carrickmacross, "fires
+  blazed on almost every hill on the Shirley estate, and over a
+  district of more than 20,000 acres there was scarcely a mile
+  without a bonfire blazing in manifestation of joy at his
+  decease." This paragraph, my lord, taken by itself and
+  unexplained in any way, would at once imply that the people were
+  inhuman, almost savages, whom Mr. Trench was sent to
+  tame&mdash;that they were insensible to the agent's sudden death,
+  a death so sudden that it would make an enemy almost relent. Mr.
+  Trench assigns no cause for this strange proceeding except what
+  we read in page 64, and what he learned from the chief clerk,
+  viz., "that the people were much excited, that they were ground
+  down to the last point by the late agent, and they were
+  threatening to rise in rebellion against him," &amp;c. One would
+  think that Mr. Trench having learned so much on such authority,
+  would have set to work to try and find out the cause of the
+  discontent and apply a remedy. He does not say in his book that
+  he did so, but seems still unable to understand this to him
+  incomprehensible proceeding. However, I am of opinion that Mr.
+  Trench knew the whole of it, if not then at all events before
+  "The Realities" saw the light, for in a speech of his, when Lord
+  Bath visited Farney (page 383), he said, "A dog could not bark on
+  the estate without it coming to his knowledge." And therefore I
+  say that a man so inquisitive as to find out the barking of a dog
+  on the Bath estate, who had so many sources of information close
+  at hand, could not have been long without knowing the causes of
+  the "excitement, threatened rebellion, bonfires, &amp;c., on the
+  Shirley estate," if he had only wished for the information.
+  Either he knew the cause of all this when he wrote <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page365" id="page365"></a>[pg 365]</span> his
+  book, or he did not. If he did, I say he was bound in fair play
+  to tell it to the public; if he did not know it his
+  self-laudation in his speech goes for nought. But, my lord, with
+  your permission, I will inform your lordship, Mr. Trench, and the
+  public, as to some of the causes of so remarkable an occurrence,
+  which could not pass unobserved by Mr. Trench. At the memorable
+  election of 1826, Evelyn John Shirley, Esq., and Colonel Leslie,
+  father of the present M.P., contested the county of Monaghan, and
+  the former brought all his influence to bear on his tenants to
+  vote for himself (Shirley) and Leslie, who coalesced against the
+  late Lord Rossmore. The electors said "they would give one vote
+  for their landlord, and the other they would give for their
+  religion and their country;" the consequence was, Shirley and
+  Westenra were returned, and Leslie was beaten. Up to this time
+  Mr. Shirley was a good landlord, and admitted tenant-right to the
+  fullest extent on the property, but after that election he never
+  showed the same friendly feelings towards the people. Soon after
+  the election Mr. Humphrey Evatt, the agent, died, and was
+  succeeded in the agency by Mr. Sandy Mitchell, who very soon set
+  about surveying and revaluing the estate, of course at the
+  instance of his master, Evelyn John Shirley, Esq. He performed
+  the work of revaluation, &amp;c., and the result was that the
+  rents were increased by one-third and in some cases more. The
+  bog, too, which up to this time was free to the tenants, was
+  taken from them and doled out to them in small patches of from
+  twenty-five to forty perches each, at from 4<i>l.</i> to
+  8<i>l.</i> per acre. At the instance of the then parish priest,
+  President Reilly, Mr. Shirley gave 5<i>l.</i> per year to a few
+  schools on his property, without interfering in any way with the
+  religious principles of the Catholics attending these schools;
+  but the then agent insisted on having the authorised version of
+  the Bible, without note or comment, read in those schools by the
+  Catholic children. The bishop, the Most Rev. Dr. Kernan, could
+  not tolerate such a barefaced attempt at proselytism, and
+  insisted on the children being withdrawn <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page366" id="page366"></a>[pg 366]</span> from
+  the schools. For obeying their bishop in this, the Catholic
+  parents were treated most unsparingly. I have before me just now
+  a most remarkable instance of the length to which this gentleman
+  carried his proselytising propensities, which I will mention. In
+  the vestry, or sacristy, attached to Corduff Chapel, was a school
+  taught by a man named Rush, altogether independent of the schools
+  aided by Mr. Shirley, and by largely subsidising the teacher, the
+  then agent actually introduced his proselytism into that school
+  too. The priests and people tried legal means to get rid of the
+  teacher, but without success, and in the end the people came by
+  night and knocked down the sacristy, so that in the morning when
+  the teacher came he had no house to shelter him. The Catholics
+  were then without a school, and in order to provide the means of
+  education for them the Rev. F. Keone, administrator, under the
+  Most Rev. Dr. Kernan, applied for aid to the Commissioners of
+  National Education, and obtained it; but where was he to procure
+  building materials? The then agent, in his zeal for "converting"
+  Catholics, having issued an order forbidding the supplying of
+  them from any part of the Shirley estate, which extends over an
+  area of fifteen miles by ten, Father Keone went on the next
+  Sunday to the neighbouring chapels outside the Shirley estate,
+  told his grievances, and on the next day the people came with
+  their horses and carts and left sand, lime, and stones in
+  sufficient quantities to build the house inside the chapel-yard.
+  The priest and people thought it necessary to "thatch" their old
+  chapel, and, though strange it may seem, the agent actually
+  served an ejectment process on the father of the two boys who
+  assisted the priest to make the collection at the chapel door for
+  so absolutely necessary a work. I may add, this man owed no rent.
+  Lastly, the then agent was in the habit of arranging matrimonial
+  alliances, pointing out this girl as a suitable match for that
+  boy, and the boy must marry the girl or give up his farm. These
+  facts being true, my lord, and more which I might state, but that
+  I have trespassed too much already <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page367" id="page367"></a>[pg 367]</span> on your lordship's
+  time, I ask you, my Lord Dunraven&mdash;I ask any impartial man,
+  Irishman or Englishman&mdash;for whom Mr. Trench wrote his
+  "book," is it strange or wonderful that the Catholic people, so
+  treated, would rejoice&mdash;would have bonfires on the hill tops
+  at their deliverance from such conduct? I flatter myself that
+  you, my lord&mdash;that the learned reading public&mdash;that the
+  English people would sympathise with any people so treated for
+  conscience' sake; and having pronounced the sentence of
+  condemnation against Mr. Trench for not having noticed these
+  facts, that you will direct your name to be erased from the
+  "book." I have the honour to remain, my lord, with the most
+  profound respect, your lordship's faithful servant.'</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>'THOMAS SMOLLAN, P.P.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>'Clones, Feb. 15, 1869.'</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>The electors of Monaghan, in their simplicity, thought they
+  were fairly exercising the rights conferred by the constitution
+  when they gave one vote for the landlord, and one for their
+  religion and their country, thus securing the return of one
+  Liberal. But Mr. Shirley soon taught them that the blessings of
+  our glorious constitution belong not to the tenant, but to the
+  landlord; and so he punished their mistake by adding one-third to
+  their rent, and depriving them of proper fuel. Not content with
+  this, he carried the war into their chapels and schools, and
+  punished them for their religion. These facts may help to explain
+  the scenes which Mr. Trench describes so poetically.</p>
+
+  <p>The persecuting agent died suddenly in the court-house. The
+  landlord and a new agent, Mr. Trench, arrived at Carrickmacross;
+  and the tenants presented a petition, imploring him to remove the
+  new and intolerable burden that had been put on their shoulders.
+  They were told to come back for an answer on the following
+  Monday:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'"Monday! Monday!" was shouted on all sides. The most frenzied
+  excitement ensued. Hats were thrown in the air, sticks were
+  flourished on all sides, and the men actually <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page368" id="page368"></a>[pg 368]</span>
+  danced with wild delight. After a little time, however, the crowd
+  cleared away, and the news flew like wildfire over the town and
+  country, that the whole tenantry were told to come in on Monday
+  next, that they might know the amount of the reduction to be
+  granted, and have all their grievances removed!'</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Shirley quickly repented having given the invitation, and
+  sent out a circular countermanding it, and requesting the tenants
+  to stay at home. On Monday, however, a vast excited mass
+  assembled to hear his <i>ultimatum</i>, which was announced by
+  the new agent. 'He would not reduce their rents. They might give
+  up their lands if they pleased; but they had little or no cause
+  of complaint.' They insisted on his mounting a chair and making a
+  speech. He softened the message as well as he could. When he had
+  done there was a dead silence. In describing what follows Mr.
+  Trench surpasses the wildest romancers in piling up the agony. I
+  copy the description that the reader may see the difference
+  between romance and history.</p>
+
+  <p>'There was a dead silence when I stopped speaking. It was
+  broken by a stentorian voice.</p>
+
+  <p>'"Then you won't reduce our rents?"</p>
+
+  <p>'"I have already given you Mr. Shirley's answer upon that
+  point," said I. "Stranger as I am, it is impossible for me to
+  form any opinion as to whether they are too high or not."</p>
+
+  <p>'"<i>Down on your knees, boys!</i>" shouted the same voice;
+  "we will ask him once more upon our knees!" and to my horror and
+  amazement the vast crowd, almost all at least who were in my
+  immediate vicinity, dropped suddenly on their knees, and another
+  dead silence ensued.</p>
+
+  <p>'It was a dreadful spectacle. Their hats were on their heads,
+  and their sticks in their hands, some leaning upon them as they
+  knelt, others balancing and grasping them. It was fearful to see
+  the attitude of supplication, due only to a higher power, thus
+  mingled with a wild defiance.</p>
+
+  <p>'"<i>We ask you upon our knees, for God's sake, to get us a
+  reduction of our rents!</i>" again the same voice cried
+  aloud.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page369" id=
+  "page369"></a>[pg 369]</span>
+
+  <p>'I was greatly shocked. I instantly got down off the chair. I
+  entreated them to rise. I told them that I was distressed beyond
+  measure, but that I had given them the only message I was
+  authorised to give; and quite overcome by such a scene, I
+  endeavoured to move again across the crowded space from the
+  office, in order to enter the house, and report proceedings to
+  Mr. Shirley, intending to request that he would himself appear
+  and address his excited tenantry.</p>
+
+  <p>'The moment I moved towards the door, the vast crowd leaped
+  again to their feet; I was instantly surrounded, hustled, and
+  prevented from getting near it. I bore this good-humouredly, and
+  the door being quite close to me, I had no doubt they would
+  ultimately let me in. But whilst this scene was going on, a shout
+  was raised by those who were at a distance up the road leading to
+  the town, and who had not heard what had been said. "Bring him
+  up&mdash;bring him up, and let us see him!" In a moment I was
+  seized, and though I resisted to my utmost, I was dragged up the
+  narrow road which led from Shirley House to the town. I was
+  kicked and beaten, and pushed and bruised, my hat knocked off,
+  and my clothes torn; and in this state I was dragged into the
+  main street of Carrickmacross.</p>
+
+  <p>'Here a scene of the wildest excitement took place, some cried
+  one thing&mdash;some another. I was beaten again, my clothes torn
+  off my back, and sticks whirled over my head. Four or five
+  policemen met me as I was being dragged along, but they might as
+  well have attempted to stop the rushing of an Atlantic wave, as
+  to stern the crowd that had assembled around me; <i>and they only
+  looked on and let me pass</i>.'</p>
+
+  <p>If the sub-inspector, who was present, and his men acted in
+  this manner, I venture to say it is the only instance in the
+  whole history of the force in which the Royal Irish constabulary
+  were guilty of such a cowardly neglect of duty. However, not only
+  the police, but the best part of the crowd deserted this strange
+  gentleman, and he was 'left in the hands of the vilest and most
+  furious of the mob.' <span class="pagenum"><a name="page370" id=
+  "page370"></a>[pg 370]</span> Where was Mr. Shirley? Where were
+  the clergy and the respectable inhabitants of the town? The mob
+  dragged him along towards Loughfea Castle&mdash;a mile and a
+  half&mdash;whither they heard Mr. Shirley had fled, still
+  beating, kicking, and strangling their victim, without any
+  object; for how could they serve their cause by killing an agent
+  who had never injured them? And how easy it was to kill him if
+  they wished! But here comes the climax; he asked the murderous
+  multitude to let him stop a few moments to breathe&mdash;he then
+  proceeds: 'I shall never forget that moment. I was then about a
+  mile from the town on the broad and open road leading to Loughfea
+  Castle. I turned and looked around me, thinking my last hour was
+  come, and anxious to see if there was one kind face, one
+  countenance, I had ever seen before, who could at least tell my
+  friends how I had died. But I looked in vain. The hills were
+  crowded with people. The long line of road was one mass of human
+  beings, whilst those immediately around me, mad with excitement,
+  seemed only to thirst for my blood.</p>
+
+  <p>'Having got a few moments' breathing-time, and seeing all
+  appeal to be vain, I turned again on my way, determined, however,
+  to hold out to the last, as I felt that to fall or to faint must
+  be certain death. Just then I became conscious of an able hand
+  and a stout heart beside me, and I heard a whisper in my ear:
+  "They are determined to have your blood, but hold up, they shall
+  have mine first." The speaker grasped my arm firmly under his
+  own, and walked on steadily by my side.</p>
+
+  <p>'By this time I was <i>completely naked with the exception of
+  my trousers</i>. My coat, even my shirt, had been torn off, and I
+  walked on, still beaten and ill-treated, like a man to execution;
+  my head bare, and <i>without any clothes from my waist
+  upwards</i>. To increase the misery of my situation, I found that
+  my friend had been beaten and dragged away in spite of himself,
+  and again I was left alone in the hands of those merciless men. I
+  felt also I could now go no further, <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page371" id="page371"></a>[pg 371]</span> and
+  that a last effort must be made before my senses left me from
+  exhaustion. Stopping therefore once more, I asked to be led
+  towards a high bank at the roadside, and leaning against this I
+  turned and faced those whom I now believed would soon become my
+  murderers.</p>
+
+  <p>'"I can go no further," said I; "what have you brought me here
+  for? What do you want me to do?" Again the same voice which I had
+  first heard at the office, though I could not identify the
+  speaker from the shouting and confusion around me, cried aloud,
+  "We want a reduction of our rents, will you promise to get us
+  that?"</p>
+
+  <p>'There are times of instant danger, when it is said that the
+  whole of a man's past life rushes before him in the spaces of a
+  single moment. If ever there be such a time, this was such to me.
+  I stood there, exhausted, without one friendly face on which to
+  rest, and surrounded by <i>the worst of ten thousand men who
+  seemed determined to have a victim</i>. I knew and felt all this.
+  So I said very quietly, as a last effort to save my life, and
+  hoping they would name something I could promise to ask,</p>
+
+  <p>'"And what reduction will you be content with?"</p>
+
+  <p>'Again the same voice replied,</p>
+
+  <p>'"We will never pay more than one-half our present rents."</p>
+
+  <p>'"Then," said I, "there ends the matter, <i>I never will
+  promise that</i>."</p>
+
+  <p>'There was a pause, and a dead silence. I stood <i>naked and
+  bareheaded before them</i>. They stood opposite to me, with their
+  sticks clenched in their hands, ready to strike. I looked at
+  them, and they at me. They hesitated; <i>no one would strike me
+  first</i>. I saw that they wavered, and instinctively, in a
+  moment I <i>felt</i> that I had won. This sudden revulsion of
+  feeling&mdash;though I was still externally motionless&mdash;sent
+  the blood throbbing to my temples with a rush that became almost
+  oppressive. But the strange pause continued&mdash;when at length
+  a shout was raised from the old stentorian voice again, "Stand
+  off, boys&mdash;for your lives! <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page372" id="page372"></a>[pg 372]</span> no one shall harm
+  him&mdash;he is a good man after all!" and in a moment I was
+  surrounded by a new set of faces, who dashed furiously towards
+  me. They raised me on their shoulders, swept my old enemies away
+  from me, procured me some water to drink, and carried me, now
+  completely overcome, exhausted, and almost fainting, into the
+  demesne of Loughfea.</p>
+
+  <p>'Here again these suddenly converted friends desired me to get
+  up on a chair, and speak to the crowd now assembled before the
+  castle. I did so. A reaction for the moment had taken place
+  within me, and I felt some return of strength.</p>
+
+  <p>'I told the people I had never injured them. That it was a
+  shame, and a disgrace of which I had not believed any Irishman to
+  be capable, to treat a stranger as they had dealt with me that
+  day. That in my own country I could have as many to fight for me
+  as were now against me, and in short I abused them right heartily
+  and soundly. They bore it without a murmur. My new friends
+  cheered me vociferously, and I was carried, now quite unable to
+  walk, into the Castle of Loughfea. Mr. Shirley's architect here
+  appeared upon the scene, and perceiving that the people were much
+  exasperated at not finding Mr. Shirley at the castle, and that
+  some of the most violent were disposed in consequence to make a
+  fresh attack upon me as I was being carried exhausted inside the
+  gates, he promised to speak to Mr. Shirley in their favour, and
+  in some degree calmed their feelings. The excitement was past.
+  Mr. Shirley had not been there, and the people at last quietly
+  dispersed.</p>
+
+  <p>'In the evening I was conveyed in a covered carriage to
+  Carrickmacross, blackened with bruises, stiff and sore, and
+  scarcely able to stand&mdash;musing over the strange transactions
+  which had happened that day&mdash;and wrapped in a countryman's
+  frieze coat which had been borrowed to cover <i>my
+  nakedness</i>.'<a id="footnotetag45" name=
+  "footnotetag45"></a><a href="#footnote45"><sup>1</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>When the reader recovers his breath after this. I will ask
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page373" id="page373"></a>[pg
+  373]</span> him to turn to the history of this
+  transaction&mdash;bad enough in itself&mdash;and see what fancy
+  and art can do in dressing up a skeleton so that it becomes
+  'beautiful for ever.' Mr. Trench himself shall be the historian,
+  writing to the authorities when the occurrences were all fresh in
+  his mind. The narrative was handed in to the Devon commissioners
+  as his <i>sworn evidence</i>:</p>
+
+  <p>'<i>William Steuart Trench, esq., agent.</i></p>
+
+  <p>'Have there been any agrarian outrages, and in what have they
+  originated?&mdash;There have been none, except <i>during a late
+  short period of peculiar local excitement</i>.</p>
+
+  <p>'Will you state the particulars of that excitement, and what
+  then occurred?&mdash;I think my best mode of doing so will be by
+  handing in the copy of a letter which I addressed to a local
+  magistrate for the information of government.&mdash;[<i>The
+  witness read the following letter</i>:&mdash;]</p>
+
+  <p>'Dear Sir&mdash;In reply to your communication, enclosing a
+  letter from Mr. Lucas, requesting that I should give a statement
+  of the particulars which occurred to me in Carrickmacross, on
+  Monday last, I beg leave to lay before you the facts, as
+  follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'Mr. Shirley has recently appointed me to the agency over his
+  Monaghan estate. We both arrived here on Thursday, the 30th of
+  March, and on the following morning we went together into the
+  office; and having remained there about an hour, we were much
+  surprised, on our return, to find an immense mass of people
+  outside the door, who immediately presented a petition to Mr.
+  Shirley, requesting a reduction of rent.</p>
+
+  <p>'Mr. Shirley declined giving an immediate answer to such an
+  unexpected request; but having read the petition, he told them he
+  would give an answer to it on the Monday following. By Saturday,
+  however, he had arrived at a full conclusion upon the point, and,
+  anxious to avoid any unpleasant altercation with his tenants, he
+  thought it advisable <span class="pagenum"><a name="page374" id=
+  "page374"></a>[pg 374]</span> to let his determination be known
+  as soon as possible; and accordingly, on Saturday, he issued and
+  circulated a printed notice, stating the determination at which
+  he had arrived, and declining any further communications upon the
+  subject. I enclose a copy of the notice.</p>
+
+  <p>'Notwithstanding this notice, the people came in on Monday in
+  immense numbers; and at about 11 o'clock in the forenoon, the
+  upper part of the street opposite to Shirley House, where we were
+  residing, was filled with dense masses of men. I then thought it
+  my duty to go out, and repeat to them in my capacity as agent,
+  the determination at which their landlord had arrived. I did so
+  in the mildest terms. I told them I had been able to go over only
+  a part of the estate; but that from what I had seen, I was of
+  opinion that a better system of farming and of general management
+  of their land, was in my judgment much more required than a
+  reduction of the rent. That I knew Mr. Shirley had the kindest
+  feeling towards them, and that I was myself quite prepared and
+  willing to render them any assistance&mdash;to go to every man's
+  farm, if possible, and to assist them by my counsel and advice.
+  But that as Mr. Shirley had come to a determination to make no
+  present reduction in his rental, I did expect that all who were
+  able to pay their rents would come in and do so; that the utmost
+  leniency would be extended towards those who could not pay; but
+  that my duty was plain, and if those who really were able to pay,
+  refused to come forward and do so, that I had no alternative left
+  but to take advantage of the power which the law afforded for the
+  recovery of the rent&mdash;and this I was fully prepared and
+  determined to do, if driven to that unpleasant necessity. I also
+  made some further observations, of less importance; but my manner
+  towards them was quiet and calm, and I expressed myself most
+  anxious to do everything in my power to promote their welfare and
+  comfort.</p>
+
+  <p>'<i>I then attempted to return to the house, across the
+  street; but the mob closed in upon me, and prevented my doing
+  so,</i> <span class="pagenum"><a name="page375" id=
+  "page375"></a>[pg 375]</span> <i>and with much violence dragged
+  me up into the town, where I was repeatedly struck and kicked,
+  and nearly strangled, and my coat torn to pieces.</i></p>
+
+  <p>'<i>The mob continued thus to ill-treat me for about a mile
+  along the road to Lough Fea, Mr. Shirley's residence, repeatedly
+  kicking me, especially when I showed symptoms of exhaustion, and
+  pressing their hands violently upon my throat, till I was almost
+  overcome by fatigue, heat and pain.</i></p>
+
+  <p>'<i>All this appeared to be done for the purpose of forcing me
+  to promise to induce Mr. Shirley to lower the rents to 10 s. per
+  acre (upwards of fifty per cent.). This I refused to do. They
+  then brought me on to Lough Fea, where they thought Mr. Shirley
+  was; and upon not finding him, they appeared much exasperated.
+  Mr. Shirley's architect then appeared, and by promising to speak
+  to Mr. Shirley in their favour, and by requesting them to send a
+  deputation, instead of coming in a manner like the present, he
+  induced them to desist from further injury to me.</i></p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>'Believe me, dear Sir, very truly yours,</p>
+
+      <p>'(Signed) 'WILLIAM STEUART TRENCH.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>'Carrickmacross, April 8, 1844.</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>'What has been the general demeanour of the people towards you
+  since that time?&mdash;Though they resisted my measures for the
+  recovery of the rent, <i>to myself they have been perfectly
+  civil; nor have I received any personal insult or unpleasantness,
+  arising from the above cause since that period.</i></p>
+
+  <p>'How long did this kind of combination exist?&mdash;For about
+  six months.'</p>
+
+  <p>Setting aside the embellishments, let us note one or two
+  differences as to facts. In the book the suddenly converted
+  friends placed him on a chair and asked him to make a speech
+  before the castle door. He did so, and there is a grand
+  statuesque picture of the hero, naked to the waist, and standing
+  on the chair as lofty pedestal. In the torn <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page376" id="page376"></a>[pg 376]</span> coat
+  the artist could never have made him look like Apollo. Even the
+  shirt would have been too commonplace; so off went the shirt.
+  Three or four times attention is directed to the fact of the
+  nakedness by the hero himself, while the pencil of the filial
+  illustrator has rendered him immortal in this primitive costume.
+  In his speech he 'abused them heartily and soundly.' Yet they
+  cheered him vociferously, and then carried him into the castle,
+  where he could get nothing to cover his nakedness but a
+  countryman's frieze coat. It was when he had been cheered
+  vociferously, and kindly carried in, that Mr. Shirley's architect
+  appeared on the scene. Mr. Trench has not been just to that
+  gentleman, for he really came to his rescue, and perhaps saved
+  his life, by giving the people the only sensible advice they got
+  that day. In his sworn statement, made twenty-five years ago, Mr.
+  Trench said: 'Mr. Shirley's architect then appeared, and by
+  promising to speak to Mr. Shirley in their favour, and by
+  requesting them to send a deputation, instead of coming in a
+  manner like the present, <i>he induced them to desist from
+  further injury to me.</i>'</p>
+
+  <p>If we had contemporary accounts of all the other romantic
+  scenes which have fascinated so many readers, the 'Realities'
+  would lose much of their gilding. Indeed, in most cases the
+  internal evidence is sufficient to convince us that the
+  sensationalist has been laying on his colours pretty heavily. In
+  the sketch of the Farney rent campaign, however, I am willing to
+  accept Mr. Trench as a faithful historian. It is a most
+  suggestive narrative, because it shows what mischief could be
+  done by driving the agricultural population to desperation. A
+  general strike against the payment of rent would convulse
+  society. If the war which raged in Farney had spread all over the
+  island, the landlords would be in serious difficulty. The British
+  army might then have become rent collectors, as they had been
+  tithe collectors in 1831.'</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Shirley resolved, after much deliberation, to enforce his
+  legal rights to the utmost. The bailiff was sent to <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page377" id="page377"></a>[pg 377]</span> warn
+  the backward tenants to come in with the rent, and he everywhere
+  received the same answer&mdash;'We will pay no rent till our
+  grievances are redressed.' Now all the missiles of the law were
+  showered on the recusants&mdash;notices to quit, <i>latitats</i>,
+  processes for arrears, &amp;c. Grippers, process-servers,
+  keepers, drivers, were in full requisition. The grippers were to
+  arrest all tenants against whom decrees had been obtained at the
+  quarter-sessions; the keepers were employed to watch the crops
+  that had been seized; and the drivers were to bring the cattle,
+  sheep, horses, or pigs to pound. These constituted the landlord's
+  army, having the police as a reserve, and the military if
+  necessary.</p>
+
+  <p>On the other hand, the tenants organised a body called the
+  'Molly Maguires'&mdash;stout young men dressed up in women's
+  clothes, their faces disguised and besmeared in the most
+  fantastic manner. These men waylaid and maltreated the officers
+  of the law so severely, that in a short time no money could
+  induce a gripper, process-server, driver or bailiff to show his
+  nose on the estate. In this dilemma, Mr. Shirley, as
+  commander-in-chief, ordered his lieutenant and his subordinates
+  to go forth, with a body of police, and drive in all the cattle
+  they could seize on the lands of the defaulting tenants. The
+  expedition started one fine morning, led on by the mounted
+  bailiff, a fat man, trembling like a hare at the thought of
+  encountering the 'Molly Maguires.'</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Trench's description of this foray is very
+  graphic:&mdash;'No sooner had this formidable party appeared upon
+  the roads in the open country, than the people rushed to the tops
+  of the numerous hills with which the district abounds; and as we
+  moved forward, they ran from one hill to another shouting and
+  cheering with wild defiant cries, and keeping a line parallel to
+  that in which our party was travelling.</p>
+
+  <p>'The object of our expedition was clearly understood by the
+  people; and the exact position of our company was indicated to
+  those in the lowlands by the movements of the parties on the
+  hills; and accordingly, as we advanced, every <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page378" id="page378"></a>[pg 378]</span>
+  beast belonging to every tenant who owed rent was housed or
+  locked up, or driven somewhere away. Thus, as we had no legal
+  right to break open any door, or take any cattle out of any
+  house, but only to seize those we might find in the open fields
+  and upon the lands of the defaulting tenants, we soon perceived
+  (as we might have known before we started) that we were likely to
+  return without success. The bailiff declared with a sigh, "that
+  not a hoof nor a horn was left in the whole country-side."</p>
+
+  <p>'At length when about to return home, without having secured
+  any booty whatever, we came unexpectedly upon a poor little
+  heifer calf, browsing quietly on the long grass beside a hedge.
+  The bailiff having ascertained that she was grazing on the land
+  of a tenant who was a defaulter, we seized upon the unhappy
+  little beast, and drove it ingloriously home to the pound at
+  Carrickmacross, a distance of about two miles, amidst the jeers
+  and laughter of the populace, at the result of our formidable
+  day's driving.'</p>
+
+  <p>Thus baffled, Mr. Shirley resolved to try another move.</p>
+
+  <p>He applied to the authorities in Dublin for an order for
+  'substitution of service.' That is, instead of delivering the
+  legal notices at the houses of the parties, which was
+  impracticable, they were to be posted up on the chapel-door. To
+  effect this object, a large police force was necessary, and it
+  was accompanied by a stipendiary magistrate. 'As soon as the
+  party came near the chapel grounds a shout of defiance was raised
+  by the peasantry, who began to crowd into the chapel yard, and
+  with uplifted sticks and threatening gestures swore that they
+  would never allow the walls of the chapel to be desecrated by
+  such a notice. The bailiff, a most respectable and temperate man,
+  did his utmost to pacify the excited mob. He reasoned with them
+  as best he could; and assured them that no desecration was
+  intended&mdash;that he was only carrying out the law, which
+  required that the notice should be posted on the chapel walls.
+  But his voice had no more power than if he had spoken to a storm
+  of wind; they leaped and danced madly about, whirling
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page379" id="page379"></a>[pg
+  379]</span> their sticks over their heads, and shouting that they
+  would never allow him to touch the sacred edifice.</p>
+
+  <p>'The stipendiary magistrate now ordered him to do his duty,
+  and that he would be protected in doing it by the police, and he,
+  trembling with fear, as well he might, at length approached with
+  the notice in his hand to post it in due form. No sooner had he
+  approached towards the chapel than a volley of stones sent him
+  staggering back, though none actually struck him. The police were
+  now ordered to advance. They did so amidst another shower of
+  stones. The storm of missiles still continuing and several of the
+  police having been struck and injured, they were at length
+  ordered to fire. They aimed low, and directing their fire
+  straight into the crowd of stone-throwers, they soon checked the
+  vigour of the assault&mdash;six or seven men fell under the
+  volley and rolled upon the ground. There was a short pause, a
+  dead silence ensued&mdash;but it was only for a moment, and
+  before the police could recover themselves and load again, a
+  furious rush was made upon them by the enraged populace. Stones
+  were seen flying as thick as hail; and finally the police,
+  apprehending that they must be annihilated if they remained, ran
+  to their cars, which were waiting at a little distance, and drove
+  into Carrickmacross as fast as the horses could gallop,
+  accompanied by the stipendiary magistrate!</p>
+
+  <p>'The field thus quickly won, remained in the possession of the
+  insurgents. One of the rioters was killed upon the
+  spot&mdash;shot through the body. The others who fell were only
+  slightly injured; one had his ear taken off, another was wounded
+  in the finger, another shot in the arm.'</p>
+
+  <p>This was 'the battle of Magheracloon.' Mr. Trench wisely
+  recommended a cessation of hostilities till the harvest was
+  gathered in, promising the landlord that he would then by quiet
+  means, acting on the tenants individually and privately, induce
+  them to pay their rents. He succeeded, but as Mr. Shirley
+  declined to adopt his plans for the better management of the
+  estate, he resigned.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page380"
+  id="page380"></a>[pg 380]</span>
+
+  <p>He came back, however, after some years, as agent to the
+  Marquess of Bath&mdash;a post which he occupies still, being
+  manager-in-chief at the same time of the large estates of the
+  Marquess of Lansdowne, in Kerry, and Lord Digby, in the King's
+  County. In all these undertakings, ably assisted by his sons and
+  his nephew, he has been pre-eminently successful. If the Farney
+  men had been driven off in 1843, or swept away by the famine, it
+  would have been said that their fate was inevitable, nothing
+  could be made of them. They were by nature prone to disorder and
+  rebellion. Well, Lord Bath visited his estate in 1865. On that
+  occasion a banquet was given to the tenants, at which Mr. Trench
+  made an eloquent speech. Referring to the outbreak in 1848, he
+  said: 'And yet never, my Lord, never even in the worst of times,
+  did I bate one jot of heart or hope in the noble people of
+  Farney, never for one moment did I doubt their loyalty to their
+  Queen, their loyalty to their country, their respect for their
+  landlord, and above all, that they would be true and loyal to
+  themselves.' So much for the incurable perversity of the Celtic
+  race, for the 'black morass of Irish nature' that can never be
+  drained!</p>
+
+  <p>The people of Farney got justice, and they were contented and
+  orderly. They got security, and they were industrious and
+  thriving. They got protection under the constitution, and they
+  were loyal. Densely peopled as the estate is, the agent could not
+  coax one of them to emigrate; and after his former experience at
+  Farney, he did not venture on eviction, though, no doubt, he
+  would gladly repeat the Kenmare experiment in thinning the masses
+  with which he has had to deal. Mr. Horsman, a prophet of the same
+  school of economists, says that Providence sent the famine to
+  relieve the landlords, by carrying away a third of the
+  population, and he seems to think it desirable that another third
+  should be got rid of somehow.</p>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote45" name="footnote45"></a><b>Footnote 1:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag45">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>Realities of Irish Life, chap. v.</p>
+  </blockquote><span class="pagenum"><a name="page381" id=
+  "page381"></a>[pg 381]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER XXII.</h2>
+
+  <h3>BELFAST AND PERPETUITY.</h3>
+
+  <p>Belfast, not being blessed with a cathedral like Armagh and
+  Derry, is not called a 'city.' It is only a 'town;' but it is the
+  capital of Ulster, and surpasses all other places in Ireland in
+  the rapidity of its progress and in its prosperity. It can boast
+  but little of its antiquity. There is probably not a house in the
+  borough more than 150 years old. The place is first noticed by
+  history in 1178, merely as the site of a fort of the O'Neills,
+  which was destroyed by John De Courcy. It was only a poor village
+  at the time of Bruce's invasion, in 1315, though Spencer
+  erroneously calls it 'a very good town.' It was so insignificant
+  in 1586 that Holinshed does not mention it among the towns and
+  havens of Down and Antrim. Whatever town existed there had been
+  destroyed by the Earl of Kildare when lord-deputy. In 1552 it was
+  repaired and garrisoned, and shortly after it was granted by the
+  crown to Hugh O'Neill of Clandeboye. In 1571 the castle, with a
+  large portion of territory adjoining it, was bestowed upon Sir
+  Thomas Smith and his son. The latter was assassinated by the
+  'wicked, barbarous, and uncivil people;' and the former, not
+  being able to fulfil the conditions of his tenure, the district
+  reverted with the whole earldom of Ulster to the crown in the
+  reign of James I. Belfast was then surrounded by extensive
+  forests, abounding in fine timber for building. The best
+  specimen&mdash;perhaps the only one in the kingdom&mdash;of a
+  forest like what covered the country at that time, still exists
+  at Shane's Castle, the magnificent demesne of Lord O'Neill, where
+  may be seen enormous oaks <span class="pagenum"><a name="page382"
+  id="page382"></a>[pg 382]</span> decaying with age, under whose
+  shade probably the famous Shane marshalled his galloglasse.</p>
+
+  <p>In 1613 the castle and manor of Belfast were granted to Sir
+  Arthur Chichester, lord-deputy, ancestor of the Marquis of
+  Donegal, who did so much to effect the final conquest of Ulster.
+  He may be said to be the founder of the town. From the estates of
+  his family, in Devonshire, and from Scotland, many families came
+  over and made a strong settlement here. Ultimately it became a
+  corporation sending two members to the Irish Parliament. The
+  chief magistrate was called 'the sovereign;' and the first who
+  held the office was Thomas Pottinger, ancestor of the celebrated
+  Sir Henry Pottinger. In 1758 the population was 8,549; in 1821,
+  it was 37,000; in 1831, it was 53,000; in 1841, it had increased
+  to 75,000; in 1851, it amounted to 103,000; and the last census
+  shows it to be 121,602. About 1,500 houses are built annually in
+  the borough, and the present population is estimated at 150,000.
+  The rateable property is more than 394,000<i>l.</i> The sum of
+  560,000<i>l.</i> has been spent on the harbour improvements, to
+  which is to be added 250,000<i>l.</i> for building new docks. I
+  remember the quays when they were small, irregular, inconvenient,
+  dirty, and when the channel worked its doubtful course through
+  shifting masses of liquid mud, at low water. Now there are quays
+  which extend in a line about a mile, covered with spacious sheds
+  for the protection of the goods being shipped and unshipped.
+  There are docks of all sorts, and great shipbuilding
+  establishments standing on ground created out of the floating
+  chaos of mud. 'Year by year,' as one of its poets has said,
+  'Belfast is changing its aspect and overstepping its former
+  boundaries, climbing the hill-side, skirting the river margin,
+  and even invading the sea's ancient domain.</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>'Ambition's mistress of the fertile land,</p>
+
+      <p>Shuts out the ocean and usurps the strand.'</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Among the 'usurpations' is Queen's Island, a beautiful
+  people's park, standing in the midst of the Lough. The people of
+  Belfast have effected all these vast improvements <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page383" id="page383"></a>[pg 383]</span> from
+  their own resources, without a shilling from the lord of the
+  soil, without any help from Government, except a loan of
+  100,000<i>l.</i> from the Board of Works. Belfast is the 'linen
+  capital' of the empire, as Manchester is the 'cotton capital.'
+  The linen trade was fostered in its infancy there by Strafford,
+  and encouraged by William III., as a set-off against the
+  abolition of the woollen trade. The first spinning of flax by
+  steam power was commenced in 1830, by the Messrs. Mulholland, who
+  employ 2,000 hands, principally females. Mills have sprung up in
+  every direction, and it is estimated that they give employment to
+  15,000 persons. To supply the consumption of flax, in addition to
+  the home produce, about 50,000 tons are imported every year.
+  Linen is the staple manufacture; but industrial arts of every
+  kind flourish, with all the usual manifestations of wealth.</p>
+
+  <p>We have seen in a former chapter that the people of
+  Londonderry, vexed that the maiden city has been left so far
+  behind her younger sister, ascribe the difference to the fact
+  that the Belfast manufacturers were favoured with long building
+  tenures. We hear it said often that the Marquis of Donegal gave
+  his tenants perpetuity leases, implying that he acted very
+  liberally in doing so. If, however, you speak to persons
+  acquainted with the local history, they will ascribe this
+  advantage to 'Lord Donegal's necessities.' If you ask an
+  explanation of this phrase, you will be told that towards the end
+  of last century, and later, Lord Donegal was obliged to adopt
+  extraordinary methods for raising money, and that the perpetuity
+  leases in question were purchased, and at a very high rate too.
+  You will further learn that the tenants were compelled to take
+  the leases, and pay heavy fines for them in lump sums, and that
+  if unable to produce the money they were evicted, and their farms
+  were given to others who were able to pay. It is alleged that his
+  agent got leases in blank, ready to be filled up when the cash
+  was forthcoming, and that all the cash did not reach the
+  landlord's hands. At any rate, attempts have been made to break
+  some of the leases. There has been long pending litigation
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page384" id="page384"></a>[pg
+  384]</span> on the subject. Whatever may be the defects of title
+  on the part of the landlord, the tenant must suffer. Dr. Hancock
+  alludes to this fact in his first report. Referring to Sir John
+  Romilly's Leasing Powers Bill, he says:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'The details of these Bills it is not necessary now to refer
+  to; but there was one principle provided for in them which has
+  been neglected in subsequent measures. In the ordinary course of
+  business a tenant does not investigate his landlord's title; the
+  cost of doing so would be nearly always too great; besides, the
+  landlord would not think of consenting to the investigation on
+  every occasion of granting a lease. It follows from this that it
+  is a great hardship, if a flaw should be discovered in a
+  landlord's title, that leases granted before the tenants had any
+  notice of the litigation should be bad. Take the case of the
+  estate which the late Duke of Wellington and Mr. Leslie recovered
+  from Lord Dungannon after he had been for years in possession; or
+  the case which is now pending for so many years between the
+  Marquis of Donegal and Viscount Templemore. Is it not a great
+  hardship that leases which tenants took, trusting in the title of
+  Lord Dungannon or Viscount Templemore, who were then visible
+  owners of great estates, should afterwards turn out to be
+  worthless on some point of law in title-deeds which they never
+  had the opportunity of seeing; and which may be so subtle as to
+  take Courts of Law years to decide?'</p>
+
+  <p>Dr. Hancock says the principle that in such cases the tenant
+  should be protected, was neglected in subsequent measures. Now,
+  what must the tenants think of legislation that subjects them to
+  be robbed of their dearly-bought leases because of flaws, frauds
+  or blunders with which they could have nothing to do? The leases
+  granted to the tenants of Lord Donegal, however, in Belfast and
+  the neighbourhood were generally valid, and to these perpetuities
+  we must undoubtedly ascribe the existence of a middle class of
+  remarkable independence of character, and the accumulation of
+  capital for manufactures and commerce. Had Lord Donegal been able
+  to hold the town in a state of tutelage <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page385" id="page385"></a>[pg 385]</span> and
+  dependence&mdash;had he been an 'improving landlord' of the
+  modern type, with an agent like Mr. Trench, so vigilant and
+  curious that a dog could not bark on the estate without his
+  knowledge and consent, Belfast might have been far behind Derry
+  to-day&mdash;as stationary as Bangor, Hillsborough, Antrim, or
+  Randalstown. Under such paternal care as Mr. Trench bestows upon
+  tenants, with his omnipresent surveillance, there could be no
+  manly self-reliance, no freedom of speech or action, no
+  enterprise. The agent would take care that no interests should
+  grow up on the estate, which his chief could not control or knock
+  down. It is not likely that Lord Donegal would have suffered the
+  landscape to be spoiled, the atmosphere of the deer park and
+  gardens to be darkened and tainted by the smoke of factory
+  chimneys, which could add nothing to his rental, while crowding
+  around him the race which his great progenitor did so much to
+  extirpate. So Belfast may well be thankful that the Marquis of
+  Donegal, for some generations, could not afford to be 'an
+  improving landlord,' fond of paternal intermeddling with other
+  people's affairs, playing the part of Providence to an inferior
+  race.</p>
+
+  <p>But there is one memorable fact connected with those
+  perpetuity leases which applies more immediately to our purpose.
+  The tenants who were evicted to make way for the men who had
+  money to advance to the lord of the soil, feeling themselves
+  seriously aggrieved, formed the first of the more modern agrarian
+  combinations under the title of 'the Hearts of Oak;' which
+  continued for a long time to disturb the peace in Antrim and
+  Down. The farms being extensively turned into pasture by the
+  landlords and large graziers, there was no employment for the
+  houseless wanderers, no provision of any kind for their support.
+  They consequently had no respect for the rights of property, in
+  the vindication of which their homes had been demolished and
+  their families sacrificed, because they were not able to purchase
+  fixity of tenure.</p>
+
+  <p>It was, however, very fortunate for Belfast that the landlord
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page386" id="page386"></a>[pg
+  386]</span> was obliged to sell it; that the head of the great
+  house founded by the conqueror of Ulster, enriched with territory
+  so vast, should have been under the necessity of giving a
+  perpetual property in the soil to some of the sons of industry.
+  By that simple concession he did more to advance the prosperity
+  of the town, than could have been accomplished by centuries of
+  fostering care, under the shadow of feudalism. Belfast shows, on
+  a grand scale, what might be done on many an estate in Ireland,
+  in many a town and village where the people are pining away in
+  hopeless misery, if the iron bonds of primogeniture and entail
+  which now cramp landed property were struck off. The Greek
+  philosopher declared that if he had a standing-place he could
+  move the earth. Give to capital the ground of perpetuity of
+  tenure, whereon to plant its machinery, and it will soon lift
+  this island from the slough of despond. Then may it be said more
+  truly than Grattan said it in 1782, that Ireland had got nearer
+  to the sun.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page387" id=
+  "page387"></a>[pg 387]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2>
+
+  <h3>LEASE-BREAKING&mdash;GEASHILL.</h3>
+
+  <p>The history of the Manor of Geashill in the King's County
+  furnishes another instructive illustration of the land question
+  and of the effect upon the people of the system of management,
+  under the new school of agents, of which Mr. Steuart Trench may
+  be regarded as the brightest ornament, if not the apostle. The
+  epoch was favourable for his mission, and he was the man for the
+  epoch; he had been quietly training himself for the restoration
+  of disordered estates, and the critical emergencies of the times
+  thrust him into the front rank of social reformers. When he
+  describes the wonderful revolutions wrought by his
+  instrumentality, the whirlwinds on which he rode, the storms
+  which he directed and quelled, the chaos out of which he evoked
+  order, he assumes that the hurricane and the chaos were the
+  normal state of things. A mysterious pestilence had blighted the
+  principal food of the people for two or three years, and brought
+  on a desolating famine. Millions perished by that visitation
+  chiefly because the legislature had persistently refused up to
+  that period to make any provision for the Irish poor such as it
+  had made centuries before for the English poor, and because no
+  care had been taken to distribute the population over the waste
+  lands which their labour would have reclaimed and fertilized; or
+  to improve their position, so that they might not be wholly
+  dependent on one sort of food, and that the most precarious and
+  perishable. Mr. Sadler, in his work on Population, had proved
+  that, even in the case of Ireland before the famine, there was
+  really no 'surplus population;' that if the resources of the
+  country had been <span class="pagenum"><a name="page388" id=
+  "page388"></a>[pg 388]</span> developed by a wise Government,
+  sympathising with the people, the text which he adopted would
+  have been applicable there: 'Dwell in the land, and verily ye
+  shall be fed.' There was hasty legislation to meet the emergency,
+  but in all the haste, the heartless economists found time to
+  devise clauses and provisions, by means of which, when the small
+  farmers had consumed all their stock to keep their families
+  alive, they were compelled to relinquish their holdings in order
+  to get food for their famishing children. They must submit to the
+  workhouse test, they must not hold more than a quarter of an acre
+  of land, if they would get relief. Under the dire instigation of
+  hunger, in the stupor and recklessness of their misery, they
+  accepted any terms the landlords chose to impose, and so whole
+  villages disappeared from the landscape, swept off with the besom
+  of destruction.</p>
+
+  <p>The political economists (all the new school of land-agents
+  are rigid political economists), taught by their prophet Malthus,
+  ascribed the famine and every other social evil to surplus
+  population, and to the incurably lazy and thriftless habits of
+  the Celtic race. According to them the potato blight had only
+  hastened an inevitable catastrophe. Therefore they set to work
+  with all their agencies and all their might to get rid of the too
+  prolific race, and to supplant the native cultivators by British
+  settlers and wealthy graziers.</p>
+
+  <p>This has been done ever since by a quiet and gradual process,
+  steadily, systematically, inexorably, propelled by many powerful
+  tendencies of the age, and checked only by assassination. What
+  are the agrarian outrages which have become so terribly rife of
+  late, but the desperate struggles of a doomed race to break the
+  instruments which pluck them out of their native soil? A
+  generation of instruction in the national schools and a
+  generation of intercourse with the free citizens of the United
+  States, who call no man 'master' under heaven&mdash;have taught
+  them that it is an enormous iniquity to sacrifice humanity to
+  property, to make the happiness, the freedom, the very existence
+  of human beings, secondary to the arbitrary power and
+  self-interest of a small <span class="pagenum"><a name="page389"
+  id="page389"></a>[pg 389]</span> class called landlords. They
+  regard the 'improving landlord' system as nothing but a legal and
+  civilised continuation of the barbarous policy of extermination
+  by fire and sword which we have seen pursued so ruthlessly in the
+  seventeenth century. It is still the land-war, conducted
+  according to modern tactics, aiming with deadly effect at the
+  same object, the slow but sure destruction of a nuisance called
+  the 'Celtic race.' This may be a delusion on their part; but it
+  is the deep-rooted conviction of priests and people, and hence
+  the utter inadequacy of any enactment which will not render such
+  a policy impossible, by making the tenure of the occupiers
+  independent of the will of the landlords. Until such time the
+  peasantry will continue to offer a bloody resistance to the legal
+  attempts to crush them out of the country.</p>
+
+  <p>In this self-defensive war, they cannot cope with the armed
+  power of England in the open field; and they are driven upon the
+  criminal resource of the oppressed in all ages and all
+  lands&mdash;secret combination and assassination. For this crime
+  they feel no remorse; first, because it is <i>war</i>&mdash;just
+  as the soldier feels no remorse for killing the enemy in a
+  battle; and, secondly, because their conquerors, and the
+  successors of those conquerors, have taught them too well by
+  repeated examples the terrible lesson of making light of human
+  life. Poor ignorant creatures, they cannot see that, while the
+  most illustrious noblemen in England won applause and honours by
+  shooting down Irish women and children like seals or otters, the
+  survivors of the murdered people should be execrated as cruel,
+  barbarous, and infamous for shooting the men that pull down the
+  rooftrees over the heads of their helpless families and trample
+  upon their household gods. These convictions of theirs are very
+  revolting to our feelings, but they are facts; and as facts the
+  legislature must deal with them. If there be a people, otherwise
+  singularly free from crime, who regard the assassination of the
+  members of a certain class with indifference, or approbation, the
+  phenomenon is one which political philosophy <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page390" id="page390"></a>[pg 390]</span>
+  ought to be able to explain, and one which cannot be got rid of
+  by suspending the constitution and bringing railing accusations
+  against the nation.</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Trench speaks with something like contempt or pity of
+  'good landlords,' a class which he contradistinguishes from
+  'improving landlords.' But it should be remembered that by this
+  last phrase he always means agents of the Trench stamp. For he
+  observes that the landlord himself cannot possibly do much more
+  than authorize his agent to do what he thinks best; and it is
+  rather an advantage that the proprietor should be an absentee,
+  otherwise his good nature might prompt him to interrupt the work
+  of improvement. Now there is this to be said of the good
+  landlords, who may be counted by hundreds, and who are found in
+  all the counties of Ireland. Their estates are free from the
+  'poetic turbulence' in which Mr. Trench is the 'stormy petrel.'
+  They preserved their tenants through the years of famine, and
+  have them still on their estates. Nor should the fact be omitted
+  that among those good landlords, who abhor the idea of evicting
+  their tenants, are to be found the lineal descendants of some of
+  the most cruel exterminators of the seventeenth century. Their
+  goodness has completely obliterated, among their people, the
+  bitter memories of the past. The present race of Celts would die
+  for the men whose ancestors shot down their forefathers as
+  vermin. But the improving landlords run their ploughshares
+  through the ashes of old animosities, turning up embers which the
+  winds of agitation blow into flames. We seldom hear of Ribbonism
+  till the improving agent comes upon the scene, warring against
+  natural rights, warring against the natural affections, warring
+  against humanity, warring against the soul.</p>
+
+  <p>These remarks bring us to the case of the barony of Geashill,
+  the estate of Lord Digby, to which Mr. Trench became agent in
+  1857. Lord Digby desired to obtain his services, but he did not
+  communicate his desire to Mr. Trench himself, though nothing
+  would seem easier. It was first conveyed by Lieut.-General
+  Porter, the confidential <span class="pagenum"><a name="page391"
+  id="page391"></a>[pg 391]</span> friend of Lord Digby, and next
+  by Mr. Brewster, afterwards Lord Chancellor of Ireland. When the
+  police received a notice that the new landlord of Geashill would
+  certainly meet with a 'bloody death' if he persisted in his
+  threatened dealings with the tenants, there was no more time for
+  diplomatic delicacy in approaching Mr. Trench. The landlord's
+  extremity is Mr. Trench's opportunity. When leases are to be
+  broken, when independent rights are to be extinguished, or
+  'contracted away,' when an overcrowded estate is to be thinned at
+  the least possible cost to the owner, when a rebellious tenantry
+  are to be subdued, and Ribbonmen are to be banished or hanged,
+  Mr. Trench is the man to do the work of improvement. He admits
+  that he never had before him an uglier job than this at Geashill,
+  and he had the worst apprehensions as to the danger of the
+  enterprise.</p>
+
+  <p>It was nothing less than to break 120 leases, which had been
+  granted from time to time by the late Lord Digby during the sixty
+  years that he had enjoyed the property. The value of these leases
+  was 30,600<i>l.</i>, for the terms unexpired after his death.
+  Among those 120 leaseholders were the descendants of English
+  settlers, gentlemen farmers, one of them a magistrate, and a
+  number of substantial yeomen, the sort of men the country so much
+  wanted to form an independent middle class. But to an 'improving
+  landlord,' the existence of such a class on his estate is
+  intolerable. At all hazards they must be made tenants-at-will,
+  and brought completely under his control.</p>
+
+  <p>They had built houses and planted trees; they had reclaimed
+  the deep bog and converted it into good arable land. They had
+  employed the peasantry, and given them plots of ground, and, more
+  than all, they had allowed a number of families to squat on bits
+  of bog by the roadside, where they lived as well as they could;
+  working when there was a demand for labour, cutting turf and
+  selling it in the neighbouring town of Tullamore, and perhaps
+  carrying on some little dealings. At all events they had survived
+  the famine; and there they were in 1857 with their huts standing
+  on <span class="pagenum"><a name="page392" id="page392"></a>[pg
+  392]</span> their 'estates,' for they had paid no rent for twenty
+  years, and they had as good a title in law as Lord Digby himself.
+  Mr. Trench seems to have been horrified at not finding the names
+  of these householders in the rent-books of the estate! The
+  idea!&mdash;that there should be within the four corners of the
+  King's County, even on the bog of Allen, a number of natives
+  holding land, without a landlord! It was monstrous. But as they
+  could not be evicted for non-title, they were all severally
+  tempted by the offer of money, in sums varying from 5<i>l.</i> to
+  20<i>l.</i> each, to sell their freeholds to the landlord. Pity
+  they were not preserved as a remnant of the antediluvian period,
+  ere the ancient tenures were merged in floods of blood. Like a
+  bit of primitive forest, they would be more interesting to some
+  minds than the finest modern plantation.</p>
+
+  <p>It was not so easy to deal with the 120 leaseholders. To what
+  extent they had improved their farms before they got the leases,
+  Mr. Trench does not say. But as the absentee landlord had done
+  nothing, and spent nothing, whatever increase to the value had
+  been made was undoubtedly the work of the tenants; and after the
+  leases were obtained, they would naturally feel more confidence
+  in the investment of their savings in the land. However that may
+  be, a professional man, employed by Lord Digby, estimated the
+  value over and above the reserved rent at 30,600<i>l.</i>, which
+  sum the new landlord proposed to put into his own pocket, by
+  increasing the rent one-third. The plea for this sweeping
+  confiscation was, that the late Lord Digby, cousin to the
+  present, had only a life interest in the Irish estate, and
+  therefore, the leases were all illegal and worthless. Accordingly
+  the new lord commenced proceedings to evict the whole of the
+  tenantry for non-title. They were astounded. They held meetings;
+  they deliberated; they appealed to the landlord; they appealed to
+  the executors of the late peer, who had large estates in England,
+  and died worth a million sterling in the funds, all of which he
+  willed away from the heir of his title and Irish estates. Says
+  Mr. Trench:&mdash;</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page393" id=
+  "page393"></a>[pg 393]</span>
+
+  <p>'It may readily be supposed that circumstances so peculiar as
+  these created considerable anxiety in the district. The tenantry,
+  <i>many</i> of them large and respectable land-holders, now
+  learned, for the first time, that their leases were good for
+  nothing in law. They had been duly 'signed, sealed, and
+  delivered' to them under a full belief on their part that the
+  contract was not only just and honourable, but also perfectly
+  legal; and their feelings may be imagined when they found that
+  they were suddenly threatened with a total loss of the property
+  which they had always looked upon as secure.'<a id=
+  "footnotetag46" name="footnotetag46"></a><a href=
+  "#footnote46"><sup>1</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>Pending the ejectment proceedings, they were knocked about
+  from post to pillar, without getting any satisfaction. The
+  landlord referred them to the executors, although he knew well
+  they had no legal claim on them whatever, and that to legal
+  claims only could they pay any attention. The executors again
+  referred them to their landlord, who was determined to break the
+  leases, come what would. Now, if the Irish law regulating the
+  relations of landlord and tenant were based upon justice and
+  equity, the wrong done by the late earl, if any, was a wrong for
+  which the tenants should in no way be held responsible. The wrong
+  was done to the heir-at-law. To him, and not to the tenants,
+  compensation should have been made by the executors. And after
+  all, it was really to him that the money was advanced to buy up
+  the leases, in order to save him from assassination, for the
+  tenants had no legal claim upon them.</p>
+
+  <p>The natural, proper, and honest course, then, for the
+  landlord, was to have kept the 30,600<i>l.</i> as compensation to
+  himself for the mistake of his predecessor, and to let the leases
+  stand. If he considered the peace of the country, if he wished to
+  inspire in the minds of the people respect for the rights of
+  property, or confidence in the Government, he would not have
+  adopted the desperate course of breaking 120 contracts, kindling
+  the flames of agitation, and planting Ribbon lodges all over a
+  district hitherto peaceful and tranquil. <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page394" id="page394"></a>[pg 394]</span> But
+  he was bent on crushing the independent yeomanry into the abject
+  condition of tenants-at-will. To carry out this purpose, Mr.
+  Trench was indispensable. He knew how to tame the wild Irish. And
+  Mr. Trench was equal to the occasion. He went to reside a few
+  weeks at Tullamore, to reconnoitre the enemy's position. He
+  writes as if this was the first time he made acquaintance with
+  the estate. But his own residence was in the Queen's County, not
+  far off; and there is good reason to believe that he knew all
+  about Geashill long before; and all about every estate belonging
+  to an English absentee in the four provinces; for he had, growing
+  up around him, a young generation of land-agents, trained in all
+  the arts of modern management, and one of the ablest of these,
+  his son, Mr. T.W. Trench, became his partner in this agency. Mr.
+  Trench's tactics are not new, though he excels all men in their
+  skilful application. His plan, adopted on all occasions, is to
+  divide and conquer. Violent measures being dangerous and contrary
+  to his own feelings, he trusts to diplomacy, dealing with
+  individuals, taken separately into a private room, where his
+  irresistible personal fascination invariably brings matters to a
+  satisfactory issue.</p>
+
+  <p>In this case, he went over to the English executors, and
+  persuaded them to advance the 30,600<i>l.</i> to be distributed
+  among the tenants, under the guarantee of Lord Digby that this
+  sum would cover all possible claims. Thus provided with funds, he
+  summoned the tenants, not all, but ten of the most influential,
+  to meet him at Geashill. He left this meeting, purposely, to the
+  last day and the last hour, as a piece of generalship. He
+  says:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'They appeared puzzled and anxious, and very uncertain what to
+  do. At length one of them proposed that they should do nothing
+  until they had had an opportunity of consulting the remainder of
+  the leaseholders, of whom there were upwards of 120 upon the
+  estate.</p>
+
+  <p>'"No," replied I, "you must come to a decision now; there is a
+  messenger at the door on horseback, to ride to the telegraph
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page395" id="page395"></a>[pg
+  395]</span> station at Portarlington to stop the English
+  witnesses coming over. This must be done within an hour, or they
+  will start for Ireland, and <i>then</i> it will be out of my
+  power to stop the lawsuit. You must determine <i>now</i>, each
+  man for himself, or the lawsuit must go on."</p>
+
+  <p>'"Will you state the amount of money you will give to each of
+  us?" asked one of the party.</p>
+
+  <p>'"Certainly," replied I, "if you will <i>each come separately
+  with me into another room</i>."</p>
+
+  <p>'They did so. I named to each an amount something less than
+  the sum set down by the notary, partly as a reserve, lest any
+  tenants holding under these leaseholders should afterwards
+  require to be paid, and partly lest it might be supposed we were
+  yielding to a legal claim already granted. After a little
+  consideration, they all severally signed the consent for
+  judgment.'</p>
+
+  <p>The other leaseholders followed. The leases were all
+  surrendered, and the holders became tenants-at-will. I had the
+  pleasure of meeting one of the most influential of them a short
+  time ago at Geashill&mdash;a fine tall, patriarchal-looking
+  gentleman, the representative of one of the English settlers. He
+  was waiting about humbly and patiently for an opportunity of
+  speaking to the young agent, who is as courteous and kind as he
+  is efficient. But I could not help reflecting how different would
+  be the bearing of the tenant if he had been still in possession
+  of his lease! His dwelling-house was not as grand as the stylish
+  villa which the landlord has erected beside it. But every stick
+  and stone about the place were his own property. So also were the
+  old timber trees, which his ancestors planted. But now every
+  stick and stone and tree belong to Lord Digby, and as such the
+  agent exhibits them to visitors&mdash;the buildings, the gardens,
+  the trees, the hedges, the rich pasture fields, all having such a
+  look of comfort and independence. I asked, 'Did you ever know a
+  place like this old home of yours to have been made by a
+  tenant-at-will?' He answered in the negative.</p>
+
+  <p>The tenant on an 'improved estate' must be very careful
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page396" id="page396"></a>[pg
+  396]</span> about his speech. An agent has a hundred eyes and a
+  hundred ears. People who seek 'favours' at the office, find it
+  useful to be spies upon their neighbours, to detect violations of
+  the 'rules of the estate.' It is mainly through the spy-system
+  that Mr. Steuart Trench, according to his own avowal, won most of
+  his victories over refractory tenants. For example, on this
+  estate he had a woman acting as a spy at the meetings of the
+  Ribbonmen; and he boasted that a dog could not bark at Farney
+  without his knowledge. I refer to this matter here again for the
+  purpose of saying that I cannot regard as an improvement of the
+  country a system which establishes a despot on every estate,
+  which degrades the tenant into a day-labourer, which&mdash;land
+  being limited and scarce&mdash;substitutes the old, barbarous,
+  pastoral system for tillage, which banishes the poor and enslaves
+  the rich. Lord Digby levelled cottages, gardens, farms, manured
+  the land, got an enormous crop, which in one year paid all the
+  expenses; and then laid out the land in vast tracts of pasture,
+  for which he gets from 30<i>s.</i> to 40<i>s.</i> an acre. That
+  is improvement for <i>him</i>, but not for the people, not for
+  the country, not for the state, not for the Queen. It may crush
+  Ribbonism. But for every Ribbonman crushed, a hundred Fenians
+  spring up; and disaffection becomes not a mere local plague, but
+  an endemic. Mr. Trench gives a significant hint to other
+  landlords to follow the example of Lord Digby, assuring them that
+  it will '<i>pay</i>.'</p>
+
+  <p>A still more flagrant case of lease-breaking occurred some
+  years ago in the county of Galway. Dr. Hancock has put the facts
+  of this case before the Government in his recent
+  report:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'The plaintiff was the Rev. Dr. O'Fay, parish priest of
+  Craughwell, in the county of Galway, and the defendant the
+  landlord on whose estate the priest resided. About ten years ago
+  the priest was induced to take a farm that had been held by a
+  former parish priest; the previous proprietor, the father of the
+  defendant, promising a lease for three lives, or thirty-one
+  years. After the priest entered into <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page397" id="page397"></a>[pg 397]</span>
+  possession the landlord ascertained that he could not fulfil his
+  promise.</p>
+
+  <p>'As he did not possess such a power under the terms of the
+  estate settlement, he offered, instead, a lease for the priest's
+  own life, and 20<i>l.</i> to aid in building a house. The priest
+  continued in possession of the farm, and paid the rent agreed on,
+  thus, as he alleged, accepting the arrangement proposed. He was
+  on excellent terms with the landlord, and expended 70<i>l.</i> in
+  permanent improvements, and did not ask for the 20<i>l.</i> which
+  the landlord had promised. In 1854 the landlord died, and his
+  son, the defendant, succeeded to the property. He gave notice to
+  all his yearly tenants of an intention to raise their rents. The
+  priest claimed to have a promise of a lease, and the agent of the
+  property, during the landlord's absence abroad, admitted this
+  claim, and did not raise the rent. The landlord said he had no
+  notice of his father's promise; he, however, allowed the priest
+  to remain in possession, and the priest expended 400<i>l.</i> in
+  buildings, on the faith that he would not be disturbed. A dispute
+  subsequently arose about trespass, and the fences on the boundary
+  between the priest's farm and some land in the possession of the
+  landlord. The landlord served notice to quit, and brought an
+  ejectment. After some delay judgment was given in his favour,
+  subject to an application to the Court of Chancery to compel him
+  to fulfil his father's promise of a lease.'</p>
+
+  <p>The Master of the Rolls thus characterised the law which
+  justifies the robbery of the tenants by unscrupulous and
+  vindictive landlords:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'Even if the Rev. Dr. O'Fay had no claim except as tenant from
+  year to year, I have no hesitation in stating that, although in
+  point of law on the authorities I have referred to, and
+  particularly the case of Felling <i>v.</i> Armitage, the
+  petitioner's suit could not be sustained, <i>yet noticing can be
+  more repugnant to the principles of natural justice than that a
+  landlord should look on at a great expenditure carried on by a
+  tenant from year to year, without warning the tenant of
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page398" id="page398"></a>[pg
+  398]</span> his intention to turn him out of possession</i>. The
+  defendant's offer to allow Dr. O'Fay to remove the buildings was
+  a mockery. <i>I have no jurisdiction to administer equity in the
+  natural sense of that term, or I should have no difficulty
+  whatever in making a decree against the defendant.</i> I am bound
+  to administer an artificial system, established by the decisions
+  of eminent judges, such as Lord Eldon and Sir William Grant, and
+  <i>being so bound, I regret much that I must administer injustice
+  in this case, and dismiss the petition</i>, but I shall dismiss
+  it without costs. <i>I should be very glad for the sake of
+  justice that my decision should be reversed by the Court of
+  Appeal.</i>'</p>
+
+  <p>Lest it might be supposed that this was the opinion of a
+  single judge, we find in the Court of Appeal equally strong views
+  stated:&mdash;It was thrown out that it was a case for amicable
+  settlement, but the respondent's counsel assured the Court that
+  his client 'had resolved to spend his fortune, if necessary, in
+  resisting the claim of the Rev. Dr. O'Fay.' Lord Justice
+  Blackburne pronounced this to be a very irrational determination,
+  although he had to decide that the claim could not be sustained
+  in law or equity.</p>
+
+  <p>Lord Chancellor Napier, in concluding his judgment,
+  said:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'I think I am not overstepping my duty in suggesting to the
+  respondent, that, under all the circumstances of this case, he
+  will best maintain the character and honour of a British officer,
+  satisfy the exigencies of justice, and uphold the rights of
+  property, by making <i>such an arrangement</i> with Dr. O'Fay, as
+  to the possession of this farm, <i>as may leave him the full
+  benefit of an expenditure made in good faith, and with the
+  reasonable expectation of having the full benefit of it
+  sufficiently secured by an undisturbed possession</i>.'</p>
+
+  <p>It is a favourite theory with the new school of agents and
+  improving landlords, that long leases cause bad cultivation; in
+  other words, that industry prospers best where there is no
+  security that you can reap what you have sown, except
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page399" id="page399"></a>[pg
+  399]</span> the honour of a man whose interest it is to
+  appropriate the fruits of your labours, which he can
+  <i>legally</i> do. Now, in every class and profession, there are
+  failures,&mdash;persons that are good for nothing, indolent,
+  improvident, and thriftless. If such a man has a long lease at a
+  low rent, he may be overwhelmed in debt, and leave his land in
+  very bad condition. Others may imitate their aristocratic
+  superiors in their contempt for labour and their habits of
+  expenditure, and so get into a state of hopeless poverty on a
+  good estate. If there are cases where industrious sober men are
+  the worse for having an old lease, it should be remembered that
+  the most insecure of all tenures is a lease dependent on a single
+  bad life, which may drop at any hour. But there are other causes
+  of the facts urged against long tenures, for which the
+  legislature is responsible, not the unimproving tenant. Dr.
+  Hancock explains this point very satisfactorily:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'Instances of bad cultivation and neglect of improvements,
+  where long leases exist, are sometimes brought forward to show
+  the inutility of tenure as a security for capital, and the
+  strange economic theory is propounded that a precarious interest
+  is more favourable to the investment of capital than a secure
+  one. As well might the state of landed property in Ireland before
+  the Incumbered Estates Court was established be adduced as an
+  argument against property in land. The remedy, however, which the
+  legislature applied to incumbered estates of large proprietors
+  was not to destroy property in land, but simply to secure its
+  prompt, cheap, and effectual transfer to solvent hands.</p>
+
+  <p>'For tenants' interests under leases where the value is small,
+  and where the interests have become complicated, the Landed
+  Estates Court is too expensive, and so these interests remain
+  often for years untransferred, in the hands of some one who has a
+  very limited and often uncertain interest in them. Such a
+  leaseholder is deterred from making improvements by the state of
+  the law which deprives him of the entire value of his
+  improvements if anyone should disturb <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page400" id="page400"></a>[pg 400]</span> him
+  under a prior charge or claim, however obscure or unknown,
+  affecting his interest. The remedy is to be found in an extension
+  of the principle of the Record of Title Act to the local registry
+  of small leasehold interests, and in the providing for the local
+  sale of such interests in a cheap manner, with an absolute
+  title.'</p>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote46" name="footnote46"></a><b>Footnote 1:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag46">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>'Realities of Irish Life,' p. 314.</p>
+  </blockquote><span class="pagenum"><a name="page401" id=
+  "page401"></a>[pg 401]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2>
+
+  <h3>THE LAND SYSTEM AND THE WORKING CLASSES.</h3>
+
+  <p>We have been told over and over again that the business of
+  Ireland, and all its improvements, requiring education and
+  integrity, are carried on 'by the Protestants, by whose
+  intelligence, and labour, mental and bodily, its prosperity, such
+  as it is, has been produced.' This assertion has been made with
+  great confidence, by many writers and speakers. It is a gross
+  exaggeration, and absurd as it is gross. I say nothing of the
+  unseemly egotism of a dominant caste, thus parading its own
+  merits, flaunting its plumes, strutting and crowing over the
+  common folk&mdash;of this pharisaic spirit of the ascendant
+  Protestant, standing close to the altar, reciting to God and the
+  world the number of his resplendent virtues, and scornfully
+  contrasting his excellent moral condition with the degraded
+  Catholic&mdash;the vile publican and sinner, overwhelmed with
+  enormous guilt. These monopolising Pharisees, who laboured at
+  such a rate to assert their natural superiority, as the
+  favourites of Heaven, and members of the Sovereign's church, over
+  a race which England enabled them to subjugate and impoverish,
+  have found no trumpeter so loud as Master Fitzgibbon, a chancery
+  judge. In the same spirit the last census has been analysed by
+  one of the ablest defenders of the Irish establishment, the Rev.
+  Dr. Hume, of Liverpool, in order to prove that everything good in
+  Ireland has been done by the Protestants, and everything bad by
+  the Catholics. But he does not state fairly the conditions of the
+  race. He does not state that one of the competitors had been
+  master for <span class="pagenum"><a name="page402" id=
+  "page402"></a>[pg 402]</span> centuries, well-fed, well-trained,
+  possessed of all advantages which give strength, skill, courage,
+  and confidence, while the other was ill-fed, untrained,
+  enfeebled, and <i>over-weighted</i>, having to work out of
+  himself the slavish spirit which oppression had produced, and to
+  gain, by extra efforts, the skill which the law had forbidden him
+  to acquire. Nevertheless the Catholics have acquired skill, and
+  the extent to which the empire is dependent on their knowledge of
+  the industrial arts is much greater than many people suppose. Of
+  the farming class in Ireland, 76 per cent. are Roman Catholics.
+  But we are indebted to the obnoxious race in other respects than
+  as producers of food.</p>
+
+  <p>From the classification of occupations and professions, we
+  learn that the Roman Catholics bear the following proportions to
+  the Protestants of all denominations.</p>
+
+  <table summary="" align="center" cellspacing="20">
+    <tr align="center">
+      <th>Persons employed in the manufacture of:</th>
+
+      <th colspan="2">Roman Catholics.</th>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Skin clothing</td>
+
+      <td align="right">.77</td>
+
+      <td align="center">per cent.</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Woollen do.</td>
+
+      <td align="right">.88</td>
+
+      <td align="center">"</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Flax do.</td>
+
+      <td align="right">.43</td>
+
+      <td align="center">"</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Cotton do.</td>
+
+      <td align="right">.53</td>
+
+      <td align="center">"</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Straw do.</td>
+
+      <td align="right">.66</td>
+
+      <td align="center">"</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Silk do.</td>
+
+      <td align="right">.66</td>
+
+      <td align="center">"</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">Miscellaneous do.</td>
+
+      <td align="right">.67</td>
+
+      <td align="center">"</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">In producing furniture</td>
+
+      <td align="right">.84</td>
+
+      <td align="center">"</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">In unclassed industrial employments</td>
+
+      <td align="right">.84</td>
+
+      <td align="center">"</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">In amusements</td>
+
+      <td align="right">.80</td>
+
+      <td align="center">"</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">In architecture</td>
+
+      <td align="right">.78</td>
+
+      <td align="center">"</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">In making machinery</td>
+
+      <td align="right">.76</td>
+
+      <td align="center">"</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">In conveyance and travelling</td>
+
+      <td align="right">.73</td>
+
+      <td align="center">"</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">In literature and education</td>
+
+      <td align="right">.56</td>
+
+      <td align="center">"</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">In charity and benevolence</td>
+
+      <td align="right">.52</td>
+
+      <td align="center">"</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">In health</td>
+
+      <td align="right">.50</td>
+
+      <td align="center">"</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">In science and art</td>
+
+      <td align="right">.47</td>
+
+      <td align="center">"</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">In justice and government</td>
+
+      <td align="right">.46</td>
+
+      <td align="center">"</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td align="left">In banking and agency</td>
+
+      <td align="right">.40</td>
+
+      <td align="center">"</td>
+    </tr>
+  </table>
+
+  <p>There are other suggestive figures in the census, bearing on
+  this question. While three-fourths of the farmers are Catholics,
+  three-fourths of the land-agents are Protestants, who, as a rule,
+  have an unconquerable antipathy to the Catholic clergy, as the
+  only obstacle to their absolute power <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page403" id="page403"></a>[pg 403]</span> over
+  the tenants, with whom they find it hard to sympathise. Of farm
+  labourers and domestic servants, nine out of ten belong to the
+  race supposed by some to be incapable of virtue and loyalty.
+  Again, of the whole British army of all ranks, 37 per cent. are
+  Irishmen, and of these Irish soldiers, 67 per cent. are
+  Catholics. More than three-fourths of the magistrates are
+  Protestants; and they bear about the same proportion on the grand
+  juries. According to the theory and practice of the constitution,
+  all power, legislative and administrative, must be based on the
+  ownership of land. The rate-payers have a voice indeed, but it is
+  generally nothing but an echo of the landlord's voice; what else
+  can it be when they are tenants-at-will, depending on the mercy
+  of the proprietor for the means of existence? In county offices,
+  the Protestants have an overwhelming majority. It is the same in
+  all the offices filled by government patronage, except the judges
+  of the superior courts. There Catholics are in the majority,
+  because they had obtained seats in the House of Commons.</p>
+
+  <p>On the boards of guardians the mass of the poor might expect
+  that a majority of guardians would be prompted by national and
+  religious feeling to sympathise with them, so that they would
+  find in the master and matron, the doctor and the relieving
+  officer, something like the natural tenderness which a common
+  kindred and creed inspire. But half the guardians are
+  <i>ex-officio</i> members, as magistrates; nearly all landlords
+  and Protestants. They have in addition 'property votes,' and
+  'residence votes;' so that, with their influence over the
+  elections, they are generally able to pack the board; and in that
+  case the officials are almost invariably Protestants and
+  conservatives. I know a union in which three-fourths of the
+  rate-payers are Roman Catholics; and yet, with the utmost efforts
+  of the priests, they were not able to elect a single Catholic
+  guardian. To meet the landlord pressure, some of the rate-payers
+  were required to sign their voting papers in presence of their
+  pastors, yet so terrible was that pressure that they afterwards
+  took them <span class="pagenum"><a name="page404" id=
+  "page404"></a>[pg 404]</span> to the agent's office, and, to make
+  assurance doubly sure, tore them up before his face. I have been
+  told by a priest, that such is the mortal dread of eviction, or
+  of a permanent fine in the form of increased rent, that he had
+  known tenants who, when produced in the witness-box, denied on
+  oath acts of oppression of which they had been bitterly
+  complaining to himself, and which he well knew to be facts.</p>
+
+  <p>Thus the land-war rages at every board of guardians, in every
+  dispensary, in every grand jury room, at every petty sessions, in
+  every county court, in every public institution throughout the
+  kingdom. The land-agent is the commanding officer, his office is
+  a garrison, dominating the surrounding district. He is able, in
+  most cases, to defy the confessional and the altar; because he
+  wields an engine of terror generally more powerful over the mind
+  of the peasantry than the terrors of the world to come. Armed
+  with the 'rules of the estate' and with a notice to quit, the
+  agent may have almost anything he demands, short of possession of
+  the farm and the home of the tenant. The notice to quit is like a
+  death warrant to the family. It makes every member of it tremble
+  and agonise, from the grey-headed grandfather and grandmother, to
+  the bright little children, who read the advent of some impending
+  calamity in the gloomy countenances and bitter words of their
+  parents. The passion for the possession of land is the chord on
+  which the agent plays, and at his touch it vibrates with 'the
+  deepest notes of woe.' By the agent of an improving landlord it
+  is generally touched so cunningly, that its most exquisite
+  torture cannot easily be proved to be a grievance. He presents an
+  alternative to the tenant; he does less than the law allows. He
+  could strike a mortal blow, but he lends a helping hand.
+  Resistance entails ruin; compliance secures friendship. Give up
+  the old <i>status</i>, and accept a new one: cease to stand upon
+  <i>right</i>, consent to hang upon <i>mercy</i>, and all may be
+  well.</p>
+
+  <p>Passing a cottage by the road-side, one of the kindest and
+  best of those agents said to me, 'See with what infatuation these
+  people cling to their old places! There is a man in <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page405" id="page405"></a>[pg 405]</span> that
+  dilapidated cabin, with only one acre of ground. It is an
+  eyesore. I have offered him a nice new slated cottage with ten
+  acres, within a short distance, and he obstinately refuses to
+  quit.'</p>
+
+  <p>Why did he refuse? I suppose, because the place was <i>his
+  own</i>. The house was probably built by his father; it is the
+  house in which he was born, endeared to him, no doubt, by many
+  powerful associations, little appreciated by those who never
+  condescend to read the 'simple annals of the poor.' He felt, that
+  if, like his neighbours, he moved into a house built by the
+  landlord, he would cease to be a free man, and would pass under
+  the yoke of a <i>master.</i> I was with some visitors in one of
+  the new cottages. The wife of the cottier with smiles assented to
+  all that was said as to the neatness and comfort of the place. I
+  thought the smiles were forced. I was last in going out, and I
+  heard her heave a heavy sigh. Perhaps she longed for the old home
+  and its freedom, envying the lot of the sturdy peasant to whom I
+  have alluded. Poor fellow! he must give way at last. But his
+  proud manhood is the stuff of which Hampdens are made.</p>
+
+  <p>I have devoted much time and attention to personal enquiries
+  from town to town, from village to village, and from house to
+  house, seeking corroborative evidence from men of all ranks and
+  professions, on the effect of the <i>Improved Land System</i> on
+  the working classes, and I will here faithfully record as briefly
+  as possible the result of my enquiries. I must premise a few
+  words as to the principles of the system which is called
+  'English.'</p>
+
+  <p>1. There is the principle of <i>contract</i>, by which alone
+  any tenant is to be permitted to occupy land. There is to be no
+  foothold in the island, from the centre all round to the sea,
+  from the top of the highest mountain to the shore at
+  low-water-mark, for any Irishman in his native land, unless he
+  obtains it by contract from a landlord and pays for it.</p>
+
+  <p>2. There is the principle of <i>compensation</i> for
+  unexhausted improvements at the rate of five or six per cent. on
+  the outlay, provided the improvements have been made with
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page406" id="page406"></a>[pg
+  406]</span> the knowledge and consent of the landlord. A certain
+  number of years is held to be sufficient to recoup the tenant for
+  his outlay. If he is removed before that time he is entitled to
+  the balance of his invested capital; just as if the relation were
+  strictly commercial, and as if he had no further claim than his
+  percentage. If the landlord makes the improvement&mdash;which he
+  prefers doing, on the new system&mdash;he requires the tenant to
+  pay at the rate of four to six per cent. in the form of
+  rent&mdash;a clear gain to the landlord, who can borrow money on
+  much lower terms, and can hardly invest his capital so profitably
+  or so safely elsewhere.</p>
+
+  <p>3. <i>Absenteeism</i> is no disadvantage or loss to the
+  country. This principle is in great favour with the agents. There
+  is no theme on which they are so eloquent or so argumentative. In
+  the absence of the landlord the agent is all-powerful. What the
+  Irish lord deputy was to the Tudors and Stuarts, the Irish agent
+  now is to the great absentee proprietor residing in London or
+  Paris. He will undertake to demonstrate that the West-end of
+  London would be just as prosperous if the Queen and her court
+  resided constantly at Balmoral or Killarney; if the parliament
+  met alternately in Edinburgh and Dublin, and if the government
+  offices were all at Liverpool. With the blessing of absenteeism,
+  houses in London would be built as fast, and would bring as high
+  rents; trade would be as brisk, artizans of all sorts as well
+  paid, life as happy, and the Londoners as well content. The
+  Irish, however, have, in their ignorance of political economy,
+  conceived the idea, that if the millions sterling sent annually
+  out of the country to London were spent among those by whose
+  labour the money is made, there would be more employment for all
+  sorts of tradesmen, more business for the shopkeepers, more
+  opportunities of advancement for the farmers' sons, more houses
+  built, more trees planted, more land reclaimed, more factories
+  established, more money stirring, more wealth, more life, more
+  enjoyment, an immense increase of national prosperity. The agents
+  say that this is all a delusion.</p><span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page407" id="page407"></a>[pg 407]</span>
+
+  <p>4. The next principle of the new agents is this&mdash;and to
+  carry it out is the aim of all their improvements&mdash;that
+  their mission is to produce the greatest amount of rent from the
+  smallest number of tenants.</p>
+
+  <p>5. To reduce the population by <i>emigration</i> or other
+  means until there is barely a sufficient number of labourers to
+  attend the agricultural machines, and herd the cattle.</p>
+
+  <p>6. To discourage <i>marriage</i> in every possible way, and to
+  diminish pauperism till there shall be no further use of the
+  workhouses but to serve as lying-in hospitals for the thrifty
+  spinsters, as they do in Cumberland and Westmoreland&mdash;where
+  the arrangement seems the most natural thing in the world. It is
+  certainly not an unnatural consequence of the practice of men and
+  women sleeping in the same apartment.</p>
+
+  <p>Now let us see the working of this new system in Ireland; for
+  it is at work more or less extensively in all the four provinces.
+  The rules of the estate, when rigidly enforced, as they generally
+  are by the improving agents, tend steadily, powerfully, to break
+  down the small farmers. They are disappearing by thousands every
+  year. Some take their chance across the Atlantic. Others fall
+  into the condition of labourers, and may earn 2<i>s.</i> a day on
+  the estate. This will last for awhile until the land is drained,
+  manured, and turned into permanent pasture. Then their occupation
+  is gone. There is nothing more for them to do. There is no place
+  for them, no room, no support in their native land. The grass
+  will grow without their labour, and the bullocks will fatten
+  without their care.</p>
+
+  <p>We are constantly hearing of the immense rise in wages since
+  the famine. Well, they are nominally higher, but in the old times
+  the labourer could get more for 8<i>d.</i> or 10<i>d.</i> than he
+  can now get for 1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> or 2<i>s.</i> Fuel is now
+  three times as dear as it was, because the 'rules of the estate'
+  will not allow the tenants to sell turf even on the verge of
+  extensive bogs. Milk, which was formerly abundant and very cheap,
+  is scarcely to be had at all now in the country towns and
+  villages, because the land is devoted to feeding <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page408" id="page408"></a>[pg 408]</span>
+  sheep and 'dry cattle.' Under the old system, the cottiers in the
+  small towns and villages, as well as on the roads in the country,
+  were enabled to keep pigs. The pig paid the rent, and made manure
+  which was put out on the ground of some neighbouring farmer,
+  hired as 'conacre.' The crop of potatoes thus obtained was a
+  great help in the winter months, when employment was rarely to be
+  had. This practice still prevails in Ulster. The farmer puts in
+  the crop for the manure, the cottier paying the farmer's
+  rent&mdash;5<i>s.</i> to 10<i>s.</i> a rood, or whatever it may
+  be. With this help the family get over the winter, and feed the
+  pig, without which help, they say, it would be impossible to
+  exist, even with constant employment at a shilling a day. But on
+  the estates of improving landlords in the other provinces, the
+  rules forbid the tenant to give the use of any ground for
+  conacre. He must not, on pain of eviction, take manure for such a
+  purpose, though it would help to enrich his land for the ensuing
+  year. The evicted cottiers and small farmers are forced to go to
+  towns and villages, shut up in unwholesome rooms. When they have
+  been thus so far got rid of, the most ingenious devices are
+  resorted to in order to render it impossible for them to live. By
+  the 'rules of the estate,' the supply of necessaries is cut off
+  on every side. Without fuel, without milk, without potatoes,
+  unless bought at a high rate for ready money, how are they to
+  live? The strong members of the poor man's family emigrate or go
+  to service; the weak ones and the young children pine away in a
+  state of semi-starvation, preferring that to the best fare in the
+  hated workhouse.</p>
+
+  <p>The people are fully sensible of the causes of these
+  privations. They know that they have been forced into this
+  condition by the landlords and their improving agents, induced in
+  some cases by the temptation of a few pounds to surrender their
+  little holdings. The lord lieutenant of the King's County has
+  thus cleared an immense district, and has himself become a
+  grazier and a cattle-dealer on a monster scale, attending the
+  markets in person, and driving hard <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page409" id="page409"></a>[pg 409]</span>
+  bargains with the farmers and jobbers. By such means the
+  population of that county has been reduced one-third in the last
+  twenty years. The moral aspect of this new system is worthy of
+  consideration. It is thus presented by Archdeacon Redmond of
+  Arklow, one of the most moderate and respected parish-priests in
+  Ireland. When lately presenting an address to Lord Granard from
+  his Wexford tenantry, he said:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'I have always heard the house of Forbes eulogised for its
+  advocacy of civil and religious liberty, and the name of Grogan
+  Morgan has become a household word through this county as one of
+  the best landlords in Ireland. He never broke down a rooftree
+  during or since the terrible famine. Under his fostering care
+  they have all tided over the calamitous time, and are happy and
+  prosperous in their homes. He did not think his estate
+  overcrowded, nor did he avail himself of the mysterious
+  destruction of the fruits of the earth, to clear off beings made
+  in God's image, and to drive them to the poorhouse, the
+  fever-shed, or the emigrant ship, to whiten the bottom of the sea
+  with their bones, or to face the moral and physical perils of the
+  transatlantic cities. He did not read his bible, like Satan,
+  backwards, nor did he turn out the Son of God in the person of
+  His poor. Hence his name is in benediction, and his estates are
+  more prosperous than the estates of those who forget God in their
+  worldly wisdom, and would seem to have no belief in a judgment to
+  come. What a happiness it is, my Lord and Lady Granard, for you
+  to have such a heritage, and to know that you live in the hearts
+  of your tenantry, who would spill the last drop of their blood to
+  shield you and your dear children from hurt and harm!'</p>
+
+  <p>Let it not be supposed that such sentiments are peculiar to
+  the Catholic clergy, or that their causes exist only in the south
+  and west. The Rev. Dr. Drew, a rector in the county Down, an
+  Orange chaplain, a veteran champion of Protestantism and Toryism,
+  but an honourable and humane man, wrote the following letter last
+  autumn:&mdash;</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page410" id=
+  "page410"></a>[pg 410]</span>
+
+  <p>If the magnificent lecture of Mr. Butt had done nothing more
+  than elicit this letter from Dr. Drew, it would have been much.
+  But will not the thoughts of many hearts be revealed in the same
+  manner? What a number of plain-speaking Drews we shall have
+  denouncing tyranny when their consciences are relieved from the
+  incubus of the Establishment!</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p><i>To Isaac Butt, Esq., LL.D.</i></p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>'My dear Butt&mdash;If every other man in the world
+  entertained doubts of my sincerity, you, at least, would give me
+  credit for honesty and just intentions. I write to you
+  accordingly, because my mind has been stirred to its inmost
+  depths by the perusal of your address in my native city of
+  Limerick. I do not regard the subject of your address as a
+  political one. It ought to be regarded solely as a question of
+  humanity, justice, common sense, and common honesty. I wish my
+  lot had never been cast in rural places. As a clergyman I hear
+  what neither landlords nor agents ever hear. I see the depression
+  of the people; their sighs and groans are before me. They are
+  brought so low as often to praise and glorify those who, in their
+  secret hearts, are the objects of abhorrence. All this came out
+  gradually before me. Nor did I feel as I ought to feel in their
+  behalf until, in my own person and purse, I became the victim of
+  a system of tyranny which cries from earth to heaven for relief.
+  Were I to narrate my own story it would startle many of the
+  Protestants of Ireland. There are good landlords&mdash;never a
+  better than the late Lord Downshire, or the living and beloved
+  Lord Roden. But there are too many of another state of feeling
+  and action. There are estates in the north where the screw is
+  never withdrawn from its circuitous and oppressive work.
+  Tenant-right is an unfortunate and delusive affair, simply
+  because it is almost invariably used to the landlord's advantage.
+  Here we have an election in prospect, and in many counties no
+  farmer will be permitted to think or <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page411" id="page411"></a>[pg 411]</span> act
+  for himself. What right any one man has to demand the surrender
+  of another's vote, I never could see. It is an act of sheer
+  felony&mdash;a perfect "stand-and-deliver" affair. To hear a man
+  slavishly and timorously say, "I must give my votes as the
+  landlord wishes," is an admission that the legislature, which
+  bestowed the right of voting on the tenant, should not see him
+  robbed of his right, or subsequently scourged or banished from
+  house and land, because he disregarded a landlord's nod, or the
+  menace of a land agent. At no little hazard of losing the
+  friendship of some who are high and good and kind, I write as I
+  now do.&mdash;Yours, my dear Butt, very sincerely,</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>'THOMAS DREW.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>'Dundrum, Clough, County Down,</p>
+
+      <p>September 7, 1868.'</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Some resident landlords employ a considerable number of
+  labourers, to each of whom they give an excellent cottage, an
+  acre of land, and the grass of a cow, with work all the year
+  round at seven shillings a week. The tenants are most comfortable
+  and most grateful, while the praise of those landlords is in the
+  mouths of the peasantry all round the country. But these
+  considerate landlords are in a minority. As a rule, on the
+  estates where the improvement system is going on, where farms are
+  being consolidated, and grazing supersedes tillage, an iron
+  pressure weighs upon the labouring classes, crushing them out of
+  the country. It is a cold, hard, calculating, far-reaching system
+  of inhumanity, which makes the peasant afraid to harbour his own
+  flesh and blood. It compels the grandmother to shut the door in
+  the face of the poor homeless orphan, lest the improving agent
+  should hear of the act of sheltering him from the pitiless storm,
+  not more pitiless than the agent himself. The system of terrorism
+  established by the threats of eviction de-humanizes a people
+  remarkable for their hospitality to the poor. Mr. Thomas Crosbie,
+  of Cork, a gentleman whom I believe to be as truthful and
+  honourable as any agent in Ireland, gives <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page412" id="page412"></a>[pg 412]</span>
+  appalling illustrations of this in his account of 'The Lansdowne
+  Estates,' published in 1858. Mr. Trench has given the English
+  public several pretty little romances about these estates; but he
+  omitted some realities that ought to have impressed themselves
+  upon his memory as deeply as any of his adventures. Mr. Crosbie
+  found that the 'rules of the estate,' which were rigidly
+  enforced, forbid tenants to build houses for their labourers,
+  'the consequence of which was that men and women servants, no
+  matter how great the number, must live under one roof.' The rules
+  forbid marriage without the agent's permission. A young couple
+  got married, and were chased away to America; and 'the two
+  fathers-in-law were not merely warned; they were punished for
+  harbouring their son and daughter, by a fine of a gale of rent.'
+  It was a rule 'that no stranger be lodged or harboured in any
+  house upon the estate, lest he should become sick or idle, or in
+  some way chargeable upon the poor-rates.' 'Several were warned
+  and punished for giving lodging to a brother-in-law, a daughter,'
+  &amp;c. 'A poor widow got her daughter married without the
+  necessary permission; she was served with a notice to quit, which
+  was withdrawn on the payment of three gales of rent.' Mr. Crosbie
+  gives a number of cases of the kind. The following are the most
+  remarkable. A tenant, Timothy Sullivan, of Derrynabrack,
+  occasionally gave lodging to his sister-in-law, whilst her
+  husband was seeking for work. He was afraid to lodge both or
+  either; 'but the poor woman was in low fever, and approaching her
+  confinement. Even under such circumstances his terror was so
+  great that he removed her to a temporary shed on Jeremiah
+  Sullivan's land, where she gave birth to a child. She remained
+  there for some time. When "the office" heard of it, Jeremiah
+  Sullivan was sent for and compelled to pay a gale of rent (as
+  fine), and to throw down the shed. Thus driven out, and with
+  every tenant on the estate afraid to afford her a refuge, the
+  miserable woman went about two miles up the mountain, and, sick
+  as she was, and so situated, took shelter in a dry <i>cavern</i>,
+  in which she <span class="pagenum"><a name="page413" id=
+  "page413"></a>[pg 413]</span> lived for several days. But her
+  presence even there was a crime, and a mulct of another gale of
+  rent was levied off Jeremiah Sullivan. Thus, within three weeks
+  he was compelled to pay two gales of 3<i>l.</i> 2<i>s.</i>
+  6<i>d.</i> each. It was declared also that the mountain being the
+  joint property of Jeremiah Sullivan, Timothy Sullivan, and Thady
+  Sullivan, Timothy Sullivan was a participator in the crime, and
+  should be fined a gale of rent. The third, it appears, escaped.'
+  'S.G.O.' narrated another horrifying case in the <i>Times</i>, at
+  the period of its occurrence, in 1851. Abridged, it runs
+  thus:&mdash;'An order had gone forth on the estate (a common
+  order in Ireland) that no tenant was to admit any lodger into his
+  house. This was a general order. It appears, however, that
+  sometimes special orders were given; and one was promulgated that
+  Denis Shea should not be harboured. This boy had no father
+  living. He had lived with a grandmother, who had been turned out
+  of her holding for harbouring him. He had stolen a shilling, a
+  hen&mdash;done such things as a neglected twelve-year-old
+  famishing child will do. One night he came to his aunt Donoghue,
+  who lodged with Casey. The latter told the aunt and uncle not to
+  allow him into the house, as the agent's drivers had given orders
+  about him. The aunt beat him away with a pitchfork, the uncle
+  tied his hands with cord behind his back. The poor child crawls
+  to the door of a neighbour, and tries to get in. The uncle is
+  called to take him away, and he does so. He yet returns with
+  hands still tied behind, having been severely beaten. The child
+  seeks refuge in other cabins; but all were forbidden to shelter
+  him. He is brought back by some neighbours in the night, who try
+  to force the sinking child in upon his relation. There is a
+  struggle at the door. The child was heard asking some one to put
+  him upright. In the morning there is blood upon the threshold.
+  The child is stiff dead&mdash;a corpse, with its arms tied;
+  around it every mark of a last fearful struggle for
+  shelter&mdash;food&mdash;the common rights of humanity.' Chief
+  Baron Pigot tried the case, and gave a statement of the facts in
+  his charge which <span class="pagenum"><a name="page414" id=
+  "page414"></a>[pg 414]</span> Mr. Trench ought to have quoted, as
+  a faithful recorder of 'realities.'</p>
+
+  <p>'On the western estate, that of Cahirciveen, there was some
+  difference in the rules. If a son or daughter married, the father
+  was obliged to retire with an allowance of 'a cow's grass' or
+  grazing for his support. 'Only the newly married person will be
+  left on the land, or any portion of it, even though the farm
+  should contain 100 acres, or even though there should be two
+  farms. This arbitrary regulation operates injuriously in point of
+  morality, and keeps the land uncultivated. The people have to go
+  to Nedeen, a distance of forty or fifty miles, to get leave to
+  marry.'<a id="footnotetag47" name="footnotetag47"></a><a href=
+  "#footnote47"><sup>1</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>The Kenmare tenantry have recovered from the fearful shock of
+  the famine, after thousands of deaths from hunger, and thousands
+  shipped off to America at 4<i>l.</i> 10<i>s.</i> a head. Mr.
+  Trench's son, Mr. Townshend Trench, the pictorial illustrator of
+  his father's book, is the acting agent, and an eloquent
+  propagandist of his father's principles. The young marquis paid a
+  visit to his tenantry in 1868, and he was almost worshipped. It
+  is gratifying to know that in a speech on that occasion he
+  promised to see and judge for himself.</p>
+
+  <p>'I feel,' he said, 'that my visit to Kenmare has taught me a
+  valuable lesson. As you all know, I was called to my present
+  position at a very young age, and I felt when I came in for my
+  property that I had much to learn; and that is the reason why I
+  was so anxious to travel through the country, and study the
+  desires and comfort of the people. That will afford me occupation
+  for many a year to come, and it will afford me an occupation not
+  only interesting but pleasing. Nothing will do me a more hearty
+  pleasure than to see the marks of civilisation and progress in
+  Kenmare&mdash;and not alone in Kenmare, but in the whole country;
+  and I shall hail every manifestation of improvement with
+  delight.'</p>
+
+  <p>Lord Lansdowne's system is beautiful, but it is unfinished.
+  Let him 'crown the edifice with <i>liberty</i>.' He <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page415" id="page415"></a>[pg 415]</span>
+  possesses a giant's power, and he uses it like an angel. When he
+  comes to trouble the waters, the multitude gathers around the
+  fountain to be healed. But his visits are, like angels' visits,
+  few and far between. Many of the sick and impotent folk, after
+  long waiting, are not able to get near till the miracle-worker
+  has departed. An absentee landlord, be he ever so good, must
+  delegate his power to an agent. Agents have good memories, and
+  their servants, the bailiffs, are good lookers-on. There is a
+  hierarchy in the heaven of landlordism&mdash;the under-bailiff,
+  the head-bailiff, the chief-clerk in the office, the sub-agent,
+  the head-agent. All these must be submissively approached and
+  anxiously propitiated before the petitioner's prayers can reach
+  the ears of Jove himself, seated aloft on his remote Olympian
+  throne. He may be, and for the most part really is&mdash;if he
+  belongs to the old stock of aristocratic
+  divinities&mdash;generous and gracious, incapable of meanness,
+  baseness, or cruelty. But the tenant has to do, not with the
+  absentee divinity, but with his priest&mdash;not with the good
+  spirit, but his medium; and this go-between is not always noble,
+  or disinterested, or unexacting. To him power may be new&mdash;a
+  small portion of it may intoxicate him, like alcohol on an empty
+  stomach. He was not born to an inheritance of sycophancy; it
+  comes like an <i>afflatus</i> upon him, and it turns his head. It
+  creates an appetite, like strong drink, which grows into a
+  disease. This appetite is as capricious as it is insatiable.
+  Hence, the chief characteristic of landlord power, as felt by the
+  tenant, is <i>arbitrariness</i>. The agent may make any rule he
+  pleases, and as many exceptions to every rule as he pleases. He
+  may allow rents to run in arrear; he may suddenly come down upon
+  the defaulter with 'a fell swoop;' he may require the rents to be
+  paid up to the day; he may, without reason assigned, call in 'the
+  hanging gale;' he may abate or increase the rents at will; he may
+  inflict fines for delay or give notices to quit for the sole
+  purpose of bringing in fees to his friend or relative, the
+  solicitor. But whatever he may choose to <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page416" id="page416"></a>[pg 416]</span> do,
+  the tenant has nothing for it but to submit; and he must submit
+  with a good grace. Woe to him if the agony of his spirit is
+  revealed in the working of his features, or in an audible groan!
+  Most of the poor fellows do submit, till their hearts are
+  broken&mdash;till the hot iron has entered their souls and seared
+  their consciences. When the <i>slave</i> is thus finished, the
+  agent and his journeymen are satisfied with their handiwork;
+  their 'honours' can then count on any sort of services they may
+  choose to exact&mdash;may bid defiance to the priest and the
+  agitator, and boast of an orderly and deserving tenantry devoted
+  to the best of landlords, who is their natural protector. It
+  would be wicked to interfere with these amicable persons. Why
+  talk about leases? The tenants will not have them; they don't
+  want security or independence by contract. So most of the agents
+  report&mdash;but not all. There are noble exceptions which
+  relieve the gloomy picture.</p>
+
+  <p>There is certainly one disadvantage connected with a
+  settlement of the land question which would abolish the arbitrary
+  power of proprietors and their agents&mdash;it would put an end
+  to the romance of Irish landlordism. The Edgeworths, the Morgans,
+  the Banims, the Carletons, and the Levers would then be deprived
+  of the best materials for their fictions. The fine old family,
+  over-reached and ruined by a dishonest agent; the cruelly evicted
+  farmer, with his wife and children fever-stricken, and his
+  bedridden mother cast out on the roadside on Christmas Eve,
+  exposed to the pelting of the hailstorm, while their home was
+  unroofed and its walls levelled by the crowbar brigade; the once
+  comfortable but now homeless father making his way to London, and
+  trying day after day to present a petition in person to his
+  landlord, repulsed from the gate of the great house, and laughed
+  at for his frieze and brogue by pampered flunkeys. Then he
+  travels on foot to his lordship's country-seat, scores or
+  hundreds of miles&mdash;is taken up, and brought before the
+  magistrates as 'an Irish rogue and vagabond.' At length he meets
+  his lordship accidentally, and reveals to him the <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page417" id="page417"></a>[pg 417]</span>
+  system of iniquity that prevails on his Irish estate at Castle
+  Squander: Next we have the sudden and unexpected appearance of
+  the god of the soil at his agent's office, sternly demanding an
+  account of his stewardship. He gives ready audience to his
+  tenants, and fires with indignation at bitter complaints from the
+  parents of ruined daughters. Investigation is followed by the
+  ignominious eviction of the tyrannical and roguish agent and his
+  accomplices, a disgorging of their ill-gotten wealth,
+  compensation to plundered and outraged tenants, the liberal
+  distribution of poetical justice right and left.</p>
+
+  <p>Many other agents have followed Mr. Trench's example in
+  forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from hospitality
+  and charity. An ejectment was lately obtained at the quarter
+  sessions in a southern county against a widow who had married
+  without leave, or married a different person from the one the
+  agent selected. But it is supposed that the threat of
+  assassination prevented a recourse to extremities in this and
+  other cases. For the people seem with one consent to have made a
+  desperate stand against this cruel tyranny. A landlord said to
+  me, 'No one in this part of the country would <i>presume</i> to
+  evict a tenant now from fear of assassination. <i>That</i> is the
+  tenant's security.'</p>
+
+  <p>The wretched outcasts, whom 'improvement' has swept off the
+  estates, are crowded into cities and towns, without employment,
+  without food. Feeling bitterly their degradation and misery, and
+  taught to blame the Government, they become demoralized and
+  desperately disaffected. From these fermenting masses issues the
+  avenging scourge of Fenianism&mdash;'the pestilence that walketh
+  in darkness, and slayeth at noonday.'</p>
+
+  <p>For my part, I cannot understand the meaning of improving a
+  country by disinheriting and banishing its inhabitants. I do not
+  understand men who say the population is too dense, and yet give
+  to one family a tract of land large enough to support ten
+  families, turning out the nine to make room for the one. A great
+  deal has been said about <span class="pagenum"><a name="page418"
+  id="page418"></a>[pg 418]</span> the evils of small farms. But
+  the most disturbed and impoverished parts of Ireland are those in
+  which the farms are largest; while the two most prosperous and
+  best ordered counties&mdash;Armagh and Wexford&mdash;are the
+  counties in which small farms most abound. I call a reluctant
+  witness, Master Fitzgibbon, to testify that when the Irish
+  tenant, be his holding ever so small, gets common justice and is
+  not subjected to caprice, he gives no trouble. That gentleman
+  informs us that there are 650 estates of all magnitudes, from
+  100<i>l.</i> to 20,000<i>l.</i> a-year, under the control and
+  management of the court of chancery; the total rents of these
+  amount to 494,056<i>l.</i> a-year payable by 28,581 tenants.
+  These estates are in all parts of Ireland, not only in all the
+  provinces, but in all the counties, without exception; and,
+  according to Master Fitzgibbon, they fairly represent the
+  tenantry of the whole country. He has 452 of the estates under
+  his own jurisdiction, and the rents of these amount to
+  330,809<i>l.</i>, paid by 18,287 tenants. He has now been ten
+  years in the office, during which 'the rents have been paid
+  without murmuring or complaints worth noticing.' 'The pressure of
+  legal remedies for these rents has been very little used; the
+  number of evictions absolutely trifling; and of between 400 and
+  500 receivers, who collect these rents, <i>not one has ever been
+  assailed</i>, or interfered with, or threatened in the discharge
+  of his duty, as far as I have been able to discover; and I am the
+  person to whom the receiver should apply for redress if anything
+  of the kind occurred. It is very well known that my ears are open
+  to any just complaint from any tenant, and yet I am very seldom
+  appealed to, considering the great number of tenants; and
+  whenever a complaint is well-founded, it is promptly and
+  effectually redressed, at scarcely any expense of costs. I
+  believe the other three Masters would make substantially a
+  similar report to this in respect of the estates under their
+  jurisdiction.'</p>
+
+  <p>Master Fitzgibbon proceeds to state that 'on one estate there
+  are 2,500 tenants, paying 13,000<i>l.</i>,&mdash;being an average
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page419" id="page419"></a>[pg
+  419]</span> of 6<i>l.</i> a-year. This estate has been sold, and
+  three of the lots fetched over 30 years' purchase of the yearly
+  profit rents. The fourth lot is held by small cottiers, at rents
+  which average only 2<i>l.</i>, and this lot fetched 23 years'
+  purchase. This estate has been under a receiver for three years,
+  and there has never been one complaint from a tenant. What is
+  stated of this estate may be said of every one of them in all the
+  four provinces.' He adds: 'Clamour, agitation, or violence of any
+  kind I have never had to deal with amongst the tenantry of any
+  one of these estates since I came into office.'</p>
+
+  <p>Another witness of larger views, and free from unhappy
+  prejudices against the majority of his countrymen&mdash;Mr.
+  Marcus Keane, agent to the Marquis of Conyngham&mdash;in a letter
+  to Colonel Vandeleur, M.P., lately gave the result of his
+  experience for thirty years as agent of several large estates,
+  and as a landlord, on the Irish land question. I submit his
+  suggestions to my readers, as eminently worthy of the
+  consideration of statesmen at the present time:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'The outline of measures submitted for your consideration
+  combines the very unusual recommendation of meeting, on the one
+  hand, with the approbation of some good landlords of the higher
+  class (who, like yourself, have long been practically
+  acknowledging the just claims of tenants), and, at the same time,
+  of satisfying the claims of many of the warmest advocates of the
+  tenant class. It is calculated to protect the farmers from
+  selfish landlords, whose conduct has tended much to produce the
+  serious disaffection that now prevails.</p>
+
+  <p>'I need not burthen you with a lengthened recital of the facts
+  which render such legislation absolutely necessary to the
+  tranquillity of society. In outline, however, they may be briefly
+  stated&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'<i>First</i>&mdash;The great mass of Irish tenantry have no
+  better title to their holdings than the will of their
+  landlords.</p>
+
+  <p>'<i>Second</i>&mdash;Education is daily rendering the tenant
+  class <span class="pagenum"><a name="page420" id=
+  "page420"></a>[pg 420]</span> more impatient of the condition of
+  dependence which their want of title necessitates.</p>
+
+  <p>'<i>Third</i>&mdash;Every good tenant must improve his land
+  more or less, in order to live in comparative comfort.</p>
+
+  <p>'<i>Fourth</i>&mdash;The rentals of Ireland are steadily
+  following the improvements of the tenants. Some landlords suffer
+  a considerable margin to exist between the actual value and the
+  rent paid; while others lose no opportunity of forcing the rents
+  to the highest amount that circumstances permit.</p>
+
+  <p>'<i>Fifth</i>&mdash;Although good tenants must improve in
+  order to live comfortably, their improvements are not one-fourth
+  of what the condition of the country invites, and are far below
+  what they would be if the occupiers were afforded equitable
+  security.</p>
+
+  <p>'<i>Sixth</i>&mdash;Trade, manufactures, and industrial
+  occupations require local accumulations of surplus capital in
+  order to their prosperity; and such accumulations are hindered by
+  the general want of security of tenure. Society at large is
+  therefore deeply interested in the protection of the tenant
+  class.</p>
+
+  <p>'<i>Seventh</i>&mdash;The increased expense of the
+  governmental establishments, civil and military, which Irish
+  disaffection entails, renders it a matter of imperial importance
+  that the Irish land question should be satisfactorily
+  settled.</p>
+
+  <p>'Irish rentals have, in some counties, increased more than
+  tenfold since the beginning of the eighteenth century.'</p>
+
+  <p>The next witness shall be a landlord, one of the best and
+  noblest of his class. At a tenant-right meeting of the county
+  Longford, the Earl of Granard said:&mdash;'The proposition
+  commences by asserting that which has been acknowledged by
+  successive administrations&mdash;that the present state of the
+  land laws of Ireland is highly unsatisfactory. The necessity for
+  their reform has been urged upon parliament since the days of
+  O'Connell up to the present time. The want of reform upon the
+  most vital question which affects the prosperity of Ireland has
+  been the fruitful source of agrarian disturbance, of poverty and
+  of misfortune in every <span class="pagenum"><a name="page421"
+  id="page421"></a>[pg 421]</span> county in Ireland. To take an
+  example near home,&mdash;what rendered Ballinamuck a by-word for
+  deeds of violence? Why, that system which permitted a landlord to
+  treat the people of that district with high-handed injustice. And
+  why is that district now amongst the most peaceable in the
+  county? Because it is now administered by its proprietor in a
+  spirit of justice and fair play, and because that proprietor
+  recognises the fact that property has its duties as well as its
+  rights. I believe that similar results are to be obtained
+  everywhere that the warm-hearted and kindly people of this
+  country are treated with justice. In his evidence before Mr.
+  Maguire's committee, Mr. Curling, the excellent agent of an
+  equally excellent landlord&mdash;Lord Devon&mdash;speaking of his
+  property in Limerick, said that the most warm-hearted and
+  grateful people he had ever met with were the Irish. He was
+  asked, "Grateful for what?" and he replied, "Even for fair play."
+  That is to say, they were grateful for that which in every
+  country save this would have been theirs by law. And it is to a
+  people thus described by, mind you, not an Irishman, but an
+  English gentleman&mdash;to a people, I believe, the most
+  religious and affectionate in Europe, that the simple act of
+  justice, of repealing unjust statutes, has been refused. I say it
+  advisedly, that to the system of land laws, which we hope to
+  alter&mdash;which at least we are here to protest
+  against&mdash;are to be attributed those fearful agrarian
+  outrages which disgrace the fair fame of our country. A
+  celebrated minister of police in France, whenever he heard of a
+  conspiracy, used to ask who was the woman, believing that there
+  was always one mixed up with such organisations, and in a similar
+  spirit, whenever I hear of an outrage in Ireland, I am always
+  inclined to enquire, "Who is the landlord?" For I do not hear of
+  such things occurring on estates where justice and fair play are
+  the rule and not the exception. But brighter days are now in
+  store for us. We have at the head of affairs the most earnest,
+  the most conscientious minister that has ever sat on the treasury
+  bench. He has promised to redress your grievances, and having as
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page422" id="page422"></a>[pg
+  422]</span> his able lieutenants Mr. Bright, who has ever a
+  kindly word for Ireland, and Lord Kimberley, whose first act
+  after giving up the lord-lieutenancy was to say to the House of
+  Lords that until the church and land questions were settled there
+  would be neither peace nor contentment in the land&mdash;he must
+  be successful. As to what we want there can be no doubt. The five
+  points of the Irish charter are&mdash;fixity of tenure at
+  reasonable rents; recognition of right of occupancy as distinct
+  from right of ownership; standard valuation for letting purposes;
+  retrospective compensation for 20 years; and arbitration courts
+  in cases of dispute between owner and occupier.'</p>
+
+  <p>I cannot better express the conclusion of the whole matter
+  than in the words of a writer in the <i>Pall Mall Gazette</i>,
+  who thoroughly understands the question. Nothing can be more
+  truthful and accurate than the way in which he puts the tenants'
+  case:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'"Morally," they say, "we are part-owners. We have a moral
+  right to live here. If a great landlord considered that he could
+  make more of his estate by clearing it of its inhabitants, and
+  accordingly proceeded to do so, he would do a cruel act. What we
+  wish is to see our moral rights converted into legal rights. If
+  you ask us precisely what it is that we wish, we reply that we
+  wish to be able to live in moderate comfort in our native land,
+  and to be able to make our plans upon the assumption that we
+  shall not be interfered with. It is not for us ignorant peasants
+  to draw an Act of Parliament upon this subject, or to say how our
+  views are to be reconciled with your English law, which, on other
+  accounts, we by no means love. You, the English Government, must
+  find out for yourselves how to do that. What we want is to be
+  secure and live in reasonable comfort, and we shall never be at
+  rest, and we will never leave you at peace, till this is arranged
+  in some way or other." We do not say whether this feeling is
+  right or wrong, we do not say how it is to be dealt with, but we
+  do say that it is as intelligible, not to say as natural, a
+  feeling as ever entered into <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page423" id="page423"></a>[pg 423]</span> human hearts, and we
+  say, moreover, that it would be very difficult to exaggerate
+  either its generality, its force, its extent, or the degree to
+  which it has been excited by recent events. We are deeply
+  convinced that to persist in regarding the relation between
+  landlord and tenant as one of contract merely, to repeat again
+  and again in every possible form that all that the Irish peasants
+  have a right to say is that they have made a hard bargain with
+  their landlords which they wish the legislature to modify, is to
+  shut our eyes to the feelings of the people, feelings which it
+  will be difficult and also dangerous to disregard. The very gist
+  and point of the whole claim of the tenants is that their moral
+  right (as they regard it) is as sacred, and ought to be as much
+  protected by law, as the landlords' legal right, and that it is a
+  distinct grievance to a man to be prevented from living in
+  Ireland on that particular piece of land on which he was born and
+  bred, and which was occupied by his ancestors before him.'</p>
+
+  <p>The whole drift of this history bears on this point. The
+  policy of the past must be reversed. The tenants must be rooted
+  in the soil instead of being rooted out. 'Improvement' must
+  include the people as well as the land, and agents must no longer
+  be permitted to arrogate to themselves the functions of Divine
+  Providence.</p>
+
+  <blockquote>
+    <p>'<i>Naturam expellas furc&#226;, tamen usque
+    recurret.</i>'</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <p>One of the best pamphlets on the Irish Land Question is by Mr.
+  William M'Combie, of Aberdeen. A practical farmer himself, his
+  sagacity has penetrated the vitals of the subject. His
+  observations, while travelling through the country last year,
+  afford a remarkable corroboration of the conclusions at which I
+  have arrived. Of the new method of 'regenerating Ireland,' he
+  says:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>'In it the resources of the soil&mdash;to get the most
+  possible out of it by the most summary process&mdash;is the great
+  object; the people are of little or no account, save as they can
+  be made use of to accomplish this object. But, indeed, it is
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page424" id="page424"></a>[pg
+  424]</span> not alone by the promoters of the grand culture that
+  the people have been disregarded, but by Irish landlords,
+  generally, of both classes. By the improving landlords&mdash;who
+  are generally recent purchasers&mdash;they are regarded merely as
+  labourers; by the leave-alone landlords as rent-producers. The
+  one class have ejected the occupiers, the other have applied,
+  harder and harder, the screw, until the "good landlord"&mdash;the
+  landlord almost worshipped in Ireland at this hour&mdash;is the
+  landlord who neither evicts his tenants nor raises their rents.
+  The consequences are inevitable, and, over a large portion of the
+  island, they are patent to every eye&mdash;they obtrude
+  themselves everywhere. The people are poor; they are despondent,
+  broken-spirited. In the south of Ireland decay is written on
+  every town. In the poorer parts you may see every fifth or sixth
+  house tenantless, roofless, allowed from year to year to moulder
+  and moulder away, unremoved, unrepaired.... To make room for
+  these large-scale operations, evictions must go on, and as the
+  process proceeds the numbers must be augmented of those who are
+  unfit to work for hire and unable to leave the country. The poor
+  must be made poorer; many now self-supporting made dependent.
+  Pauperism must spread, and the burden of poor rates be vastly
+  increased. If the greatest good of the greatest number be the
+  fundamental principle of good government, this is not the
+  direction in which the state should seek to accomplish the
+  regeneration of Ireland. The development of the resources of the
+  land ought to be made compatible with the improvement of the
+  condition of the people.'</p>
+
+  <blockquote class="footnote">
+    <a id="footnote47" name="footnote47"></a><b>Footnote 1:</b>
+    <a href="#footnotetag47">(return)</a>
+
+    <p>See the 'North British Review,' No. CI. p. 193.</p>
+  </blockquote><span class="pagenum"><a name="page425" id=
+  "page425"></a>[pg 425]</span>
+
+  <h2>CHAPTER XXV.</h2>
+
+  <h3>CONCLUSION&mdash;AN APPEAL TO ENGLISHMEN.</h3>
+
+  <p>The difficulty of understanding the case of Ireland is
+  proverbial. Its most enlightened friends in England and Scotland
+  are often charged with 'gross ignorance of the country.' They
+  might excuse themselves by answering, that when they seek
+  instruction from Irishmen, one native instructor is sure to
+  contradict the other. Yet there must be some point of view from
+  which all sides of the Irish question can be seen, some light in
+  which the colours are not confused, the picture is not
+  exaggerated, the features are not distorted. Every nation has its
+  idiosyncrasy, proceeding from race, religion, laws, institutions,
+  climate, and other circumstances; and this idiosyncrasy may be
+  the key of its history. In Ireland three or four nationalities
+  are bound together in one body politic; and it is the conflict of
+  their several idiosyncrasies which perplexes statesmen, and
+  constitutes the main difficulty of the Irish problem. The blood
+  of different races is mingled, and no doubt greatly modified by
+  ages of intercourse. But <i>religion</i> is an abiding force. The
+  establishment of religious equality in Ireland is a glorious
+  achievement, enough in itself to immortalise any statesman. It is
+  a far greater revolution than was effected by the Emancipation
+  Act, and more to the credit of the chief actor; because, while
+  Mr. Gladstone did spontaneously what he firmly believed to be
+  right in principle. Sir Robert Peel did, from necessity, what he
+  as firmly believed was wrong in principle. But no reasonable man
+  expected that the disestablishment of the Church would settle all
+  Irish questions; in fact, it but clears the way for the
+  settlement <span class="pagenum"><a name="page426" id=
+  "page426"></a>[pg 426]</span> of some of the most important and
+  urgent. It makes it possible for Irishmen of every creed to speak
+  in one voice to the Government. Their respective clergy, hitherto
+  so intent on ecclesiastical claims and pretensions, will no
+  longer pass by on the other side, but turn Samaritans to their
+  bleeding country, fallen among the thieves of Bigotry and
+  Faction. There are many high Protestants&mdash;indeed, I may say
+  all, except the aristocracy&mdash;who, while firmly believing in
+  the vital importance of the union of the three kingdoms,
+  earnestly wishing that union to be real and perpetual, cannot
+  help expressing their conviction that Ireland has been greatly
+  wronged by England&mdash;wronged by the legislature, by the
+  Government, and most of all by the crown. In no country in the
+  world has loyalty existed under greater difficulties, in none has
+  it been so ill requited, in none has so much been done as if of
+  set purpose to starve it to death. In the reign of Elizabeth the
+  capricious will of a despotic sovereign was exerted to crush the
+  national religion, while the greatest military exploits of her
+  ablest viceroys consisted of predatory excursions, in which they
+  slaughtered or carried away the horses and cattle, burned the
+  crops and houses, and laid the country waste and desolate, in
+  order to create famines for the wholesale destruction of the
+  population, thus spoiled and killed as a punishment for the
+  treason of their chiefs, over whom they had no control.</p>
+
+  <p>In the reigns of James I. and Charles I. there was a
+  disposition among the remnant of the people&mdash;</p>
+
+  <blockquote>
+    <p>To fly from petty tyrants to the throne.</p>
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <p>But the Stuarts appealed to Irish loyalty merely for the
+  support of their dynasty, and William III. laid the laurels won
+  on the banks of the Boyne upon the altar of English monopoly. In
+  the reigns of Anne and the three Georges, law was made to do the
+  work of the sword, and the Catholics of Ireland, constituting the
+  mass of the nation, knew their sovereign only as the head of an
+  alien power, cruel and unrelenting in its oppression. They were
+  required <span class="pagenum"><a name="page427" id=
+  "page427"></a>[pg 427]</span> to love a German prince whom they
+  had never seen. He called himself the father of his subjects; and
+  he had millions of subjects on the other side of a narrow
+  channel, whom he never knew, and never cared to know. When at
+  length the dominant nation relented, and wished to strike the
+  penal chains from the hands of her sister, the king forbade the
+  act of mercy, pleading his conscience and his oath as a bar to
+  justice and to freedom, but yielding at last to English state
+  necessity, and robbing concession of its grace, of all its power
+  to conciliate. From the battle of the Boyne to Catholic
+  emancipation, the king of Ireland had never set foot on Irish
+  soil, except in the case of George IV., whose visit was little
+  better than a melodramatic exhibition, repaid by copious
+  libations of flattery, which however failed to melt his bigotry,
+  or to persuade him to redeem his solemn promises and pledges,
+  until, nine years later, he was compelled to yield by the fear of
+  impending civil war.</p>
+
+  <p>Ireland may get from her sister, England, everything but that
+  for which the heart yearns&mdash;affection&mdash;that which alone
+  'can minister to a mind diseased, can pluck from the memory its
+  rooted sorrow, and rase out the written troubles from the brain.'
+  That is just what Ireland needs above all things. She wants to be
+  kept from brooding morbidly over the dismal past, and to be
+  induced to apply herself in a cheerful spirit to the business of
+  life. The prescriptions of state physicians cannot fully reach
+  the root of the disease. Say that it is a sentimental
+  malady&mdash;a delusion. What is gained by saying <i>that</i>, if
+  the sentiment or the delusion makes life wretched, unfits for
+  business, produces suicidal propensities, and renders
+  <i>keepers</i> necessary?</p>
+
+  <p>In theory, Ireland is one with England; in practice, she is
+  hourly made to feel the reverse. <i>The Times</i>, and all the
+  journals which express the instincts of the dominant nation,
+  constantly speak of the Irish people as '<i>the subjects of
+  England</i>, whom Englishmen have a right to control. They are
+  the subjects of the Queen only in a secondary
+  sense&mdash;<i>as</i> the Queen of England, and reigning over
+  them through England. <span class="pagenum"><a name="page428" id=
+  "page428"></a>[pg 428]</span> Every sovereign, from Queen
+  Elizabeth to Queen Victoria, was sovereign of Ireland merely in
+  this subordinate sense, even when there was an Irish parliament.
+  The King of <i>Ireland</i> could speak to his Irish parliament
+  only as he was advised by his English ministers; and their advice
+  was invariably prompted by English interests. Her king was not
+  <i>hers</i> in the true sense. His <i>heart</i> and his company
+  were wholly given to another, to whose pride, power, and
+  splendour she was made to minister. That state of things still
+  continues in effect, and while it lasts Ireland can never be
+  contented. Her heart will always be disquieted within her.
+  Something bitter will ever be bubbling up from the bottom of that
+  troubled fountain.</p>
+
+  <p>Nor let it be supposed that this is due to a peculiar
+  idiosyncrasy in Ireland&mdash;to some unhappy congenital
+  malformation, or some original taint in the blood. It has been
+  often asked whether England would have submitted to similar
+  treatment from Ireland if their relations were reversed.
+  Englishmen have not answered that question because they cannot
+  understand it. They find it difficult to apply the Divine maxim,
+  'Do as you would be done by.' in their dealings with other
+  nations. But they can scarcely conceive its application to their
+  dealings with Ireland, any more than the American planter could
+  have conceived the duty of fraternizing with his negroes. If we
+  draw from this fact the logical inference, we shall be at a loss
+  to discern whether the Celt or the Saxon suffers more from the
+  moral perversity of his nature. The truth is, both are perverted
+  by their unnatural relations, which are a standing outrage on the
+  spirit of Christianity.</p>
+
+  <p>The Emperor of Austria long laboured to govern one nation
+  through another and for another, in right of conquest, and we
+  know the result in Italy and Hungary. Lombardy, though well
+  cultivated and materially prosperous, could never be reconciled
+  to Austrian rule. Even the nobility could not be tempted to
+  appear at court. Venetia was more passionately and desperately
+  hostile, and was consequently <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page429" id="page429"></a>[pg 429]</span> crushed by military
+  repression, till the country was turned into a wilderness, and
+  the capital once so famous for its commerce and splendour, became
+  one of the most melancholy scenes of ruin and desolation to be
+  found in the world. The Austrians, and those who sympathised with
+  Austria as the great conservative power of the Continent,
+  ascribed all this to the perversity of the Italian nature, and to
+  the influence of agitators and conspirators. Austria was
+  bountiful to her Italian subjects, and would be more lenient if
+  she could, but their vices of character and innate propensity to
+  rebellion, rendered necessary a system of coercion. Hence the
+  prisons were full of political offenders; the soldier and the
+  executioner were constantly employed in maintaining law and
+  order. All the Emperor wanted was that his Italian provinces
+  should be so thoroughly amalgamated with Austria, as to form one
+  firmly united empire, and that the inhabitants should be content
+  with their position as <i>Austrian</i> subjects, ruled by
+  Austrian officials. But this was precisely what they could not or
+  would not be. 'They smiled at the drawn dagger and defied its
+  point.' They would sacrifice their lives, but they would not
+  sacrifice their nationality at the bidding of an alien power.</p>
+
+  <p>This illustrates the force of the national sentiment, and the
+  tremendous magnitude of the calamities to which its persistent
+  violation leads. But the case of Hungary is still more apposite
+  as an illustration of the English policy in Ireland. The
+  Hungarians had an ancient constitution and parliament of their
+  own. The Emperor of Austria was their legitimate king, wearing
+  the crown of Hungary. In this capacity the Hungarians were
+  willing to yield to him the most devoted loyalty. But he wanted
+  to weld his empire into a compact unity, and to centralise all
+  political power at Vienna, so that Austria should be the head and
+  heart of the system, and the other provinces her hands and her
+  feet. Hungary resisted, and revolted. The result was a desolating
+  civil war, in which she was triumphant, till the Czar came to the
+  rescue of his <span class="pagenum"><a name="page430" id=
+  "page430"></a>[pg 430]</span> brother despot, and poured his
+  legions in overwhelming numbers into the devoted country. Hungary
+  was now at the feet of her sovereign, and Austria, the dominant
+  state, tried to be conciliatory, in order to bring about the
+  desired amalgamation and consolidation of the empire. She did so,
+  with every apparent prospect of success, and it was generally
+  considered throughout Europe that there was an end of the
+  Hungarian kingdom. But Hungarian nationality survived, and still
+  resisted Austrian centralisation. The Hungarians struggled for
+  its recognition constitutionally, manfully, with admirable
+  self-control, moderation, and wisdom, until at length they
+  achieved a peaceful victory. Their sovereign reigns over them as
+  King of Hungary; he and the empress dwell among them, without
+  Austrian guards. Their children are born among them, and they are
+  proud to call them natives of Hungary. The Hungarians, as
+  subjects of <i>Austria</i>, were discontented, miserable,
+  incurably disaffected. As subjects of their own king (though he
+  is also Emperor of Austria) they are intensely loyal. They are
+  prosperous and happy, because they are free. And though they have
+  their distinctions of race and religion, they are united. The
+  Magyars of Hungary correspond very nearly to the Protestants of
+  Ireland. Though a minority, their energy, their education, their
+  natural talent for organisation and government, their love of
+  freedom, their frank recognition of the rights of conscience,
+  enable them to lead without inspiring jealousy, just as the
+  Protestants of Ireland were enabled to lead in 1782,
+  notwithstanding the existence of Protestant Ascendancy. Religious
+  equality is not a cause of tranquillity in itself. It
+  tranquillises simply because it implies the absence of
+  irritation. It takes a festering thorn out of the side of the
+  unestablished community&mdash;a thorn which inflames the blood of
+  every one of its members. Let worldly interest, political power,
+  and social precedence cease to be connected with the profession
+  of religion, and religious differences would cease to produce
+  animosity and intolerance. If the Magyars had been the Hungarian
+  <span class="pagenum"><a name="page431" id="page431"></a>[pg
+  431]</span> party of Protestant ascendancy, and if the Protestant
+  interest had also been the Austrian interest; if the mission of
+  the Magyars had been to act as a garrison, to keep down the Roman
+  Catholic majority, their cause could never have triumphed till
+  Protestant ascendancy should be abolished. But Hungarian
+  Protestantism did not need such support, although the Pope has as
+  much authority in Hungary as in Ireland. Of course the cases of
+  Hungary and Ireland are in many respects dissimilar. But they are
+  alike in this: their respective histories establish the great
+  fact that the most benevolent of sovereigns, and the wisest of
+  legislatures, can never produce contentment or loyalty in a
+  kingdom which is ruled <i>through</i> and <i>for</i> another
+  kingdom.</p>
+
+  <p>We can easily understand that when the light of royalty shines
+  upon a country <i>through a conquering nation still dominant</i>,
+  the medium is of necessity dense, cold, refracting, and
+  discolouring. Of this the best illustration is derived from the
+  relations between Austria and Hungary, now so happily adjusted to
+  the unspeakable advantage of both nations. Austrian rule was
+  unsympathetic, harsh, insolent, domineering, based upon the
+  arrogant assumption that the Hungarians were incapable of
+  managing their own affairs without the guidance of Austrian
+  wisdom and the support of Austrian steadiness. But the
+  Hungarians, united among themselves, putting their trust, not in
+  boastful, vapouring, and self-seeking agitators, but in honest,
+  truthful, high-minded, and capable statesmen, persevered in a
+  course of firm, but temperate and constitutional, national
+  self-assertion, until the Austrians were compelled to put away
+  from them their supercilious airs of natural superiority, and to
+  concede the principle of international equality and the right of
+  self-government.</p>
+
+  <p>What sickens the reader of Irish history most of all is the
+  anarchy of the old clan system, the everlasting alternation of
+  outrages and avenging reprisals. One faction, when it felt strong
+  and had a favourable opportunity, made a sudden raid upon another
+  faction, taken at a disadvantage, plundering and killing with
+  reckless fury. The outraged party <span class="pagenum"><a name=
+  "page432" id="page432"></a>[pg 432]</span> treasured up its anger
+  till it had power to retaliate, and then glutted its vengeance
+  without mercy in the same way. When this fatal propensity to
+  mutual destruction was restrained by law, it broke out from time
+  to time in other ways. What was wanted to cure it effectually was
+  a strong, steady, central government, such as England enjoys
+  herself. But the very system which is most calculated to foster
+  factiousness is the one which has reigned for centuries in Dublin
+  Castle. The British sovereign knows no party, and, whatever other
+  sovereigns have done, Queen Victoria has never forgotten this
+  constitutional principle. But the Irish lord-lieutenant is always
+  a party-man, and is always surrounded by party-men. They were
+  Whigs or Tories, Liberals or Conservatives, often extreme in
+  their views and violent in their temper. The vice of the old clan
+  system was its tendency to unsettle, to undo, to upset, to smash
+  and destroy. Instead of counteracting that vice (which still
+  lingers in the national blood), by a fixed, unchanging system of
+  administration, based on principles of unswerving rectitude,
+  which knows no distinction of party, no favouritism, England
+  ruled by the alternate sway of factions.</p>
+
+  <p><i>The Times</i>, referring to the debate on the Irish Church,
+  remarked that the viceroyalty was more and more 'a mere
+  ornament.' It is really nothing more. The viceroy has no actual
+  power, and if he has statesmanship, it is felt to be out of
+  place. He can scarcely give public expression to his sentiments
+  on any political questions without offending one party or the
+  other, whereas the estate of the realm which he represents is
+  neutral and ought to keep strictly to neutral ground. As to the
+  effect of the office in degrading the national spirit among the
+  nobility and gentry, we could not have a better illustration than
+  the fact that the amiable Lord Carlisle was accustomed, at the
+  meeting of the Royal Dublin Society, to tell its members that the
+  true aim, interest, glory, and destiny of Ireland was to be a
+  pasture and a dairy for England,&mdash;a compliment which seemed
+  to have been gratefully accepted, or was at all events allowed to
+  pass.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page433" id=
+  "page433"></a>[pg 433]</span>
+
+  <p>But even as an 'ornament' the viceregal system is a failure.
+  The Viceroy with his family ought to be the head of society in
+  Ireland, just as the Queen is in England. The royal family are
+  the same to all parties and classes, showing no partiality on the
+  ground of politics, but smiling with equal favour and recognition
+  upon all. In Ireland, however, a liberal lord lieutenant is
+  generally shunned by the Conservative portion of the aristocracy,
+  which forms the great majority of the class. On the other hand
+  the Conservatives flock in large numbers to the court of a Tory
+  Viceroy, while Liberals stand aloof. Instead therefore of being a
+  centre of union to all sections of the best society, and bringing
+  them together, so that they may know one another, and enjoy the
+  advantages due to their rank, the viceregal court operates as a
+  source of jealousy and division. So that, looking at the
+  institution as a mere ornament of society, as a centre of
+  fashionable life and refining influences, facilitating
+  intercourse between ranks and classes, bringing the owners of
+  land and the men of commerce more in harmony, it is not worth
+  preserving. On the other hand it produces some of the worst
+  features of conventionalism. It cultivates flunkeyism and
+  servility, while operating as a restraint upon the manly
+  expression of opinion. It fosters a spirit of spurious
+  aristocracy, which shows itself in contempt for men who prefer
+  honest industry to place-hunting and insolvent gentility.</p>
+
+  <p>But while I thus speak of the viceregal court as at present
+  constituted, I still maintain that, like Hungary, this country is
+  so peculiarly situated, and is animated by so strong a spirit of
+  nationality, that it ought to have a court of its own, and a
+  sovereign of its own. The case of Hungary shows how easily this
+  great boon might be granted, and how gratifying the results would
+  be to all the parties concerned. The Queen ought to reside in
+  Ireland for some portion of the year. A suitable palace should be
+  provided for the royal family. The Prince of Wales, during her
+  majesty's reign, ought to be the permanent Viceroy, <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page434" id="page434"></a>[pg 434]</span> with
+  the necessary addition to his income. The office would afford an
+  excellent training for his duties as king. The attraction of the
+  Princess of Wales would make the Irish court very brilliant. It
+  would afford the opportunity of contact with real royalty, not
+  the shadowy sort of thing we have had&mdash;reflected through
+  Viceroys very few of whom were ever <i>en rapport</i> with the
+  Irish nation. Not one of them could so speak to the people as to
+  elicit a spark of enthusiasm. Of course they could not have the
+  true ring of royalty, for royalty was not in them. But they could
+  not play the part well. One simple sentence from the Queen or the
+  Prince of Wales, or even from Prince Arthur, would be worth all
+  the theatrical pomp they could display in a generation. Those
+  noblemen had no natural connection with the kingdom, fitting them
+  to take the first place in it. They were not hereditary chiefs.
+  They were not elected by the people. They were mere 'casual'
+  chief-governors; and they formed no ties with the nation that
+  could not be broken as easily as the spider's thread. The
+  <i>hereditary principle</i> has immense force in Ireland. The
+  landlords are now seeking to weaken it; or rather they are
+  ignoring it altogether, and substituting the commercial principle
+  in dealing with their tenants, preferring not the most devoted
+  adherents of the family, but the man with most money. But I warn
+  them that they are doing so at the peril of their order. A prince
+  who was <i>heir presumptive to the throne as Viceroy</i>, and
+  who, when he ascended the throne, should be crowned King of
+  <i>Ireland</i>, as well as King of Great Britain, crowned in his
+  own Irish palace, and on the <i>Lia Fail</i> or stone of destiny,
+  preserved at Westminster, would save many a million to the
+  British exchequer, for it would be no longer necessary to support
+  a large army of occupation to keep the country. If the throne of
+  Queen Victoria stood in Dublin, there is not a Fenian in Ireland
+  who would not die in its defence. Standing in Westminster it is
+  doubtful whether its attraction is sufficient to retain the
+  hearts even of Orangemen. There, it is the <i>English</i> throne.
+  So the <i>Englishman</i> regards it with instinctive <span class=
+  "pagenum"><a name="page435" id="page435"></a>[pg 435]</span>
+  jealousy. He feels it is his own; but, say what we may, the Irish
+  loyalist, when he approaches it, is made to feel, by a thousand
+  signs, that he is a stranger and an intruder. He returns to his
+  own bereaved country with a sad heart, and a bitter spirit. Can
+  he be <i>Anglicised</i>? Put this question to an English
+  philosopher, and he will answer with Mr. Froude&mdash;'Can the
+  Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?' We can
+  bridge the channel with fast steamers; but who will bridge the
+  gulf, hitherto impassable, which separates the English Dives from
+  the Irish Lazarus?</p>
+
+  <p>'We have,' said Canning, 'for many years been erecting a
+  mound&mdash;not to assist or improve, but to thwart nature; we
+  have raised it high above the waters, and it has stood there,
+  frowning hostility and effecting separation. In the course of
+  time, however, the necessities of man, and the silent workings of
+  nature, have conspired to break down this mighty structure, till
+  there remains of it only a narrow isthmus, standing</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p class="i8">Between two kindred seas,</p>
+
+      <p>Which, mounting, viewed each other from afar,</p>
+
+      <p class="i8">And longed to meet.</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>What then, shall be our conduct? Shall we attempt to repair
+  the breaches, and fortify the ruins? A hopeless and ungracious
+  undertaking! Or shall we leave them to moulder away by time and
+  accident&mdash;a sure but distant and thankless consummation; or,
+  shall we not rather cut away at once the isthmus that remains,
+  allow free course to the current which has been artificially
+  impeded, and float upon the mingling waves the ark of our
+  glorious constitution?'</p>
+
+  <p>Much has been done since Canning's time to remove the narrow
+  isthmus. Emancipation cut deep into it. The disestablishment of
+  the Irish Church submerged an immense portion of it. If Mr.
+  Gladstone's land bill be equally effective, a breach will be made
+  through which the two kindred seas will meet, and, in their
+  commingling flux and reflux, will quickly sweep away all minor
+  obstacles to their perfect union. A just settlement of the land
+  question will reconcile the two races, and close the war of seven
+  centuries. <span class="pagenum"><a name="page436" id=
+  "page436"></a>[pg 436]</span> That is the rock against which the
+  two nationalities have rushed in foaming breakers, lashed into
+  fury by the storms of faction and bigotry. Remove the
+  obstruction, and the world would hear no more the roaring of the
+  waters. Then would float peacefully upon the commingling waves
+  the ark of our common constitution, in which there would be
+  neither Saxon nor Celt, neither English nor Irish, neither
+  Protestant nor Catholic, but one united, free, and mighty people.
+  Then might the Emperor of the French mark the epoch with the
+  announcement&mdash;'England has done justice to Ireland!'</p>
+
+  <h4>LONDON: PRINTED BY</h4>
+
+  <h4>SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE</h4>
+
+  <h4>AND PARLIAMENT STREET</h4>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Land-War In Ireland (1870), by James Godkin
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+Project Gutenberg's The Land-War In Ireland (1870), by James Godkin
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Land-War In Ireland (1870)
+       A History For The Times
+
+Author: James Godkin
+
+Release Date: January 2, 2005 [EBook #14562]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAND-WAR IN IRELAND (1870) ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Alison Hadwin and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LAND-WAR IN IRELAND
+
+A HISTORY FOR THE TIMES
+
+
+BY JAMES GODKIN
+
+
+AUTHOR OF 'IRELAND AND HER CHURCHES'
+LATE IRISH CORRESPONDENT OF 'THE TIMES'
+
+
+LONDON MACMILLAN AND CO. 1870
+
+
+LONDON: PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE AND
+PARLIAMENT STREET
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+It would be difficult to name any subject so much discussed during the
+last half century as 'the condition of Ireland.' There was an endless
+diversity of opinion; but in one thing all writers and speakers
+agreed: the condition was morbid. Ireland was always sick, always
+under medical treatment, always subject to enquiries as to the nature
+of her maladies, and the remedies likely to effect a cure. The royal
+commissions and parliamentary committees that sat upon her case were
+innumerable, and their reports would fill a library. Still the nature
+of the disease, or the complication of diseases, was a mystery. Sundry
+'boons' were prescribed, by way of experiment; but, though recommended
+as perfect cures, they did the patient no good. She was either very
+low and weak, or so dangerously strong and violent that she had to be
+put under restraint. Whenever this crisis arrived, she arrested the
+special attention of the state doctors. Consultations were held, and
+it was solemnly determined that something should be done. Another
+effort should be made to discover the _fons malorum_, and dry it up if
+possible.
+
+A diseased nation, subject to paroxysms of insanity, and requiring
+30,000 keepers, was a dangerous neighbour, as well as a serious
+financial burden. Yet many contended that all such attempts were
+useless. It was like trying different kinds of soap to whiten the skin
+of a negro. The patient was incurable. Her ailment was nothing but
+natural perversity, aggravated by religious delusions; and the root
+of her disorder could never be known till she was subjected to a _post
+mortem_ examination, for which it was hoped emigration, and the help
+of improving landlords, would soon afford an opportunity. In the
+meantime, the strait waistcoat must be put on, to keep the patient
+from doing mischief.
+
+But at length a great physician arose, who declared that this state of
+things should not continue; the honour, if not the safety, of
+England demanded that the treatment should be reversed. Mr. Gladstone
+understands the case of Ireland, and he has courage to apply the
+proper remedies. Yet the British public do not understand it so well;
+and he will need all the force of public opinion to sustain him and
+his cabinet in the work of national regeneration which they have
+undertaken. It is not enough for a good physician to examine the
+symptoms of his patient. He must have a full and faithful history
+of the case. He must know how the disease originated, and how it
+was treated. If injuries were inflicted, he must know under what
+circumstances, how they affected the nervous system, and whether there
+may not be surrounding influences which prevent the restoration of
+health, or some nuisance that poisons the atmosphere.
+
+Such a history of the case of Ireland the author has endeavoured
+to give in the following pages. It it is no perfunctory service. He
+resolved to do it years ago, when he finished his work on the Irish
+Church Establishment, and it has been delayed only in consequence of
+illness and other engagements. He does not boast of any extraordinary
+qualifications for the work. But he claims the advantage of having
+studied the subject long and earnestly, as one in which he has been
+interested from his youth. He has written the history of the country
+more or less fully three times. During his thirty years' connexion
+with the press, it has been his duty to examine and discuss everything
+that appeared before the public upon Irish questions, and it has
+always been his habit to bring the light of history to bear upon the
+topics of the day. Twenty years ago he was an active member of the
+Irish Tenant League, which held great county meetings in most parts of
+the island; and was enthusiastically supported by the tenant farmers,
+adopting resolutions and petitions on the land question almost
+identical with those passed by similar meetings at the present time.
+Then Mr. Sharman Crawford was the only landlord who joined in the
+movement; now many of the largest proprietors take their stand on the
+tenant-right platform. And after a generation of sectarian division
+and religious dissension in Ulster, stimulated by the landed gentry,
+for political purposes, the Catholic priests and the Presbyterian
+clergy have again united to advocate the demands of the people for the
+legal protection of their industry and their property.
+
+There is scarcely a county in Ireland which the author of this
+volume has not traversed more than once, having always an eye to the
+condition of the population, their mode of living, and the
+relations of the different classes. During the past year, as special
+commissioner of the _Irish Times_, he went through the greater part of
+Ulster, and portions of the south, in order to ascertain the feelings
+of the farmers and the working classes, on the great question which is
+about to engage the attention of Parliament.
+
+The result of his historical studies and personal enquiries is
+this:--All the maladies of Ireland, which perplex statesmen and
+economists, have arisen from injuries inflicted by England in the wars
+which she waged to get possession of the Irish land. Ireland has been
+irreconcilable, not because she was conquered by England, not
+even because she was persecuted, but because she was robbed of her
+inheritance. If England had done everything she has done against the
+Irish nation, omitting the _confiscations_, the past would have been
+forgotten and condoned long ago, and the two nations would have been
+one people. Even the religious wars resolve themselves into efforts to
+retain the land, or to recover the forfeited estates. And the banished
+chiefs never could have rallied the nation to arms, as they so often
+did against overwhelming odds, if the people had not been involved in
+the ruin of their lords. All that is really important in the history
+of the country for the last three centuries is, the fighting of the
+two nations for the possession of the soil. The Reformation was
+in reality nothing but a special form of the land war. The oath of
+supremacy was simply a lever for evicting the owners of the land. The
+process was simple. The king demanded spiritual allegiance; refusal
+was high treason; the punishment of high treason was forfeiture of
+estates, with death or banishment to the recusants. Any other law they
+might have obeyed, and retained their inheritance. This law fixed
+its iron grapples in the conscience, and made obedience impossible,
+without a degree of baseness that rendered life intolerable.
+Hence Protestantism was detested, not so much as a religion, as an
+instrument of spoliation.
+
+The agrarian wars were kept up from generation to generation, Ireland
+always making desperate efforts to get back her inheritance, but
+always crushed to the earth, a victim of famine and the sword, by the
+power of England.
+
+The history of these wars, then, is the history of the case of the
+Irish patient. Its main facts are embodied in the general history of
+the country. But they have recently been brought out more distinctly
+by authors who have devoted years to the examination of the original
+state papers, in which the actors themselves described their exploits
+and recorded their motives and feelings with startling frankness. When
+a task of this kind has been performed by a capable and conscientious
+historian, it would be a work of supererogation for another enquirer
+to undergo the wearisome toil, even if he could. I have, therefore,
+for the purpose of my argument, freely availed myself of the materials
+given to the public by Mr. Froude, the Rev. C.P. Meehan, and Mr.
+Prendergast, not, however, without asking their permission, which was
+in each case most readily and kindly granted.
+
+The ancient state of Ireland, and especially of Ulster, is so little
+known in England, that I was glad to have the facts vouched for by
+so high an authority as Mr. Froude, and a writer so full of the
+instinctive pride of the dominant nation; the more so as I have often
+been obliged to dissent from his views, and to appeal against his
+judgments. Beguiled by the beauty of his descriptions, I am afraid I
+have drawn too largely on his pages, in proving and illustrating
+my case; but I feel confident that no one will read these extracts
+without more eagerly desiring to possess the volumes of his great work
+from which they are taken.
+
+I have similar acknowledgments to make to Father Meehan and Mr.
+Prendergast, both of whom are preparing new editions of their most
+valuable works. The royal charters, and other documents connected
+with the Plantation of Ulster, are printed in the 'Concise View of the
+Irish Society,' compiled from their records, and published by their
+authority in 1832. Whenever I have been indebted to other writers,
+I have acknowledged my obligation in the course of the work. In
+preparing it, I have had but one object constantly in view: to present
+to the public a careful collection and an impartial statement of facts
+on the state of Ireland, for the right government of which the British
+people are now more than ever responsible. I shall be thankful if my
+labours should contribute in any measure, however humble, to the new
+conquest of Ireland 'by justice' of which Mr. Bright has spoken.
+His language is suggestive. It is late (happily not 'too late') to
+commence the reign of justice. But the nation is not to be despised
+which requires nothing more than _that_ to win its heart, while its
+spirit could not be conquered by centuries of injustice. Nor should it
+be forgotten by the people of England that some atonement is due for
+past wrongs, not the least of which is the vilification and distrust
+from which the Irish people have suffered so much. 'The spirit of a
+man may sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit who can bear?'
+Some manifestation of Christian magnanimity just now would greatly
+help the work of national reconciliation. The time is favourable. The
+Government enjoys the prestige of an unparalleled success. The only
+Prime Minister that ever dared to do full justice to Ireland, is the
+most powerful that England has had for nearly a century. He has in
+his Cabinet the only Chief Secretary of Ireland that ever thoroughly
+sympathised with the nation, not excepting Lord Morpeth; the great
+tribune of the English people, who has been one of the most eloquent
+advocates of Ireland; an Ex-Viceroy who has pronounced it felony
+for the Irish landlords to avail themselves of their legal rights,
+although he put down a rebellion which that felony mainly provoked;
+another Ex-Governor, who was one of the most earnest and conscientious
+that ever filled the viceregal throne, and who returned to Parliament
+to be one of the ablest champions of the country he had ruled so well;
+not to mention other members of commanding ability, who are solemnly
+pledged to the policy of justice. In these facts there is great
+promise. He understands little of 'the signs of the times,' who does
+not see the dangers that hang on the non-fulfilment of this promise.
+
+J.G.
+
+LONDON: _January 20_, 1870.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+   I. INTRODUCTION
+
+  II. THE RULE OF THE O'NEILLS
+
+  III. SHANE O'NEILL, SOVEREIGN OF ULSTER
+
+  IV. EXTERMINATING WARS
+
+  V. AN IRISH CRUSADE
+
+  VI. THE LAST OF THE IRISH PRINCES
+
+  VII. GOVERNMENT APPEALS TO THE PEOPLE
+
+  VIII. THE CASE OF THE FUGITIVE EARLS
+
+  IX. THE CONFISCATION OF ULSTER
+
+  X. THE PLANTATION OF ULSTER
+
+  XI. THE REBELLION OF 1641
+
+  XII. THE PURITAN PLANTATION
+
+  XIII. THE PENAL CODE. A NEW SYSTEM OF LAND WAR
+
+  XIV. ULSTER IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
+
+  XV. POVERTY AND COERCION
+
+  XVI. THE FAMINE
+
+  XVII. TENANT-RIGHT IN ULSTER
+
+  XVIII. TENANT-RIGHT IN DOWN
+
+  XIX. TENANT-RIGHT IN ANTRIM
+
+  XX. TENANT-RIGHT IN ARMAGH
+
+  XXI. FAKNEY--MR. TRENCH'S 'REALITIES'
+
+  XXII. BELFAST AND PERPETUITY
+
+  XXIII. LEASE-BREAKING--GEASHILL
+
+  XXIV. THE LAND SYSTEM AND THE WORKING CLASSES
+
+  XXV. CONCLUSION--AN APPEAL TO ENGLISHMEN
+
+  XVIII. TENANT-RIGHT IN DOWN 313
+
+  XIX. TENANT-RIGHT IN ANTRIM 328
+
+  XX. TENANT-RIGHT IN ARMAGH 346
+
+  XXI. FAKNEY--MR. TRENCH'S 'REALITIES' 356
+
+  XXII. BELFAST AND PERPETUITY 381
+
+  XXIII. LEASE-BREAKING--GEASHILL 387
+
+  XXIV. THE LAND SYSTEM AND THE WORKING CLASSES 401
+
+  XXV. CONCLUSION--AN APPEAL TO ENGLISHMEN 424
+
+
+
+
+THE LAND-WAR IN IRELAND.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+As the hour approaches when the legislature must deal with the Irish
+Land question, and settle it, like the Irish Church question, once
+for all, attempts are redoubled to frighten the public with
+the difficulties of the task. The alarmists conjure up gigantic
+apparitions more formidable than those which encountered Bunyan's
+Pilgrim. Monstrous figures frown along the gloomy avenue that, leads
+up to the Egyptian temple in which the divinity, PROPERTY, dwells in
+mysterious darkness. To enter the sanctuary, we are solemnly
+assured, requires all the cardinal virtues in their highest state of
+development--the firmest faith, the most vivid hope, and the charity
+that never faileth. But this is not the only country that has had a
+land question to settle. Almost every nation in Europe has done for
+itself what England is now palled upon to do for Ireland. In fact,
+it is a necessary process in the transition from feudalism to
+constitutional self-government. Feudalism gave the land to a few whom
+it made princes and lords, having forcibly taken it from the many,
+whom it made subjects and serfs. The land is the natural basis of
+society. The Normans made it the artificial basis of a class. Society
+in nearly every other country has reverted back to its original
+foundations, and so remains firm and strong without dangerous rents or
+fissures. No doubt, the operation is difficult and critical. But what
+has been done once may be done again; and as it was England that kept
+Irish society so long rocking on its smaller end, it is her duty
+now to lend all her strength to help to seat it on its own broad
+foundations. Giving up the Viceroy's dreams that the glorious mission
+of Ireland was to be a kitchen garden, a dairy, a larder for England,
+we must come frankly to the conclusion that the national life of the
+Irish people, without distinction of creed or party, increases
+in vigour with their intelligence, and is now invincible. Let the
+imperial legislature put an end for ever to such an unnatural state of
+things--thus only can they secure the harmonious working and cordial
+Union of the two nations united together in one State--thus only can
+they insure for the landlords themselves all the power and all
+the influence that can be retained by them in consistency with the
+industrial rights and political freedom of the cultivators of the
+soil. These now complain of their abject dependence, and hopeless
+bondage, under grinding injustice. They are alleged to be full of
+discontent, which must grow with the intelligence and manhood of the
+people who writhe under the system. Their advocates affirm that their
+discontent must increase in volume and angry force every year, and
+that, owing to the connection of Ireland with the United States,
+it may at any time be suddenly swollen with the fury of a mountain
+torrent, deeply discoloured by a Republican element.
+
+It must be granted, I fear, that the Celts of Ireland feel pretty much
+as the Britons felt under the ascendency of the Saxons, and as the
+Saxons in their turn felt under the ascendency of the Normans. In
+the estimation of the Christian Britons, their Saxon conquerors,
+even after the conversion of the latter, were 'an accursed race, the
+children of robbers and murderers, possessing the fruits of their
+fathers' crimes.' 'With them,' says Dr. Lingard, 'the Saxon was no
+better than a pagan bearing the name of a Christian. They refused to
+return his salutation, to join in prayer with him in the church, to
+sit with him at the same table, to abide with him under the same roof.
+The remnant of his meals and the food over which he had made the sign
+of the cross they threw to their dogs or swine; the cup out of
+which he had drunk they scoured with sand, as if it had contracted
+defilement from his lips.'
+
+It is not the Celtic memory only that is tenacious of national wrong.
+The Saxon was doomed to drink to the dregs the same bitter cup which
+he administered so unmercifully to the Briton. His Teutonic blood
+saved him from no humiliation or insult. The Normans seized all the
+lands, all the castles, all the pleasant mansions, all the churches
+and monasteries. Even the Saxon saints were flung down out of their
+shrines and trampled in the dust under the iron heel of the Christian
+conqueror. Everything Saxon was vile, and the word 'Englishry' implied
+as much contempt and scorn as the word 'Irishry' in a later age. In
+fact, the subjugated Saxons gradually became infected with all the
+vices and addicted to all the social disorders that prevailed among
+the Irish in the same age; only in Ireland the anarchy endured much
+longer from the incompleteness of the conquest and the absence of the
+seat of supreme government, which kept the races longer separate and
+antagonistic. Perhaps the most humiliating notice of the degrading
+effects of conquest on the noble Saxon race to be found in history,
+is the language in which Giraldus Cambrensis, the reviler of the Irish
+Celt, contrasts them with his countrymen, the Welsh. 'Who dare,'
+he says, 'compare the English, the most degraded of all races under
+heaven, with the Welsh? In their own country they are the serfs,
+the veriest slaves of the Normans. In ours whom else have we for our
+herdsmen, shepherds, cobblers, skinners, cleaners of our dog kennels,
+ay, even of our privies, but Englishmen? Not to mention their original
+treachery to the Britons, that hired by them to defend them they
+turned upon them in spite of their oaths and engagements, they are
+to this day given to treachery and murder.' The lying Saxon was,
+according to this authority, a proverbial expression.
+
+The Saxon writers lamented their miserable subjection in a monotonous
+wail for many generations. So late as the seventeenth century an
+English author speaks in terms of compassion of the disinherited
+and despoiled families who had sunk into the condition of artisans,
+peasants, and paupers. 'This,' says M. Thierry, 'is the last sorrowful
+glance cast back through the mist of ages on that great event which
+established in England a race of kings, nobles, and warriors of
+foreign extraction. The reader must figure to himself, not a mere
+change of political rule, not the triumph of one of two competitors,
+but the intrusion of a nation into the bosom of another people which
+it came to destroy, and the scattered fragments of which it retained
+as an integral portion of the new system of society, in the _status_
+merely of personal property, or, to use the stronger language of
+records and deeds, _a clothing of the soil_. He must not picture to
+himself on the one hand the king and despot; on the other simply his
+subjects, high and low, rich and poor, all inhabiting England, and
+consequently all English. He must bear in mind that there were two
+distinct nations--the old Anglo-Saxon race and the Norman invaders,
+dwelling intermingled on the same soil; or, rather, he might
+contemplate two countries--the one possessed by the Normans, wealthy
+and exonerated from public burdens, the other enslaved and oppressed
+with a land tax--the former full of spacious mansions, of walled
+towns, and moated castles--the latter occupied with thatched cabins,
+and ancient walls in a state of dilapidation. This peopled with
+the happy and the idle, with soldiers, courtiers, knights, and
+nobles--that with miserable men condemned to labour as peasants and
+artisans. On the one side he beholds luxury and insolence, on the
+other poverty and envy--not the envy of the poor at the sight of
+opulence and men born to opulence, but that malignant envy, although
+justice be on its side, which the despoiled cannot but entertain on
+looking upon the spoilers. Lastly, to complete the picture, these two
+countries are in some sort interwoven with each other--they meet
+at every point, and yet they are more distinct, more completely
+separated, than if the ocean rolled between them.'
+
+Does not this picture look very like Ireland? To make it more like,
+let us imagine that the Norman king had lived in Paris, and kept a
+viceroy in London--that the English parliament were subordinate to the
+French parliament, composed exclusively of Normans, and governed by
+Norman undertakers for the benefit of the dominant State--that the
+whole of the English land was held by ten thousand Norman proprietors,
+many of them absentees--that all the offices of the government, in
+every department, were in the hands of Normans--that, differing in
+religion with the English nation, the French, being only a tenth of
+the population, had got possession of all the national churches and
+church property, while the poor natives supported a numerous hierarchy
+by voluntary contributions--that the Anglo-Norman parliament was
+bribed and coerced to abolish itself, forming a union of England with
+France, in which the English members were as one to six. Imagine that
+in consequence of rebellions the land of England had been confiscated
+three or four times, after desolating wars and famines, so that all
+the native proprietors were expelled, and the land was parcelled
+out to French soldiers and adventurers on condition that the foreign
+'planters' should assist in keeping down 'the mere English' by force
+of arms. Imagine that the English, being crushed by a cruel penal
+code for a century, were allowed to reoccupy the soil as mere
+tenants-at-will, under the absolute power of their French landlords.
+If all this be imagined by English legislators and English writers,
+they will be better able to understand the Irish land question, and to
+comprehend the nature of 'Irish difficulties,' as well as the justice
+of feeble, insincere, and baffled statesmen in casting the blame
+of Irish misery and disorder on the unruly and barbarous nature of
+Irishmen. They will recollect that the aristocracy of Ireland are the
+high-spirited descendants of conquerors, with the instinct of conquest
+still in their blood. The parliament which enacted the Irish land laws
+was a parliament composed almost exclusively of men of this dominant
+race. They made all political power dependent on the ownership of
+land, thus creating for themselves a monopoly which it is not in human
+nature to surrender without a struggle.
+
+The possession of this monopoly, however, fully accounts for two
+things--the difficulty which the landlords feel in admitting the
+justice of the tenant's claims for the legal recognition of the value
+which his labour has added to the soil, and the extreme repugnance
+with which they regard any legislation on the subject. Besides,
+the want of sympathy with the people, of earnestness and courage in
+meeting the realities of the case, is conspicuous in all attempts
+of the kind during the last half-century. Those attempts have been
+evasive, feeble, abortive--concessions to the demand that _something_
+must be done, but so managed that nothing should be done to weaken the
+power of the eight thousand proprietors over the mass of the nation
+dependent on the land for their existence. Hence has arisen a great
+amount of jealousy, distrust, and irritability in the landlord class
+towards the tenantry and their advocates.
+
+The Irish race, to adopt Thierry's language, are full of 'malignant
+envy' towards the lords of the soil; not because they are rich, but
+because they have the people so completely in their power, so entirely
+at their mercy for all that man holds most dear. The tenants feel
+bitterly when they think that they have no legal right to live on
+their native land. They have read the history of our dreadful civil
+wars, famines, and confiscations. They know that by the old law of
+Ireland, and by custom from times far beyond the reach of authentic
+history, the clans and tribes of the Celtic people occupied certain
+districts with which their names are still associated, and that the
+land was inalienably theirs. Rent or tribute they paid, indeed, to
+their princes, and if they failed the chiefs came with armed followers
+and helped themselves, driving away cows, sheep, and horses sufficient
+to meet their demand, or more if they were unscrupulous, which was
+'distress' with a vengeance. But the eviction of the people even for
+non-payment of rent, and putting other people in their place, were
+things never heard of among the Irish under their own rulers. The
+chief had his own mensal lands, as well as his tribute, and these he
+might forfeit. But as the clansmen could not control his acts, they
+could never see the justice of being punished for his misdeeds by
+the confiscation of their lands, and driven from the homes of their
+ancestors often made doubly sacred by religious associations.
+
+History, moreover, teaches them that, as a matter of fact, the
+government in the reign of James I.--and James himself in repeated
+proclamations--assured the people who occupied the lands of O'Neill
+and O'Donnell at the time of their flight that they would be protected
+in all their rights if they remained quiet and loyal, which they
+did. Yet they were nearly all removed to make way for the English and
+Scotch settlers.
+
+Thus, historical investigators have been digging around the
+foundations of Irish landlordism. They declare that those foundations
+were cemented with blood, and they point to the many wounds still open
+from which that blood issued so profusely. The facts of the conquest
+and confiscation were hinted at by the Devon Commissioners as
+accounting for the peculiar difficulties of the Irish land question,
+and writers on it timidly allude to 'the historic past' as originating
+influences still powerful in alienating landlords and tenants, and
+fostering mutual distrust between them. But the time for evasion and
+timidity has passed. We must now honestly and courageously face
+the stern realities of this case. Among these realities is a firm
+conviction in the minds of many landlords that they are in no sense
+trustees for the community, but that they have an absolute power over
+their estates--that they can, if they like, strip the land clean of
+its human clothing, and clothe it with sheep or cattle instead, or lay
+it bare and desolate, let it lapse into a wilderness, or sow it with
+salt. That is in reality the terrific power secured to them by the
+present land code, to be executed through the Queen's writ and by the
+Queen's troops--a power which could not stand a day if England did not
+sustain it by overwhelming military force.
+
+Another of the realities of the question is the no less inveterate
+conviction in the tenants' mind that the absolute power of the
+landlord was originally a usurpation effected by the sword. Right or
+wrong, they believe that the confiscations were the palpable violation
+of the natural rights of the people whom Providence placed in this
+country. With bitter emphasis they assert that no set of men has any
+divine right to root a nation out of its own land. Painful as this
+state of feeling is, there is no use in denying that it exists. Here,
+then, is the deep radical difference that is to be removed. Here are
+the two conflicting forces which are to be reconciled. This is the
+real Irish land question. All other points are minor and of easy
+adjustment. The people say, and, I believe, sincerely, that they are
+willing to pay a fair rent, according to a public valuation--not a
+rent imposed arbitrarily by one of the interested parties, which
+might be raised so as to ruin the occupier. The feelings of these two
+parties often clash so violently, there is such instinctive distrust
+between them, the peace and prosperity of the country depend so much
+on their coming to terms and putting an end to their long-standing
+feud, that it is still more imperatively necessary than in the
+Church question, that a third party, independent, impartial, and
+authoritative, should intervene and heal the breach.
+
+There was one phrase constantly ringing in the ears of the Devon
+Commissioners, and now, after nearly a generation has passed away, it
+is ringing in the ears of the nation louder than ever--'_the want
+of tenure_.' All the evidence went to show that the want of security
+paralysed industry and impeded social progress. It seems strange that
+any evidence should be thought necesary to prove that a man will not
+sow if he does not hope to reap, and that he will not build houses for
+strangers to enjoy. This would be taken as an axiom anywhere out of
+Ireland. Of all the people in Europe, the Irish have suffered most
+from the oppression of those who, from age to age, had power in the
+country. Whoever fought or conquered, they were always the victims;
+and it is a singular fact that their sufferings are scarcely ever
+noticed by the contemporary annalists, even when those annalists
+were ecclesiastics. The extent to which they were slaughtered in the
+perpetual wars between the native chiefs, and in the wars between
+those chiefs and the English, is something awful to contemplate, not
+to speak of the wholesale destruction of life by the famines which
+those wars entailed. On several occasions the Celtic race seemed very
+nearly extinct. The penal code, with all its malign influence, had one
+good effect. It subdued to a great extent the fighting propensities
+of the people, and fused the clans into one nation, purified by
+suffering. Since that time, in spite of occasional visitations of
+calamity, they have been steadily rising in the social scale, and they
+are now better off than ever they were in their whole history. When
+we review the stages by which they have risen, we cannot but feel at
+times grieved and indignant at the opportunities for tranquillising
+and enriching the country which were lost through the ignorance,
+apathy, bigotry, and selfishness of the legislature. There was no end
+of commissions and select committees to inquire into the condition
+of the agricultural population, whenever Parliament was roused by the
+prevalence of agrarian outrages. They reported, and there the matter
+ended. There were always insuperable difficulties when the natives
+were to be put in a better position. Between 1810 and 1814, for
+example, a commission reported four times on the condition of
+the Irish bogs. They expressed their entire conviction of the
+practicability of cultivating with profit an immense extent of land
+lying waste. In 1819, in 1823, in 1826, and in 1830, select committees
+inquired into and reported on drainage, reclamation of bogs and
+marshes, on roads, fisheries, emigration, and other schemes for giving
+employment to the redundant population that had been encouraged to
+increase and multiply in the most reckless manner, while 'war
+prices' were obtained for agricultural produce, and the votes of the
+forty-shilling freeholders were wanted by the landlords. When, by the
+Emancipation Act in 1829, the forty-shilling franchise was abolished,
+the peasant lost his political value. After the war, when the price of
+corn fell very low, and, consequently, tillage gave place to grazing,
+labourers became to the middleman an encumbrance and a nuisance that
+must be cleared off the land, just as weeds are plucked up and flung
+out to wither on the highway. Then came Lord Devon's Land Commission,
+which inquired on the eve of the potato failure and the great famine.
+The Irish population was now at its highest figure--between eight and
+nine millions. Yet, though there had been three bad seasons, it was
+clearly proved at that time that by measures which a wise and willing
+legislature would have promptly passed, the whole surplus population
+could have been profitably employed.
+
+In this great land controversy, on which side lies the truth? Is it
+the fault of the people, or the fault of the law, that the country is
+but half cultivated, while the best of the peasantry are emigrating
+with hostile feelings and purposes of vengeance towards England? As
+to the landlords, as a class, they use their powers with as much
+moderation and mercy as any other class of men in any country ever
+used power so vast and so little restrained. The best and most
+indulgent landlords, the most genial and generous, are unquestionably
+the old nobility, the descendants of the Normans and Saxons, those
+very conquerors of whom we have heard so much. The worst, the most
+harsh and exacting, are those who have purchased under the Landed
+Estates Court--strangers to the people, who think only of the
+percentage on their capital. We had heard much of the necessity of
+capital to develope the resources of the land. The capital came,
+but the development consists in turning tillage lands into pasture,
+clearing out the labouring population and sending them to the
+poorhouse, or shipping them off at a few pounds per head to keep down
+the rates. And yet is it not possible to set all our peasantry to work
+at the profitable cultivation of their native land? Is it not possible
+to establish by law what many landlords act upon as the rule of their
+estates--namely, the principle that no man is to be evicted so long as
+he pays a fair rent, and the other principle, that whenever he fails,
+he is entitled to the market value by public sale of all the property
+in his holding beyond that fair rent? The hereditary principle,
+rightly cherished among the landlords, so conservative in its
+influence, ought to be equally encouraged among the tenants. The man
+of industry, as well as the man of rank, should be able to feel that
+he is providing for his children, that his farm is at once a bank and
+an insurance office, in which all his minute daily deposits of toil
+and care and skill will be safe and productive. This is the way to
+enrich and strengthen the State, and to multiply guarantees against
+revolution--not by consolidation of farms and the abandonment of
+tillage, not by degrading small holders into day labourers, levelling
+the cottages and filling the workhouses.
+
+If the legislature were guided by the spirit that animates Lord Erne
+in his dealings with his tenantry, the land question would soon
+be settled to the satisfaction of all parties. 'I think,' said his
+lordship, 'as far as possible, every tenant on my estate may call his
+farm his castle, as long as he conducts himself honestly, quietly, and
+industriously; and, should he wish to leave in order to find a better
+landlord, I allow him to sell his farm, provided he pleases me in a
+tenant. Therefore, if a man lays out money on his farm judiciously, he
+is certain to receive back the money, should he wish to go elsewhere.'
+He mentioned three cases of sale which occurred last year. One tenant
+sold a farm of seventy acres in bad order for 570 l., another thirty
+acres for 300 l., and a third the same number of acres in worse
+condition for 200 l. The landlord lost nothing by these changes. His
+rent was paid up, and in each case he got a good tenant for a bad one.
+Lord Erne is a just man, and puts on no more than a fair rent. But
+all landlords are not just, as all tenants are not honest. Even where
+tenant-right is admitted in name, it is obvious that the rent may be
+raised so high as to make the farm worth nothing in the market. To
+give to the tenant throughout the country generally the pleasant
+feeling that his farm is his castle, which he can make worth more
+money every day he rises, there must be a public letting valuation,
+and this the State could easily provide. And then there should be the
+right of sale to the highest solvent bidder.
+
+This might be one way of securing permanent tenure, or stimulating the
+industry and sustaining the thrift of the farmer. But the nature
+of the different tenures, and the effect of each in bracing up or
+relaxing the nerves of industry, will be the object of deliberation
+with the Government and the legislature. It is said that, in the hands
+of small farmers, proprietorship leads to endless subdivision; that
+long leases generally cause bad husbandry; that tenants-at-will often
+feel themselves more secure and safe than a contract could make them;
+that families have lived on the same farm for generations without a
+scrape of a pen except the receipt for rent. On the other hand, there
+is the general cry of 'want of tenure;' there is the custom of serving
+notices to quit, sometimes for other reasons than non-payment of rent;
+there are occasional barbarities in the levelling of villages, and
+dragging the aged and the sick from the old roof-tree, the parting
+from which rends their heart-strings; and, above all, there is the
+feeling among the peasantry which makes them look without horror on
+the murder of a landlord or an agent who was a kind and benevolent
+neighbour; and, lastly, the paramount consideration for the
+legislature, that a large portion of the people are disaffected to
+the State, and ready to join its enemies, and this almost solely on
+account of the state of the law relating to land. Hence the necessity
+of settling the question as speedily as possible, and the duty of all
+who have the means to contribute something towards that most desirable
+consummation, which seems to be all that is wanted to make Irishmen of
+every class work together earnestly for the welfare of their country.
+It is admitted that no class of men in the world has improved more
+than the Irish landlords during the last twenty years. Let the
+legislature restore confidence between them and the people by taking
+away all ground for the suspicion that they wish to extirpate the
+Celtic race.
+
+Nor was this suspicion without cause, as the following history will
+too clearly prove. A very able English writer has said: 'The policy
+of all the successive swarms of settlers was to extirpate the native
+Celtic race, but every effort made to break up the old framework
+of society failed, for the new-comers soon became blended with and
+undistinguishable from the mass of the people--being obliged to ally
+themselves with the native chieftains, rather than live hemmed in by a
+fiery ring of angry septs and exposed to perpetual war with everything
+around them. Merged in the great Celtic mass, they adopted Irish
+manners and names, yet proscribed and insulted the native inhabitants
+as an inferior race. Everything liberal towards them is intercepted in
+its progress.
+
+'The past history of Ulster is but a portion of Scottish history
+inserted into that of Ireland--a stone in the Irish mosaic of an
+entirely different quality and colour from the pieces that surround
+it.
+
+'Thus it came to pass that, through the confiscation of their lands
+and the proscription of their religion, popery was worked by a most
+vehement process into the blood and brain of the Irish nation.'
+
+It has been often said that the Irish must be an inferior race, since
+they allowed themselves to be subjugated by some thousands of English
+invaders. But it should be recollected, first, that the conquest,
+commenced by Henry II. in the twelfth century, was not completed till
+the seventeenth century, when the King's writ ran for the first time
+through the province of Ulster, the ancient kingdom of the O'Neills;
+in the second place, the weakness of the Celtic communities was not so
+much the fault of the men as of their institutions, brought with them
+from the East and clung to with wonderful tenacity. So long as they
+had boundless territory for their flocks and herds, and could always
+move on 'to pastures new,' they increased and multiplied, and allowed
+the sword and the battle-axe to rest, unless when a newly elected
+chief found it necessary to give his followers 'a hosting'--which
+means an expedition for plunder. Down to the seventeenth century,
+after five hundred years' contact with the Teutonic race, they were
+essentially the same people as they were when the ancient Greeks
+and Romans knew them. They are thus described by Dr. Mommsen in his
+'History of Rome:'--'Such qualities--those of good soldiers and of bad
+citizens--explain the historical fact that the Celts have shaken all
+States and have _founded none_. Everywhere we find them ready to rove,
+or, in other words, to march, preferring movable property to landed
+estate, and gold to everything else; following the profession of arms
+as a system of organised pillage, or even as a trade for hire, and
+with such success that even the Roman historian, Sallust, acknowledges
+that the Celts bore off the prize from the Romans in feats of arms.
+They were the true 'soldiers of fortune' of antiquity, as pictures and
+descriptions represent them, with big but sinewy bodies, with shaggy
+hair and long moustaches--quite a contrast to the Greeks and Romans,
+who shaved the upper lip--in the variegated embroidered dresses which
+in combat were not unfrequently thrown off, with a broad gold ring
+round their neck, wearing no helmets and without missile weapons
+of any sort, but furnished instead with an immense shield, a long
+ill-tempered sword, a dagger and a lance, all ornamented with gold,
+for they were not unskilful in working in metals. Everything was made
+subservient to ostentation--even wounds, which were often enlarged for
+the purpose of boasting a broader scar. Usually they fought on foot,
+but certain tribes on horseback, in which case every free man was
+followed by two attendants, likewise mounted. War-chariots were early
+in use, as they were among the Libyans and Hellenes in the earliest
+times. Many a trait reminds us of the chivalry of the middle ages,
+particularly the custom of single combat, which was foreign to the
+Greeks and Romans. Not only were they accustomed in war to challenge
+a single enemy to fight, after having previously insulted him by words
+and gestures; in peace also they fought with each other in splendid
+equipments, as for life or death. After such feats carousals followed
+in due course. In this way they led, whether under their own or
+a foreign banner, a restless soldier life, constantly occupied in
+fighting and in their so-called feats of heroism. They were dispersed
+from _Ireland_ and Spain to Asia Minor, but all their enterprises
+melted away like snow in spring, and they nowhere created a great
+state or developed a distinctive culture of their own.' Such were
+the people who once almost terminated the existence of Rome, and were
+afterwards with difficulty repulsed from Greece, who became masters of
+the most fertile part of Italy and of a fair province in the heart
+of Asia Minor, who, after their Italian province had been subdued,
+inflicted disastrous blows on successive Roman generals, and were only
+at last subjugated by Caesar himself in nine critical and sometimes
+most dangerous campaigns, B.C. 51.
+
+Niebuhr observes that at that time the form of government was
+everywhere an hereditary monarchy, which, when Caesar went into Gaul,
+had been swallowed up, as had the authority of the Senate, in the
+anarchy of the nobles. Their freedom was lawlessness; an inherent
+incapacity of living under the dominion of laws distinguishes them as
+barbarians from the Greeks and Italians. As individuals had to procure
+the protection of some magnate in order to live in safety, so the
+weaker tribes took shelter under the patronage of a more powerful one.
+For they were a disjointed multitude; and when any people had in
+this manner acquired an extensive sovereignty, they exercised it
+arbitrarily until its abuses became intolerable, or their subjects
+were urged by blind hatred of their power to fall off from them, and
+gather round some new centre. The sole bond of union was the Druidical
+hierarchy which, at least in Caesar's time, was common to both nations.
+Both of them paid obedience to its tribunal, which administered
+justice once a year--an institution which probably was not introduced
+till long after the age of migrations, when the expulsion of the
+vanquished had ceased to be regarded as the end of war, and which must
+have been fostered by the constant growth of lawlessness in particular
+states--being upheld by the _ban_, which excluded the contumacious
+from all intercourse in divine worship and in daily life with the
+faithful. The huge bodies, wild features, and long shaggy hair of the
+men, gave a ghastliness to their aspect. This, along with their fierce
+courage, their countless numbers, and the noise made by an enormous
+multitude of horns and trumpets, struck the armies arrayed against
+them with fear and amazement. If these, however, did not allow
+their terror to overpower them, the want of order, discipline, and
+perseverance would often enable an inferior number to vanquish a vast
+host of the barbarians. Besides, they were but ill equipped. Few of
+them wore any armour; their narrow shields, which were of the same
+height with their bodies, were weak and clumsy; they rushed upon their
+enemies with broad thin battle-swords of bad steel, which the first
+blow upon iron often notched and rendered useless. Like true savages,
+they destroyed the inhabitants, the towns, and the agriculture of the
+countries they conquered. They cut off the heads of the slain,
+and tied them by the hair to the manes of their horses. If a skull
+belonged to a person of rank, they nailed it up in their houses and
+preserved it as an heirloom for their posterity, as the nobles in rude
+ages do stag-horns. Towns were rare amongst them; the houses and
+the villages, which were very numerous, were mean, the furniture
+wretched--a heap of straw covered with skins served both for a bed
+and a seat. They did not cultivate corn save for a very limited
+consumption, for the main part of their food was the milk and the
+flesh of their cattle. These formed their wealth. Gold, too, they
+had in abundance, derived partly from the sandy beds of their rivers,
+partly from some mines which these had led them to discover. It was
+worn in ornaments by every Gaul of rank. In battle he bore gold chains
+on his arms and heavy gold collars round his neck, even when the upper
+part of his body was in other respects quite naked. For they often
+threw off their parti-coloured chequered cloaks, which shone with
+all the hues of the rainbow, like the picturesque dress of their
+kinspeople the Highlanders, who have laid aside the trousers of the
+ancient Gauls. Their duels and gross revels are an image of the rudest
+part of the middle ages. Their debauches were mostly committed with
+beer and mead; for vines and all the plants of southern regions were
+as yet total strangers to the north of the Alps, where the climate in
+those ages was extremely severe; so that wine was rare, though of all
+the commodities imported it was the most greedily bought up.
+
+Ulster was known in ancient times as one of the five Irish 'kingdoms,'
+and remained unconquered by the English till the reign of James I.,
+when the last prince of the great house of O'Neill, then Earl of
+Tyrone, fled to the Continent in company with O'Donel, Earl of
+Tyrconnel, head of another very ancient sept. Up to that period the
+men of Ulster proudly regarded themselves as 'Irish of the Irish and
+Catholic of the Catholics.' The inhabitants were of mixed blood, but,
+as in the other provinces of the island, the great mass of the people,
+as well as the ruling classes, were of Celtic origin. Those whom
+ethnologists still recognise as aborigines, in parts of Connaught
+and in some mountainous regions, an inferior race, are said to be
+the descendants of the Firbolgs, or Belgae, who formed the third
+immigration. They were followed and subdued by the Tuatha de
+Danans--men famed for their gigantic power and supernatural skill--a
+race of demigods, who still live in the national superstitions. The
+last of the ancient invasions was by the Gael or Celt, known as the
+Milesians and Scoti. The institutions and customs of this people were
+established over the whole island, and were so deeply rooted in the
+soil that their remnants to this day present the greatest obstacles
+to the settlement of the land question according to the English model,
+and on the principles of political economy, which run directly counter
+to Irish instincts. It is truly wonderful how distinctly the present
+descendants of this race preserve the leading features of their
+primitive character. In France and England the Celtic character was
+moulded by the power and discipline of the Roman Empire. To Ireland
+this modifying influence never extended; and we find the Ulster chiefs
+who fought for their territories with English viceroys 280 years ago
+very little different from the men who followed Brennus to the sack
+of Home, and encountered the legions of Julius Caesar on the plains of
+Gaul.
+
+Mr. Prendergast observes, in the introduction to his 'Cromwellian
+Settlement' that when the companions of Strongbow landed in the reign
+of Henry II. they found a country such as Caesar had found in Gaul
+1200 years before. A thousand years had passed over the island without
+producing the slightest social progress--'the inhabitants divided
+into tribes on the system of the clansmen and chiefs, without a common
+Government, suddenly confederating, suddenly dissolving, with Brehons,
+Shaunahs, minstrels, bards, and harpers, in all unchanged, except that
+for their ancient Druids they had got Christian priests. Had the
+Irish remained honest pagans, Ireland perhaps had remained unconquered
+still. Round the coast strangers had built seaport towns, either
+traders from the Carthaginian settlements in Spain, or outcasts from
+their own country, like the Greeks that built Marseilles. At the time
+of the arrival of the French and Flemish adventurers from Wales, they
+were occupied by a mixed Danish and French population, who supplied
+the Irish with groceries, including the wines of Poitou, the latter in
+such abundance that they had no need of vineyards.'
+
+If vineyards had been needed, we may be sure they would not have been
+planted, for the Irish Celts planted nothing. Neither did they build,
+except in the simplest and rudest way, improving their architecture
+from age to age no more than the beaver or the bee. Mr. Prendergast
+is an able, honest, and frank writer; yet there is something amusingly
+Celtic in the flourish with which he excuses the style of palaces in
+which the Irish princes delighted to dwell. 'Unlike England,' he says,
+'then covered with castles on the heights, where the French gentlemen
+secured themselves and their families against the hatred of the churls
+and villains, as the English peasantry were called, the dwellings
+of the Irish chiefs were of wattles or clay. It is for robbers and
+foreigners to take to rocks and precipices for security; for native
+rulers, there is no such fortress _as justice and humanity_.' This
+is very fine, but surely Mr. Prendergast cannot mean that the Irish
+chiefs were distinguished by their justice and humanity. The following
+touch is still grander:--'The Irish, like the wealthiest and highest
+of the present day, loved detached houses surrounded by fields and
+woods. Towns and their walls they looked upon as tombs or sepulchres,
+&c.' As to fields, there were none, because the Irish never made
+fences, their patches of cultivated land being divided by narrow
+strips of green sod. Besides, they lived in villages, which were
+certainly surrounded by woods, because the woods were everywhere,
+and they furnished the inhabitants with fuel and shelter, as well as
+materials for building their huts.
+
+But further on this able author expresses himself much more in
+accordance with the truth of history, when he states that the 'Irish
+enemy' was no _nation_ in the modern sense of the word, but a race
+divided into many nations or tribes, _separately_ defending their
+lands from the English barons in the immediate neighbourhood.
+There had been no ancient national government displaced, no dynasty
+overthrown; the Irish had _no national flag_, nor any capital city as
+the metropolis of their common country, nor any common administration
+of law.' He might have added that they had no _mint_. There never was
+an Irish king who had his face stamped on a coin of his realm. Some
+stray pieces of money found their way into the country from abroad,
+but up to the close of the sixteenth century the rudest form of barter
+prevailed in Ulster, and accounts were paid not in coins but in cows.
+Even the mechanical arts which had flourished in the country before
+the arrival of the Celts had gradually perished, and had disappeared
+at the time of the English invasion. Any handy men could build a house
+of mud and wattles. Masons, carpenters, smiths, painters, glaziers,
+&c., were not wanted by a people who despised stone buildings as
+prisons, and abhorred walled towns as sepulchres. Spinning and weaving
+were arts cultivated by the women, each household providing materials
+for clothing, which was little used in warm weather, and thrown off
+when fighting or any other serious work was to be done.
+
+I should be sorry to disparage the Celtic race, or any other race, by
+exaggerating their bad qualities or suppressing any reliable testimony
+to their merits. But with me the truth of history is sacred. Both
+sides of every case should be fairly stated. Nothing can be gained by
+striving to hide facts which may be known to every person who takes
+the trouble to study the subject. I write in the interest of the
+people--of the toiling masses; and I find that they were oppressed and
+degraded by the ruling classes long before the Norman invader took
+the place of the Celtic chief. And it is a curious fact that when the
+Cromwellians turned the Catholic population out of their homes and
+drove them into Connaught, they were but following the example set
+them by the Milesian lords of the soil centuries before.
+
+The late Mr. Darcy Magee, a real lover of his country, in his Irish
+history points out this fact. The Normans found the population divided
+into two great classes--the free tribes, chiefly if not exclusively
+Celtic, and the unfree tribes, consisting of the descendants of the
+subjugated races, or of clans once free, reduced to servitude by the
+sword, and the offspring of foreign mercenary soldiers. 'The unfree
+tribes,' says Mr. Darcy Magee, 'have left no history. Under the
+despotism of the Milesian kings, it was high treason to record the
+actions of the conquered race, so that the Irish Belgae fared as badly
+in this respect at the hands of the Milesian historians as the latter
+fared in after times from the chroniclers of the Normans. We only know
+that such tribes were, and that their numbers and physical force more
+than once excited the apprehension of the children of the conquerors.
+One thing is certain--the jealous policy of the superior race never
+permitted them to reascend the plane of equality from which they had
+been hurled at the very commencement of the Milesian ascendency.'
+
+Mr. Haverty, another Catholic historian, learned, accurate, and
+candid, laments the oppression of the people by their native rulers.
+'Those who boasted descent from the Scytho-Spanish hero would have
+considered themselves degraded were they to devote themselves to
+any less honourable profession than those of soldiers, _ollavs_, or
+physicians; and hence the cultivation of the soil and the exercise of
+the mechanic arts were left almost exclusively to the _Firbolgs_ and
+the _Tuatha-de-Danans_--the former people, in particular, being still
+very numerous, and forming the great mass of the population in
+the west. These were ground down by high rents and the exorbitant
+exactions of the dominant race, _in order to support their unbounded
+hospitality_ and defray the expenses of costly assemblies; but this
+oppression must have caused perpetual discontent, and the hard-working
+plebeians, as they were called, easily perceived that their masters
+were running headlong to destruction, and that it only required a bold
+effort to shake off their yoke.' Then follows an account of a civil
+war, one of the leaders of the revolution being elected king at its
+termination. Carbry reigned five years, during which time there was no
+rule or order, and the country was a prey to every misfortune. 'Evil
+was the state of Ireland during his reign; fruitless her corn, for
+there used to be but one grain on the stalk; and fruitless her rivers;
+her cattle without milk; her fruit without plenty, for there used to
+be but one acorn on the oak.'
+
+Dr. Lynch, author of _Cambrensis Eversus_, expresses his astonishment
+at the great number of ancient Irish kings, most of whom were cut off
+by a violent death, each hewing his way to the throne over the body
+of his predecessor. But upon applying his mind to the more profound
+consideration of the matter, he found nothing more wonderful in
+the phenomenon 'than that the human family should proceed from one
+man--the overflowing harvest from a few grains of seed, &c.' His
+learned translator, the Rev. Matthew Kelly, of Maynooth, sees proof
+of amendment in the fact that between 722 and 1022 twelve Irish kings
+died a natural death. This candid and judicious writer observes in
+a note--'It appears from the Irish and English annals that there
+was perpetual war in Ireland during more than 400 years after the
+invasion. It could not be called a war of races, except perhaps during
+the first century, for English and Irish are constantly found fighting
+under the same banner, according to the varying interests of the rival
+lords and princes of both nations. This was the case even from the
+commencement.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Vol. i. p.216.]
+
+Many persons have wondered at the success of small bands of English
+invaders. Why did not the Irish nation rise _en masse_, and drive them
+into the sea? The answer is easy. There was no Irish nation. About
+half a million of people were scattered over the island in villages,
+divided into tribes generally at war with one another, each chief
+ready to accept foreign aid against his adversary--some, perhaps,
+hoping thereby to attain supremacy in their clans, and others, who
+were pretenders, burning to be avenged of those who had supplanted
+them. It was religion that first gave the Irish race a common cause.
+In the very year of the English invasion (1171) there were no fewer
+than twenty predatory excursions or battles among the Irish chiefs
+themselves, exclusive of contests with the invaders. Hence the Pope
+said--'_Gens se interimit mutua caede_.' The Pope was right.
+
+The clergy exerted themselves to the utmost in trying to exorcise the
+demon of destruction and to arrest the work of extermination. Not only
+the _Bashall Isa_, or 'the staff of Jesus,' but many other relics were
+used with the most solemn rites, to impress the people with a sense
+of the wickedness of their clan-fights, and to induce them to keep the
+peace, but in vain. The King of Connaught once broke a truce entered
+into under every possible sanction of this kind, trampling upon all,
+that he might get the King of Meath into his clutches. Hence the Rev.
+Mr. Kelly is constrained to say--'It is now generally admitted by
+Catholic writers that however great the efforts of the Irish clergy to
+reform their distracted country in the eleventh and twelfth centuries,
+the picture of anarchy drawn by Pope Adrian is hardly overcharged.'
+Indeed, some Catholic writers have confessed that the anarchy would
+never have been terminated except by foreign conquest establishing a
+strong central government. This, however, was not accomplished
+till after a struggle of centuries, during which, except in brief
+intervals, when a strong prince was able to protect his people, the
+national demoralisation grew worse and worse. An Oxford priest,
+who kept a school at Limerick, writing so late as 1566 of the Irish
+nobles, says--'Of late they spare neither churches nor hallowed
+places, but thence also they fill their hands with spoil--yea, and
+sometimes they set them on fire and kill the men that there lie
+hidden.'
+
+Mr. Froude, following the Irish MSS. in the Rolls House, has presented
+graphic pictures of the disorders of the Irishry in the reign of Queen
+Mary. 'The English garrison,' he says, 'harassed and pillaged the
+farmers of Meath and Dublin; the chiefs made forays upon each other,
+killing, robbing, and burning. When the war broke out between England
+and France, there were the usual conspiracies and uprisings of
+nationality; the young Earl of Kildare, in reward to the Queen who
+had restored him to his rank, appearing as the natural leader of
+the patriots. Ireland was thus happy in the gratification of all its
+natural tendencies. The Brehon law readvanced upon the narrow limits
+to which, by the exertions of Henry VIII., the circuits of the
+judges had been extended. And with the Brehon law came anarchy as its
+inseparable attendant.'
+
+The correctness of this view is too well attested by the records
+which the learned historian brings to light, adopting the quaint
+and expressive phraseology of the old writers whom he quotes. For
+example:--
+
+'The lords and gentiles of the Irish Pale that were not governed under
+the Queen's laws were compelled to keep and maintain a great number
+of idle men of war to rule their people at home, and exact from their
+neighbours abroad--working everyone his own wilful will for a law--to
+the spoil of his country, and decay and waste of the common weal of
+the same. The idle men of war ate up altogether; the lord and his men
+took what they pleased, destroying their tenants, and themselves never
+the better. The common people, having nothing left to lose, became as
+idle and careless in their behaviour as the rest, stealing by day and
+robbing by night. Yet it was a state of things which they seemed all
+equally to enjoy, and high and low alike were always ready to bury
+their own quarrels, to join against the Queen and the English.'
+
+At the time when the crown passed to Elizabeth the qualities of the
+people were thus described by a correspondent of the council, who
+presents the English view of the Irishry at that time:--
+
+'The appearance and outward behaviour of the Irish showeth them to be
+fruits of no good tree, for they exercise no virtue and refrain and
+forbear from no vice, but think it lawful to do every man what him
+listeth. They neither love nor dread God, nor yet hate the devil. They
+are worshippers of images and open idolaters. Their common oath they
+swear is by books, bells, and other ornaments which they do use as
+holy religion. Their chief and solemnest oath is by their lord or
+master's hand, which whoso forsweareth is sure to pay a fine or
+sustain a worse turn. The Sabbath-day they rest from all honest
+exercises, and the week days they are not idle, but worse occupied.
+They do not honour their father and mother as much as they do
+reverence strangers. For every murder that they commit they do not so
+soon repent, for whose blood they once shed, they lightly never cease
+killing all that name. They do not so commonly commit adultery; not
+for that they profess or keep chastity, but for that they seldom or
+never marry, and therefore few of them are lawful heirs, by the law of
+the realm, to the lands they possess. They steal but from the strong,
+and take by violence from the poor and weak. They know not so well who
+is their neighbour as who they favour; with him they will witness in
+right and wrong. They covet not their neighbours' good, but command
+all that is their neighbours' as their own. Thus they live and die,
+and there is none to teach them better. There are no ministers.
+Ministers will not take pains where there is no living to be had,
+neither church nor parish, but all decayed. People will not come to
+inhabit where there is no defence of law.'
+
+After six years of _discipline and improvement_ Sir Henry Sidney, in
+1566, described the state of the four shires, the Irish inhabitants,
+and the English garrison, in the following terms:--'The _English Pale_
+is overwhelmed with vagabonds--stealth and spoil daily carried out of
+it--the people miserable--not two gentlemen in the whole of it able
+to lend 20 l. They have neither horse nor armour, nor apparel, nor
+victual. The soldiers be so beggerlike as it would abhor a general to
+look on them; yet so insolent as to be intolerable to the people, so
+rooted in idleness as there is no hope by correction to amend them,
+yet so allied with the Irish, I dare not trust them in a forte, or in
+any dangerous service.'
+
+A sort of 'special correspondent' or 'commissioner,' as we should call
+him now, furnished to Cecil a detailed account of the social condition
+of the people, which of course he viewed with English eyes. He found
+existing among them a general organisation wherever the Irish language
+was spoken--the remnants of a civilisation very ancient, but now fast
+tending to ruin. Next to the chiefs were the priesthood, and after
+them came a kind of intellectual hierarchy, consisting of four classes
+of spiritual leaders and teachers, which were thus described. The
+first was called the Brehon, or the judge. These judges took
+'pawns' of both the parties, and then judged according to their own
+discretion. Their property was neutral, and the Irishmen would not
+prey upon them. They had great plenty of cattle, and they harboured
+many vagabonds and idle persons. They were the chief maintainers of
+rebels, but when the English army came to their neighbourhood they
+fled to the mountains and woods 'because they would not succour
+them with victuals and other necessaries.' The next sort was called
+_Shankee_, who had also great plenty of cattle wherewith they
+succoured the rebels. They made the ignorant men of the country
+believe that they were descended from Alexander the Great, or Darius,
+or Caesar, 'or some other notable prince, which made the ignorant
+people run mad, and care not what they did.' This, the correspondent
+remarked, 'was very hurtful to the realm.' Not less hurtful were the
+third sort called _Denisdan_, who not only maintained the rebels,
+but caused those that would be true to become rebellious--'thieves,
+extortioners, murderers, raveners, yea, and worse if it was possible.'
+These seem to have been the historians or chroniclers of the tribe.
+If they saw a young man, the descendant of an O' or a Mac, with half a
+dozen followers, they forthwith made a rhyme about his father and his
+ancestors, numbering how many heads they had cut off, how many towns
+they had burned, how many virgins they had deflowered, how many
+notable murders they had done, comparing them to Hannibal, or Scipio,
+or Hercules, or some other famous person--'wherewithal the poor fool
+runs mad, and thinks indeed it is so.' Then he will gather a lot of
+rascals about him, and get a fortune-teller to prophesy how he is to
+speed. After these preliminaries he betakes himself with his followers
+at night to the side of a wood, where they lurk till morning. And when
+it is daylight, then will they go to the poor villages, not sparing to
+destroy young infants and aged people; and if a woman be ever so
+great with child, her will they kill, burning the houses and corn, and
+ransacking the poor cots; then will they drive away all the kine
+and plough-horses, with all the other cattle. Then must they have a
+bagpipe blowing before them, and if any of the cattle fortune to wax
+weary or faint they will kill them rather than it should do the owner
+good; and if they go by any house of friars, or religious house, they
+will give them two or three beeves, and they will take them and pray
+for them, yea, and praise their doings, and say, 'His father was
+accustomed so to do, wherein he will rejoice.' The fourth class
+consisted of 'poets.' These men had great store of cattle, and 'used
+all the trade of the others with an addition of prophecies. They were
+maintainers of witches and other vile matters, to the blasphemy of
+God, and to the impoverishing of the commonwealth.'
+
+These four septs were divided in all places of the four quarters of
+Ireland, and some of the islands beyond Ireland, as Aran, the land of
+the Saints, Innisbuffen, Innisturk, Innismain, and Innisclare. These
+islands, he added, were under the rule of O'Neill, and they were
+'very pleasant and fertile, plenty of wood, water, and arable ground,
+pastures, and fish, and a very temperate air.' On this description
+Mr. Froude remarks in a note--'At present they are barren heaps of
+treeless moors and mountains. They yield nothing but scanty oat crops
+and potatoes, and though the seas are full of fish as ever, there
+are no hands to catch them. _The change is a singular commentary upon
+modern improvements_.' There were many branches belonging to the four
+septs, continues the credulous reporter, who was evidently imposed
+upon, like many of his countrymen in modern times with better means
+of information. For example, 'there was the branch of Gogath, the
+glutton, of which one man would eat half a sheep at a sitting. There
+was another called the Carrow, a gambler, who generally went about
+naked, carrying dice and cards, and he would play the hair off his
+head. Then there was a set of women called Goyng women, blasphemers
+of God, who ran from country to country, sowing sedition among the
+people.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Froude's History, of England, vol. viii. chap. vii.]
+
+Mr. Froude says that this 'picture of Ireland' was given by some
+half Anglicised, half Protestantised Celt, who wrote what he had seen
+around him, careless of political philosophy, or of fine phrases with
+which to embellish his diction. But if he was a Celt, I think his
+description clearly proves that he must have been a Celt of some
+other country than the one upon whose state he reports. Judging from
+internal evidence, I should say that he could not be a native; for an
+Irishman, even though a convert to Anglicanism, and anxious to please
+his new masters, could scarcely betray so much ignorance of the
+history of his country, so much bigotry, such a want of candour and
+discrimination. If Mr. Froude's great work has any fault, it is his
+unconscious prejudice against Ireland. He knows as well as anyone the
+working of the feudal system and the clan system in Scotland in
+the same age. He knows with what treachery and cruelty murders
+were perpetrated by chiefs and lairds, pretenders and usurpers--how
+anarchy, violence, and barbarism reigned in that land; yet, when he is
+dealing with a similar state of things in Ireland, he uniformly takes
+it as proof of an incurable national idiosyncrasy, and too often
+generalises from a few cases. For example, in speaking of Shane
+O'Neill, who killed his half-brother, Matthew Kelly, Baron of
+Dungannon, in order to secure the succession for himself, he
+says--'_They manage things strangely in Ireland._ The old O'Neill,
+instead of being irritated, saw in this exploit a proof of commendable
+energy. He at once took Shane into favour, and, had he been able,
+would have given him his dead brother's rights.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE RULE OF THE O'NEILLS.
+
+
+Shane O'Neill was a man of extraordinary ability and tremendous
+energy, as the English found to their cost. He was guilty of atrocious
+deeds; but he had too many examples in those lawless times encouraging
+him to sacrifice the most sacred ties to his ambition. He resolved to
+seize the chieftainship by deposing his father and banishing him to
+the Pale, where, after passing some years in captivity, he died. He
+was, no doubt, urged to do this, lest by some chance the son of the
+baron of Dungannon should be adopted by England as the rightful heir,
+and made Earl of Tyrone. This title he spurned, and proclaimed himself
+the O'Neill, the true representative of the ancient kings of Ulster,
+to which office he was elected by his people, taking the usual oath
+with his foot upon the sacred stone. This was an open defiance of
+English power, and he prepared to abide the consequences. He thought
+the opportunity a favourable one to recover the supremacy of his
+ancestors over the O'Donels. He accordingly mustered a numerous army,
+and marched into Tyrconnel, where he was joined by Hugh O'Donel,
+brother of Calvagh, the chief, with other disaffected persons of the
+same clan. O'Donel had recourse to stratagem. Having caused his cattle
+to be driven out of harm's way, he sent a spy into the enemy's camp,
+who mixed with the soldiers, and returning undiscovered, he undertook
+to guide O'Donel's army to O'Neill's tent, which was distinguished by
+a great watch-fire, and guarded by six galloglasses on one side and as
+many Scots on the other. The camp, however, was taken by surprise
+in the dead of night, and O'Neill's forces, careless or asleep, were
+slaughtered and routed without resistance. Shane himself fled for his
+life, and, swimming across three rivers, succeeded in reaching his own
+territory. This occurred the year before he cast off his allegiance
+to England. He was required to appear before Elizabeth in person to
+explain the grounds on which he had claimed the chieftainship. He
+consented, on condition that he got a safe-conduct and money for the
+expenses of his journey. At the same time he sent a long letter to the
+Queen, complaining of the treatment he had received, and defending his
+pretensions. The letter is characteristic of the man and of the times.
+He said: 'The deputy has much ill-used me, your Majesty; and now that
+I am going over to see you, I hope you will consider that I am but
+rude and uncivil, and do not know my duty to your Highness, nor yet
+your Majesty's laws, but am one brought up in wildness, far from all
+civility. Yet have I a good will to the commonwealth of my country;
+and please your Majesty to send over two commissioners that you can
+trust, that will take no bribes, nor otherwise be imposed on, to
+observe what I have done to improve the country, and hear what my
+accusers have to say; and then let them go into the Pale, and hear
+what the people say of your soldiers, with their horses, and their
+dogs, and their concubines. Within this year and a half, three hundred
+farmers are come from the English Pale to live in my country, where
+they can be safe.
+
+'Please your Majesty, your Majesty's money here is not so good as your
+money in England, and will not pass current there. Please your Majesty
+to send me three thousand pounds in English money to pay my expenses
+in going over to you, and when I come back I will pay your deputy
+three thousand pounds Irish, such as you are pleased to have current
+here. Also I will ask your Majesty to marry me to some gentlewoman of
+noble blood meet for my vocation. I will make Ireland all that your
+Majesty wishes for you. I am very sorry your Majesty is put to such
+expense. If you will trust it to me, I will undertake that in three
+years you will have a revenue, where now you have continual loss.'
+
+Shane suspected evil designs on the part of the English, and not
+without reason. The object of the summons to England was to detain him
+there with 'gentle talk' till Sussex could return to his command with
+an English army powerful enough to subjugate Ulster. For this purpose
+such preparations were made by the English Government in men and
+money, 'that rebellion should have no chance; and,' says Mr. Froude,
+'so careful was the secresy which was observed, to prevent Shane from
+taking alarm, that a detachment of troops sent from Portsmouth sailed
+with sealed orders, and neither men nor officers knew that Ireland was
+their destination till they had rounded the Land's End.' The English
+plans were well laid. Kildare, whom Elizabeth most feared, had
+accepted her invitation to go to London, and thus prevented any
+movement in the south, while O'Donel was prepared to join the English
+army on its advance into Ulster; and the Scots, notwithstanding their
+predilection for Mary Stuart, were expected to act as Argyle and his
+sister should direct. But Shane had a genius for intrigue as well
+as Elizabeth, and he was far more rapid than her generals in the
+execution of his plans. By a master-stroke of policy he disconcerted
+their arrangements. He had previously asked the Earl of Argyle to give
+him his daughter in marriage, in order that he might strengthen his
+alliance with the Ulster Scots. It is true that she had been already
+married to his rival, O'Donel; but that was a small difficulty in his
+way. The knot was tied, but he had no hesitation in cutting it with
+his sword. 'The countess' was well educated for her time. She was also
+a Protestant, and the government had hopes that her influence would be
+favourable to 'civility and the Reformation' among the barbarians of
+the north. But whatever advantages the presence of the fair Scottish
+missionary might bring, Shane O'Neill did not see why they should
+not be all his own, especially as he had managed somehow to produce
+a favourable impression on her heart. Accordingly he made a dash
+into Tyrconnel, and carried off both the lady and her husband to his
+stronghold, Shane's Castle, on the banks of Lough Neagh. Her Scotch
+guard, though fifteen hundred strong, had offered no resistance.
+O'Donel was shut up in a prison, and his wife became the willing
+paramour of the captor. 'The affront to McConnell was forgiven or
+atoned for by private arrangement, and the sister of the Earl of
+Argyle--an educated woman for her time, not unlearned in Latin,
+speaking French and Italian, counted sober, wise, and no less
+subtle--had betrayed herself and her husband. The O'Neills, by this
+last manoeuvre, became supreme in Ulster. Deprived of their head, the
+O'Donels sank into helplessness. The whole force of the province, such
+as it was, with the more serious addition of several thousand Scotch
+marauders, was at Shane's disposal, and thus provided, he thought
+himself safe in defying England to do its worst.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Froude, Ibid.]
+
+Meantime, Sussex had arrived in Dublin preceded by his English forces.
+He made a rapid preliminary movement to the north, and seized the
+Cathedral of Armagh, in order to make it a fortified depot for his
+stores. He then fell back into Meath, where he was joined by Ormond
+with flying companies of galloglasses. Soon after a singular attack
+was made on the English garrison at Armagh. Seeing a number of kernes
+scattered about the town, the officer in command sallied out upon
+them, when O'Neill suddenly appeared, accompanied by the Catholic
+Archbishop, on a hill outside the walls. 'The English had but time to
+recover their defences when the whole Irish army, led by a procession
+of monks, and every man carrying a fagot, came on to burn the
+cathedral over their heads. The monks sang a mass; the primate walked
+three times up and down the lines, willing the rebels to go forward,
+for God was on their side. Shane swore a great oath not to turn his
+back while an Englishman was alive; and with scream and yell his men
+came on. _Fortunately there were no Scots among them._ The English,
+though out-numbered ten to one, stood steady in the churchyard, and,
+after a sharp hand-to-hand fight, drove back the howling crowd. The
+Irish retired into the friars' houses outside the cathedral close, set
+them on fire, and ran for their lives.'
+
+'So far,' adds Mr. Froude, 'all was well. After this there was no more
+talk of treating, and by the 18th, Sussex and Ormond were themselves
+at Armagh with a force--had there been skill to direct it--sufficient
+to have swept Tyrone from border to border.'
+
+The English historian exults in the valour of the small garrison of
+his countrymen, well-disciplined and sheltered behind a strong wall,
+in resisting the assault of a howling multitude of mere Irish, and he
+observes significantly, that 'fortunately there were no _Scots_ among
+them.' But he is obliged immediately after to record an Irish victory
+so signal that, according to the lord deputy himself, 'the fame of the
+English army so hardly gotten, was now vanished.' Yet Mr. Froude does
+not, in this, lay the blame of defeat upon the _nationality_ of the
+vanquished. It is only the Irish nation that is made the scape-goat in
+such cases.
+
+It was July, but the weather was wet, the rivers were high, Ormond was
+ill, Sussex would not leave his friend, and so the English army stayed
+in town doing nothing till the end of the month, when their failing
+provisions admonished them that an Irish hosting would be desirable.
+O'Neill, who seems to have been aware of the state of things,
+presented the appropriate temptation. Spies brought the lord deputy
+word that in the direction of Cavan there were herds of cows, which
+an active party might easily capture. These spies, with ardent
+professions of loyalty, offered to guide the English troops to the
+place where the booty would be found, their object being to draw them
+among bogs and rivers where they might be destroyed. The lord deputy
+did not think it necessary to accompany this host, which consisted of
+200 horse, 500 men-at-arms, and some hundreds of the loyal Irish of
+the Pale. Shane intended to attack them the first night while resting
+on their march. But they escaped by an alteration of the route. Next
+morning they were marching on the open plain, miles from any shelter
+of hill or wood, when the Irish chief, with less than half their
+number, pursued them, and fell upon the cavalry in the rear, with
+the cry, '_Laundarg Aboo_--the Bloody Hand--Strike for O'Neill!' The
+English cavalry commanded by Wingfield, seized with terror, galloped
+into the ranks of their own men-at-arms, rode them down, and
+extricated themselves only to fly panic-stricken from the field to the
+crest of an adjoining hill. Meantime, Shane's troopers rode through
+the broken ranks, cutting down the footmen on all sides. The yells and
+cries were heard far off through the misty morning air. Fitzwilliam,
+who had the chief command, was about a mile in advance at the head
+of another body of cavalry, when a horseman was observed by him,
+galloping wildly in the distance and waving his handkerchief as a
+signal. He returned instantly, followed by his men, and flung himself
+into the _melee_. Shane receiving such a charge of those few men, and
+seeing more coming after, ran no farther risk, blew a recall note,
+and withdrew unpursued. Fitzwilliam's courage alone prevented the army
+from being annihilated. Out of 500 English 50 lay dead, and 50 more
+were badly wounded. The survivors fell back to Armagh 'so _dismayed_
+as to be unfit for farther service.' Pitiable were the lamentations
+of the lord deputy to Cecil on this catastrophe. It was, said he, 'by
+cowardice the dreadfullest beginning that ever was seen in Ireland.
+Ah! Mr. Secretary, what unfortunate star hung over me that day to draw
+me, that never could be persuaded to be absent from the army at any
+time--to be then absent for a little disease of another man? _The
+rearward was the best and picked soldiers in all this land._ If I
+or any stout man had been that day with them, we had made an end of
+Shane--which is now farther off than ever it was. Never before durst
+Scot or Irishman look on Englishmen in plain or wood since I was here;
+and now Shane, in a plain three miles away from any wood, and where I
+would have asked of God to have had him, hath, with 120 horse, and a
+few Scots and galloglasse, _scarce half in numbers_, charged our whole
+army, and by the cowardice of one wretch whom I hold dear to me as
+my own brother, was like in one hour to have left not one man of that
+army alive, and after to have taken me and the rest at Armagh. The
+fame of the English army, so hardly gotten, is now vanished, and I,
+wretched and dishonoured, by the vileness of other men's deeds.'
+
+This is real history that Mr. Froude has given us. It places the
+actors before us, enables us to discern their characters, tells us
+who they are and what they have done. It shows also the value and
+the necessity of documentary evidence for establishing the truth
+of history. How different from the vague, uncertain, shadowy
+representations derived from oral tradition, or mere reports,
+though contemporary, circulated from mouth to mouth, and exaggerated
+according to the interests of one party or the other. Let us for
+illustration compare Mr. Froude's vivid picture of this battle, so
+disastrous to the English, with the account given of the same event by
+the Annalists called the Four Masters. These writers had taken great
+pains to collect the most authentic records of the various Irish
+tribes from the invasion by Henry II. to the period of which we
+are writing. They were intensely Irish, and of course glad of any
+opportunity of recording events creditable to the valour of their
+countrymen. They lived in Donegal, under the protection of O'Donel,
+but they showed themselves quite willing to do full justice to his
+great rival O'Neill. The presence of the lord deputy, the Earl of
+Ormond, and other great men at Armagh, with a select English army,
+would naturally have roused their attention, and when that army was
+encountered and vanquished in the open field by the Irish general, we
+should have expected that the details of such a glorious event would
+have been collected with the greatest care from the accounts of
+eye-witnesses. The bards and historiographers should have been on the
+alert to do justice to their country on so great an occasion. They
+were on the spot, they were beside the victors, and they had no excuse
+whatever for ignorance. Yet here is the miserably cold, _jejune_,
+feeble, and imperfect record which we find in the Annals of the Four
+Masters:--'The Lord Justice of Ireland, namely Thomas Fitzwalter
+(Sussex), marched into Tyrone to take revenge for the capture of
+Caloach O'Donel, and also for his own quarrels with the country.
+He encamped with a great army at Armagh, and constructed deep
+entrenchments and impregnable ramparts about the great church of
+Armagh, which he intended to keep constantly guarded. O'Neill, i.e.
+John, having received intelligence of this, sent a party of his
+faithful men and friends with Caloach O'Donel to guard and keep
+him from the Lord Justice, and they conveyed him from one island to
+another, in the recesses and sequestered places of Tyrone. After some
+time the Lord Justice sent out from the camp at Armagh, a number of
+his captains with 1000 men to take some prey and plunder in Oriel.
+O'Neill, having received private information and intelligence of those
+great troops marching into Oriel, proceeded privately and silently to
+where they were, and came up to them after they had collected their
+prey; a battle ensued in which many were slain on both sides; and
+finally the preys were abandoned, and fell into the hands of their
+original possessors on that occasion.'
+
+That is the whole account of the most signal victory over the English
+that had crowned the arms of Ulster during those wars! Not a word of
+the disparity of the forces, or the flight of the English cavalry,
+or the slaughter of the Englishmen-at-arms, or the humiliation and
+disabled condition of the garrison at Armagh. Equally unsatisfactory
+is the record of the subsequent march through Tyrone by Sussex, in the
+course of which his army slaughtered 4000 head of cattle, which they
+could not drive away. Of this tremendous destruction of property the
+Four Masters do not say a word. Such omissions often occur in their
+annals, even when dealing with contemporary events. Uncritical as they
+were and extremely credulous, how can we trust the records which they
+give of remote ages?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+O'NEILL, SOVEREIGN OF ULSTER.
+
+
+The moral atmosphere of Elizabeth's court was not favourable to public
+virtue. Strange to say at this time Lord Pembroke seemed to be the
+only nobleman connected with it whose patriotism could be depended on;
+and, according to Cecil, there was not another person, 'no not one'
+who did not either wish well to Shane O'Neill, or so ill to the Earl
+of Sussex as 'rather to welcome the news than regret the English
+loss!' It would be difficult to find 'intriguing factiousness' baser
+than this even in barbarous Ireland. The success of O'Neill, however,
+had raised him high in the opinion of the Queen, who proposed,
+through the Earl of Kildare, to leave him in possession of all his
+territories, and let him govern the Irish 'according to Irish ideas'
+if he would only become her vassal. Sussex had returned to Dublin with
+the remnant of his army, while Fitzwilliam was dispatched to London
+to explain the disaster, bearing with him a petition from the Irish
+Council, that the troops who had been living in free quarters on the
+tenants of the Pale should be recalled or disbanded. 'Useless in the
+field and tyrannical to the farmer, they were a burden on the English
+exchequer, and answered no purpose but to make the English name
+detested.'
+
+To O'Neill the Queen sent a pardon, with a safe conduct to England, if
+he could be prevailed on to go. In the meantime Shane sent a message
+to the lord deputy, demanding the removal of the garrison from Armagh.
+One of his messengers, Neill Grey communicated secretly with Lord
+Sussex, affecting to dislike rebellion, and intimating that he might
+help the English to get rid of his master. The lord deputy, without
+the least scruple or apparent consciousness of the criminality or
+disgrace of the proceeding, actually proposed to this man that he
+should murder O'Neill. This villanous purpose he avows in his letter
+to the Queen. 'In fine,' said he, 'I breake with him to kill Shane;
+and bound myself by my oath to see him have a hundred marcs of land by
+the year to him, and to his heirs, for his reward. He seemed desirous
+to serve your Highness, and to have the land; but fearful to do it,
+doubting his own escape after with safety, which he confessed and
+promised to do by any means he might, escaping with his life. What he
+will do I know not, but I assure your Highness he may do it without
+danger if he will. And if he will not do that he may in your service,
+there will be done _to him_ what others may. God send your Highness a
+good end.'
+
+This English nobleman was, it seems, pious as well as honourable,
+and could mingle prayers with his plots for assassination. Mr. Froude
+suggests extenuating circumstances: 'Lord Sussex, it appears, regarded
+Shane as a kind of wolf, whom having failed to capture in fair chase
+he might destroy by the first expedient that came to his hand.' And
+'English honour, like English coin, lost something of its purity in
+the sister island.' Of course; it was the Irish atmosphere that did it
+all. But Sussex was not singular in this mode of illustrating English
+honour. A greater than he, the chivalrous Sir Walter Raleigh, wrote to
+a friend in Munster, recommending the treacherous assassination of the
+Earl of Desmond, as perfectly justifiable. And this crime, for which
+an ignorant Irishman would be hanged, was deliberately suggested by
+the illustrious knight whilst sitting quietly in his English study.[1]
+But what perplexes the historian most of all is that the Queen of
+England showed no resentment at the infamous proposal of Sussex. 'It
+is most sadly certain, however, that Sussex was continued in office,
+and inasmuch as it will be seen that he repeated the experiment a few
+months later, his letter could not have been received with any marked
+condemnation.' Yet Elizabeth was never in Ireland.
+
+[Footnote 1: See Life of Sir Walter Raleigh.]
+
+Fitzwilliam, however, returned with reinforcements of troops from
+Berwick, with which the deputy resolved to repair the credit of the
+English arms, and to set the Irish an example of civilised warfare.
+How did he do this? Dispatching provisions by sea to Lough Foyle, he
+succeeded this time in marching through Tyrone, 'and in destroying on
+his way 4,000 cattle, which he was unable to carry away. He had left
+Shane's cows to rot where he had killed them; and thus being without
+food, and sententiously and characteristically concluding that man by
+his policy might propose, but God at His will did dispose; Lord Sussex
+fell back by the upper waters of Lough Erne, sweeping the country
+before him.' When the Irish peasantry saw the carcasses of their
+cattle rotting along the roads, while their children were famished for
+want of milk, they must have been most favourably impressed with the
+blessings of British rule! Shane, instead of encountering the deputy
+on his own territory, amused himself burning villages in Meath.
+Neither of those rulers--those chief protectors of the people--seems
+to have been conscious that he was doing anything wrong in destroying
+the homes and the food of the wretched inhabitants, whom they
+alternately scourged. On the contrary, the extent of devastation which
+they were able to effect was supposed to put them in a better
+position for meeting together, and treating as honourable and gallant
+representatives of their respective nations.
+
+In accordance with the desire of the Queen, Shane, fresh from the work
+of destruction in the Pale, was invited to a conference with Kildare.
+They met at Dundalk, and the Irish chief consented to wait upon
+Elizabeth in London, being allowed to name his own conditions. In
+doing so he implied 'that he was rather conferring a favour than
+receiving one, and that he was going to England as a victorious enemy
+permitting himself to be conciliated.' He demanded a safe-conduct so
+clearly worded that, whatever was the result of his visit, he should
+be free to return; he required 'a complete amnesty for his past
+misdeeds, and he stipulated that Elizabeth should pay all expenses
+for himself and his retinue; the Earls of Ormond, Desmond, and Kildare
+must receive him in state at Dundalk, and escort him to Dublin;
+Kildare must accompany him to England; and, most important of all,
+Armagh Cathedral must be evacuated. He did not anticipate treachery;
+and either he would persuade Elizabeth to recognise him, and thus
+prove to the Irish that rebellion was the surest road to prosperity
+and power, or, at worst, by venturing into England, and returning
+unscathed, he would show them that the Government might be defied with
+more than impunity.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Froude.]
+
+These terms, so humiliating to English pride, were advocated in the
+Council 'for certain secret respects;' and even Sir William Cecil
+was not ashamed to say, 'that, in Shane's absence from Ireland,'
+_something might be cavilled against him or his_, for non-observing
+the covenants on his side; and so the pact being infringed, the
+matter might be used as should be thought fit. With this understanding
+Elizabeth wrote, making all the ignominious concessions demanded, save
+one, the evacuation of the cathedral. Shane replied in lofty terms
+that, although for the Earl of Sussex he would not mollify one iota
+of his agreement, yet he would consent at the request of her Majesty.
+'Thus,' says Mr. Froude, 'with the Earl of Kildare in attendance, a
+train of galloglasse, 1,000 l. in hand, and a second 1,000 l. awaiting
+for him in London, the champion of Irish freedom sailed from Dublin,
+and appeared on the second of January at the English court.'
+
+It is stated that Cecil, Pembroke, and Bacon, received him privately
+on his arrival, instructed him how to behave in the royal presence,
+gave him the promised money, and endeavoured to impress upon him the
+enormity of his offences. But, to every appeal made to his conscience,
+Shane answered by a counter appeal about money; 2,000 l. was a poor
+present from so great a Queen; he was sure their honours would
+give him a few more hundreds. He agreed, however, to make a general
+confession of his sins in Irish and English; and, thus tutored,
+Elizabeth received him in state on January 6, 1562, attended by
+the Council, the peers, the foreign ambassadors, bishops, aldermen,
+dignitaries of all kinds, who gazed 'as if at the exhibition of some
+wild animal of the desert.' The scene is very graphically described by
+Mr. Froude: 'O'Neill stalked in, his saffron mantle sweeping round and
+round him, his hair curling on his back, and clipped short below
+the eyes, which gleamed from under it with a grey lustre, frowning,
+fierce, and cruel. Behind him followed his galloglasse, bare-headed
+and fair-haired, with shirts of mail which reached their knees, a
+wolf-skin flung across their shoulders, and short broad battle-axes in
+their hands. At the foot of the throne the chief paused, bent forward,
+threw himself on his face upon the ground, and then, rising upon his
+knees, spoke aloud in Irish!' Camden says he 'confessed his crime and
+rebellion with howling,' and Mr. Froude adds that, to his hearers, the
+sound of the words 'was as the howling of a dog.' He said:--
+
+'Oh! my most dread sovereign lady and queen, like as I Shane O'Neill,
+your Majesty's subject of your realm of Ireland, have of long time
+desired to come into the presence of your Majesty to acknowledge my
+humble and bounden subjection, so am I now here upon my knees by your
+gracious permission, and do most humbly acknowledge your Majesty to be
+my sovereign lady and Queen of England, France, and Ireland; and I
+do confess that, for lack of civil education, I have offended your
+Majesty and your laws, for the which I have required and obtained your
+Majesty's pardon. And for that I most humbly, from the bottom of my
+heart, thank your Majesty, and still do with all humbleness require
+the continuance of the same; and I faithfully promise here before
+Almighty God and your Majesty, and in presence of all these your
+nobles, that I intend, by God's grace, to live hereafter in the
+obedience of your Majesty as a subject of your land of Ireland.
+
+'And because this my speech, being Irish, is not well understanded, I
+have caused this my submission to be written in English and Irish, and
+thereto have set my hand and seal; and to these gentlemen, my kinsmen
+and friends, I most humbly beseech your Majesty to be merciful and
+gracious.'
+
+Camden remarks that the bare-headed galloglasse, with long dishevelled
+hair, crocus-dyed shirts, wide sleeves, short jackets, shaggy cloaks,
+&c., were objects of great wonder to the Londoners; while the hauteur
+of the Irish prince excited the merriment of the courtiers, who styled
+him 'O'Neill the Great, cousin to St. Patrick, friend to the Queen
+of England, enemy to all the world besides.' Notwithstanding Shane's
+precautions with respect to the safe-conduct, English artifice outdid
+Irish cunning. With all their horror of the Jesuits, Elizabeth's
+ministers in this case practised mental reservation. True, the
+Government had promised to permit him to return to Ireland, but then
+the time of his stay had not been specified. Various pretexts were
+invented to detain him. He must be recognised as his father's heir;
+the cause must be pleaded before the English judges; the young Baron
+of Dungannon must come over and be heard on the other side. O'Neill
+was told that he had been sent for, while Cecil wrote privately to
+Fitzwilliam to keep him safe in Ireland. While the prince was thus
+humoured with vain excuses, he was occupied in pleading his own cause
+by flattering communications to the Queen, 'whose fame was spoken
+of throughout the world.' He wished to study the wisdom of her
+government, that he might know better how to order himself in civil
+polity. He was most urgent that her Majesty would give him 'some noble
+English lady for a wife, with augmentation of living suitable.' If she
+would give him his father's earldom, he would make her the undisputed
+sovereign of willing subjects in Ulster; he would drive away all her
+enemies, save her from all further expense, and secure for her a
+great increase of revenue. He begged in the meantime, that he might be
+allowed to attend her favourite, Lord Robert Cecil, in order to learn
+'to ride after the English fashion, to run at the tilt, to hawk, to
+shoot, and use such other good exercises as the said good lord was
+most apt unto.' Thus month after month passed away, and Shane was
+still virtually a prisoner. 'At length,' says Mr. Froude, 'the false
+dealing produced its cruel fruit, the murder of the boy who was used
+as the pretext for the delay. Sent for to England, yet prevented from
+obeying the command, the young Baron of Dungannon was waylaid at the
+beginning of April in a wood near Carlingford by Turlogh O'Neill. He
+fled for his life, with the murderers behind him, till he reached
+the bank of a deep river, which he could not swim, and there he was
+killed.'
+
+This event brought matters to a crisis, and Shane's cause was
+triumphant. By articles entered into between him and the Queen it was
+agreed that he was to be constituted captain or governor of Tyrone 'in
+the same manner as other captains of the said nation called O'Nele's
+had rightfully executed that office in the time of King Henry VIII.
+And, moreover, he was to enjoy and have the name and title of O'Nele,
+with the like authority as any other of his ancestors, with the
+service and homage of all the lords and captains called _urraughts_,
+and other nobles of the said nation of O'Nele.' All this was upon the
+condition 'that he and his said nobles should truly and faithfully,
+from time to time, serve her Majesty, and, where necessary, wage war
+against all her enemies in such manner as the Lord Lieutenant for the
+time being should direct.' The title of O'Neill, however, was to be
+contingent on the decision of Parliament as to the validity of the
+letters-patent of Henry VIII. Should that decision be unfavourable, he
+was to enjoy his powers and prerogatives under the style and title
+of the Earl of Tyrone, with feudal jurisdiction over the northern
+counties. The Pale was to be no shelter to any person whom he might
+demand as a malefactor. If any Irish lord or chief did him wrong, and
+the deputy failed within twenty-one days to exact reparation, Shane
+might raise an army and levy war on his private account. An exception
+was made on behalf of the loyal O'Donel, whose cause was to be
+submitted to the arbitration of the Irish earls. The 'indenture'
+between the Queen and O'Neill was signed by the high contracting
+parties, and bears date April 30, 1562. The English historian
+indignantly remarks: 'A rebel subject treating as an equal with his
+sovereign for the terms on which he would remain in his allegiance was
+an inglorious spectacle; and the admission of Shane's pretensions to
+sovereignty was one more evidence to the small Ulster chiefs that no
+service was worse requited in Ireland than fidelity to the English
+crown. The Maguires, the O'Reillys, the O'Donels--all the clans who
+had stood by Sussex in the preceding summer--were given over to their
+enemy bound hand and foot. But Elizabeth was weary of the expense,
+and sick of efforts which were profitless as the cultivation of a
+quicksand. True it was that she was placing half Ireland in the hands
+of an adulterous, murdering scoundrel, but the Irish liked to have it
+so, and she forced herself to hope that he would restrain himself for
+the future within the bounds of decency.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Froude.]
+
+In that hope she was soon disappointed. Shane with his galloglasse
+returned in glory, his purse lined with money and honour wreathed
+about his brows. He told the northern chiefs that he had gone to
+England not to lose but to win, and that they must henceforth submit
+to his authority, or feel his power. The O'Donels, relying on English
+promises, dared to refuse allegiance to the O'Neill, whereupon,
+without consulting the lord deputy, 'he called his men to arms and
+marched into Tyrconnel, killing, robbing, and burning in the old style
+through farm and castle.' The Irish historians, however, make excuses
+for O'Neill, affirming that he was released from his obligations
+by the bad faith of the lord deputy. He it was who gave him a safe
+conduct to Dublin, that he might take the oath of allegiance according
+to promise; but the document was so ingeniously worded that its
+meaning might be twisted so as to make him a prisoner. He was informed
+of this treachery, and, as Mr. Froude remarks, 'Shane was too cunning
+a fish, and had been too lately in the meshes, to be caught again in
+so poor a snare.' A most attractive bait was provided by Sussex in
+the person of his sister, who had been brought over to Dublin, and who
+might be won by the great northern chief if he would only come up to
+the viceregal court to woo her. 'Shane glanced at the tempting morsel
+with wistful eyes. Had he trusted himself in the hands of Sussex he
+would have had a short shrift for a blessing and a rough nuptial knot
+about his neck. At the last moment a little bird carried the tale
+to his ear. He had been advertized out of the Pale that the lady
+was brought over only to entrap him, and if he came to the deputy he
+should never return.' He therefore excused himself by alleging that
+his duty to the Queen forbade him to leave the province while it was
+in such a disturbed condition, the disturbance being caused chiefly by
+his own predatory excursions into the territories of the O'Donels and
+Maguires.
+
+Shane took charge of the affairs of the Church as well as of the
+State. The Catholic primate refusing to acknowledge Elizabeth as the
+head of the Church, the see was declared vacant, and a _conge d'elire_
+was sent down for the appointment of 'Mr. Adam Loftus,' an Englishman,
+who came over as the lord deputy's chaplain. The answer returned and
+reported by Sussex to the Queen was 'that the chapter there, whereof
+the greater part were Shane O'Neill's horsemen, were so sparkled
+and out of order that they could by no means be assembled for the
+election. In the meantime the lord deputy began to apprehend that
+O'Neill aspired, not without some hope of success, to the sovereignty
+of the whole island. It was found that he was in correspondence with
+the Pope, and the Queen of Scots, and the King of Spain. No greater
+danger, wrote Sussex, had ever been in Ireland. He implored the Queen
+not to trifle with it, declaring that he wished some abler general to
+take the command, not from any want of will, 'for he would spend his
+last penny and his last drop of blood for her Majesty.' Right and left
+Shane was crushing the petty chiefs, who implored the protection
+of the Government. Maguire requested the deputy to write to him in
+English, not in Latin, because the latter language was well known,
+and but few of the Irish had any knowledge of the former, in which
+therefore the secrets of their correspondence would be more safe. Here
+is a specimen of his English: 'I know well that within these four days
+the sayed Shan will come to dystroy me contrey except your Lordshypp
+will sette some remedy in the matter.' He did indeed go down into
+Fermanagh with 'a great hoste.' As Maguire refused to submit, Shane
+'bygan to wax mad, and to cawsse his men to bran all his corn and
+howsses.' He spared neither church nor sanctuary; three hundred women
+and children were piteously murdered, and Maguire himself, clean
+banished, as he described it, took refuge with the remnant of his
+people in the islands on the lake, whither Shane was making boats to
+pursue him. 'Help me, your lordship,' the hunted wretch cried, in his
+despair, to Sussex. 'Ye are lyke to make hym the strongest man of all
+Erlond, for every man wyll take an exampull by the gratte lostys; take
+hyd to yourself by thymes, for he is lyke to have all the power from
+this place thill he come to the wallys of Gallway to rysse against
+you.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Wright's Elizabeth, vol. i. p.73.]
+
+It is the boast of the Irish that when Shane had subdued all his
+opponents, he ruled Tyrone for some time with such order, 'that if
+a robbery was committed within his territory, he either caused the
+property to be restored, or reimbursed the loser out of his own
+treasury.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Haverty's History of Ireland, p.300.]
+
+The perplexity of the Government in this critical emergency is vividly
+described by Mr. Froude: 'Elizabeth knew not which way to turn. Force,
+treachery, conciliation had been tried successively, and the Irish
+problem was more hopeless than ever. In the dense darkness of the
+prospects of Ulster there was a solitary gleam of light. Grown
+insolent with prosperity, Shane had been dealing too peremptorily with
+the Scots; his countess, though compelled to live with him, and to be
+the mother of his children, had felt his brutality and repented of her
+folly, and perhaps attempted to escape. In the daytime, when he
+was abroad marauding, she was coupled like a hound to a page or a
+horse-boy, and only released at night when he returned to his evening
+orgies. The fierce Campbells were not men to bear tamely these
+outrages from a drunken savage on the sister of their chief, and
+Sussex conceived that if the Scots, by any contrivance, were separated
+from Shane, they might be used as a whip to scourge him.'
+
+At length Sussex, determined to crush the arch-rebel, marched
+northward in April, 1563, with a mixed force of English and Irish,
+ill-armed, ill-supplied, dispirited and almost disloyal. The diary of
+the commander-in-chief is, perhaps, the funniest on record: 'April 6:
+The army arrived at Armagh. April 8: The army marches back to Newry
+to bring up stores and ammunition left behind. April 11: The army
+advances again to Armagh, where it waits for galloglasse and kerne
+from the Pale. April 14: The commander-in-chief answers a letter from
+James M'Connell. April 15: The army goes upon Shane's cattle, of which
+it takes enough to serve it, but would have taken more if it had had
+galloglasse.' Next day it returns to Armagh. There it waits three days
+for the galloglasse, and then sends back for them to Dublin. On April
+20, again writes M'Connell, because he did not come according to
+promise. April 21: The army surveys the Trough mountains. April 22:
+The pious commander winds up the glorious record in these words: 'To
+Armagh with the spoil taken which would have been much more if we had
+had galloglasse, and because St. George even forced me, her Majesty's
+lieutenant, to return to divine service that night. April 23: Divine
+service.' Subsequently his lordship's extreme piety caused him the
+loss of 300 horses, which he naively confesses thus: 'Being Easter
+time, and he having travelled the week before, and Easter day till
+night, thought fit to give Easter Monday to prayer, and in this time
+certain churls stole off with the horses.' To this Mr. Froude adds the
+pertinent remark: 'The piety which could neglect practical duty for
+the outward service of devotion, yet at the same time could make
+overtures to Neil Greg to assassinate his master, requires no very
+lenient consideration.'
+
+In connexion with the Irish Church Disestablishment Bill Lord Elcho
+proposed Solomon's plan of settling the dispute of the two mother
+Churches about Ireland. He would cut the country in two, establishing
+Protestantism in the north and Catholicism in the south. When an
+experienced member of the House of Commons makes such a proposition
+in this age, we should not be surprised that Sir Thomas Cusack in the
+year 1563 proposed to Queen Elizabeth that Ireland should be divided
+into four provinces, each with a separate president, either elected by
+the people or chosen in compliance with their wishes. O'Neill was to
+have the north, the Clanrickards the west, the O'Briens or Desmonds
+the south, and thus the English might be allowed the undisturbed
+enjoyment of the Pale. This notable scheme for settling the Irish
+question was actually adopted by the Queen, and she wrote to Sussex,
+stating that, as his expedition to the north had resulted only in
+giving fresh strength to the enemy, she 'had decided to come to an end
+of the war of Ulster by agreement rather than by force.' To Shane she
+was all compliance. He had but to prove himself a good subject, and
+he might have any pre-eminence which her Majesty could grant without
+doing any other person wrong. 'If he desired to have a council
+established at Armagh, he should himself be the president of that
+council; if he wished to drive the Scots out of Antrim, her own troops
+would assist in the expulsion; if he was offended with the garrison in
+the cathedral, she would gladly see peace maintained in a manner less
+expensive to herself. To the primacy he might name the person most
+agreeable to himself, and with the primacy, as a matter of course,
+even the form of maintaining the Protestant Church would be abandoned
+also. In return for these concessions the Queen demanded only that
+Shane, to save her honour, should sue for them as a favour instead
+of demanding them as a right. The rebel chief consented without
+difficulty to conditions which cost him nothing, and after an
+interview with Cusack, O'Neill wrote a formal apology to Elizabeth,
+and promised for the future to be her Majesty's true and faithful
+subject. Indentures were drawn up on December 17, in which the Ulster
+sovereignty was transferred to him in everything but the name, and the
+treaty required only Elizabeth's signature, when a second dark effort
+was made to cut the knot of the Irish difficulty.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Froude, vol. viii. p.48.]
+
+This second 'dark effort' was nothing less than an attempt to murder
+O'Neill by means of poison. He could not be conquered; he could not be
+out-manoeuvred; he could not be assassinated in the ordinary way. But
+the resources of Dublin Castle, and of English ingenuity, were
+not exhausted. The lord deputy was of course delighted with the
+reconciliation which had been effected with the Ulster prince. What
+could be more natural than to send him a present of the choicest
+wine from the viceregal cellars? certainly few presents could be more
+agreeable. Shane and his household quaffed the delicious beverage
+freely enough we may be sure, without the slightest suspicion that
+there was death in the cup. But the wine was mingled with poison.
+Those who drank it were quickly at the point of death. O'Neill might
+thank his good constitution for his recovery from an illness almost
+mortal. The crime was traced to an Englishman named Smith, who, if
+employed by Lord Sussex, did not betray the guilty secret. Mr. Froude
+admits that the suspicion cannot but cling to him that this second
+attempt at murder was not made without his connivance; 'nor,' he adds,
+'can Elizabeth herself be wholly acquitted of responsibility. She
+professed the loudest indignation, but she ventured no allusion to
+his previous communication with her, and no hint transpires of
+any previous displeasure when the proposal had been made openly to
+herself. The treachery of an English nobleman, the conduct of
+the inquiry, and the anomalous termination of it, would have been
+incredible even in Ireland, were not the original correspondence
+extant, in which the facts are not denied.'
+
+O'Neill of course complained loudly to the Queen, whereupon she
+directed that a strict investigation should take place, in order
+that the guilty parties should be found out and punished, 'of what
+condition soever the same should be.' In writing to the lord deputy
+she assumed that Smith had been committed to prison and would be
+brought to condign punishment. That person, after many denials, at
+length confessed his guilt, and said that his object was to rid his
+country of a dangerous enemy. This motive was so good in the eye
+of the Government that it saved the life of the culprit. Sir Thomas
+Cusack, writing to Cecil, March 22, 1564, says, 'I persuaded O'Neill
+to forget the matter, whereby no more talk should grow of it; seeing
+there is no law to punish the offender other than by discretion and
+imprisonment, which O'Neill would little regard except the party might
+be executed by death, and that the law doth not suffer. So as the
+matter be wisely pacified, it were well done to leave it.' Shane was
+probably aware that Smith was but an instrument, who would be readily
+sacrificed as a peace-offering.
+
+The sketch which Mr. Froude gives of Ulster and its wild sovereign at
+this time is admirably picturesque. 'Here then, for the present,
+the story will leave Shane safely planted on the first step of his
+ambition, in all but the title, sole monarch of the North. He
+built himself a fort on an island in Lough Neagh, which he called
+_Foogh-ni-gall_, or, Hate of Englishmen, and grew rich on the spoils
+of his enemies, the only strong man in Ireland. He administered
+justice after a paternal fashion, permitting no robbers but himself;
+when wrong was done he compelled restitution, or at his own cost
+redeemed the harm "to the loser's contentation." Two hundred pipes of
+wine were stored in his cellars; 600 men-at-arms fed at his table, as
+it were his janissaries; and daily he feasted the beggars at his gate,
+saying, it was meet to serve Christ first. Half wolf, half fox, he lay
+couched in his Castle of Malepartuis, with his emissaries at Rome, at
+Paris, and at Edinburgh. In the morning he was the subtle pretender to
+the Irish throne; in the afternoon, when the wine was in him, he was
+a dissolute savage, revelling in sensuality with his unhappy countess,
+uncoupled from her horseboy to wait upon his pleasure. He broke loose
+from time to time to keep his hand in practice. At Carlingford,
+for example, he swept off one day 200 sheep and oxen, while his
+men violated sixty women in the town; but Elizabeth looked away and
+endeavoured not to see. The English Government had resolved to stir no
+sleeping dogs in Ireland till a staff was provided to chastise them if
+they would bite. Terence Daniel, the dean of those rough-riding canons
+of Armagh, was installed as primate; the Earl of Sussex was recalled
+to England; and the new archbishop, unable to contain his exultation
+at the blessed day which had dawned upon his country, wrote to Cecil
+to say how the millennium had come at last, glory be to God!'
+
+As a picture of Irish savage life this is very good. But the historian
+has presented a companion picture of English civilised life, which
+is not at all inferior. Sir Thomas Wroth and Sir Nicholas Arnold were
+sent over to reform the Pale. They were stern Englishmen, impatient
+of abuses among their own countrymen, and having no more sympathy for
+Irishmen than for wolves. In the Pale they found that peculation had
+grown into a custom; the most barefaced frauds had been converted by
+habit into rights: and a captain's commission was thought ill-handled
+if it did not yield, beyond the pay, 500 l. a year. They received pay
+for each hundred men, when only sixty were on the roll. The soldiers,
+following the example of their leaders, robbed and ground the
+peasantry. In fact, the Pale was 'a weltering sea of corruption--the
+captains out of credit, the soldiers mutinous, the English Government
+hated; every man seeking his own, and none that which was Christ's.'
+The purification of the Pale was left to Arnold, 'a hard, iron,
+pitiless man, careful of things and careless of phrases, untroubled
+with delicacy, and impervious to Irish enchantments. The account books
+were dragged to light, where iniquity in high places was registered in
+inexorable figures. The hands of Sir Henry Ratcliffe, the brother of
+Sussex, were not found clean. Arnold sent him to the Castle with
+the rest of the offenders. Deep, leading drains were cut through the
+corrupting mass. The shaking ground grew firm, and honest healthy
+human life was again made possible. With the provinces beyond the
+Pale, Arnold meddled little, save where, taking a rough view of the
+necessities of the case, he could help the Irish chiefs to destroy
+each other.'
+
+To Cecil, Arnold wrote thus: 'I am with all the wild Irish at the same
+point I am at with bears and ban-dogs; when I see them fight, so they
+fight earnestly indeed, and tug each other well, I care not who has
+the worst.' 'Why not, indeed?' asks Mr. Froude; 'better so than hire
+assassins! Cecil, with the modesty of genius, confessed his ignorance
+of the country, and his inability to judge; yet, in every opinion
+which he allowed himself to give, there was always a certain nobility
+of tone and sentiment.' Nobility was scarcely necessary to induce
+a statesman to revolt against the policy of Arnold. A little
+Christianity, nay a slight touch of humanity, would have sufficed for
+that purpose. Sussex was a nobleman, and considered himself, no
+doubt, a very godly man, but everyone must admit that, in all heroic
+qualities, he was incomparably beneath the uncultured Shane O'Neill,
+while in baseness and wickedness he was not far behind his northern
+foe, 'half wolf, half fox.' Cecil, however, was a man of a very
+different stamp from Sussex. Evidently shocked at the prevailing
+English notions about the value of Irish life, he wrote to Arnold:
+'You be of that opinion which many wise men are of, from which I do
+not dissent, being an Englishman; but being, as I am, a Christian man,
+I am not without some perplexity, to enjoy of such cruelties.'
+
+The work of reform, however, did not prove so easy a task. Arnold's
+vigour was limited by his powers. The paymasters continued to cheat
+the Government by false returns. The Government allowed the pay to
+run in arrear, the soldiers revenged themselves by oppressing and
+plundering the people; and 'so came to pass this wonderful phenomenon,
+that _in O'Neill's country_ alone in Ireland--defended as it was from
+attacks from without, and enriched with the plunder of the Pale--_were
+the peasantry prosperous, or life or property secure_.' This fact
+might suggest to the English historian that the evils of Ireland do
+not all proceed from blood or race; and that the Saxon may be placed
+in circumstances which make him as false, as dishonest, as lazy, as
+disordered, as worthless as the Celt, and that even men of 'gentle
+blood' may become as base as their most plebeian servants. Nor did
+zeal for religious reformation redeem the defects of the Anglo-Irish
+rulers. The Protestant bishops were chiefly agitated by the vestment
+controversy. 'Adam Loftus, the titular primate, to whom,' says
+Mr. Froude, 'sacked villages, ravished women, and famine-stricken
+skeletons crawling about the fields, were matters of everyday
+indifference, shook with terror at the mention of a surplice.' Robert
+Daly wrote in anguish to Cecil, in dismay at the countenance to
+'Papistry,' and at his own inability to prolong a persecution which he
+had happily commenced. An abortive 'devise for the better government
+of Ireland' gives us some insight into the condition of the people.
+'No poor persons should be _compelled_ any more to work or labour
+by the day, or otherwise, without meat, drink, wages, or some other
+allowance during the time of their labour; no earth tillers, nor any
+others inhabiting a dwelling, under any lord, should be distrained or
+punished, in body or goods, for the faults of their landlord; nor
+any honest man lose life or lands without fair trial by parliamentary
+attainder, according to the ancient laws of England and Ireland.'
+Surely it was no proof of incurable perversity of nature, that the
+Irish peasantry were discontented and disaffected, under the horrid
+system of oppression and slavery here laid before the English
+Government.
+
+As remedial measures, it was proposed that a true servant of God
+should be placed in every parish, from Cape Clear to the Giant's
+Causeway; that the children should be taught the New Testament and the
+Psalms in Latin, 'that they, being infants, might savour of the same
+in age as an old cask doth;' that there should be a university for the
+education of the clergy, 'and such godly discipline among them that
+there should be no more pluralities, no more abuse of patronage, no
+more neglect, or idleness, or profligacy.' Mr. Froude's reflection
+upon this projected policy is highly characteristic:--
+
+'Here was an ideal Ireland painted on the retina of some worthy
+English minister; but the real Ireland was still the old place. As it
+was in the days of Brian Boroihme and the Danes, so it was in the days
+of Shane O'Neill and Sir Nicholas Arnold; and the Queen, who was
+to found all these fine institutions, cared chiefly to burden her
+exchequer no further in the vain effort _to drain the black Irish
+morass_, fed as it was from the perennial fountains of Irish
+NATURE.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Vol. viii. p.377.]
+
+The Queen, however, thought it more prudent to let Shane have his way
+in Ulster. To oblige him, she would remove the Protestant primate,
+Loftus, to Dublin, and appoint his own nominee and friend, Terence
+Daniel. The Pope had sent a third archbishop for the same see,
+named Creagh; but, when passing through London, he was arrested, and
+incarcerated in the Tower, 'where he lay in great misery, cold, and
+hunger, without a penny, without the means of getting his single
+shirt washed, and without gown or hose.' At last he made his escape
+by gliding over the walls into the Thames. The events of 1565 made the
+English Government more than ever anxious to come to terms with the
+chieftain 'whom they were powerless to crush.' Since the defeat of the
+Earl of Sussex, continues Mr. Froude, 'Shane's influence and strength
+had been steadily growing. His return unscathed from London, and the
+fierce attitude which he assumed on the instant of his reappearance
+in Ulster, convinced the petty leaders that to resist him longer would
+only ensure their ruin. O'Donel was an exile in England, and there
+remained unsubdued in the North only the Scottish colonies of Antrim,
+which were soon to follow with the rest. O'Neill lay quiet through the
+winter. With the spring and the fine weather, when the rivers fell
+and the ground dried, he roused himself out of his lair, and with
+his galloglasse and kerne, and a few hundred harquebussmen, he dashed
+suddenly down upon the Red-shanks, and broke them utterly to pieces.
+Six or seven hundred were killed in the field, James M'Connell and
+his brother, Sorleyboy, were taken prisoners, and, for the moment, the
+whole colony was swept away. James M'Connell, himself badly wounded
+in the action, died a few months later, and Shane was left undisputed
+sovereign of Ulster.'
+
+Primate Daniel announced to the Queen this 'glorious victory over a
+malicious and dangerous people' who were gradually fastening on the
+country; and Sir Thomas Cusack urged that now was the time to make
+O'Neill a friend for ever, an advice which was backed up by the stern
+Arnold. 'For what else could be done? The Pale,' he pleaded, 'is poor
+and unable to defend itself. If he do fall out before the beginning of
+next summer, there is neither outlaw, rebel, murderer, thief, nor any
+lewd nor evil-disposed person--of whom God knoweth there is plenty
+swarming in every quarter among the wild Irish, yea and in our own
+border too--which would not join to do what mischief they might.'
+
+But Shane did not wait for further royal overtures. He saw that with
+the English Government might was right, and that the justice of his
+cause shone out more brightly in proportion to the increase of his
+power. Thus encouraged in his course of aggression and conquest, he
+seized the Queen's Castles of Newry and Dundrum. He then marched into
+Connaught, demanding the tribute due of old time 'to them that were
+kings in that realm.' He exacted pledges of obedience from the western
+chiefs, and spoiled O'Rourke's country, and returned to Tyrone driving
+before him 4,000 head of cattle. While proceeding at this rate he
+wrote soothing and flattering words to the Queen. It was for her
+majesty he was fighting; he was chastising her enemies and breaking
+stiff-necked chiefs into her yoke; and he begged that she would not
+credit any stories which his ill-willers might spread abroad against
+him. On the contrary he hoped she would determine his title and rule
+without delay, and grant him, in consideration of his good services,
+some augmentation of living in the Pale. Elizabeth, however, excused
+his conduct, saying 'we must allow something for his wild bringing-up,
+and not expect from him what we should expect from a perfect subject.
+If he mean well he shall have all his reasonable requests granted.'
+
+But there was among Elizabeth's advisers a statesman who felt that
+this sort of policy would never do. Sir Henry Sidney, on being
+requested to take charge of the Government of Ireland, urged the
+absolute necessity of a radical change. The power of O'Neill, and such
+rulers as he, must be utterly broken, and that by force, at whatever
+cost. And this, he argued, would not only be sound policy but true
+economy. The condition of Ireland was unexampled; free from foreign
+invasion, the sovereignty of the Queen not denied, yet the revenue so
+mean and scanty that 'great yearly treasures were carried out of the
+realm of England to satisfy the stipends of the officers and soldiers
+required for the governance of the same.' He must have 10,000 l.
+or 12,000 l. to pay out-standing debts and put the army in proper
+condition. As for his own remuneration, the new viceroy, as he could
+expect nothing from the Queen, would be content with permission to
+export six thousand kerseys and clothes, free of duty.
+
+Sir Henry Sidney struck out the only line of policy by which the
+English government of Ireland could be made successful or even
+possible. He said: 'To go to work by force will be chargeable, it is
+true; but if you will give the people justice and minister law among
+them, and exercise the sword of the sovereign, and put away the sword
+of the subject, _omnia haec adjicientur vobis_--you shall drive the now
+man of war to be an husbandman, and he that now liveth like a lord
+to live like a servant, and the money now spent in buying armour, and
+horses, and waging of war, shall be bestowed in building of towns and
+houses. By ending these incessant wars ere they be aware, you shall
+bereave them both of force and beggary, and make them weak and
+wealthy. Then you can convert the military service due from the lords
+into money; then you can take up the fisheries now left to the French
+and the Spaniards; then you can open and work your mines, and the
+people will be able to grant you subsidies.'[1] When the lord deputy
+arrived in Ireland he found a state of things in the Pale far worse
+than he could have imagined. It was 'as it were overwhelmed with
+vagabonds; plunder and spoils daily carried out of it; the people
+miserable; not two gentlemen in the whole of it able to lend 20 l.;
+without horse, armour, apparel, or victual. The soldiers were worse
+than the people: so beggarlike as it would abhor a general to look on
+them; never a married wife among them, and therefore so allied with
+Irishwomen that they betrayed secrets, and could not be trusted on
+dangerous service; so insolent as to be intolerable; so rooted in
+idleness as there was no hope by correction to amend them.' In Munster
+a man might ride twenty or thirty miles and find no houses standing
+in a country which he had known as well inhabited as many counties in
+England. 'In Ulster,' Sidney wrote, 'there tyrannizeth the prince of
+pride; Lucifer was never more puffed up with pride and ambition than
+that O'Neill is; he is at present the only strong and rich man in
+Ireland, and he is the dangerest man and most like to bring the whole
+estate of this land to subversion and subjugation either to him or
+to some foreign prince, that ever was in Ireland.' He invited this
+Lucifer to come into the Pale to see him, and Shane at first agreed to
+meet him at Dundalk, but on second thoughts he politely declined, on
+the ground that the Earl of Sussex had twice attempted to assassinate
+him, and but for the Earl of Kildare would have put a lock upon
+his hands when he was passing through Dublin to England. Hence his
+'timorous and mistrustful people' would not trust him any more in
+English hands. In fact O'Neill despised any honours the Queen could
+confer upon him. 'When the wine was in him he boasted that he was in
+blood and power better than the best of their earls, and he would give
+place to none but his cousin of Kildare, because he was of his own
+house. They had made a wise earl of M'Carthymore, but Shane kept as
+good a man as he. Whom was he to trust? Sussex gave him a safe-conduct
+and then offered him the courtesy of a handlock. The Queen had told
+him herself that, though he had got a safe-conduct to come and go, the
+document did not say when he was to go; and, in order to get away
+from London, he was obliged to agree to things against his honour
+and profit, and he would never perform them while he lived.' That
+treachery drove him into war. 'My ancestors,' he said, 'were kings
+of Ulster; and Ulster is mine, and shall be mine. O'Donel shall
+never come into his country, nor Bagenal into Newry, nor Kildare into
+Dundrum, or Lecale. They are now mine. With this sword I won them,
+with this sword I will keep them.' Sidney, indignant at these
+pretensions, wrote thus to Leicester: 'No Atila nor Yotila, no Vandal
+nor Goth that ever was, was more to be dreaded for over-running any
+part of Christendom, than this man is for over-running and spoiling of
+Ireland. If it be an angel of heaven that will say that ever O'Neill
+will be a good subject till he be thoroughly chastised, believe him
+not, but think him a spirit of error. Surely if the queen do not
+chastise him in Ulster, he will chase all hers out of Ireland. Her
+majesty must make up her mind to the expense, and chastise this
+cannibal.' He therefore demanded money that he might pay the garrison
+and get rid of the idle, treacherous, incorrigible soldiers which
+were worse than none. Ireland, he said, would be no small loss to the
+English crown. It was never so likely to be lost as then, and he would
+rather die than that it should be lost during his government. The
+queen, however, sent money with the greatest possible reluctance, and
+was strangely dissatisfied with this able and faithful servant, even
+when his measures were attended with signal success.
+
+[Footnote 1: Opinions of Sir H. Sidney, Irish MSS., Rolls House;
+Froude, p.385.]
+
+In the meantime O'Neill zealously espoused the cause of Mary Queen of
+Scots. His friendship with Argyle grew closer, and he proposed that it
+should be cemented by a marriage. 'The countess' was to be sent away,
+and Shane was to be united to the widow of James M'Connell, whom he
+had killed--who was another half-sister of Argyle, and whose daughter
+he had married already and divorced. Sidney wrote, that was said to be
+the earl's practice; and Mr. Froude, who has celebrated the virtues
+of Henry VIII., takes occasion from this facility of divorce to have
+another fling at 'Irish nature.' He says:--'The Irish chiefs, it
+seemed, three thousand years behind the world, retained the habits
+and the moralities of the Greek princes in the tale of Troy, when
+the bride of the slaughtered husband was the willing prize of the
+conqueror; and when only a rare Andromache was found to envy the fate
+of a sister
+
+    Who had escaped the bed of some victorious lord.'
+
+After a brief and brilliant campaign, in which Shane 'swept round by
+Lough Erne, swooped on the remaining cattle of Maguire, and struck
+terror and admiration into the Irishry,' he wrote a letter to Charles
+IX. of France, inviting his co-operation in expelling the heretics,
+and bringing back the country to the holy Roman see. The heretic
+Saxons, he said, were the enemies of Almighty God, the enemies of the
+holy Church of Rome, the King's enemies, and his. 'The time is come
+when we all are confederates in a common bond to drive the invader
+from our shores, and we now beseech your Majesty to send us 6,000
+well-armed men. If you will grant our request there will soon be no
+Englishmen left alive among us, and we will be your Majesty's subjects
+ever more.' This letter was intercepted, and is now preserved among
+the Irish MSS.
+
+Sidney resolved to adopt a new plan of warfare. His campaigns would
+not be mere summer forays, mere inroads of devastation during the few
+dry weeks of August and September. He would wait till the harvest
+was gathered in, place troops in fortresses, and continue hostilities
+through the winter. He adopted this course because 'in the cold Irish
+springs, the fields were bare, the cattle were lean, and the weather
+was so uncertain that neither man nor horse could bear it, whereas
+in August _food everywhere was abundant_, and the soldiers would have
+time to become hardened to their work.' They could winter somewhere on
+the Bann; harry Tyrone night and day without remission, and so break
+Shane to the ground and ruin him. There was no time to be lost.
+Maguire had come into Dublin, reporting that his last cottage was in
+ashes, and his last cow driven over the hill into Shane's country;
+while Argyle, with the whole disposable force of the western isles,
+was expected to join him in summer. O'Neill himself, after an abortive
+attempt to entrap Sidney at Dundalk, made a sudden attack on that town
+in July; but his men were beaten back, 'and eighteen heads were left
+behind to grin hideously over the gates.' He then returned to Armagh
+and burned the cathedral to the ground, to prevent its being again
+occupied by an English garrison. He next sent a swift messenger to
+Desmond, calling for a rising in Munster. 'Now was the time or never'
+to set upon the enemies of Ireland. If Desmond failed, or turned
+against his country, God would avenge it on him. But Desmond's reply
+was an offer to the deputy 'to go against the rebel with all his
+power. The Scots also held back.' Shane offered them all Antrim to
+join him, all the cattle in the country, and the release of Sorleyboy
+from captivity; but Antrim and its cattle they believed that they
+could recover for themselves, and James M'Connell had left a brother
+Allaster, who was watching with eager eyes for an opportunity to
+revenge the death of his kinsman, and the dishonour with which Shane
+had stained his race.
+
+In the meantime troops and money came over from England, and on
+September 17, Colonel Randolph was at the head of an army in Lough
+Foyle; and the lord deputy took the field accompanied by Kildare, the
+old O'Donel, Shane Maguire, and O'Dogherty. So that this war against
+O'Neill was waged for the dispossessed Irish chiefs as well as for
+England. Armagh city they found a mere heap of blackened stones.
+Marching without obstruction to Ben brook, one of O'Neill's best and
+largest houses, which they found 'utterly burned and razed to the
+ground,' thence they went on towards Clogher, 'through pleasant
+fields, and villages so well inhabited as no Irish county in the realm
+was like it.' The Bishop of Clogher was out with Shane in the field.
+'His well-fattened flock were devoured by Sidney's men as by a flight
+of Egyptian locusts.' 'There we stayed,' said Sidney, 'to destroy the
+corn; we burned the country for 124 miles compass, and we found by
+experience that now was the time of the year to do the rebel most
+harm.' But he says not a word of the harm he was doing to the poor
+innocent peasantry, whose industry had produced the crops, to the
+terrified women and children whom he was thus consigning to a horrible
+lingering death by famine. This was a strange commencement of his own
+programme to treat the people with justice.
+
+The lord deputy expected to meet Randolph at Lifford; but struck with
+the singular advantages presented by Derry, then an island, for a
+military position, he pitched his tents there, and set the troops to
+work in erecting fortifications. Nothing then stood on the site of
+the present city, save a decrepid and deserted monastery of Augustine
+monks, which was said to have been built in the time of St. Columba.
+
+Sidney stayed a few days at Derry, and then, leaving Randolph with
+650 men, 350 pioneers, and provisions for two months, he marched on
+to Donegal. This was once a thriving town, inhabited by English
+colonists. At the time of Sidney's arrival it was a pile of ruins,
+'in the midst of which, like a wild beast's den, strewed round with
+mangled bones, rose the largest and strongest castle which he had seen
+in Ireland. It was held by one of O'Donel's kinsmen, to whom Shane,
+to attach him to his cause, had given his sister to wife. At the
+appearance of the old chief with the English army, it was immediately
+surrendered. O'Donel was at last rewarded for his fidelity and
+sufferings; and the whole tribe, with eager protestations of
+allegiance, gave sureties for their future loyalty.' Sidney next
+directed his march to Ballyshannon, and on by the coast of Sligo.
+Passing over the bogs and mountains of Mayo, they came into Roscommon,
+and then, 'leaving behind them as fruitful a country as was in
+England or Ireland all utterly waste,' the army crossed the Shannon at
+Athlone, swimming 'for lack of a bridge.' The results of this progress
+are thus summed up by Mr. Froude. 'Twenty castles had been taken as
+they went along and left in hands that could be trusted. In all that
+long and painful journey Sidney was able to say that there had not
+died of sickness but three persons; men and horses were brought
+back in full health and strength, while her majesty's honour
+was re-established among the Irishry, and grown to no small
+veneration--"an expedition comparable only to Alexander's journey into
+Bactria," wrote an admirer of Sidney to Cecil--revealing what to Irish
+eyes appeared the magnitude of the difficulty, and forming a measure
+of the effect which it produced. The English deputy had bearded Shane
+in his stronghold, burned his houses, pillaged his people, and had
+fastened a body of police in the midst of them, to keep them waking
+in the winter nights. He had penetrated the hitherto impregnable
+fortresses of mountain and morass; the Irish who had been faithful to
+England were again in safe possession of their lands and homes. The
+weakest, maddest, and wildest Celts were made aware that, when the
+English were once roused to effort, they could crush them as the lion
+crushes the jackal.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Vol. viii. p.407.]
+
+O'Neill had followed the lord deputy to Lifford, and then marched on
+to the Pale, expecting to retaliate upon the invaders with impunity.
+But he was encountered by Warren St. Leger, lost 200 men, and was at
+first hunted back over the border. He again returned, however, with
+'a main army,' burned several villages, and in a second fight with St.
+Leger, compelled the English to retire, 'for lack of more aid;' but
+they held together in good order, and Shane, with the Derry garrison
+in his rear, durst not follow far from home in pursuit. 'Before he
+could revenge himself on Sidney, before he could stir against the
+Scots, before he could strike a blow at O'Donel, he must pluck out the
+barbed dart which was fastened in his unguarded side.'
+
+In order to accomplish this object, he hovered cautiously about
+the Foyle, watching for an opportunity to attack the garrison. But
+Randolph fell upon him by surprise, and after a short sharp action,
+the O'Neills gave way. O'Dogherty with his Irish horse chased the
+flying crowd of his countrymen, killing every person he caught; and
+Shane lost 400 men, the bravest of his warriors. The English success
+was dearly bought, for Randolph leading the pursuit, was struck by a
+random shot, and fell dead from his horse.
+
+Before the Irish chief could recover from this great disaster, Sidney
+'struck in again beyond Dundalk, burning his farms and capturing his
+castles. The Scots came in over the Bann, wasting the country all
+along the river side. Allaster M'Connell, like some chief of Sioux
+Indians, sent to the captain of Knockfergus an account of the cattle
+that he had driven, and _the wives and bairns_ that he had slain. Like
+swarms of angry hornets, these avenging savages drove their stings in
+the now maddened and desperate Shane on every point where they could
+fasten; while in December the old O'Donel came out over the mountains
+from Donegal, and paid back O'Neill with interest for his stolen wife,
+his pillaged country, and his own long imprisonment and exile. The
+tide of fortune had turned too late for his own revenge: worn out
+with his long sufferings, he fell from his horse, at the head of his
+people, with the stroke of death upon him; but before he died, he
+called his kinsmen about him, and prayed them to be true to England
+and their queen, and Hugh O'Donel, who succeeded to his father's
+command, went straight to Derry, and swore allegiance to the English
+crown.
+
+'Tyrone was now smitten in all its borders. Magennis was the last
+powerful chief who still adhered to Shane's fortunes; the last week in
+the year Sidney carried fire and sword through his country, and left
+him not a hoof remaining. It was to no purpose that Shane, bewildered
+by the rapidity with which disasters were piling themselves upon him,
+cried out now for pardon and peace; the deputy would not answer his
+letter, and nothing was talked of but his extirpation by war only.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Froude, p.413.]
+
+The war, however, was interrupted by a singular calamity that befel
+the Derry garrison. By the death of their commander left 'a headless
+people,' they suffered from want of food and clothing. They also
+became the prey of a mysterious disease, against which no precautions
+could guard, which no medicine could cure, and by which strong men
+were suddenly struck dead. By the middle of November 'the flux was
+reigning among them wonderfully;' many of the best men went away
+because there was none to stay them. The secret of the dreadful
+malady--something like the cholera--was discovered in the fact that
+the soldiers had built their sleeping quarters over the burial-ground
+of the abbey, 'and the clammy vapour had stolen into their lungs and
+poisoned them.' The officer who succeeded to the command applied the
+most effectual remedy. He led the men at once into the pure air of the
+enemies' country, and they returned after a few days driving before
+them 700 horses and 1,000 cattle. He assured Sidney, that with 300
+additional men, he could so hunt the rebel, that ere May was passed,
+he should not show his face in Ulster. But the 'Black Death' returned
+after a brief respite; and, says Mr. Froude, in the reeking vapour of
+the charnel-house, it was indifferent whether its victims returned in
+triumph from a stricken field, or were cooped within their walls by
+hordes of savage enemies. By the middle of March there were left out
+of 1,100 but 300 available to fight. Reinforcements had been raised at
+Liverpool, but they were countermanded when on the point of sailing.
+The English council was discussing the propriety of removing the
+colony to the Bann, when accident finished the work which the plague
+had begun, and spared them the trouble of deliberation. The huts
+and sheds round the monastery had been huddled together for the
+convenience of fortification. At the end of April, probably after
+a drying east wind, a fire broke out in a blacksmith's forge, which
+spread irresistibly through the entire range of buildings. The flames
+at last reached the powder magazine: thirty men were blown to pieces
+by the explosion, and the rest, paralysed by this last addition
+to their misfortunes, made no more effort to extinguish the
+conflagration. St. Loo, with all that remained of that ill-fated
+party, watched from their provision boats in the river the utter
+destruction of the settlement which had begun so happily, and then
+sailed drearily away to find a refuge in Knockfergus. Such was the
+fate of the first efforts for the building of Londonderry; and below
+its later glories, as so often happens in this world, lay the bones
+of many a hundred gallant men who lost their lives in laying its
+foundations. Elizabeth, who in the immediate pressure of calamity
+resumed at once her noble nature, 'perceiving the misfortune not
+to come of treason, but of God's ordinance,' bore it well; she was
+willing to do that should be wanting to repair the loss; and Cecil was
+able to write cheerfully to Sidney, telling him to make the best of
+the accident and let it stimulate him to fresh exertions.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Page 410.]
+
+In the meantime Shane O'Neill, hard pressed on every side, earnestly
+implored the cardinals of Lorraine and Guise, in the name of their
+great brother the duke, to bring the _Fleur-de-lys_ to the rescue of
+Ireland from the grasp of the ungodly English. 'Help us,' he cried,
+blending _Irish-like_ flattery with entreaty: 'when I was in England,
+I saw your noble brother, the Marquis d'Elboeuf, transfix two stags
+with a single arrow. If the most Christian king will not help us,
+move the pope to help us. I alone in this land sustain his cause.' To
+propitiate his holiness, Primate Daniel was dismissed to the ranks
+of the army, and Creagh received his crosier, and was taken into
+O'Neill's household.
+
+'All was done,' says the English historian, 'to deserve favour
+in earth and heaven, but all was useless. The Pope sat silent or
+muttering his anathemas with bated breath. The Guises had work enough
+on hand at home to heed the _Irish wolf_, whom the English, having in
+vain attempted to trap or poison, were driving to bay with more lawful
+weapons.' His own people, divided and dispirited, began now to desert
+the failing cause. In May, by a concerted movement, the deputy with
+the light horse of the Pale overran Tyrone, and robbed the farmers
+of 3,000 cattle, while the O'Donels mustered their forces for a great
+contest with Shane, now struggling, almost hopelessly, to maintain
+his supremacy. The O'Neills and O'Donels met on the banks of the Foyle
+near Lifford. The former were superior in number, being about 3,000
+men. After a brief fight 'the O'Neills broke and fled; the enemy was
+behind them, the river was in front; and when the Irish battle cries
+had died away over moor and mountain, but 200 survived of those fierce
+troopers, who were to have cleared Ireland for ever from the presence
+of the Saxons. For the rest, the wolves were snarling over their
+bodies, and the seagulls whirling over them with scream and cry, as
+they floated down to their last resting-place beneath the quiet waters
+of Lough Foyle. Shane's foster-brethren, faithful to the last, were
+all killed; he himself with half-a-dozen comrades rode for his life,
+pursued by the avenging furies. His first desperate intention was to
+throw himself at Sidney's feet, _with a slave's collar upon his neck_;
+but his secretary, Neil M'Kevin, persuaded him that his cause was not
+yet absolutely without hope. Sorleyboy was still a prisoner in the
+castle at Lough Neagh, the Countess of Argyle had remained with her
+ravisher through his shifting fortunes, had continued to bear him
+children, and notwithstanding his many infidelities, was still
+attached to him. M'Kevin told him that for their sakes, or at their
+intercession, he might find shelter and perhaps help among the kindred
+of the M'Connells.'
+
+Acting on this advice, O'Neill took his prisoner, 'the countess, his
+secretary, and fifty men to the camp of Allaster M'Connell, in the
+far extremity of Antrim. He was received with dissembled gratulatory
+words.' For two days all went on well, and an alliance was talked of.
+But the vengeance of his hosts was with difficulty suppressed. The
+great chief who was now in their power, had slain their leaders in the
+field, had divorced James M'Connell's daughter, had kept a high-born
+Scottish lady as his mistress, and had asked Argyle to give him for a
+wife M'Connell's widow, who, to escape the dishonour, had remained in
+concealment at Edinburgh. On the third evening, Monday June 2, when
+the wine and the whiskey had gone freely round, and the blood in
+Shane's veins had warmed, Gilespie M'Connell, who had watched him from
+the first with an ill-boding eye, turned round upon M'Kevin, and asked
+scornfully, 'whether it was he who had bruited abroad that the lady
+his aunt did offer to come from Scotland to Ireland to marry with his
+master?'
+
+M'Kevin meeting scorn with scorn said, that if his aunt was Queen of
+Scotland she might be proud to match with the O'Neill. 'It is false,'
+the fierce Scot shouted; 'my aunt is too honest a woman to match with
+her husband's murderer.'
+
+'Shane, who was perhaps drunk, heard the words, and forgetting where
+he was, flung back the lie in Gilespie's throat. Gilespie sprung to
+his feet, ran out of the tent, and raised the slogan of the Isles. A
+hundred dirks flashed into the moonlight, and the Irish, wherever they
+could be found, were struck down and stabbed. Some two or three
+found their horses and escaped, all the rest were murdered; and Shane
+himself, gashed with fifty wounds, was wrapped in a kern's old shirt,
+and flung into a pit, dug hastily among the ruined arches of Glenarm.
+Even there, what was left of him was not allowed to rest. Four days
+later, Piers, the captain of Knockfergus, hacked the head from the
+body, and carried it on a spear's point through Drogheda to Dublin,
+where, staked upon a pike, it bleached on the battlements of the
+castle, a symbol to the Irish world of the fate of Celtic heroes.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Froude, p.418, &c.]
+
+Mr. Froude might have added: Celtic heroes struck down by Celtic
+hands. No lord deputy could boast of a victory over Shane O'Neill
+in the field. Irish traitors in English pay, Irish clans moved by
+vengeance, did the work of England in the destruction of the great
+principality of the O'Neills, and it was by _their_ swords, not
+by English valour, that Sidney 'recovered Ireland for the crown of
+Elizabeth.' Whatever may have been the faults of Shane O'Neill, and no
+doubt they were very great, though not to be judged of by the morality
+of the nineteenth century, his talents, his force of character, his
+courage and capacity as a general, deserved more favourable notice
+from Mr. Froude, who, in almost every sentence of his graphic and
+splendid descriptions, betrays an animosity to the Celtic race,
+very strange in an author so enlightened, and evincing, with this
+exception, such generous sympathies. After so often reviling the
+great Irish champion by comparing him to all sorts of wild beasts, the
+historian thus concludes:--
+
+'So died Shane O'Neill, one of those champions of Irish nationality,
+who under varying features have repeated themselves in the history of
+that country with periodic regularity. At once a _drunken ruffian_,
+and a keen and fiery patriot, the representative in his birth of the
+line of the ancient kings, the ideal in his character of all which
+Irishmen most admired, regardless in his actions of the laws of God
+and man, yet the devoted subject in his creed of the holy Catholic
+Church; with an eye which could see far beyond the limits of his own
+island, and a tongue which could touch the most passionate chords
+of the Irish heart; the like of him has been seen many times in that
+island, and the like of him may be seen many times again till the
+Ethiopian has changed his skin, and the leopard his spots. Numbers of
+his letters remain, to the Queen, to Sussex, to Sidney, to Cecil,
+and to foreign princes; far-reaching, full of pleasant flattery and
+promises which cost him nothing, but showing true ability and insight.
+Sinner though he was, he too in his turn was sinned against; in the
+stained page of Irish misrule there is no second instance in which
+an English ruler stooped to treachery, or to the infamy of attempted
+assassination; and it is not to be forgotten that Lord Sussex, who has
+left under his own hand the evidence of his own baseness, continued a
+trusted and favoured councillor of Elizabeth, while Sidney, who fought
+Shane and conquered him in the open field, found only suspicion and
+hard words.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+EXTERMINATING WARS.
+
+
+Mr. Froude's magnificent chapter on Ireland, in the eleventh volume
+of his history, just published, ought to be studied by every member of
+the legislature before parliament meets. If a nation has a conscience,
+England must feel remorse for the deeds done in her name in Ireland;
+and ought to make amends for them, if possible. The historian has well
+described the policy of Queen Elizabeth. She was at times disposed to
+forbearance, but 'she made impossible the obedience she enjoined. Her
+deputies and her presidents, too short-sighted to rule with justice,
+were driven to cruelty in spite of themselves. It was easier to kill
+than to restrain. Death was the only gaoler which their finances could
+support, while the Irish in turn lay in wait to retaliate upon their
+oppressors, and atrocity begat atrocity in hopeless continuity.'
+
+Whenever there was a failing in any enterprise, the queen conceived 'a
+great misliking of the whole matter;' but success covered a multitude
+of sins. When the Irish were powerful, and the colony was in danger,
+she thought it 'a hard matter to subvert the customs of the people
+which they had enjoyed, to be ruled by the captains of their own
+nation. Let the chiefs sue for pardon, and submit to her authority,
+and she would let them have their seignories, their captaincies, their
+body-guards, and all the rest of their dignities, with power of life
+and death over their people. But,' says Mr. Froude, 'it was the curse
+of the English rule that it never could adhere consistently to any
+definite principle. It threatened, and failed to execute its threats.
+It fell back on conciliation, and yet immediately, by some injustice
+or cruelty, made reliance on its good faith impossible.'
+
+Essex seemed to understand well the nature and motive of the queen's
+professions, and he resolved to make some bold attempts to win back
+her favour. He had made a sudden attack on Sir Brian O'Neill of
+Clandeboye, with troops trained in the wars of the Low Countries, and
+in a week he brought him to abject submission, which he expressed by
+saying that 'he had gone wickedly astray, wandering in the wilderness
+like a blind beast.' But it was the misfortune of Sir Brian, or
+M'Phelim, that he still held his own territory, which had been
+granted by the queen to Essex. 'The attempt to deprive him had been
+relinquished. He had surrendered his lands, and the queen, at Essex's
+own intercession, had reinstated him as tenant under the crown. It
+seems, however, as if Essex had his eye still upon the property.'
+Under such circumstances, it was easy to assume that O'Neill was still
+playing false. So he resolved that he should not be able to do so any
+longer. 'He determined to make sure work with so fickle a people.' He
+returned to Clandeboye, as if on a friendly visit. Sir Brian and Lady
+O'Neill received him with all hospitality. The Irish Annalists say
+that they gave him a banquet. They not only let him off safe, but they
+accompanied him to his castle at Belfast. There he was very gracious.
+A high feast was held in the hall; and it was late in the night when
+the noble guest and his wife retired to their lodging outside the
+walls. When they were supposed to be asleep, a company of soldiers
+surrounded the house and prepared to break the door. 'The O'Neills
+flew to arms. The cry rang through the village, and the people swarmed
+out to defend their chief; but surprised, half-armed, and outnumbered,
+they were overpowered and cut to pieces. Two hundred men were killed.
+The Four Masters add that the women were slain. The chieftain's wife
+had female attendants with her, and no one was knowingly spared. The
+tide being out, a squadron of horse was sent at daybreak over the
+water into the "Ardes," from which, in a few hours, they returned with
+3,000 of Sir Brian's cattle, and with a drove of stud mares, of which
+the choicest were sent to Fitzwilliam. Sir Brian himself, his brother,
+and Lady O'Neill, were carried as prisoners to Dublin, where they were
+soon after executed.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Froude, vol. xi. p.179.]
+
+Essex did not miscalculate the probable effect of this exploit. It
+raised him high in the estimation of the Anglo-Irish of the Pale. 'The
+taint of the country was upon him; he had made himself no better than
+themselves, and was the hero of the hour.' The effect of such conduct
+and such a spirit in the rulers, may be imagined. A few weeks later,
+Sir Edward Fitton wrote: 'I may say of Ireland, that it is quiet;
+but if universal oppression of the mean sort by the great; if murder,
+robberies, burnings make an ill commonwealth, then I cannot say we are
+in a good case ... Public sentiment in Dublin, however, was unanimous
+in its approbation. Essex was the man who would cauterize the
+long-standing sores. There was a soldier in Ireland at last who
+understood the work that was to be done, and the way to set about it.
+Beloved by the soldiers, admirable alike for religion, nobility, and
+courtesy, altogether the queen's, and not bewitched by the factions
+of the realm, the governor of Ulster had but to be armed with supreme
+power, and the long-wished-for conquest of Ireland would be easily and
+instantly achieved.'
+
+These feelings were not unnatural to the party in Dublin, now
+represented by the men who recently declared that they rejoiced in
+the election of a Fenian convict in Tipperary, and declared that they
+would vote for such a candidate in preference to a loyal man. But how
+did Queen Elizabeth receive the news of the treacherous and atrocious
+massacre at Belfast? She was not displeased. 'Her occasional
+disapprobation of severities of this kind,' says Mr. Froude, 'was
+confined to cases to which the attention of Europe happened to be
+especially directed. She told Essex that he was a great ornament of
+her nobility, she wished she had many as ready as he to spend their
+lives for the benefit of their country.'
+
+Thus encouraged by his sovereign, and smarting under the reproach of
+cowardice cast on him by Leicester, Essex determined to render his
+name illustrious by a still more signal deed of heroism. After an
+unprovoked raid on the territories of O'Neill in Tyrone, carrying
+off cattle and slaughtering great numbers of innocent people whom
+his soldiers hunted down, he perpetrated another massacre, which is
+certainly one of the most infamous recorded in history. A great
+number of women and children, aged and sick persons, had fled from the
+horrors that reigned on the mainland, and taken refuge in the island
+of Rathlin. The story of their tragic fate is admirably told by Mr.
+Froude:--'The situation and the difficulty of access had thus long
+marked Rathlin as a place of refuge for Scotch or Irish fugitives,
+and, besides its natural strength, it was respected as a sanctuary,
+having been the abode at one time of St. Columba. A mass of broken
+masonry, on a cliff overhanging the sea, is a remnant of the castle in
+which Robert Bruce watched the leap of the legendary spider. To this
+island, when Essex entered Antrim, M'Connell and other Scots had sent
+their wives and children, their aged and their sick, for safety. On
+his way through Carrickfergus, when returning to Dublin, the earl
+ascertained that they had not yet been brought back to their homes.
+The officer in command of the English garrison (it is painful to
+mention the name either of him, or of any man concerned in what
+ensued) was John Norris, Lord Norris's second son, so famous
+afterwards in the Low Countries, grandson of Sir Henry Norris,
+executed for adultery with Anne Boleyn. Three small frigates were in
+the harbour. The summer had been hot and windless; the sea was smooth,
+there was a light and favourable air from the east; and Essex directed
+Norris to take a company of soldiers with him, cross over, and--'
+
+What? Bring those women and children, those sick and aged folk, back
+to their homes? Essex had made peace by treaty with the O'Neill. He
+had killed or chased away every man that could disturb the peace;
+and an act of humanity like this would have had a most conciliatory
+effect, and ought to recommend the hero to the queen, who should be
+supposed to have the heart as well as the form of a woman.
+
+No; the order was, to go over '_and kill whatever he could find!_' Mr.
+Froude resumes: 'The run of the Antrim coast was rapidly and quietly
+accomplished. Before an alarm could be given, the English had landed,
+close to the ruins of the church which bears St. Columba's name.
+Bruce's castle was then standing, and was occupied by a score or two
+of Scots, who were in charge of the women. But Norris had brought
+cannon with him. The weak defences were speedily destroyed, and after
+a severe assault, in which several of the garrison were killed, the
+chief who was in command offered to surrender, if he and his people
+were allowed to return to Scotland. The conditions were rejected. The
+Scots yielded at discretion, and every living creature in the place,
+except the chief and his family (who were probably reserved for
+ransom), was immediately put to the sword. Two hundred were killed in
+the castle. It was then discovered that several hundred more, chiefly
+mothers and their little ones, were hidden in the caves about
+the shore. There was no remorse, nor even the faintest shadow of
+perception that the occasion called for it. They were hunted out as if
+they had been seals or otters, and all destroyed. Sorleyboy and other
+chiefs, Essex coolly wrote, had sent their wives and children into the
+island, "which be all taken and executed to the number of six hundred.
+Sorleyboy himself," he continued, "stood upon the mainland of the
+Glynnes and saw the taking of the island, and was likely to have run
+mad for sorrow, tearing and tormenting himself, and saying that he
+there lost all that he ever had!" The impression left upon the mind by
+this horrible story, is increased by the composure with which even the
+news of it was received. "Yellow-haired Charley," wrote Essex to
+the queen, "might tear himself for his pretty little ones and
+their _dam_," but in Ireland itself the massacre was not specially
+distinguished in the general system of atrocity. Essex described it
+himself as one of the exploits with which he was most satisfied; and
+Elizabeth, in answer to his letters, bade him tell John Norris, "the
+executioner of his well-designed enterprise, that she would not be
+unmindful of his services."'
+
+I have transcribed this narrative partly for the sake of the
+reflection with which Mr. Froude concludes. He says: 'But though
+passed over and unheeded at the time, and lying buried for three
+hundred years, the bloody stain comes back to the light again, not in
+myth or legend, but in the original account of the nobleman by whose
+command the deed was done; and when the history of England's dealings
+with Ireland settles at last into its final shape, that hunt among the
+caves at Rathlin will not be forgotten.'[1] It was for services like
+these that Essex got the barony of Farney, in the county Monaghan. He
+had mortgaged his English estates to the queen for 10,000 l.,and after
+his plundering expeditions in Ireland he went home to pay his debts.
+
+[Footnote 1: History of England, vol. xi. p.184.]
+
+Further on Mr. Froude has another reflection connected with the death
+of Essex, supposed to have been poisoned, as his widow immediately
+after married Leicester. He says: 'Notwithstanding Rathlin, Essex was
+one of the noblest of living Englishmen, and that such a man could
+have ordered such a deed, being totally unconscious of the horror of
+it, is not the least instructive feature in the dreadful story.' It
+is certainly a strange fact that nearly all the official murderers who
+ruled in Ireland in those times were intensely religious, setting
+to their own class a most edifying example of piety. Thus, from the
+first, Protestantism was presented to the Irish in close connexion
+with brutal inhumanity and remorseless cruelty. Essex, when dying, was
+described by the bystanders as acting 'more like a divine preacher or
+heavenly prophet than a man.' His opinion of the religious character
+of his countrymen was most unfavourable. 'The Gospel had been preached
+to them,' he said, 'but they were neither Papists nor Protestants--of
+no religion, but full of pride and iniquity. There was nothing but
+infidelity, infidelity, infidelity!--atheism, atheism!--no religion,
+no religion!' What such tiger-like slaughterers of women and children,
+such ruthless destroyers, could have meant by religion is a puzzle for
+philosophers.
+
+Sidney reluctantly resumed the office of viceroy in 1575. Tirlogh
+O'Neill congratulated the Government on his appointment, 'wretched
+Ireland needing not the sword, but sober, temperate, and humane
+administration.' Though it was winter, the new deputy immediately
+commenced a progress through the provinces. Going first to Ulster, he
+saw Sorleyboy, and gave him back Rathlin. He paid a friendly visit
+to the O'Neill, who gave him an assurance of his loyalty. Leinster he
+found for the most part 'waste, burnt up and destroyed.' He proceeded
+by Waterford to Cork. He was received everywhere with acclamation.
+'The wretched people,' says Mr. Froude, how truly!--'sanguine then, as
+ever, in the midst of sorrow, looked on his coming as the inauguration
+of a new and happier era.' So, in later times, they looked on the
+coming of Chesterfield, and Fitzwilliam, and Anglesey. But the good
+angel was quickly chased away by the evil demon--invoked under the
+name of the 'Protestant Interest.' The Munster and the Connaught
+chiefs all thronged to Sidney's levees, weary of disaffection, and
+willing to be loyal, if their religion were not interfered with,
+'detesting their barbarous lives,'--promising rent and service for
+their lands. 'The past was wiped out. Confiscation on the one hand,
+and rebellion on the other, were to be heard of no more. A clean page
+was turned.' Even the Catholic bishops were tractable, and the viceroy
+got 'good and honest juries in Cork, and with their help twenty-four
+malefactors were honourably condemned and hanged.' Enjoying an ovation
+as he passed on to Limerick and Galway, he found many grievances to be
+redressed--'plenty of burnings, rapes, murders, besides such spoil
+in goods and cattle as in number might be counted infinite, and in
+quantity innumerable.'
+
+Sir William Drury was appointed president of Munster; and he was
+determined that in his case the magistrate should not bear the sword
+in vain. Going round the counties as an itinerant judge, he gleaned
+the malefactors Sidney had left, and hanged forty-three of them
+in Cork. One he pressed to death for declining to plead to his
+indictment. Two M'Sweenys, from Kerry, were drawn and quartered. At
+Limerick he hanged forty-two, and at Kilkenny thirty-six, among which
+he said were 'some good ones,' as a sportsman might say, bagging his
+game. He had a difficulty with 'a blackamoor and two witches,' against
+whom he found no statute of the realm, so he dispatched them 'by
+natural law.' Although Jeffreys, at the Bloody Assizes, did not come
+near Drury, the latter found it necessary to apologise to the English
+Government for the paucity of his victims, saying, 'I have chosen
+rather with the snail tenderly to creep, than with the hare swiftly to
+run.' With the Government in Ireland, as Mr. Froude has well remarked,
+'the gallows is the only preacher of righteousness.'
+
+But the gallows was far too slow, as an instrument of reform and
+civilisation, for Malby, president of Connaught; and as modern
+evictors in that province and elsewhere have chosen Christmas as the
+most appropriate season for pulling down dwellings, extinguishing
+domestic fires, and unhousing women and children, so Malby chose the
+same blessed season for his 'improvements' in 1576. It is such a model
+for dealing with the Fenians and tenants on the Tory plan, that I
+transcribe his own report, which Mr. Froude has found among the Irish
+MSS. 'At Christmas,' he wrote, 'I marched into their territory, and
+finding courteous dealing with them had like to have cut my throat,
+I thought good to take another course; and so with determination _to
+consume them with fire and sword, sparing neither old nor young_,
+I entered their mountains. I burnt all their corn and houses, and
+committed to the sword all that could be found, where were slain
+at that time above sixty of their best men, and among them the best
+leaders they had. This was Shan Burke's country. Then I burnt Ulick
+Burke's country. In like manner I assaulted a castle where the
+garrison surrendered. I put them to the misericordia of my soldiers.
+They were all slain. Thence I went on, sparing none which came in my
+way, which cruelty did so amaze their followers, that they could not
+tell where to bestow themselves. Shan Burke made means to me to pardon
+him and forbear killing of his people. I would not hearken, but went
+on my way. The gentlemen of Clanrickard came to me. I found it was but
+dallying to win time, so I left Ulick as little corn and as few houses
+standing as I left his brother; and what people was found had as
+little favour as the other had. _It was all done in rain and frost
+and storm_, journeys in such weather bringing them the sooner to
+submission. They are humble enough now, and will yield to any terms we
+like to offer them.'
+
+And so Malby and his soldiers enjoyed a merry Christmas; and when
+Walsingham read his letters, giving an account of his civilising
+progress, to the Queen, she, too, must have enjoyed a fresh sensation,
+a new pleasure amidst the festivities and gallantries of her brilliant
+court. Mr. Froude has rendered a timely service in this Christmas
+time to the Coercionists, the Martial Law men, and the Habeas Corpus
+Suspension men of our own day. He has shown them their principles at
+work and carried out with a vengeance, and with what results! He has
+admirably sketched the progress of English rule in Ireland up to
+that time--a rule unchanged in principle to the present hour, though
+restrained in its operation by the spirit of the age. Mr. Froude says:
+'When the people were quiet, there was the rope for the malefactors,
+and death by the natural law for those whom the law written could not
+touch. When they broke out, there was the blazing homestead, and death
+by the sword for all, not for the armed kerne only, but for the aged
+and infirm, the nursing mother and the baby at her breast. These, with
+ruined churches, and Irish rogues for ministers,--these, and so far
+_only_ these were the symbols of the advance of English rule; yet even
+Sidney could not order more and more severity, and the president of
+Munster was lost in wonder at the detestation with which the English
+name was everywhere regarded. Clanrickard was sent to Dublin, and the
+deputy wished to hang him, but he dared not execute an earl without
+consulting his mistress, and Elizabeth's leniency in Ireland, as well
+as England, was alive and active towards the great, although it was
+dead towards the poor. She could hear without emotion of the massacres
+at Rathlin or Slievh Broughty; but the blood of the nobles, who had
+betrayed their wretched followers into the rebellion for which they
+suffered, was for ever precious in her sight. She forbade Sidney to
+touch him.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Vol. xi, p.197.]
+
+Next came the great Desmond Rebellion, by which Munster was desolated.
+The Pope had encouraged an expedition against the heretics in Ireland,
+and some Spanish forces joined in the enterprise. It was organised by
+an English ecclesiastic, named Sanders, and an exiled Geraldine,
+named Fitzmaurice of Kerry, both able and energetic men. The Spaniards
+landed at Dingle in 1579. In a few days all Kerry and Limerick were
+up, and the woods between Mallow and the Shannon 'were swarming
+with howling kerne.' 'The rebellion,' wrote Waterhouse, 'is the most
+perilous that ever began in Ireland. Nothing is to be looked for but a
+general revolt.' Malby took the command against them, joined by one of
+the Burkes, Theobald, who when he saw Fitzmaurice struck by a ball
+and staggering in his saddle, rode at him and cut him down. The Papal
+standard was unfolded in this battle. Malby then burnt the Desmonds'
+country, killing all the human beings he met, up to the walls of
+Askeaton. When opportunity offered, Desmond retaliated by sacking and
+burning Youghal. For two days the Geraldines revelled in plunder; they
+violated the women and murdered all who could not escape. At length
+Elizabeth was roused to the greatness of the danger, her parsimony
+was overcome. A larger force was drawn into Ireland than had ever
+been assembled there for a century. Ormond, the hereditary enemy of
+Desmond, was appointed commander-in-chief; and Burghley, writing to
+him in the name of the queen, concluded thus: 'So now I will merely
+say, Butler aboo, against all that cry in the new language--Papa aboo,
+and God send your hearts' desire to banish and vanquish those cankered
+Desmonds!' The war now raged, and, as usual, the innocent people, the
+cultivators of the soil, were the first victims. 'We passed through
+the rebel countries,' wrote Pelham, 'in two companies, burning with
+fire _all habitations, and executing the people_ wherever we found
+them.' Mr. Froude says: '_Alone_ of all the English commanders he
+expressed remorse at the work.' Well, if the creatures they destroyed
+were horses, dogs, or cats, we should expect a man of ordinary human
+feelings to be shocked at the wholesale butchery. But the beings
+slaughtered were men and women and children--Christians found unarmed
+and defenceless in their dwellings. Let the English imagine such a
+war carried on in Kent or Yorkshire, by Irish invaders, killing in
+the name of the Pope. The Irish Annalists say that Pelham and Ormond
+killed the blind and the aged, women and children, sick and idiots,
+sparing none.
+
+The English, as usual, had help from an Irish chief in the work of
+destruction. Ormond had in his train M'Carthymore, 'who, believing
+Desmond's day to be done, hoped, by making himself useful, to secure
+a share of the plunder.' Dividing their forces, Pelham marched on to
+Dingle, 'destroying as he went, with Ormond parallel to him on the
+opposite side of the bay, the two parties watching each other's course
+at night across the water by the flames of the burning cottages!'
+
+The fleet was waiting at Dingle. There was a merry meeting of the
+officers. 'Here,' says Sir Nicholas White, 'my lord justice and I
+gathered cockles for our supper.'[1] The several hunting parties
+compared notes in the evening. Sometimes the sport was bad. On one
+occasion Pelham reported that his party had hanged a priest in the
+Spanish dress. 'Otherwise,' he says, 'we took small prey, and
+killed less people, though we reached many places in our travel!' At
+Killarney they found the lakes full of salmon. In one of the islands
+there was an abbey, in another a parish church, in another a castle,
+'out of which there came to them a fair lady, the rejected wife of
+Lord Fitzmaurice.' Even the soldiers were struck with the singular
+loveliness of the scene. 'A fairer land,' one of them said, 'the
+sun did never shine upon--pity to see it lying waste in the hands of
+traitors.' Mr. Froude, who deals more justly by the Irish in his last
+volumes, replies: 'Yet it was by those traitors that the woods whose
+beauty they so admired had been planted and fostered. Irish hands,
+unaided by English art or English wealth, had built Muckross and
+Innisfallen and Aghadoe, and had raised the castles on whose walls the
+modern poet watched the splendour of the sunset.'
+
+[Footnote 1: Carew Papers; Froude, vol. xi. p.225.]
+
+Ormond was the arch-destroyer of his countrymen. In a report of his
+services he stated that in this one year 1580, he had put to the
+sword 'forty-six captains and leaders, with 800 notorious traitors
+and malefactors, _and above_ 4,000 other people.'[1] In that year
+the great Desmond wrote to Philip of Spain that he was a homeless
+wanderer. 'Every town, castle, village, farm-house belonging to him or
+his people had been destroyed. There was no longer a roof standing in
+Munster to shelter him.' Hunted like a wolf through the mountains,
+he was at last found sleeping in a hut and killed. In vain his wife
+pleaded with Ormond, and threw herself on his protection. Even she was
+not spared. Mr. Froude gives an interesting account of Desmond's last
+hours. He was hunted down into the mountains between Tralee and the
+Atlantic. M'Sweeny had sheltered him and fed him through the summer,
+though a large price was set on his head; and when M'Sweeny was gone,
+killed by an Irish dagger, the earl's turn could not be distant.
+Donell M'Donell Moriarty had been received to grace by Ormond, and
+had promised to deserve his pardon. This man came to the captain
+of Castlemayne, gave information of the hiding-place, a band was
+sent--half-a-dozen English soldiers and a few Irish kerne, who stole
+in the darkness along the path which followed the stream--the door was
+dashed in, and the last Earl of Desmond was killed in his bed.
+
+[Footnote 1: Carew Papers; Froude, vol. xi. p.225.]
+
+Ormond had recourse to a horrible device to extinguish the embers of
+the rebellion. It was carrying out to a diabolical extent the policy
+of setting one Irishman against another. If the terror-stricken
+wretches hoped for pardon, they must deserve it, by murdering their
+relations. Accordingly sacks full of the heads of reputed rebels were
+brought in daily. Yet concerning him Mr. Froude makes this singular
+remark: 'To Ormond the Irish were human beings with human rights. To
+the English they were _vermin, to be cleared from off the earth_ by
+any means that offered.'
+
+Consequently, when it was proposed to make Ormond viceroy, the Pale
+was in a ferment. How could any man be fit to represent English power
+in Dublin Castle, who regarded the Irish as human beings! Not less
+curious is the testimony which the historian bears to the character of
+the English exterminators. He says, 'They were honourable, high-minded
+men, full of natural tenderness and gentleness, to every one with whom
+they were placed in _human relations_. The Irish, unfortunately, they
+looked upon as savages who had refused peace and protection when it
+was offered to them, and were now therefore to be _rooted out and
+destroyed_.' A reformer in 1583, however, suggested a milder policy.
+He recommended that 'all Brehons, carraghs, bards, rhymers, friars,
+monks, jesuits, pardoners, nuns, and such-like should be executed by
+martial law, and that with this clean sweep the work of death might
+end, and a new era be ushered in with universities and schools, a
+fixed police, and agriculture, and good government.'
+
+When the English had destroyed all the houses and churches, burnt all
+the corn, and driven away all the cattle, they were disgusted at the
+savage state in which the remnant of the peasantry lived. A gentleman
+named Andrew Trollope gave expression to this feeling thus: 'The
+common people ate flesh if they could steal it, if not they lived on
+shamrock and carrion. They never served God or went to church; they
+had no religion and no manners, but were in all things more barbarous
+and beast-like than any other people. No governor shall do good here,'
+he said, 'except he show himself a Tamerlane. If hell were open and
+all the evil spirits abroad, they could never be worse than these
+Irish rogues--rather dogs, and worse than dogs, for dogs do but after
+their kind, and they degenerate from all humanity.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Froude, vol. xi. p.246.]
+
+The population of Ireland was then by slaughter and famine reduced to
+about 600,000, one-eighth of the population of England; but far too
+many, in the estimation of their English rulers. Brabason succeeded
+Malby in Connaught, and surpassed him in cruelty. The Four Masters
+say: 'Neither the sanctuary of the saint, neither the wood nor the
+forest valley, the town nor the lawn, was a shelter from this captain
+and his people, till the whole territory was destroyed by him.' In the
+spring of 1582 St. Leger wrote from Cork: 'This country is so ruined
+as it is well near unpeopled by the murders and spoils done by the
+traitors on the one side, and by the killing and spoil done by the
+soldiers on the other side, together with the great mortality in town
+and country, which is such as the like hath never been seen. There has
+died by famine only not so few as 30,000 in this province in less than
+half a year, besides others that are hanged and killed.'
+
+At length the world began to cry shame on England; and Lord Burghley
+was obliged to admit that the English in Ireland had outdone the
+Spaniards in ferocious and blood-thirsty persecution. Remonstrating
+with Sir H. Wallop, ancestor of Lord Portsmouth, he said that the
+'Flemings had not such cause to rebel against the oppression of
+the Spaniards, as the Irish against the tyranny of England.' Wallop
+defended the Government; the causes of the rebellion were not to
+be laid at the door of England at all. They were these, 'the great
+affection they generally bear to the Popish religion, which agreeth
+with their humour, that having committed murder, incest, thefts, with
+all other execrable offences, by hearing a mass, confessing themselves
+to a priest, or obtaining the Pope's pardon, they persuade themselves
+that they are forgiven, and, hearing mass on Sunday or holyday, they
+think all the week after they may do what heinous offence soever and
+it is dispensed withal.' Trollope said they had no religion. Wallop
+said they had too much religion. But their nationality was worse than
+their creed. Wallop adds, 'They also much hate our nation, partly
+through the general mislike or disdain one nation hath to be governed
+by another; partly that we are contrary to them in religion; and
+lastly, they seek to have the government among themselves.'
+
+The last was the worst of all. Elizabeth wished to heal the wounds of
+the Irish nation by appointing Ormond lord deputy. He was a nobleman
+of Norman descent. His family had been true to England for centuries.
+He had commanded her armies during this exterminating war, and, being
+a native of the country, he would be best fitted to carry on the work
+of conciliation after so much slaughter. But, says Mr. Froude, 'from
+every English officer serving in the country, every English settler,
+every bishop of the Anglo-Irish Church, there rose one chorus of
+remonstrance and indignation; to them it appeared as a proposal now
+would appear in Calcutta to make the Nizam Viceroy of India.'[1]
+Wallop wrote that if he were appointed, there would be 'no dwelling in
+the country for any Englishman.'
+
+[Footnote 1: Ibid. p.202.]
+
+The fear that a merciful policy might be adopted towards Ireland
+sorely troubled Wallop and Archbishop Loftus; but they were comforted
+by a great prize--an archbishop fell into their hands. Dr. Hurley
+refused to give information against others. Walsingham suggested that
+he should be put to the torture. To him Archbishop Loftus wrote with
+unction. 'Not finding that easy method of examination do any good, we
+made command to Mr. Waterhouse and Mr. Secretary Fenton to put him to
+the torture, such as your honour advised us, which was to _toast his
+feet_ against the fire with hot boots.' He confessed something. They
+asked permission to execute him by martial law. The queen took a month
+to consider. She recommended an ordinary trial for high treason, and
+if the jury did not do its duty, they might take the shorter way.
+She wished for no more torture, but 'for what was past her majesty
+accepted in good part their careful travail, and greatly commended
+their doings.' The Irish judges had repeatedly decided that there was
+no case against Archbishop Hurley; but on June 19, 1584, Loftus and
+Wallop wrote to Walsingham, 'We gave warrant to the knight-marshal to
+do execution upon him, which accordingly was performed, and thereby
+the realm rid of a most pestilent member.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Froude, vol. xi. p.264.]
+
+This was the last act of these two lords justices. Sir John Perrot,
+the new viceroy, made a speech which sent a ray of hope athwart the
+national gloom. It was simply that the people might thenceforth
+expect a little justice and protection. He told the natives that 'as
+natural-born subjects of her majesty she loved them as her own people.
+He wished to be suppressed and universally abolished throughout the
+realm the name of a churle and the crushing of a churle; affirming
+that, however the former barbarous times had desired it and nourished
+it, yet he held it tyrannous both in name and manner, and therefore
+would extirpate it, and use in place of it the titles used in England,
+namely, husbandmen, franklins or yeomen.' 'This was so plausible,'
+wrote Sir G. Fenton, 'that it was carried throughout the whole realm,
+in less time than might be thought credible, if expressed.'
+
+The extirpation of the Munster Geraldines, in the right line,
+according to the theory of the 'Undertakers' and the law of England in
+general, vested in the queen the 570,000 acres belonging to the late
+earl. Proclamation was accordingly made throughout England, inviting
+'younger brothers of good families' to undertake the plantation of
+Desmond--each planter to obtain a certain scope of land, on condition
+of settling thereupon so many families--'none of the native Irish to
+be admitted' Under these conditions, Sir Christopher Hatton took up
+10,000 acres in Waterford; Sir Walter Raleigh 12,000 acres, partly in
+Waterford and partly in Cork; Sir William Harbart, or Herbert, 13,000
+acres in Kerry; Sir Edward Denny 6,000 in the same county; Sir Warren
+St. Leger, and Sir Thomas Norris, 6,000 acres each in Cork; Sir
+William Courtney 10,000 acres in Limerick; Sir Edward Fitton 11,500
+acres in Tipperary and Waterford, and Edmund Spenser 3,000 acres in
+Cork, on the beautiful Blackwater. The other notable Undertakers
+were the Hides, Butchers, Wirths, Berkleys, Trenchards, Thorntons,
+Bourchers, Billingsleys, &c. Some of these grants, especially
+Raleigh's, fell in the next reign to Richard Boyle, the so-called
+'_great_ Earl of Cork '--probably the most pious hypocrite to be found
+in the long roll of the 'Munster Undertakers.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+AN IRISH CRUSADE.
+
+
+In 1602, the Lord Deputy Mountjoy, in obedience to instructions from
+the Government in London, marched to the borders of Ulster with
+a considerable force, to effect, if he could, the arrest of Hugh
+O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, or to bring him to terms. Since the defeat
+of the Irish and Spanish confederacy at Kinsale, O'Neill comforted
+himself with the assurance that Philip III. would send another
+expedition to Ireland to retrieve the honour of his flag, and avenge
+the humiliation it had sustained, owing to the incompetency or
+treachery of Don Juan d'Aquila. That the king was inclined to aid the
+Irish there can be no question; 'for Clement VIII., then reigning in
+the Vatican, pressed it upon him as a sacred duty, which he owed to
+his co-religionists in Ireland, whose efforts to free themselves from
+Elizabeth's tyranny, the pontiff pronounced to be a _crusade_ against
+the most implacable heretic of the day.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Fate and Fortunes of the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell.
+By the Rev. P.C. Meehan, M.R.I.A.]
+
+If Mr. Meehan's authorities may be relied upon, Queen Elizabeth was,
+in intention at least, a murderer as well as a heretic. He states
+that while she was gasping on her cushions at Richmond, gazing on the
+haggard features of death, and vainly striving to penetrate the opaque
+veil of the future, she commanded Secretary Cecil to charge Mountjoy
+to entrap Tyrone into a submission, on diminished rank as Baron of
+Dungannon, and with lessened territory; or if possible, to have his
+head, before engaging the royal word. It was to accomplish either of
+these objects, that Mountjoy marched to the frontier of the north.
+'Among those employed to murder O'Neill in cold blood, were Sir
+Geoffry Fenton, Lord Dunsany, and _Henry Oge O'Neill._ Mountjoy bribed
+one Walker, an Englishman, and a ruffian calling himself Richard
+Combus, to make the attempt, but they all failed.'[1] Finding it
+impossible to procure the assassination of 'the sacred person of
+O'Neill, who had so many eyes of jealousy about him,' he wrote to
+Cecil from Drogheda, that nothing prevented Tyrone from making his
+submission but mistrust of his personal safety and guarantee
+for maintenance commensurate to his princely rank. The lords of
+Elizabeth's privy council empowered Mountjoy to treat with O'Neill on
+these terms, and to give him the required securities. Sir Garret Moore
+and Sir William Godolphin were entrusted with a commission to effect
+this object. But while the lord deputy, with a brilliant retinue,
+was feasting at Mellifont, a monastery bestowed by Henry VIII. on an
+ancestor of Sir Garret Moore, by whom it was transformed into a 'fair
+mansion,' half palace, half fortress, a courier arrived from England,
+announcing the death of the queen. Nevertheless the negotiations
+were pressed on in her name, the fact of her decease being carefully
+concealed from the Irish. Tyrone had already sent his secretary, Henry
+O'Hagan, to announce to the lord deputy that he was about to come to
+his presence. Accordingly on March 29, he surrendered himself to the
+two commissioners at Tougher, within five miles of Dungannon. On the
+following evening he reached Mellifont, when, being admitted to the
+lord deputy's presence, 'he knelt, as was usual on such occasions;'
+and made penitent submission to her majesty. Then, being invited to
+come nearer to the deputy, he repeated the ceremony, if we may credit
+Fynes Moryson, in the same humiliating attitude, thus:--
+
+'I, Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, do absolutely submit myself to the
+queen's mercy, imploring her gracious commiseration, imploring her
+majesty to mitigate her just indignation against me. I do avow that
+the first motives of my rebellion were neither malice nor ambition;
+but that I was induced by fear of my life, to stand upon my guard. I
+do therefore most humbly sue her majesty, that she will vouchsafe
+to restore to me my former dignity and living. In which state of
+a subject, I vow to continue for ever hereafter loyal, in all true
+obedience to her royal person, crown, and prerogatives, and to be
+in all things as dutifully conformable thereunto as I or any other
+nobleman of this realm is bound by the duty of a subject to his
+sovereign, utterly renouncing the name and title of O'Neill, or any
+other claim which hath not been granted to me by her majesty. I abjure
+all foreign power, and all dependency upon any other potentate but her
+majesty. I renounce all manner of dependency upon the King of Spain,
+or treaty with him or any of his confederates, and shall be ready to
+serve her majesty against him or any of his forces or confederates.
+I do renounce all challenge or intermeddling with the Uriaghts, or
+fostering with them or other neighbour lords or gentlemen outside my
+country, or exacting black-rents of any Uriaghts or bordering lords.
+I resign all claim and title to any lands but such as shall now be
+granted to me by her majesty's letters patent. Lastly, I will be
+content to be advised by her majesty's magistrates here, and will
+assist them in anything that may tend to the advancement of her
+service, and the peaceable government of this kingdom, the abolishing
+of barbarous customs, the clearing of difficult passes, wherein I will
+employ the labours of the people of my country in such places as I
+shall be directed by her majesty, or the lord deputy in her name; and
+I will endeavour for myself and the people of my country, to erect
+civil habitations such as shall be of greater effect to preserve us
+against thieves, and any force but the power of the state.'
+
+[Footnote 1: See Life and Letters of Florence M'Carthy. By D.
+M'Carthy, Esq.]
+
+To this act of submission Tyrone affixed his sign manual, and handed
+it to the deputy, who told him he must write to Philip III. of Spain,
+to send home his son Henry, who had gone with Father M'Cawell to
+complete his studies in Salamanca. The deputy also insisted that he
+should reveal all his negotiations with the Spanish court, or any
+other foreign sovereign with whom he maintained correspondence; and
+when the earl assured him that all these requirements should be duly
+discharged, the lord deputy in the queen's name promised him her
+majesty's pardon to himself and followers, to himself the restoration
+of his earldom and blood with new letters patent of all his lands,
+excepting the country possessed by Henry Oge O'Neill, and the Fews
+belonging to Tirlough Mac Henry O'Neill, both of whom had recently
+taken grants of their lands, to be holden immediately from the queen.
+It was further covenanted that Tyrone should give 300 acres of his
+land to the fort of Charlmont, and 300 more to that of Mountjoy, as
+long as it pleased her majesty to garrison said forts. Tyrone assented
+to all these conditions, and then received the accolade from the lord
+deputy, who, a few months before, had written to Queen Elizabeth, that
+he hoped to be able to send her that ghastliest of all trophies--her
+great rebel's head!
+
+On April 4, the lord deputy returned to Dublin accompanied by the
+great vassal whom he fancied he had bound in inviolable loyalty to the
+English throne. To make assurance doubly sure, the day after James was
+proclaimed, Tyrone repeated the absolute submission made at Mellifont,
+the name of the sovereign only being changed. He also despatched a
+letter to the King of Spain stating that he had held out as long as
+he could, in the vain hope of being succoured by him, and finally when
+deserted by his nearest kinsmen and followers, he was enforced as in
+duty bound to declare his allegiance to James I., in whose service and
+obedience he meant to live and die.
+
+The importance of this act of submission will appear from a manifesto
+issued by O'Neill three years before, dated Dungannon, November 16,
+1599, and subscribed 'O'Neill.' This remarkable document has been
+published for the first time by Father Meehan.
+
+'_To the Catholics of the towns in Ireland._
+
+'Using hitherto more than ordinary favour towards all my countrymen,
+who generally by profession are Catholics, and that naturally I
+am inclined to affect [esteem] you, I have for these and other
+considerations abstained my forces from tempting to do you hindrance,
+and because I did expect that you would enter into consideration of
+the lamentable state of our poor country, most tyrannically oppressed,
+and of your own gentle consciences, in maintaining, relieving and
+helping the enemies of God and our country in wars infallibly tending
+to the promotion of heresy: But now seeing you are so obstinate in
+that which hereunto you continued of necessity, I must use severity
+against you (whom otherwise I most entirely love) in reclaiming you
+by compulsion. My tolerance and happy victories by God's particular
+favour doubtless obtained could work no alteration in your
+consciences, notwithstanding the great calamity and misery, whereunto
+you are most likely to fall by persevering in that damnable state in
+which hereunto you have lived. Having commiseration on you I thought
+it good to forewarn you, requesting every of you to come and join with
+me against the enemies of God and our poor country. If the same you do
+not, I will use means to spoil you of all your goods, but according to
+the utmost of my power shall work what I may to dispossess you of
+all your lands, because you are the means whereby wars are maintained
+against the exaltation of the Catholic faith. Contrariwise, whosoever
+it shall be that shall join with me, upon my conscience, and as to the
+contrary I shall answer before God, I will employ myself to the utmost
+of my power in their defence and for the extirpation of heresy, the
+planting of the Catholic religion, the delivery of our country of
+infinite murders, wicked and detestable policies by which this
+kingdom was hitherto governed, nourished in obscurity and ignorance,
+maintained in barbarity and incivility, and consequently of infinite
+evils which were too lamentable to be rehearsed. And seeing these are
+motives most laudable before any men of consideration, and before the
+Almighty most meritorious, which is chiefly to be expected, I thought
+myself in conscience bound, seeing God hath given me some power to use
+all means for the reduction of this our poor afflicted country into
+the Catholic faith, which can never be brought to any good pass
+without either your destruction or helping hand; hereby protesting
+that I neither seek your lands or goods, neither do I purpose to plant
+any in your places, if you will adjoin with me; but will extend what
+liberties and privileges that heretofore you have had if it shall
+stand in my power, giving you to understand upon my salvation that
+chiefly and principally I fight for the Catholic faith to be planted
+throughout all our poor country, as well in cities as elsewhere,
+as manifestly might appear by that I rejected all other conditions
+proffered to me this not being granted. I have already by word of
+mouth protested, and do now hereby protest, that if I had to be
+King of Ireland without having the Catholic religion which before I
+mentioned, I would not the same accept. Take your example by that most
+Catholic country, France, whose subjects for defect of Catholic faith
+did go against their most natural king, and maintained wars till he
+was constrained to profess the Catholic religion, duly submitting
+himself to the Apostolic See of Rome, to the which doubtless we may
+bring our country, you putting your helping hand with me to the same.
+As for myself I protest before God and upon my salvation I have been
+proffered oftentimes such conditions as no man seeking his own private
+commodity could refuse; but I seeking the public utility of my native
+country will prosecute these wars until that generally religion be
+planted throughout all Ireland. So I rest, praying the Almighty to
+move your flinty hearts to prefer the commodity and profit of our
+country, before your own private ends.'
+
+As a crusader, the O'Neill was a worthy disciple of the King of Spain.
+The Catholics of the south had no wish to engage in a religious
+war, but the northern chief aspiring to the sovereignty of the whole
+island, resolved to reclaim them by compulsion, seeing that
+his tolerance and happy victories had worked no change in their
+consciences, and they still persevered in that 'damnable state'
+in which they had lived. From his entire love and commiseration he
+forewarned them that if they did not come and join him against the
+enemies of God and 'our poor country,' he would not only despoil
+them of all their goods, but dispossess them of all their lands.
+The extirpation of heresy, the planting of the Catholic religion, he
+declared could never be brought to any good pass without either the
+destruction or the help of the Catholics in the towns of the south and
+west. He did not want their lands or goods, nor did he intend to plant
+others in their places _if they would adjoin with him_. Pointing to
+the example of France, he vowed that he would prosecute those wars
+until the Catholic religion should be planted throughout all Ireland,
+praying that God would move their flinty hearts to join him in this
+pious and humane enterprise. In those times when religious wars
+had been raging on the continent, when the whole power of Spain was
+persistently employed to exterminate Protestants with fire and sword
+and every species of cruelty, it is not at all surprising that a
+chief like O'Neill, leading such a wild warlike life in Ulster, should
+persuade himself that he would be glorifying God and serving his
+country by destroying the Catholic inhabitants of the towns, that is
+all the most civilised portion of the community, because they would
+not join him in robbing and killing the Protestants. But it is not a
+little surprising that an enlightened, learned, and liberal Catholic
+priest, writing in Dublin in the year 1868, should give his deliberate
+sanction to this unchristian and barbarous policy. Yet Father Meehan
+writes: 'But no; not even the dint of that manifesto, _with the ring
+of true steel in its every line_, could strike a spark out of their
+hearts, for they were chalky.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Page 34.]
+
+It was very natural that the English Government should act upon the
+same principle of intolerance, especially when they had the plea
+of state necessity. They did not yet go the length of exterminating
+Catholicity by the means with which the O'Neill threatened his
+peaceable and industrious co-religionists in the towns.
+
+All they required was that the Catholics should cease to harbour
+their priests, and that they should attend the Protestant churches.
+Remarking upon the proclamation of Chichester to this effect Mr.
+Meehan says:--'Apart from the folly of the king, who had taken into
+his head that an entire nation should, at his bidding, apostatise from
+the creed of their forefathers, the publishing such a manifesto
+in Dungannon, in Donegal, and elsewhere was a bitter insult to
+the northern chieftains, whose wars were _crusades_,--the natural
+consequence of faith,--stimulated by the Roman Pontiffs, assisted
+by Spain, then the most Catholic kingdom in the world.' Does not Mr.
+Meehan see that crusading is a game at which two can play? And if
+wars which were crusades were the natural consequence of the Catholic
+faith, were stimulated by the Roman Pontiffs, and assisted by Spain,
+for the purpose of destroying the power of England, everywhere as well
+as in Ireland, and abolishing the Reformation,--does it not follow
+as a necessary consequence that the English Government must in sheer
+self-defence have waged a war of extermination against the Catholic
+religion, and have regarded its priests as mortal enemies? No better
+plea for the English policy in Ireland was ever offered by any
+Protestant writer than this language, intended as a condemnation, by
+a very able priest in our own day. It was no doubt extreme folly for
+King James I. to expect that a nation, or a single individual, should
+apostatise at his bidding; but it was equal folly in the King of Spain
+to expect Protestants to apostatise at his bidding; and if possible
+still greater folly for O'Neill to expect the Catholic citizens of
+Munster to join him in the bloody work of persecution. It was, then,
+the Spanish policy stimulated by the Sovereign Pontiff that was the
+standing excuse of the cruel intolerance and rancorous religious
+animosity which have continued to distract Irish society down to
+our own time. Persecution is alien to the Irish race. The malignant
+_virus_ imported from Spain poisoned the national blood, maddened the
+national brain, and provoked the terrible system of retaliation that
+was embodied in the Penal Code, and which, surviving to our own time,
+still defends itself by the old plea--the intrusion of a foreign power
+attempting to overrule the government of the country.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE LAST OF THE IRISH PRINCES.
+
+
+The accession of James I. produced a delirium of joy in the Catholics
+of the south. Their bards had sung that the blood of the old Celtic
+monarchs circulated in his veins, their clergy told them that as
+James VI. of Scotland he had received supplies of money from the
+Roman court, and above all Clement VIII. then reigning, had sent to
+congratulate him on his accession, having been solicited by him to
+favour his title to the crown of England, which the Pope guaranteed
+to do on condition that James promised not to persecute the Catholics.
+The consequence was that the inhabitants of the southern towns rose
+_en masse_ without waiting for authority, forced open the gates of the
+ancient churches, re-erected the altars and used them for the public
+celebration of worship. The lord deputy was startled by intelligence
+to this effect from Waterford, Limerick, Cork, Lismore, Kilkenny,
+Clonmel, Wexford, &c. The cathedrals, churches, and oratories were
+seized by the people and clergy, Father White, Vicar-Apostolic of
+Waterford, being the leader in this movement, going about from city
+to city for the purpose of 'hallowing and purifying' the temples which
+Protestantism had desecrated.
+
+The mayors of the cities were rebuked by Mountjoy as seditious and
+mutinous in setting up 'the public exercise of the Popish religion,'
+and he threatened to encamp speedily before Waterford, 'to suppress
+insolences and see peace and obedience maintained.' The deputy kept
+his word, and on May 4, 1603, he appeared before Waterford at the
+head of 5,000 men, officered by Sir R. Wingfield, and others who had
+distinguished themselves during Tyrone's war. 'There is among the
+family pictures at Powerscourt,' says Mr. Meehan, 'a portrait of this
+distinguished old warrior, whose lineal descendant, the present noble
+lord, has always proved most generous to his Catholic tenantry.' The
+reverend gentleman gives an amusing sketch of a theological encounter
+between the old warrior and Father White and a Dominican friar,
+who came forth to the camp under a safe-conduct, both wearing their
+clerical habits and preceded by a cross-bearer. The soldiers jeered
+at the sacred symbol, and called it an idol. Father White indignantly
+resented the outrage, when Sir Richard Wingfield threatened to put
+an end to the controversy by running his sword through the
+Vicar-Apostolic. 'The deputy however was a bookish man, at one period
+of his life inclined to Catholicity, and he listened patiently to
+Father White on the right of resisting or disobeying the natural
+prince; but when the latter quoted some passage thereanent in the
+works of St. Augustine, Mountjoy caused to be brought to him out of
+his tent the identical volume, and showed to the amazement of the
+bystanders, that the context explained away all the priest had
+asserted.' The noble theologian told Father White that he was a
+traitor, worthy of condign punishment for bringing an idol into a
+Christian camp and for opening the churches by the Pope's authority.
+Father White appeared in the camp a second time that day, making
+a most reasonable request. He fell on his knees before the deputy,
+begging liberty of conscience, free and open exercise of religion,
+protesting that the people would be ready to resist all foreign
+invasion were that granted; and finally beseeching that some of the
+ruined churches might be given to the Catholics, who were ready
+to rebuild them, and pay for them a yearly rent into his majesty's
+exchequer. But the deputy was inexorable, and all he would grant was
+leave to wear clerical clothes, and celebrate mass in private houses.
+Mountjoy entered Waterford, received from the citizens the oath of
+allegiance, and made over the city churches to the small section
+of Protestants. At the same time he sent despatches to other towns
+ordering the authorities to evict the Roman Catholics from the places
+of worship. And then proceeding to Cork, and thence through Cashel
+to Dublin, he undid all that the clergy had done with respect to the
+churches, 'leaving perhaps to future statesmen,' writes Father
+Meehan, 'living above the atmosphere of effete prejudices, the duty of
+restoring to the Catholics of Ireland those grand old temples, which
+were never meant to accommodate a fragment of its people.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Page 30.]
+
+When Mountjoy returned to Dublin he found that he had been created
+Lord Lieutenant of Ireland with two-thirds of the deputy's allowance,
+Sir George Carew, appointed deputy during his absence in
+England, receiving the other third together with his own pay as
+treasurer-at-war. Mountjoy was also informed that the royal pardon had
+been granted to Tyrone under the great seal, and that all other grants
+made to him by the lord deputy had been confirmed. The king concluded
+by requesting that he would induce Tyrone to go with him to London,
+adding, 'as we think it very convenient for our service, and require
+you so to do; and if not that at least you bring his son.' Along with
+these instructions came a protection for O'Neill and his retinue. It
+was supposed that James felt grateful to the Ulster chieftain for the
+services he had rendered him during the late queen's reign; and it is
+stated by Craik that after the victory of the Blackwater, he sent his
+secretary O'Hagan to Holyrood, to signify to his majesty that if he
+supplied him with money and munitions he would instantly march on
+Dublin, proclaim him King of Ireland, and set the crown upon his head.
+
+In compliance with the sovereign's request, Mountjoy, with a brilliant
+suite, accompanied by Tyrone and Rory O'Donel, embarked in May 1603,
+and sailed for Holyhead. But when they had sighted the coast of Wales,
+the pinnace was driven back by adverse winds, and nearly wrecked in a
+fog at the Skerries. They landed safe, however, at Beaumaris, whence
+they rode rapidly to Chester, where they stopped for the night, and
+were entertained by the mayor. The king's protection for the O'Neill
+was not uncalled for. Whenever he was recognised in city or hamlet,
+the populace, notwithstanding their respect for Mountjoy, the hero of
+the hour, pursued the earl with bitter insults, and stoned him as he
+passed along. Throughout the whole journey to London, the Welsh and
+English women assailed him with their invectives. Not unnaturally, for
+'there was not one among them but could name some friend or kinsman
+whose bones lay buried far away in some wild pass or glen of Ulster,
+where the object of their maledictions was more often victor than
+vanquished.'[1] The king, however, gave the Irish chiefs a gracious
+reception, having issued a proclamation that he had restored them to
+his favour, and that they should be 'of all men honourably received.'
+This excited intense disgust amongst English officers who had been
+engaged in the Irish wars. Thus Sir John Harrington, writing to
+a bishop, said: 'I have lived to see that damnable rebel, Tyrone,
+brought to England, honoured and well liked. Oh, what is there that
+does not prove the inconstancy of worldly matters! How I did labour
+after that knave's destruction! I adventured perils by sea and land,
+was near starving, eat horseflesh in Munster, and all to quell that
+man, who now smileth in peace at those who did hazard their lives
+to destroy him; and now doeth Tyrone dare us old commanders with his
+presence and protection.'
+
+[Footnote 1: Father Meehan.]
+
+In fact the favour of the king went to an excess fatal to its object,
+by conceding powers incompatible with his own sovereignty, leading
+to disorders and violence, and exciting jealousy and mortal enmity in
+those who were charged with the government in Ireland. The lords of
+the Privy Council, with the king's consent, gave O'Neill authority for
+martial law, 'to be executed upon any offenders that shall live under
+him, the better to keep them in obedience.' It was ordered that the
+king's garrisons should not meddle with him or his people. The king
+also invested O'Donel with all the lands and rights of ancient time
+belonging to his house, excepting abbeys and other spiritual livings,
+the castle and town of Ballyshannon, and 1,000 acres adjoining
+the fishing there. He also received the style and title of Earl
+of Tyrconnel, with remainder to his brother Caffar, the heirs male
+apparent being created Barons of Donegal. He was formally installed
+in Christ Church Cathedral on the 29th of September following, in
+presence of Archbishop Loftus and a number of high officials. Tyrone,
+however, was dogged by spies while he was in London, and one
+Atkinson swore informations to the effect that he was in the habit
+of entertaining a Jesuit named Archer, who was intriguing with the
+foreign enemies of England, and who was held by Irish royalists for
+'the most bloody and treacherous traitor, who could divert Tyrone
+and all the rest from the king, and thrust them again into actual
+rebellion.'
+
+In the meantime, Sir George Carew was pursuing a policy in Ireland
+which must of necessity involve the north in fresh troubles. In his
+letters to England, he complained that the country 'so swarmed with
+priests, Jesuits, seminarists, friars, and Romish bishops, that if
+speedy means were not used to free the kingdom of this wicked rabble,
+which laboured to draw the subjects' hearts from their due obedience
+to their prince, much mischief would burst forth in very short time.
+For,' he said, 'there are here so many of this wicked crew, that are
+able to disquiet four of the greatest kingdoms in Christendom. It is
+high time they were banished from hence, and none to receive, or
+aid, or relieve them. Let the judges and officers be sworn to the
+supremacy; let the lawyers go to the church and show conformity,
+or not plead at the bar; and then the rest by degrees will shortly
+follow.'
+
+Carew was succeeded as deputy by Sir Arthur Chichester, descended
+from a family of great antiquity in Devon. He had served in Ireland
+as governor of Carrickfergus, admiral of Lough Neagh, and commander
+of the Fort of Mountjoy. Father Meehan describes him as malignant and
+cruel, with a physiognomy repulsive and petrifying; a Puritan of the
+most rigid character, utterly devoid of sympathy, solely bent on his
+own aggrandisement, and seeking it through the plunder and persecution
+of the Irish chieftains. That is the Irish view of his character. How
+far he deserved it the reader will be able to judge by his acts.
+He was evidently a man of strong will, an able administrator
+and organiser; and he set himself at once, and earnestly, to the
+establishment of law and order in the conquered territories of the
+Irish princes. He sent justices of assize throughout Munster and
+Connaught, reducing the 'countries or regions' into shire-ground,
+abolishing cuttings, cosheries, spendings, and other customary
+exactions of the chiefs, by which a complete revolution was effected.
+He issued a proclamation, by the king's order, commanding all the
+Catholics, under penalties, to assist at the Church of England
+service; proscribing priests, and other ecclesiastical persons
+ordained by authority from the see of Home; forbidding parents to send
+their children to seminaries beyond the seas, or to keep as private
+tutors other than those licensed by the Protestant archbishop or
+bishop. If any priest dared to celebrate mass, he was liable to a fine
+of 200 marks, and a year's imprisonment; while to join the _Romish_
+Church was to become a traitor, and to be subject to a like penalty.
+Churchwardens were to make a monthly report of persons absent from
+church, and to whet the zeal of wardens and constables, for each
+conviction of offending parties, they were to have a reward of forty
+shillings, to be levied out of the recusant's estate and goods.
+Catholics might escape these penalties by quitting the country, and
+taking the oath of abjuration, by which they bound themselves to
+abjure the land and realm of James, King of England, Scotland, France,
+and Ireland, to hasten towards a certain port by the most direct
+highway, to diligently seek a passage, and tarry there but one
+flood and ebb. According to one form, quoted by Mr. Meehan, the oath
+concluded thus: 'And, unless I can have it (a passage) in such a
+place, I will go every day into the sea up to my knees, essaying to
+pass over, so God me help and His holy judgment.'
+
+The deputy found some difficulty in bending the consciences of the
+Dublin people to the will of the sovereign in matters of faith; but
+the said will was to be enforced _circa sacra_ at all hazards; so he
+summoned sixteen of the chief citizens and aldermen before the Privy
+Council, and censured them for their recusancy, imprisoned them in the
+castle during pleasure, inflicting upon six a fine of 100 l. each, and
+upon three 50 l. each. The king was delighted with this evangelical
+method of extending reformed religion in Ireland. Congratulating his
+deputy, he expressed a hope that many, by such means, would be brought
+to conformity in religion, who would hereafter 'give thanks to God for
+being drawn by so gentle a constraint to their own good.' The 'gentle
+constraint' was imposed in all directions. The Privy Council decreed
+that none but a member of the Church of England could hold any
+office under the Crown. The old Catholic families of the Pale humbly
+remonstrated, and their chief men were flung into prison. Sir Patrick
+Barnwell, their agent, was sent to London by order of the king, and
+was forthwith committed to the Tower for contempt. Henry Usher, then
+Archbishop of Armagh, carried out the system of exclusion in his own
+diocese, which included the territories of Tyrone. All 'Papists' were
+forbidden to assist at mass, on pain of forfeiture of their goods and
+imprisonment. In a like manner, the Catholic worship was prohibited
+even in the residence of the Earl of Tyrconnel. He and Tyrone strongly
+remonstrated against this violation of the royal word, that they and
+their people might have liberty for their worship in private houses.
+The answer was decided. His majesty had made up his mind to disallow
+liberty of worship, and his people, whether they liked it or not,
+should repair to their parish churches.
+
+In addition to this religious grievance, which excited the bitterest
+feelings of discontent, the two earls were subjected to the most
+irritating annoyances. They complained that their people were
+plundered by sheriffs, under-sheriffs, officers, and soldiers; and
+that even their domestic privacy was hourly violated, that their
+remonstrances were unheeded, and their attempts to obtain legal
+remedies were frustrated. At the same time their vassals were
+encouraged to repudiate their demands for tribute and rent. Bishop
+Montgomery of Derry was a dangerous neighbour to O'Neill. Meeting him
+one day at Dungannon, the earl said: 'My lord, you have two or three
+bishopricks, and yet you are not content with them, but seek the lands
+of my earldom.'
+
+'My lord,' replied the bishop, 'your earldom is swollen so big with
+the lands of the Church, that it will burst if it be not vented.' If
+he had confined his venting operations to the chiefs, and abstained
+from bleeding the poor people, it would have been better for
+Protestantism. For we read that he sent bailiffs through the diocese
+of Raphoe, to levy contributions for the Church. 'For every cow and
+plough-horse, 4 d.; as much out of every colt and calf, to be
+paid twice a year; and half-a-crown a quarter of every shoemaker,
+carpenter, smith, and weaver in the whole country; and 8 d. a year for
+every married couple.'
+
+This bishop seems to have been greatly impressed with the
+'commodities' of O'Cahan's country, which he describes with much
+unction in a letter to the Earl of Salisbury. He said that the country
+was 'large, pleasant, and fruitful; twenty-four miles in length
+between Lough Foyle and the Bann; and in breadth, from the sea-coast
+towards the lower parts of Tyrone, 14 miles.' He states that O'Cahan
+was able to assist the Earl of Tyrone, during his war, with 1,200
+foot and 300 horse, the ablest men that Ulster yielded; and, by the
+confession of gentlemen of the first plantation, had oftener put them
+to their defence than any enemy they had to do with, not suffering
+them to cut a bough or build a cabin without blows. When Tyrone was
+driven to his fastness, Glenconkeine, O'Cahan sent him 100 horse and
+300 foot, and yet made good his own country against the army lying
+round about him, adding, that his defection 'did undo the earl, who,
+as he had his country sure behind him, cared little for anything the
+army could do to him.' The bishop was, therefore, very anxious that
+Tyrone should not have any estate in O'Cahan's country, 'since he was
+of great power to offend or benefit the poor infant city of Derry, its
+new bishop and people, cast out far from the heart and head into the
+remotest part of Ireland, where life would be unsafe until the whole
+region was well settled with civil subjects. If this be not brought to
+pass, we may say: "_fuimus Troes,--fuit Ilium_."'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Meehan, p.79.]
+
+The defection of O'Cahan was, no doubt, a very serious matter to
+O'Neill. Their case was referred for adjudication to the lord deputy,
+Chichester, before whom they personally pleaded. Their contradictory
+statements, and the eagerness of each for the support of a ruler whom
+they regarded as a common enemy, accounts for the facility with which
+their power was ultimately destroyed. They at the same time throw much
+light on the condition of Ulster before the confiscation of James I.,
+proving that it was by no means so poor and wild and barren a region
+as it is generally represented by modern writers. The two chiefs had a
+personal altercation at the council table, and O'Neill so far lost his
+temper as to snatch a paper out of the hand of O'Cahan. Whereupon Sir
+John Davis remarked: 'I rest assured, in my own conceit, that I shall
+live to see Ulster the best reformed province in this kingdom; and
+as for yourself, my lord, I hope to live to see you the best reformed
+subject in Ireland.' To this the haughty chief replied with warmth,
+that he hoped 'the attorney-general would never see the day when
+injustice should be done him by transferring his lands to the Crown,
+and thence to the bishop, who was intent on converting the whole
+territory into his own pocket.'
+
+Acting under the advice of the bishop, O'Cahan employed a skilful
+hand to draw up a statement of his case, which was presented on May 2,
+1607, in the form of 'the humble petition of Donald Ballagh O'Cahan,
+chief of his name,' addressed to the lord deputy and council. He
+declared that for 3,000 years and upwards, he and his ancestors had
+been possessed of a country called 'O'Cahan's country,' lying between
+the river Bann and Lough Foyle, without paying any rent, or other
+acknowledgment thereof to O'Neill, saving that his ancestors were wont
+to aid O'Neill twice a year if he had need, with risings of 100 horse
+and 300 foot, for which O'Cahan had in return O'Neill's whole suit of
+apparel, the horse that he rode upon, and 100 cows in winter. He also
+paid 21 cows every year in the name of _Cios'righ_, the king's rent,
+or the king's rent-cess. He alleged that Queen Elizabeth had granted
+him his country to be held immediately from her majesty at the
+accustomed rent, by virtue of which he enjoyed it for one whole year
+without paying, or being craved payment, of any rent or duty, until
+the Earl of Tyrone, on his return from England, alleged that he had
+got O'Cahan's country by patent, from the king, who had made him
+vassal to Tyrone and his heirs for ever, imposing the annual payment
+of 100 cows, with the yearly rent of 200 l. He had also claimed the
+fishing of the Bann; he preyed yearly upon other parts of his country,
+and drew from him his best tenants. He therefore prayed for the
+protection of the lord deputy against these unjust demands and
+usurpations.
+
+On the 23rd of the same month, O'Neill made a counter statement to the
+following effect: O'Cahan had no estate in the territory that was by
+a corruption of speech called O'Cahan's country; nor did he or any of
+his ancestors ever hold the said lands but as tenants at sufferance,
+servants and followers to the defendant and his ancestors. His
+grandfather Con O'Neill was seised in fee of those lands before he
+surrendered to Henry VIII., 'and received yearly, and had thereout,
+as much rents, cutting, spending and all other duties as of any other
+lands which he had in demesne,' within the province of Ulster and
+territory of Tyrone, and that after Con's surrender the territories
+were all re-granted with the rents, customs, duties, &c. as before.
+He was ready to prove that the ancestors of O'Cahan never enjoyed the
+premises at any time, but at the will and sufferance of O'Neill and
+his ancestors. A few days after, he despatched a memorial to the king
+setting forth his grievances, in which he stated that there were so
+many that sought to deprive him of the greatest part of the residue
+of his territory that without his majesty's special consideration he
+should in the end have nothing to support his 'estate' or rank. For
+the Lord Bishop of Derry, not content with the great living the king
+had bestowed upon him, sought to have the greater part of the earl's
+lands, to which none of his predecessors had ever laid claim. And
+he also set on others to question his titles which had never before
+before doubted. He therefore humbly besought the king to direct that
+new letters patent should be made out re-conveying to him and his
+heirs the lands in dispute, being, he said, 'such a favour as is
+appointed by your majesty to be extended to such of your subjects of
+this kingdom as should be suitors for the same, amongst whom I will
+during my life endeavour to deserve to be in the number of the most
+faithful, whereunto not only duty, but also your majesty's great
+bounty, hath ever obliged me.'
+
+This was dated at Mellifont on May 26, 1607. It does not appear that
+any answer was received to his appeals to the king, nor is it likely
+that it served his cause, for it is seldom safe to appeal from an
+agent or deputy to the supreme authority. The Privy Council in Dublin,
+however, made a report confirming to some extent the claims put forth
+by Tyrone. A jury had been appointed to inquire into the boundaries
+and limits of the lands granted by Queen Elizabeth, and they found
+that they extended from the river Fuin to Lough Foyle, and from Lough
+Foyle by the sea-shore to the Bann, and thence to the east of Lough
+Neagh. Within these limits they found that there existed the territory
+called O'Cahan's, Glenconkeine and Killetragh, which were not the
+lands of the O'Neills, '_but held by tenants having estates in them
+equivalent to estates of freehold_.' The jury could not determine what
+rents the tenants of said lands were accustomed to pay, but they found
+generally that all lands within the limits of Tyrone, except the lands
+of the church, rendered to O'Neill bonnaght or free quarters for armed
+retainers, 'rising out, cutting and spending.' The parties, however,
+did not abide by the decision of the privy council, but kept up their
+contention in the courts of law. It was quite clear that matters could
+not remain long in that unsettled state, with so many adventurers
+thirsting for the possession of land, which was lying comparatively
+idle. It was thought desirable to appoint a president of Ulster, as
+there had been a president of Munster. The Earl of Tyrone applied to
+the king for the office, evidently fearing that if Chichester were
+appointed, he must share the fate of the Earl of Desmond. On the other
+hand, it was felt that with his hereditary pretensions, impracticable
+temper, and vast influence with the people, it would be impossible to
+establish the English power on a permanent basis until he was got out
+of the way. This was not difficult, with unprincipled adventurers
+who were watching for opportunities to make their fortunes in those
+revolutionary times. Among these was a person named St. Lawrence,
+Baron of Howth. This man worked cunningly on the mind of the lord
+deputy, insinuating that O'Neill was plotting treason and preparing
+for a Spanish invasion. He even went so far as to write an anonymous
+letter, revealing an alleged plot of O'Neill's to assassinate the lord
+deputy. It was addressed to Sir William Usher, clerk of the council,
+and the writer began by saying that it would show him, though far
+severed from him in religion, how near he came home to him in honesty.
+He was a Catholic, and professed to reveal what he had heard among
+Catholic gentlemen, 'after the strictest conditions of secresy.' The
+conspirators were, in the first place, to murder or poison the lord
+deputy when he came to Drogheda, 'a place thought apt and secure to
+act the same.' They thought it well to begin with him, because his
+authority, wisdom, and valour stood only in the way of their first
+attempts. Next after him they were to cut off Sir Oliver Lambert,
+whom for his own judgment in the wars, his sudden resolution, and
+undertaking spirit, they would not suffer to live. These two lights
+thus put out, they would neither fear nor value any opposite in the
+kingdom. The small dispersed garrisons must either through hunger
+submit themselves to their mercy, or be penned up as sheep to the
+shambles. They held the castle of Dublin for their own, neither manned
+nor victualled, and readily surprised. The towns were for them, the
+country with them, the great ones abroad prepared to answer the first
+alarm. The Jesuits warranted from the Pope and the Catholic king would
+do their parts effectually, and Spanish succours would not be wanting.
+These secrets greatly troubled the sensitive conscience of Lord Howth.
+From the time he was entrusted with them, he said, 'till I resolved to
+give you this caveat, my eyelids never closed, my heart was a fire,
+my soul suffered a thousand thousand torments; yet I could not, nor
+cannot persuade my conscience, in honesty, to betray my friends,
+or spill their bloods, when this timely warning may prevent the
+mischief.' In conclusion, he said, 'though I reverence the mass and
+the Catholic religion equal with the devoutest of them, I will make
+the leaders of this dance know that I prefer my country's good before
+their busy and ambitious humours.' It is related of this twenty-second
+baron of Howth, known as Sir Christopher St. Lawrence, that having
+served in Ulster under Essex, and accompanied him in his flight to
+England, he proposed to murder Lord Grey de Wilton, lest he should
+prejudice the queen's mind against her former favourite, if he got
+access to her presence before him; that he had commanded a regiment of
+infantry under Mountjoy, and that when that regiment was disbanded, he
+became discontented, not having got either pension or employment;
+that having gone as a free lance to the Low Countries, and failed to
+advance himself there as he expected, through the interest of
+Irish ecclesiastics, he returned to England, and skulked about the
+ante-chambers of Lord Salisbury, waiting upon Providence, when he hit
+upon the happy idea of the revelations which he conveyed under the
+signature of' A.B.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Meehan, p.103.]
+
+After some time he acknowledged the authorship of the letter
+privately, but refused to come forth publicly as an informer, nor
+was he able to produce any corroboration of the improbable story.
+Ultimately, however, when pressed by Chichester, he induced his friend
+Baron Devlin to swear an information to the same effect, revealing
+certain alleged conversations of O'Neill. In the meantime St. Lawrence
+cunningly worked upon the fears of the earl, giving him to understand
+that his ruin was determined on, and that he had better consult
+his safety, by leaving the country. It appears that he received
+intimations to the same effect from his correspondents in Spain and
+in London. At all events, he lost heart, became silent, moody, and
+low-spirited, suspecting foul play on the part of the king, who was
+very urgent that he should be brought over to London, in which case
+Tyrone was led to believe that he would certainly be sent to the
+Tower, and probably lose his head. With such apprehensions, he came
+to the conclusion that it was idle to struggle any longer against the
+stream.
+
+He had for some weeks been engaged quietly making preparations for his
+flight. He had given directions to his steward to collect in advance
+one half of his Michaelmas rents, leading the lord deputy to think
+that he did so either to provide funds for his journey to London,
+or to defray the expenses of his son's projected marriage with the
+daughter of Lord Argyle. Meanwhile a vessel had been purchased by
+Cu-Connaught Maguire, and Bath, the captain of this vessel, assured
+the Earl of Tyrconnel, whom he met at Ballyshannon, that he also
+would lose his life or liberty if he did not abandon the country with
+O'Neill. On September 8, Tyrone took leave of the lord deputy, and
+then spent a day and night at Mellifont with his friend Sir Garret
+Moore, who was specially dear to him as the fosterer of his son John.
+The earl took his leave with unusual emotion, and after giving
+his blessing according to the Irish fashion to every member of his
+friend's household, he and his suite took horse and rode rapidly by
+Dundalk, over the Fews to Armagh, where he rested a few hours, and
+then proceeded to Creeve, one of his crannoges or island habitations,
+where he was joined by his wife and other members of his family. Sir
+Oliver Lambert in a communication to the Irish Government, relating to
+the affairs of Ulster, made some interesting allusions to O'Neill. He
+states that he had apologised for having appealed to the king in the
+case between him and O'Cahan, and said that he felt much grieved in
+being called upon so suddenly to go to England, when on account of his
+poverty he was not able to furnish himself as became him for such a
+journey and for such a presence. In all things else, said Sir Oliver,
+'he seemed very moderate and reasonable, albeit he never gave over to
+be a general solicitor in all causes concerning his country and people
+however criminal.' He thought the earl had been much abused by persons
+who had cunningly terrified, and diverted him from going to the king;
+'or else he had within him a thousand witnesses testifying that he was
+as deeply engaged in these secret treasons as any of the rest, whom
+they knew or suspected.' At all events he had received information
+on the previous day from his own brother Sir Cormac O'Neill, from the
+primate, from Sir Toby Caulfield and others, that the earl had taken
+shipping with his lady, the Baron of Dungannon, his eldest son, and
+two others of his children, John and Brien, both under seven years
+old, the Earl of Tyrconnel, and his son and heir, an infant, not yet a
+year old, his brother Caffar O'Donel, and his son an infant two years
+old, 'with divers others of their nearest and trusted followers and
+servants, as well men as women, to the number of between thirty and
+forty persons.'
+
+The Rev. Mr. Meehan gives graphic details of the flight of his two
+heroes. Arrived at Rathmullen they found Maguire and Captain Bath
+laying stores of provisions on board the ship that had come into Lough
+Swilly under French colours. Here they were joined by Rory, Earl of
+Tyrconnel. At noon on Friday they all went on board and lifted anchor,
+but kept close to the shore waiting for the boats' crews, who were
+procuring water and fuel; but they had to wait till long after sunset,
+when the boats came with only a small quantity of wood and water.
+According to a fatality which makes one Irishman's extremity another
+Irishman's opportunity, the foraging party was set upon by M'Sweeny
+of Fanad, who churlishly prevented them getting a sufficient supply
+of these necessaries. This barbarous conduct is accounted for by Mr.
+Meehan, from the fact, that this M'Sweeny had recently taken a grant
+of his lands from the crown. At midnight, September 14, 1607, they
+spread all sail and made for the open sea, intending, however, to
+land on the Island of Arran, off the coast of Donegal, to provide
+themselves with more water and fuel. The entire number of souls
+on board this small vessel, says O'Keenan in his narrative, was
+ninety-nine, having little sea store, and being otherwise miserably
+accommodated. Unable to make the island of Arran, owing to a gale
+then blowing off the land, and fearing to be crossed by the king's
+cruisers, they steered for the harbour of Corunna in Spain. But for
+thirteen days, continues O'Keenan, 'the sea was angry, and the tempest
+left us no rest; and the only brief interval of calm we enjoyed, was
+when O'Neill took from his neck a golden crucifix containing a relic
+of the true cross, and trailed it in the wake of the ship. At that
+moment, two poor merlins with wearied pinions sought refuge in the
+rigging of our vessel, and were captured for the noble ladies, who
+nursed them with tenderest affection.' After being tempest-tossed
+for three weeks, they dropped anchor in the harbour of Quilleboeuf
+in France, having narrowly escaped shipwreck, their only remaining
+provisions being one gallon of beer and a cask of water. They
+proceeded to Brussels and thence to Louvain, where splendid
+accommodation was provided for them. In several of the cities through
+which they passed they received ovations, their countrymen clerical
+and military having prepared for their reception with the greatest
+zeal and devotion. The King of Spain was of course friendly, but to
+avoid giving offence to King James he discouraged the stay of the
+exiles in his dominions, and they found their final resting-place
+at Rome, where the two earls were placed upon the Pope's civil list,
+which, however, they did not long continue to burden. Tyrconnel fell a
+victim to the malaria, and died on July 28, 1608. 'Sorrowful it was,'
+say the Four Masters, 'to contemplate his early eclipse, for he was a
+generous and hospitable lord, to whom the patrimony of his ancestors
+seemed nothing for his feastings and spending.' His widow received
+a pension of 300 l. a year out of his forfeited estates. O'Neill
+survived his brother earl eight years, having made various attempts to
+induce the King of Spain to aid him in the recovery of his patrimony.
+He died in 1616, in the seventy-sixth year of his age. Sir Francis
+Cottington, announcing the event from Madrid, said, 'The Earl of
+Tyrone is dead at Rome; by whose death this king saves 500 ducats
+every month, for so much pension he had from here, well paid him.
+Upon the news of his death, I observed that all the principal Irish
+entertained in several parts of this kingdom are repaired unto this
+court.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+GOVERNMENT APPEALS TO THE PEOPLE.
+
+
+The flight of the earls caused great consternation to the Irish
+Government. Letters were immediately despatched to the local
+authorities at every port to have a sharp look out for the fugitives,
+and to send out vessels to intercept them, should they be driven back
+by bad weather to any part of the coast. At the same time the lord
+deputy sent a despatch to the Government in London, deprecating
+censure for an occurrence so unexpected, and so much to be regretted,
+because of the possibility of its leading to an invasion by the
+Spaniards. In other respects it was regarded by the principal members
+of the Irish Government, and especially by the officials in Ulster, as
+a most fortunate occurrence. For example, Sir Oliver Lambert, in his
+report to the lords of the council, already referred to, said:--'But
+now these things are fallen out thus, contrary to all expectation
+or likelihood, by the providence of God I hope, over this miserable
+people, for whose sake it may be he hath sent his majesty this rare
+and unlocked for occasion: whereby he may now at length, with good
+apprehension and prudent handling, repair an error which was committed
+in making these men proprietary lords of so large a territory, without
+regard of the poor freeholders' rights, or of his majesty's service,
+and the commonwealth's, that are so much interested in the honest
+liberty of that sort of men, which now, in time, I commend unto your
+lordships' grave consideration and wisdom, and will come to that which
+nearest concerns ourselves and the whole.'
+
+According to Sir John Davis, in his letter to the first minister, Lord
+Salisbury, Tyrone could not be reconciled in his heart to the English
+Government, because 'he ever lived like a free prince, or, rather,
+like an absolute tyrant, there. The law of England, and the ministers
+thereof, were shackles and handlocks unto him.' He states that _after
+the Irish manner_, he made all the tenants of his land _villeins_.
+'Therefore to evict any part of that land from him was as grievous
+unto him as to pinch away the quick flesh from his body ... Besides,'
+the attorney-general added, 'as for us that are here, we are glad to
+see the day wherein the countenance and majesty of the law, as civil
+government, hath banished Tyrone out of Ireland, which the best army
+in Europe, and the expense of two millions of sterling pounds did not
+bring to pass. And we hope his majesty's happy government will work
+a greater miracle in this kingdom, than ever St. Patrick did; for St.
+Patrick did only banish the poisonous worms, but suffered the men full
+of poison to inhabit the land still; but his majesty's blessed genius
+will banish all that generation of vipers out of it, and make it, ere
+it be long, a right fortunate island.'
+
+Again, Sir Geoffry Fenton, writing to Salisbury on the same subject,
+says, 'And now I am to put your lordship in mind what a door is open
+to the king, if the opportunity be taken, and well converted, not only
+to pull down for ever these two proud houses of O'Neill and O'Donel,
+but also to bring in colonies to plant both countries, to a great
+increasing of his majesty's revenues, and to establish and settle the
+countries perpetually in the crown; besides that many well-deserving
+servitors may be recompensed in the distribution; a matter to be taken
+to heart, for that it reaches somewhat to his majesty's conscience and
+honour to see these poor servitors relieved, whom time and the wars
+have spent, even unto their later years, and now, by this commodity,
+may be stayed and comforted without charges to his majesty.' This
+advice was quite in accordance with the views of the prime minister,
+who in a letter to Chichester said, 'I do think it of great necessity
+that those countries be made the king's by this accident; that there
+be a mixture in the plantation, the _natives_ made his majesty's
+tenants of part, but the rest to be divided among those that will
+_inhabit_; and in no case any man is suffered to embrace more than
+is visible he can and will _manure_. That was an oversight in the
+plantation of Munster, where 12,000 acres were commonly allotted to
+bankrupts and country gentlemen, that never knew the disposition of
+the Irish; so as God forbid that those who have spent their blood in
+the service should not of all others be preferred.' It was because
+this idea of manuring, i.e. residence and cultivation, was carried
+out in Ulster, that the plantation has proved so successful. But Davis
+would allow but small space comparatively to the natives, whom he
+compared to weeds which, if too numerous, would choke the wheat. With
+him the old inhabitants were simply a nuisance from the highest to
+the lowest; and if there were no other way of getting rid of them, he
+would no doubt have adopted the plan recommended by Lord Bacon,
+who said, 'Some of the chiefest of the Irish families should
+be transported to England, and have recompense there for their
+possessions in Ireland, till they were cleansed from their blood,
+incontinency, and theft, which were not the lapses of particular
+persons, but the very laws of the nation.' The Lord Deputy Chichester,
+however, agreed thoroughly with his attorney-general, for he certainly
+made no more account of rooting out the 'mere Irish' from their homes
+than if they were the most noxious kinds of weeds or vermin. 'If,'
+said he, writing to Lord Salisbury, 'I have observed anything during
+my stay in this kingdom, I may say it is not _lenity_ and good works
+that will reclaim the Irish, but _an iron rod_, and severity of
+justice, for the restraint and punishment of those firebrands of
+sedition, _the priests_; nor can we think of any other remedy but to
+proclaim _them, and their relievers and harbourers, traitors_.'
+
+Considering that those Englishmen were professedly Christian rulers,
+engaged in establishing the reformed religion, the accounts which they
+give with perfect coolness of their operations in this line, are among
+the most appalling passages to be met with in the world's history. For
+instance, the lord deputy writes: 'I have often said and written, it
+is _famine that must consume the Irish_, as our _swords_ and other
+endeavours worked not that, speedy effect which is expected; _hunger_
+would be a better, because a speedier, weapon to employ against them
+than the sword.' He spared no means of destruction, but combined all
+the most fearful scourges for the purpose of putting out of existence
+the race of people whom God in his anger subjected to his power.
+Surely the spirit of cruelty, the genius of destruction, must have
+been incarnate in the man who wrote thus: 'I burned all along the
+Lough (Neagh) within four miles of Dungannon, and killed 100 people,
+sparing none, of what quality, age, or sex soever, besides _many
+burned to death_. We killed man, _woman and child_, horse, beast, and
+whatsoever we could find.'
+
+At the time of the flight of the earls, however, he was very anxious
+about the safety of the kingdom. He was aware that the people were
+universally discontented, he had but few troops in the country,
+and little or no money in the treasury, so that in case of a sudden
+invasion, it was quite possible that the maddened population would
+rise and act in their own way upon his own merciless policy of
+extermination. He therefore hastened to issue a proclamation for the
+purpose of reassuring the inhabitants of Ulster, and persuading
+them that they would not suffer in any way by the desertion of
+their chiefs. In this proclamation, headed by 'The _Lord Deputy
+and Counsell_,' it was stated that Tyrone and Tyrconnel and their
+companions had lately embarked themselves at Lough Swilly and had
+secretly and suddenly departed out of this realm without license or
+notice. The Government was as yet uncertain about their purpose
+or destination. But inasmuch as the manner of their departure,
+considering the quality of their persons, might raise many doubts
+in the minds of his majesty's loving subjects in those parts, and
+especially the common sort of people inhabiting the counties of
+Tyrone and Tyrconnel, who might suppose they were in danger to suffer
+prejudice in their _lands_ and goods for the contempt or offence of
+the earls,--they were solemnly assured that they had nothing whatever
+to fear. The words of the proclamation on this point are: 'We do
+therefore in his majesty's name declare, proclaim, and publish that
+all and every his majesty's good and loyal subjects inhabiting those
+countries of Tyrone and Tyrconnel shall and may quietly and securely
+possess and enjoy all and singular _their lands and goods_ without the
+trouble or molestation of any of his majesty's officers or ministers
+or any other person or persons whatsoever as long as they disturb not
+his majesty's peace, but live as dutiful and obedient subjects. And
+forasmuch as the said earls to whom his majesty, reposing special
+trust in their loyalty, had committed the government of the said
+several countries are now undutifully departed, therefore his Majesty
+doth graciously receive all and every of his said loyal subjects into
+his own immediate safeguard and protection, giving them full assurance
+to defend them and every of them by his kingly power from all violence
+or wrong, which any loose persons among themselves or any foreign
+force shall attempt against them. And to that end, we the lord deputy
+and council have made choice of certain commissioners as well Irish as
+English, residing in the said several countries, not only to preserve
+the public peace there, but also to administer speedy and indifferent
+justice to all his majesty's loving subjects in those parts, which
+shall have any cause of complaint before them.' All governors, mayors,
+sheriffs, justices of peace, provost-marshals, bailiffs, constables,
+and all other his majesty's ministers whatsoever were strictly charged
+to use their utmost endeavours faithfully and diligently to keep the
+people in their duty and obedience to his majesty and the laws of the
+realm.
+
+The assurance thus given that the subjects and tenants of the
+absconding princes should securely possess and enjoy their lands and
+be protected from all oppression under the sceptre of King James would
+have been very satisfactory had the royal promise been realised,
+but conciliation was then absolutely necessary, for the lord deputy
+himself stated that 'the kingdom had not been in the like danger these
+hundred years, as we have but few friends and no means of getting
+more.' The foregoing proclamation was issued from Rathfarnham on
+September 10. On November 9 following, another proclamation of a
+general nature was published and widely circulated in order to justify
+the course the Government adopted. According to this document it was
+known to all the world 'how infinitely' the fugitive earls had been
+obliged to the king for his singular grace and mercy in giving them
+free pardon for many heinous and execrable treasons, above all hope
+that they could in reason conceive, and also in restoring the one to
+his lands and honours justly forfeited, and in raising the other 'from
+a very mean estate to the degree and title of an earl, giving him
+withal large possessions for the support of that honour, before either
+of them had given any proof of loyalty, or merited the least favour.'
+Even in the point of religion, which served as a cloak for all their
+treasons, they got no provocation or cause of grievance. For these and
+other causes it was announced that his majesty would seize and take
+into his hands all the lands and goods of the said fugitives. But
+he would, notwithstanding, extend such grace and favour to the
+loyal inhabitants of their territories that none of them should be
+'impeached, troubled, or molested in _their own lands_, goods, or
+bodies, they continuing in their loyalty, _and yielding unto his
+majesty such rents and duties as shall be agreeable to justice and
+equity_.' This assurance was repeated again emphatically in these
+words: 'His most excellent majesty doth take all the good and loyal
+inhabitants of the said countries, together with their wives and
+children, land and goods, into his own immediate protection, to defend
+them in general against all rebellions and invasions, and to right
+them in all their wrongs and oppressions, offered or to be offered
+unto them by any person whatsoever, etc.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE CASE OF THE FUGITIVE EARLS.
+
+
+Before proceeding to notice the manner in which these promises of
+justice, equity, and protection to the occupiers of the land were
+fulfilled, it is well to record here the efforts made by King James
+and his ambassador to discredit the fugitive earls on the Continent,
+and the case which they made out for themselves in the statement of
+wrongs and grievances which they addressed to the king soon after.
+There was great alarm in England when news arrived of the friendly
+reception accorded to the Irish chiefs by the continental sovereigns
+through whose dominions they passed, and especially by the King of
+Spain, who was suspected of intending another invasion of Ireland.
+Consequently the most active preparations were made to meet the
+danger. In every street of the metropolis drums were beating for
+recruits, and large detachments were sent in all possible haste to
+reinforce the Irish garrisons. Sir Charles Cornwallis was then English
+ambassador at Madrid; and lest his diplomatic skill should not be up
+to the mark, James himself sent him special and minute instructions as
+to the manner in which he should handle the delicate subjects he had
+to bring before the Spanish sovereign. There has been seldom a better
+illustration of the saying, that the use of speech is to conceal
+thought, than in the representations which the ambassador was
+instructed to make about Irish affairs. Indeed Cornwallis had already
+shown that he scarcely needed to be tutored by his sovereign. In a
+preliminary despatch he had sent an account of his conversation with
+Philip III.'s secretary of state about the fugitive earls. He told him
+that though they had been guilty of rebellions and treasons they had
+not only been pardoned, but loaded with dignities such as few or none
+of the king's ancestors had ever bestowed on any of the Irish nation.
+He had conferred upon them an absolute and, 'in a manner, unlimited
+government in their own countries, nothing wanting to their ambitions
+but the name of kings, and neither crossed in anything concerning
+their civil government, nor so much as in act or imagination molested,
+or in any sort questioned with, for their consciences and religion.'
+He thought therefore that they would never have fled in such a way,
+unless they had been drawn to Spain by large promises in the hope of
+serving some future turns.
+
+The secretary listened to this insinuation with much impatience, and
+declared solemnly, laying his hand on his breast with an oath, that of
+the departure and intention of the earls there was no more knowledge
+given to the king or any of his state than to the ambassador himself.
+He added that there had been much consumption of Spanish treasure by
+supporting strangers who had come from all parts. In particular they
+had a bitter taste of those who had come from James's dominions; and
+they would have suffered much more, 'if they had not made a resolute
+and determined stop to the running of that fountain and refused to
+give ear to many overtures.' The ambassador expressed his satisfaction
+at this assurance, and then endeavoured to show how unworthy those
+Irish princes were of the least encouragement. Their flight was the
+result of madness, they departed without any occasion of 'earthly
+distaste' or offence given them by their sovereign, whose position
+towards the Irish was very different from that of the late queen.
+Elizabeth had employed against their revolts and rebellions only her
+own subjects of England, who were not accustomed either to the diet
+of that savage country, or to the bogs, and other retreats which that
+wild people used. But now, the king his master, being possessed of
+Scotland, had in that country, 'near adjoining to the north part of
+Ireland, a people of their own fashion, diet, and disposition, that
+could walk their bogs as well as themselves, live with their food,
+and were so well practised and accustomed in their own country to
+the like, that they were as apt to pull them out of their dens and
+withdrawing places, as ferrets to draw rabbits out of their burrows.'
+Moreover all other parts of Ireland were now reduced to such
+obedience, and so civil a course, and so well planted with a mixture
+of English, that there was not a man that showed a forehead likely to
+give a frown against his majesty, or his government. Cornwallis went
+on to plead the incomparable virtues of the king his master, among
+which liberality and magnificence were not the least. But if he had
+given largely, it was upon a good exchange, for he had sowed money,
+which of itself can do nothing, and had reaped hearts that can do
+all. As for the alleged number of 'groaning Catholics,' he assured
+the secretary that there were hardly as many hundreds as the fugitives
+reckoned thousands.
+
+According to his report the minister heard him with great attention,
+and at the conclusion protested, that he joined with him in opinion
+that those fugitives were dangerous people and that the Jesuits were
+turbulent and busy men. He assured him on the word of a caballero,
+that his majesty and council had fully determined never to receive or
+treat any more of those 'straying people;' as they had been put to
+great inconvenience and cost, how to deliver themselves from those
+Irish vagabonds, and continual begging pretenders.
+
+This despatch, dated October 28, 1607, was crossed on the way by one
+from the English minister Salisbury, dated the 27th, giving the
+king's instructions 'concerning those men that are fled into Spain.'
+Cornwallis was directed not to make matters worse than they really
+were, because the end must be good, 'what insolencies soever the
+Jesuits and pack of fugitives there might put on. King James knew that
+this remnant of the northern Irish traitors had been as full of malice
+as flesh and blood could be, no way reformed by the grace received,
+but rather sucking poison out of the honey thereof.' He knew also that
+they had absolutely given commission to their priests and others to
+abandon their sovereign if Spain would entertain their cause. But this
+he could not demonstrably prove _in foro judicii_, though clear _in
+foro conscientiae_, and therefore punishment would savour of rigour.
+So long as things were in that state his majesty was obliged to suffer
+adders in his bosom, and give them means to gather strength to his
+own prejudice, whereas now the whole country which they had possessed
+would be made of great use both for strength and profit to the king.
+What follows should be given in his majesty's own words:--
+
+'Those poor creatures who knew no kings but those petty lords, under
+the burden of whose tyranny they have ever groaned, do now with great
+applause desire to be protected by the immediate power, and to receive
+correction only from himself, so as if the council of Spain shall
+conceive that they have now some great advantage over this state,
+where it shall appear what a party their king may have if he shall
+like to support it, there may be this answer: that those Irish without
+the King of Spain are poor worms upon earth; and that when the King of
+Spain shall think it time to begin with Ireland, the king my master is
+more like than Queen Elizabeth was, to find a wholesomer place of the
+King of Spain's, where he would be loath to hear of the English, and
+to show the Spaniards who shall be sent into Ireland as fair a way as
+they were taught before. In which time the more you speak of the base,
+insulting, discoursing fugitives, the more proper it will be for you.
+In the meantime upon their departure, not a man hath moved, neither
+was there these thirty years more universal obedience than there is
+now. Amongst the rest of their barbarous lies I doubt not but they
+will pretend protection for religion, and breach of promise with them;
+wherein you may safely protest this, that for any, of all those that
+are gone, there never was so much as an offer made to search their
+consciences.'
+
+Not content with the labours of his ambassadors at the various
+continental courts, to damage the cause of the Irish earls, the king
+issued a proclamation, which was widely dispersed abroad. His majesty
+said he thought it better to clear men's judgments concerning the
+fugitives, 'not in respect of any worth or value in these men's
+persons, being base and rude in their original,' but to prevent any
+breach of friendship with other princes. For this purpose he declared
+that Tyrone and Tyrconnel had not their creation or possessions in
+regard of any lineal or lawful descent from ancestors of blood or
+virtue, but were only conferred by the late queen and himself for some
+reasons of state. Therefore, he judged it needless to seek for
+many arguments 'to confirm whatsoever should be said of these men's
+corruption and falsehood, whose heinous offences remained so fresh in
+memory since they declared themselves so very monsters in nature, as
+they did not only withdraw themselves from their personal obedience to
+their sovereign, but were content to sell over their native country,
+to those who stood at that time in the highest terms of hostility with
+the crowns of England and Ireland.' 'Yet,' adds the king, 'to make the
+absurdity and ingratitude of the allegation above mentioned so much
+the more clear to all men of equal judgment, we do hereby profess
+in word of a king that there was never so much as any shadow of
+molestation, nor purpose of proceeding in any degree against them
+for matter concerning religion:--such being their condition and
+profession, to think murder no fault, marriage of no use, nor any
+man worthy to be esteemed valiant that did not glory in rapine and
+oppression, as we should have thought it an unreasonable thing to
+trouble them for any different point in religion, before any man could
+perceive by their conversation that they made truly conscience of any
+religion. The king thought these declarations sufficient to disperse
+and to discredit all such untruths as these contemptible creatures, so
+full of infidelity and ingratitude, should discharge against him and
+his just and moderate proceedings, and which should procure unto them
+no better usage than they would wish should be afforded to any such
+pack of rebels born their subjects and bound unto them in so many and
+so great obligations.'
+
+Such was the case of the English Government presented to the world
+by the king and his ministers. Let us now hear what the personages
+so heartily reviled by them had to say for themselves. The Rev. C.P.
+Meehan has brought to light the categorical narratives, which the
+earls dictated, and which had lain unpublished among the 'old historic
+rolls,' in the Public Record Office, London. These documents are of
+great historic interest, as are many other state-papers now first
+published in his valuable work.[1] O'Neill's defence is headed,
+'Articles Exhibited by the Earl of Tyrone to the King's Most Excellent
+Majesty, declaring certain Causes of Discontent offered Him, by which
+he took occasion to Depart His Country.' The statement is divided
+into twenty items, of which the following is the substance: It was
+proclaimed by public authority in his manor of Dungannon, that none
+should hear mass upon pain of losing his goods and imprisonment, and
+that no ecclesiastical person should enjoy any cure or dignity without
+swearing the oath of supremacy and embracing the contrary religion,
+and those who refused so to do were actually deprived of their
+benefices and dignities, in proof of which the earl referred to the
+lord deputy's answer to his own petition, and to the Lord Primate of
+Ireland, who put the persecuting decree into execution. The Earl
+of Devon, then lord-lieutenant, had taken from him the lands of his
+ancestors called the Fews, in Armagh, and given them to other persons.
+He was deprived of the annual tribute of sixty cows from Sir Cahir
+O'Dogherty's country called Inishowen, which tribute had never been
+brought into question till James's reign. The same lord-lieutenant had
+taken from him the fishings of the Bann, which always belonged to his
+ancestors, and which he was forced to purchase again. Portions of his
+territory had been taken 'under colour of church-lands, a thing never
+in any man's memory heard of before.' One Robert Leicester an attorney
+had got some more of the earl's land, which he transferred to Captain
+Leigh. 'So as any captain or clerk had wanted means, and had no other
+means or device to live, might bring the earl in trouble for some part
+or parcel of his living, falsely inventing the same, to be concealed
+or church-land.' The Archbishop of Armagh and the Bishop of Derry
+and Clogher claimed the best part of the earl's whole estate, as
+appertaining to their bishoprics, 'which was never moved by any other
+predecessors before, other than that they had some _chiefry_ due to
+them, in most part of all his living, and would now have the whole
+land to themselves as their domain lands, not content with the benefit
+of their ancient registers, which the earl always offered, and
+was willing to give without further question. O'Cahan, 'one of the
+chiefest and principalest of the earl's tenants, was set upon by
+certain of his majesty's privy council, as also by his highness's
+counsel-at-law, to withdraw himself and the lands called
+_Iraght-I-Cahan_ from the earl, being a great substance of his
+living;' and this although O'Cahan had no right to the property except
+as his _tenant at will_, yielding and paying all such rents, dues,
+and reservations as the other tenants did. He complained that at
+the council table in Dublin it was determined to take two-thirds of
+O'Cahan's country from him; and he perceived by what Sir John Davis
+said, that they had determined to take the other third also. They
+further made claim in his majesty's behalf to four other parcels of
+the earl's land, which he named, being the substance of all that was
+left, and began their suit for the same in the court of exchequer.
+In fine he felt that he could not assure himself of anything by the
+letters patent he had from the king. Whenever he had recourse to law
+his proceedings were frustrated by the government; so that he could
+not get the benefit of his majesty's laws, or the possession of his
+lands; 'and yet any man, of what degree soever, obtained the extremity
+of the law with favour against him, in any suit.' Although the king
+had allowed him to be lieutenant of his country, yet he had no more
+command there than his boy; the worst man that belonged to the sheriff
+could command more than he, and that even in the earl's own house. If
+they wanted to arrest any one in the house they would not wait till
+he came out, but burst open the doors, and 'never do the earl so much
+honour in any respect as once to acquaint him therewith, or to send to
+himself for the party, though he had been within the house when they
+would attempt these things; and if any of the earl's officers would
+by his direction order or execute any matter betwixt his own tenants,
+with their own mutual consent, they would be driven not only to
+restore the same again, but also be first amerced by the sheriff, and
+after indicated as felons, and so brought to trial for their lives
+for the same; so as the earl in the end could scarce get any of his
+servants that would undertake to levy his rents.' According to law the
+sheriff should be a resident in the county, have property there, and
+be elected by the nobility and chief gentlemen belonging to it; but
+the law was set aside by the lord deputy, who appointed as sheriffs
+for the counties Tyrone and Armagh Captain Edmund Leigh and one
+Marmaduke Whitechurch, dwelling in the county of Louth, both being
+retainers, and very dear friends to the Knight-marshal Bagenal, who
+was the only man that urged the earl to his last troubles. Of all
+these things 'the earl did eftsoons complain to the lord deputy,
+and could get no redress, but did rather fare the worse for his
+complaints, in respect they were so little regarded.'
+
+[Footnote 1: Page 192.]
+
+The earl understanding that earnest suit had been made to his majesty
+for the presidentship of Ulster, made bold to write to the king,
+humbly beseeching him not to grant any such office to any person over
+himself, 'suspecting it would be his overthrow, as by plain experience
+he knew the like office to be the utter overthrow of others of his
+rank in other provinces within the realm of Ireland.' He also wrote
+to the Earl of Salisbury, who replied that the earl was not to tie his
+majesty to place or displace officers at his (the earl's) pleasure in
+any of his majesty's kingdoms. This was not the earl's meaning, but it
+indicated to him pretty plainly that he had no favour to expect from
+that quarter. The office was intended for Sir Arthur Chichester, and
+he much feared that it would be used for his destruction without
+his majesty's privity. Therefore, seeing himself envied by those who
+should be his protectors, considering the misery sustained by
+others through the oppression of the like government, he resolved to
+sacrifice all rather than live under that yoke.
+
+The next item is very characteristic. The earl's nephew Brian M'Art
+happened to be in the house of Turlough M'Henry, having two men in his
+company. Being in a merry humour, some dispute arose between him and
+a kinsman of his own, who 'gave the earl's nephew a blow of a club
+on the head, and tumbled him to the ground; whereupon, one of his men
+standing by and seeing his master down, did step up with the fellow
+and gave him some three or four stabs of a knife, having no other
+weapon, and the master himself, as it was said, gave him another,
+through which means the man came to his death. Thereupon, the earl's
+nephew and his two men were taken and kept in prison till the next
+sessions holden in the county Armagh, where his men were tried by a
+jury of four innocent and mere ignorant people, having little or no
+substance, most of them being bare soldiers and not fit, as well by
+the institution of law in matters of that kind as also through their
+own insufficiency, to be permitted or elected to the like charge;
+and the rest foster-brethren, followers, and very dear friends to the
+party slain, that would not spare to spend their lives and goods to
+revenge his death. Yet all that notwithstanding were they allowed,
+and the trial of these two gentlemen committed to them, through which
+means, and the vigorous threatening and earnest enticements of the
+judges, they most shamefully condemned to die, and the jury in a
+manner forced to find the matter murder in each of them, and that,
+not so much for their own offences, as thinking to make it an evidence
+against the master, who was in prison in the Castle of Dublin,
+attending to be tried the last Michaelmas term, whose death, were it
+right or wrong, was much desired by the lord deputy.
+
+Again, the earl had given his daughter in marriage to O'Cahan with
+a portion of goods. After they had lived together for eight years,
+O'Cahan was induced to withdraw himself from the earl, and at the same
+time, by the procurement of his setters on, he turned off the earl's
+daughter, kept her fortune to himself, and married another. The
+father appealed to the lord deputy for justice in vain. He then took
+proceedings against O'Cahan, at the assizes in Dungannon. But the
+defendant produced a warrant from the lord deputy, forbidding the
+judges to entertain the question, as it was one for the Lord Bishop of
+Derry. The Bishop of Derry, however, was the chief instigator of the
+divorce, and therefore no indifferent judge in the case. Thus the
+earl's cause was frustrated, and he could get no manner of justice
+therein, no more than he obtained in many other weighty matters that
+concerned him. The next complaint is about outrages committed by
+one Henry Oge O'Neill, one Henry M'Felemey and others, who at the
+instigation of the lord deputy, 'farther to trouble the earl,' went
+out as a wood-kerne to rob and spoil the earl and his nephew, and
+their tenants. They committed many murders, burnings, and other
+mischievous acts, and were always maintained and manifestly relieved
+amongst the deputy's tenants and their friends in Clandeboye, to whom
+they openly sold the spoils. They went on so for the space of two
+years, and the earl could get no justice, till at length they murdered
+one of the deputy's own tenants. Then he saw them prosecuted, and the
+result was, that the earl cut them all off within a quarter of a year
+after. But the lord deputy was not at all pleased with this. Therefore
+he picked up 'a poor rascally knave' and brought him to Dublin, where
+he persuaded him to accuse above threescore of the earl's tenants of
+relieving rebels with meat, although it was taken from them by force.
+For the rebels killed their cattle in the fields, and left them dead
+there, not being able to carry them away; burnt their houses,
+took what they could of their household stuff, killed and mangled
+themselves. 'Yet were they, upon report of that poor knave, who was
+himself foremost in doing these mischiefs, all taken and brought
+to their trial by law, where they were, through their innocency,
+acquitted, to their no small cost; so as betwixt the professed enemy,
+and the private envy of our governors, seeking thereby to advance
+themselves, there was no way left for the poor subject to live.'
+
+One Joice Geverard, a Dutchman, belonging to the deputy, was taken
+prisoner on his way from Carrickfergus to Toome, and he was compelled
+to pay to his captors a ransom of 30 l. For this the lord deputy
+assessed 60 l. on the county, and appointed one-half of it to be taken
+from O'Neil's tenants, being of another county, and at least twelve
+miles distant from the scene of the outrage, perpetrated by a
+wood-kerne, 'and themselves being daily killed and spoiled by the said
+wood-kerne, and never no redress had to them.' Several outrages and
+murders perpetrated by the soldiers are enumerated; but they were such
+as might have been expected in a state bordering on civil war, which
+was then the condition of the province. If, however, Tyrone is to be
+believed, the rulers themselves set the example of disorder. Sir
+Henry Folliott, governor of Ballyshannon, in the second year of his
+majesty's reign, came with force of arms, and drove away 200 cows from
+the earl's tenants, 'and killed a good gentleman, with many other poor
+men, women, and children; and besides that, there died of them above
+100 persons with very famine, for want of their goods; whereof the
+earl never had redress, although the said Sir Henry could show no
+reasonable cause for doing the same.'
+
+Finally the earl saw that the lord deputy was very earnest to
+aggravate and search out matters against him, touching the staining
+of his honour and dignity, scheming to come upon him with some forged
+treason, and thereby to bereave him of both his life and living. The
+better to compass this he placed his 'whispering companion,' Captain
+Leigh, as sheriff in the county, 'so as to be lurking after the earl,
+to spy if he might have any hole in his coat.' Seeing then that the
+lord deputy, who should be indifferent, not only to him but to
+the whole realm, having the rod in his own power, did seek his
+destruction, he esteemed it a strife against the stream for him to
+seek to live secure in that kingdom, and therefore of both evils
+he did choose the least, and thought it better rather to forego
+his country and lands, till he had further known his majesty's
+pleasure--to make an honourable escape with his life and liberty only,
+than by staying with dishonour and indignation to lose both life,
+liberty, and country, which much in very deed he feared. Indeed the
+many abuses 'offered' him by Sir John Davis, 'a man more fit to be a
+stage player than a counsel,' and other inferior officers, might be
+sufficient causes to provoke any human creature, not only to forego
+a country, were it ever so dear to him, but also the whole world, to
+eschew the like government. And thus he concludes his appeal to
+his 'most dread sovereign:' 'And so referring himself, and the due
+consideration of these, and all other his causes, to your majesty's
+most royal and princely censure, as his only protector and defender,
+against all his adversaries, he most humbly taketh his leave, and will
+always, as in bounden duty, pray.'
+
+The Earl of Tyrconnel's statement contains no less than forty-four
+items under the following heading: 'A note, or brief collection of
+the several exactions, wrongs, and grievances, as well spiritual
+as temporal, wherewith the Earl of Tyrconnel particularly doth find
+himself grieved and abused by the king's law ministers in Ireland,
+from the first year of his majesty's reign until this present year of
+1607: to be presented to the king's most excellent majesty.'
+
+_Imprimis_, all the priests and religious persons dwelling within
+the said earl's territories were daily pursued and persecuted by his
+majesty's officers. Sir Arthur Chichester told him, in the presence of
+divers noblemen and gentlemen, that he must resolve to go to church,
+or he would be forced to go. This was contrary to the toleration which
+had been till then enjoyed, and he resolved rather to abandon lands
+and living, yea, all the kingdoms of the earth, with the loss of his
+life, than to be forced utterly against his conscience to any such
+practice.
+
+When Sir George Carew was lord deputy, Captain Nicholas Pynnar
+and Captain Basil Brook, officers of the king's forces at Lifford,
+plundered the earl's tenants there, taking from them 150 cows, besides
+as many sheep and swine as they pleased. Not satisfied with this
+spoil, they most tyrannically stripped 100 persons of all their
+apparel. These outrages the earl complained of 'in humble wise' to the
+lord deputy, and could find no remedy; for the same year the garrisons
+of Lough Foyle, and Ballyshannon took from the earl's tenants 400 cows
+for the victualling of the soldiers; and although the English council
+wrote to the lord deputy, requiring him to pay for the cattle in
+English money, the payment was never made. When, in pursuance of a
+promise made to him by the lord deputy, he appeared before the king,
+to get new letters patent of his territories, &c., his property, in
+Sligo, Tyrawly, Moylurg, Dartry, Sir Cahir O'Dogherty's country,
+and all Sir Nial O'Donel's lands, were excepted and kept from him,
+together with the castle of Ballyshannon and 1,000 acres of land, and
+the whole salmon-fishing of the river Erne, worth 800 l. a year, 'the
+same castle being one of the earl's chieftest mansion houses.' They
+also took from him 1,000 acres of his best land, and joined it to
+the garrison of Lifford for the king's use, without any compensation.
+There were seven sheriffs sent into Tyrconnel, by each of which there
+was taken out of every cow and plough-horse 4 d., and as much out of
+every colt and calf twice a year, and half-a-crown a quarter of every
+shoemaker, carpenter, smith, and weaver in the whole country, and
+eight pence a year for every married couple.'
+
+Sir Nial O'Donel was committed to prison by Tyrconnel, for usurping
+the title of O'Donel and taking his herds and tenants. 'He broke loose
+from prison and killed some of his Majesty's subjects. For this the
+earl prosecuted him under a special warrant from the lord deputy;
+but notwithstanding all this, Carew gave warrants to Captains Pynnar,
+Brook, and Bingley, to make reprisals upon the earl's tenants for the
+pretender's use. Accordingly three English companies joining with nine
+score of Sir Nial's men, seized and carried away 500 cows, 60 mares,
+30 plough-horses, 13 horses, besides food and drink to support the
+assailants for six weeks. They were guilty of many other extortions,
+the country being extremely poor after the wars, and 17 of the earl's
+tenants were hindered from ploughing that season. A certain horse-boy,
+who was sentenced to be hanged for killing one Cusack, was promised
+his life by Sir George Carew, if he accused Tyrconnel as having
+employed him to commit the murder. The boy did make the accusation,
+which served no purpose 'but to accelerate his hanging.' Thus
+betrayed, he declared at the gallows, and in the presence of 400
+persons, the sheriff of the county, and the portreve of Trim, he
+retracted the false confession. A similar attempt was made with an
+Englishman, who was kept a close prisoner without food, drink, or
+light, in order to get him to accuse the earl of Cusack's murder.
+All such, with many other of the said Carew's cruel and tyrannical
+proceedings, the earl showed to the council in England, which promised
+to give satisfaction by punishing the said Carew, who at his arrival
+in England did rather obtain greater favours than any reprehension or
+check of his doings, so as the earl was constrained to take _patience_
+for a full satisfaction of his wrongs.
+
+Sir Henry Docwra, governor of Derry, levied 100 l. off Tyrconnel's
+tenants for the building of a church in that city, but the money was
+applied by Sir Henry to his own use. Carew ordered the troops under
+Sir H. Docwra, Sir H. Folliott, Sir Ralph Constable, Sir Thomas
+Roper, and Captain Doddington, to be quartered for three months upon
+Tyrconnel's people, 'where they committed many rapes, and used many
+extortions, which the earl showed, and could neither get payment
+for their victuals nor obtain that they should be punished for their
+sundry rapes and extortions.' Indeed there was never a garrison in
+Tyrconnel that did not send at their pleasure private soldiers into
+the country to fetch, now three beeves, now four, as often as they
+liked, until they had taken all; and when the earl complained,
+Carew seemed rather to flout him than any way to right him. Sir H.
+Folliott's company on one occasion took from his tenants thirty-eight
+plough-horses, which were never restored or paid for; at another
+time they took twenty-one, and again fourteen. This being done in the
+spring of the year the tenants were hindered from ploughing as before.
+During a whole year Folliott took for the use of his own house,
+regularly every month, six beeves and six muttons, without any manner
+of payment. Captain Doddington and Captain Cole made free with the
+people's property in the same manner.
+
+'All these injuries he laid in a very humble manner before the lord
+deputy, but instead of obtaining redress he was dismissed by him in a
+scoffing manner, and even a lawyer whom he employed was threatened by
+Carew in the following terms:--that he and his posterity should smart
+for his doings until the seventh generation; so that all the earl's
+business was ever since left at random, and no lawyer dared plead in
+his cause.'
+
+Tyrconnel killed some rebels, and captured their chief, whom his men
+carried to Sir H. Folliott to be executed. Sir Henry offered to spare
+his life if he could accuse the earl of any crime that might work
+his overthrow. He could not, and he was hanged. In order to settle
+a dispute between the earl and Sir Nial, the English _protege_ and
+pretender to the chieftainship, twelve tenants of each were summoned
+to be examined by the king's officers in the neighbourhood. 'The
+earl's men were not examined, but locked up in a room; and the
+vice-governor, upon the false deposition of Sir Nial's men, directed
+warrants, and sent soldiers to the number of 300, to bring all the
+earl's tenants unto Sir Nial, to the number of 340 persons, who paid
+half-a-crown a piece, and 12 d. for every cow and garron, as a fee
+unto the captains, whereby they lost their ploughing for the space of
+twenty-eight days, the soldiers being in the country all the while.
+One Captain Henry Vaughan, being sheriff in the year 1605, got a
+warrant to levy 150 l. to build a sessions house. He built the house
+of timber and wattles. It was not worth 10_l_, and it fell in three
+months. Nevertheless he levied every penny of the money, and the
+people had to meet a similar demand the next year, to build another
+house. It was a rule with the governors of the local garrisons to
+offer his life to every convict about to be executed, and also a large
+reward, if he could accuse the earl of some detestable crime. No less
+than twenty-seven persons hanged in Connaught and Tyrone were offered
+pardon on this condition. He was at the same sessions called to the
+bar for hanging some wood-kerne, although he had authority from the
+king to execute martial law. Shortly after, by the lord deputy's
+orders, the horse and foot soldiers under Docwra and Folliott were
+cessed upon the country, where they for four months remained, and paid
+nothing for their charges of horse-meat or man's meat.' In the year
+1606 the lord deputy came to Ballyshannon, where, being at supper, he
+demanded of the earl what right he had to the several territories he
+claimed. He replied that his ancestors had possessed them for 1,300
+years, and that the duties, rents, and homages were duly paid during
+that time. Whereupon the lord deputy said, 'the earl was unworthy to
+have them, he should never enjoy them, the State was sorry to have
+left so much in his possession, and he should take heed to himself
+or else the deputy would make his pate ache.' The matters in dispute
+between him and Sir Nial being referred on that occasion to the lord
+deputy, both parties having submitted their papers for examination,
+every case was decided against Tyrconnel, all his challenges
+frustrated, 300 l. damages imposed, and his papers burned; while Sir
+Nial's papers were privately given back to him. The result was that
+at the next sessions Sir Nial had the benefit of all his papers,
+his opponent having nothing to show to the contrary. The fishery
+of Killybegs, worth 500 l. a season, had belonged to Tyrconnel's
+ancestors for 1,300 years. But it was taken from him without
+compensation, by Sir Henry Folliott and the Bishop of Derry, with
+the ultimate sanction of the lord deputy, who confirmed the bishop in
+possession 'both for that season and for all times ensuing.' Sir H.
+Folliott on one occasion took away for his carriage the horses
+that served the earl's house with fuel and wood for fire, 'and the
+soldiers, scorning to feed the horses themselves, went into the earl's
+house, and forcibly took out one of his boys to lead them, and ran
+another in the thigh with a pike for refusing to go with him.' He
+had a number of tenants, who held their lands 'by lease of years for
+certain rents.' Yet the lord deputy sent warrants to them, directing
+them to pay no rents, and requiring the Governor of Derry 'to raise
+the country from time to time, and resist and hinder the earl from
+taking up his rents.'
+
+To crown all, when Tyrconnel made a journey into the Pale to know the
+reason why he was debarred from his rents, he lodged on his way in the
+Abbey of Boyle. He had scarcely arrived there when the constable of
+the town, accompanied by twenty soldiers, and all the churls of the
+place, surrounded and set fire to the house where he lay, he having no
+company within but his page and two other serving men. 'But it befell,
+through the singular providence of Almighty God, whose fatherly care
+he hath ever found vigilant over him, that he defended himself and his
+house against them all the whole night long, they using on the other
+side all their industry and might to fire it, and throwing in of
+stones and staves in the earl's face, and running their pikes at him
+and swords until they had wounded him, besides his other bruisings,
+with stones and staves in six places; they menacing to kill him,
+affirming that he was a traitor to the king, and that it was the best
+service that could be rendered to his majesty to kill him. And that
+all this is true, Sir Donough O'Conor, who was taken prisoner by the
+same men, because he would not assist them in their _facinorous_ and
+wicked design of killing the earl, will justify; but in the morning
+the earl was rescued by the country folk, which conveyed him safely
+out of the town. And when the earl complained, and showed his wounds
+unto the lord deputy, he promised to hang the constable and ensign,
+but afterwards did not once deign so much as to examine the matter
+or call the delinquents to account, by reason whereof the earl doth
+verily persuade himself--which his surmise was afterwards confirmed
+in time, by the credible report of many--that some of the State
+were sorry for his escape, but specially Sir Oliver Lambert, who had
+purposely drawn the plot of the earl's ruin.'
+
+[Transcriber's note: marker for following footnote is missing in the
+original]
+
+[Footnote: Meehan's Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnel, pp. 192-224.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE CONFISCATION OF ULSTER.
+
+
+Sir Toby Caulfield, accompanied by the sheriffs of Tyrone and
+Tyrconnel, followed quickly the proclamation of the lord deputy to
+the people of Ulster, and took possession of the houses, goods, and
+chattels of the fugitive earls. Sir Toby was further empowered to act
+as receiver over the estates, taking up the rents according to the
+Irish usage until other arrangements could be made. His inventory
+of the effects of O'Neill in the castle of Dungannon is a curious
+document, showing that according to the ideas of those times in the
+matter of furniture 'man wants but little here below.' The following
+is a copy of the document taken from the memorandum roll of the
+exchequer by the late Mr. Ferguson. It is headed, '_The Earl of
+Tyrone's goods, viz._' The spelling is, however, modernised, and
+ordinary figures substituted for Roman numerals.
+
+
+_The Earl of Tyrone's Goods, viz._
+
+                                                  L.   s.   d.
+
+Small steers, 9 at 10 s.                           4   10   0
+
+60 hogs, at 2 s. 6 d.                              7   10   0
+
+2 long tables, 10 s.
+2 long forms, 5 s.; an old bedstead, 5 s.
+An old trunk, 3 s.; a long stool, 12 d.
+3 hogsheads of salt, 28 s. 6 d.; all valued at     4   12   6
+
+A silk jacket                                      0   13   4
+
+8 vessels of butter, containing 4-1/2 barrels      5   17   6
+
+2 iron spikes                                      0    2   0
+
+A powdering tub                                    0    0   6
+
+2 old chests                                       0    4   0
+
+A frying-pan and a dripping-pan                    0    3   0
+
+5 pewter dishes                                    0    5   0
+
+A casket, 2 d.; a comb and comb case, 18 d.        0    1   8
+
+2 dozen of trenchers and a basket                  0    0  10
+
+2 eighteen-bar ferris                              0    6   0
+
+A box and 2 drinking glasses                       0    1   3
+
+A trunk 1; a pair of red taffeta curtains 1;
+other pair of green satin curtains                 4    5   0
+
+A brass kettle                                     0    8   6
+
+'A payer of covyrons'                              0    5   0
+
+2 baskets with certain broken earthen dishes and
+some waste spices                                  0    2   0
+
+Half a pound of white and blue starch              0    0   4
+
+A vessel with 11 gallons of vinegar                0    3   0
+
+17 pewter dishes                                   0   15   0
+
+3 glass bottles                                    0    1   6
+
+2 stone jugs, whereof 1 broken                     0    0   6
+
+A little iron pot                                  0    1   6
+
+A great spit                                       0    1   6
+
+6 garrons at 80 s. apiece                          9    0   0
+
+19 stud mares, whereof [some] were claimed by
+Nicholas Weston, which were restored to him by
+warrant, 30 l. 9 s. being proved to be his own,
+and so remaineth                                  17    0   0
+
+With respect to rents, Sir Toby Caulfield left a memorandum, stating
+that there was no certain portion of Tyrone's land let to any of his
+tenants that paid him rent, and that such rents as he received were
+paid to him partly in money and partly in victuals, as oats, oatmeal,
+butter, hogs, and sheep. The money-rents were chargeable on all the
+cows, milch or in calf, which grazed on his lands, at the rate of
+a shilling a quarter each. The cows were to be numbered in May and
+November by the earl's officers, and 'so the rents were taken up at
+said rate for all the cows that were so numbered, except only the
+heads and principal men of the _creaghts_, as they enabled them to
+live better than the common multitude under them, whom they caused to
+pay the said rents, which amounted to about twelve hundred sterling
+Irish a year.
+
+'The butter and other provisions were usually paid by those styled
+horsemen--O'Hagans, O'Quins, the O'Donnillys, O'Devolins, and others.'
+These were a sort of middle men, and to some of them an allowance was
+made by the Government. 'Thus for example, Loughlin O'Hagan, formerly
+constable of the castle of Dungannon, received in lieu thereof a
+portion of his brother Henry's goods, and Henry O'Hagan's wife and her
+children had all her husband's goods, at the suit of her father Sir
+G. O'Ghy O'Hanlon, who had made a surrender of all his lands to the
+crown.'
+
+The cattle were to be all numbered over the whole territory in one
+day, a duty which must have required a great number of men, and sharp
+men too; for, if the owners were dishonestly inclined, and were
+as active in that kind of work as the peasantry were during the
+anti-tithe war in our own time, the cattle could be driven off into
+the woods or on to the lands of a neighbouring lord. However, during
+the three years that Caulfield was receiver, the rental amounted
+to 12,000 l. a year, a remarkable fact considering the enormous
+destruction of property that had taken place during the late wars, and
+the value of money at that time.
+
+A similar process was adopted with regard to the property of O'Donel,
+and guards were placed in all the castles of the two chiefs. In order
+that their territories might pass into the king's possession by due
+form of law, the attorney-general, Sir John Davis, was instructed to
+draw up a bill of indictment for treason against the fugitive
+earls and their adherents. With this bill he proceeded to Lifford,
+accompanied by a number of commissioners, clerks, sheriffs, and a
+strong detachment of horse and foot. At Lifford, the county town of
+Donegal, a jury was empanelled for the trial of O'Donel, consisting
+of twenty-three Irishmen and ten Englishmen. Of this jury Sir Cahir
+O'Dogherty was foreman. He was the lord of Inishowen, having the
+largest territories in the county next to the Earl of Tyrconnel. The
+bill being read in English and Irish, evidence was given, wrote the
+attorney-general, 'that their guilty consciences, and fear of losing
+their heads, was the cause of their flight.' The jury, however, had
+exactly the same sort of difficulty that troubled the juries in our
+late Fenian trials about finding the accused guilty of compassing the
+death of the sovereign. But Sir John laboured to remove their scruples
+by explaining the legal technicality, and arguing that, 'whoso would
+take the king's crown from his head would likewise, if he could, take
+his head from his shoulders; and whoever would not suffer the king to
+reign, if it lay in his power, would not suffer the king to live.' The
+argument was successful with the jury. In all the conflicts between
+the two races, whether on the field of battle or in the courts of law,
+the work of England was zealously done by Celtic agents, who became
+the eager accusers, the perfidious betrayers, and sometimes the
+voluntary assassins of men of their own name, kindred, and tribe.
+
+The commissioners next sat at Strabane, a town within two or three
+miles of Lifford, where a similar jury was empanelled for the county
+Tyrone, to try O'Neill. One of the counts against him was that he had
+treasonably taken upon him the name of O'Neill. In proof of this a
+document was produced: 'O'Neill bids M'Tuin to pay 60 l.' It was also
+alleged that he had committed a number of murders; but his victims,
+it was alleged, were criminals ordered for execution in virtue of the
+power of life and death with which he had been invested by the queen.
+He was found guilty, however; and Henry Oge O'Neill, his kinsman,
+who was foreman of the jury, was complimented for his civility and
+loyalty, although he belonged to that class concerning which Sir John
+afterwards wrote, 'It is as natural for an Irish lord to be a thief
+as it is for the devil to be a liar, of whom it was written, he was a
+liar and a murderer from the beginning.'
+
+True bills having been found by the grand juries, proceedings were
+taken in the Court of King's Bench to have the fugitive earls and
+their followers attainted of high treason. The names were:--'Hugh
+earl of Tyrone, Rory earl of Tyrconnel, Caffar O'Donel, Cu Connaught
+Maguire, Donel Oge O'Donel, Art Oge, Cormack O'Neill, Henry
+O'Neill, Henry Hovenden, Henry O'Hagan, Moriarty O'Quinn, John Bath,
+Christopher Plunket, John O'Punty O'Hagan, Hugh O'Galagher, Carragh
+O'Galagher, John and Edmund M'Davitt, Maurie O'Multully, Donogh
+O'Brien, M'Mahon, George Cashel, Teigue O'Keenen, and many other false
+traitors, who, by the instigation of the devil, did conspire and plot
+the destruction and death of the king, Sir Arthur Chichester, &c.; and
+did also conspire to seize by force of arms the castles of Athlone,
+Ballyshannon, Duncannon, co. Wexford, Lifford, co. Donegal, and with
+that intent did sail away in a ship, to bring in an army composed of
+foreigners to invade the kingdom of Ireland, to put the king to death,
+and to dispose him from the style, title, power, and government of the
+Imperial crown.'
+
+The lord deputy and his officers, able, energetic, farseeing men,
+working together persistently for the accomplishment of a well-defined
+purpose, were drawing the great net of English law closer and closer
+around the heads of the Irish clans, who struggled gallantly and
+wildly in its fatal meshes. The episode of Sir Cahir O'Dogherty is
+a romance. On the death of Sir John O'Dogherty, the O'Donel, in
+accordance with Irish custom, caused his brother Phelim Oge to be
+inaugurated Prince of Inishowen, because Cahir, his son, was then
+only thirteen years of age, too young to command the sept. But this
+arrangement did not please his foster brothers, the M'Davitts, who
+proposed to Sir Henry Docwra, governor of Derry, that their youthful
+chief should be adopted as the queen's O'Dogherty; and on this
+condition they promised that he and they would devote themselves to
+her majesty's service. The terms were gladly accepted. Sir Cahir was
+trained by Docwra in martial exercises, in the arts of civility, and
+in English literature. He was an apt pupil. He grew up strong and
+comely; and he so distinguished himself before he was sixteen years
+of age in skirmishes with his father's allies, that Sir Henry wrote
+of him in the following terms: 'The country was overgrown with ancient
+oak and coppice. O'Dogherty was with me, alighted when I did, kept me
+company in the greatest heat of the fight, behaved himself bravely,
+and with a great deal of love and affection; so much so, that I
+recommended him at my next meeting with the Lord Deputy Mountjoy, for
+the honour of knighthood, which was accordingly conferred upon him.'
+The young knight went to London, was well received at court, and
+obtained a new grant of a large portion of the O'Dogherty's country.
+He married a daughter of Lord Gormanstown, a catholic peer of the
+Pale, distinguished for loyalty to the English throne, resided with
+his bride at his Castle of Elagh, or at Burt, or Buncranna, keeping
+princely state, not in the old Irish fashion, but in the manner of an
+English nobleman of the period; hunting the red deer in his forest,
+hawking, or fishing in the teeming waters of Lough Foyle, Lough
+Swilly, and the Atlantic, which poured their treasures around the
+promontory of which he was the lord. His intimate associates were
+officers and favourites of the king.
+
+Docwra had given up the government of Derry and retired to England. He
+was succeeded by Sir George Paulet, a man of violent temper. Sir Cahir
+had sold 3,000 acres of land, which was to be planted with English;
+and, in order to perfect the deed of sale, it was necessary to have
+the document signed before the governor of Derry. It had been reported
+to the lord deputy that Sir Cahir, not content with his position,
+intended to leave the country, probably with the design of joining the
+fugitive earls in an attempt to destroy the English power in
+Ireland. He was therefore summoned before the lord deputy; and Lord
+Gormanstown, Thomas Fitzwilliam of Merrion, and himself, were obliged
+to give security that he should not quit Ireland without due notice
+and express permission. This restraint had probably irritated his
+hot impetuous spirit, and made it difficult for him to exercise due
+self-control when he came in contact with the English governor of
+Derry, with whom his relations were not improved by the suspicions now
+attaching to his loyalty. Accordingly, while the legal forms of
+the transfer were being gone through, the young chief made a remark
+extremely offensive to Paulet, which was resented by a blow in the
+face with his clenched fist. Instead of returning the blow, young
+O'Dogherty hurried away to consult the M'Davitts, whose advice was
+that the insult he received must be avenged by blood. The affair
+having been immediately reported to the lord deputy, who apprehended
+that mischief would come of it, he sent a peremptory summons to Sir
+Cahir, requiring him to appear in Dublin, 'to free himself of certain
+rumours and reports touching disloyal courses into which he had
+entered, contrary to his allegiance to the king, and threatening the
+overthrow of many of his majesty's subjects.' His two sureties were
+also written to, and required to 'bring in his body.' But O'Dogherty
+utterly disregarded the lord deputy's order. Taking counsel with Nial
+Garve O'Donel, he resolved to seize Culmore Fort, Castle Doe, and
+other strong places; and then march on Derry, and massacre the English
+settlers in the market square.
+
+Towards the close of April, Sir Cahir invited Captain Harte, governor
+of Culmore Castle, on the banks of the Foyle, about four miles from
+Derry, with his wife and infant child, of which he was the godfather,
+to dine with him at his Castle of Elagh.
+
+The entertainment was sumptuous, and the pleasures of the table
+protracted to a late hour. After dinner the host took his guest into
+a private apartment, and told him that the blow he had received from
+Paulet demanded a bloody revenge. Harte remonstrated; O'Dogherty's
+retainers rushed in, and, drawing their swords and skeines, declared
+that they would kill his wife and child in his presence, unless he
+delivered up the castle of Culmore. The governor was terrified, but
+he refused to betray his trust. Sir Cahir, commanding the armed men to
+retire, locked the chamber door, and kept his guest imprisoned
+there for two hours, hoping that he would yield when he had time for
+reflection. But finding him still inflexible, O'Dogherty grew furious,
+and vented his rage in loud and angry words. Mrs. Harte, hearing the
+altercation, and suspecting foul play, rushed into the room, and
+found Sir Cahir enforcing his appeal with a naked sword pointed at her
+husband's throat. She fell on the floor in a swoon. Lady O'Dogherty
+ran to her assistance, raised her up, and assured her that she knew
+nothing of her husband's rash design. The latter then thrust the whole
+party down-stairs, giving orders to his men to seize Captain Harte.
+Meantime, Lady Harte fell on her knees, imploring mercy, but the only
+response was an oath that she and her husband and child should be
+instantly butchered if Culmore were not surrendered. What followed
+shall be related in the words of Father Meehan: 'Horrified by this
+menace, she consented to accompany him and his men to the fort, where
+they arrived about midnight. On giving the pass word the gate was
+thrown open by the warder, whose suspicions were lulled when Lady
+Harte told him that her husband had broken his arm and was then lying
+in Sir Cahir's house. The parley was short, and the followers of
+Sir Cahir, rushing in to the tower, fell on the sleeping garrison,
+slaughtered them in their beds, and then made their way to an upper
+apartment where Lady Harte's brother, recently come from England,
+was fast asleep. Fearing that he might get a bloody blanket for his
+shroud, Lady Harte followed them into the room, and implored the
+young man to offer no resistance to the Irish, who broke open trunks,
+presses and other furniture, and seized whatever valuables they could
+clutch. Her thoughtfulness saved the lives of her children and
+her brother; for as soon as Sir Cahir had armed his followers with
+matchlocks and powder out of the magazine, he left a small detachment
+to garrison Culmore, and then marched rapidly on Derry, where he
+arrived about two o'clock in the morning. Totally unprepared for
+such an irruption, the townsfolk were roused from their sleep by the
+bagpipes and war-shout of the Clan O'Dogherty, who rushed into the
+streets, and made their way to Paulet's house, where Sir Cahir, still
+smarting under the indignity of the angry blow, satisfied his vow of
+vengeance by causing that unhappy gentleman to be hacked to death with
+the pikes and skeines of Owen O'Dogherty and others of his kindred.
+After plundering the houses of the more opulent inhabitants, seizing
+such arms as they could find, and reducing the young town to a heap
+of ashes, Sir Cahir led his followers to the palace of Montgomery the
+bishop, who fortunately for himself was then absent in Dublin. Not
+finding him, they captured his wife, and sent her, under escort, to
+Burt Castle, whither Lady O'Dogherty, her sister-in-law and infant
+daughter, had gone without warders for their protection. It was on
+this occasion that Phelim M'Davitt got into Montgomery's library and
+set fire to it, thus destroying hundreds of valuable volumes, printed
+and manuscript, a feat for which he is not censured--we are sorry to
+have to acknowledge it--by Philip O'Sullivan in his account of
+the fact. Elated by this successful raid, Sir Cahir called off his
+followers and proceeded to beleaguer Lifford, where there was a small
+garrison of English who could not be induced to surrender, although
+suffering severely from want of provisions. Finding all his attempts
+to reduce the place ineffectual, he sent for the small force he had
+left in Culmore to join the main body of his partisans, and then
+marched into M'Swyne Doe's country.'
+
+Meantime news of these atrocities reached Dublin, and the lord deputy
+immediately sent a force of 3,000 men, commanded by Sir Richard
+Wingfield, Sir Thomas Roper, and Sir Toby Caulfield, with instructions
+to pursue the revolted Irish into their fastnesses and deal with them
+summarily. He himself set out to act with the troops, and on reaching
+Dundalk published a proclamation, in which he offered pardon to
+all who laid down their arms, or would use them in killing their
+associates. He took care, however, to except Phelim M'Davitt from all
+hope of mercy, consigning him to be dealt with by a military tribunal.
+The English force in the interval had made their way into O'Dogherty's
+country, and coming before Culmore, found it abandoned by the Irish,
+who, unable to carry off the heavy guns, took the precaution of
+burying them in the sea. Burt Castle surrendered without a blow.
+Wingfield immediately liberated the inmates, and sent Bishop
+Montgomery's wife to her husband, and Lady O'Dogherty, her infant
+daughter and sister-in-law, to Dublin Castle. As for Sir Cahir,
+instead of going to Castle Doe, he resolved to cross the path of the
+English on their march to that place, and coming up with them in the
+vicinity of Kilmacrenan, he was shot dead by a soldier. The death of
+the young chieftain spread panic among his followers, most of
+whom flung away their arms, betook themselves to flight, and were
+unmercifully cut down. Sir Cahir's head was immediately struck off and
+sent to Dublin, where it was struck upon a pole at the east gate of
+the city.
+
+O'Dogherty's country was now confiscated, and the lord deputy,
+Chichester, was rewarded with the greatest portion of his lands. But
+what was to be done with the people? In the first instance they were
+driven from the rich lowlands along the borders of Lough Foyle and
+Lough Swilly, and compelled to take refuge in the mountain fastnesses
+which stretched to a vast extent from Moville westward along the
+Atlantic coast. But could those 'idle kerne and swordsmen,' thus
+punished with loss of lands and home for the crimes of their chief,
+be safely trusted to remain anywhere in the neighbourhood of the new
+English settlers? Sir John Davis and Sir Toby Caulfield thought of
+a plan by which they could get rid of the danger. The illustrious
+Gustavus Adolphus was then fighting the battles of Protestantism
+against the house of Austria. In his gallant efforts to sustain the
+cause of the Reformation every true Irish Protestant sympathised, and
+none more than the members of the Irish Government. To what better
+use, then, could the 'loose Irish kerne and swordsmen' of Donegal be
+turned than to send them to fight in the army of the King of Sweden?
+Accordingly 6,000 of the able-bodied peasantry of Inishown were
+shipped off for this service. Sir Toby Caulfield, founder of the
+house of Charlemont, was commissioned to muster the men and have them
+transported to their destination, being paid for their keep in the
+meantime. A portion of his account ran thus: 'For the dyett of 80 of
+said soldiers for 16 daies, during which tyme they were kept in prison
+in Dungannon till they were sent away, at iiiid le peece per diem;
+allso for dyett of 72 of said men kept in prison at Armagh till they
+were sent away to Swethen, at iiiid le peece per diem,' &c., &c.
+Caulfield was well rewarded for these services; and Captain Sandford,
+married to the niece of the first Earl of Charlemont, obtained a
+large grant of land on the same score. This system of clearing out the
+righting men among the Irish was continued till 1629, when the lord
+deputy, Falkland, wrote that Sir George Hamilton, a papist, then
+impressing soldiers in Tyrone and Antrim, was opposed by one
+O'Cullinan, a priest, who was rash enough to advise the people to stay
+at home and have nothing to do with the Danish wars. For this he was
+arrested, committed to Dublin Castle, tortured and then hanged.
+
+With regard to the immediate followers of O'Dogherty in his insane
+course, many of the most prominent leaders were tried by court-martial
+and executed. Others were found guilty by ordinary course of law.
+Among these was O'Hanlon, Sir Cahir's brother-in-law. Pie was hanged
+at Armagh; and his youthful wife was found by a soldier, 'stripped of
+her apparel, in a wood, where she perished of cold and hunger, being
+lately before delivered of a child.' M'Davitt, the firebrand of the
+rebellion, was convicted and executed at Derry. At Dungannon Shane,
+Carragh O'Cahan was found guilty by 'a jury of his _kinsmen_' and
+executed in the camp, his head being stuck upon the castle of that
+place--the castle from which his brother was mainly instrumental in
+driving its once potent lord into exile. At the same place a monk, who
+was a chief adviser of the arch-rebel, saved his life and liberty by
+tearing off his religious habit, and renouncing his allegiance to
+the Pope. Father Meehan states that many of the clergy, secular and
+regular, of Inishown might have saved their lives by taking the oath
+of supremacy. It was a terrible time in Donegal. No day passed without
+the killing and taking of some of the dispersed rebels, one betraying
+another to get his own pardon, and the goods of the party betrayed,
+according to a proviso in the deputy's proclamation. Among the
+informers was a noble lady, the mother of Hugh Roe O'Donel and Rory
+Earl of Tyronnel, who accused Nial Garve, her own son-in-law, of
+complicity in O'Dogherty's revolt, for which she got a grant of some
+hundreds of acres in the neighbourhood of Kilmacrenan.
+
+The insurgent leaders and the dangerous kerne having been effectually
+cleared off in various ways, the whole territory of Inishown was
+overrun by the king's troops. The lord deputy, Sir Arthur Chichester,
+with a numerous retinue, including the attorney-general, sheriffs,
+lawyers, provosts-martial, engineers, and 'geographers,' made a grand
+'progress,' and penetrated for the first time the region which was to
+become the property of his family. It was a strange sight to the poor
+Irish that were suffered to remain. 'As we passed through the glens
+and forests,' wrote Sir John Davis, 'the wild inhabitants did as much
+wonder to see the king's deputy as the ghosts in Virgil did to see
+AEneas alive in hell.' In this exploring tour a thorough knowledge of
+the country was for the first time obtained, and the attorney-general
+could report that 'before Michaelmas he would be ready to present to
+his majesty a perfect survey of six whole counties which he now hath
+in actual possession in the province of Ulster, of greater extent of
+land than any prince in Europe hath in his own hands to dispose of.' A
+vast field for plantation! But Sir John Davis cautioned the Government
+against the mistakes that caused the failure of former settlements,
+saying, that if the number of the Scotch and English who were to come
+to Ireland did not much exceed that of the natives, the latter would
+quickly 'overgrow them, as weeds overgrow corn.'
+
+O'Cahan, who was charged with complicity in O'Dogherty's outbreak, or
+with being at least a sympathiser, had been arrested, and was kept,
+with Nial Garve, a close prisoner in Dublin Castle. An anonymous
+pamphleteer celebrated the victories that had been achieved by the
+lord deputy, giving to his work the title, 'The Overthrow of an Irish
+Rebel,' having for its frontispiece a tower with portcullis, and the
+O'Dogherty's head impaled in the central embrazure. The spirit of the
+narrative may be inferred from the following passage: 'As for Tyrone
+and Co., or Tyrconnel, they are already fled from their coverts, and I
+hope they will never return; and for other false hearts, the chief of
+note is O'Cahan, Sir Nial Garve, and his two brothers, with others of
+their condition. They have holes provided for them in the castle of
+Dublin, where I hope they are safe enough from breeding any cubs to
+disquiet and prey upon the flock of honest subjects.'
+
+O'Cahan and his companion, however, tried to get out of the hole,
+although the lord deputy kept twenty men every night to guard the
+castle, in addition to the ordinary ward, and two or three of the
+guards lay in the same rooms with the prisoners. Their horses had
+arrived in town, and all things were in readiness. But their escape
+was hindered by the fact that Shane O'Carolan, who had been acquitted
+of three indictments, cast himself out of a window at the top of the
+castle by the help of his mantle, which broke before he was half way
+down; and though he was presently discovered, yet he escaped about
+supper time. 'Surely,' exclaimed the lord deputy, 'these men do go
+beyond all nations in the world for desperate escapes!' The prisoners
+were subsequently conveyed to the Tower, where they remained many
+years closely confined, and where they ended their days. Sir Allen
+Apsley, in 1623, made a report of the prisoners then in his custody,
+in which he said, 'There is here Sir Nial Garve O'Donel, a man that
+was a good subject during the late queen's time, and did as great
+service to the state as any man of his nation. He has been a prisoner
+here about thirteen years. His offence is known specially to the Lord
+Chichester. Naghtan, his son, was taken from Oxford and committed with
+his father. I never heard any offence he did.'
+
+While O'Cahan was in prison, commissioners sat in his mansion at
+Limavaddy, including the Primate Usher, Bishop Montgomery of Derry,
+and Sir John Davis. They decided that by the statute of 11 Elizabeth,
+which it was supposed had been cancelled by the king's pardon, all his
+territory had been granted to the Earl of Tyrone, and forfeited by
+his flight. It was, therefore, confiscated. Although sundry royal and
+viceregal proclamations had assured the tenants that they would not
+be disturbed in their possessions, on account of the offences of their
+chiefs, it was now declared that all O'Cahan's country belonged to
+the crown, and that neither he nor those who lived under him had any
+estate whatever in the lands. Certain portions of the territory were
+set apart for the Church, and handed over to Bishop Montgomery. 'Of
+all the fair territory which once was his, Donald Balagh had not now
+as much as would afford him a last resting-place near the sculptured
+tomb of Cooey-na-gall. O'Cahan got no sympathy, and he deserved
+none; for he might have foreseen that the Government to which he sold
+himself would cast him off as an outworn tool, when he could no
+longer subserve their wicked purposes.'[1] 'Thus were the O'Cahans
+dispossessed by the colonists of Derry, to whom their broad lands and
+teeming rivers were passed, _mayhap_ for ever. Towards the close of
+the Cromwellian war in Ireland, the Duchess of Buckingham, passing
+through Limavaddy, visited its ancient castle, then sadly dilapidated,
+and, entering one of the apartments, saw an aged woman wrapped in a
+blanket, and crouching over a peat fire, which filled the room with
+reeking smoke. After gazing at this pitiful spectacle, the duchess
+asked the miserable individual her name; when the latter, rising and
+drawing herself up to her full height, replied, "I am the wife of
+the O'Cahan."'[Father Meehan dedicates his valuable work to the lord
+chancellor of Ireland, the Right Hon. Thomas O'Hagan,--the first
+Catholic chancellor since the Revolution. Descended from the O'Hagans,
+who were hereditary justiciaries and secretaries to the O'Neill, he
+is, by universal consent, one of the ablest and most accomplished
+judges that ever adorned the Irish Bench. His ancestors were involved
+in the fortunes of Tyrone. How strange that the representative of the
+judicial and literary clan of ancient Ulster should now be the head of
+the Irish magistracy!]
+
+[Footnote 1: Meehan, p.317.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE PLANTATION OF ULSTER.
+
+
+In the account which the lord deputy gave of the flight of Tyrone
+and Tyrconnel, he referred to the mistake that had been committed in
+making these men proprietary lords of so large a territory, '_without
+regard to the poor freeholders' rights, or of his majesty's service,
+or the commonwealths, that are so much interested in the honest
+liberty of that sort of men_.' And he considered it a providential
+circumstance that the king had now an opportunity of repairing that
+error, and of relieving the natives from the exactions and tyranny of
+their former barbarous lords. How far this change was a benefit to
+the honest freeholders and the labouring classes may be seen from the
+reports of Sir Toby Caulfield to the lord deputy, as to his dealings
+with those people. He complains of his ill success in the prosecution
+of the wood-kerne. He had done his best, and all had turned to
+nothing. When the news of the plantation came, he had no hope at all,
+for the people then said it would be many of their cases to become
+wood-kerne themselves out of necessity, 'no other means being left for
+them to keep being in this world than to live as long as they could
+by scrambling.' They hoped, however, that so much of the summer being
+spent before the commissioners came down, 'so great cruelty would not
+be showed as to remove them upon the edge of winter from their
+houses, and in the very season when they were employed in making their
+harvest. They held discourse among themselves, that if this course had
+been taken with them in war time, it had had some colour of justice;
+but being pardoned, and their land given them, and they having lived
+under law ever since, and being ready to submit themselves to the
+mercy of the law, for any offence they can be charged withal, since
+their pardoning, they conclude it to be the greatest cruelty that was
+ever inflicted upon any people.'
+
+It is no wonder that Sir Toby was obliged to add to his report this
+assurance: 'There is not a more discontented people in Christendom.'
+It is difficult to conceive how any people in Christendom could be
+contented, treated as they were, according to this account, which the
+officer of the Government did not deny; for surely no people, in any
+Christian country, were ever the victims of such flagrant injustice,
+inflicted by a Government which promised to relieve them from the
+cruel exactions of their barbarous chiefs--a Government, too, solemnly
+pledged to protect them in the unmolested enjoyment of their houses
+and lands. How little this policy tended to strengthen the Government
+appears from a confession made about the same time by the lord deputy
+himself. He wrote: 'The hearts of the Irish are against us: we have
+only a handful of men in entertainment so ill paid, that everyone is
+out of heart, and our resources so discredited, by borrowing and
+not repaying, that we cannot take up 1,000 l. in twenty days, if the
+safety of the kingdom depended upon it. The Irish are hopeful of the
+return of the fugitives, or invasion from foreign parts.'
+
+But the safety of England, do what she might in the way of oppression,
+lay then, as it lay often since, and ever will lie, in the tendency
+to division, and the instability of the Celtic character. The Rev. Mr.
+Meehan, with all his zeal for Irish nationality, admits this failing
+of the people with his usual candour. He says: 'These traits, so
+peculiar to the Celtic character, have been justly stigmatised by a
+friendly and observant Italian (the Nuncio Rinuccini) who, some thirty
+years after the period of which we are writing, tells us that the
+native Irish were behind the rest of Europe in the knowledge of
+those things that tended to their material improvement--indifferent
+agriculturists, living from hand to mouth--caring more for the sword
+than the plough--good Catholics, though by nature barbarous--and
+placing their hopes of deliverance from English rule on foreign
+intervention. For this they were constantly straining their eyes
+towards France or Spain, and, no matter whence the ally came, were
+ever ready to rise in revolt. One virtue, however--intensest love of
+country--more or less redeemed these vices, for so they deserve to be
+called; but to establish anything like strict military discipline
+or organisation among themselves, it must be avowed they had no
+aptitude.' This, says Mr. Meehan, 'to some extent, will account for
+the apathy of the Northern Catholics, while the undertakers were
+carrying on the gigantic eviction known as the plantation of Ulster;
+for, since Sir Cahir O'Dogherty's rebellion till 1615, there was only
+one attempt to resist the intruders, an abortive raid on the city of
+Derry, for which the meagre annals of that year tell us, six of the
+Earl of Tyrone's nearest kinsmen were put to death. Withal the people
+of Ulster were full of hope that O'Neill would return with forces to
+evict the evicters, but the farther they advanced into this agreeable
+perspective, the more rapidly did its charms disappear.
+
+The proclamations against wood-kerne present a curious picture of
+these 'plantation' times. The lord deputy, in council, understood
+that 'many idle kerne, loose and masterless men, and other disordered
+persons, did range up and down in sundry parts of this kingdom, being
+armed with swords, targets, pikes, shot, head-pieces, horsemen's
+staves, and other warlike weapons, to the great terror of his
+majesty's well-disposed subjects, upon whom they had committed many
+extortions, murders, robberies, and other outrages. Hence divers
+proclamations had been published in his majesty's name, commanding
+that no person of what condition soever, travelling on horseback,
+should presume to carry more arms than one sword or rapier and dagger;
+and that no person travelling on foot should carry any weapons at all.
+Twenty days were allowed for giving the arms to the proper officers.
+If the proclamation was not obeyed within that time, the arms were
+to be seized for the king's use, and the bearers of them committed to
+prison.
+
+On July 21, 1609, a commission was issued by the crown to make
+inquisition concerning the forfeited lands in Ulster after the flight
+of the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnel. The commissioners included the
+Lord-Deputy Chichester, the Archbishops of Armagh and Dublin, Sir John
+Davis, attorney-general; Sir William Parsons, surveyor-general, and
+several other public functionaries. This work done, King James, acting
+on the advice of his prime minister, the Earl of Salisbury, took
+measures for the plantation of Ulster, a project earnestly recommended
+by statesmen connected with Ireland, and for which the flight of
+O'Neill and O'Donel furnished the desired opportunity. The city of
+London was thought to be the best quarter to look to for funds to
+carry on the plantation. Accordingly, Lord Salisbury had a conference
+with the lord mayor, Humphry Weld, Sir John Jolles, and Sir W.
+Cockaine, who were well acquainted with Irish affairs. The result was
+the publication of 'Motives and Reasons to induce the City of London
+to undertake the Plantation in the North of Ireland.'
+
+The inducements were of the most tempting character. It is customary
+to speak of Ulster, before the plantation, as something like a desert,
+out of which the planters created an Eden. But the picture presented
+to the Londoners was more like the land which the Israelitish spies
+found beyond Jordan--a land flowing with milk and honey. Among
+'the land commodities which the North of Ireland produceth' were
+these:--the country was well watered generally by abundance of
+springs, brooks, and rivers. There was plenty of fuel--either wood,
+or 'good and wholesome turf.' The land yielded 'store of all necessary
+for man's sustenance, in such a measure as may not only maintain
+itself, but also furnish the city of London yearly with manifold
+provision, especially for their fleets--namely, with beef, pork, fish,
+rye, bere, peas, and beans.' It was not only fit for all sorts of
+husbandry, but it excelled for the breeding of mares and the increase
+of cattle; whence the Londoners might expect 'plenty of butter,
+cheese, hides, and tallow,' while English sheep would breed abundantly
+there. It was also held to be good in many places for madder, hops,
+and woad. It afforded 'fells of all sorts in great quantity, red deer,
+foxes, sheep, lambs, rabbits, martins and squirrels,' &c. Hemp and
+flax grew more naturally there than elsewhere, which, being well
+regarded, would give provision for canvas, cables, cording, besides
+thread, linen cloth, and all stuffs made of linen yarn, 'which are
+more fine and plentiful there than in all the rest of the kingdom.'
+Then there were the best materials of all sorts for building, with
+'the goodliest and largest timber, that might compare with any in his
+majesty's dominions;' and, moreover, the country was 'very plentiful
+in honey and wax.'
+
+The sea and the rivers vied with the land in the richness of their
+produce. 'The sea fishing of that coast was very plentiful of all
+manner of usual sea fish--there being yearly, after Michaelmas, for
+taking of herrings, above seven or eight score sail of his majesty's
+subjects and strangers for lading, besides an infinite number of boats
+for fishing and killing.'
+
+The corporation were willing to undertake the work of plantation if
+the account given of its advantages should prove to be correct.
+With the caution of men of business, they wished to put the glowing
+representations of the Government to the test of an investigation by
+agents of their own. So they sent over 'four wise, grave, and discreet
+citizens, to view the situation proposed for the new colony.' The men
+selected were John Broad, goldsmith; Robert Treswell, painter-stainer;
+John Rowley, draper; and John Munns, mercer. On their return from
+their Irish mission they presented a report to the Court of Common
+Council, which was openly read. The report was favourable. A company
+was to be formed in London for conducting the plantation. Corporations
+were to be founded in Derry and Coleraine, everything concerning
+the colony to be managed and performed in Ireland by the advice and
+direction of the company in London. It was agreed between the Privy
+Council and the City that the sum of 20,000 l. should be levied,
+15,000 l. for the intended plantation, and 5,000 l. 'for the clearing
+of private men's interest in the things demanded.' That 200 houses
+should be built in Derry, and room left for 300 more. 'That 4,000
+acres lying on the Derry side, next adjacent to the wherry, should be
+laid thereunto--bog and barren mountain to be no part thereof, but
+to go as waste for the city; the same to be done by indifferent
+commissioners.'
+
+The royal charters and letters clearly set forth the objects of the
+plantation. James I., in the preamble of the charter to the town of
+Coleraine, thus described his intentions in disposing of the forfeited
+lands to English undertakers: 'Whereas there can be nothing more
+worthy of a king to perform than to establish the true religion of
+Christ among men hitherto depraved and almost lost in superstition;
+to improve and cultivate by art and industry countries and lands
+uncultivated and almost desert, and not only to stock them with
+honest citizens and inhabitants, but also to strengthen them with
+good institutions and ordinances, whereby they might be more safely
+defended not only from the corruption of their morals but from their
+intestine and domestic plots and conspiracies, and also from foreign
+violence: And whereas the province of Ulster in our realm of Ireland,
+for many years past, hath grossly erred from the true religion of
+Christ and divine grace, and hath abounded with superstition, insomuch
+that for a long time it hath not only been harassed, torn, and wasted
+by private and domestic broils but also by foreign arms: We therefore,
+deeply and heartily commiserating the wretched state of the said
+province, have esteemed it to be a work worthy of a Christian prince,
+and of our royal office, to stir up and recal the same province from
+superstition, rebellion, calamity, and poverty, which heretofore
+have horribly raged therein, to religion, obedience, strength, and
+prosperity. And whereas our beloved and faithful subjects the mayor
+and commonalty and citizens of our city of London, burning with a
+flagrant zeal to promote such our pious intention in this behalf, have
+undertaken a considerable part of the said plantation in Ulster, and
+are making progress therein'.
+
+King James, having heard very unsatisfactory reports of the progress
+of the plantation, wrote a letter to the lord deputy in 1612,
+strongly complaining of the neglect of the 'Londoners' to fulfil the
+obligations they had voluntarily undertaken. He had made 'liberal
+donations of great proportions of those lands to divers British
+undertakers and servitors, with favourable tenures and reservations
+for their better encouragement; but hitherto neither the safety of
+that country, nor the planting of religion and civility among those
+rude and barbarous people, which were the principal motives of that
+project, and which he expected as the only fruits and returns of
+his bounty, had been as yet any whit materially effected. He was not
+ignorant how much the real accomplishment of the plantation concerned
+the future peace and safety of that kingdom; but if there was no
+reason of state to press it forward, he would yet pursue and effect
+that object with the same earnestness, 'merely for the goodness and
+morality of it; esteeming the settling of religion, the introducing
+of civility, order, and government among a barbarous and unsubjected
+people, to be acts of piety and glory, and worthy also a Christian
+prince to endeavour.'
+
+The king therefore ordered that there should be a strict inquiry into
+the work done, because 'the Londoners pretended the expense of great
+sums of money in that service, and yet the outward appearance of it
+was very small.' The lord deputy was solemnly charged to give him
+a faithful account without care or fear to displease any of his
+subjects, English or Scottish, of what quality soever.'
+
+Sir Josias Bodley was the commissioner appointed for this purpose. He
+reported very unfavourably, in consequence of which his majesty
+called upon the Irish society and the several companies to give him an
+account of their stewardship. He also wrote again to the lord deputy
+in 1615. The language the king uses is remarkable, as proving the
+_trusteeship_ of the companies. Referring to Bodley's report he
+said:--
+
+'We have examined, viewed, and reviewed, with our own eye, every part
+thereof, and find greatly to our discontentment the slow progression
+of that plantation; some few only of our British undertakers,
+servitors, and natives having as yet proceeded effectually by the
+accomplishment of such things in all points as are required of them
+by the articles of the plantation; the rest, and by much the greatest
+part, having either done nothing at all, or so little, or, by reason
+of the slightness thereof, to so little purpose, that the work seems
+rather to us to be forgotten by them, and to perish under their hand,
+than any whit to be advanced by them; some having begun to build and
+not planted, others begun to plant and not built, and all of them, in
+general, retaining the Irish still upon their lands, the avoiding of
+which was the fundamental reason of that plantation. We have made
+a collection of their names, as we found their endeavours and
+negligences noted in the service, which we will retain as a memorial
+with us, and they shall be sure to feel the effects of our favour and
+disfavour, as there shall be occasion. It is well known to you that
+if we had intended only (as it seems most of them over-greedily
+have done) our present profit, we might have converted those large
+territories to our escheated lands, to the great improvement of the
+revenue of our crown there; but we chose rather, for the safety of
+that country and the civilizing of that people, to part with the
+inheritance of them at extreme undervalues, and to make a plantation
+of them; and since we were merely induced thereunto out of reason of
+state, we think we may without any breach of justice make bold with
+their rights who have neglected their duties in a service of so much
+importance unto us, and by the same law and reason of state resume
+into our hands their lands who have failed to perform, according to
+our original intention, the articles of plantation, and bestow them
+upon some other men more active and worthy of them than themselves:
+and the time is long since expired within which they were bound to
+have finished to all purposes their plantation, so that we want not
+just provocation to proceed presently with all rigour against them.'
+
+He gave them a year to pull up their arrears of work, and in
+conclusion said to Chichester: 'My lord, in this service I expect that
+zeal and uprightness from you, that you will spare no flesh, English
+or Scottish; for no private man's worth is able to counterbalance
+the particular safety of a kingdom, which this plantation, well
+accomplished, will procure.'
+
+Two or three years later, Captain Pynnar was sent to survey the lands
+that had been granted to the undertakers, and to report upon the
+improvements they had effected. A few notices from his report will
+give an idea of the state of Ulster at the commencement of this great
+social revolution:--
+
+Armagh was one of the six counties confiscated by James I. The
+territory had belonged to the O'Neills, the O'Hanlons, the O'Carrols,
+and M'Kanes, whose people were all involved more or less in the
+fortunes of the Earl of Tyrone, who wielded sovereign power over this
+portion of Ulster. The plantation scheme was said to be the work of
+the Privy Council of Ireland, and submitted by them for the adoption
+of the English Government. It was part of the plan that all the lands
+escheated in each county should be divided into four parts, whereof
+two should be subdivided into proportions consisting of about 1,000
+acres a piece; a third part into proportions of 1,500 acres; and the
+fourth in proportions of 2,000 acres. Every proportion was to be made
+into a parish, a church was to be erected on it, and the minister
+endowed with glebe land. If an incumbent of a parish of 1,000 acres he
+was to have sixty; if of 1,500 acres, ninety; and if 2,000 acres, he
+was to have 120 acres; and the whole tithes and duties of every
+parish should be allotted to the incumbent as well as the glebe. The
+undertakers were to be of several sorts. 1st, English and Scotch, who
+were to plant their proportions with English and Scotch tenants; 2nd,
+servitors in Ireland, who might take English or Scotch tenants at
+their choice; 3rd, natives of the county, who were to be freeholders.
+
+With respect to the disposal of the natives, it was arranged that the
+same course should be adopted as in the county of Tyrone, which was
+this: some were to be planted upon two of the small proportions, and
+upon the glebes; others upon the land of Sir Art O'Neill's sons and
+Sir Henry Oge O'Neill's sons, 'and of such other Irish as shall be
+thought fit to have any _freeholds_; some others upon the portions of
+such servitors as are not able to inhabit these lands with English or
+Scotch tenants, especially of _such as best know how to rule and
+order the Irish_. But the swordsmen (that is, the armed retainers or
+soldiers of the chiefs) are to be transplanted into such other parts
+of the kingdom as, by reason of the wastes therein, are fittest to
+receive them, namely, into Connaught and some parts of Munster, where
+they are to be dispersed, and not planted together in one place; and
+such swordsmen, who have not followers or cattle of their own, to be
+disposed of in his majesty's service.' This provision about planting
+the swordsmen, however, was not carried out. The whole county of
+Armagh was found to contain 77,300 acres of arable and pasture land,
+which would make 60 proportions. That county, as well as other parts
+of ancient Ireland, was divided into ballyboes, or townlands, tracts
+of tillage land surrounding the native villages unenclosed, and held
+in _rundale_, having ranges of pasture for their cattle, which were
+herded in common, each owner being entitled to a certain number of
+'collops' in proportion to his arable land. As these ballyboes were
+not of equal extent, the English made the division of land by acres,
+and erected boundary fences.
+
+The primate's share in this county was 2,400 acres. The glebes
+comprised 4,650 acres; the College of Dublin got 1,200, and the Free
+School at Armagh 720; Sir Turlough M'Henry possessed 9,900 acres,
+and 4,900 had been granted to Sir Henry Oge O'Neill. After these
+deductions, there were for the undertakers 55,620 acres, making in all
+forty-two proportions.
+
+Number one in the survey is the estate of William Brownlow, Esq.,
+which contained two proportions, making together 2,500 acres. Pynar
+reported as follows: 'Upon the proportion of Ballenemony there is a
+strong stone house within a good island; and at Dowcoran there is a
+very fair house of stone and brick, with good lyme, and hath a strong
+bawne of timber and earth with a pallizado about it. There is now laid
+in readiness both lyme and stone, to make a bawne thereof, the which
+is promised to be done this summer. He hath made a very fair town,
+consisting of forty-two houses, all which are inhabited with
+English families, and the streets all paved clean through; also two
+water-mills and a wind-mill, all for corn, and he hath store of arms
+in his house.'
+
+Pynar found 'planted and estated' on this territory 57 families
+altogether, who were able to furnish 100 men with arms, there not
+being one Irish family upon all the land. There was, however, a number
+of sub-tenants, which accounts for the fact that there was 'good store
+of tillage.' Five of the English settlers were freeholders, having 120
+acres each; and there were 52 leaseholders, whose farms varied in size
+from 420 acres to 5; six of them holding 100 acres and upwards. This
+was the foundation of the flourishing town of Lurgan.
+
+Mr. Obens had 2,000 acres obtained from William Powell, the first
+patentee. He had built a bawne of sods with a pallizado of boards
+ditched about. Within this there was a 'good fair house of brick and
+lyme,' and near it he had built four houses, inhabited by English
+families. There were twenty settlers, who with their under-tenants
+were able to furnish forty-six armed men. This was the beginning of
+Portadown.
+
+The fourth lot was obtained from the first patentee by Mr. Cope, who
+had 3,000 acres. 'He built a bawne of lyme and stone 180 feet square,
+14 feet high, with four flankers; and in three of them he had built
+very good lodgings, which were three stories high.' He erected
+two water-mills and one wind-mill, and near the bawne he had built
+fourteen houses of timber, which were inhabited by English families.
+This is now the rich district of Lough Gall.
+
+It should be observed here that, in all these crown grants, the
+patentees were charged crown rents only for the _arable_ lands
+conveyed by their title-deeds, bogs, wastes, mountain, and unreclaimed
+lands of every description being thrown in gratuitously; amounting
+probably to ten or fifteen times the quantity of demised ground set
+down in acres. Lord Lurgan's agent, Mr. Hancock, at the commencement
+of his evidence before the Devon Commission, stated that 'Lord Lurgan
+is owner of about 24,600 acres, with a population of 23,800, under the
+census of 1841'--that is, by means of original reclamation, drainage,
+and other works of agricultural improvement, Mr. Brownlow's 2,500
+acres of the year 1619, had silently grown up to 24,600 acres, and
+his hundred swordsmen, or pikemen, the representatives of 57 families,
+with a few subordinates, had multiplied to 23,800 souls. Now Mr.
+Hancock founds the tenant-right custom upon the fact that few, if any,
+of the 'patentees were wealthy;' we may therefore fairly presume that
+the _settlers built their own houses, and made their own improvements
+at their own expense_, contrary to the English practice.' As the
+population increased, and 'arable' land became valuable, bogs, wastes,
+and barren land were gradually reclaimed and cultivated, through
+the hard labour and at the cost of the occupying tenantry, until the
+possessions of his descendants have spread over ten times the area
+nominally demised by the crown to their progenitor. This process went
+on all over the province.
+
+Sixteen years passed away, and in the opinion of the Government the
+London companies and the Irish Society, instead of reforming as Irish
+planters, went on from bad to worse. Accordingly, in 1631, Charles I.
+found it necessary to bring them into the Star Chamber. In a letter to
+the lords justices he said:--
+
+'Our father, of blessed memory, in his wisdom and singular care,
+both to fortify and preserve that country of Ireland from foreign and
+inward forces, and also for the better establishment of true religion,
+justice, civility, and commerce, found it most necessary to erect
+British plantations there; and, to that end, ordained and published
+many politic and good orders, and for the encouragement of planters
+gave them large proportions and privileges. Above the rest, his grace
+and favour was most enlarged to the Londoners, who undertook the
+plantation of a considerable part of Ulster, and were specially
+chosen for their ability and professed zeal to public works; and yet
+advertisements have been given from time to time, not only by private
+men, but by all succeeding deputies, and by commissioners sent from
+hence and chosen there, and being many of them of our council, that
+the _Londoners for private lucre_ have broken and neglected both their
+general printed ordinances and other particular directions given by us
+and our council here, so as if they hall escape unpunished all others
+will be heartened to do the like, and in the end expose that our
+kingdom to former confusions and dangers; for prevention whereof we
+have, upon mature advice of our councillors for those causes, caused
+them to be questioned in our high court of Star-chamber here, whence
+commission is now sent to examine witnesses, upon interrogatories, for
+discovery of the truth; and because we understand that the Londoners
+heretofore prevailed with some, from whom we expected better service,
+that in the return of the last commission many things agreed under the
+hands of most commissioners were not accordingly certified: Now that
+our service may not surfer by like partiality, we will and require
+you to have an especial eye to this business; and take care that this
+commission be faithfully executed, and that no practice or indirect
+means be used, either to delay the return or to frustrate the ends of
+truth in every interrogatory.'
+
+This proceeding on the part of the crown was ascribed to the influence
+of Bishop Bramhall, who had come over with Lord Strafford as his
+chaplain. The result was, that in 1632 the whole county of Londonderry
+was sequestrated, and the rents levied for the king's use, the Bishop
+of Derry being appointed receiver and authorised to make leases. The
+lord chancellor, with the concurrence of the other judges, decreed
+that the letters patent should be surrendered and cancelled. This
+decree was duly executed.
+
+Cromwell reinstated the companies in their possessions, and Charles
+II., instead of reversing the forfeiture, granted a new charter. This
+charter founded a system of protection and corporate exclusiveness,
+the most perfect perhaps that ever existed in the three kingdoms.
+He began by constituting Londonderry a county, and Derry city a
+corporation--to be called Londonderry. He named the aldermen and
+burgesses, who were to hold their offices during their natural lives.
+He placed both the county and city under the control of 'the Irish
+Society,' which was then definitely formed. He appointed Sir Thomas
+Adams first governor, and John Saunders, deputy governor. He also
+appointed the twenty-four assistants, all citizens of London. He
+invested the society with full power 'to send orders and directions
+from, this kingdom of England into the said realm of Ireland, by
+letters or otherwise, for the ordering, directing, and disposing of
+all and all manner of matters and things whatsoever of and concerning
+the same plantation, or the disposition or government thereof. The
+grant of property was most comprehensive:--
+
+'We also will, and, by these presents for us, our heirs and
+successors, do give, grant, and confirm to the said society of the
+governor and assistants [London] of the new plantation in Ulster
+within the realm of Ireland, and their successors: 'All that the city,
+fort, and town of Derry, and all edifices and structures thereof, with
+the appurtenances, in the county of the city of Derry aforesaid, in
+the province of Ulster, in our realm of Ireland; and also the whole
+island of Derry, with the appurtenances, and all lands and the whole
+ground within the island of Derry aforesaid, in the said county of the
+city of Derry, otherwise Londonderry, within the province of Ulster,
+in our aforesaid realm of Ireland. And also all those lands next
+adjacent to the said city or town of Derry, lying and being on or
+towards the west part of the river of Loughfoyle, containing by
+estimation four thousand acres, besides bog and barren mountains,
+which said bog and barren mountains may be had and used as waste to
+the same city belonging. And also all that portion and proportion
+of land by the general survey of all the lands in the aforesaid late
+county of Coleraine, now Londonderry, heretofore taken, called the
+great proportion of Boughtbegg, lying and being in the barony or
+precinct of Coleraine, now Londonderry, within the province of Ulster
+aforesaid, in our said realm of Ireland; that is to say, all lands,
+tenements, and other hereditaments, called and known by the names, and
+situate, lying, and being in or within the several towns, villages,
+hamlets, places, balliboes, or parcels of land following, that is to
+say: Hacketbegg, being two balliboes of land; Aglakightagh, being two
+balliboes of land; Altybryan, being one balliboe of land; Bratbooly,
+being one balliboe of land; Hackmoore, being one balliboe of land;
+Tirecurrin, being one balliboe of land; Edermale, being one balliboe
+of land; Lennagorran, being one balliboe of land; Knockmult, being one
+balliboe of land; Boughtmore, being one balliboe of land; Boughtbegg,
+being one balliboe of land, &c.
+
+'We will also, and by these presents for us, our heirs and successors,
+do grant and confirm to the said society of the governor and
+assistants [London] of the new plantation in Ulster, and their
+successors, that they and their successors, and also all their
+assigns, deputies, ministers, and servants shall and may have full
+liberty of fishing, hawking, and fowling in all the places, tenements,
+shores, and coasts aforesaid, at their will and pleasure.
+
+'And that it shall and may be lawful to and for them and every of them
+to draw and dry their nets, and pack the fishes there taken upon any
+part of the shores and coasts aforesaid where they shall fish; and
+the salmons and other fishes there taken to take thence and carry away
+without any impediment, contradiction, or molestation of us or others
+whomsoever, wheresoever it shall happen to be done.
+
+'And that in like manner they may have the several fishings and
+fowlings within the city of Londonderry aforesaid, and in all lands
+and tenements before mentioned to be granted and confirmed to the said
+society of the governor and assistants [London] of the new plantation
+in Ulster and their successors, and in the river and water of
+Loughfoile, to the ebb of the sea, and in the river or water of Bann
+to Loughneagh.'
+
+The grants were made without any reservation in favour of the tenants
+or the old inhabitants, saving some portions of land given by letters
+patent by his grandfather to 'certain _Irish gentlemen_ in the said
+county of Londonderry, heretofore inhabiting and residing, and who
+were heretofore made freeholders, and their successors, under a small
+yearly rent,' which was to be paid to the Irish Society. Even the
+Irish gentlemen were not allowed to hold their ancient inheritance
+directly under the crown. I am informed that there is but one Roman
+Catholic landed gentleman now remaining in the whole province of
+Ulster.
+
+The Londoners had extraordinary privileges as traders. They had free
+quarters in every port throughout the kingdom, while they treated all
+but the members of their own body as 'foreigners.' They knew nothing
+of reciprocity:--'And further we will, and, by these presents for us,
+our heirs and successors, do grant and confirm to the said mayor and
+commonalty and citizens of our city of Londonderry aforesaid, that all
+citizens of the said city of Londonderry and liberty of the same (as
+much as in us is) be for ever quit and free, and all their things
+throughout all Ireland, of all tolls, wharfage, murage, anchorage,
+beaconage, pavage, pontage, piccage, stallage, passage, and lestage,
+and of all other tolls and duties.'
+
+The 'foreigners,' including all his majesty's subjects but the
+favoured few within the walls of Derry, were forbidden to buy or sell,
+or practise any trade in this sanctuary of freedom and head-centre
+of 'civility.' 'And that merchants and others which are not of the
+freedom of the city of Londonderry aforesaid shall not sell by
+retail any wines or other wares whatsoever within the same city of
+Londonderry, the suburbs, liberties, or franchises of the same, upon
+pain of forfeiture for the things so bought, or the value thereof,
+to the use of the mayor and commonalty and citizens of the city of
+Londonderry aforesaid. And also that no person being a foreigner from
+the freedom of the city aforesaid shall use or exercise within the
+same city, liberties or suburbs of the same, any art, mystery, or
+manual occupation whatsoever, to make his gain and profit thereof,
+upon pain of forfeiture of forty shillings for every time wherein
+such person shall use or exercise within the said city of Londonderry,
+liberties, and suburbs of the same, any art, mystery, or manual
+occupation as aforesaid.'
+
+Foreigners were not allowed to buy from or sell to foreigners, and
+there was to be no market for the accommodation of the unprivileged
+inhabitants within seven miles of the city.
+
+Similar exclusive privileges were conferred upon the corporation of
+Coleraine. Such was the system established by the City of London in
+its model communities in Ireland--normal schools of freedom, fountains
+of civilising and Christianising influences which were to reclaim and
+convert the barbarous and superstitious natives into loyal subjects
+and enlightened Protestants! What the natives beheld in Londonderry
+was, in fact, a royal organisation of selfishness, bigotry, and
+monopoly, of the most intensely exclusive and repulsive character. In
+one sense the Londoners in Derry showed that they peculiarly prized
+the blessings of civilisation, for they kept them all to themselves.
+The fountain was flowing in the most tempting manner before the
+thirsty Irish, but let them dare to drink of it at their peril! A fine
+which no Irishman was then able to pay must be the penalty for every
+attempt at civilisation!
+
+The representatives of Derry and Coleraine were not only elected
+without cost, but paid for their attendance in Parliament.
+
+From the very beginning, the greatest possible care was taken to
+keep out the Irish. The society, in 1615, sent precepts to all the
+companies requiring each of them to send one or two artisans, with
+their families, into Ulster, to settle there; and directions were also
+given, in order that Derry might not in future be peopled with Irish,
+that twelve Christ's Hospital and other poor children should be sent
+there as apprentices and servants, and the inhabitants were to be
+prohibited from taking Irish apprentices. Directions were also given
+to the companies, to repair the churches on their several proportions,
+and furnish the ministers with a bible, common-prayer book, and a
+communion cup. The trades which the society recommended as proper to
+introduce into Ulster were, weavers of common cloth, fustians, and
+new stuffs, felt-makers and trimmers of hats, and hat-band makers,
+locksmiths and farriers, tanners and fellmongers, iron makers,
+glass-makers, pewterers, coast fishermen, turners, basket-makers,
+tallow-chandlers, dyers, and curriers.
+
+The Christ's Hospital children arrived safe, and became the precious
+seed of the 'prentice boys.
+
+In 1629 the following return was made of the total disbursements by
+the Londoners in Derry from January 2, 1609, to this year:--
+
+                                                           L
+For 77-1/2 houses at 140 l. a house                      10,850
+For 33 houses at 80 l. a house                            2,680
+For the Lord Bishop's house                                 500
+For the walls and fortifications                          8,357
+For digging the ditch and filling earth for the rampire   1,500
+For levelling earth to lay the rampire                      500
+For building a faggot quay at the water-gate                100
+For two quays at the lime kilns                              10
+For the building of the town house                          500
+For the quays at the ferry                                   60
+For carriage and mounting the ordnance                       40
+For arms                                                    558
+For a guardhouse                                             50
+For the platforms for bulwarks                              300
+For some work done at the old church                         40
+For some work done at the town pike                           6
+For sinking 22 cellars, and sundry of the houses not
+done at first, at 20 s. cellar, one with another            440
+For the building of lime kilns                              120
+                                                         ______
+                                                         26,611
+                                                         ______
+Sum total, as given in the Commissioners' account        27,197
+
+The exclusive and protective system utterly failed to accomplish its
+purpose in keeping out the Irish.
+
+Sir Thomas Phillips made a muster-roll in 1622, in which he gives
+110 as the number of settlers in the city of Derry capable of bearing
+arms. There are but two Irish names in the list--Ermine M'Swine, and
+James Doherty. The first, from his Christian name, seemed to have
+been of mixed blood, the son of a judge, which would account for
+his orthodoxy. But his presence might have reminded the citizens
+unpleasantly of the Irish battle-axes. Never were greater pains taken
+to keep a community pure than within the sacred precincts of the
+Derry walls; and never was Protestantism more tenderly fostered by
+the state--so far as secular advantages could do it. The natives
+were treated as 'foreigners.' No trade was permitted except by the
+chartered British. They were free of tolls all over the land, and for
+their sake restrictions were placed on everybody that could in any way
+interfere with their worldly interests. So complete was the system
+of exclusion kept up by the English Government and the London
+corporation, in this grand experiment for planting religion and
+civility among a barbarous people, that, so late as the year 1708,
+the Derry corporation considered itself nothing more or less than _a
+branch of the City of London_! In that year they sent an address to
+the Irish Society, to be presented through them to the queen. 'In this
+address they stated themselves to be a branch of the City of London.
+The secretary was ordered to wait upon the lord lieutenant of Ireland
+with the address and entreat the favour of his lordship's advice
+concerning the presenting of the same to her majesty.' A few days
+after it was announced that the address had been graciously received,
+and published in the _Gazette_.
+
+The Irish were kept out of the enclosed part of the city till a late
+period. In the memory of the present generation there was no Catholic
+house within the walls, and I believe it is not much longer since
+the Catholic servants within the sacred enclosure were obliged to go
+outside at night to sleep among their kinsfolk. The English garrison
+did not multiply very fast. In 1626 there were only 109 families
+in the city, of which five were families of soldiers liable to
+be removed. Archbishop King stated that in 1690 the whole of the
+population of the parish, including the Donegal part, was about 700.
+
+But the irrepressible Irish increased and multiplied around the walls
+with alarming rapidity. The tide of native population rose steadily
+against the ramparts of exclusion, and could no more be kept back than
+the tide in the Foyle. In the general census of 1800 there were no
+returns from Derry. But in 1814 it was stated in a report by the
+deputation from the Irish Society, that the population amounted at
+that time to 14,087 persons. This must have included the suburbs. In
+the census of 1821 the city was found to have 9,313 inhabitants. The
+city and suburbs together contained 16,971.
+
+The report of the commissioners of public instruction in 1831 made a
+startling disclosure as to the effect of the system of exclusion in
+this 'branch of the City of London.' In the parish of Templemore (part
+of) there were--
+
+Members of the Established Church        3,166
+Presbyterians                            5,811
+Roman Catholics                          9,838
+
+The report of 1834 gave the Roman Catholics, 10,299; the
+Presbyterians, 6,083; and the Church only 3,314.
+
+The figures now are--Catholics          12,036
+Protestants of all denominations         8,839
+Majority of Irish and Catholics in this
+'branch of the City of London'           3,197
+
+This majority is about equal to the whole number which the exclusive
+system, with all its 'protection' and 'bounties,' could produce for
+the Established Church in the course of two centuries! If the Irish
+had been admitted to the Pale of English civilisation, and instructed
+in the industrial arts by the settlers, the results with respect to
+religion might have been very different. In the long run the Church
+of Rome has been the greatest gainer by coercion. Derry has been a
+miniature representation of the Establishment. The 'prentice boys,
+like their betters, must yield to the spirit of the age, and submit
+with the best grace they can to the rule of religious equality.
+
+The plantation was, however, wonderfully successful on the whole. In
+thirty years, towns, fortresses, factories, arose, pastures, ploughed
+up, were converted into broad corn-fields, orchards, gardens, hedges,
+&c. were planted. How did this happen? 'The answer is that it sprang
+from the security of tenure which the plantation settlement supplied.
+The landlords were in every case bound to make fixed estates to their
+tenants at the risk of sequestration and forfeiture. Hence their
+power of selling their plantation rights and improvements. This is the
+origin of Ulster tenant-right.'
+
+Yet the work went on slowly enough in some districts. The viceroy,
+Chichester, was not neglected in the distribution of the spoils. He
+not only got the O'Dogherty's country, Innishown, but a large tract in
+Antrim, including the towns of Carrickfergus and Belfast. An English
+tourist travelling that way in 1635 gives a quaint description of the
+country in that transition period:--
+
+On July 5 he landed at Carrickfergus, where he found that Lord
+Chichester had a stately house, 'or rather like a prince's palace.'
+In Belfast, he said, my Lord Chichester had another _daintie_, stately
+palace, which, indeed, was the glory and beauty of the town. And there
+were also _daintie_ orchards, gardens, and walks planted. The Bishop
+of Dromore, to whom the town of Dromore entirely belonged, lived
+there in a 'little timber house.' He was not given to hospitality, for
+though his chaplain was a Manchester man, named Leigh, he allowed
+his English visitor to stop at an inn over the way. 'This,' wrote the
+tourist, 'is a very dear house, 8 d. ordinary for ourselves, 6 d. for
+our servants, and we were overcharged in _beere_.' The way thence
+to Newry was most difficult for a stranger to find out. 'Therein he
+wandered, and, being lost, fell among the Irish _touns_.' The Irish
+houses were the poorest cabins he had seen, erected in the middle of
+fields and grounds which they farmed and rented. 'This,' he added,
+'is a wild country, not inhabited, planted, nor enclosed.' He gave an
+Irishman 'a groat' to bring him into the way, yet he led him, like a
+villein, directly out of the way, and so left him in the lurch.
+
+Leaving Belfast, this Englishman said: 'Near hereunto, Mr. Arthur
+Hill, son and heir of Sir Moyses Hill, hath a brave plantation,
+which he holds by lease, and which has still forty years to come.
+The plantation, it is said, doth yield him 1,000 l. per annum.
+Many Lancashire and Cheshire men are here planted. They sit upon a
+rack-rent, and pay 5 s. or 6 s. for good ploughing land, which now is
+clothed with excellent good _corne_.'
+
+According to the Down survey, made twenty-two years later, Dromore had
+not improved: 'There are no buildings in this parish; only Dromore, it
+being a market town, hath some old thatched houses and a ruined church
+standing in it. What other buildings are in the parish are nothing but
+removeable _creaghts_.'
+
+To the economist and the legislator, the most interesting portions
+of the state papers of the 16th and 17th centuries are, undoubtedly,
+those which tell us how the people lived, how they were employed,
+housed, and fed, what measure of happiness fell to their lot, and what
+were the causes that affected their welfare, that made them contented
+and loyal, or miserable and disaffected. Contemporary authors, who
+deal with social phenomena, are also read with special interest for
+the same reason. They present pictures of society in their own time,
+and enable us to conceive the sort of life our forefathers led, and to
+estimate, at least in a rough way, what they did for posterity.
+
+Harris was moved to write his 'History of Down' by indignation at
+the misrepresentations of the English press of his day. They had the
+audacity to say that 'the Irish people were uncivilised, rude, and
+barbarous; that they delighted in butter _tempered_ with oatmeal,
+and sometimes flesh without bread, which they ate raw, having
+first pressed the blood out of it; and drank down large draughts of
+usquebaugh for digestion, reserving their little corn for the horses;
+that their dress and habits were no less barbarous; that cattle
+was their chief wealth; that they counted it no infamy to commit
+robberies, and that in their view violence and murder were in no way
+displeasing to God; that the country was overgrown with woods, which
+abounded in wolves and other voracious animals,' &c. It was, no doubt,
+very provoking that such stories should be repeated 130 years
+after the plantation of Ulster, and Harris undertook, with laudable
+patriotism, to show 'how far this description of Ireland was removed
+from the truth, from the present state of only one county in the
+kingdom.' The information which the well-informed writer gives is most
+valuable, and very much to the purpose of our present inquiry.
+
+More than half the arable ground was then (in 1745) under tillage,
+affording great quantities of oats, some rye and wheat, and 'plenty
+of barley,' commonly called English or spring barley, making excellent
+malt liquor, which of late, by means of drying the grain with Kilkenny
+coals, was exceedingly improved. The ale made in the county was
+distinguished for its fine colour and flavour. The people found the
+benefit of '_a sufficient tillage_, being not obliged to take up
+with the poor unwholesome diet which the commonalty of Munster and
+Connaught had been forced to in the late years of scarcity; and
+sickness and mortality were not near so great as in other provinces of
+the kingdom.'
+
+Yet the county Down seemed very unfavourable for tillage. The
+economists of our time, perhaps our viceroys too, would say it was
+only fit for bullocks and sheep. It was 'naturally coarse, and full of
+hills; the air was sharp and cold in winter, with earlier frosts than
+in the south, the soil inclined to _wood_, unless constantly ploughed
+and kept open, and the low grounds degenerated into morass or bog
+where the drains were neglected. Yet, by the constant labour and
+industry of the inhabitants, the morass grounds had of late, by
+burning and proper management, produced surprisingly large crops
+of rye and oats. Coarse lands, manured with lime, had answered the
+farmers' views in wheat, and yielded a great produce, and wherever
+marl was found there was great store of barley. The staple commodity
+of the county was linen, due care of which manufacture brought great
+wealth among the people. Consequently the county was observed to be
+'populous and flourishing, though it did not become amenable to the
+laws till the reign of Queen Elizabeth, nor fully till the reign of
+James I.' The English habit, language, and manners almost universally
+prevailed. 'Irish,' says Harris, 'can be heard only among the inferior
+rank of _Irish Papists_, and even that little diminishes every day, by
+the great desire the poor natives have that their children should
+be taught to read and write in the English tongue in the Charter, or
+other English Protestant schools, to which they willingly send them.'
+The author exults in the progress of Protestantism. There were but two
+Catholic gentlemen in the county who had estates, and their income was
+very moderate. When the priests were registered in 1704 there were but
+thirty in the county. In 1733 the books of the hearth-money collectors
+showed--
+
+Protestant families in the county Down         14,000
+Catholic families                               5,210
+Total Protestants, reckoning five a family     70,300
+Total Catholics                                26,050
+                                               ______
+Protestant majority                            44,250
+
+Our author, who was an excellent Protestant of the 18th century type,
+with boundless faith in the moral influence of the Charter schools,
+would be greatly distressed if he could have lived in these degenerate
+days, and seen the last religious census, which gives the following
+figures for the county of Down:--
+
+Protestants of all denominations              202,026
+Catholics                                      97,240
+                                              _______
+Total population                              299,266
+
+The total number of souls in the county in the year 1733 was 96,350.
+These figures show that the population was more than trebled in 130
+years, and that the Catholics have increased nearly fourfold.
+
+The history of the Hertfort estate illustrates every phase of the
+tenant-right question. It contains 66,000 acres, and comprises the
+barony of Upper Massereene, part of the barony of Upper Belfast, in
+the county of Antrim, and part of the baronies of Castlereagh and
+Lower Iveagh, in the county of Down; consisting altogether of no
+less than 140 townlands. It extends from Dunmurry to Lough Neagh, a
+distance of about fourteen miles as the crow flies. When the Devon
+commission made its inquiry, the population upon this estate amounted
+to about 50,000. It contains mountain land, and the mountains are
+particularly wet, because, unlike the mountains in other parts of the
+country, the substratum is a stiff retentive clay. At that time there
+was not a spot of mountain or bog upon Lord Hertfort's estate that
+was not let by the acre. About one-third of the land is of first-rate
+quality; there are 15,000 or 16,000 acres of mountain, and about the
+same quantity of land of medium quality.
+
+In the early part of Elizabeth's reign this property formed a section
+of the immense territory ruled over by the O'Neills. One of these
+princes was called the Captain of _Kill-Ultagh_. In those times, when
+might was right, this redoubtable chief levied heavy contributions
+on the settlers, partly in retaliation for aggressions and outrages
+perpetrated by the English upon his own people. The queen, with the
+view of effecting a reconciliation, requested the lord deputy, Sir H.
+Sidney, to pay the Irish chief a visit. He did so, but his welcome
+was by no means gratifying. In fact, O'Neill would not condescend to
+receive him at all. His reason for exhibiting a want of hospitality
+so un-Irish was this:--He said his 'home had been pillaged, his lands
+swept of their cattle, and his vassals shot like wild animals.' The
+lord deputy, in his notes of the northern tour, written in October,
+1585, says:--'I came to Kill-Ultagh, which I found rich and plentiful,
+after the manner of these countries. But the captain was proud and
+insolent; he would not come to me, nor have I apt reason to visit
+him as I would. But he shall be paid for this before long; I will not
+remain in his debt.' The 'apt reason' for carrying out this threat
+soon occurred. Tyrone had once more taken the field against the queen;
+the captain joined his relative; all his property was consequently
+forfeited, and handed over to Sir Fulke Conway, a Welsh soldier of
+some celebrity. Sir Fulke died in 1626, and his brother, who was a
+favourite of Charles I., succeeded to the estate, to which his royal
+patron added the lands of Derryvolgie, thus making him lord of nearly
+70,000 statute acres of the broad lands of Down and Antrim. The
+Conways brought over a number of English and Welsh families, who
+settled on the estate, and intermarrying with the natives, a race of
+sturdy yeomen soon sprang up. The Conways were good landlords, and
+greatly beloved by the people. With the addition made to the property
+the king conferred upon the fortunate recipient of his bounty the
+title of Baron. At the close of 1627, Lord Conway began the erection
+of a castle (finished in 1630) on a picturesque mount overlooking
+the Lagan, and commanding a view of the hills of Down. During the
+struggles of 1641 the castle was burned down, together with
+the greater part of the town, which up to this time was called
+Lisnagarvah, but thenceforth it received the name of Lisburn. Very
+little, however, had been done by the settlers when the outbreak
+occurred, for an English traveller in 1635 remarked that 'neither the
+town nor the country thereabouts was _planted_, being almost all woods
+and moorish.' About a month after the breaking out of the rebellion
+the king's forces, under Sir George Rawdon, obtained a signal victory
+over the Irish commanded by Sir Phelim O'Neill, Sir Con M'Guinness,
+and General Plunket. In 1662 the town obtained a charter of
+incorporation from Charles II., and sent two members to the Irish
+parliament, the church being at the same time made the cathedral for
+Down and Connor. The Conway estates passed to the Seymours in this
+way. Popham Seymour, Esq., was the son of Sir Edward Seymour, fourth
+baronet, described by Bishop Burnet as 'the ablest man of his party,
+the first speaker of the House of Commons that was not bred to the
+law; a graceful man, bold and quick, and of high birth, being the
+elder branch of the Seymour family.' Popham Seymour inherited the
+estates of the Earl of Conway, who was his cousin, under a will dated
+August 19, 1683, and assumed in consequence the surname of Conway.
+This gentleman died unmarried, and was succeeded by his brother
+Francis, who was raised to the peerage in 1703 by the title of Baron
+Conway, of Kill-Ultagh, county Antrim. His eldest son, the second
+baron, was created Viscount Beauchamp and Earl of Hertfort in 1750. In
+1765 he was Viceroy of Ireland, and in 1793 he was created Marquis
+of Hertfort. The present peer, born in the year 1800, is the fourth
+marquis, having succeeded his father in 1842.
+
+Lisburn is classic ground. It represents all sorts of historic
+interest. On this hill, now called the Castle Gardens, the Captain
+of Kill-Ultagh mustered his galloglasse. Here, amid the flames of the
+burning town, was fought a decisive battle between the English and the
+Irish, one of the Irish chiefs in that encounter being the ancestor of
+the restorer of St. Patrick's Cathedral. The battle lasted till near
+midnight, when the Irish were put to flight, leaving behind them dead
+and wounded thrice the number of the entire garrison. Here, on this
+mount, stood William III. in June, 1690. I saw in the church the
+monument of Jeremy Taylor, and the pulpit from which the most eloquent
+of bishops delivered his immortal sermons. I saw the tablet erected
+by his mother to the memory of Nicholson, the young hero of Delhi,
+and those of several other natives of Lisburn who have contributed,
+by their genius and courage, to promote the fame and power of England.
+Among the rest Lieutenant Dobbs, who was killed in an encounter with
+Paul Jones, the American pirate, in Carrickfergus Bay.
+
+I received a hospitable welcome from a loyal gentleman in the house
+which was the residence of General Munroe, the hero of '98, and saw
+the spot in the square where he was hanged in view of his own windows.
+But I confess that none of the monuments of the past excited so much
+interest in my mind as the house of Louis Crommelin, the Huguenot
+refugee, who founded the linen manufacture at Lisburn. That house is
+now occupied by Mr. Hugh M'Call, author of 'Our Staple Manufactures,'
+who worthily represents the intelligence, the public spirit, and
+patriotism of the English and French settlers, with a dash of the
+Irish ardour, a combination of elements which perhaps produces the
+best 'staple' of character. I stood upon the identical oak floor upon
+which old Crommelin planned and worked, and in the grave-yard
+Mr. M'Call deciphered for me the almost obliterated inscriptions,
+recording the deaths of various members of the Crommelin family. Their
+leader, Louis himself, died in July, 1727, aged 75 years.
+
+The revocation of the Edict of Nantes drove three quarters of a
+million of Protestants out of France. A great number settled
+in London, where they established the arts of silk-weaving in
+Spitalfields and of fancy jewellery in St. Giles's. About 6,000 fled
+to Ireland, of whom many settled in Dublin, where they commenced the
+silk manufacture, and where one of them, La Touche, opened the first
+banking establishment. Wherever they settled they were missionaries of
+industry, and examples of perseverance and success in skilled labour,
+as well as integrity in commerce. Many of those exiles settled in
+Lisburn, and the colony was subsequently joined by Louis Crommelin,
+a native of Armandcourt near St. Quentin, where for several centuries
+his forefathers had carried on the flaxen manufacture on their own
+extensive possessions in the province of Picardy. Foreseeing the
+storm of persecution, the family had removed to Holland, and, at the
+personal request of the Prince of Orange, Louis came over to take
+charge of the colonies of his countrymen, which had been established
+in different parts of Ireland. The linen trade had flourished in this
+country from the earliest times. Linen formed, down to the reign of
+Elizabeth, almost the only dress of the population, from the
+king down--saffron-coloured, and worn in immense flowing robes,
+occasionally wrapped in various forms round the body. Lord Stafford
+had exerted himself strenuously to improve the fabric by the forcible
+introduction of better looms; but little had been done in this
+direction till the Huguenots came and brought their own looms, suited
+for the manufacture of fine fabrics. Mark Dupre, Nicholas de la
+Cherois, Obre, Rochet, Bouchoir, St. Clair, and others, whose ashes
+lie beside the Lisburn Cathedral and in the neighbouring churchyards,
+and many of whose descendants still survive among the gentry and
+manufacturers of Down and Antrim, were, with Crommelin, the chief
+promoters of the linen trade which has wrought such wonders in the
+province of Ulster. Lord Conway granted the Lisburn colonists a site
+for a place of worship, which was known as the French Church, and
+stood on the ground now occupied by the Court-house in Castle Street.
+The Government paid 60 l. a year to their first minister, Charles de
+la Valade, who was succeeded by his relative, the Rev. Saumarez du
+Bourdieu, distinguished as a divine and a historian. His father was
+chaplain to the famous Schomberg, and when he fell from his horse
+mortally wounded the reverend gentleman carried him in his arms to
+the spot on which he died a short time after. Talent was hereditary in
+this family, the Rev. John du Bourdieu, rector of Annahilt, was author
+of the Statistical Surveys of Down and Antrim, published by the Royal
+Dublin Society. Referring to his ancestors he says that his father
+had been fifty-six years minister of the French Church in Lisburn. Mr.
+M'Call states that, for some time before his death in 1812, he held
+the living of Lambeg, the members of the French Church having by that
+time merged into union with the congregation of the Lisburn Cathedral.
+A similar process took place in Dublin, Portarlington, and elsewhere,
+the descendants of the Huguenots becoming zealous members of the
+Established Church.
+
+Du Bourdieu informs us that Louis Crommelin obtained a patent for
+carrying on and improving the linen manufacture, with a grant of 800
+l. per annum, as interest of 10,000 l., to be advanced by him as a
+capital for carrying on the same; 200 l. per annum for his trouble;
+120 l. per annum for three assistants; and 160 l. for the support of
+the chaplain. Mr. M'Call, in his book, copies the following note of
+payments made by the Government from 1704 to 1708:--
+
+                                                       L   s.   d.
+
+Louis Crommelin, as overseer of linen manufacture    470   19    0
+
+W. Crommelin, salary and rent of Kilkenny factory    451    6    7
+
+Louis Crommelin, to repay him for sums advanced to
+flax dressers and reed makers, and for services of
+French ministers                                   2,225    0    0
+
+Louis Crommelin, for individual expenses and for
+sums paid Thomas Turner, of Lurgan, for buying
+flax-seed and printing reports                       993    4    0
+
+Louis Crommelin, three years' pension                600    0    0
+
+French minister's two years' pension                 120    0    0
+                                                   _______________
+Total                                             L4,860    9    7
+
+It should be mentioned, that when the owner of Lisburn, then Earl of
+Hertfort, held the office of lord lieutenant in 1765, with his son,
+Viscount Beauchamp, as chief secretary, he rendered very valuable
+services to the linen trade, and was a liberal patron of the damask
+manufacture, which arrived at a degree of perfection hitherto
+unequalled, in the hands of Mr. William Coulson, founder of the great
+establishment of that name which still flourishes in Lisburn, and
+from whom not only the court of St. James's but foreign courts also
+received their table linen. Du Bourdieu mentions that Lisburn and
+Lurgan were the great markets for cambrics--the name given to cloth
+of this description, which was then above five shillings a yard; under
+that price it was called lawn. In that neighbourhood cambric had been
+made which sold for 1 l. 2 s. 9 d. a yard unbleached. The principal
+manufacturing establishments in addition to Messrs. Coulsons' are
+those of the Messrs. Richardson and Co. and the Messrs. Barbour.
+
+Lord Dufferin has written the ablest defence of the Irish landlords
+that has ever appeared. In that masterly work he says: 'But though
+a dealer in land and a payer of wages, I am above all things an
+Irishman, and as an Irishman I rejoice in any circumstance which tends
+to strengthen the independence of the tenant farmer, or to add to
+the comfort of the labourer's existence.' If titles and possessions
+implied the inheritance of religion and blood, Lord Dufferin ought
+indeed to be 'Irish of the Irish' as the men of Ulster in the olden
+times proudly called themselves. On the railroad from Belfast to
+Bangor there is a station constructed with singular beauty, like
+the castellated entrance to a baronial hall, and on the elaborately
+chiselled stone we read 'Clandeboye.' Under the railway from Graypoint
+on Belfast Lough runs a carriage-drive two miles long, to the famous
+seat of the O'Neills, where his lordship's mansion is situated,
+enclosed among aged trees, remembrancers of the past. Perhaps, there
+is no combination of names in the kingdom more suggestive of the
+barbaric power of the middle ages and the most refined culture of
+modern civilisation. The avenue, kept like a garden walk, with a
+flourishing plantation on each side, was cut through some of the
+best farms on the estate, and must have been a work of great expense.
+Taking this in connection with other costly improvements, among which
+are several picturesque buildings for the residence of workmen--model
+lodging-houses resembling fancy villas at the seaside--we can
+understand how his lordship, within the last fifteen years, has paid
+away in wages of labour the immense sum of 60,000 l., at the rate of
+4,000 l. a year.
+
+The Abbot of Bangor never gave employment like that. William O'Donnon,
+the last of the line, was found in the thirty-second year of Henry
+VIII. to be possessed of thirty-one townlands in Ards and Upper
+Clandeboye, the grange of Earbeg in the county Antrim, the two
+Copeland Islands, the tithes of the island of Raghery, three rectories
+in Antrim, three in Down, and a townland in the Isle of Man. The
+abbey, some of the walls of which still remain, adjoining the parish
+church, was built early in the twelfth century. We are informed by
+Archdall, that it had so gone to ruin in 1469 through the neglect
+of the abbot, that he was evicted by order of Pope Paul II., who
+commanded that the friars of the third order of St. Francis should
+immediately take possession of it, which was accordingly done,
+says Wadding, by Father Nicholas of that order. The whole of the
+possessions were granted by James I. to James Viscount Clandeboye.
+
+Bangor was one of the most celebrated schools in Ireland when this
+island was said to have been 'the _quiet_ abode of learning and
+sanctity.' As to the quiet, I could never make out at what period it
+existed, nor how the 'thousands' of students at Bangor could have been
+supported. The Danes came occasionally up the lough and murdered the
+monks _en masse_, plundering the shrines. But the greatest scourges of
+the monasteries in Down and elsewhere were, not the foreign pagans and
+pirates, but the professedly Christian chiefs of their own country. It
+appears, therefore, that neither the Irish clergy nor the people have
+much reason to regret the flight of the Celtic princes and nobles, who
+were utterly unable to fulfil the duties of a government; and who did
+little or nothing but consume what the industry of the peasants, under
+unparalleled difficulties, produced. The people of Clandeboye and
+Dufferin might have been proud that their chief received 40 l. a year
+as a tribute or blackmail from Lecale, that he might abstain from
+visiting the settlers there with his galloglasse; but Lord Dufferin,
+the successor of the O'Neill of Clandeboye, spends among the peasantry
+of the present day 4,000 l. a year in wages. And how different is the
+lot of the people! Not dwelling in wattled huts under the oaks of the
+primeval forest, but in neat slated houses, with whitewashed walls,
+looking so bright and pretty in the sunshine, like snowdrops in the
+distant landscape. On the hill between Bangor and Newtownards, Lord
+Dufferin has erected a beautiful tower, from which, reclining on his
+couch, he can see the country to an immense extent, from the mountains
+of Antrim to the mountains of Mourne, Strangford Lough, Belfast Lough,
+the Antrim coast, and Portpatrick at the other side of the Channel,
+all spread out before him like a coloured map.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE REBELLION OF 1641.
+
+
+The Rebellion of 1641--generally called a 'massacre'--was undoubtedly
+a struggle on the part of the exiled nobles and clergy and the evicted
+peasants to get possession of their estates and farms, which had been
+occupied by the British settlers for nearly a generation. They
+might probably have continued to occupy them in peace, but for the
+fanaticism of the lords justices, Sir John Parsons and Sir John
+Borlace. It was reported and believed that, at a public entertainment
+in Dublin, Parsons declared that in twelve months no more Catholics
+should be seen in that country. The English Puritans and Scottish
+Covenanters were determined never to lay down their arms till they had
+made an end of Popery. Pym, the celebrated Puritan leader, avowed that
+the policy of his party was not to leave a priest alive in the land.
+Meantime, the Irish chiefs were busy intriguing at Rome, Madrid,
+Paris, and other continental capitals, clamouring for an invasion of
+Ireland, to restore monarchy and Catholicity--to expel the English
+planters from the forfeited lands. Philip III. of Spain encouraged
+these aspirations. He had an Irish legion under the command of Henry
+O'Neill, son of the fugitive Earl of Tyrone. It was reported that,
+in 1630 there were in the service of the Archduchess, in the Spanish
+Netherlands alone, 100 Irish officers able to command companies, and
+20 fit to be colonels. There were many others at Lisbon, Florence,
+Milan, and Naples. They had in readiness 5,000 or 6,000 stand of arms
+laid up at Antwerp, bought out of the deduction of their monthly pay.
+The banished ecclesiastics formed at every court a most efficient
+diplomatic corps, the chief of these intriguers being the celebrated
+Luke Wadding. Religious wars were popular in those times, and the
+invasion of Ireland would be like a crusade against heresy. But with
+the Irish chiefs the ruling passion was to get possession of their
+homes and their lands. The most active spirit among these was Roger,
+or Rory O'Moore, a man of high character, great ability, handsome
+person, and fascinating manners. With him were associated Conor
+Maguire, Costelloe M'Mahon, and Thorlough O'Neill, Sir Phelim O'Neill,
+Sir Con Magennis, Colonel Hugh M'Mahon, and the Rev. Dr. Heber
+M'Mahon. O'Moore visited the country, went through the several
+provinces, and, by communicating with the chiefs personally, organised
+the conspiracy to expel the British and recover the kingdom for
+Charles II. and the Pope.
+
+The plan agreed upon by the confederates was this:--A rising when
+the harvest was gathered in; a simultaneous attack on all the English
+fortresses; the surprise of Dublin Castle, said to contain arms for
+12,000 men; and to obtain for these objects all possible aid, in
+officers, men, and arms, from the Continent. The rising took place
+on the night of October 22, 1641. It might have been completely
+successful if the Castle of Dublin had been seized. It seemed an
+easy prey, for it was guarded only by a few pensioners and forty
+halberdiers, who would be quickly overpowered. But the plot was
+made known to the lords justices by an informer when on the eve of
+execution.
+
+Sir Phelim O'Neill was one of those 'Irish gentlemen' who, by royal
+favour, were permitted to retain some portions of their ancient
+patrimonies. At this time he was in possession of thirty-eight
+townlands in the barony of Dungannon, county Tyrone, containing 23,000
+acres, then estimated to be worth 1,600 l. a-year, equal to some
+10,000 l. of our money. Charles Boulton held by lease from the
+same chief 600 acres, at a yearly rent of 29 l. for sixty years, in
+consideration of a fine of 1,000 l. In 1641 this property yielded a
+profit rent of 150 l. a year. Three townlands in the same barony were
+claimed by George Rawden of Lisnagarvagh, as leased to him by Sir
+Phelim under the rent of 100 l., estimated to be worth 50 l. per
+annum.
+
+Sir Phelim might, therefore, have been content, so far as property was
+concerned. But, setting aside patriotism, religion, and ambition, it
+is likely enough that he distrusted the Government, and feared the
+doom pronounced in Dublin Castle against all the gentlemen of his
+creed and race. At all events he put himself at the head of the
+insurrection in Ulster. He and the officers under his command, on the
+night of the 22nd, surprised and captured the forts of Charlemont and
+Mountjoy. The towns of Dungannon, Newry, Carrickmacross, Castleblaney,
+Tandragee fell into the hands of the insurgents, while the O'Reillys
+and Maguires overran Cavan and Fermanagh. Sir Conor Magennis wrote
+from Newry to the Government officers in Down: 'We are for our lives
+and liberties. We desire no blood to be shed; but, if you mean to shed
+our blood, be sure we shall be as ready as you for that purpose.' And
+Sir Phelim O'Neill issued the following proclamation:--
+
+'These are to intimate and make known unto all persons whatsoever, in
+and through the whole country, the true intent and meaning of us whose
+names are hereunto subscribed: 1. That the first assembling of us is
+nowise intended against our sovereign lord the king, nor hurt of any
+of his subjects, either English or Scotch; but only for the defence
+and libertie of ourselves and the Irish natives of this kingdom. And
+we further declare that whatsoever hurt hitherto hath been done to
+any person shall be presently repaired; and we will that every person
+forthwith, after proclamation hereof, make their speedy repaire unto
+their own houses, under paine of death, that no further hurt be done
+unto any one under the like paine, and that this be proclaimed in all
+places.
+
+  'PHELIM O'NEILL.
+
+  'At Dungannon, the 23rd October, 1641.'
+
+It is easy for an insurgent chief to give such orders to a tumultuous
+mass of excited, vindictive, and drunken men, but not so easy to
+enforce them. The common notion among Protestants, however, that a
+midnight massacre of all the Protestant settlers was intended, or
+attempted, is certainly unfounded. Though horrible outrages were
+committed on both sides, the number of them has been greatly
+exaggerated. Mr. Prendergast quotes some contemporary authorities,
+which seem to be decisive on this point. In the same year was
+published by 'G.S., minister of God's word in Ireland,' 'A Brief
+Declaration of the Barbarous and Inhuman Dealings of the Northern
+Irish Rebels ...; written to excite the English Nation to relieve
+our poor Wives and Children that have escaped the Rebels' savage
+Cruelties.'
+
+This author says, it was the intention of the Irish to massacre all
+the English. On Saturday they were to disarm them; on Sunday to seize
+all their cattle and goods; on Monday, at the watchword 'Skeane,' they
+were to cut all the English throats. The former they executed; the
+third only (that is the massacre) they failed in.
+
+That the massacre rested hitherto in intention only is further evident
+from the proclamation of the lords justices of February 8, 1642;
+for, while offering large sums for the heads of the chief northern
+gentlemen in arms (Sir Phelim O'Neill's name heading the list with
+a thousand pounds), the lords justices state that the massacre had
+failed. Many thousands had been robbed and spoiled, dispossessed of
+house and lands, many murdered on the spot; but the chief part of
+their plots (so the proclamation states), and amongst them a universal
+massacre, had been disappointed.
+
+But, says Mr. Prendergast, after Lord Ormond and Sir Simon Harcourt,
+with the English forces, in the month of April, 1642, had burned the
+houses of the gentry in the Pale, and committed slaughters of unarmed
+men, and the Scotch forces, in the same month, after beating off
+Sir Phelim O'Neill's army at Newry, drowned and shot men, women, and
+priests, in that town, who had surrendered on condition of mercy, then
+it was that some of Sir Phelim O'Neill's wild followers in revenge,
+and in fear of the advancing army, massacred their prisoners in some
+of the towns in Tyrone. The subsequent cruelties were not on one side
+only, and were magnified to render the Irish detestable, so as to make
+it impossible for the king to seek their aid without ruining his cause
+utterly in England. The story of the massacre, invented to serve
+the politics of the hour, has been since kept up for the purposes
+of interest. No inventions could be too monstrous that served to
+strengthen the possession of Irish confiscated lands.
+
+'A True Relation of the Proceedings of the Scots and English Forces in
+the North of Ireland,' published in 1642, states that on Monday, May
+5, the common soldiers, without direction from the general-major, took
+some eighteen of the Irish women of the town [Newry], stripped them
+naked, threw them into the river, and drowned them, shooting some in
+the water. More had suffered so, but that some of the common soldiers
+were made examples of.
+
+'A Levite's Lamentation,' published at the same time, thus refers
+to those atrocities: 'Mr. Griffin, Mr. Bartly, Mr. Starkey, all of
+Ardmagh, and murdered by these bloudsuckers on the sixth of May. For,
+about the fourth of May, as I take it, we put neare fourty of them
+to death upon the bridge of the Newry, amongst which were two of
+the Pope's pedlers, two seminary priests, in return of which they
+slaughtered many prisoners in their custody.'
+
+A curious illustration of the spirit of that age is given in the fact
+that an English officer threw up his commission in disgust, because
+the Bishop of Meath, in a sermon delivered in Christ Church, Dublin,
+in 1642, pleaded for mercy to Irish women and children.
+
+The unfortunate settlers fled panic-stricken from their homes, leaving
+behind their goods, and, in many cases, their clothes; delicate women
+with little children, weary and footsore, hurried on to some place
+of refuge. In Cavan they crowded the house of the illustrious
+Bishop Bedell, at Kilmore. Enniskillen, Derry, Lisburn, Belfast,
+Carrickfergus, with some isolated castles, were still held by the
+English garrisons, and in these the Protestant fugitives found succour
+and protection. Before their flight they were in such terror that,
+according to the Rev. Dr. Maxwell, rector of Tynan, for three nights
+no cock was heard to crow, no dog to bark. The city of London sent
+four ships to Londonderry with all kinds of provisions, clothing,
+and accoutrements for several companies of foot, and abundance
+of ammunition. The twelve chief companies sent each two pieces of
+ordnance. No doubt these liberal and seasonable supplies contributed
+materially to keep the city from yielding to the insurgent forces by
+which it was besieged.
+
+Meantime the Government in Dublin lost not a moment in taking the
+most effectual measures for crushing the rebellion. Lord Ormond, as
+lieutenant-general, had soon at his disposal 12,000 men, with a fine
+train of field artillery, provided by Strafford for his campaign in
+the north of England. The king, who was in Scotland, procured the
+dispatch of 1,500 men to Ulster; and authorised Lords Chichester and
+Clandeboye to raise regiments among their tenants. Thus the 'Scottish
+army' was increased to about 5,000 foot, with cavalry in proportion.
+The Irish, on the other hand, were ill-provided with arms and
+ammunition. They were not even provided with pikes, for they had not
+time to make them. The military officers counted upon did not appear,
+though they had promised to be on the field at fourteen days' notice.
+Rory O'Moore, like 'Meagher of the sword' in 1848, had never seen
+service; and Sir Phelim O'Neill, like Smith O'Brien, was only a
+civilian when he assumed the high-sounding title of 'Lord General of
+the Catholic army in Ulster.' He also took the title of 'the O'Neill.'
+The massacre of a large number of Catholics by the Carrickfergus
+garrison, driving them over the cliffs into the sea at the point of
+the bayonet, madly excited the Irish thirst for blood. Mr. Darcy
+Magee admits that, from this date forward till the arrival of Owen Roe
+O'Neill, the war assumed a ferocity of character foreign to the nature
+of O'Moore, O'Reilly, and Magennis. 'That Sir Phelim permitted, if
+he did not in his gusts of stormy passion instigate, those acts of
+cruelty which have stained his otherwise honourable conduct, is too
+true; but he stood alone among his confederates in that crime, and
+that crime stands alone in his character. Brave to rashness and
+disinterested to excess, few rebel chiefs ever made a more heroic end
+out of a more deplorable beginning.' The same eulogy would equally
+apply to many of the English generals. Cruelty was their only crime.
+The Irish rulers of those times, if not taken by surprise, felt at the
+outbreak of open rebellion much as the army feels at the breaking
+out of a war, in some country where plenty of prize money can be won,
+where the looting will be rich and the promotion rapid. Relying with
+confidence on the power of England and the force of discipline, they
+knew that the active defenders of the Government would be victorious
+in the end, and that their rewards would be estates. The more
+rebellions, the more forfeited territory, the more opportunities to
+implicate, ruin, and despoil the principal men of the hated race. The
+most sober writer, dealing with such facts, cannot help stirring men's
+blood while recording the deeds of the heroes who founded the English
+system of government in Ireland, and secured to themselves immense
+tracts of its most fertile soil. What then must be the effect of the
+eloquent and impassioned denunciations of such writers as Mr.
+Butt, Mr. A.M. Sullivan, and Mr. John Mitchell, not to speak of the
+'national press'? Yet the most fiery patriot utters nothing stronger
+on the English rule in Ireland than what the Irish may read in the
+works of the greatest statesmen and most profound thinkers in England.
+The evil is in the facts, and the facts cannot be suppressed because
+they are the roots of our present difficulties. Mr. Darcy Magee, one
+of the most moderate of Irish historians, writing far away from his
+native land, not long before he fell by the bullet of the assassin--a
+martyr to his loyalty--sketches the preliminaries of confiscation at
+the commencement of this civil war.
+
+In Munster, their chief instruments were the aged Earl of Cork, still
+insatiable as ever for other men's possessions, and the president,
+St. Leger: in Leinster, Sir Charles Coote. Lord Cork prepared 1,100
+indictments against men of property in his province, which he sent to
+the speaker of the Long Parliament, with an urgent request that
+they might be returned to him, with authority to proceed against the
+parties named as outlaws. In Leinster, 4,000 similar indictments
+were found in the course of two days by the free use of the rack with
+witnesses. Sir John Read, an officer of the king's bedchamber, and
+Mr. Barnwall of Kilbrue, a gentleman of threescore and six, were among
+those who underwent the torture. When these were the proceedings of
+the tribunals in peaceable cities, we may imagine what must have been
+the excesses of the soldiery in the open country. In the south,
+Sir William St. Leger directed a series of murderous raids upon the
+peasantry of Cork, which at length produced their natural effect. Lord
+Muskerry and other leading recusants, who had offered their services
+to maintain the peace of the province, were driven by an insulting
+refusal to combine for their own protection. The 1,100 indictments
+of Lord Cork soon swelled their ranks, and the capture of the ancient
+city of Cashel, by Philip O'Dwyer, announced the insurrection of the
+south. Waterford soon after opened its gates to Colonel Edmund Butler;
+Wexford declared for the Catholic cause, and Kilkenny surrendered to
+Lord Mountgarret. In Wicklow, Coote's troopers committed murders such
+as had not been equalled since the days of the pagan Northmen. Little
+children were carried aloft writhing on the pikes of these barbarians,
+whose worthy commander confessed that 'he liked such frolics.' Neither
+age nor sex was spared, and an ecclesiastic was especially certain
+of instant death. Fathers Higgins and White of Naas, in Kildare, were
+given up by Coote to these 'lambs,' though, each had been granted a
+safe-conduct by his superior officer, Lord Ormond. And these murders
+were taking place at the very time when the Franciscans and Jesuits of
+Cashel were protecting Dr. Pullen, the Protestant chancellor of that
+cathedral and other Protestant prisoners; while also the castle of
+Cloughouter, in Cavan, the residence of Bishop Bedell, was crowded
+with Protestant fugitives, all of whom were carefully guarded by the
+chivalrous Philip O'Reilly.
+
+In Ulster, by the end of April, there were 19,000 troops, regulars and
+volunteers, in the garrison or in the field. Newry was taken by Monroe
+and Chichester. Magennis was obliged to abandon Down, and McMahon
+Monaghan; Sir Phelim was driven to burn Armagh and Dungannon and to
+take his last stand at Charlemont. In a severe action with Sir Robert
+and Sir William Stewart, he had displayed his usual courage with
+better than his usual fortune, which, perhaps, we may attribute to the
+presence with him of Sir Alexander McDonnell, brother to Lord Antrim,
+the famous _Colkitto_ of the Irish and Scottish wars. But the severest
+defeat which the confederates had was in the heart of Leinster, at the
+hamlet of Kilrush, within four miles of Athy. Lord Ormond, returning
+from a second reinforcement of Naas and other Kildare forts, at
+the head, by English account, of 4,000 men, found on April 13 the
+Catholics of the midland counties, under Lords Mountgarrett, Ikerrin,
+and Dunboyne, Sir Morgan Cavenagh, Rory O'Moore, and Hugh O'Byrne,
+drawn up, by his report 8,000 strong, to dispute his passage. With
+Ormond were the Lord Dillon, Lord Brabazon, Sir Richard Grenville, Sir
+Charles Coote, and Sir T. Lucas. The combat was short but murderous.
+The confederates left 700 men, including Sir Morgan Cavenagh and
+some other officers, dead on the field; the remainder retreated in
+disorder, and Ormond, with an inconsiderable diminution of numbers,
+returned in triumph to Dublin. For this victory the Long Parliament,
+in a moment of enthusiasm, voted the lieutenant-general a jewel worth
+500 l. If any satisfaction could be derived from such an incident, the
+violent death of their most ruthless enemy, Sir Charles Coote, might
+have afforded the Catholics some consolation. That merciless soldier,
+after the combat at Kilrush, had been employed in reinforcing Birr and
+relieving the castle of Geashill, which the Lady Letitia of Offally
+held against the neighbouring tribe of O'Dempsey. On his return from
+this service he made a foray against a Catholic force, which had
+mustered in the neighbourhood of Trim; here, on the night of the 7th
+of May, heading a sally of his troop, he fell by a musket shot--not
+without suspicion of being fired from his own ranks. His son and
+namesake, who imitated him in all things, was ennobled at the
+Restoration by the title of the Earl of Mountrath.
+
+The Long Parliament would not trust the king with an army in Ireland.
+They consequently took the work of subjugation into their own hands.
+Having confiscated 2,500,000 acres of Irish land, they offered it as
+security to 'adventurers' who would advance money to meet the cost of
+the war. In February, 1642, the House of Commons received a petition
+'of divers well affected' to it, offering to raise and maintain forces
+at their own charge 'against the rebels of Ireland, and afterwards to
+receive their recompense out of the rebels' estates.' Under the act
+'for the speedy reducing of the rebels' the adventurers were to carry
+over a brigade of 5,000 foot and 500 horse, and to have the right of
+appointing their own officers. And they were to have estates given to
+them at the following rates: 1,000 acres for 200 l. in Ulster, for 300
+l. in Connaught, for 450 l. in Munster, and 600 l. in Leinster. The
+rates per acre were 4 s., 6s., 8s., and 12 s. in those provinces
+respectively.
+
+The nature of the war, and the spirit in which it was conducted, may
+be inferred from the sort of weapons issued from the military
+stores. These included scythes with handles and rings, reaping-hooks,
+whetstones, and rubstones. They were intended for cutting down the
+growing corn, that the people might be starved into submission, or
+forced to quit the country. The commissary of stores was ordered to
+issue Bibles to the troops, one Bible for every file, that they might
+learn from the Old Testament the sin and danger of sparing idolaters.
+
+The rebellion in Ulster had almost collapsed before the end of the
+year. The tens of thousands who had rushed to the standard of Sir
+P. O'Neill were now reduced to a number of weak and disorganised
+collections of armed men taking shelter in the woods. The English
+garrisons scoured the neighbouring counties with little opposition,
+and where they met any they gave no quarter. Sir William Cole,
+ancestor of the Earl of Enniskillen, proudly boasted of his
+achievement in having 7,000 of the rebels famished to death within
+a circuit of a few miles of his garrison. Lord Enniskillen is an
+excellent landlord, but the descendants of the remnant of the natives
+on his estate do not forget how the family obtained its wealth and
+honours. The Government, however, seemed to have good reason to
+congratulate itself that the war was over with the Irish. To these Sir
+Phelim O'Neill had shown that there is something in a name: but if
+the name does not represent real worth and fitness for the work
+undertaken, it is but a shadow. It was so in Sir Phelim's O'Neill's
+case. Though he had courage, he was a poor general. But another hero
+of the same name soon appeared to redeem the honour of his race, and
+to show what the right man can do. At a moment when the national
+cause seemed to be lost, when the Celtic population in Ulster were
+meditating a wholesale emigration to the Scottish Highlands--'a word
+of magic effect was whispered from the sea-coast to the interior.'
+Colonel Owen Roe O'Neill had arrived off Donegal with a single ship,
+a single company of veterans, 100 officers, and a quantity of
+ammunition. He landed at Doe Castle, proceeded to the fort of
+Charlemont, met the heads of the clans at Clones in Monaghan, was
+elected general-in-chief of the Catholic forces, and at once set about
+organising an army. The Catholics of the whole kingdom had joined a
+confederation, which held its meetings at Kilkenny. A general assembly
+was convened for October 23, 1642. The peerage was represented by
+fourteen lords and eleven bishops. Generals were appointed for each
+of the other provinces, Preston for Leinster, Barry for Munster, and
+Burke for Connaught. With the Anglo-Irish portion of the confederacy
+the war was Catholic, and the object religious liberty. With them
+there was no antipathy or animosity to the English. There was the
+Pope's Nuncio and his party, thinking most of papal interests, and
+there was the national party, who had been, or were likely to be,
+made landless. The king, then at Oxford, was importuned by the
+confederation on the one side and the Puritans on the other; one
+petitioning for freedom of worship, the other for the suppression of
+popery. Pending these appeals there was a long cessation between the
+Irish belligerents.
+
+Ormond had amused the confederates with negotiations for a permanent
+peace and settlement, from spring till midsummer, when Charles,
+dissatisfied with these endless delays, dispatched to Ireland a more
+hopeful ambassador. This was Herbert, Earl of Glamorgan, one of the
+few Catholics remaining among the English nobility, son and heir to
+the Marquis of Worcester, and son-in-law to Henry O'Brien, Earl of
+Thomond. Of a family devoutly attached to the royal cause, to which
+it is said they had contributed not less than 200,000 l., Glamorgan's
+religion, his rank, his Irish connections, the intimate confidence of
+the king which he was known to possess, all marked out his embassy as
+one of the utmost importance.
+
+The earl arrived in Dublin about August 1, and, after an interview
+with Ormond, proceeded to Kilkenny. On the 28th of that month,
+preliminary articles were agreed to and signed by the earl on behalf
+of the king, and by Lords Montgarrett and Muskerry on behalf of the
+confederates. It was necessary, it seems, to get the concurrence of
+the Viceroy to these terms, and accordingly the negotiators on both
+sides repaired to Dublin. Here Ormond contrived to detain them ten
+long weeks in discussions on the articles relating to religion; it
+was the 12th of November when they returned to Kilkenny, with a much
+modified treaty. On the next day, the 13th, the new Papal Nuncio,
+a prelate who, by his rank, his eloquence, and his imprudence, was
+destined to exercise a powerful influence on the Catholic councils,
+made his public entry into that city.
+
+This personage was John Baptist Rinuccini, Archbishop of Fermo in
+the marches of Ancona, which see he had preferred to the more exalted
+dignity of Florence.
+
+From Limerick, borne along on his litter, such was the feebleness
+of his health, he advanced by slow stages to Kilkenny, escorted by a
+guard of honour, despatched on that duty by the supreme council.
+
+The pomp and splendour of his public entry into the Catholic capital
+was a striking spectacle. The previous night he slept at a village
+three miles from the city, for which he set out early on the morning
+of November 13, escorted by his guard and a vast multitude of the
+people. Five delegates from the supreme council accompanied him. A
+band of fifty students, mounted on horseback, met him on the way, and
+their leader, crowned with laurel, recited some congratulatory Latin
+verses. At the city gate he left the litter and mounted a horse richly
+housed; here the procession of the clergy and the city guilds awaited
+him: at the market cross, a Latin oration was delivered in his honour,
+to which he graciously replied in the same language. From the cross he
+was escorted to the cathedral, at the door of which he was received by
+the aged bishop, Dr. David Rothe. At the high altar he intonated the
+_Te Deum_, and gave the multitude the apostolic benediction. Then he
+was conducted to his lodgings, where he was soon waited upon by Lord
+Muskerry and General Preston, who brought him to Kilkenny Castle,
+where, in the great gallery, which elicited even a Florentine's
+admiration, he was received in stately formality by the president of
+the council--Lord Mountgarrett. Another Latin oration on the nature of
+his embassy was delivered by the Nuncio, responded to by Heber, Bishop
+of Clogher, and so the ceremony of reception ended.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Darcy Magee, vol. ii. p.128.]
+
+After a long time spent in negotiations, the celebrated Glamorgan
+treaty was signed by Ormond for the king, and Lord Muskerry and the
+other commissioners for the confederates. It conceded, in fact, all
+the most essential claims of the Irish--equal rights as to property,
+in the army, in the universities, and at the bar; gave them seats in
+both houses and on the bench; authorised a special commission of oyer
+and terminer, composed wholly of confederates; and declared that 'the
+independency of the parliament of Ireland on that of England' should
+be decided by declaration of both houses 'agreeably to the laws of the
+kingdom of Ireland.' In short, this final form of Glamorgan's treaty
+gave the Irish Catholics, in 1646, all that was subsequently obtained,
+either for the church or the country, in 1782, 1793, or 1829. 'Though
+some conditions were omitted, to which Rinuccini and a majority of the
+prelates attached importance, Glamorgan's treaty was, upon the whole,
+a charter upon which a free church and a free people might well have
+stood, as the fundamental law of their religious and civil liberties.'
+
+General O'Neill was greatly annoyed at these delays. Political
+events in England swayed the destiny of Ireland then as now. The poor
+vacillating, double-dealing king was delivered to the Puritans, tried,
+and executed. But before Cromwell came to smash the confederation and
+everything papal in Ireland, the Irish chief gladdened the hearts of
+his countrymen by the glorious victory of Benburb, one of the most
+memorable in Irish history.
+
+In a naturally strong position, the Irish, for four hours, received
+and repulsed the various charges of the Puritan horse. Then as the
+sun began to descend, pouring its rays upon the enemy, O'Neill led
+his whole force--five thousand men against eight--to the attack.
+One terrible onset swept away every trace of resistance. There were
+counted on the field 3,243 of the Covenanters, and of the Catholics
+but 70 killed and 100 wounded. Lord Ardes, and 21 Scottish officers,
+32 standards, 1,500 draught horses, and all the guns and tents, were
+captured. Monroe fled to Lisburn and thence to Carrickfergus, where he
+shut himself up till he could obtain reinforcements. O'Neill forwarded
+the captured colours to the Nuncio at Limerick, by whom they were
+solemnly placed in the choir of St. Mary's Cathedral, and afterwards,
+at the request of Pope Innocent, sent to Rome. The _Te Deum_ was
+chanted in the confederate capital; penitential psalms were sung
+in the northern fortresses. 'The Lord of Hosts,' wrote Monroe,
+'has rubbed shame on our faces till once we are humbled.' O'Neill
+emblazoned the cross and keys on his banner with the Red Hand
+of Ulster, and openly resumed the title originally chosen by his
+adherents at Clones, 'the Catholic Army.'
+
+The stage of Irish politics now presented the most extraordinary
+complications political and military. The confederation was occupied
+with endless debates and dissensions. Commanders changed positions so
+rapidly, the several causes for which men had been fighting became so
+confused in the unaccountable scene-shifting, giving glimpses now of
+the king, now of the commonwealth, and now of the pope, that no one
+knew what to do, or what was to be the end. The nuncio went home in
+disgust that his blessings and his curses, which he dispensed with
+equal liberality, had so little effect.
+
+At length appeared an actor who gave a terrible unity to the drama of
+Irish politics. Cromwell left London in July 1649, 'in a coach drawn
+by six gallant Flanders mares,' and made a grand progress to Bristol.
+He landed at Ring's End, near Dublin, on August 14. He entered the
+city in procession and addressed the people from 'a convenient place,'
+accompanied by his son Henry, Blake, Jones, Ireton, Ludlow, Hardress,
+Waller, and others. The history of Cromwell's military exploits in
+Ireland is well known. I pass on, therefore, to notice the effects of
+the war on the condition of the people.
+
+As usual, in such cases, the destruction of the crops and other
+provisions by the soldiers, brought evil to the conquerors as well as
+to their victims. There had been a fifteen years' war in Ulster,
+when James I. ascended the throne, and it left the country waste
+and desolate. Sir John Davis, his attorney-general, asserted the
+unquestionable fact that perpetual war had been continued between the
+two nations for 'four hundred and odd years,' and had always for its
+object to 'root out the Irish.' James was to put an end to this war,
+and, as we have seen, the lord deputy promised the people 'estates' in
+their holdings. The effect of this promise, as recorded by Davis,
+is remarkable. 'He thus made it a year of jubilee to the poor
+inhabitants, because every man was to return to his own house, and
+be restored to his ancient possessions, and they all went home
+rejoicing.'
+
+Poor people! they soon saw the folly of putting their trust in
+princes. Now, after a seven years' war, the nation was again
+visited with famine, and the country converted into a wilderness.
+Three-fourths of the cattle had been destroyed; and the commissioners
+for Ireland reported to the council in England in 1651, that four
+parts in five of the best and most fertile land in Ireland lay waste
+and uninhabited, stating that they had encouraged the Irish to till
+the land, promising them the enjoyment of the crops. They had also
+given orders 'for enforcing those that were removed to the mountains
+to return.' The soldiers were employed to till the lands round their
+posts. Corn had to be imported to Dublin from Wales. So scarce
+was meat that a widow was obliged to petition the authorities for
+permission to kill a lamb; and she was 'permitted and lycensed to kill
+and dresse so much lambe as shall be necessary for her own eating,
+not exceeding three lambes for this whole year, notwithstanding
+any declaration of the said Commissioners of Parliament to the
+contrary.'[A] This privilege was granted to Mrs. Buckley in
+consideration of 'her old age and weakness of body.' In 1654 the Irish
+revenue from all sources was only 198,000 l., while the cost of the
+army was 500,000 l. A sort of conditional amnesty was granted from
+necessity, pending the decision of Parliament, and on May 12,
+1652, the Leinster army of the Irish surrendered on terms signed
+at Kilkenny, which were adopted successively by the other principal
+armies between that time and the September following, when the Ulster
+forces surrendered. By these Kilkenny articles, all except those who
+were guilty of the first blood were received into protection on
+laying down their arms; those who should not be satisfied with the
+conclusions the Parliament might come to concerning the Irish nation,
+and should desire to transport themselves with their men to serve any
+foreign state in amity with the Parliament, should have liberty
+to treat with their agents for that purpose. But the Commissioners
+undertook faithfully to mediate with the Parliament that they
+might enjoy such a remnant of their lands as might make their lives
+comfortable at home, or be enabled to emigrate.
+
+[Footnote 1: Prendergast, the Cromwellian Settlement, p.16.]
+
+The Cromwellian administration in Ireland effected a revolution
+unparalleled in history. Its proceedings have been well summarised by
+Mr. Darcy Magee:--
+
+The Long Parliament, still dragging out its days under the shadow of
+Cromwell's great name, declared in its session of 1652 the rebellion
+in Ireland 'subdued and ended,' and proceeded to legislate for that
+kingdom as a conquered country. On August 12 they passed their Act of
+Settlement, the authorship of which was attributed to Lord Orrery, in
+this respect the worthy son of the first Earl of Cork. Under this act
+there were four chief descriptions of persons whose status was thus
+settled: 1. All ecclesiastics and royalist proprietors were exempted
+from pardon of life or estate. 2. All royalist commissioned officers
+were condemned to banishment, and the forfeit of two-thirds of their
+property, one-third being retained for the support of their wives and
+children. 3. Those who had not been in arms, but could be shown, by
+a parliamentary commission, to have manifested 'a constant, good
+affection' to the war, were to forfeit one-third of their estates,
+and receive 'an equivalent' for the remaining two-thirds west of
+the Shannon. 4. All husbandmen and others of the inferior sort, 'not
+possessed of lands or goods exceeding the value of 10 l.,' were to
+have a free pardon, on condition also of transporting themselves
+across the Shannon.
+
+This last condition of the Cromwellian settlement distinguished it,
+in our annals, from every other proscription of the native population
+formerly attempted. The great river of Ireland, rising in the
+mountains of Leitrim, nearly severs the five western counties from the
+rest of the kingdom. The province thus set apart, though one of the
+largest in superficial extent, had also the largest proportion of
+waste and water, mountain and moorland. The new inhabitants were there
+to congregate from all the other provinces before the first day of
+May, 1654, under penalty of outlawry and all its consequences; and
+when there, they were not to appear within two miles of the Shannon,
+or four miles of the sea. A rigorous passport system, to evade which
+was death without form of trial, completed this settlement, the design
+of which was to shut up the remaining Catholic inhabitants from all
+intercourse with mankind, and all communion with the other inhabitants
+of their own country.
+
+A new survey of the whole kingdom was also ordered, under the
+direction of Dr. William Petty, the fortunate economist who founded
+the house of Lansdowne. By him the surface of the kingdom was
+estimated at 10,500,000 plantation acres, three of which were deducted
+for waste and water. Of the remainder, above 5,000,000 were in
+Catholic hands, in 1641; 300,000 were church and college lands; and
+2,000,000 were in possession of the Protestant settlers of the reigns
+of James and Elizabeth. Under the Protectorate, 5,000,000 acres were
+confiscated; this enormous spoil, two-thirds of the whole island, went
+to the soldiers and adventurers who had served against the Irish,
+or had contributed to the military chest, since 1641--except 700,000
+acres given in 'exchange' to the banished in Clare and Connaught;
+and 1,200,000 confirmed to 'innocent Papists.' Such was the complete
+uprooting of the ancient tenantry or clansmen from their original
+holdings, that, during the survey, orders of parliament were issued to
+bring back individuals from Connaught to point out the boundaries of
+parishes in Munster. It cannot be imputed among the sins so freely
+laid to the historical account of the native legislature, that
+an Irish parliament had any share in sanctioning this universal
+spoliation. Cromwell anticipated the union of the kingdoms by 150
+years, when he summoned, in 1653, that assembly over which 'Praise-God
+Barebones' presided; members for Ireland and Scotland sat on the same
+benches with the commons of England. Oliver's first deputy in the
+government of Ireland was his son-in-law Fleetwood, who had married
+the widow of Ireton; but his real representative was his fourth son
+Henry Cromwell, commander-in-chief of the army. In 1657, the title of
+lord deputy was transferred from Fleetwood to Henry, who united the
+supreme civil and military authority in his own person until the eve
+of the restoration, of which he became an active partisan. We may thus
+properly embrace the five years of the Protectorate as a period of
+Henry Cromwell's administration.
+
+In the absence of a parliament, the government of Ireland was vested
+in the deputy, the commander-in-chief, and four commissioners, Ludlow,
+Corbett, Jones, and Weaver. There was, moreover, a high court of
+justice, which perambulated the kingdom, and exercised an absolute
+authority over life and property greater than even Strafford's Court
+of Star Chamber had pretended to. Over this court presided Lord
+Lowther, assisted by Mr. Justice Donnellan, by Cooke, solicitor to the
+parliament on the trial of King Charles, and the regicide Reynolds.
+By this court, Sir Phelim O'Neill, Viscount Mayo, and Colonels O'Toole
+and Bagnall were condemned and executed; children of both sexes were
+captured by thousands, and sold as slaves to the tobacco-planters of
+Virginia and the West Indies. Sir William Petty states that 6,000 boys
+and girls were sent to those islands. The number, of all ages, thus
+transported, was estimated at 100,000 souls. As to the 'swordsmen'
+who had been trained to fighting, Petty, in his _Political Anatomy_,
+records that 'the chiefest and most eminentest of the nobility and
+many of the gentry had taken conditions from the King of Spain,
+and had transported 40,000 of the most active, spirited men, most
+acquainted with the dangers and discipline of war.' The chief
+commissioners in Dublin had despatched assistant commissioners to the
+provinces. The distribution which they made of the soil was nearly
+as complete as that of Canaan among the Israelites; and this was
+the model which the Puritans had always before their minds. Where a
+miserable residue of the population was required to till the land
+for its new owners, they were tolerated as the Gibeonites had been by
+Joshua. Irish gentlemen who had obtained pardons were obliged to
+wear a distinctive mark on their dress on pain of death. Persons of
+inferior rank were distinguished by a black spot on the right cheek.
+Wanting this, their punishment was the branding-iron or the gallows.
+
+No vestige of the Catholic religion was allowed to exist. Catholic
+lawyers and schoolmasters were silenced. All ecclesiastics were slain
+like the priests of Baal. Three bishops and 300 of the inferior clergy
+thus perished. The bedridden Bishop of Kilmore was the only native
+clergyman permitted to survive. If, in mountain recesses or caves, a
+few peasants were detected at mass, they were smoked out and shot.
+
+Thus England got rid of a race concerning which Mr. Prendergast found
+this contemporary testimony in a MS. in Trinity College library,
+Dublin, dated 1615:--
+
+'There lives not a people more hardy, active, and painful ... neither
+is there any will endure the miseries of warre, as famine, watching,
+heat, cold, wet, travel, and the like, so naturally and with such
+facility and courage that they do. The Prince of Orange's excellency
+uses often publiquely to deliver that the Irish are souldiers the
+first day of their birth. The famous Henry IV., late king of France,
+said there would prove no nation so resolute martial men as they,
+would they be ruly and not too headstrong. And Sir John Norris was
+wont to ascribe this particular to that nation above others, that he
+never beheld so few of any country as of Irish that were idiots and
+cowards, which is very notable.'
+
+At the end of 1653, the parliament made a division of the spoil among
+the conquerors and the adventurers; and, on September 26, an act was
+passed for the new planting of Ireland by English. The Government
+reserved for itself the towns, the church lands, and the tithes, the
+established church, hierarchy and all, having been utterly abolished.
+The four counties of Dublin, Kildare, Carlow, and Cork were also
+reserved. The amount due to the adventurers was 360,000 l. This they
+divided into three lots, of which 110,000 l. was to be satisfied in
+Munster, 205,000 l. in Leinster, and 45,000 l. in Ulster, and the
+moiety of ten counties was charged with their payment--Waterford,
+Limerick, and Tipperary, in Munster; Meath, Westmeath, King's and
+Queen's Counties, in Leinster; and Antrim, Down, and Armagh, in
+Ulster. But, as all was required by the Adventurers Act to be done by
+lot, a lottery was appointed to be held in Grocers' Hall, London, for
+July 20, 1653, to begin at 8 o'clock in the morning, when lots should
+be first drawn in which province each adventurer was to be satisfied,
+not exceeding the specified amounts in any province; lots were to
+be drawn, secondly, to ascertain in which of the ten counties
+each adventurer was to receive his land--the lots not to exceed in
+Westmeath 70,000 l., in Tipperary 60,000 l., in Meath 55,000 l., in
+King's and Queen's Counties 40,000 l. each, in Limerick 30,000 l., in
+Waterford 20,000 l., in Antrim, Down, and Armagh 15,000 l. each. And,
+as it was thought it would be a great encouragement to the adventurers
+(who were for the most part merchants and tradesmen), about to plant
+in so wild and dangerous a country, not yet subdued, to have soldier
+planters near them, these ten counties, when surveyed (which was
+directed to be done immediately, and returned to the committee for
+the lottery at Grocers' Hall), were to be divided, each county by
+baronies, into two moieties, as equally as might be, without dividing
+any barony. A lot was then to be drawn by the adventurers, and by
+some officer appointed by the Lord General Cromwell on behalf of the
+soldiery, to ascertain which baronies in the ten counties should be
+for the adventurers, and which for the soldiers.
+
+The rest of Ireland, except Connaught, was to be set out amongst the
+officers and soldiers for their arrears, amounting to 1,550,000 l.,
+and to satisfy debts of money or provisions due for supplies advanced
+to the army of the commonwealth amounting to 1,750,000 l. Connaught
+being by the parliament reserved and appointed for the habitation of
+the Irish nation, all English and Protestants having lands there, who
+should desire to remove out of Connaught into the provinces inhabited
+by the English, were to receive estates in the English parts, of equal
+value, in exchange.
+
+The next thing was to clear out the remnant of the inhabitants,
+and the overture to this performance was the following merciful
+proclamation:--
+
+'The Parliament of the Commonwealth of England having by one act
+lately passed (entitled an Act for the Settling of Ireland) declared
+that _it is not their intention to extirpate this whole nation_,
+but that mercy and pardon for life and estate be extended to all
+husbandmen, plowmen, labourers, artificers, and others of the inferior
+sort, in such manner as in and by the said Act is set forth: for the
+better execution of the said Act, and that timely notice may be given
+to all persons therein concerned, it is ordered that the Governor and
+Commissioners of Revenue, or any two or more of them, within every
+precinct in this nation, do cause the said Act of Parliament with this
+present declaration to be published and proclaimed in their respective
+precincts _by beat of drumme and sound of trumpett_, on some markett
+day, within tenn days after the same shall come unto them within their
+respective precincts.
+
+'Dated at the Castle of Kilkenny, this 11th October, 1652.
+
+  'EDMUND LUDLOW,   MILES CORBET,
+  'JOHN JONES,      R. WEAVER.'
+
+A letter from Dublin, dated December 21, 1654, four days before
+Christmas, says the 'transplantation is now far advanced, the men
+being gone to prepare their new habitations in Connaught. Their wives
+and children and dependants have been, and are, packing away after
+them apace, and all are to be gone by the 1st of March next.' In
+another letter the writer _naively_ remarks, 'It is the nature of this
+people to be rebellious, and they have been so much the more disposed
+to it, having been highly exasperated to it by the transplanting
+work.' The temper of the settlers towards the natives may be inferred
+from a petition to the lord deputy and council of Ireland, praying for
+the enforcement of the original order requiring the removal of all
+the Irish nation into Connaught, except boys of fourteen and girls
+of twelve. 'For we humbly conceive,' say the petitioners, 'that the
+proclamation for transplanting only the proprietors, and such as have
+been in arms, will neither answer the end of safety nor what else is
+aimed at thereby. For the first purpose of the transplantation is
+to prevent those of natural principles' (i.e. of natural affections)
+'becoming one with these Irish, as well in affinity as idolatry, as
+many thousands did who came over in Elizabeth's time, many of which
+have had a deep hand in all the late murders and massacres. And shall
+we join in affinity,' they ask, 'with a people of these abominations?
+Would not the Lord be angry with us till He consumes us, having
+said--"the land which ye go to possess is an unclean land, because
+of the filthiness of the people who dwell therein. Ye shall not,
+therefore, give your sons to their daughters, nor take their daughters
+to your sons," as it is in Ezra ix. 11, 12, 14. "Nay, ye shall surely
+root them out, lest they cause you to forsake the Lord your God."
+Deut. c. vii. &c.'
+
+In this way they hoped that 'honest men' would be encouraged to come
+and live amongst them, because the other three provinces (that is, all
+the island but Connaught) would be free of 'tories,' when there was
+none left to harbour or relieve them. They would have made a clean
+sweep of Munster, Leinster, and Ulster, so that 'the saints' might
+inherit the land without molestation. If any Protestant friends of the
+Irish objected to this thorough mode of effecting the work of Irish
+regeneration, Colonel Lawrence 'doubted not but God would enable that
+authority yet in being to let out that dram of rebellious bloud, and
+cure that fit of sullenness their advocate speaks of.'
+
+The commissioners appointed to effect the transplantation were
+painfully conscious of their unworthiness to perform so holy a work,
+and Were overwhelmed with a sense of their weakness in the midst of
+such tremendous difficulties, so that they were constrained to say:
+'The child is now come to the birth, and much is desired and expected,
+but there is no strength to bring forth.' They therefore fasted and
+humbled themselves before the Lord, inviting the officers of the army
+to join them in lifting up prayers, 'with strong crying and tears,
+to Him to whom nothing is too strong, that His servants, whom He had
+called forth in this day to act in these great transactions, might be
+made faithful, and carried on by His own outstretched arm, against all
+opposition and difficulty, to do what was pleasing in His sight.'
+
+It is true they had this consolation, 'that the chiefest and
+eminentest of the nobility and many of the gentry had taken conditions
+from the king of Spain, and had transported 40,000 of the most active,
+spirited men, most acquainted with the dangers and discipline of war.'
+The priests were all banished. The remaining part of the whole nation
+was scarce one-sixth of what they were at the beginning of the war, so
+great a devastation had God and man brought upon that land; and that
+handful of natives left were poor labourers, simple creatures, whose
+sole design was to live and maintain their families.'
+
+Of course there were many exceptions to this rule. There were some of
+the upper classes remaining, described in the certificates which all
+the emigrants were obliged to procure, like Sir Nicholas Comyn, of
+Limerick, 'who was numb at one side of his body of a dead palsy,
+accompanied only by his lady, Catherine Comyn, aged thirty-five years,
+flaxen-haired, middle stature; and one maid servant, Honor M'Namara,
+aged twenty years, brown hair, middle stature, having no substance,'
+&c. From Tipperary went forth James, Lord Dunboyne, with 21 followers,
+and having 4 cows, 10 garrons, and 2 swine. Dame Catherine Morris, 35
+followers, 10 cows, 16 garrons, 19 goats, 2 swine. Lady Mary Hamilton,
+of Roscrea, with 45 persons, 40 cows, 30 garrons, 46 sheep, 2 goats.
+Pierce, Lord Viscount Ikerrin, with 17 persons, having 16 acres of
+winter corn, 4 cows, 5 garrons, 14 sheep, 2 swine, &c. There were
+other noblemen, lords of the Pale, descended from illustrious English
+ancestors, the Fitzgeralds, the Butlers, the Plunkets, the Barnwells,
+the Dillons, the Cheevers, the Cusacks, &c., who petitioned, praying
+that their flight might not be in the winter, or alleging that their
+wives and children were sick, that their cattle were unfit to drive,
+or that they had crops to get in. To them dispensations were granted,
+provided the husbands and parents were in Connaught building huts,
+&c., and that not more than one or two servants remained behind to
+look after the respective herds and flocks, and to attend to the
+gathering in and threshing of the corn. And some few, such as John
+Talbot de Malahide, got a pass for safe travelling from Connaught
+to come back, in order to dispose of their corn and goods, giving
+security to return within the time limited. If they did not return
+they got this warning in the month of March--that the officers had
+resolved to fill the jails with them, 'by which this bloody people
+will know that they (the officers) are not degenerated from English
+principles. Though I presume we should be very tender of hanging any
+except leading men, yet we shall make no scruple of sending them
+to the West Indies,' &c. Accordingly when the time came, all the
+remaining crops were seized and sold; there was a general arrest of
+all 'transplantable persons. All over the three provinces, men and
+women were hauled out of their beds in the dead hour of night to
+prison, till the jails were choked.' In order to further expedite
+the removal of the nobility and gentry, a court-martial sat in St.
+Patrick's Cathedral, and ordered the lingering delinquents, who shrunk
+from going to Connaught, to be hanged, with a placard on the breast
+and back of each victim--'_For not transplanting.'_
+
+Scully's conduct at Ballycohy, was universally execrated. But what did
+he attempt to do? Just what the Cromwellian officers did at the end
+of a horrid civil war 200 years ago, with this difference in favour of
+Cromwell, that Scully did not purpose to 'transplant,' He would simply
+uproot, leaving the uprooted to perish on the highway. His conduct was
+as barbarous as that of the Cromwellian officers. But what of Scully?
+He is nothing. The all-important fact is, that, in playing a part
+worse than Cromwellian, he, _acting according to English law, was
+supported by all the power of the state_; and if the men who defended
+their homes against his attack had been arrested and convicted, Irish
+judges would have consigned them to the gallows; and they might, as
+in the Cromwellian case, have ordered a placard to be put on their
+persons:--
+
+    'FOR NOT TRANSPLANTING!'
+
+In fact the Cromwellian commissioners did nothing more than carry out
+fully the _principles_ of our present land code. Nine-tenths of the
+soil of Ireland are held by tenants at will. It is constantly argued
+in the leading organs of English opinion, that the power of the
+landlords to resume possession of their estates, and turn them into
+pastures, evicting all the tenants, is _essential_ to the rights of
+property. This has been said in connection with the great absentee
+proprietors. According to this theory of proprietorship, the only one
+recognised by law, Lord Lansdowne may legally spread desolation over a
+large part of Kerry; Lord Fitzwilliam may send the ploughshare of ruin
+through the hearths of half the county Wicklow; Lord Digby, in the
+King's County, may restore to the bog of Allen vast tracts reclaimed
+during many generations by the labour of his tenants; and Lord
+Hertfort may convert into a wilderness the district which the
+descendants of the English settlers have converted into the garden
+of Ulster. If any or all of those noblemen took a fancy, like Colonel
+Bernard of Kinnitty or Mr. Allen Pollok, to become graziers and
+cattle-jobbers on a gigantic scale, the Government would be compelled
+to place the military power of the state at their disposal, to evict
+the whole population in the queen's name, to drive all the families
+away from their homes, to demolish their dwellings, and turn them
+adrift on the highway, without one shilling compensation. Villages,
+schools, churches would all disappear from the landscape; and, when
+the grouse season arrived, the noble owner might bring over a party of
+English friends to see his '_improvements!_' The right of conquest
+so cruelly exercised by the Cromwellians is in this year of grace _a
+legal right_; and its exercise is a mere question of expediency and
+discretion. There is not a landlord in Ireland who may not be a Scully
+if he wishes. It is not law or justice, it is not British power, that
+prevents the enactment of Cromwellian scenes of desolation in
+every county of that unfortunate country. It is self-interest, with
+humanity, in the hearts of good men, and the dread of assassination
+in the hearts of bad men, that prevent at the present moment the
+immolation of the Irish people to the Moloch of territorial despotism.
+It is the effort to render impossible those human sacrifices, those
+holocausts of Christian households, that the priests of
+feudal landlordism denounce so frantically with loud cries of
+'_confiscation_.'
+
+The 'graces' promised by Charles I. in 1628 demonstrate the real
+wretchedness of the country to which they were deceitfully offered,
+and from which they were treacherously withdrawn. From them we learn
+that the Government soldiers were a terror to more than the king's
+enemies, that the king's rents were collected at the sword's point,
+and that numerous monopolies and oppressive taxes impoverished the
+country. There was little security for estates in any part of Ireland,
+and none at all for estates in Connaught. No man could sue out livery
+for his lands without first taking the oath of the royal supremacy.
+The soldiers enjoyed an immunity in the perpetration of even capital
+crimes, for the civil power could not touch them. Those who were
+married, or had their children baptized, by Roman Catholic priests,
+were liable to fine and censure. The Protestant bishops and clergy
+were in great favour and had enormous privileges. The patentees of
+dissolved religious houses claimed exemption from various assessments.
+The ministers of the Established Church were entitled to the aid of
+the Government in exacting reparation for clandestine exercises of
+spiritual jurisdiction by Roman Catholic priests, and actually appear
+to have kept private prisons of their own. They exacted tithes from
+Roman Catholics of everything titheable. The eels of the rivers and
+lakes, the fishes of the sea paid them toll. The dead furnished the
+mortuary fees to the 'alien church' in the shape of the best clothes
+which the wardrobe of the defunct afforded. The government of
+Wentworth, better known as the Earl of Strafford, is highly praised by
+high churchmen and admirers of Laud, but was execrated by the Irish,
+who failed to appreciate the mercies of his star-chamber court, or to
+recognise the justice of his fining juries who returned disagreeable
+verdicts. The list of grievances, transmitted by the Irish House
+of Peers in 1641 to the English Government, cannot be regarded as
+altogether visionary, for it was vouched by the names of lords,
+spiritual and temporal, whose attachment to the English interest was
+undoubted. The lord chancellor (Loftus), the archbishop of Dublin
+(Bulkeley), the bishops of Meath, Clogher, and Killala were no rebels,
+and yet they protested against the grievances inflicted on Ireland by
+the tyranny of Strafford. According to these contemporary witnesses,
+the Irish nobles had been taxed beyond all proportion to the English
+nobles; Irish peers had been sent to prison although not impeached
+of treason or any capital offence; the deputy had managed to keep all
+proxies of peers in the hands of his creatures, and thus to sway the
+Upper House to his will; the trade of the kingdom had been destroyed;
+and the 'graces' of 1628 had been denied to the nation, or clogged by
+provisoes which rendered them a mockery. And yet, in the face of
+such evidence of misery and misgovernment, the Archbishop of Dublin
+asserted in a charge to his clergy, that 'all contemporary writers
+agree in describing the flourishing condition of the island, and its
+rapid advance in civilisation and wealth, when all its improvement
+was brought to an end by the catastrophe of the Irish rebellion of
+1641'--the very year in which the Irish Houses of Lords and Commons
+agreed in depicting the condition of Ireland as utterly miserable!
+
+But Archbishop Trench not only contradicts the authentic contemporary
+records, in picturing as halcyon days one of the most wretched periods
+of Irish history, but also wrongfully represents one of the saddest
+episodes of that history. He reminded his clergy 'that the number
+of Protestants who were massacred by the Roman Catholics during the
+rebellion was, by the most moderate estimate, set down as 40,000.' His
+grace seems to have been unacquainted with the contemporary evidence
+collected by the Protestant historian Warner, who examined the
+depositions of 1641, on which the story of the massacre was based, and
+found the estimate of those who perished in the so-called massacre to
+have been enormously exaggerated. He calculated the number of those
+killed, 'upon evidence collected within two years after the rebellion
+broke out,' at 4,028, besides 8,000 said to have perished through bad
+usage. The parliament commissioners in Dublin, writing in 1652 to the
+commissioners in England, say that, 'besides 848 families, there
+were killed, hanged, burned, and drowned 6,062. Thus there were two
+estimates--one of 12,000, the other of 10,000--each of which was far
+lower than the estimate of 40,000, which his grace calls 'the
+most moderate.' It turns out, moreover, that the argument based by
+Archbishop Trench on the false estimate of those said to have been
+massacred, is wholly worthless for the purpose intended by his grace.
+The disproportion of Protestants to Roman Catholics, which appears
+by the census of 1861, cannot be accounted for by the statistics
+of 1641--be those statistics true or false. For the proportion of
+Protestants to Roman Catholics was higher in 1672--thirty years after
+the alleged massacre--than in 1861. The Protestants in 1672, according
+to Sir W. Petty, numbered 300,000, and the Roman Catholics 800,000;
+while in 1861 there were found in Ireland only 1,293,702 Protestants
+of all denominations to 4,505,265 Roman Catholics. It follows from
+these figures, as has been already remarked by Dr. Maziere Brady, that
+there has been a relative decrease of Protestants, as compared with
+Roman Catholics, of 395,772 persons. And this relative decrease was in
+no way affected--inasmuch as it took place since the year 1672--by the
+alleged massacre of 1641.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE PURITAN PLANTATION.
+
+
+It is a fearful thing to undertake the destruction of a nation
+by slaughter, starvation, and banishment. When we read of such
+enormities, perpetrated by some 'scourge of God,' in heathen lands and
+distant ages, we are horrified, and we thank Providence that it is our
+lot to be born in a Christian country. But what must the world think
+of our Christianity when they read of the things that, in a most
+Bible-reading age, Englishmen did in Ireland?
+
+The work of transplanting was slow, difficult, and intensely painful
+to the Irish, for Connaught was bleak, sterile, and desolate, and the
+weather was inclement. The natural protectors of many families had
+been killed or banished, and the women and children clung with frantic
+fondness to their old homes. But for the feelings of such afflicted
+ones the conquerors had no sympathy. On the contrary, they believed
+that God, angry at their lingering, sent his judgments as a
+punishment. Mr. Prendergast has published a number of letters, written
+at the time by the English authorities and others, from which some
+interesting matters may be gleaned. The town of Cashel had got a
+dispensation to remain. 'But,' says the writer, 'the Lord, who is a
+jealous God, and more knowing of, as well as jealous against their
+iniquity than we, by a fire on the 23rd inst. hath burned down the
+whole town in little less than a quarter of an hour, except a few
+houses that a few English lived in,' &c. In consequence of the delay,
+the Irish began to break into 'torying' (plundering). 'The tories fly
+out and increase. What strange people, not to starve in peace.' To
+be inclined to plunder under such circumstances, with so gracious a
+Government, must be held to be a proof of great natural depravity, as
+well as of a peculiar incapacity to respect, or even to understand,
+the rights of property.
+
+At length, however, the land was ready for the enjoyment of the
+officers and soldiers. On August 20, 1655, the lord deputy, Fleetwood,
+thus addressed one of the officers:--
+
+'Sir,--In pursuance of his highness's command, the council here
+with myself and chief officers of the army having concluded about
+disbanding part of the army, in order to lessening the present charge,
+it is fit that your troope be one. And, accordingly, I desire you
+would march such as are willing to plant of them into the barony of
+Shelmaliere, in the county of Wexford, at or before the first day of
+September, where you shall be put into possession of your lands, for
+your arrears, according to the rates agreed on by the committee and
+agents. As also you shall have, upon the place wherein you are, so
+much money as shall answer the present three months' arrear due to you
+and your men, but to continue no longer the pay of the army than upon
+the muster of this August. The sooner you march your men the better;
+thereby you will be enabled to make provision for the winter.' After
+some sweetening hints that they will be perhaps paid hereafter as a
+militia he concludes:--
+
+'And great is your mercy, that after all your hardships and
+difficulties you may sit down, and, if the Lord give His blessing, may
+reape some fruits of your past services. Do not think it a blemish
+or underrating of your past services, that you are now disbanded; but
+look upon it as of the Lord's appointing, and with cheerfulness submit
+thereunto; and the blessing of the Lord be upon you all, and keep you
+in His fear, and give you hearts to observe your past experience of
+signal appearances. And that this fear may be seen in your hearts, and
+that you may be kept from the sins and pollutions which God hath so
+eminently witnessed against in those whose possessions you are to take
+up, is the desire of him who is
+
+  'Your very affectionate friend, to love and serve you,
+
+  'CHARLES FLEETWOOD.'
+
+He congratulated them that, 'having by the blessing of God obtained
+their peace, they might sit down in the enjoyment of the enemies'
+fields and houses, which they planted not nor built not. They had no
+reason to repent their services, considering how great an issue God
+had given.' Yet many refused to settle, and sold their debentures to
+their officers. What could they do with the farms? They had no horses
+or ploughs, no cattle to stock the land, no labourers to till it.
+Above all, they had no women. Flogging was the punishment for amours
+with Irish girls, and marriage with the idolatrous race was forbidden
+under heavy penalties. Hence the soldiers pretended that their wives
+were converted to Protestantism. But this was to be tested by a strict
+examination of each as to the state of her soul, and the means by
+which she had been enlightened. If she did not stand the test, her
+husband was degraded in rank, and, if disbanded, he was liable to
+be sent to Connaught with the fair seducer. The charms of the Irish
+women, however, proved irresistible, and the hearts of the pious
+rulers were sorely troubled by this danger.
+
+'In 1652, amongst the first plans for paying the army their arrears
+in land, it was suggested there should be a law that any officers or
+soldiers marrying Irishwomen should lose their commands, forfeit their
+arrears, and be made incapable of inheriting lands in Ireland. No such
+provision, however, was introduced into the act, because it provided
+against this danger more effectually by ordering the women to
+transplant, together with the whole nation, to Connaught. Those in
+authority, however, ought never to have let the English officers and
+soldiers come in contact with the Irishwomen, or should have ordered
+another army of young Englishwomen over, if they did not intend this
+provision to be nugatory. Planted in a wasted country, amongst the
+former owners and their families, with little to do but to make love,
+and no lips to make love to but Irish, love or marriage must follow
+between them as necessarily as a geometrical conclusion follows
+from the premises. For there were but few who (in the language of a
+Cromwellian patriot),
+
+  ----'rather than turne
+  From English principles, would sooner burne;
+  And rather than marrie an Irish wife,
+  Would batchellers remain for tearme of life.'
+
+About forty years after the Cromwellian Settlement, and just seven
+years after the Battle of the Boyne, the following was written: 'We
+cannot so much wonder at this [the quick "degenerating" of the English
+of Ireland], when we consider how many there are of the children of
+Oliver's soldiers in Ireland who cannot speak one word of English.
+And (which is strange) the same may be said of some of the children
+of King William's soldiers who came but t'other day into the country.
+This misfortune is owing to the marrying Irishwomen for want of
+English, who come not over in so great numbers as are requisite. 'Tis
+sure that no Englishman in Ireland knows what his children may be as
+things are now; they cannot well live in the country without growing
+Irish; for none take such care as Sir Jerome Alexander [second justice
+of the Common Pleas in Ireland from 1661 to his death in 1670], who
+left his estate to his daughter, but made the gift void if she married
+any Irishman;' Sir Jerome including in this term 'any lord of Ireland,
+any archbishop, bishop, prelate, any baronet, knight, esquire, or
+gentleman of Irish extraction or descent, born and bred in Ireland, or
+having his relations and means of subsistence there,' and expressly,
+of course, any 'Papist.'--'True Way to render Ireland happy and
+secure; or, a Discourse, wherein 'tis shown that 'tis the interest
+both of England and Ireland to encourage foreign Protestants to plant
+in Ireland; in a letter to the Hon. Robert Molesworth.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Cromwellian Settlement, p.130.]
+
+The impossibility of getting a sufficient number of settlers from
+England to cultivate the land, produce food, and render the estates
+worth holding, led to some fraudulent transactions for the benefit
+of the natives who were 'loath to leave.' The officers in various
+counties got general orders giving dispensations from the necessity
+of planting with English tenants, and liberty to take Irish, provided
+they were not proprietors or swordsmen. But the proprietors who had
+established friendships with their conquerors secretly became tenants
+under them to parts of their former estates, ensuring thereby the
+connivance of their new landlords against their transplantation. On
+June 1, 1655, the commissioners for the affairs of Ireland (Fleetwood,
+lord deputy, one of them), being then at Limerick, discovered this
+fraud, and issued a peremptory order revoking all former dispensations
+for English proprietors to plant with Irish tenants; and they enjoined
+upon the governor of Limerick and all other officers the removing of
+the proprietors thus sheltered and their families into Connaught, on
+or before that day three weeks. But, happily, says Mr. Prendergast,
+all penal laws against a nation are difficult of execution. The
+officers still connived with many of the poor Irish gentry and
+sheltered them, which caused Fleetwood, then commander of the
+parliament forces in Ireland, upon his return to Dublin, and within a
+fortnight after the prescribed limit for their removal was expired,
+to thunder forth from Dublin Castle a severe reprimand to all
+officers thus offending. Their neglect to search for and apprehend
+the transplantable proprietors was denounced as a great dishonour and
+breach of discipline of the army; and their entertaining any of them
+as tenants was declared a hindrance to the planting of Ireland with
+English Protestants. 'I do therefore,' the order continued, 'hereby
+order and declare, that if any officer or soldier under my command
+shall offend by neglect of his duty in searching for and apprehending
+all such persons as by the declaration of November 30, 1654, are
+to transplant themselves into Connaught; or by entertaining them as
+tenants on his lands, or as servants under him, he shall be punished
+by the articles of war as negligent of his duty, according to the
+demerit of such his neglect.'
+
+The English parliament resolved to clear out the population of all
+the principal cities and seaport towns, though nearly all founded and
+inhabited by Danes or English, and men of English descent. In order to
+raise funds for the war, the following towns were offered to English
+merchants for sale at the prices annexed:--Limerick, with 12,000 acres
+contiguous, for 30,000 l., and a rent of 625 l. payable to the state;
+Waterford, with 1,500 acres contiguous, at the same rate; Galway, with
+10,000 acres, for 7,500 l., and a rent of 520 l.; Wexford, with 6,000
+acres, for 5,000 l., and a rent of 156 l. 4 s.
+
+There were no bidders; but still the Government adhered to its
+determination to clear out the Irish, and supply their place with a
+new English population. Artisans were excepted, but strictly limited
+in number, each case being particularly described and registered,
+while dispensations were granted to certain useful persons, on the
+petition of the settlers who needed their services.
+
+On July 8 in the same year, the governor of Clonmel was authorised to
+grant dispensations to forty-three persons in a list annexed, or as
+many of them as he should think fit, being artificers and workmen, to
+stay for such time as he might judge convenient, the whole time not
+to exceed March 25, 1655. On June 5, 1654, the governor of Dublin was
+authorised to grant licences to such inhabitants to continue in the
+city (notwithstanding the declaration for all Irish to quit) as he
+should judge convenient, the licences to contain the name, age,
+colour of hair, countenance, and stature of every such person; and the
+licence not to exceed twenty days, and the cause of their stay to
+be inserted in each licence. Petitions went up from the old native
+inhabitants of Limerick; from the fishermen of Limerick; from the
+mayor and inhabitants of Cashel, who were all ordered to transplant;
+but, notwithstanding these orders, many of them still clung about
+the towns, sheltered by the English, who found the benefit of their
+services.
+
+The deserted cities of course fell speedily into ruins. Lord
+Inchiquin, president of Munster, put many artisans, menial servants,
+grooms, &c. in the houses, to take care of them in Cork; still about
+3,000 good houses in that city, and as many in Youghal, out of which
+the owners had been driven, were destroyed by the soldiers, who used
+the timber for fuel. The council addressed the following letter to
+Secretary Thurloe:--
+
+  'Dublin Castle, March 4, 1656.
+
+'Right Honourable,--The council, having lately taken into their
+most serious consideration what may be most for the security of this
+country, and the encouragement of the English to come over and plant
+here, did think fitt that all Popish recusants, as wel proprietors
+as others, whose habitations are in any port-towns, walled-towns, or
+garrisons, and who did not before the 15th of September 1643 (being
+the time mentioned in the act of 1653 for the encouragement of
+adventurers and soldiers), and ever since profess the Protestant
+religion, should remove themselves and their families out of all such
+places, and two miles at the least distant therefrom, before the
+20th of May next; and being desirous that the English people may take
+notice, that by this means there will be both security and conveniency
+of habitation for such as shall be willing to come over as planters,
+they have commanded me to send you the enclosed declaration, and to
+desire you that you will take some course, whereby it may be made
+known unto the people for their encouragement to come over and plant
+in this country.
+
+  'Your humble servant,
+
+  'THOMAS HERBERT, Clerk of the Council.'
+
+On July 23, 1655, the inhabitants of Galway were commanded to quit the
+town for ever by the 1st of November following, the owners of houses
+getting compensation at eight years' purchase.
+
+'On October 30, this order was executed. All the inhabitants, except
+the sick and bedrid, were at once banished, to provide accommodation
+for English Protestants, whose integrity to the state should entitle
+them to be trusted in a place of such importance; and Sir Charles
+Coote, on November 7, received the thanks of the Government for
+clearing the town, with a request that he would remove the sick and
+bedrid as soon as the season might permit, and take care that the
+houses while empty were not spoiled by the soldiery. The town was thus
+made ready for the English. There was a large debt of 10,000 l., due
+to Liverpool for their loss and suffering for the good cause. The
+eminent deservings and losses of the city of Gloucester also had
+induced the parliament to order them 10,000 l., to be satisfied in
+forfeited lands in Ireland. The commissioners of Ireland now offered
+forfeited houses in Galway, rated at ten years' purchase, to the
+inhabitants of Liverpool and Gloucester, to satisfy their respective
+debts, and they were both to arrange about the planting of it with
+English Protestants. To induce them to accept the proposal, the
+commissioners enlarged upon the advantages of Galway. It lay open for
+trade with Spain, the Straits, the West Indies, and other places;
+no town or port in the three nations, London excepted, was more
+considerable. It had many noble uniform buildings of marble, though
+many of the houses had become ruinous by reason of the war, and the
+waste done by the impoverished English dwelling there. No Irish were
+permitted to live in the city, nor within three miles of it. If it
+were only properly inhabited by English, it might have a more hopeful
+gain by trade than when it was in the hands of the Irish that
+lived there. There never was a better opportunity of undertaking a
+plantation and settling manufacturers there than the present, and they
+suggested that it might become another Derry.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: The Cromwellian Settlement.]
+
+Some writers, sickened with the state of things in Ireland, and
+impatient of the inaction of our rulers, and of the tedious forms of
+constitutional government, have exclaimed: 'Oh for one day of Oliver
+Cromwell!' Well, Ireland had him and his worthy officers for many
+years. They had opportunities, which never can be hoped for again, of
+rooting out the Irish and their religion. '_Thorough_' was their word.
+They dared everything, and shrunk from no consequences. They found
+Dublin full of Catholics; and on June 19, 1651, Mr. John Hewson had
+the felicity of making the following report on the state of religion
+in the Irish metropolis:--
+
+'Mr. Winter, a godly man, came with the commissioners, and they flock
+to hear him with great desire; besides, there is in Dublin, since
+January last, about 750 Papists forsaken their priests and the masse,
+and attends the public ordinances, I having appointed Mr. Chambers,
+a minister, to instruct them at his own house once a week. They all
+repaire to him with much affection, and desireth satisfaction. And
+though Dublin hath formerly swarmed with Papists, I know none (now)
+there but one, who is a chirurgeon, and a peaceable man. It is much
+hoped the glad tidings of salvation will be acceptable in Ireland, and
+that this savage people may see the salvation of God.'
+
+Political economists tell us that when population is greatly thinned
+by war, or pestilence, or famine, Nature hastens to fill up the void
+by the extraordinary fecundity of those who remain. The Irish must
+have multiplied very fast in Connaught during the Commonwealth; and
+the mixture of Saxon and Celtic blood resulting from the union of the
+Cromwellian soldiers with the daughters of the land must have produced
+a numerous as well as a very vigorous breed in Wexford, Kilkenny,
+Tipperary, Waterford, Cork, East and West Meath, King's and Queen's
+Counties, and Tyrone. But these were not 'wholly a right seed.' This
+was to be found only in the union of English with English, newly
+arrived from the land of the free. The more precious this seed was,
+the more care there should be in bringing it into the field. This
+matter constituted one of the great difficulties of the plantation.
+There were plenty of Irish midwives: they might have been affectionate
+and careful, possibly skilful; but if they had any good quality, the
+council could not see it. On the contrary, it gave them credit
+for many bad qualities, the worst of all being their idolatry and
+disloyalty. It was really dreadful to think of English mothers and
+their infants being at the mercy of Irish nurses. Consequently, after
+much deliberation, and 'laying the matter before the Lord' in prayer,
+it was resolved to bring over a state nurse from England, and to her
+special care were to be entrusted all the _accouchements_ in the city
+of Dublin. Endowed with such a monopoly, it was natural enough that
+she should be an object of envy and dislike to those midwives whom she
+had supplanted. She was therefore annoyed and insulted while passing
+through the streets. To put a stop to these outrages, a proclamation
+was issued from Dublin Castle for her special protection, which began
+thus:--
+
+_By the Commissioners of Parliament for the Affairs of Ireland_.
+
+'Whereas we are informed by divers persons of repute and godliness,
+that Mrs. Jane Preswick hath, through the blessing of God, been very
+successful within Dublin and parts about, through the carefull and
+skillfull discharge of her midwife's duty, and instrumental to helpe
+sundry poore women who needed her helpe, which bathe abounded to the
+comfourte and preservation of many English women, who (being come
+into a strange country) had otherwise been destitute of due helpe,
+and necessitated to expose their lives to the mercy of Irish midwives,
+ignorant in the profession, and bearing little good will to any of
+the English nation, which being duly considered, we thought fitt to
+evidence this our acceptance thereof, and willingness that a person
+so eminently qualified for publique good and so well reported of
+for piety and knowledge in her art should receive encouragement and
+protection,' &c.
+
+Cromwell and his ministers did not hesitate about applying heroic
+remedies for what they conceived to be grievances. The Irish
+parliament was abolished, like the Irish churches, the Irish cities,
+and everything else that could be called Irish, except the thing for
+which they fought--_the land_, which was to be Irish no more. The new
+England which the Protector established in the Island of Saints
+was represented, like Scotland, in the united parliament at
+Westminster--which first assembled in 1657. In that parliament, Major
+Morgan represented the county of Wicklow. In speaking against some
+proposed taxation for Ireland, he said, among other things, the
+country was under very heavy charges for rewards paid for the
+destruction of three beasts--the wolf, the priest, and the tory. 'We
+have three beasts to destroy,' he said, 'that lay burdens upon us. The
+first is a wolf, on whom we lay 5 l. a head if a dog, and 10 l. if a
+bitch. The second beast is a priest, on whose head we lay 10 l.; if he
+be eminent, more. The third beast is a tory, on whose head, if he be
+a public tory, we lay 20 l.; and 40 s. on a private tory. Your army
+cannot catch them: the Irish bring them in; brothers and cousins cut
+one another's throats.'
+
+In May, 1653, the council issued the following printed declaration.
+'Upon serious consideration had of the great multitudes of poore
+swarming in all parts of this nacion, occasioned by the devastation
+of the country, and by the habits of licentiousness and idleness
+which the generality of the people have acquired in the time of this
+rebellion; insomuch that frequently some are found feeding on carrion
+and weeds,--some starved in the highways, and many times poor children
+who have lost their parents, or have been deserted by them, are found
+exposed to and some of them fed upon _by ravening wolves and other
+beasts and birds of prey._'
+
+No wonder the wolves multiplied and became very bold, when they fed
+upon such dainty fare as Irish children! By what infatuation, by what
+diabolical fanaticism were those rulers persuaded that they were
+doing God a service, or discharging the functions of a Government,
+in carrying out such a policy, and consigning human beings to such a
+fate!
+
+By a printed declaration of June 29, 1653, published July 1, 1656,[1]
+the commanders of the various districts were to appoint days and times
+for hunting the wolf; and persons destroying wolves and bringing their
+heads to the commissioners of the revenue of the precinct were to
+receive for the head of a bitch wolf, 6 _l_; of a dog wolf, 5 _l_; for
+the head of every cub that preyed by himself, 40 s.; and for the head
+of every sucking cub, 10 _s_: The assessments on several counties
+to reimburse the treasury for these advances became, as appears from
+Major Morgan's speech, a serious charge. In corroboration it appears
+that in March, 1655, there was due from the precinct of Galway 243
+l. 5 s. 4 d. for rewards paid on this account. But the most curious
+evidence of their numbers is that lands lying only nine miles north of
+Dublin were leased by the state in the year 1653, under conditions of
+keeping a hunting establishment with a pack of wolf hounds for killing
+the wolves, part of the rent to be discounted in wolves' heads, at
+the rate in the declaration of June 29, 1653. Under this lease Captain
+Edward Piers was to have all the state lands in the barony of Dunboyne
+in the county of Meath, valued at 543 l. 8 s. 8 d., at a rent greater
+by 100 l. a year than they then yielded in rent and contribution, for
+five years from May 1 following, on the terms of maintaining at Dublin
+and Dunboyne three wolf-dogs, two English mastiffs, a pack of hounds
+of sixteen couple (three whereof to hunt the wolf only), a knowing
+huntsman, and two men and one boy. Captain Piers was to bring to the
+commissioners of revenue at Dublin a stipulated number of wolf-heads
+in the first year and a diminishing number every year; but for every
+wolf-head whereby he fell short of the stipulated number, 5 l. was to
+be defalked from his salary.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: A/84, p.255. Republished 7th July, 1656.--'Book of
+Printed Declarations of the Commissioners for the Affairs of Ireland.'
+British Museum.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Cromwellian Settlement, p.154.]
+
+Twenty pounds was paid for the discovery of a priest, the second
+'burdensome beast,' and to harbour him was death. Again I avail myself
+of the researches of Mr. Prendergast, to give a few orders on this
+subject.
+
+'_August_ 4, 1654.--Ordered, on the petition of Roger Begs, priest,
+now prisoner in Dublin, setting forth his miserable condition by being
+nine months in prison, and desiring liberty to go among his friends
+into the country for some relief; that he be released upon giving
+sufficient security that within four months he do transport himself to
+foreign parts, beyond the seas, never to return, and that during that
+time he do not exercise any part of his priestly functions, nor move
+from where he shall choose to reside my above five miles, without
+permission. Ordered, same date, on the petition of William Shiel,
+priest, that the said William Shiel being old, lame, and weak, and
+not able to travel without crutches, he be permitted to reside in
+Connaught where the Governor of Athlone shall see fitting, provided,
+however, he do not remove one mile beyond the appointed place without
+licence, nor use his priestly function.'
+
+At first the place of transportation was Spain. Thus:--'_February_
+1, 1653. Ordered that the Governor of Dublin take effectual course
+whereby the priests now in the several prisons of Dublin be forthwith
+shipped with the party going for Spain; and that they be delivered
+to the officers on shipboard for that purpose: care to be taken that,
+under the colour of exportation, they be not permitted to go into the
+country.'
+
+'_May_ 29, 1654.--Upon reading the petition of the Popish priests
+now in the jails of Dublin; ordered, that the Governor of Dublin take
+security of such persons as shall undertake the transportation of
+them, that they shall with the first opportunity be shipped for some
+parts in amity with the Commonwealth, provided the five pounds for
+each of the said priests due to the persons that took them, pursuant
+to the tenor of a declaration dated January 6, 1653, be first paid or
+secured.'
+
+The commissioners give reasons for this policy, which are identical
+with what we hear constantly repeated at the present day in Ireland
+and England and in most of the newspapers conducted by Protestants.
+For two centuries the burden of all comments on Irish affairs is 'the
+country would be happy but for priests and agitators.' 'Hang or banish
+the priests!' cry some very amiable and respectable persons, 'and then
+we shall have peace.' 'We can make nothing of those priests,' says the
+improving landlord, or agent, 'they will not look us straight in the
+face.'
+
+On December 8, 1655, in a letter from the commissioners to the
+Governor of Barbadoes, advising him of the approach of a ship with a
+cargo of proprietors deprived of their lands, and then seized for not
+transplanting, or banished for having no visible means of support,
+they add that amongst them were three priests; and the commissioners
+particularly desire they may be so employed as they may not return
+again where that sort of people are able to do much mischief, having
+so great an influence over the Popish Irish, and alienating their
+affections from the present Government. 'Yet these penalties did not
+daunt them, or prevent their recourse to Ireland. In consequence of
+the great increase of priests towards the close of the year 1655, a
+general arrest by the justices of the peace was ordered, under which,
+in April, 1656, the prisons in every part of Ireland seem to have
+been filled to overflowing. On May 3, the governors of the respective
+precincts were ordered to send them with sufficient guards from
+garrison to garrison to Carrickfergus, to be there put on board such
+ship as should sail with the first opportunity for the Barbadoes. One
+may imagine the pains of this toilsome journey by the petition of one
+of them. Paul Cashin, an aged priest, apprehended at Maryborough,
+and sent to Philipstown on the way to Carrickfergus, there fell
+desperately sick, and, being also extremely aged, was in danger of
+perishing in restraint for want of friends and means of relief. On
+August 27, 1656, the commissioners, having ascertained the truth of
+his petition, ordered him sixpence a day during his sickness; and
+(in answer probably to this poor prisoner's prayer to be spared from
+transportation) their order directed that it should be continued to
+him in his travel thence (after his recovery) to Carrickfergus, in
+order to his transportation to the Barbadoes.'
+
+At Carrickfergus the horrors of approaching exile seem to have shaken
+the firmness of some of them; for on September 23, 1656, Colonel
+Cooper, who had the charge of the prison, reporting that several would
+under their hands renounce the Pope's supremacy, and frequent the
+Protestant meetings and no other, he was directed to dispense with the
+transportation, if they could give good Protestant security for the
+sincerity of their professions.
+
+As for the third beast--the tory, the following extract gives an idea
+of the class to which he belonged, or, rather, from which he sprang.
+
+'And whereas the children, grandchildren, brothers, nephews, uncles,
+and next pretended heirs of the persons attainted, do remain in
+the provinces of Leinster, Ulster, and Munster, having little or no
+visible estates or subsistence, but living only and coshering upon
+the common sort of people who were tenants to or followers of the
+respective ancestors of such persons, waiting an opportunity, as
+may justly be supposed, to massacre and destroy the English who, as
+adventurers or souldiers, or their tenants, are set down to plant upon
+the several lands and estates of the persons so attainted,' they
+are to transplant or be transported to the English plantations in
+America.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Act for Attainder of the Rebels in Ireland, passed 1656.
+Scobell's 'Acts and Ordinances.']
+
+No wonder that Mr. Prendergast exclaims:--
+
+'But how must the feelings of national hatred have been heightened,
+by seeing every where crowds of such unfortunates, their brothers,
+cousins, kinsmen, and by beholding the whole country given up a prey
+to hungry insolent soldiers and adventurers from England, mocking
+their wrongs, and triumphing in their own irresistible power!'
+
+Every possible mode of repression that has been devised at the
+present time as a remedy for Ribbonism was then tried with unflinching
+determination. John Symonds, an English settler, was murdered near
+the garrison town of Timolin, in the county Kildare. All the Irish
+inhabitants of the town and neighbourhood were immediately transported
+to Connaught as a punishment for the crime. A few months after two
+more settlers were murdered at Lackagh.
+
+'All the Irish in the townland of Lackagh were seized; four of them
+by sentence of court-martial were hanged for the murder, or for not
+preventing it; and all the rest, thirty-seven in number, including two
+priests, were on November 27 delivered to the captain of the "Wexford"
+frigate, to take to Waterford, there to be handed over to Mr. Norton,
+a Bristol merchant, to be sold as bond slaves to the sugar-planters in
+the Barbadoes. Among these were Mrs. Margery Fitzgerald, of the age
+of fourscore years, and her husband, Mr. Henry Fitzgerald of Lackagh;
+although (as it afterwards appeared) the tories had by their frequent
+robberies much infested that gentleman and his tenants--discovery that
+seems to have been made only after the king's restoration.'
+
+The penalties against the tories themselves were to allow them no
+quarter when caught, and to set a price upon their heads. The ordinary
+price for the head of a tory was 40 s.; for leaders of tories, or
+distinguished men, it varied from 5 l. to 30 l.
+
+'But,' continues Mr. Prendergast, 'a more effective way of suppressing
+tories seems to have been to induce them, as already mentioned,
+to betray or murder one another--a measure continued after the
+Restoration, during the absence of parliaments, by acts and orders
+of state, and re-enacted by the first parliament summoned after
+the Revolution, when in that and the following reigns almost every
+provision of the rule of the parliament of England in Ireland was
+re-enacted by the parliaments of Ireland, composed of the soldiers and
+adventurers of Cromwell's day, or new English and Scotch capitalists.
+In 1695 any tory killing two other tories proclaimed and on their
+keeping was entitled to pardon--a measure which put such distrust and
+alarm among their bands on finding one of their number so killed,
+that it became difficult to kill a second. Therefore, in 1718, it was
+declared sufficient qualification for pardon for a tory to kill one
+of his fellow-tories. This law was continued in 1755 for twenty-one
+years, and only expired in 1776. Tory-hunting and tory-murdering thus
+became common pursuits. No wonder, therefore, after so lengthened an
+existence, to find traces of the tories in our household words. Few,
+however, are now aware that the well-known Irish nursery rhymes have
+so truly historical a foundation:--
+
+  'Ho! brother Teig, what is your story?'
+  'I went to the wood and shot a tory:'
+  'I went to the wood, and shot another;'
+  'Was it the same, or was it his brother?'
+
+  'I hunted him in, and I hunted him out,
+  Three times through the bog, and about and about;
+  Till out of a bush I spied his head,
+  So I levelled my gun and shot him dead.'
+
+After the war of 1688, the tories received fresh accessions, and, a
+great part of the kingdom being left waste and desolate, they betook
+themselves to these wilds, and greatly discouraged the replanting of
+the kingdom by their frequent murders of the new Scotch and English
+planters; the Irish 'choosing rather' (so runs the language of
+the act) 'to suffer strangers to be robbed and despoiled, than to
+apprehend or convict the offenders.' In order, therefore, for the
+better encouragement of strangers to plant and inhabit the kingdom,
+any persons presented as tories, by the gentlemen of a county, and
+proclaimed as such by the lord lieutenant, might be shot as outlaws
+and traitors; and any persons harbouring them were to be guilty of
+high treason.[1] Rewards were offered for the taking or killing of
+them; and the inhabitants of the barony, of the ancient native race,
+were to make satisfaction for all robberies and spoils. If persons
+were maimed or dismembered by tories, they were to be compensated by
+10 l.; and the families of persons murdered were to receive 30 l.'
+
+[Footnote 1: The Cromwellian Settlement, p.163, &c.]
+
+The Restoration at length brought relief and enlargement to the
+imprisoned Irish nation. They rushed across the Shannon to see their
+old homes; they returned to the desolated cities, full of hope
+that the king for whom they had suffered so much would reward
+their loyalty, by giving them back their inheritances--the 'just
+satisfaction' promised at Breda to those who had been unfairly
+deprived of their estates. The Ulster Presbyterians also counted on
+his gratitude for their devotion to his cause, notwithstanding the
+wrongs inflicted on them by Strafford and the bishops in the name of
+his father. But they were equally doomed to disappointment. Coote
+and Broghill reigned in Dublin Castle as lords justices. The first
+parliament assembled in Dublin for twenty years, contained an
+overwhelming majority of undertakers, adventurers, and Puritan
+representatives of boroughs, from which all the Catholic electors
+had been excluded. 'The Protestant interest,' a phrase of tremendous
+potency in the subsequent history of Ireland, counted 198 members
+against 64 Catholics in the Commons, and in the Lords 72 against 21
+peers. A court was established under an act of parliament in Dublin,
+to try the claims of 'nocent' and 'innocent' proprietors. The judges,
+who were Englishmen, declared in their first session that 168 were
+innocent to 19 nocent. The Protestant interest was alarmed; and,
+through the influence of Ormond, then lord lieutenant, the duration of
+the court was limited, and when it was compelled to close its labours,
+only 800 out of 3,000 cases had been decided. If the proportions
+of nocent and innocent were the same, an immense number of innocent
+persons were deprived of their property. In 1675, fifteen years after
+the Restoration, the English settlers were in possession of 4,500,000
+acres, while the old owners retained 2,250,000 acres. By an act passed
+in 1665, it was declared that no Papist, who had not already been
+adjudged innocent, should ever be entitled to claim any lands or
+settlements.'
+
+Any movement on the part of the Roman Catholics during this reign,
+and indeed, ever since, always raised an alarm of the 'Protestant
+interest' in danger. While the panic lasted the Catholics were
+subjected to cruel restrictions and privations. Thus Ormond, by
+proclamation, prohibited Catholics from entering the castle of Dublin,
+or any other fortress; from holding fairs or markets within the walls
+of fortified towns, and from carrying arms to such places. By another
+proclamation, he ordered all the _relatives_ of known 'tories' to be
+arrested and banished the kingdom, within fourteen days, unless such
+tories were killed or surrendered within that time. There was one tory
+for whose arrest all ordinary means failed. This was the celebrated
+Redmond O'Hanlon, still one of the most popular heroes with the Irish
+peasantry. He was known on the continent as Count O'Hanlon, and was
+the brother of the owner of Tandragee, now the pretty Irish seat of
+the Duke of Manchester. As no one would betray this outlaw, who levied
+heavy contributions from the settlers in Ulster, it was alleged
+and believed that the viceroy hired a relative to shoot him. 'Count
+O'Hanlon,' says Mr. D. Magee, 'a gentleman of ancient lineage, as
+accomplished as Orrery, or Ossory, was indeed an outlaw to the code
+then in force; but the stain of his cowardly assassination must for
+ever blot the princely escutcheon of James, Duke of Ormond.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See 'The Tory War of Ulster,' by John P. Prendergast,
+author of 'The Cromwellian Settlement.' This pamphlet abounds in the
+most curious information, collected from judicial records, descriptive
+of Ireland from the Restoration to the Revolution--A.D. 1660-1690.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE PENAL CODE, A NEW SYSTEM OF LAND-WAR.
+
+
+The accession of James II. was well calculated to have an intoxicating
+effect on the Irish race. He was a Catholic, he undertook to effect
+a counter-reformation. He would restore the national hierarchy to the
+position from which it had been dragged down and trampled under the
+feet of the Cromwellians. He would give back to the Irish gentry and
+nobility their estates; and to effect this glorious revolution, he
+relied upon the faith and valour of the Irish. The Protestant militia
+were disarmed, a Catholic army was formed; the corporations were
+thrown open to Catholics. Dublin and other corporations, which refused
+to surrender their exclusive charters, were summarily deprived of
+their privileges; Catholic mayors and sheriffs, escorted by troops,
+went in state to their places of worship. The Protestant chancellor
+was dismissed to make way for a Catholic, Baron Rice. The plate
+of Trinity College was seized as public property. The Protestants,
+thoroughly alarmed by these arbitrary proceedings, fled to England in
+thousands. Many went to Holland and joined the army of the Prince of
+Orange. Dreadful stories were circulated of an intended invasion of
+England by wild Irish regiments under Tyrconnel. There was a rumour of
+another massacre of the English, and of the proposed repeal of the
+act of settlement. Protestants who could not cross the channel fled to
+Enniskillen and to Derry, which closed its gates and prepared for its
+memorable siege. James, who had fled to France, plucked up courage
+to go to Ireland, and make a stand there in defence of his crown.
+His progress from Kinsale to Dublin was an ovation. Fifteen royal
+chaplains scattered blessings around him; Gaelic songs and dances
+amused him; he was flattered in Latin orations, and conducted to his
+capital under triumphal arches. In Dublin the trades turned out with
+new banners; two harpers played at the gate by which he entered; the
+clergy in their robes chanted as they went: and forty young girls,
+dressed in white, danced the ancient _rinka_, scattering flowers on
+the newly sanded streets. Tyrconnell, now a duke, the judges, the
+mayor and the corporation, completed the procession, which moved
+beneath arches of evergreens, and windows hung with 'tapestry and
+cloth of arras.' The recorder delivered to his majesty the keys of the
+city, and the Catholic primate, Dominick Maguire, waited in his robes
+to conduct him to the royal chapel, where the _Te Deum_ was sung. On
+that day the green flag floated from the main tower of the castle,
+bearing the motto, 'Now or never--now and for ever.'
+
+The followers of James, according to Grattan, 'though papists, were
+not slaves. They wrung a constitution from King James before they
+accompanied him to the field.' A constitution wrung from such a man
+was not worth much. His parliament passed an act for establishing
+liberty of conscience, and ordering every man to pay tithes to his own
+clergy only, with some other measures of relief. But he began to
+play the despot very soon. The Commons voted him the large subsidy of
+20,000 l. He doubled the amount by his own mere motion. He established
+a bank, and by his own authority decreed a bank monopoly. He debased
+the coinage, and fixed the prices of merchandise by his own will.
+He appointed a provost and librarian in Trinity College without the
+consent of the senate, and attempted to force fellows and scholars on
+the university contrary to the statutes. The events which followed
+are well known to all readers of English history. Our concern is with
+their effects on the land question.
+
+One of the measures passed by this parliament was an act repealing the
+act of settlement. But, soon after the Revolution, measures were taken
+to render that settlement firmer than ever. A commission was appointed
+to enquire into the forfeited estates; and the consequence was that
+1,060,792 acres were declared escheated to the crown. In 1695 King
+William, in his speech, read to the Irish parliament, assured
+them that he was intent upon the firm settlement of Ireland upon a
+Protestant basis. He kept his word, for when he died there did not
+remain in the hands of Catholics one-sixth of the land which their
+grandfathers held, even after the passing of the act of settlement.
+The acts passed for securing the Protestant interest formed the series
+known as the penal code, which was in force for the whole of the
+eighteenth century. It answered its purpose effectually; it reduced
+the nation to a state of poverty, degradation, and slavishness of
+spirit unparalleled in the history of Christendom, while it made the
+small dominant class a prodigy of political and religious tyranny.
+Never was an aristocracy, as a body, more hardened in selfishness,
+more insolent in spirit; never was a church more negligent of duty,
+more intensely and ostentatiously secular. Both church and state
+reeked with corruption.
+
+The plan adopted for degrading the Catholics, and reducing all to one
+plebeian level, was most ingenious. The ingenuity indeed may be said
+to be Satanic, for it debased its victims morally as well as socially
+and physically. It worked by means of treachery, covetousness,
+perfidy, and the perversion of all natural affections. The trail of
+the serpent was over the whole system. For example, when the last Duke
+of Ormond arrived as lord lieutenant in 1703, the Commons waited on
+him with a bill 'for discouraging the further growth of Popery,' which
+became law, having met his decided approval. This act provided that
+if the son of a Catholic became a Protestant, the father should be
+incapable of selling or mortgaging his estate, or disposing of any
+portion of it by will. If a child ever so young professed to be a
+Protestant, it was to be taken from its parents, and placed under the
+guardianship of the nearest Protestant relation.
+
+The sixth clause renders Papists incapable of purchasing any manors,
+tenements, hereditaments, or any rents or profits arising out of the
+same, or of holding any lease of lives, or other lease whatever, for
+any term exceeding thirty-one years. And with respect even to such
+limited leases, it further enacts, that if a Papist should hold a farm
+producing a profit greater than _one-third of the amount of the rent_,
+his right to such should immediately cease, and pass over entirely
+to the first Protestant who should discover the rate of profit. The
+seventh clause prohibits Papists from succeeding to the properties or
+estates of their Protestant relations. By the tenth clause, the estate
+of a Papist, not having a Protestant heir, is ordered to be gavelled,
+or divided in equal shares between _all_ his children. The sixteenth
+and twenty-fourth clauses impose the oath of abjuration, and the
+sacramental test, as a qualification for office, and for voting at
+elections. The twenty-third clause deprives the Catholics of Limerick
+and Galway of the protection secured to them by the articles of the
+treaty of Limerick. The twenty-fifth clause vests in the crown all
+advowsons possessed by Papists.
+
+A further act was passed, in 1709, imposing additional penalties. The
+first clause declares that no Papist shall be capable of holding an
+annuity for life. The third provides, that the child of a Papist, on
+conforming, shall at once receive an annuity from his father; and that
+the chancellor shall compel the father to discover, upon oath, the
+full value of his estate, real and personal, and thereupon make an
+order for the support of such conforming child or children, and for
+securing such a share of the property, after the father's death, as
+the court shall think fit. The fourteenth and fifteenth clauses secure
+jointures to Popish wives who shall conform. The sixteenth prohibits
+a Papist from teaching, even as assistant to a Protestant master. The
+eighteenth gives a salary of 30 l. per annum to Popish priests who
+shall conform. The twentieth provides rewards for the discovery of
+Popish prelates, priests, and teachers, according to the
+following whimsical scale:--For discovering an archbishop, bishop,
+vicar-general, or other person, exercising any foreign ecclesiastical
+jurisdiction, 50 l.; for discovering each regular clergyman, and each
+secular clergyman, not registered, 20 l.; and for discovering each
+Popish schoolmaster or usher, 10 l.
+
+In judging the Irish peasantry, we should try to estimate the effects
+of such a system on any people for more than a century. It will
+account for the farmer's habit of concealing his prosperity, and
+keeping up the appearance of poverty, even if he had not reason for it
+in the felonious spirit of appropriation still subsisting under legal
+sanction. We are too apt to place to the account of race or religion
+the results of malignant or blundering legislation. We are not without
+examples of such results in England itself.
+
+In the winter of 1831-2, a very startling state of things was
+presented. In a period of great general prosperity, that portion of
+England in which the poor laws had their most extensive operation, and
+in which by much the largest expenditure of poor-rates had been made,
+was the scene of daily riot and nightly incendiarism. There were
+ninety-three parishes in four counties, of which the population was
+113,147, and the poor-law expenditure 81,978 l., or 14 s. 5 d. per
+head; and there were eighty parishes in three other counties, the
+population of which was 105,728, and the poor-law expenditure 30,820
+l., or 5 s. 9 d. a head. In the counties in which the poor-law
+expenditure was large, the industry and skill of the labourers were
+passing away, the connection between the master and servant had become
+precarious, the unmarried were defrauded of their fair earnings,
+and riots and incendiarism prevailed. In the counties where the
+expenditure was comparatively small, there was scarcely any instance
+of disorder; mutual attachment existed between the workman and his
+employer; the intelligence, skill, and good conduct of the labourers
+were unimpaired, or increased. This striking social contrast was only
+a specimen of what prevailed throughout large districts, and generally
+throughout the south and north of England, and it proved that, either
+through the inherent vice of the system, or gross mal-administration
+in the southern counties, the poor-law had the most demoralising
+effect upon the working classes, while it was rapidly eating up the
+capital upon which the employment of labour depended. This fact was
+placed beyond question by a commission of enquiry, which was composed
+of individuals distinguished by their interest in the subject, and
+their intimate knowledge of its principles and details. Its labours
+were continued incessantly for two years. Witnesses most competent to
+give information were summoned from different parts of the country.
+The commissioners had before them documentary evidence of every kind
+calculated to throw light on the subject. They personally visited
+localities, and examined the actual operation of the system on the
+spot; and when they could not go themselves, they called to their aid
+assistant commissioners, some of whom extended their enquiries into
+Scotland, Guernsey, France, and Flanders; while they also collected a
+vast mass of interesting evidence from our ambassadors and diplomatic
+agents in different countries of Europe and America. It was upon the
+report of this commission of enquiry that the act was founded for the
+amendment and better administration of the laws relating to the poor
+in England and Wales (4 and 5 William IV., cap. 76). A more solid
+foundation for a legislative enactment could scarcely be found. The
+importance of the subject fully warranted all the expense and labour
+by which it was obtained.
+
+One of the most astounding facts established by the enquiry was the
+wide-spread demoralisation which had developed itself in certain
+districts. Home had lost its sanctity. The ties that bind parents and
+children were loosened, and natural affection gave place to intense
+selfishness, which often manifested itself in the most brutal manner.
+Workmen grew lazy and dishonest. Young women lost the virtue which is
+not only the point of honour with their sex, but the chief support of
+all other virtues. Not only women of the working classes, but in some
+cases even substantial farmers' daughters, and sometimes those who
+were themselves the actual owners of property, had their illegitimate
+children as charges on the parish, regularly deducting the cost
+of their maintenance from their poor-rate, neither they nor their
+relatives feeling that to do so was any disgrace. The system must
+have been fearfully vicious that produced such depravation of moral
+feeling, and such a shocking want of self-respect.
+
+Dr. Burn has given a graphic sketch of the duties of an overseer
+under the old poor-law system in England. 'His office is to keep an
+extraordinary watch to prevent people from coming to inhabit without
+certificates; to fly to the justices to remove them. Not to let anyone
+have a farm of 10 l. a year. To warn the parishioners, if they would
+have servants, to hire them by the month, the week, or the day, rather
+than by any way that can give them a settlement; or if they do hire
+them for a year, then to endeavour to pick a quarrel with them before
+the year's end, and so to get rid of them. To maintain their poor as
+cheaply as they possibly can, and not to lay out twopence in prospect
+of any future good, but only to serve the present necessity. To
+bargain with some sturdy person to take them by the lump, who yet is
+not intended to take them, but to hang over them _in terrorem_, if
+they shall complain to the justices for want of maintenance. To
+send them out into the country a begging. To bind out poor children
+apprentices, no matter to whom, or to what trade; but to take special
+care that the master live in another parish. To move heaven and earth
+if any dispute happen about a settlement; and, in that particular,
+to invert the general rule, and stick at no expense. To pull down
+cottages: _to drive out as many inhabitants, and admit as few, as they
+possibly can; that is, to depopulate the parish, in order to lessen
+the poor's-rate_. To be generous, indeed, sometimes, in giving a
+portion with the mother of a bastard child to the reputed father,
+on condition that he will marry her, or with a poor widow, _always
+provided that the husband_ be settled elsewhere; or if a poor man with
+a large family happen to be industrious, they will charitably assist
+him in taking a farm in some neighbouring parish, and give him 10 l.
+to pay his first year's rent with, that they may thus for ever get rid
+of him and his progeny.'
+
+The effect of this system was actually to depopulate many parishes.
+The author of a pamphlet on the subject, Mr. Alcock, stated that the
+gentlemen were led by this system to adopt all sorts of expedients
+to hinder the poor from marrying, to discharge servants in their
+last quarter, to evict small tenants, and pull down cottages; so
+that several parishes were in a manner depopulated, while England
+complained of a want of useful hands for agriculture, manufactories,
+for the land and sea service. 'When the minister marries a couple,' he
+said, 'he rightly prays that they may be fruitful in the procreation
+of children; but most of the parishioners pray for the very contrary,
+and perhaps complain of him for marrying persons, that, should they
+have a family of children, might likewise become chargeable.' Arthur
+Young also described the operation of the law in his time, in
+clearing off the people, and causing universally 'an open war against
+cottages.' Gentlemen bought them up whenever they had an opportunity,
+and immediately levelled them with the ground, lest they should become
+'nests of beggars' brats.' The removal of a cottage often drove the
+industrious labourer from a parish where he could earn 15 s. a week,
+to one where he could earn but 10 s. As many as thirty or forty
+families were sent off by removals in one day. Thus, as among the
+Scotch labourers of the present day, marriage was discouraged; the
+peasantry were cleared off the land, and increasing immorality was the
+necessary consequence.
+
+There was another change in the old system, by which the interests of
+the influential classes were made to run in favour of the 'beggars'
+nests,' which were soon at a premium. The labourer was to be paid,
+not for the value of his labour, but according to the number of his
+family; the prices of provisions being fixed by authority, and the
+guardians making up the difference between what the wages would buy
+and what the family required.
+
+The allowance scales issued from time to time were framed on the
+principle that every labourer should have a gallon loaf of standard
+wheaten bread weekly for every member of his family, and one over. The
+effect of this was, that a man with six children, who got 9 s. a week
+wages, required nine gallon loaves, or 13 s. 6 d. a week, so that he
+had a pension of 4 s. 6 d. over his wages. Another man, with a wife
+and five children, so idle and disorderly that no one would employ
+him, was entitled to eight gallon loaves for their maintenance, so
+that he had 12 s. a week to support him. The increase of allowance
+according to the number of children acted as a direct bounty upon
+marriage. The report of the Committee of the House of Commons on
+labourers' wages, printed in 1824, describes the effect of this
+allowance system in paralysing the industry of the poor. 'It is
+obvious,' remarked the committee, 'that a disinclination to work must
+be the consequence of so vicious a system. He whose subsistence
+is secure without work, and who cannot obtain more than a mere
+sufficiency by the hardest work, will naturally be an idle and
+careless labourer. Frequently the work done by four or five such
+labourers does not amount to what might easily be performed by a
+single labourer at task work. A surplus population is encouraged: men
+who receive but a small pittance know that they have only to marry and
+that pittance will be increased proportionally to the number of their
+children. When complaining of their allowance, they frequently say,
+"We will marry, and then you must maintain us." This system secures
+subsistence to all; to the idle as well as the industrious; to the
+profligate as well as the sober; and, as far as human interests are
+concerned, all inducements to obtain a good character are taken away.
+The effects have corresponded with the cause: able-bodied men
+are found slovenly at their work, and dissolute in their hours of
+relaxation; a father is negligent of his children, the children do not
+think it necessary to contribute to the support of their parents;
+the employer and employed are engaged in personal quarrels; and the
+pauper, always relieved, is always discontented. Crime advances with
+increasing boldness; and the parts of the country where this system
+prevails are, in spite of our gaols and our laws, filled with poachers
+and thieves.' Mr. Hodges, chairman of the West Kent quarter sessions,
+in his evidence before the emigration committee, said, 'Formerly,
+working people usually stayed in service till they were twenty-five,
+thirty, and thirty-five years of age, before they married; whereas
+they now married frequently under age. Formerly, these persons
+had saved 40 l. and 50 l. before they married, and they were never
+burdensome to the parish; now, they have not saved a shilling before
+their marriage, and become immediately burdensome.'
+
+The farmers were not so discontented with this allowance system as
+might be supposed, because a great part of the burden was cast upon
+other shoulders. The tax was laid indiscrimately upon all fixed
+property; so that the occupiers of villas, shopkeepers, merchants, and
+others who did not employ labourers, had to pay a portion of the wages
+for those that did. The farmers were in this way led to encourage a
+system which fraudently imposed a heavy burden upon others, and which,
+by degrading the labourers, and multiplying their numbers beyond the
+real demand for them, must, if allowed to run its full course, have
+ultimately overspread the whole country with the most abject poverty
+and wretchedness.
+
+There was another interest created which tended to increase the evil.
+In the counties of Suffolk, Sussex, Kent, and generally through
+all the south of England, relief was given in the shape of house
+accommodation, or free dwellings for the poor. The parish officers
+were in the habit of paying the rent of the cottages; the rent was
+therefore high and sure, and consequently persons who had small pieces
+of ground were induced to cover them with those buildings. On this
+subject Mr. Hodges, the gentleman already referred to, remarks: 'I
+cannot forbear urging again that any measure having for its object the
+relief of the parishes from their over population, must of necessity
+become perfectly useless, unless the act of parliament contains some
+regulations with respect to the erecting and maintaining of cottages.
+I am quite satisfied that the erecting of cottages has been a most
+serious evil throughout the country. The getting of the cottage tempts
+young people of seventeen and eighteen years of age, and even younger,
+to marry. It is notorious that almost numberless cottages have been
+built by persons speculating on the parish rates for their rents.'
+
+The evils of this system had reached their height in the years 1831-2.
+That was a time when the public mind was bent upon reforms of all
+sorts, without waiting for the admission from the Tories that the
+grievances of which the nation complained were 'proved abuses.' The
+reformers were determined no longer to tolerate the state of things,
+in which the discontent of the labouring classes was proportioned to
+the money disbursed in poor-rates, or in voluntary charities; in
+which the young were trained in idleness, ignorance, and vice--the
+able-bodied maintained in sluggish and sensual indolence--the aged
+and more respectable exposed to all the misery incident to dwelling
+in such society as that of a large workhouse without discipline or
+classification--the whole body of inmates subsisting on food far
+exceeding both in kind and amount, not merely the diet of the
+independent labourer, but that of the majority of the persons who
+contributed to their support. The farmer paid 10 s. in the pound in
+poor-rates, and was in addition compelled to employ supernumerary
+labourers not required on his farm, at a cost of from 100 l. to 250 l.
+a year; the labourer had no need to hasten himself to seek work, or to
+please his master, or to put a restraint upon his temper, having all
+the slave's security for support, without the slave's liability to
+punishment. The parish paid parents for nursing their little children,
+and children for supporting their aged parents, thereby destroying
+in both parties all feelings of natural affection and all sense of
+Christian duty.
+
+I hope I shall be excused in giving, from a former work of my own,
+these home illustrations to prove that bad laws can degrade and
+demoralize a people in a comparatively short time, in spite of race
+and creed and public opinion; and that, where class interests are
+involved, the most sacred rights of humanity are trampled in the mire
+of corruption. Even now the pauperism resulting of necessity from the
+large-farm system is degrading the English people, and threatening to
+rot away the foundations of society. On this subject I am glad to find
+a complete corroboration of my own conclusions in a work by one of the
+ablest and most enlightened Christian ministers in England, the Rev.
+Dr. Rigg. He says:--
+
+'Notwithstanding a basis of manly, honest, and often generous
+qualities, the common character of all the uneducated and unelevated
+classes of the English labouring population includes, as marked
+and obvious features, improvidence, distrust of their superiors,
+discontent at their social position, and a predominant passion for
+gross animal gratification. Of this general character we regard the
+rude, heavy, unhopeful English peasant, who knows no indulgence
+or relaxation but that of the ale-house, and lives equally without
+content and without ambition, as affording the fundamental
+type, which, like all other things English, possesses a marked
+individuality. It differs decidedly from the Irish type of peasant
+degradation. Something of this may be due to the effect of race. The
+Kelt and the Saxon may be expected to differ. Yet we think but little
+stress is to be laid upon this. There is, probably, much more Keltic
+blood in the southern and western counties of England, and, also, more
+Saxon blood in some of the southern and even western parts of
+Ireland, than has been generally supposed. We apprehend that a Saxon
+population, under the same conditions as the southern and western
+Irish peasantry, would have grown up into very much the same sort of
+people as the Irish have been; while a Keltic population, exposed to
+the same influences, through successive generations, as the midland
+and southern peasantry of England, would not have been essentially
+different at the present day from the actual cultivators of the soil.
+
+'The Irish peasant is poorer and yet more reckless than the
+Englishman; but he is not so sullen or so spiritless. His body is not
+so muscular or so strongly-set as that of the Anglo-Saxon husbandman,
+on whose frame the hard and unintermitted toil of thirty generations
+has stamped its unmistakable impress, and, correspondently, he is a
+less persevering and less vigorous labourer; but, as a general rule,
+his stature is taller and his step far more free and elastic than that
+of the sturdy but slow and stunted labourer of our southern counties.
+There are wild mountainous districts of the west, indeed, in which
+the lowest type of the Irish peasantry is found, that must be taken
+as exceptions to our general statement; and as many from those regions
+cross the Channel to tramp through England in the complex character
+of mendicant labourers, no doubt some have received from them an
+impression as to the Irish peasantry very different from what our
+observations are intended to convey. But no one can have travelled
+through the south of Ireland without having noticed what we state. The
+Tipperary and Kilkenny peasantry are proverbially tall; Connemara has
+been famed for its "giants," and many of both sexes throughout the
+south, are, spite of their rags, fine figures, and graceful in their
+movements. While looking at them, we have ceased to wonder at what has
+been regarded as no better than the arch-agitator's blarney, when he
+spoke of the Irish as the "finest pisantry in the world;" and we have
+even felt saddened as we mentally contrasted with what we saw before
+us the bearing and appearance of our own southern labourers. For
+the tattered Irish peasant, living in a mud hovel, is, after all, a
+gentleman in his bearing; whereas there is generally either a cringing
+servility or a sullen doggedness in the demeanour of the south
+Saxon labourer. The Irishman is, besides, far more intelligent and
+ready-witted than the Saxon husbandman. The fact is that the Irishman,
+if underfed, has not been overworked. His life has not been one of
+unceasing and oppressive labour. Nor has his condition been one
+of perpetual servitude. With all his poverty, he has been, to a
+considerable extent, his own master. Half-starved, or satisfying his
+appetite on light and innutritious fare,--far worse housed and
+clad than the poorest English labourer, often, indeed, almost
+half-naked,--oppressed by middle-men, exactors of rack-rent; with
+all this the Irish cottier has been, from father to son, and
+from generation to generation, _a tenant, and not merely a day
+labourer_.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: 'Essays for the Times, on Ecclesiastical and Social
+Subjects,' by James H. Rigg, D.D. London, 1866.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+ULSTER IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
+
+
+Let us, then, endeavour to get rid of the pernicious delusions about
+race and religion in dealing with this Irish land question. Identity
+of race and substantial agreement in religion did not prevent the
+Ulster landlords from uprooting their tenants when they fancied it was
+their interest to banish them--to substitute grazing for tillage, and
+cattle for a most industrious and orderly peasantry.
+
+The letters of Primate Boulter contain much valuable information on
+the state of Ulster in the last century, and furnish apt illustrations
+of the land question, which, I fancy, will be new and startling to
+many readers. Boulter was lord primate of Ireland from 1724 to 1738.
+He was thirteen times one of the lords justices. As an Englishman and
+a good churchman, he took care of the English interests and of the
+establishment. The letters were written in confidence to Sir Robert
+Walpole and other ministers of state, and were evidently not intended
+for publication. An address 'to the reader' from some friend, states
+truly that they give among other things an impartial account of 'the
+distressed state of the kingdom for want of _tillage_, the vast sums
+of money sent out of the nation for corn, flour, &c., the dismal
+calamities thereon, the want of trade and the regulation of the
+English and other coins, to the very great distress of all the
+manufacturers,' &c. They show that he was a man of sound judgment,
+public-spirited, and very moderate and impartial for the times in
+which he lived. His evidence with regard to the relations of landlord
+and tenant in Ulster is exceedingly valuable at the present moment.
+Lord Dufferin could not have read the letters when he wrote his book;
+otherwise I should think his apology for the landlords of the last
+century would have been considerably modified.
+
+Primate Boulter repeatedly complained to Walpole, the Duke of
+Newcastle, and other ministers, that the Ulster farmers were deserting
+the country in large numbers, emigrating to the United States, then
+British colonies, to the West Indies, or to any country where they
+hoped to get the means of living, in many cases binding themselves
+to work for a number of years _as slaves_ in payment of their passage
+out. The desire to quit the country of their birth is described by the
+primate as a mania. Writing to the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1728 he
+says:--'We are under great trouble here about a frenzy that has taken
+hold of very great numbers to leave this country for the West Indies,
+and we are endeavouring to learn what may be the reasons of it, and
+the proper remedies.' Two or three weeks later he reported to the Duke
+of Newcastle that for several years past some agents from the colonies
+in America, and several masters of ships, had gone about the country
+'and deluded the people with stories of great plenty and estates to
+be had for going for in those parts of the world.' During the previous
+summer more than 3,000 men, women, and children had been shipped
+for the West Indies. Of these, not more than one in ten were men of
+substance. The rest hired themselves for their passage, or contracted
+with masters of ships for four years' servitude, 'selling themselves
+as servants for their subsistence.' The whole north was in a ferment,
+people every day engaging one another to go next year to the West
+Indies. 'The humour,' says the primate, 'has spread like a contagious
+distemper, and the people will hardly hear anybody that tries to
+cure them of their madness. The worst is that it affects only
+_Protestants_, and reigns chiefly in the North, which is the seat of
+our linen manufacture.'
+
+As the Protestant people, the descendants of the English and Scotch
+who had settled in the country in the full assurance that they were
+building homes for their posterity, were thus deserting those homes in
+such multitudes, their pastors sent a memorial to the lord lieutenant,
+setting forth the grievances which they believed to be the cause of
+the desertion. On this memorial the primate wrote comments to the
+English Government, and, in doing so, he stated some astounding
+facts as to the treatment of the people by their landlords. He was a
+cautious man, thoroughly acquainted with the facts, and writing under
+a sense of great responsibility. In order to understand some of those
+facts, we should bear in mind that the landlords had laid down large
+portions of their estates in pasture, to avoid the payment of tithes,
+and that this burden was thrown entirely upon the tenants who tilled
+the land. Now, let my readers mark what the primate states as to their
+condition. He says:--'If a landlord takes too great a portion of the
+profits of a farm for his share by way of rent (as the tithe will
+light on the tenant's share), the tenant will be impoverished; but
+then it is not the tithe, but the increased rent that undoes the
+farmer. And, indeed, in this country, where I fear the tenant hardly
+ever has more than one-third of the profits he makes of his farm for
+his share, and too often but a _fourth_, or, perhaps, a _fifth part_,
+as the tenant's share is charged with the tithe, his case is, no
+doubt, hard, but it is plain from what side the hardship arises.' What
+the gentlemen wanted to be at, according to the primate, was, that
+they might go on raising their rents, and that the clergy should
+receive their old payments. He admits, however, that the tenants were
+sometimes cited to the ecclesiastical courts, and if they failed to
+appear there, they stood excommunicated; and he adds, 'possibly when a
+writ _de excommunicato capiendo_ is taken out, and they find they have
+7 l. or 8 l. to pay, _they run away_, for the greatest part of the
+occupiers of the land here are so poor, that an extraordinary stroke
+of 8 l. or 10 l. falling on them is certain ruin to them.' He further
+states that, to his own knowledge, many of the clergy had chosen
+rather to lose their 'small dues' than to be at a certain great
+expense in getting them, 'and at an uncertainty whether the farmer
+would not at last _run away without paying anything_.'
+
+Such was the condition of the Protestants of Ulster during the era of
+the penal code; and it is a curious fact that it was the Presbyterians
+and not the Catholics that were forced by the exactions of the
+Protestant landlords and the clergy to run away from the country which
+their forefathers had been brought over to civilize. But there was
+another fact connected with the condition of Ulster which I dare say
+will be almost incredible to many readers. The tenantry, so cruelly
+rack-rented and impoverished, were reduced by two or three bad seasons
+to a state bordering upon famine. There was little or no corn in the
+province. The primate set on foot a subscription in Dublin, to which
+he himself contributed very liberally. The object was to buy food to
+supply the necessities of the north, and to put a stop to 'the great
+desertion' they had been threatened with. He hoped that the landlords
+would 'do _their_ part by remitting some arrears, or making some
+abatement of their rents.' As many of the tenants had eaten the oats
+they should have sowed their lands with, he expected the landlords
+would have the good sense to furnish them with seed; if not, a great
+deal of land would lie waste that year. And where were the provisions
+got? Partly in Munster, where corn was very cheap and abundant. But
+the people of Cork, Limerick, Waterford, and Clonmel objected to have
+their provisions sent away, although they were in some places 'as
+cheap again as in the north; but where dearest, at least one-third
+part cheaper.' Riotous mobs broke open the store-houses and cellars,
+setting what price they pleased upon the provisions. And, what between
+those riots and the prevalence of easterly winds, three weeks elapsed
+before the 3,000 l. worth of oats, oatmeal, and potatoes could be got
+down to relieve the famishing people of the north, which then seemed
+black enough, even to its own inhabitants. Hence the humane primate
+was obliged to write: 'The humour of going to America still continues,
+and the scarcity of provisions certainly makes many quit us. There
+are now seven ships at Belfast that are carrying off 1,000 passengers
+thither, and if we knew how to stop them, as most of them can neither
+get victuals nor work at home, it would be cruel to do it.'
+
+The Presbyterian clergy suffered greatly from the impoverishment of
+their people. Several of them who had been receiving a stipend of
+50 l. a year, had their incomes reduced to less than 15 l. In their
+distress they appealed to the primate, and, staunch churchman as he
+was, they found in him a kind and earnest advocate. Writing to Sir
+Robert Walpole, on March 31, 1729, he pleaded for the restoration of
+400 l. a year, which had been given to the non-conforming clergy
+of Ireland from the privy purse, in addition to the 1,200 l. royal
+bounty, which, it appears, had been suspended for two years, owing
+to the death of the late king. 'They are sensible,' said his grace,
+'there is nothing due to them, nor do they make any such claim; but as
+the calamities of this kingdom are at present very great, and by the
+desertion of many of their people to America, and the poverty of the
+greatest part of the rest, their contributions, particularly in the
+north, are very much fallen off, it would be a great instance of his
+majesty's goodness if he would consider their present distress.' In
+our own days a Presbyterian minister would be considered to deserve
+well of his country if he emigrated to America, and took with him as
+many of the people as he could induce to forsake their native land.
+But what was the great plea which Primate Boulter urged on the English
+Minister on behalf of the Presbyterian clergy of his day? It was, that
+they had exerted their influence to prevent emigration. 'It is,'
+he said, 'but doing them justice to affirm that they are very
+well affected to his majesty and his royal family, and by the best
+enquiries I could make, do their best endeavours to keep their
+congregations from deserting the country, not more than one or two
+of the younger ministers having anyways encouraged the humour now
+prevailing here. And his majesty's goodness in giving them some
+extraordinary relief on this occasion of their present great distress
+would undoubtedly make them _more active to retain their people here_.
+I cannot help mentioning on this occasion that, what with scarceness
+of corn in the north, _and the loss of all credit there_, and by
+the numbers that go, or talk of going, to America, and with the
+disturbances in the south, this kingdom is at present in a deplorable
+condition.'
+
+In a statement previously made to the Bishop of London, the Irish
+primate earnestly solicited his correspondent to use his influence
+to prevent the Irish landlords from passing a law to strip the
+established clergy of their rights with respect to the tithe of
+agistment. They had entered into a general combination, and formed a
+stock purse to resist the payment of tithe, except by the poor
+tenants who tilled the soil, a remarkable contrast to the zeal of
+the landlords of our own time in defending church property against
+'spoliation' by the imperial legislature, and to the liberality with
+which many of them are now contributing to the Sustentation Fund.
+How shall we account for the change? Is it that the landlords of the
+present day are more righteous than their grandfathers? Or is it that
+the same principle of self-interest which led the proprietors of past
+times to grind the tenantry and rob the Church, now operates in forms
+more consistent with piety and humanity, and by its subtle influence
+illustrates the maxim of the poet--
+
+  Self-love and social is the same.
+
+However that may be, the primate contented himself in this letter
+with a defence of the Church, in which he admitted matters of real
+grievance, merely alluding to other grievances, 'such as raising
+the rents unreasonably, the oppression by justices of the peace,
+seneschals, and other officers in the country.'
+
+From the pictures of the times he presents we should not be surprised
+at his statement to the Duke of Newcastle, that the people who went
+to America made great complaints of the oppressions they suffered, and
+said that those oppressions were one reason of their going. When he
+went on his visitation, in 1726, he 'met all the roads full of whole
+families that had left their homes to beg abroad,' having consumed
+their stock of potatoes two months before the usual time. During the
+previous year many hundreds had perished of famine. What was the cause
+of this misery, this desolating process going on over the plains of
+Ulster? The archbishop accounts for it by stating that many persons
+had let large tracts of land, from 3,000 to 4,000 acres, which were
+stocked with cattle, and had no other inhabitants on their land than
+so many cottiers as were necessary to look after their sheep and black
+cattle, '_so that, in some of the finest counties, in many places
+there is neither house nor cornfield to be seen in ten or fifteen
+miles' travelling_, and daily in some counties many gentlemen, as
+their leases fall into their hands, tie up their tenants from tillage;
+and this is one of the main causes why so many venture to go into
+foreign service at the hazard of their lives if taken, because they
+cannot get land to till at home.'
+
+My readers should remember that the industrious, law-abiding,
+bible-loving, God-fearing people, who were thus driven by oppression
+from the fair fields of Ulster, which they had cultivated, and
+the dwellings which they had erected, to make way for sheep and
+cattle--because it was supposed by the landlords that sheep and cattle
+paid better--were the descendants of British settlers who came to the
+country under a royal guarantee _of freeholds and permanent tenures_.
+Let them picture to their minds this fine race of honest, godly
+people, rack-rented, crushed, evicted, heart-broken--men, women, and
+children--Protestants, Saxons, cast out to perish as the refuse of the
+earth, by a set of landed proprietors of their own race and creed; and
+learn from this most instructive fact that, if any body of men has
+the power of making laws to promote its own interest, no instincts of
+humanity, no dictates of religion, no restraints of conscience can
+be relied upon to keep them from acting with ruthless barbarity,
+and doing more to ruin their country than a foreign invader could
+accomplish by letting loose upon it his brutal soldiers. How much
+more earnestly would Boulter have pleaded with the prime minister of
+England on behalf of the wretched people of Ulster if he could have
+foreseen that ere long those Presbyterian emigrants, with the sense
+of injustice and cruel wrong burning in their hearts, would be found
+fighting under the banner of American independence--the bravest and
+fiercest soldiers of freedom which the British troops encountered in
+the American war. History is continually repeating itself, yet how
+vainly are its lessons taught! The same legal power of extermination
+is still possessed by the Irish landlords after sixty-nine years of
+imperial legislation. Our hardy, industrious people, naturally as well
+disposed to royalty as any people in the world, are still crowding
+emigrant ships in all our ports, deserting their country with the same
+bitter feelings that animated the Ulster men a century ago, hating our
+Government with a mortal hatred, and ready to fight against it under
+a foreign flag! We have no Primate Boulter now in the Protestant
+hierarchy to plead the cause of an unprotected tenantry; but we have
+the press, which can concentrate upon the subject the irresistible
+force of public opinion.
+
+As a churchman, Primate Boulter naturally regarded the land question
+in its bearings on the interests of the Establishment. Writing to Sir
+Robert Walpole in 1737 he said that he had in vain represented to the
+landlords that, by destroying the tithe of agistment, they naturally
+discouraged tillage, lessened the number of people, and raised the
+price of provisions. By running into cattle they caused the young men
+to enlist in foreign service for bread, there being no employment for
+them at home, 'where two or three hands can look after some hundreds
+of acres stocked with cattle.' And by this means, said the primate, 'a
+great part of our churches are neglected; in many places five, six, or
+seven parishes bestowed on one incumbent, who, perhaps, with all
+his tithes, scarce gets 100 l. a year.' But there was at that time a
+member of the Irish House of Commons who was capable of taking a more
+enlarged view of the Irish question. This was Mr. Arthur Dobbs, who
+belonged to an old and honourable Ulster family--the author of a book
+on the 'North-west Passage to India,' and of a very valuable work on
+the 'Trade of Great Britain and Ireland.' He was intimately acquainted
+with the working of the Irish land system, for he had been many years
+agent of the Hertfort estate, one of the largest in Ireland. There
+is among Boulter's letters an introduction of Mr. Dobbs to Sir Robert
+Walpole, recommending him as a person of good sense, who had applied
+himself to the improvement of trade, and to the making of our colonies
+in America of more advantage than they had hitherto been. He was
+afterwards made Governor of North Carolina. I have mentioned these
+facts in the hope of securing the attention of landlords and statesmen
+to the following passage from his book accounting for the deplorable
+condition of the province of Ulster at that time, and the emigration
+of its industrious and wealth-producing inhabitants. In my humble
+opinion it furnishes irresistible arguments in favour of a measure
+which should settle the Irish land question in such a manner that it
+would speak to the people of Ireland in the words of holy writ:
+'And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant
+vineyards and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build and another
+inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat.' Mr. Dobbs says:--
+
+'How can a tenant improve his land when he is convinced that, after
+all his care and toil, his improvements will be overrated, and he
+will be obliged to shift for himself? Let us place ourselves in his
+situation and see if we should think it reasonable to improve for
+another, if those improvements would be the very cause of our being
+removed from the enjoyment of them. I believe we should not. Industry
+and improvements go very heavily on when we think we are not to have
+the property in either. What can be expected, then, from covenants to
+improve and plant, when the person to do it knows he is to have _no
+property in them_? There will be no concern or care taken to preserve
+them, and they will run to ruin as fast as made or planted. What was
+it induced so many of the commonalty lately to go to America but high
+rents, bad seasons, and want of good tenures, or a permanent property
+in their land? This kept them poor and low, and they scarce had
+sufficient credit to procure necessaries to subsist or till their
+ground. They never had anything to store, all was from hand to mouth;
+so one or two bad crops broke them. Others found their stock dwindling
+and decaying visibly, and so removed before all was gone, while they
+had as much left as would pay their passage, and had little more than
+what would carry them to the American shore.
+
+'This, it may be allowed, was the occasion of the poor farmers going
+who had their rents lately raised. But it may be objected that was not
+the reason why rich farmers went, and those who had several years in
+beneficial leases still unexpired, who sold their bargains and removed
+with their effects. But it is plain they all went for the same reason;
+for these last, from _daily examples before them_, saw the present
+occupiers dispossessed of their lands at the expiration of their
+leases, and no preference given to them; so they expected it would
+soon be their own case, to avoid which, and make the most of the years
+still unexpired, they sold, and carried their assets with them to
+procure a settlement in a country where they had reason to expect a
+permanent property.'
+
+It is a curious fact that sentiments very similar were published by
+one of Cromwell's officers about a century before. The plea which
+he put forth for the Irish tenant in the dedication of his work on
+Ireland to the Protector, has been repeated ever since by the tenants,
+but repeated in vain: Captain Bligh, the officer alluded to, said:
+'The first prejudice is, that if a tenant be at ever so great pains or
+cost for the improvement of his land, he doth thereby but occasion a
+greater rack-rent upon himself, or else invests his landlord with his
+cost and labour _gratis_, or at least lies at his landlord's mercy for
+requital; which occasions a neglect of all good husbandry, to his own,
+the land, the landlord, and the commonwealth's suffering.' Now, this,
+I humbly conceive, might be removed, if there were a law enacted, by
+which every landlord should be obliged either to give him reasonable
+allowance for his clear improvement, or else suffer him _or his_
+to enjoy it so much longer or till he hath had a proportionable
+requital.'
+
+But although Primate Boulter protested against the conduct of the
+landlords--all Episcopalians--who were ruining the church as well as
+the country, the established clergy, as a body, were always on the
+side of the oppressors.
+
+The Test Act placed the Presbyterians, like the Papists, in the
+position of an inferior race. 'In the city of Londonderry alone, which
+Presbyterian valour had defended, ten out of twelve aldermen,
+and twenty out of twenty-four burgesses, were thrust out of the
+corporation by that act, which placed an odious mark of infamy upon
+at least one-half the inhabitants of the kingdom.' Presbyterians could
+not legally keep a common school. The _Edinburgh Review_ says: 'All
+the settlements, from first to last, had the effect of making the
+cause of the church and the cause of the landlords really one. During
+the worst days of landlord oppression it never identified itself with
+the interests of the people, but uniformly sustained the power and
+privileges of the landlords.'
+
+It was vain to expect justice from the Irish parliament. The people
+of Ireland never were governed exclusively, or at all, by her own
+Sovereign, her own Lords, and her own Commons. Ireland was 'in the
+custody of England,' just as much before the Union as during the last
+sixty-seven years. Even during the few brief years of her spasmodic
+'independence,' the mass of the nation formed no part of the 'Commons
+of Ireland.' It was still, as it always had been, a sham parliament--a
+body representing the colonial aristocracy--acting as undertakers for
+the Government of England, for whose interest exclusively this island
+was to be ruled. Provided this result was secured, it did not matter
+much, at the other side of the Channel, how the Irish people were
+treated. Indeed, they were not recognised as the people of Ireland,
+or any part thereof. Even philosophic liberals, like Lord Charlemont,
+were shocked at the idea of a Papist getting into the Irish House
+of Commons; and the volunteer system was shattered by this insane
+animosity of the ruling race against the subject nation. The antipathy
+was as strong as the antipathy between the whites and the negroes in
+the West Indies and the United States. Hence the remorseless spirit in
+which atrocities were perpetrated in 1798. Mr. Daunt has shown that a
+large proportion of the Irish House of Lords consisted of men who were
+English to all intents and purposes--many of them by birth, and many
+by residence, and, no doubt, they always came over with reluctance to
+what Lord Chancellor Clare called 'our damnable country.' It may be
+that in some years after the abolition of the Establishment--after
+some experience of the _regime_ of religious equality--the two races
+in this island will learn to act together so harmoniously as to give a
+fair promise that they could be safely trusted with self-legislation.
+But the '_self_' must be one body animated by one spirit; not
+two bodies, chained together, irritated by the contact, fiercely
+struggling against one another, eternally reproaching one another
+about the mutual wrongs of the past, and not unfrequently coming
+to blows, like implacable duellists shut up in a small room, each
+determined to kill or be killed. If England were to let go her hold
+even now, something like this would be the Irish 'situation.' The
+abiding force of this antipathy, in the full light of Christianity, is
+awful.
+
+In his 'Life, Letters, and Speeches of Lord Plunket,' the Hon.
+David Plunket states that, when his grandfather entered the Irish
+parliament, 'the English Government had nearly abandoned the _sham_
+of treating the Irish parliament as an independent legislature; the
+treasury benches were filled with placemen and pensioners. All efforts
+tending to reform of parliament or concession to the Catholics had
+been given up as useless. Grattan and some of his immediate followers
+had seceded from an assembly too degraded to appreciate their motives,
+or to be influenced by their example; and whatever remained of
+independence in the House of Commons ministers still laboured to bring
+under their control. Scarcely thirty votes appeared in opposition
+on the most important divisions, while Government could at any time
+readily whip a majority of 100.'
+
+According to a Government return made in 1784, by Pitt's direction,
+116 nomination seats were divided between some 25 proprietors. Lord
+Shannon returned no less than 16 members, and the great family of
+Ponsonby returned 14; Lord Hillsborough, 9, the Duke of Leinster,
+7, and the Castle itself 12. Eighty-six seats were _let out_ by the
+owners, in consideration of titles, offices, and pensions. No less
+than 44 seats were occupied by placemen, 32 by gentlemen who had
+promises of pensions, 12 by gentlemen who stood out for higher prices
+from Government. The regular opposition appears to have been limited
+to 82 votes, of which 30 belonged to Whig nominees, and the rest to
+the popular party.
+
+It is, then, easy to account for the state of public feeling which Mr.
+Plunket, with these facts and figures before him, so well describes.
+He says truly that if it were possible to appeal to the country under
+these circumstances, the people would not have responded. 'Gloomy
+and desperate, they had lost all confidence in their parliament,
+and looked to other quarters for deliverance from the _intolerable
+tyranny_ under which they suffered. There can be no doubt that
+this anarchy and disgrace were in a great degree the result of a
+misgovernment, ancient and recent, _which seems to have been always
+adopted with a view to bring out strongly the worst elements of the
+Irish character_; but it was at that time said, and no doubt believed
+by the Opposition, that the ministry of the day had deliberately
+planned and accomplished the disorganisation of the Irish people and
+their parliament, in order to enable them to carry out their favourite
+project of the Union.'
+
+Mr. Plunket, after describing the classes of 'representatives' that
+his grandfather had to deal with in the Irish House of Commons,
+further says: 'It is true that this corrupt assembly cannot fairly be
+looked upon as the mirror of national character and national honour.
+The members of the majority who voted for the Union _were not_
+the representatives of the people, _but the hired servants of the
+Minister, for the Parliament had been packed for the purpose_.'
+
+Towards the close of the century, however, the French Revolution,
+the American war, and the volunteer movement, had begun to cause
+some faint stirring of national life in the inert mass of the Roman
+Catholic population, which the penal code had '_dis-boned_.' Up
+to this time they were not even thought of in the calculations of
+politicians. According to Dean Swift, Papists counted no more in
+politics than the women and children. Macaulay uses a still more
+contemptuous comparison to express the estimate in which they were
+held in those times, saying, that their lords and masters would as
+soon have consulted their poultry and swine on any political question.
+Nevertheless, during the excitement of the volunteer movement, some
+of the poor Celts began to raise their heads, and presumed to put the
+question to the most liberal portion of the ruling race--'Are we not
+men? Have not we also some rights?' The appeal was responded to in the
+Irish parliament, and in 1793 the elective franchise was conceded to
+Roman Catholics. It was the first concession, and the least that could
+be granted. But the bare proposal excited the utmost indignation in
+the Tory party, and especially in the Dublin corporation, where
+the Orange spirit was rampant. That body adopted an address to the
+Protestants of Ireland, which bears a remarkable resemblance in its
+spirit and style to addresses lately issued by Protestant Defence
+Associations. Both speak in the kindest terms of their Roman Catholic
+fellow-subjects, disclaim all intention of depriving them of any
+advantages they enjoy under our glorious constitution, declaring that
+their objects are purely _defensive_, and that they want merely to
+guard that constitution against the aggressions of the Papacy quite as
+much for the sake of Roman Catholics as for the sake of Protestants.
+'Countrymen and friends,' said the Dublin Tories, seventy-five years
+ago, 'the firm and manly support which we received from you when we
+stood forward in defence of the Protestant Ascendancy, deserves our
+warmest thanks. We hoped that the sense of the Protestants of Ireland,
+declared upon that occasion, would have convinced our Roman Catholic
+fellow-subjects that the pursuit of political power was for them a
+vain pursuit; for, though the liberal and enlightened mind of the
+Protestant receives pleasure at seeing the Catholic exercise his
+religion with freedom, enjoy his property in security, and possess
+the highest degree of personal liberty, yet, experience has taught us
+that, without the ruin of the Protestant establishment, the Catholic
+cannot be allowed the smallest influence in the state.'
+
+Those men were as thoroughly convinced as their descendants,
+who protest against concession to-day, that all our Protestant
+institutions would go to perdition, if Papists, although then mere
+serfs, were allowed to vote for members of parliament. They were
+equally puzzled to know why Roman Catholics were discontented, or what
+more their masters could reasonably do for them to add to the enviable
+happiness of their lot. 'We entreat you,' the Dublin corporation said
+to their Protestant brethren throughout the country--'we entreat you
+to join with us in using every honest means of persuading the Roman
+Catholics to rest content with the most perfect toleration of their
+religion, the fullest security of their property, and the most
+complete personal liberty; but, by no means, now or hereafter, to
+attempt any interference in the government of the kingdom, as such
+interference would be incompatible with the Protestant Ascendancy,
+which we have resolved with our lives and fortunes to maintain.'
+Lest any doubt should exist as to what they meant by 'Protestant
+Ascendancy,' they expressly defined it. They resolved that it
+consisted in a Protestant King of Ireland; a Protestant Parliament,
+Protestant electors and Government; Protestant benches of justice;
+a Protestant hierarchy; the army and the revenue, through all their
+branches and details, Protestant; and this system supported by a
+connection with the Protestant realm of Britain.
+
+The power of the political franchise to elevate a degraded people, to
+convert slaves into men, is exhibited before the eyes of the present
+generation in the Southern States of America; even where differences
+of race and colour are most marked, and where the strongest natural
+antipathies are to be overcome. We may judge from this what must
+have been the effect of this concession on the Irish Celts. The
+forty-shilling freeholders very soon became objects of consideration
+with their landlords, who were anxious to extend their political
+influence in their respective counties, for the representation of
+which the great proprietors had many a fierce contest. The abolition
+of this franchise by the Emancipation Act made that measure a
+grievance instead of a relief to the peasantry, for the landlords were
+now as anxious to get rid of the small holders as they had been to
+increase them so long as they served their political purpose. It was
+one of the great drawbacks which deprived emancipation of the healing
+effect it would otherwise have produced. If--as Pitt intended--that
+measure had formed part of the Union arrangements; if the
+forty-shilling freeholders had been spared, and the priesthood had
+been endowed, we should never have had an agitation for repeal or even
+for the separation of the church from the state. Pitt's plan of the
+Union included the abolition of Protestant Ascendancy.
+
+Edmund Burke, in one of his letters on Ireland, said: 'A word has
+been lately struck in the mint of the castle of Dublin. Thence it was
+conveyed to the Tholsel, or city hall, where having passed the touch
+of the corporation, so respectably stamped and vouched, it soon became
+current in parliament, and was carried back by the speaker of the
+House of Commons, in great pomp, as an offering of homage from whence
+it came. That word is Ascendancy. The word is not absolutely new.' He
+then gives its various meanings, and first shows what it does _not_
+signify in the new sense. Not influence obtained by love or reverence,
+or by superior management and dexterity; not an authority derived from
+wisdom or virtue, promoting the happiness and freedom of the Roman
+Catholic people; not by flattering them, or by a skilful adaptation to
+their humours and passions. It means nothing of all these. Burke then
+shows what it does mean. 'New ascendancy is old mastership. It is
+neither more nor less than the resolution of one sect of people in
+Ireland to consider themselves the sole citizens in the commonwealth,
+and to keep a dominion over the rest, by reducing them to absolute
+slavery under a military power; and thus fortified in their power, to
+divide the public estate, which is the result of general contribution,
+as a military booty, solely among themselves. This ascendancy,
+by being a _Protestant_ ascendancy, does not better it, from a
+combination of a note or two more in this anti-harmonic scale. By
+the use that is frequently made of the term, and the policy that is
+grafted on it, the name Protestant becomes nothing more or better than
+the name of a persecuting faction, with a relation of some sort of
+theological hostility to others, but without any sort of ascertained
+tenets of its own, upon the ground of which it persecutes other men;
+for the patrons of this Protestant ascendancy neither do nor can,
+by anything positive, define or describe what they mean by the word
+Protestant.... The whole is nothing but pure and perfect malice. It
+is indeed a perfection in that kind, belonging to beings of a higher
+order than man, and to them we ought to leave it.... Let three
+millions of people but abandon all that they and their ancestors have
+been taught to believe sacred, and to forswear it publicly in terms
+the most degrading, and nothing more is required of them.... The word
+_Protestant_ is the charm that locks up in a dungeon of servitude
+three millions of people.
+
+Every thoughtful reader of the debates in parliament on the state of
+Ireland, must have been struck with the difference of opinion between
+the Liberals and the Conservatives, as to the facts of the case. A
+still more violent difference was presented in the British parliament,
+in the year 1797, when there were great debates in both houses on the
+subject, and when the facts were still more glaring, one of them being
+that the reign of terror established by the Irish Government prevented
+the press from reporting the maddening atrocities which the ruling
+faction was daily perpetrating against the mass of the king's
+subjects. The debate arose in the Lords, on a motion by Lord Moira
+for an address to the king on the state of Ireland. He described the
+horrors of which he had been recently a witness, but softened the
+recital, lest he should shock his hearers too much. Orange loyalty
+was then licensed and let loose upon the defenceless Roman Catholic
+population in Ulster. Lord Gosford's description of the scenes of
+desolation in his own county, Armagh, is well known. He did what
+he could to prevent the burning of Roman Catholic houses, and the
+personal injuries inflicted upon the unfortunate inhabitants, while
+their Orange neighbours chased them out of the country, giving them
+Cromwell's alternative. But his mercy injured his reputation, and he
+felt obliged to protest solemnly that he was a loyal man, and that he
+wished to uphold Protestant ascendancy in Ireland as much as any of
+his accusers. He only asked that the poor Catholic should be allowed
+to live in peace. In the debate referred to, Lord Moira declared that
+ninety-one householders had been banished from one of his own estates;
+and many of them wounded in their persons. The discontent, he said,
+was not confined to one sect. He ascribed the state of things to the
+recall of Lord Fitzwilliam, which crushed the hopes of the Catholics,
+and gave unbounded licence to the yeomanry, who were empowered to act
+with a vigour beyond the law; to turn out, banish, or kill the king's
+subjects, on mere suspicion, often prompted by private malice, and
+having no better warrant than anonymous information. But for all this
+the Irish parliament and the new reactionary viceroy freely granted
+acts of indemnity. According to Earl Fitzwilliam 'whole parishes,
+baronies, and even counties, were declared to be out of the king's
+peace.'
+
+Mr. Fox brought forward a similar motion in the House of Commons,
+pleading the cause of justice and humanity in a noble speech, and
+boldly affirming principles of government for Ireland, which
+Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Chichester Fortescue, and Mr. Bright are now
+endeavouring to have carried out by the imperial parliament after
+seventy years of concession, extorted by three rebellions. Mr. Fox
+expressed his abhorrence of 'the truly diabolical maxim' of '_Divide
+el impera_,' by which the government of Ireland was conducted. He
+hoped that the discontent which threatened the separation of Ireland
+would be dissipated without the necessity of war. 'But now,' he said,
+'the extremity of rigour has been tried--the severity of despotism has
+been let loose--and the Government is driven to that state when the
+laws are not to be put into execution, but to be superseded.' The
+motion was seconded by Sir Francis Burdett, who said: 'Whoever has
+seen Ireland, has seen a country where the fields are desolated, and
+the prisons overflowing with the victims of oppression--has seen the
+shocking contrast between a profligate, extravagant Government, and
+an enslaved and impoverished people.' The motion was rejected by
+a majority of 136. Lord Moira made a last and an almost despairing
+appeal on November 22, in the same year. In his speech he said:
+'I have seen in that country a marked distinction made between the
+English and the Irish. I have seen troops that have been sent full of
+this prejudice, that every inhabitant of that kingdom is a rebel to
+the British Government. I have seen the most wanton insults practised
+upon men of all ranks and conditions. I have seen the most grievous
+oppression exercised, in consequence of a presumption that the person
+who was the unfortunate object of such oppression was in hostility to
+the Government; and yet that has been done in a part of the country
+as quiet and as free from disturbance as the city of London. He who
+states these things should be prepared with proofs. I am prepared with
+them.' He then went into a number of horrifying details, and concluded
+as follows: 'You say that the Irish are insensible to the benefits
+of the British constitution, and you withhold all these benefits from
+them. You goad them with harsh and cruel punishments, and a general
+infliction of insult is thrown upon the kingdom. I have seen, my
+lords, a conquered country held by military force; _but never did I
+see in any conquered country such a tone of insult as has been adopted
+by Great Britain towards Ireland_. I have made a last effort. I acquit
+my conscience; I have done my duty.'
+
+In subsequent debates, the following sentiments were uttered by the
+leading Whig statesmen of the day: 'The treatment of Ireland,' said
+Mr. Fox, 'was such as to harrow up the soul. It was shocking to think
+that a nation of brothers was thus to be trampled on like the most
+remote colony of conquered strangers.... The Irish people have been
+scourged by the iron hand of oppression, and subjected to the horrors
+of military execution, and are now in a situation too dreadful for the
+mind to contemplate without dismay. After the inhuman dragooning
+and horrible executions, the recital of which makes the blood run
+cold--after so much military cruelty, not in one, but in almost every
+part of the country--is it possible for this administration to procure
+unanimity in Ireland?' On March 22, 1798, the Duke of Bedford moved an
+address to the king, asking him to change his ministers, and alluding
+to the state of Ireland, as it was before the breaking out of the
+Rebellion. He said: 'Were I to enter into a detail of the atrocities
+which have been committed in Ireland, the picture would appal the
+stoutest heart. It could be proved that the most shocking cruelties
+have been perpetrated; but what could be expected if men kept in
+strict discipline were all at once allowed to give loose to their fury
+and their passions?'
+
+Lord Holland was persuaded that his majesty's ministers could not
+tranquillise Ireland even by conciliation. 'How could they conciliate
+whose concessions are always known to be the concessions of weakness
+and of fear, and who never granted to the Irish--the most generous
+people upon earth,--anything without a struggle or resistance?' Lord
+William Russell, in June following, said: 'A man's loyalty was to
+be estimated by the desire he testified to imbrue his hands in his
+brother's blood.' Sheridan asked: 'After being betrayed, duped,
+insulted--disappointed in their dearest hopes, and again thrown into
+the hands of the rulers they detested and despised, was it impossible
+they should feel emotions of indignation? The struggle is not one of
+partial disaffection, but it is a contest between the people and the
+Government.' Mr. Tierney said: 'It was certain the people were in arms
+against the Government, nor was it easy to conceive how--having been
+scourged, burnt, and massacred--they could have any other feeling than
+aversion to that Government.'
+
+Every motion on the subject in both houses was rejected by
+overwhelming majorities. So little impression did the reports of the
+appalling facts which were of daily occurrence in Ireland make upon
+that Tory Government, that the speeches of ministers read exactly like
+the speeches of Mr. Disraeli, Mr. Hardy, Lord Mayo, and Mr. Warren,
+in the past session. Lord Grenville, the home secretary, professed the
+most profound respect for the independence of the Irish parliament,
+and he could not think of interfering in the least with its
+privileges, however the empire might suffer from its excesses.
+'The motion of Lord Moira was not only unnecessary, it was highly
+mischievous.' He dwelt on the improved state of Ireland, and the
+tranquillity of the people. If there were partial excesses on the part
+of the military, they were unavoidable, and could only be deplored.
+'He was unable to discern what should alienate the affections of
+Ireland. For the whole space of thirty years his majesty's Government
+had been distinguished by the same uniform tenderness of regard,
+by the same undeviating adherence to the mild principles of a
+conciliatory system.... If any cruelties had been practised, they must
+have been resisted by a high-spirited people. Were there no courts of
+justice? The conduct of the lord lieutenant was highly commendable.
+The system recommended by Lord Moira would only tend to villify the
+Irish Government.' Then came the fatal announcement which sounded
+the death-knell of thousands of the Irish people, and caused the
+destruction of millions' worth of property. The home secretary said:
+'The contrary system must, therefore, be persevered in; and to
+the spirited exertions of the British military should we owe the
+preservation of Irish laws, of Irish property, and of Irish lives!'
+
+To this the Marquis of Downshire added 'that he was not afraid of the
+effects of coercion. Every concession had been made that could be made
+towards Ireland. Every Catholic was as free as the safety of the
+state would admit. Were the Catholics to have an equal share in the
+government with the Protestants, the Government and the country would
+be lost.'
+
+I will conclude by quoting the remarks of Mr. Fox, referred to above:
+'If you do not allay their discontent, there is no way but force to
+keep them in obedience. Can you convince them by the musket that their
+principles are false? Can you prove to them by the bayonet that their
+pretensions are unjust? Can you demonstrate to them by martial law
+that they enjoy the blessings of a free constitution? No, it is said,
+but they may be deterred from the prosecution of the objects which you
+have determined to refuse. But on what is this founded? On the history
+of Ireland itself? No; for the history of Ireland proves that, though
+repeatedly subdued, it could not be kept in awe by force; and the
+late examples will prove the effect which severity may be expected
+to produce.... I would therefore concede; and if I found I had not
+conceded enough, I would concede more. I know of no way of governing
+mankind, but by conciliating them.... My wish is that the whole people
+of Ireland should have the same principles, the same system, the same
+operation of government. ... I would have the whole Irish government
+regulated by Irish notions and Irish prejudices; and I firmly
+believe, according to an Irish expression, the more she is under Irish
+government, the more she will be bound to English interests. ... I
+say, therefore, try conciliation, but do not have recourse to arms.'
+He warned and implored in vain. The Union had been determined on; and
+it was thought that it could be effected only after the prostration of
+civil war, into which, therefore, the unfortunate people were goaded.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+POVERTY AND COERCION.
+
+
+We are now in the nineteenth century, without any relief for the Irish
+peasantry. The rebellion of '98, so cruelly crushed, left an abiding
+sense of terror in the hearts of the Roman Catholic population.
+Their condition was one of almost hopeless prostration. The Union was
+effected without the promised relief from their religious disabilities
+which was to be one of its essential conditions. The established
+church was secured, the rights of property were secured, but there was
+no security for the mass of the people. Domestic politics were almost
+forgotten in the gigantic struggle with Napoleon, which exhausted
+the energies of the empire. Any signs of political life that showed
+themselves in Ireland were connected with Catholic emancipation, and
+the visit of George IV., in 1820, held forth promises of relief which
+excited unbounded joy. The king loved his Irish subjects, and would
+never miss an opportunity of realising the good wishes for their
+happiness which he had so often and so fervently expressed to his Whig
+friends, when he was Prince Regent. O'Connell's agitation commenced
+soon after, and in nine years after the royal visit emancipation was
+extorted by the dread of civil war, frankly avowed by the Duke of
+Wellington and Sir Robert Peel. But this boon left the masses nearly
+where they had been, only more conscious of their power, and more
+determined to use it, in the removal of their grievances.
+
+Lord Redesdale, writing to Lord Eldon in 1821, said:--'In England
+the machine goes on almost of itself, and therefore a bad driver
+may manage it tolerably well. It is not so in Ireland. The country
+requires great exertion to bring it into a state of order and
+submission to law. The whole population--high and low, rich and poor,
+Catholic and Protestant--must all be brought to obedience to law; all
+must be taught to look up to the law for protection. The gentry are
+ready enough to attend grand juries, to obtain presentments for their
+own benefit, but they desert the quarter-sessions of the peace. The
+first act of a constable in arresting must not be to knock down the
+prisoner; and many, many reforms must be made, which only can be
+effected by a judicious and able Government _on the spot_. Ireland, in
+its present state, cannot be governed in England. If insubordination
+compels you to give, how are you to retain by law what you propose to
+maintain while insubordination remains? It can only be by establishing
+completely the empire of the law.'
+
+Sir Archibald Alison ascribed the unhappy relations of classes in
+Ireland to what he calls 'the atrocious system of confiscation, which,
+in conformity with feudal usages, the victors introduced on every
+occasion of rebellion against their authority.' Sir George Nicholls
+has shown, in his valuable history of the Irish poor law, that as
+early as 1310 the parliament assembled at Kilkenny resolved that none
+should keep Irish, or kern, in time of peace to live upon the poor of
+the country; 'but those which will have them shall keep them at their
+own charges, so that the free tenants and farmers be not charged with
+them.' And 130 years afterwards, the parliament assembled in Dublin
+declared that divers of the English were in the habit of maintaining
+sundry thieves, robbers, and rebels, and that they were to be adjudged
+traitors for so doing, and suffer accordingly. In 1450, this class
+of depredators had increased very much, and by their 'thefts and
+manslaughters caused the land to fall into decay, poverty wasting it
+every day more and more; whereupon it was ordained that it should
+be lawful for every liege man to kill or take notorious thieves, and
+thieves found robbing, spoiling, or breaking houses; and that every
+man that kills or takes any such thieves shall have one penny of every
+plough, and one farthing of every cottage within the barony where the
+manslaughter is done, for every thief.' These extracts show a very
+barbarous state of society, but Sir George Nicholls remarks that
+at the same period the condition of England and Scotland was very
+similar, save only that that of Ireland was aggravated by the civil
+conflicts between the colonists and the natives. There were some
+efforts made in Ireland, by various enactments, to put down this evil,
+and to provide employment for the large numbers that were disposed to
+prey upon the industry of their neighbours, by robbery, beggary, and
+destruction of property. But while there was a legal provision made
+for the poor in England, there was none in Ireland, where the people
+were, _en masse_, deprived of the means of self-support by the action
+of the Government. Hence, so late as the year 1836, the poor-law
+commissioners reported to the following effect:--
+
+It appeared that in Great Britain the agricultural families
+constituted little more than a fourth, whilst in Ireland they
+constituted about two-thirds, of the whole population; that there
+were in Great Britain, in 1831, 1,055,982 agricultural labourers;
+in Ireland, 1,131,715, although the cultivated land of Great Britain
+amounted to about 34,250,000 acres and that of Ireland only to about
+14,600,000. So that there were in Ireland about five agricultural
+labourers for every two that there were for the same quantity of land
+in Great Britain. It further appeared that the agricultural progress
+of Great Britain was more than four times that of Ireland; in which
+agricultural wages varied from sixpence to one shilling a day; the
+average of the country being about eightpence-halfpenny; and that the
+earnings of the labourers came, on an average of the whole class, to
+from two shillings to two and sixpence a week or thereabouts for the
+year round. Thus circumstanced, the commissioners observed, 'It is
+impossible for the able-bodied in general to provide against sickness
+or the temporary absence of employment, or against old age, or the
+destitution of their widows and children in the contingent event of
+their own premature decease. A great portion of them are, it is said,
+insufficiently provided with the commonest necessaries of life. Their
+habitations are wretched hovels, several of a family sleep together
+on straw, or upon the bare ground, sometimes with a blanket, sometimes
+even without so much to cover them; their food commonly consists of
+dry potatoes, and with these they are at times so scantily supplied as
+to be obliged to stint themselves to one spare meal in the day.
+There are even instances of persons being driven by hunger to seek
+sustenance in wild herbs. They sometimes get a herring or a little
+milk, but they never get meat except at Christmas, Easter, and
+Shrovetide. Some go in search of employment to Great Britain, during
+the harvest; others wander through Ireland with the same view. The
+wives and children of many are occasionally obliged to beg; but they
+do so reluctantly and with shame, and in general go to a distance from
+home, that they may not be known. Mendicity, too, is the sole resource
+of the aged and impotent of the poorer classes in general, when
+children or relatives are unable to support them. To it, therefore,
+crowds are driven for the means of existence, and the knowledge that
+such is the fact leads to an indiscriminate giving of alms, which
+encourages idleness, imposture, and general crime.' Such was the
+wretched condition of the great body of the labouring classes in
+Ireland; 'and with these facts before us,' the commissioners say, 'we
+cannot hesitate to state that we consider remedial measures requisite
+to ameliorate the condition of the Irish poor. What those measures
+should be is a question complicated, and involving considerations
+of the deepest importance to the whole body of the people, both in
+Ireland and Great Britain.'
+
+Sir George Nicholls, who had been an English poor-law commissioner,
+was sent over to Ireland to make preliminary enquiries. He found
+that the Irish peasantry had generally an appearance of apathy and
+depression, seen in their mode of living, their habitations, their
+dress and conduct; they seemed to have no pride, no emulation, to
+be heedless of the present and careless of the future. They did not
+strive to improve their appearance or add to their comforts: their
+cabins were slovenly, smoky, dirty, almost without furniture, or any
+article of convenience or common decency. The woman and her children
+were seen seated on the floor, surrounded by pigs and poultry: the man
+lounging at the door, which could be approached only through mud and
+filth: the former too slatternly to sweep the dirt and offal from the
+door, the latter too lazy to make a dry footway, though the materials
+were close at hand. If the mother were asked why she did not keep
+herself and her children clean with a stream of water running near the
+cabin, her answer invariably was--Sure, how can we help it? We are so
+poor.' The husband made the same reply, while smoking his pipe at the
+fire or basking in the sunshine. Sir George Nicholls rightly concluded
+that poverty was not the sole cause of this state of things. He found
+them also remarkable for their desultory and reckless habits. Though
+their crops were rotting in the fields from excessive wet, and every
+moment of sunshine should be taken advantage of, yet if there was a
+market, a fair, or a funeral, a horse-race, a fight, or a wedding,
+forgetting everything else, they would hurry off to the scene of
+excitement. Working for wages was rare and uncertain, and hence arose
+a disregard of the value of time, a desultory, sauntering habit,
+without industry or steadiness of application. 'Such,' he proceeds,
+'is too generally the character and such the habits of the Irish
+peasantry; and it may not be uninstructive to mark the resemblance
+which these bear to the character and habits of the English peasantry
+in the pauperised districts, under the abuses of the old poor law.
+Mendicancy and indiscriminate almsgiving have produced in Ireland
+results similar to what indiscriminate relief produced in England--the
+like reckless disregard of the future, the like idle and disorderly
+conduct, and the same proneness to outrage having then characterised
+the English pauper labourer which are now too generally the
+characteristics of the Irish peasant. An abuse of a good law caused
+the evil in the one case, and a removal of that abuse is now rapidly
+effecting a remedy. In the other case the evil appears to have arisen
+rather from the want than the abuse of a law; but the corrective for
+both will, I believe, be found to be essentially the same.'
+
+The expectation that such a neglected people, made wretched by bad
+land laws, should be loyal, was surely unreasonable. For them,
+it might be said, there was no Government, no protection, no
+encouragement. There could not be more tempting materials for
+agitators to work upon. Lord Cloncurry vividly sketches the state
+of things resulting from the want of principle and earnestness among
+politicians in dealing with Irish questions at that time.
+
+'From the Union up to the year 1829, the type of British colonial
+government was the order of the day. The Protestants were upheld as
+a superior caste, and paid in power and official emoluments for their
+services in the army of occupation. During the second viceroyalty of
+Lord Anglesea, an effort was made by him to evoke the energies of the
+whole nation for its own regeneration. That effort was defeated by
+the conjoint influence of the cowardice of the English cabinet,
+the petulance of Mr. Stanley, and the unseasonable violence and
+selfishness of the lately emancipated popular leaders. Upon Lord
+Anglesea's recall the modern Whig model of statemanship was set up and
+followed: popular grievances were allowed to remain unredressed; the
+discontent and violence engendered by those grievances were used from
+time to time for party purposes; the people were hung and bayoneted
+when their roused passions exceeded the due measure of factious
+requirement; and the state patronage was employed to stimulate and
+to reward a staff of demagogues, by whom the masses were alternately
+excited to madness, and betrayed, according to the necessities of the
+English factions. When Russells and Greys were out or in danger, there
+were free promises of equal laws and privileges and franchises for
+oppressed Ireland; the minister expectant or trembling for his place,
+spoke loudly of justice and compensation, of fraternity and freedom.
+To these key-notes the place-hunting demagogue pitched his brawling.
+His talk was of pike-making, and sword-fleshing, and monster marching.
+The simple people were goaded into a madness, the end whereof was for
+them suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, the hulks, and the gallows;
+for their stimulators, silk gowns and commissionerships and seats on
+the bench. Under this treatment the public mind became debauched; the
+lower classes, forced to bear the charges of agitation, as well as to
+suffer its penalties, lost all faith in their social future; they saw
+not and looked not beyond the momentary excitement of a procession or
+a monster meeting.'
+
+Sir Robert Peel, when introducing the Emancipation Bill, had to
+confess the utter failure of the coercive policy which had been so
+persistently pursued. He showed that Ireland had been governed, since
+the Union, almost invariably by coercive acts. There was always some
+political organisation antagonistic to the British Government. The
+Catholic Association had just been suppressed; but another would soon
+spring out of its ashes, if the Catholic question were not settled.
+Mr. O'Connell had boasted that he could drive a coach-and-six through
+the former act for its suppression; and Lord Eldon had engaged to
+drive 'the meanest conveyance, even a donkey cart, through the act of
+1829.' The new member for Oxford (Sir Robert Inglis) also stated that
+twenty-three counties in Ireland were prepared to follow the example
+of Clare. 'What will you do,' asked Sir Robert Peel, 'with that power,
+that tremendous power, which the elective franchise, exercised
+under the control of religion, at this moment confers upon the Roman
+Catholics? What will you do with the thirty or forty seats that will
+be claimed in Ireland by the persevering efforts of the agitators,
+directed by the Catholic Association, and carried out by the agency
+of every priest and bishop in Ireland?' If Parliament began to recede
+there could be no limit to the retrogression. Such a course would
+produce a reaction, violent in proportion to the hopes that had been
+excited. Fresh rigours would become necessary; the re-enactment of the
+penal code would not be sufficient. They must abolish trial by jury,
+or, at least, incapacitate Catholics from sitting on juries. 2,000,000
+of Protestants must have a complete monopoly of power and privilege in
+a country which contained 5,000,000 of Catholics, who were in most
+of the country four to one--in some districts twenty to one--of the
+Protestants. True, there were difficulties in the way of a settlement.
+'But,' asked Sir Robert Peel, 'what great measure, which has stamped
+its name upon the era, has ever been carried without difficulty?
+
+At the present moment there is a loud cry in the English press for the
+suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, and for the old remedy, coercion.
+Those who raise the cry would do well to read Mr. Shiel's speech at
+the Clare election in 1828. He said:--
+
+'We have put a great engine into action, and applied the entire force
+of that powerful machinery which the law has placed under our control.
+We are masters of the passions of the people, and we have employed
+our dominion with a terrible effect. But, sir, do you, or does any man
+here, imagine that we could have acquired this formidable ability to
+sunder the strongest ties by which the different classes of society
+are fastened, unless we found the materials of excitement in the state
+of society itself? Do you think that Daniel O'Connell has himself,
+and by the single powers of his own mind, unaided by any external
+co-operation, brought the country to this great crisis of agitation?
+Mr. O'Connell, with all his talent for excitation, would have been
+utterly powerless and incapable, unless he had been allied with a
+great conspirator against the public peace; and I will tell you who
+that confederate is--it is the law of the land itself that has been
+Mr. O'Connell's main associate, and that ought to be denounced as the
+mighty agitator of Ireland. The rod of oppression is the wand of this
+enchanter, and the book of his spells is the penal code? Break the
+wand of this political Prospero, and take from him the volume of his
+magic, and he will evoke the spirits which are now under his control
+no longer. But why should I have recourse to illustration, which may
+be accounted fantastical, in order to elucidate what is in itself
+so plain and obvious? Protestant gentlemen, who do me the honour to
+listen to me, look, I pray you, a little dispassionately at the real
+causes of the events which have taken place amongst you.... In no
+other country, except in this, would such a revolution have been
+effected. Wherefore? Because in no other country are the people
+divided by the law from their superiors, and cast into the hands of a
+set of men who are supplied with the means of national excitement
+by the system of government under which we live. Surely, no man can
+believe that such an anomalous body as the Catholic Association could
+exist excepting in a community that has been alienated from the state
+by the state itself. The discontent and the resentment of 7,000,000
+of the population have generated that domestic government which sways
+public opinion, and uses the national passions as the instruments
+of its will. It would be utterly impossible, if there were no
+exasperating distinctions amongst us, to create any artificial causes
+of discontent. Let men declaim for a century, and if they have no real
+grievance their harangues will be empty sound and idle air. But
+when what they tell the people is true--when they are sustained by
+substantial facts, effects are produced of which what has taken place
+at this election is only an example. The whole body of the people
+having been previously excited, the moment any incident such as this
+election occurs, all the popular passions start simultaneously up, and
+bear down every obstacle before them. Do not, therefore, be surprised
+that the peasantry should throw off their allegiance when they are
+under the operation of emotions which it would be wonderful if they
+could resist. The feeling by which they are actuated would make them
+not only vote against their landlord, but would make them scale the
+batteries of a fortress, and mount the breach; and, gentlemen, give
+me leave to ask you whether, after due reflection upon the motives by
+which your vassals (for so they are accounted) are governed, you will
+be disposed to exercise any measure of severity in their regard?'
+
+The greatest warrior of the age rebuked the men who cried in that day
+that the sword should be the arbiter of the Irish question; and Sir
+Robert Peel, in his own vindication of the Emancipation Act, said:--
+
+'I well know that there are those upon whom such considerations as
+these to which I have been adverting will make but a faint impression.
+Their answer to all such appeals is the short, in their opinion the
+conclusive, declaration--" The Protestant constitution in church
+and state must be maintained at all hazards, and by any means; the
+maintenance of it is a question of principle, and every concession
+or compromise is the sacrifice of principle to a low and vulgar
+expediency." This is easily said; but how was Ireland to be governed?
+How was the Protestant constitution in church and state to be
+maintained in that part of the empire? Again I can anticipate the
+reply--"By the overwhelming sense of the people of Great Britain; by
+the application, if necessary, of physical force for the maintenance
+of authority; by the employment of the organised strength of
+government, the police and the military, to enforce obedience to the
+law." I deliberately affirm that a minister of the crown, responsible
+at the time of which I am speaking for the public peace and the public
+welfare, would have grossly and scandalously neglected his duty if he
+had failed to consider whether it might not be possible that the fever
+of political and religious excitement which was quickening the pulse
+and fluttering the bosom of the whole Catholic population--which had
+inspired the serf of Clare with the resolution and energy of a free
+man--which had, in the twinkling of an eye, made all considerations of
+personal gratitude, ancient family connection, local preferences, the
+fear of worldly injury, the hope of worldly advantage, subordinate
+to the all-absorbing sense of religious obligation and public
+duty--whether, I say, it might not be possible that the contagion of
+that feverish excitement might spread beyond the barriers which,
+under ordinary circumstances, the habits of military obedience and
+the strictness of military discipline opposed to all such external
+influences.'
+
+The officer who commanded the military force in Clare during the
+election, testified, as the result of his observation there, that,
+even in the constabulary and the army, the sympathies of a common
+cause, political and religious, could not be altogether repressed,
+and that implicit reliance could not long be placed on the effect of
+discipline and the duty of obedience. On July 20, Lord Anglesea wrote
+as follows:--
+
+'We hear occasionally of the Catholic soldiers being ill-disposed, and
+entirely under the influence of the priests. One regiment of infantry
+is said to be divided into Orange and Catholic factions. It is certain
+that, on July 12, the guard at the castle had Orange lilies about
+them.' On July 26, the viceroy wrote another letter, from which the
+following is an extract:--'The priests are using very inflammatory
+language, and are certainly working upon the Catholics of the army.
+I think it important that the depots of Irish recruits should be
+gradually removed, under the appearance of being required to join
+their regiments, and that whatever regiments are sent here should be
+those of Scotland, or, at all events, of men not recruited from the
+south of Ireland. I desired Sir John Byng to convey this opinion to
+Lord Hill.'
+
+Emancipation was carried, and the people were disaffected still.
+And why should they not be disaffected still? Emancipation had
+done nothing for them. The farmers were still at the mercy of the
+landlords, whose pride they humbled at the hustings of Clare and
+Waterford. They were still tormented by the tithe-proctor seizing the
+tenth of all that their labour produced on the land. The labourers
+were still wretched, deprived of the forty-shilling freehold, which
+protected them from the horrors of eviction and of transportation in
+a floating hell across the Atlantic. I well remember the celebrated
+anti-tithe war in 1831, as well as the system by which it was
+provoked, and I can bear witness to the accuracy of the following
+description of the tithe-proctor by Henry Grattan. He said:--
+
+'The use of the tithe-farmer is to get from the parishioners what the
+parson would be ashamed to demand, and so enable the parson to absent
+himself from his duty. The powers of the tithe-farmer are summary laws
+and ecclesiastical courts; his livelihood is extortion; his rank in
+society is generally the lowest; and his occupation is to pounce on
+the poor in the name of the Lord! He is a species of wolf left by
+the shepherd to take care of the flock in his absence.' A single
+tithe-proctor had on one occasion processed 1,100 persons for tithes,
+nearly all of the lower order of farmers or peasants, the expense of
+each process being about 8 s. They had heard of opinions delivered
+in parliament, on the platform, and from the press by Protestant
+statesmen of the highest consideration, that it was a cruel oppression
+to extort in that manner from the majority of the tillers of the soil
+the tenth of its produce, in order to support the clergy of another
+church, who, in many cases, had no flocks, or only a few followers,
+who were well able to pay for their own religious instruction. The
+system would be intolerable even were the state clergy the pastors of
+the majority; but as the proportion between the Protestants and the
+Roman Catholics was in many parts as one to ten, and in some as one to
+twenty, the injustice necessarily involved in the mode of levying the
+impost was aggravated a hundredfold. It would be scarcely possible
+to devise any mode of levying an impost more exasperating, which
+came home to the bosoms of men with more irritating, humiliating,
+and maddening power, and which violated more recklessly men's natural
+sense of justice. If a plan were devised for the purpose of driving
+men into insurrection, nothing could be more effectual than
+the tithe-proctor system. Besides, it tended directly to the
+impoverishment of the country, retarding agricultural improvement and
+limiting production. If a man kept all his land in pasture, he escaped
+the impost; but the moment he tilled it, he was subjected to a tax of
+ten per cent. on the gross produce. The valuation being made by the
+tithe-proctor--a man whose interest it was to defraud both the tenant
+and the parson--the consequence was, that the gentry and the large
+farmers, to a great extent, evaded the tax, and left the small
+occupiers to bear nearly the whole burden; they even avoided mowing
+the meadows in some cases, because then they should pay tithe for the
+hay.
+
+There was besides a tax called church cess, levied by Protestants in
+vestry meetings upon Roman Catholics for cleaning the church, ringing
+the bell, washing the minister's surplice, purchasing bread and wine
+for the communion, and paying the salary of the parish clerk. This
+tax was felt to be a direct and flagrant violation of the rights of
+conscience, and of the principles of the British constitution; and
+against it there was a determined opposition, which manifested itself
+in tumultuous and violent assemblages at the parish churches all
+over the country on Easter Monday, when the rector or his curate, as
+chairman of the meeting, came into angry collision with flocks who
+disowned him, and denounced him as a tyrant, a persecutor, and a
+robber.
+
+But the tithe impost was the one most grievously felt, and at last the
+peasantry resolved to resist it by force.
+
+Nothing could be more violent than the contrasts presented at this
+time in the social life of Ireland. On the one side there was a rapid
+succession of atrocities and tragedies fearful to contemplate: the
+bailiffs, constabulary, and military driving away cattle, sheep, pigs,
+and geese to be sold by public auction, to pay the minister who had no
+congregation to whom he could preach the gospel; the cattle-prisons
+or 'pounds' surrounded by high walls, but uncovered, wet and dirty,
+crowded with all sorts of animals, cold and starved, and uttering
+doleful sounds; the driving away of the animals in the night from one
+farm to another to avoid seizures; the auctions without bidders,
+in the midst of groaning and jeering multitudes; the slaughter
+of policemen, and in some instances of clergymen, with fiendish
+expressions of hatred and yells of triumph; the mingling of fierce
+passions with the strongest natural affections; the exultation in
+murder as if it were a glorious deed of war; the Roman Catholic press
+and platform almost justifying those deeds of outrage and blood; the
+mass of the Roman Catholic population sustaining this insurrection
+against the law with their support and sympathy and prayers, as if it
+were a holy war, in which the victims were martyrs. On the other side
+were presented pictures which excited the deepest interest of the
+Protestant community throughout the United Kingdom. We behold the
+clergyman and his family in the glebe-house, lately the abode of
+plenty, comfort, and elegance, a model of domestic happiness and
+gentlemanly life; but the income of the rector fell off, till he was
+bereft of nearly all his means. In order to procure the necessaries
+of life for his family, he was obliged to part with the cows that gave
+milk for his household, the horse and car, which were necessary in the
+remote place where his glebe-house was situated, and everything that
+could be spared, till at length he was obliged to make his greatest
+sacrifice, and to send his books--the dear and valued companions of
+his life--to Dublin, to be sold by auction. His boys could no longer
+be respectably clad, his wife and daughters were obliged to part with
+their jewellery and all their superfluities. There was no longer wine
+or medicine, that the mother was accustomed to dispense kindly and
+liberally to the poor around her, in their sickness and sorrow,
+without distinction of creed.
+
+The glebe, which once presented an aspect of so much comfort and ease
+and affluence, now looked bare and desolate and void of life. But for
+the contributions of Christian friends at a distance, many of
+those once happy little centres of Christian civilisation--those
+well-springs of consolation to the afflicted--must have been abandoned
+to the overwhelming sand of desolation swept upon them by the
+hurricane of the anti-tithe agitation.
+
+During this desperate struggle, force was employed on several
+occasions with fatal effect. At Newtownbarry, in the county of
+Wexford, some cattle were impounded by a tithe-proctor. The peasantry
+assembled in large numbers to rescue them, when they came into
+collision with the yeomanry, who fired, killing twelve persons. It was
+a market day, and a placard was posted on the walls: 'There will be an
+end of church plunder; your pot, blanket, and pig will not hereafter
+be sold by auction to support in luxury, idleness, and ease persons
+who endeavour to make it appear that it is essential to the peace and
+prosperity of the country and your eternal salvation, while the most
+of you are starving. Attend to an auction of your neighbours' cattle.'
+At Carrickshock there was a fearful tragedy. A number of writs against
+defaulters were issued by the court of exchequer, and entrusted to
+the care of process-servers, who, guarded by a strong body of police,
+proceeded on their mission with secrecy and dispatch. Bonfires along
+the surrounding hills, however, and shrill whistles soon convinced
+them that the people were not unprepared for their visitors. But
+the yeomanry pushed boldly on. Suddenly an immense assemblage of
+peasantry, armed with scythes and pitchforks, poured down upon them.
+A terrible hand-to-hand struggle ensued, and in the course of a few
+moments eighteen of the police, including the commanding officer,
+were slaughtered. The remainder consulted safety and fled, marking the
+course of their retreat by the blood that trickled from their wounds.
+A coroner's jury pronounced this deed of death as 'wilful murder'
+against some persons unknown. A large government reward was offered,
+but it failed to produce a single conviction. At Castlepollard, in
+Westmeath, on the occasion of an attempted rescue, the chief constable
+was knocked down. The police fired, and nine or ten persons were
+killed. One of the most lamentable of these conflicts occurred at
+Gurtroe, near Rathcormac, in the county of Cork. Archdeacon Ryder
+brought a number of the military to recover the tithes of a farm
+belonging to a widow named Ryan. The assembled people resisted, the
+military were ordered to fire, eight persons were killed and thirteen
+wounded; and among the killed was the widow's son.
+
+These disorders appealed with irresistible force to the Government and
+the legislature, to put an end to a system fraught with so much evil,
+and threatening the utter disruption of society in Ireland. In the
+first place, something must be done to meet the wants of the destitute
+clergy and their families. Accordingly, Lord Stanley brought in a
+bill, in May 1832, authorising the lord lieutenant of Ireland to
+advance 60,000 l. as a fund for the payment of the clergy, who were
+unable to collect their tithes for the year 1831. This measure was
+designed to meet the present necessity, and was only a preliminary to
+the promised settlement of the tithe question. It was therefore passed
+quickly through both Houses, and became law on June 1. But the money
+thus advanced was not placed on the consolidated fund.
+
+The Government took upon itself the collection of the arrears of
+tithes for that one year. It was a maxim with Lord Stanley that the
+people should be made to respect the law; that they should not
+be allowed to trample upon it with impunity. The odious task thus
+assumed, produced a state of unparalleled excitement. The people were
+driven to frenzy, instead of being frightened by the chief secretary
+becoming tithe-collector-general, and the army being employed in
+its collection. They knew that the king's speech had recommended the
+settlement of the tithe question. They had heard of the evidence of
+Bishop Doyle and other champions, exposing what they believed to be
+the iniquity of the tithe system. They had seen the condemnation of it
+in the testimony of the Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, who declared
+his conviction that it could not be collected except at the point of
+the bayonet, and by keeping up a chronic war between the Government
+and the Roman Catholic people. They had been told that parliamentary
+committees had recommended the complete extinction of tithes, and
+their commutation into a rent-charge. Their own leaders had everywhere
+resolved:--
+
+'That it was a glaring wrong to compel an impoverished Catholic people
+to support in pampered luxury the richest clergy in the world--a
+clergy from whom, the Catholics do not experience even the return of
+common gratitude--a clergy who, in times past, opposed to the last
+the political freedom of the Irish people, and at the present day
+are opposed to reform and a liberal scheme of education for their
+countrymen. The ministers of the God of charity should not, by
+misapplication of all the tithes to their own private uses, thus
+deprive the poor of their patrimony; nor should ministers of
+peace adhere with such desperate tenacity to a system fraught with
+dissension, hatred, and ill-will.' The first proceeding of the
+Government to recover the tithes, under the act of June 1, was
+therefore the signal for general war. Bonfires blazed upon the hills,
+the rallying sounds of horns were heard along the valleys, and the
+mustering tread of thousands upon the roads, hurrying to the scene
+of a seizure or an auction. It was a bloody campaign; there was
+considerable loss of life, and the Church and the Government thus
+became more obnoxious to the people than ever. Lord Stanley being the
+commander-in-chief on one side, and Mr. O'Connell on the other, the
+contest was embittered by their personal antipathies. It was found
+that the amount of the arrears for the year 1831 was 104,285 l., and
+that the whole amount which the Government was able to levy, after
+putting forth its strength in every possible way, was 12,000 l., the
+cost of collection being 15,000 l., so the Government was not able to
+raise as much money as would pay the expenses of the campaign. This
+was how Lord Stanley illustrated his favourite sentiment that the
+people should be made to respect the law. But the Liberal party among
+the Protestants fully sympathised with the anti-tithe recusants.
+
+Of course the Government did not persevere in prosecutions from which
+no parties but the lawyers reaped any advantage; consequently, all
+processes under the existing law were abandoned. It was found that,
+after paying to the clergy the arrears of 1831 and 1832, and what
+would be due in 1833, about a million sterling would be required,
+and this sum was provided by an issue of exchequer bills. The
+reimbursement of the advance was to be effected by a land tax.
+Together with these temporary arrangements to meet the exigency of the
+case, for the payment of the clergy and the pacification of Ireland,
+an act was passed to render tithe composition in Ireland compulsory
+and permanent. But Ireland was not yet pacified.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: The foregoing sketch of the tithe war was written by the
+author seven years ago for Cassell's _History of England_, from which
+it is now extracted.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+THE FAMINE.
+
+
+It had often been predicted by writers on the state of Ireland, that,
+owing to the rottenness at the foundation of the social fabric, it
+would come down with a crash some day. The facts reported by the
+census commissioners of 1841 showed that this consummation could not
+be far off. Out of a population of 8,000,000, there were 3,700,000
+above the age of five years who could neither read nor write; while
+nearly three millions and a half lived in mud cabins, badly thatched
+with straw, having each but one room, and often without either a
+window or a chimney. These figures indicate a mass of ignorance
+and poverty, which could not be contemplated without alarm, and the
+subject was, therefore, constantly pressed upon the attention of
+parliament. As usual in cases of difficulty, the Government, feeling
+that something should be done, and not knowing what to do, appointed
+in 1845 a commission to enquire into the relations between landlords
+and tenants, and the condition of the working classes. At the head of
+this commission was the Earl of Devon, a benevolent nobleman, whose
+sympathies were on the side of the people. Captain Kennedy, the
+secretary to the commissioners, published a digest of the report of
+the evidence, which presented the facts in a readable form, and was
+the means of diffusing a large amount of authentic information on the
+state of Ireland. The commissioners travelled through the country,
+held courts of enquiry, and examined witnesses of all classes. As the
+result of their extensive intercourse with the farming classes, and
+their own observations, they were enabled to state that in almost
+every part of Ireland unequivocal symptoms of improvement, in spite
+of many embarrassing and counteracting circumstances, continually
+presented themselves to the view, and that there existed a very
+general and increasing spirit and desire for the promotion of such
+improvement, from which the most beneficial results might fairly be
+expected.
+
+Indeed, speaking of the country generally, they add: 'With some
+exceptions, which are unfortunately too notorious, we believe that at
+no former period did so active a spirit of improvement prevail; nor
+could well directed measures for the attainment of that object have
+been proposed with a better prospect of success than at the present
+moment.'
+
+But this improvement produced no sensible effect upon the condition
+of the labouring people. However brightly the sun of prosperity might
+gild the eminences of society, the darkness of misery and despair
+settled upon the masses below. The commissioners proceed: 'A
+reference to the evidence of most of the witnesses will show that
+the agricultural labourer of Ireland continues to suffer the greatest
+privations and hardships; that he continues to depend upon casual and
+precarious employment for subsistence; that he is still badly housed,
+badly fed, badly clothed, and badly paid for his labour. Our personal
+experience and observation during our enquiry have afforded us a
+melancholy confirmation of these statements; and we cannot forbear
+expressing our strong sense of the patient endurance which the
+labouring classes have generally exhibited under sufferings greater,
+we believe, than the people of any other country in Europe have to
+sustain.' It was deeply felt that the well-being of the whole United
+Kingdom depended upon the removal of the causes of this misery and
+degradation; for if the Irish people were not elevated, the English
+working classes must be brought down to their level. The facility of
+travelling afforded by railways and steam-boats caused such constant
+intercourse between England and Ireland, that Irish ignorance,
+beggary, and disease, with all their contagion, physical and moral,
+would be found intermingling with the British population. It would be
+impossible to prevent the half-starved Irish peasantry from crossing
+the Channel, and seeking employment, even at low wages, and forming a
+pestiferous Irish quarter in every town and city. The question, then,
+was felt to be one whose settlement would brook no further delay.
+
+It was found that the potato was almost the only food of the Irish
+millions, and that it formed their chief means of obtaining the other
+necessaries of life. A large portion of this crop was grown under the
+system, to which the poorest of the peasantry were obliged to have
+recourse, notwithstanding the minute subdivision of land. There were
+in 1841, 691,000 farms in Ireland exceeding one acre in extent.
+Nearly one half of these were under five acres each. The number
+of proprietors in fee was estimated at 8,000--a smaller number, in
+proportion to the extent of territory, than in any other country of
+Western Europe except Spain. In Connaught, several proprietors had
+100,000 acres each, the proportion of small farms being greater there
+than in the rest of Ireland. The total number of farms in the province
+was 155,842, and of these 100,254 consisted of from one to five acres.
+If all the proprietors were resident among their tenantry, and were
+in a position to encourage their industry and care for their welfare,
+matters would not have been so bad; but most of the large landowners
+were absentees. It frequently happened that the large estates
+were held in strict limitation, and they were nearly all heavily
+encumbered. The owners preferred living in England or on the
+Continent, having let their lands on long leases, or in perpetuity
+to 'middlemen,' who sublet them for as high rents as they could get.
+Their tenants again sublet, so that it frequently happened that two,
+three, or four landlords intervened between the proprietor and the
+occupying tenant, each deriving an interest from the land. The head
+landlord, therefore, though ever so well disposed, had no power
+whatever to help the occupying tenants generally, and of those who
+had the power very few felt disposed. There were extensive districts
+without a single resident proprietor.
+
+For a few weeks after the blight of the potato crop in 1846 the
+cottiers and small farmers managed to eke out a subsistence by the
+sale of their pigs and any little effects they had. But pigs, fowl,
+furniture, and clothing soon went, one after another, to satisfy the
+cravings of hunger. The better class of farmers lived upon their corn
+and cattle; but they were obliged to dismiss their servants, and this
+numerous class became the first victims of starvation; for when they
+were turned off, they were refused admission by their relations, who
+had not the means of feeding them. Tailors, shoemakers, and other
+artisans who worked for the lower orders, lost their employment, and
+became destitute also. While the means of support failed upon every
+side, and food rose to such enormous prices that everything that
+could possibly be eaten was economised, so that the starving dogs were
+drowned from compassion, the famine steadily advanced from the west
+and south to the east and north, till it involved the whole population
+in its crushing grasp. It was painfully interesting to mark the
+progress of the visitation, even in those parts of the country where
+its ravages were least felt. The small farmer had only his corn,
+designed for rent and seed: he was obliged to take it to the mill
+to ward off starvation. The children of the poor, placed on short
+allowance, were suffering fearfully from hunger. Mothers, heart-broken
+and worn down to skeletons, were seen on certain days proceeding
+in groups to some distant depot, where Indian meal was to be had at
+reduced prices, but still double that of the ordinary market. As they
+returned to their children, with their little bags on their heads, a
+faint joy lit up their famine-stricken features.
+
+When the visitors entered a village their first question was: 'How
+many deaths?' '_The hunger is upon us_,' was everywhere the cry; and
+involuntarily they found themselves regarding this hunger as they
+would an epidemic, looking upon starvation as a disease. In fact, as
+they passed along, their wonder was, not that the people died, but
+that they lived; and Mr. W.G. Forster, in his report, said: 'I have
+no doubt whatever, that in any other country the mortality would have
+been far greater; and that many lives have been prolonged, perhaps
+saved, by the long apprenticeship to want in which the Irish peasant
+has been trained, and by that lovely, touching charity which prompts
+him to share his scanty meal with his starving neighbour. But the
+springs of this charity must be rapidly dried up. Like a scourge of
+locusts, _the hunger_ daily sweeps over fresh districts, eating up all
+before it. One class after another is falling into the same abyss of
+ruin.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Transactions during the Famine in Ireland, Appendix III.]
+
+The same benevolent gentleman describes the domestic scenes he saw in
+Connaught, where the poor Celts were carried off in thousands:--
+
+'We entered a cabin. Stretched in one dark corner, scarcely visible
+from the smoke and rags that covered them, were three children huddled
+together, lying there because they were too weak to rise, pale and
+ghastly; their little limbs, on removing a portion of the covering,
+perfectly emaciated; eyes sunk, voice gone, and evidently in the last
+stage of actual starvation. Crouched over the turf embers was another
+form, wild and all but naked, scarcely human in appearance. It stirred
+not nor noticed us. On some straw, soddened upon the ground, moaning
+piteously, was a shrivelled old woman, imploring us to give her
+something, baring her limbs partly to show how the skin hung loose
+from her bones, as soon as she attracted our attention. Above her,
+on something like a ledge, was a young woman with sunken cheeks, a
+mother, I have no doubt, who scarcely raised her eyes in answer to
+our enquiries; but pressed her hand upon her forehead, with a look
+of unutterable anguish and despair. Many cases were widows, whose
+husbands had been recently taken off by the fever, and thus their only
+pittance obtained from the public works was entirely cut off. In many
+the husbands or sons were prostrate under that horrid disease--the
+result of long-continued famine and low living--in which first the
+limbs and then the body swell most frightfully, and finally burst. We
+entered upwards of fifty of these tenements. The scene was invariably
+the same, differing in little but the manner of the sufferers, or of
+the groups occupying the several corners within. The whole number was
+often not to be distinguished, until the eye having adapted itself
+to the darkness, they were pointed out, or were heard, or some filthy
+bundle of rags and straw was seen to move. Perhaps the poor children
+presented the most piteous and heart-rending spectacle. Many were
+too weak to stand, their little limbs attenuated, except where the
+frightful swellings had taken the place of previous emaciation. Every
+infantile expression had entirely departed; and, in some reason and
+intelligence had evidently flown. Many were remnants of families,
+crowded together in one cabin; orphaned little relatives taken in by
+the equally destitute, and even strangers--for these poor people are
+kind to each other, even to the end. In one cabin was a sister, just
+dying, lying beside her little brother, just dead. I have worse than
+this to relate; but it is useless to multiply details, and they are,
+in fact, unfit.'
+
+In December, 1846, Father Mathew wrote to Mr. Trevelyan, then
+secretary of the treasury, that men, women, and children
+were gradually wasting away. They filled their stomachs with
+cabbage-leaves, turnip-tops, &c., to appease the cravings of hunger.
+There were then more than 5,000 half-starved wretches from the country
+begging in the streets of Cork. When utterly exhausted, they crawled
+to the workhouse to die. The average of deaths in that union was then
+over a hundred a week.
+
+From December 27, in 1846, to the middle of April, in 1847, the number
+of human beings that died in the Cork workhouse was 2,130! And in the
+third week of the following month the free interments in the Mathew
+cemetery had risen to 277--as many as sixty-seven having been buried
+in one day. The destruction of human life in other workhouses of
+Ireland kept pace with the appalling mortality in the Cork workhouse.
+According to official returns, it had reached in April the weekly
+average of twenty-five per 1,000 inmates; the actual number of deaths
+being 2,706 for the week ending April 3, and 2,613 in the following
+week. Yet the number of inmates in the Irish workhouses was but
+104,455 on April 10.
+
+The size of the unions was a great impediment to the working of
+the poor law. They were three times the extent of the corresponding
+divisions in England. In Munster and Connaught, where there was the
+greatest amount of destitution, and the least amount of local agency
+available for its relief, the unions were much larger than in the
+more favoured provinces of Ulster and Leinster. The union of Ballina
+comprised a region of upwards of half a million acres, and within
+its desert tracts the famine assumed its most appalling form, the
+workhouse being more than forty miles distant from some of the
+sufferers. As a measure of precaution, the Government had secretly
+imported and stored a large quantity of Indian corn, as a cheap
+substitute for the potato, which would have served the purpose much
+better had the people been instructed in the best modes of cooking it.
+It was placed in commissariat, along depots the western coast of the
+island, where the people were not likely to be supplied on reasonable
+terms through the ordinary channels of trade. The public works
+consisted principally of roads, on which, the men were employed as
+a sort of supplement to the poor law. Half the cost was a free grant
+from the treasury, and the other half was charged upon the barony
+in which the works were undertaken. The expense incurred under the
+'Labour Rate Act, 9 and 10 Viet. c. 107,' amounted to 4,766,789 l. It
+was almost universally admitted, when the pressure was over, that
+the system of public works adopted was a great mistake; and it seems
+wonderful that such grievous blunders could have been made with so
+many able statesmen and political economists at the head of affairs
+and in the service of the Government. The public works undertaken
+consisted in the breaking up of good roads to level hills and fill
+hollows, and the opening of new roads in places where they were not
+required--works which the people felt to be useless, and at which they
+laboured only under strong compulsion, being obliged to walk to them
+in all weathers for miles, in order to earn the price of a breakfast
+of Indian meal. Had the labour thus comparatively wasted been devoted
+to the draining, sub-soiling, and fencing of the farms, connected
+with a comprehensive system of arterial drainage, immense and lasting
+benefit to the country would have been the result, especially as
+works so well calculated to ameliorate the soil, and guard against the
+moisture of the climate, might have been connected with a system of
+instruction in agricultural matters of which the peasantry stood so
+much in need, and to the removal of the gross ignorance which had so
+largely contributed to bring about the famine. As it was, enormous
+sums were wasted. Much needless hardship was inflicted on the starving
+people in compelling them to work in frost and rain when they were
+scarcely able to walk, and, after all the vast outlay, very few traces
+of it remained in permanent improvements on the face of the country.
+The system of government relief works failed chiefly through the
+same difficulty which impeded every mode of relief, whether public or
+private--namely, the want of machinery to work it. It was impossible
+suddenly to procure an efficient staff of officers for an undertaking
+of such enormous magnitude--the employment of a whole people. The
+overseers were necessarily selected in haste; many of them were
+corrupt, and encouraged the misconduct of the labourers. In many cases
+the relief committees, unable to prevent maladministration, yielded
+to the torrent of corruption, and individual members only sought to
+benefit their own dependants. The people everywhere flocked to the
+public works; labourers, cottiers, artisans, fishermen, farmers, men,
+women, and children--all, whether destitute or not, sought for a share
+of the public money. In such a crowd, it was almost impossible to
+discriminate properly. They congregated in masses on the roads,
+idling under the name of work, the really destitute often unheeded
+and unrelieved because they had no friend to recommend them. All
+the ordinary employments were neglected; there was no fishing, no
+gathering of sea-weed, no collecting of manure. The men who had
+employment feared to lose it by absenting themselves for any other
+object; those unemployed spent their time in seeking to obtain it. The
+whole industry of the country seemed to be engaged in road-making. It
+became absolutely necessary to put an end to it, or the cultivation
+of the land would be neglected. Works undertaken on the spur of
+the moment, not because they were needful, but merely to employ the
+people, were in many cases ill chosen, and the execution equally
+defective. The labourers, desirous to protract their employment, were
+only anxious to give as little labour as possible, in which their
+overlookers or gangers in many cases heartily agreed. The favouritism,
+the intimidation, the wholesale jobbing practised in many cases were
+shockingly demoralising.
+
+In order to induce the people to attend to their ordinary spring work,
+and put in the crops, it was found necessary to adopt the plan of
+distributing free rations. On March 20, therefore, a reduction of
+twenty per cent. of the numbers employed on the works took place, and
+the process of reduction went on until the new system of gratuitous
+relief was brought into full operation. The authority under which this
+was administered was called the 'Temporary Relief Act,' which came
+into full operation in the month of July, when the destitution was at
+its height, and three millions of people received their daily rations.
+Sir John Burgoyne truly describes this as 'the grandest attempt
+ever made to grapple with famine over a whole country.' Never in the
+history of the world were so many persons fed in such a manner by the
+public bounty. It was a most anxious time--a time of tremendous
+labour and responsibility to those who had the direction of this vast
+machinery. A member of the Board of Works thus describes the feeling
+which no doubt pervaded most of those that were officially connected
+with the administration of relief: 'I hope never to see such a winter
+and spring again. I can truly say, in looking back upon it even now,
+that it appears to me not a succession of weeks and days, but one long
+continuous day, with occasional intervals of night-mare sleep. Rest
+one could never have, when one felt that in every minute lost a score
+of men might die.' Mr. Trevelyan was then secretary of the treasury,
+and it was well that a man so enlightened, energetic, and benevolent
+occupied the post at such a time. He was indefatigable in his efforts
+to mitigate the calamity, and he wrote an interesting account of 'The
+Irish Crisis' in the _Edinburgh Review_. Having presented the dark
+side of the picture in faithfully recording the abuses that had
+prevailed, it is right to give Mr. Trevelyan's testimony as to the
+conduct of the relief committees during this supreme hour of the
+nation's agony. 'It is a fact very honourable to Ireland that among
+upwards of 2,000 local bodies to whom advances were made under this
+act, there is not one to which, so far as the Government is informed,
+any suspicion of embezzlement attaches.'
+
+The following statement of the numbers receiving rations, and the
+total expenditure under the act in each of the four provinces,
+compared with the amount of population, and the annual value assessed
+for poor-rate, may serve to illustrate the comparative means and
+destitution of each province:--
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------
+|         |  Population |  Valuation |    Greatest    |   Total    |
+|         |             |            |   Number of    |Expenditure |
+|         |             |            |  Rations given |            |
+|         |             |            |      out       |            |
+|---------|-------------|------------|----------------|------------|
+|         |             |      L     |                |     L      |
+|Ulster   |  2,386,373  |  3,320,133 |     346,517    |   170,508  |
+|Leinster |  1,973,731  |  4,624,542 |     450,606    |   308,068  |
+|Munster  |  2,396,161  |  1,465,643 |   1,013,826    |   671,554  |
+|Counaught|  1,418,859  |  1,465,643 |     745,652    |   526,048  |
+|         |-------------|------------|----------------|------------|
+|         |  8,175,124  | 13,187,421 |   2,556,601    | 1,676,268  |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Private benevolence did wonders in this crisis. The British
+Association raised and distributed 269,302 l. The queen's letter,
+ordering collections in the English churches, produced 200,738 l. But
+the bounty of the United States of America transcended everything. The
+supplies sent across the Atlantic were on a scale unparalleled in the
+history of the world.
+
+Meetings were held in Philadelphia, Washington, New York, and other
+cities, in quick succession, presided over by the first men in the
+country. All through the States the citizens evinced an intense
+interest, and a noble generosity worthy of the great Republic.
+The railway companies carried free of charge all packages marked
+'Ireland.' Public carriers undertook the gratuitous delivery of
+packages intended for the relief of Irish distress. Storage to any
+extent was offered on the same terms. Ships of war, without their
+guns, came to the Irish shores on a mission of peace and mercy,
+freighted with food for British subjects. Cargo after cargo followed
+in rapid succession, until nearly 100 separate shipments had arrived,
+our Government having consented to pay the freight of all donations of
+food forwarded from America, which amounted in the whole to 33,000 l.
+The quantity of American food consigned to the care of the Society of
+Friends was nearly 10,000 tons, the value of which was about 100,000
+l. In addition to all this, the Americans remitted to the Friends'
+Committee 16,000 l. in money. They also sent 642 packages of clothing,
+the precise value of which could not be ascertained. There was a very
+large amount of remittances sent to Ireland, during the famine, by
+the Irish in the United States. Unfortunately, there are no records of
+those remittances prior to 1848; but since that time we are enabled
+to ascertain a large portion of them, though not the whole, and their
+amount is something astonishing. The following statement of sums
+remitted by emigrants in America to their families in Ireland, was
+printed by order of Parliament:--During the years 1848, 460,180 l.;
+1849, 540,619 l.; 1850, 957,087 l. 1851, 990,811 l.
+
+The arrival of the American ships naturally excited great interest at
+the various ports. 'On Monday, April 13,' writes Mr. Maguire, 'a noble
+sight might be witnessed in Cork harbour--the sun shining its welcome
+on the entrance of the unarmed war-ship Jamieson, sailing in under a
+cloud of snowy canvas, her great hold laden with bread-stuffs for the
+starving people of Ireland. It was a sight that brought tears to many
+an eye, and prayers of gratitude to many a heart. It was one of those
+things which one nation remembers of another long after the day of
+sorrow has passed. Upon the warm and generous people to whom America
+literally broke bread and sent life, this act of fraternal charity, so
+gracefully and impressively offered, naturally produced a profound and
+lasting impression, the influence of which is felt at this moment.'
+
+The clergy, Protestant and Roman Catholic, almost the only resident
+gentry in several of the destitute districts, worked together on the
+committees with commendable zeal, diligence, and unanimity. Among the
+Roman Catholic clergy, Father Mathew was at that time by far the most
+influential and popular. The masses of the peasantry regarded him
+as almost an inspired apostle. During the famine months, he
+exerted himself with wonderful energy and prudence, first, in his
+correspondence with different members of the Government, earnestly
+recommending and urging the speedy adoption of measures of relief;
+and next, in commending those measures to the people, dissuading the
+hungry from acts of violence, and preaching submission and resignation
+under that heavy dispensation of Providence. Of this there are ample
+proofs in the letters published by Mr. Maguire, M.P. 'It is not to
+harrow your feelings, dear Mr. Trevelyan,' he wrote, 'I tell this tale
+of woe. No; but to excite your sympathy in behalf of our miserable
+peasantry. It is rumoured that the capitalists in the corn and flour
+trade are endeavouring to induce the Government not to protect the
+people from famine, but to leave them at their mercy. I consider
+this a cruel and unjustifiable interference. I am so unhappy at the
+prospect before us, and so horror-struck by the apprehension of our
+destitute people falling into the ruthless hands of the corn and flour
+traders, that I risk becoming troublesome, rather than not lay my
+humble opinions before you.' Again: 'I hail with delight the humane,
+the admirable measures for relief announced by my Lord John Russell;
+they have given universal satisfaction. But of what avail will all
+this be, unless the wise precautions of Government will enable the
+toiling workman, after exhausting his vigour during a long day to earn
+a shilling, to purchase with that shilling a sufficiency of daily food
+for his generally large and helpless family?' Father Mathew earnestly
+pleaded for out-door relief, in preference to the workhouse,
+foreseeing the danger of sundering the domestic bonds, which operate
+so powerfully as moral restraints in Ireland. The beautiful picture
+which he drew of the Irish peasant's home in his native land was
+not too highly coloured, as applied to the great majority of the
+people:--'The bonds of blood and affinity, dissoluble by death alone,
+associate in the cabins of the Irish peasantry, not only the husband,
+wife, and children, but the aged parents and the married couple and
+their destitute relatives, even to the third and fourth degree of
+kindred. God forbid that political economists should dissolve these
+ties! should violate these beautiful charities of nature and the
+gospel! I have often found my heart throb with delight when I beheld
+three or four generations seated around the humble board and blazing
+hearth; and I offered a silent prayer to the great Father of all that
+the gloomy gates of the workhouse should never separate those whom
+such tender social chains so fondly link together.'
+
+The following is a tabular view of the whole amount of voluntary
+contributions during the Irish famine, which deserves a permanent
+record for the credit of our common humanity:--
+
+                                             L    s. d.    L    s. d.
+Local contributions officially reported
+  in 1846                                               104,689 18  1
+Local contributions officially reported
+  in 1847                                               199,569  4  1
+British  Relief  Association, total
+  received                                470,041  1  2
+ say five-sixths for Ireland              391,700 17  8
+General Central Relief Committee,
+  College Green                            83,934 17 11
+ Less received from British Relief
+  Association                              20,190  0  0
+                                          _____________  63,744 17 11
+Irish Relief Association, Sackville
+  Street                                                 42,446  5  0
+Relief Committee of the Society of
+  Friends, London                                        42,905 12  0
+Central Relief Committee of the
+  Society of Friends, Dublin              198,313 15  3
+ Less received from Committee of the
+   Society of Friends in London,
+   and interest                            39,249 19 11
+                                          _____________ 159,063 15  4
+Indian Relief Fund                                       13,919 15  2
+National Club, London                                    19,928 12  2
+Wesleyan Methodist Relief Fund,
+  London                                                 20,056 14  4
+Irish Evangelical Society, London                         9,264  9  9
+Baptists' Relief Fund, London                             6,141 11  2
+Ladies' Irish Clothing Society, London      9,533  4  0
+ Less received from British Association,
+  &c.                                       5,324 12 11
+                                          _____________   4,208 11  1
+Ladies' Relief Association for Ireland     19,584  0  9
+ Less received from Irish Relief
+  Association and for sales of
+  manufactures                              7,659  6  7
+                                          _____________  11,924 14  2
+Ladies' Industrial Society for
+  encouragement of labour among the
+  peasantry                                 1,968 12  8
+ Less received from Irish Relief
+  Association                               1,500  0  0
+                                          _____________     468 12  8
+Belfast Ladies' Association for the
+  relief of Irish Distress                                2,617  1  6
+Belfast Ladies' Industrial Association
+  for Connaught                                           4,615 16  1
+There were also two collections in
+  Belfast for general purposes, the
+  amount of which exceeded                               10,000  0  0
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+TENANT-RIGHT IN ULSTER.
+
+
+The Earl of Granard has taken a leading part in the movement for the
+settling of the land question, having presided at two great meetings
+in the counties in which he has large estates, Wexford and Longford,
+supported on each occasion by influential landlords. He was the first
+of his class to propose that the question should be settled on the
+basis of tenant-right, by legalising and extending the Ulster custom.
+A reference to this custom has been frequently made recently, in
+discussions on the platform and in the press. I have studied the
+history of that province with care; and I have during the year 1869
+gone through several of its counties with the special object of
+inquiring how the tenant-right operates, and whether, and to what
+extent, it affords the requisite security to the cultivators of the
+soil; and it may be of some service that I should give here the result
+of my enquiries.
+
+Of the six counties confiscated and planted in Ulster, Londonderry,
+as I have already remarked, was allotted to the London companies. The
+aspect of their estates, is on the whole, very pleasing. In the midst
+of each there is a small town, built in the form of a square, with a
+market-house and a town-hall in the centre, and streets running off at
+each side. There are almost invariably three substantial and handsome
+places of worship--the parish church, always best and most prominent,
+the presbyterian meeting-house, and the catholic chapel, with nice
+manses for the ministers, all built wholly or in part by grants from
+the companies.
+
+Complaints were constantly made against the Irish Society for its
+neglect of its trust, for refusing to give proper building leases, and
+for wasting the funds placed at its disposal for public purposes. The
+details are curious and interesting, throwing much light on the
+social history of the times. The whole subject of its duties and
+responsibilities, and of its anomalous powers, was fully discussed
+at a meeting of the principal citizens, most of them strongly
+Conservative, on the 28th of May, 1866. There had been a discussion
+on the subject in the House of Commons, in which Lord Claud Hamilton,
+then member for the borough, distinguished himself. Mr. Maguire
+brought the Society before Parliament in an able speech. The
+legislature, as well as the public, were then preoccupied with the
+Church question. But, doubtless, the maiden city will make her voice
+heard next session, and insist on being released from a guardian who
+always acted the part of a stepmother.
+
+The Irish Society has been before three parliamentary tribunals, the
+Commissioners of Municipal Corporations for England and Wales, the
+Royal Commission of Enquiry into the state of the Corporation
+of London, and the Irish Municipal Commissioners. The English
+Commissioners say:--'We do not know of any pretext or argument for
+continuing this municipal supremacy of the Irish Society. A control
+of this kind maintained at the present day by the municipality of
+one town in England over another town in Ireland, appears to us
+so indefensible in principle, that our opinion would not have been
+changed, even if it were found that hitherto it has been conducted
+with discretion and forbearance.'
+
+The Irish commissioners affirmed 'that the Irish Society in their
+original institution were created for the purpose of forwarding the
+interests and objects of the Plantation, and not for mere private
+gain; and that of the large income which they receive from their
+possessions in Londonderry, a very inadequate and disproportionate
+share is applied for the public purposes, or other objects connected
+with the local interests of the districts from which the revenues of
+the society are drawn.'
+
+The corporation of Derry cannot put a bye-law in force till it
+receives the approval of the Irish Society. And what is this tribunal
+whose fiat must stamp the decision of the Derry corporation before it
+can operate in the smallest matter within the municipal boundary?
+The members are London traders, totally ignorant of Ireland. They
+are elected for two years, so that they must go out by the time they
+acquire any information about their trust, to make way for another
+batch equally ignorant. Having everything to learn during their term
+of office, if they have time or capacity to learn anything about
+the matter, they must submit to the guidance of the governor, who is
+elected virtually, though not formally, for life; and the members of
+the Derry corporation believe him to be the autocrat of the society.
+Mr. James P. Hamilton, now the assistant-barrister for Sligo, at the
+great meeting of the citizens of Derry already mentioned, pronounced
+the governors to be 'the most ignorant, the most incompetent, and the
+most careless governors that ever were inflicted on a people.' Mr.
+Hamilton quoted from the answer of the corporation of London in 1624
+to the Privy Council, which required them to convey 4,000 acres to
+the citizens of Derry. The corporation replied that they had allotted
+1,500 acres for the use of the mayor and other civil officers. That
+was either true or false. If true, by what right did they recall the
+grant, and re-possess themselves of those lands? By the articles they
+were bound to make quays, which were not made. They were bound to
+give bog and mountain for the city common, which they never gave. The
+corporation had a tract called the sheriffs mountain, but the city was
+robbed of it by her cruel stepmother, the Irish Society. The society
+was bound to give 200 acres for a free school, and if this had been
+done Derry might have had a rich foundation, rivalling Westminster
+or the Charter School. Mr. Hamilton, conservative as he is, with the
+heart of a true Irishman, indignantly asks, 'Why is this national
+grievance and insult continued for the profit of no one? Their very
+name is an insult and a mockery--_The Governor and Assistants, London,
+of the New Plantation in Ulster_! What do they govern? They don't
+govern us in any sense of the word. They merely hold our property in
+a dead grip, without any profit to themselves, and to our great
+disadvantage.'
+
+The city is overwhelmed with debt--debt for the new quays, debt for
+the new bridge, debt for the public works of the corporation, which
+has struggled to improve the city under the incubus of this alien
+power, contending with debt, want of tenure, and other difficulties,
+which would all have been avoided if the city had the lands which
+these Londoners hold in their possession and use as their own pleasure
+dictates, half the revenues being spent in the management.
+
+Mr. William Hazlett, a magistrate of Derry, one of its ablest and
+most respected citizens, stated that from 1818 to 1847 the expenses
+of management were 60 per cent. The royal commissioners set it down
+thus--Total expenditure, 219,898 l.; management, 133,912 l. The
+law expenses were, during the same period, 40,000 l. 'This item
+of itself,' says Mr. Hazlett, 'must be considered an intolerable
+grievance, for it was laid out for the oppression of the people who
+should have benefited by the funds so squandered in opposing the
+very parties who supplied the money, with which they were themselves
+harassed. If a tenant applies for a lease, and the society consents
+to grant one, it is so hampered with obstructive clauses that his
+solicitor objects to his signing it, and says that from its nature it
+could not be made a negotiable instrument on which to raise money. The
+tenant remonstrates, but the reply of the city is--"That is our form
+of lease; you must comply with it or want!" If you go to law with
+them, they may take you into Chancery, and fight you with your own
+money.'
+
+Mr. Hazlett gave a remarkable illustration of this, which shows
+the spirit in which this body thinks proper to fulfil its duties as
+steward of this property. The Devon Land Commission recommended that
+leases of lives renewable for ever should be converted into fee-farm
+grants, which would be a valuable boon to the tenant without any loss
+to the owner. A bill founded on the recommendation was introduced to
+parliament. Did the enlightened and liberal Irish Society hail
+with satisfaction this wise measure of reform? On the contrary, the
+governor went out of his way to oppose it. Having striven in vain,
+with all the vast influence of the corporation, to have the bill
+thrown out, he endeavoured to get the society exempted from its
+operation. When, in spite of his efforts, the bill became law, the
+governor utterly refused to act on it, and brought the matter before
+the Master of the Rolls and the House of Lords. From these renewable
+leases the society had an income of about 2,500 l. yearly. And what
+amount did they demand--these moderate and discreet gentleman, 'The
+Governor and Assistants, London, of the new Plantation of Ulster'--for
+their interest in the renewable leases? Not less than 100,000 l., or
+about 40 years' purchase. In the year 1765, when the city of Derry was
+fast hastening to decay under this London government, the society was
+induced by an increase of 37 per cent. on the rent, to grant those
+renewable leases. 'And but for the granting of those leases,' said Mr.
+Hazlett, 'we should have no standing-ground in this city, nor should
+we even have the right to meet in this hall as we do to-day.'
+
+Other striking facts illustrating the paternal nature of this foreign
+government of the 'New Plantation' were produced by Mr. Thomas
+Chambers, a solicitor who had defended the Rev. J.M. Staples in a suit
+brought by the society, and which cost them 40,000 l. of the public
+money to win, after dragging the reverend gentleman from one court to
+another, regardless of expense. Originally, as we have seen, the city
+got a grant of 4,000 acres for the support of the corporation; but
+actually received only 1,500, valued then at 60 l., a year. This land
+was forfeited and transferred to the bishop in the reign of Charles I.
+Ultimately the bishop gave up the land and the fishery, for which the
+see received, and still receives, 250 l. a year. The society got, hold
+of the 1,500 acres, and refused to give them back to the city, which,
+with the alienation of the sheriff's mountain, and the raising of the
+city rents (in 1820) from 40 l. to 600 l. a year, left it 1,000 l. a
+year worse than it had been previously. The result of this policy of
+a body which was established for promoting 'civility' in Ireland, was,
+that the credit of the corporation went down rapidly. Executions were
+lodged against them, and all their property in quays, markets, &c.
+was swept away, the bridge being saved only by the intervention of a
+special act of parliament. In 1831, however, the society granted the
+corporation an allowance of 700 l. When the reformed corporation came
+in, and found that they were so far emancipated from the thraldom of
+the London governor that they could go before parliament themselves,
+the society was constrained to increase its dole to 1,200 l. a year.
+
+Mr. Isaac Colhoun, at the meeting referred to, produced from the
+accounts of the society for the previous year, published in the local
+papers, the following items:--
+
+                                                       L     s.    d.
+Amount of the present increased income               11,091  17     5
+                                                     ________________
+Incidental expenses as per general agents' account
+  for 1865                                              114   3 0-1/2
+Law expenses                                            492   7    11
+Salaries to general agent, deputy, vice-admiral,
+  surveyor, and others                                  926  16     6
+Pension to general agent                                250   0     0
+Visitation expenses, 1865                               539  19     6
+Surveying expenses                                       50   0     0
+Salary of clerk and porter's wages                      197  10     0
+Coal, gas, printing, stationery, advertisements         449  11     5
+Salary to secretary and assistant governor, and
+  'assistants' for attendance at 51 meetings            549   1     6
+                                                     ________________
+                                                      4,094   1     6
+
+Here, then, is a trust fund amounting to about 12,000 l. a year, and
+the trustees actually spend one-third in its management! And what
+is its management? What do they do with the money? Mr. Pitt Skipton,
+D.L., a landed proprietor, who has nothing to gain or lose by the
+Irish Society, asks, 'Where is our money laid out now? Not on the
+estate of the Irish Society, but on the estates of the church and
+private individuals--on those of owners like myself who give their
+tenants perpetuity, because it is their interest to do so. We should
+wish to see the funds of the society so expended that we could see
+some memorial of them. But where is there in Derry any monument wholly
+erected by the society which they were not specially forced to put up
+by charter, with the exception of a paltry piece of freestone within
+one of the bastions bearing their own arms.'
+
+Let us only imagine what the corporation of Derry could do in local
+improvements with this 12,000 l. a year, which is really their own
+property, or even with the 4,000 l. a-year squandered upon themselves
+by the trustees! Some of these worthy London merchants, it seems, play
+the _role_ of Irish landlords when travelling on the Continent, on
+the strength of this Derry estate, or their _assistantship_ in its
+management. 'I object,' says Mr. J.P. Hamilton, 'if I take a
+little run in the summer vacation to Paris or Brussels, to meet a
+greasy-looking gentleman from Whitechapel or the Minories, turned out
+sleek and shining from Moses', and to be told by him that he has a
+large property in _Hireland_, in a place called Derry, and that his
+tenantry are an industrious, thriving set of fellows, quite remarkable
+for their intelligence, but that it is all owing to his excellent
+management of his property and his liberality.'
+
+Mr. Hazlett presented a still funnier picture of the Irish
+'visitations' of the members of the society, with their wives and
+daughters every summer. Gentlemen in London regard it as a fine lark
+to get elected to serve in the Irish Society, as that includes
+a summer trip to Ireland free of expense, with the jolliest
+entertainment. One gentleman, being asked by another whether he was
+ever in Ireland, answered--'No, but I intend to get on the Irish
+Society next year and then I'll have a trip. What kind of people are
+they over there? Do they all speak Irish?'
+
+'Oh, no; they are a very decent, civilised people.'
+
+'Oh, I'm glad they don't speak Irish; for none of us do, of course;
+but my daughter can speak French.'
+
+'They had a great siege one time over there?'
+
+'Oh, yes; the Derry people are proud of the siege.'
+
+'Ah, yes, I see; happened in the reign of King John, I believe.'
+
+But the heaviest charge laid at the door of the Irish Society is its
+persistent refusal to grant proper tenures for building. By this, even
+more than their reckless squandering of the revenues of a fine estate,
+which is not their own, they have obstructed the improvement of the
+city. They might possibly be compelled to refund the wasted property
+of their ward, but they could never compensate for stunting and
+crippling her as they have done. Fortunately, there is a standard by
+which we are able to measure this iniquity with tolerable accuracy.
+Dr. William Brown, of Derry, testified that it was the universal
+conviction of the people of Derry, of all classes and denominations,
+that, by the mismanagement of their trust, the Irish Society had
+converted the crown grant from the blessing it was intended to be, and
+which it would have been under a just administration, into something
+more akin to a curse. For anything that saps the self-reliant and
+independent spirit of a community must always be a curse. Within the
+last hundred years Belfast was not in advance of Derry in population,
+in trade, in capital, or in any other element constituting or
+conducing to prosperity. Its river was not so navigable, and by no
+means so well adapted to foreign, especially transatlantic trade. The
+country surrounding it was not superior in soil, nor the inhabitants
+in intelligence and enterprise. It had no estate, as Derry had,
+granted by the crown to assist in the development of civilisation,
+education, and commerce. Its prospects, then, were inferior to those
+of Derry. But Belfast had the one thing, most needful of all, that
+Derry had not. It had equitable building tenures. And of this one
+advantage, look at the result! 'Belfast is now seven times the size of
+Derry; and is in possession of a trade and a trade capital which Derry
+can never hope to emulate, while smothered by the stick-in-the-mud
+policy of that miserable anachronism the Irish Society.'
+
+The London companies which have estates in the county Derry claimed
+to be entitled to all the surplus revenue after the cost of management
+was deducted. This was the question raised by the celebrated
+'Skinners' case,' ultimately decided by the House of Lords. The effect
+of the decision was, that the society was a trustee, not for the
+companies but for the public objects defined in the charter and the
+'articles of agreement.' Lord Langdale's language on the subject is
+perfectly clear and explicit. He declared that the Irish Society have
+not, 'collectively or individually,' any beneficial interest in the
+estates. In a sense they are trustees. They have important duties
+to perform; but their powers and duties have all reference to the
+_Plantation_, whose object was purely public and political.
+
+Adverting to this judgment, it is not Derry alone that is interested
+in the abolition of the Irish Society. Its objects 'affected the
+general welfare of Ireland and the whole realm.' The city of London,
+in its corporate capacity, had no beneficial interest in the estates.
+'The money which it had advanced was early repaid, and the power which
+remained, or which was considered to remain, was, like that of the
+society, an entrusted power for the benefit of the plantation and
+those interested in it. The Irish Society seems to have been little,
+if anything, more than the representative or instrument of the city
+for the purposes of the Plantation.'
+
+I subjoin the text of the concluding part of the judgment in the
+_Skinners' Case_, the report of which fills a very bulky volume:--
+
+Lord Langdale said: 'The mistaken views which the society may have
+subsequently taken of its own situation and duties (and I think that
+such mistaken views have several times been taken) do not vary the
+conclusion to be deduced from the charter and the circumstances
+contemporary with the grant of the first charter. I am of opinion that
+the powers granted to the society and the trusts reposed in them were
+in part of a general and public nature, independent of the private
+benefit of the companies of London, and were intended by the crown
+to benefit Ireland and the city of London, by connecting the city
+of Londonderry and the town of Coleraine and a considerable Irish
+district with the city of London, and to promote the general purposes
+of the Plantation, not only by securing the performance of the
+conditions imposed on ordinary undertakers, but also by the exercise
+of powers and the performance of trusts not within the scope of those
+conditions. The charter of Charles II. expressly recites that the
+property not actually divided was retained for the general operation
+of the Plantation.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+TENANT-RIGHT IN DOWN.
+
+
+If there are sermons in stones I ought to have learned something from
+the ruins of the castle built by Sir Arthur Hill, the founder of the
+house of Downshire, in which they show the chamber occupied by William
+III. while his army was encamped at Blaris Moor. This was once a royal
+fort, and among the most interesting memorials of the past are the
+primitive gates, long laid aside from duty, the timber gradually
+mouldering away from the huge nails, which once added to their massive
+strength. Hillsborough was incorporated by Charles II., and sent two
+members to parliament. The Hills rose rapidly in rank and influence.
+In 1717, Trevor Hill, Esq., was created Viscount of Hillsborough and
+Baron Hill. In 1756, Wills, the second viscount, was made Earl of
+Hillsborough, and in 1789 he became Marquis of Downshire.
+
+Hillsborough is the most perfect picture of a feudal establishment
+that I know. On one side of the little, quiet, tradeless town are the
+ruins of the old castle, with its park and its fine ancestral trees,
+through the thick foliage of which pierces the spire of the church,
+lofty and beautiful. On the other side, and quite close to the town,
+is 'the new castle'--an immense building of cut stone, in the Greek
+style, two storeys high, shut in by high walls from the view of the
+townsfolk. Then there is the small market-square, with the court-house
+in the centre, the hotel at the top, and other buildings of a better
+class on the opposite side. From the hill, which is crowned by these
+buildings, descend small streets, in which dwell the inhabitants, all
+more or less dependent on the lord of the manor, all cared for by him,
+and many of them pensioned when disabled by age or infirmity.
+
+There is a monument erected to the memory of the late marquis's
+father on a hill to the south of the town. The view from this point is
+glorious. Belfast lies a little beyond, enveloped in the smoke emitted
+from its numerous tall chimneys. To the left is the range of the
+Antrim highlands, continued along the coast of the Lough towards
+Carrickfergus, and from which the Cave Hill stands out in bold relief,
+looking down on the numerous pretty villas with which the taste
+of wealthy manufacturers and merchants has adorned those pleasant
+suburbs. Westward towards Lough Neagh, swelling gradually--southward
+towards Armagh, and round to Newry, the whole surface of the country
+gently undulating, presents a vast picture of quiet beauty, fertility,
+and plenty that can be rivalled only in England. The tall crowded
+stocks along the ridges of the corn-fields attested the abundance of
+the crops--the rich greenness and warmth of the landscape showing how
+well the ground has been drained, manured, and cultivated. The neat,
+white-walled houses gleaming amidst the verdure of sheltering trees
+and trimmed hedges tell the thoughtful observer that the people who
+dwell in this land belong to it, are rooted in it, and ply their
+industry under the happy feeling that, so far as their old landlords
+are concerned, their lot is one of 'quietness and assurance for ever.'
+Nowhere--even on the high ranges about Newry, where the population is
+far too dense, where the patchwork cultivation creeps up the mountain
+side, and the hand of industry snatches a precarious return from a
+poor, cold, ungrateful soil, amidst desolating tempests and blighting
+fogs--not even there did I notice the least trace of evictions or
+clearances. No black remnant of a wall tells that where sheep now
+browze and lambs frisk there was once a fireside, where the family
+affections were cherished, and a home where happy children played in
+the sunshine. This is the field of capital and enterprise; here
+we have an aristocracy of wealth, chiefs of industry, each of whom
+maintains an army of 'hands' more numerous than the swordsmen of Shane
+O'Neill when he reigned in his castle yonder on the banks of Lough
+Neagh. But here also is the aristocracy of rank--lords of ancient
+lineage, descended from heroes--men who have left magnificent
+monuments of their creative genius. They have not only founded great
+houses, but they have laid deep and broad the foundations of a
+social system to whose strength and beauty every age has been adding
+something, and which now wants only one topmost stone to make it
+perfect.
+
+I read on the monument to Lord Downshire the expressive motto of the
+Downshire family--_Per Deum et ferrum obtinui._ No family ever made
+better use of the power thus obtained. The inscription states that the
+third marquis was 'alike distinguished for patriotism, rectitude of
+principle, and honesty of purpose. Upholding his station with becoming
+dignity, he was also mindful of the wants of others, and practised his
+duties with benevolence and humility, which won the regard of every
+virtuous mind, adding lustre to his exalted rank.' Although these
+words were engraved upon a monument by the friends and admirers of
+their object, they are perfectly true, and they would be equally true
+of the late marquis.
+
+Lord Downshire is esteemed as the best of landlords. He charges 33 per
+cent. less for his land than it is worth--than the tenants would
+be able to pay. Tenant-right on his property sells for an enormous
+amount. He never evicts a tenant, nor even threatens to evict those
+who vote against him. What he has done for the contentment and
+prosperity of his tenants, with so much honour and happiness to
+himself, other landlords may do with like results. The late lord, his
+father, and his grandfather pursued the same course. They let their
+lands at a low valuation. They encouraged improvements--they allowed
+the free enjoyment of tenant-right; but they refused to allow
+sub-letting or subdivision of the land. They consolidated farms only
+when tenants, unable to retain small, worn-out holdings, wished to
+sell their tenant-right and depart. The consequence is that there is
+great competition for land on the Downshire estates. The tenant-right
+sells easily for 30 l. to 40 l. an Irish acre, the rent being on an
+average about 28 s. If a tenant is not able to pay his way, he is let
+run on in arrears perhaps for two or three years. Then he feels the
+necessity of selling; but the arrears are deducted, and also debts
+that he may owe to his neighbours, before he departs with the proceeds
+in his pocket.
+
+The late marquis seems to have been almost idolised by the tenants. On
+or off the estate, in town or country, I have heard nothing of him
+but praise of the warmest and most unqualified kind; and, what is more
+remarkable, his late agent, Mr. Filgate, was universally respected for
+his fairness in the discharge of his duties. The way in which I heard
+this spoken of by the people convinces me that there is nothing that
+wins their confidence so much as strict impartiality, and justice,
+calmly, kindly, but firmly administered. The people to whom I spoke
+laid stress on the fact that Mr. Filgate listened quietly to the
+statements of both sides, carefully enquired into the merits of each,
+and decided accordingly. There was no favouritism, they said, no
+partiality; no hasty decision in a fit of anger, or passion, or
+impatience; no refusal to listen to reason.
+
+I observed to one of the tenants, 'You admit that the rents are much
+lower than on other estates, much lower than the value of the lands,
+and that during the last twenty years the tenant-right has increased
+in value. Suppose, then, that the marquis should raise the rents, say
+twenty-five per cent., what would be the consequence? Would they pay
+the increase willingly?' 'Willingly!' he exclaimed, 'no, there would
+be rebellion! The late lord could do anything with the people; he
+could raise the country. But you see when they bought the tenant-right
+they believed they could never be robbed of the value for which they
+paid by raising the rent.'
+
+What can be better than the social picture which Harris presents of
+the state of society here 130 years ago? 'The inhabitants are warm
+and well clad at church, fairs, and markets. Tillage and the linen
+manufacture keep them in constant employment; a busy and laborious
+life prevents excess and breaches of the laws, which in no part of
+the kingdom are more reverenced. The people are regular in their
+attendance on public worship. Few breaches of the peace, felonies,
+burglaries, or murders come before the judges at the assizes;
+convictions for capital offences seldom happen. Men travel securely
+by day, and are afraid of little disturbance at night to keep them
+on their guard. Every man sits down securely under his vine and his
+figtree, and enjoys with comfort the fruit of his honest labours.' He
+ascribes in the main this prosperity to what he calls '_the spirit of
+tillage_.' Until that spirit arose in Ulster, the Irish had to send to
+America for their daily bread, 'which,' he says, 'to the astonishment
+of all Europe, has been often our weakness.' Viewing the whole social
+condition of the county, he exclaims, 'Such are the happy effects of
+a well-peopled country, _extensive tillage, the linen manufacture, and
+the Protestant religion_.'
+
+In the first year of the present century, the Dublin Society (not yet
+'Royal') employed 'land commissioners' to enquire into the condition
+of agriculture in the several counties of Ireland. The Rev. John
+Dubourdieu, rector of Annahilt, in this county, was their commissioner
+for Down and Antrim. He states that the rent was then on an average
+20 s. the _Irish_ acre (three equal to five English), allowing for the
+mountains and bogs, which he computed at 44,658 acres. The rental of
+the county he sets down at 300,000 l. The net annual value of property
+assessed under the Tenement Valuation Act is now 743,869 l. This is
+considerably under the letting value, it is supposed, 25 per cent. If
+this be so, the county yields to the proprietors a revenue of about
+1,000,000 l. a year. If we add the value of the tenant-right, and of
+the fixtures of all sorts--houses, mills, roads, bridges--as well as
+the movable property and stock, we may get some idea of the enormous
+aggregate of wealth which the labour of man has created on this strip
+of wild wooded hills, swampy plains, and bogs.
+
+Now, what has effected this marvellous change? The tenants, with one
+voice, exclaim, 'our labour, our capital, our skill, our care, and
+self-denial. It was we that cleared away the woods which it was
+so difficult to eradicate. It was we who drained away the bogs and
+morasses, and by the help of lime and marl converted them into rich
+land. It was we that built the dwelling-houses and offices. It was we
+that made the fences, and planted the hedge-rows and orchards. It was
+we that paid for the making of the roads and bridges. The landlords
+gave us the wild country to work upon; we have done the rest. Our
+industry enabled them to build their stately mansions, and we have
+continued to pay to them their princely revenues. Our forefathers
+came with them as settlers, that they might "plant" the country with
+a loyal and industrious race of people, and they came on the assurance
+that they and their children's children were to remain for ever rooted
+where they were planted. They did their duty faithfully and well by
+the land, by the landlords, and by the Government. Where the children
+that inherited their rights failed, their interest in their farms has
+been purchased dearly by others of the same race who have taken their
+places. By what right, then, can they be turned out?'
+
+It is not possible, if it were desirable, to introduce the 'high
+farming system' in this county. But if possible, would it be
+desirable? In the eye of a scientific agriculturist it might be better
+that all those comfortable farm-houses, with the innumerable fences
+crossing the landscape in every possible form, making all sorts
+of mathematical figures, presenting the appearance of an immense
+variegated patchwork--were levelled and removed so that the plough and
+all the modern machinery might range unobstructed over hill and vale.
+But assuredly it would not seem better to the philanthropist, the
+Christian, or the statesman. To the chancellor of the exchequer it
+would make the most serious difference; for a few herds and ploughmen
+would consume but a very small portion indeed of the excisable
+articles now used by the tenant farmers of this county. I have taken
+some notes on the diet of this people which may be instructive.
+
+At the beginning of the present century the small farmers were
+generally weavers. There was an obvious incompatibility in the two
+occupations, and the farms were neglected. Gradually this evil has
+been corrected, especially since the famine. The weavers have
+become cottiers, and the farmers have devoted themselves to their
+agricultural operations exclusively with the more energy since
+railroads have so facilitated the quick sale of produce, particularly
+that sort of produce which enables the occupiers to supply the markets
+with the smaller necessaries of life, and with which large farmers
+would not trouble themselves. Daily labourers working from 6 A.M., to
+6 P.M. in large fields with machinery cannot do the hundreds of little
+matters which the family of the small holder attends to every hour of
+the day, often in the night--and which give work to women and children
+as well as the men--work of the most healthful character and most free
+from demoralizing influences.
+
+On a farm of fifteen to thirty acres there is constant employment of
+a profitable kind for the members of a household, including women and
+children. The effect of good drainage is that farming operations can
+be carried on through winter, in preparing the ground and putting in
+wheat and other crops early to supply the markets, when prices are
+high. Oats, barley, potatoes, flax, turnips claim attention in
+turn, and then come the weeding and thinning, the turf-making, the
+hay-making, and all the harvest operations. It is by the ceaseless
+activity of small farmers in watching over their pigs, poultry, lambs,
+&c., that the markets are kept so regularly supplied, and that towns
+grow up and prosper. If Down and Antrim had been divided into farms
+of thousands of acres each, like Lincolnshire, what would Belfast
+have become? Little more than a port for the shipping of live stock
+to Liverpool and Glasgow. Before the famine, the food of the small
+farmers was generally potatoes and milk three times a day, with a bit
+of meat occasionally. But salt herrings were the main reliance for
+giving a flavour to the potato, often 'wet' and bad. After the failure
+of the potatoes, their place was supplied by oatmeal in the form
+of 'stirabout.' Indian meal was subsequently found cheaper and more
+wholesome. But of late years the diet of the farmers in these parts
+has undergone a complete revolution. There is such brisk demand for
+butter, eggs, potatoes, and other things that used to be consumed
+by the family, that they have got into the habit of taking tea, with
+cakes and other home-made bread twice, or even three times, a day.
+The demand for tea is, therefore, enormous. There is one grocer's
+establishment in Belfast which has been able to produce a mixture that
+suits the taste of the people, and the quantity of tea sold by it is
+a ton a day. This is the business of but one out of many houses in
+Belfast. Then there is the brisk trade in such towns as Newtownards,
+Lisburn, Ballymena, &c. In pastoral districts the towns languish, the
+people pine in poverty, and the workhouses are in request.
+
+In a financial point of view, therefore, it is manifestly the interest
+of the state to encourage 'the spirit of tillage.' It is thus that
+most will be got out of the ground, that most revenue will be raised,
+and that the other elements of national power will be most fully
+developed. How can this encouragement be most effectually given?
+Security for the farmer is essential--of what nature should the
+security be? The phrase 'unexhausted improvements' is often used.
+But should the legislature contemplate, or make provision for the
+exhaustion of improvements? Is the improving tenant to be told that
+his remedy is to retrograde--to undo what he has done--to take out
+of the land all the good he has put in it, and reduce it to the
+comparative sterility in which he, or those whom he represents, first
+received it? Should not the policy of the legislature rather be to
+keep up improvements of the soil, and its productive power at the
+highest possible point, and make it the interest of the occupier
+never to relax in his exertions? The rower will not put forth all his
+strength unless he believes he will win. In other races, though
+many start, only one or two can receive the prize. In this race of
+agricultural improvement all competitors might win ample rewards. But
+will they put forth all their energies--is it in human nature that
+they should--was it ever done by any people, if the prizes are to be
+seized, enjoyed, and flaunted before their eyes by others, who may
+be strangers, and who never helped them by their sympathy in their
+toilsome course of training and self-denial? It is because the
+landlords of the county Down have been so often in the same boat with
+their tenants, and with so much good faith, generous feeling, and
+cordial sympathy encouraged their exertions, and secured to them their
+just rewards, that this great county presents to the world such a
+splendid example of what industry, skill, and capital can accomplish.
+Is it not possible to extend the same advantages through the whole
+island without wronging the landlord or degrading the tenant?
+
+The stranger is at first surprised to see so large a town as
+Newtownards, with its handsome square, its town-hall, its wide,
+regular streets, its numerous places of worship, and a population of
+9,500, in a place without visible factories, and without communication
+with the sea, within eight miles of Belfast, and three miles of
+Bangor, which, though a seaport, is but one-fourth of the size. But
+although there are no great mills sending forth volumes of smoke,
+Newtownards is really a manufacturing town. Those clean, regular
+streets, with their two-storey houses, uniform as a district in the
+east of London, are inhabited by weavers. In each house there is one
+loom at least, in most two or three, and in some as many as six. The
+manufacture of woollen and cotton goods of finer qualities than can
+be produced by the power-loom is carried on extensively. I saw one man
+working at a piece of plaid of six colours, a colour on every shuttle,
+With the help of his wife, who assisted in winding, he was able to
+earn only 8 s. a week by very diligent work from early morning till
+night. There is a general complaint of the depression of trade at
+present. Agents, chiefly from Glasgow houses, living in the town,
+supply the yarn and pay the wages. I was struck with the number of
+public-houses in all the leading streets. How far they are supported
+by the weavers I cannot say, but whether or not they can dispense
+with the glass, they must have their tobacco, and when this luxury
+is deducted, and a shilling a week for the rent of the cottage, it is
+hard to understand how a family of six or eight can be supported on
+the weekly wages. The trade of muslin embroidery once flourished here,
+and in the pretty little neighbouring town of Comber; but it has so
+fallen off that now the best hands, plying the needle unceasingly
+during the long, long day, can earn only three or four shillings
+a week. Before the invention of machinery for flax-spinning, the
+manufacture of fine thread by hand-labour was a most profitable
+employment. Wonders were wrought in this way by female fingers. The
+author of 'Our Staple Manufactures' states that in 1799, out of a
+pound and a half of flax, costing 10 s., a woman produced yarn of the
+value of 5 l. 2 s. 6 d. Miss M'Quillan, of Comber, spun 94 hanks out
+of one pound of flax, splitting the fibre with her needles to give
+this degree of fineness.
+
+  But alas! what a change to the cottage hearth!
+  The song of the wheel's no more--
+  The song that gladdened with guileless mirth
+  The hearths and homes of the poor!
+
+But here, and in all the small towns about, they have still the
+weaving, and it is carried on to a considerable extent by persons who
+hold a few acres of land, throwing aside the shuttle while putting in
+the crops and doing the harvest work. Thus combining the two pursuits,
+these poor people are able, by extraordinary industry, to earn their
+daily bread; but they can do little more. The weavers, as a class,
+appear to be feeble and faded specimens of humanity, remarkably quiet,
+intelligent, and well-disposed--a law-abiding people, who shrink from
+violence and outrage, no matter what may be their grievances. It is
+cruel to load them too heavily with the burdens of life, and yet I am
+afraid it is sometimes done, even in this county, unnecessarily and
+wantonly. What I have said of the Downshire and Londonderry estates,
+holds good with respect to the estates of the other large proprietors,
+such as Lord Roden, the kindest of landlords, almost idolised, even by
+his Catholic tenants; Lord Annesley; the trustees of Lord Kilmurray;
+Sir Thomas Bateson, and others. But I am sorry to learn that even
+the great county Down has a share of the two classes which supply the
+worst species of Irish landlords--absentees who live extravagantly in
+England, and merchants who have purchased estates to make as large a
+percentage as possible out of the investment. It is chiefly, but not
+wholly, on the estates of these proprietors that cases of injustice
+and oppression are found. In the first class it is the agent that the
+tenants have to deal with; and whether he be humane or not matters
+little to them, for, whatever may be his feelings, the utmost penny
+must be exacted to keep up the expensive establishments of the
+landlord in England, to meet the cost of a new building, or the debt
+incurred by gambling on the turf and elsewhere. Every transaction of
+the kind brings a fresh demand on the agent, and even if he be not
+unscrupulous or cruel, he must put on the screw, and get the money
+at all hazards. I have been assured that it is quite usual, on such
+estates, to find the tenantry paying the highest rent compatible with
+the maintenance of bare life. There is in the county of Down a great
+number of small holders thus struggling for existence. As a specimen
+let us take the following case:--A man holds a dozen acres of land,
+for which he pays 2 l. 10 s. per acre. He labours as no slave could be
+made to work, in the summer time from five o'clock in the morning till
+six in the evening. He can hardly scrape together a pound beyond the
+rent and taxes. If a bad season comes, he is at starvation point: he
+falls into arrears with the landlord, and he is forced by the bailiff
+to sell off his small stock to pay the rent.
+
+Without the excuse of pecuniary difficulties, the merchant landlord is
+not a whit less exacting, or more merciful. He looks upon the tenants
+as he would on so many head of cattle, and his sole consideration
+is what is the highest penny he can make out of them. Not far from
+Belfast lived a farmer who cultivated a few acres. Sickness and the
+support of a widowed sister's family forced him into arrears of rent.
+Ejectment proceedings were taken, and one day when he returned to his
+house, he found his furniture thrown out on the road, the sister and
+family evicted, and the door locked. He was offered as much money as
+would take him to America, but he would not be allowed to sell the
+tenant-right. Here is another case illustrative of the manner in which
+that right is sometimes dealt with:--A respectable man purchased a
+farm at 10 l. an acre. It was very poor land, much of it unfit for
+cultivation. Immediately on getting possession a surveyor came and
+added two acres to the former measurement. The incoming tenant was
+at the same time informed that the rent was raised to an extent that
+caused the possession to be a dead loss. On threatening to throw up
+the concern, some reduction was made, which brought the rent as close
+as possible to the full letting value.
+
+I have been told by a well-informed gentleman, whose veracity I cannot
+doubt, that it is quite common in the county of Down (and indeed
+I have been told the same thing in other counties) to find an
+_improving_ tenant paying 2 l. to 3 l. an acre for land, which he has
+at his own expense brought up to a good state of cultivation,
+while the adjoining land of his lazy neighbour--originally of equal
+value--yields only 20 s. to 35 s. an acre. The obvious tendency of
+this unjust and impolitic course on the part of landlords and agents,
+is to discourage improvements, to dishearten the industrious, and to
+fill the country with thriftless, desponding, and miserable occupiers,
+living from hand to mouth. There are circumstances under which even
+selfish men will toil hard, though others should share with them the
+benefit of their labours; but if they feel that this partnership in
+the profits of their industry is the result of a system of legalised
+injustice, which enables unscrupulous men to appropriate at will the
+whole of the profits, their moral sense so revolts against that system
+that they resolve to do as little as they possibly can.
+
+The consequence of these painful relations of landlord and tenant,
+even in this comparatively happy county, is a perceptible degeneracy
+in the manhood of the people. Talk to an old inhabitant, who has been
+an attentive observer of his times, and he will tell you that
+the vigorous and energetic, the intelligent and enterprising, are
+departing to more favoured lands, and that this process has produced
+a marked deterioration in the population within his memory. He can
+distinctly recollect when there were more than double the present
+number of strong farmers in the country about Belfast. He declares
+that, with many exceptions of course, the land is getting into the
+hands of a second or third class of farmers, who are little more than
+servants to the small landlords. Even where there are leases, such
+intelligent observers affirm that they are so over-ridden with
+conditions that the farmer has no liberty or security to make any
+great improvements. Were it otherwise he would not think a thirty-one
+years' lease sufficient for the building of a stone house, that would
+be as good at the end of a hundred years as at the end of thirty. All
+the information that I can gather from thoughtful men, who are really
+anxious for a change that would benefit the landlords as well as
+themselves, points to the remedy which Lord Granard has suggested,
+as the most simple, feasible, and satisfactory--the legalisation and
+extension of the tenant-right custom. They rejoice that such landlords
+now proclaim the injustice which the tenant class have so long
+bitterly felt--namely, the presumption of law that all the
+improvements and buildings on the farm belong to the lord of the
+soil, although the notorious fact is that they are all the work of the
+tenant.
+
+And here I will take the opportunity of remarking that the legislature
+were guilty of strange oversight, or deliberate injustice, in
+the passing of the Incumbered Estates Act. Taking advantage of an
+overwhelming national calamity, they forced numbers of gentlemen into
+a ruinous sale of their patrimonial estates, in order that men of
+capital might get possession of them. But they made no provision
+whatever for the protection of the tenants, or of the property which
+those tenants had created on these estates. Many of those were tenants
+at will, who built and planted in perfect and well-grounded reliance
+on the honour and integrity of their old landlords. But in the
+advertisements for the sale of property under the Landed Estates
+Court, it was regularly mentioned as an inducement to purchasers of
+the Scully type that the tenants had no leases. The result of this
+combination of circumstances bearing against the cultivators of the
+soil--the chief producers of national wealth--is a deep, resentful
+sense of injustice pervading this class, and having for its immediate
+objects the landlords and their agents. The tenants don't speak out
+their feelings, because they dare not. They fear that to offend the
+_office_ in word or deed is to expose themselves and their children
+to the infliction of a fine in the shape of increased rent, perhaps at
+the rate of five or ten shillings an acre in perpetuity.
+
+One unfortunate effect of the distrust thus generated, is that when
+enlightened landlords, full of the spirit of improvement, like Lord
+Dufferin and Lord Lurgan, endeavour, from the most unselfish and
+patriotic motives, to make changes in the tenures and customs on their
+estates, they have to encounter an adverse current of popular opinion
+and feeling, which is really too strong to be effectually resisted.
+For example: In order to correct the evils resulting from the undue
+competition for land among the tenants, they limit the amount per acre
+which the outgoing tenant is permitted to receive; but the limitation
+is futile, because the tenants understand one another, and do what
+they believe to be right behind the landlord's back. The market price
+is, say, 20 l. an acre. The landlord allows 10 l.; the balance finds
+its way secretly into the pocket of the outgoing tenant before he
+gives up possession. As a gentleman expressed it to me emphatically,
+'The outgoing tenant _must_ be satisfied, and he _is_ satisfied.'
+Public opinion in his own class demands it; and on no other terms
+would it be considered lucky to take possession of the vacant farm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+TENANT-RIGHT IN ANTRIM.
+
+
+I find from the Antrim Survey, published in 1812, that at that time
+leases were general on the Hertfort estate. There were then about
+3,600 farmers who held by that tenure, each holding, on an average,
+twenty English acres, but many farms contained 100 acres or more. Mr.
+Hugh M'Call, of Lisburn, the able author of 'Our Staple Manufactures,'
+gives the following estimates of the rental. In 1726, it was 3,500
+l.; in 1768, it was 12,000 l.; and for 1869, his estimate is 63,000 l.
+Taking the estimate given by Dean Stannus, as 10 l. or 12 l. an acre,
+the tenant-right of the estate is worth 500,000 l. at the very least,
+probably 600,000 l. is the more correct figure. This vast amount of
+property created by the industry and capital of the tenants, is held
+at the will of an absentee landlord, who has on several occasions
+betrayed an utter want of sympathy with the people who lie thus at his
+mercy. There are tenant farmers on the estate who hold as much as
+100 to 200 acres, with handsome houses built by themselves, whose
+interest, under the custom, should amount to 1,500 l. and 2,500 l.
+respectively, which might be legally swept away by a six months'
+notice to quit. The owners of this property might be regarded as very
+independent, but in reality, unless the spirit of martyrdom has raised
+them above the ordinary feelings of human nature, they will take care
+to be very humble and submissive towards Lord Hertfort's agents. If
+words were the same as deeds, if professions were always consistent
+with practice, the tenants would certainly have nothing to fear; for
+great pains have been taken from time to time, both by the landlord
+and agent, to inspire them with unbounded confidence.
+
+In the year 1845, the tenants presented an address to Lord Hertfort,
+in which they said:--'It is a proud fact, worthy to be recorded, that
+the tenant-right of the honest and industrious man on your lordship's
+estate is a certain and valuable tenure to him, so long as he
+continues to pay his rent.' To this his lordship replied in the
+following terms:--'I am happy to find that the encouragement I
+have given to the improvement of the land generally has been found
+effectual, and I trust that the advantage to the tenant of the
+improved system of agriculture will be found to increase; and I beg
+to assure you that with me the right of the improving tenant shall
+continue to be as scrupulously respected as it has been hitherto by
+my ancestors. Your kindness alone, independent of the natural
+interest which I must ever feel as to everything connected with this
+neighbourhood, affords a powerful inducement to my coming among you,
+and I hope to have the pleasure of often repeating my visit.'
+
+Twenty-four years have since elapsed, and during all that time the
+marquis has never indulged himself in a repetition of the exquisite
+pleasure he then enjoyed. At a banquet given in his honour on that
+occasion, he used the following language, which was, no doubt,
+published in the _Times_, and read with great interest in London and
+Paris:--'This is one of the most delightful days I ever spent. Trust
+me, I have your happiness and welfare at heart, and it shall ever
+be my endeavour to promote the one and contribute to the other.' The
+parting scene on this occasion must have been very touching; for,
+in tearing himself away, his lordship said: 'I have now come to the
+concluding toast. It is, "Merry have we met, and merry may we _soon_
+meet again!"'
+
+The tenants could scarcely doubt the genuineness of their landlord's
+feelings, for on the same occasion Dean Stannus said: 'I feel myself
+perfectly justified in using the term "a good landlord;" because his
+lordship's express wish to me often was, "I hope you will always
+keep me in such a position that I may be considered the friend of
+my tenants."' But as he did not return to them, a most respectable
+deputation waited upon him in London in the year 1850, to present
+a memorial praying for a reduction of rent on account of the potato
+blight and other local calamities which had befallen the tenantry. The
+memorialists respectfully showed 'that under the encouraging auspices
+of the Hertfort family, and on the faith of that just and equitable
+understanding which has always existed on this estate--that _no
+advantage would be taken of the tenant's improvements in adjusting
+the letting value of land_, they had invested large sums of money in
+buildings and other improvements on their farms, and that this, under
+the name of tenant-right, was a species of sunk capital that was
+formerly considered a safe repository for accumulated savings, which
+could be turned to account at any time of difficulty by its sale, or
+as a security for temporary advances.' In his reply, Lord Hertfort
+said, 'I seek not to disturb any interest, much less do I wish to
+interfere by any plan or arrangement of mine with the tenant-right
+which my tenants have hitherto enjoyed, and which it is my anxious
+wish to preserve to them.'
+
+The faith and hope inspired by these assurances of the landlord were
+repeatedly encouraged and strengthened by the public declarations of
+his very reverend agent, Dean Stannus. At a meeting of the Killultagh
+and Derryvolgie Farming Society, in 1849, he stated that he had great
+pleasure in subscribing to almost everything said by Mr. M'Call.
+He had taken great pains to convince the late Lord Hertfort that
+tenant-right was one of the greatest possible boons, _as well to the
+landlords themselves_ as to the tenants. So advantageous did he regard
+it to the interest of Lord Hertfort and the tenants, that if it were
+not preserved he would not continue agent to the estate. Tenant-right
+was his security for the Marquis of Hertfort's rent, and he would not
+ask a tenant to relinquish a single rood of land without paying him at
+the rate of 10 l. to 12 l. an acre for it.
+
+Firmly believing in the statements thus emphatically and solemnly made
+to them from time to time, that on this estate tenant-right was as
+good as a lease, the tenants went on building houses, and making
+permanent improvements in Lisburn and elsewhere, depending on this
+security. And, indeed, the value of such security could scarcely be
+presented under more favourable circumstances. The absentee landlord
+receiving such a princely revenue, and absorbed in his Parisian
+pursuits, seemed to leave everything to his agent. The agent was
+rector of the parish of Lisburn, a dignitary of the Church, a
+gentleman of the highest social position, with many excellent points
+in his character, and pledged before the world, again and again,
+to respect rigidly and scrupulously the enormous property which
+a confiding tenantry had invested in this estate. If, under these
+circumstances, the security of tenant-right fails, where else can it
+be trusted? If it be proved, by open and public proceedings, that on
+the Hertfort estate, the distinctly recognised property of the tenant
+is liable to be seized and wrested from him by the agent, it is clear
+to demonstration that such property absolutely requires the protection
+of law. This proof, I am sorry to say, is forthcoming. Let my readers
+reflect for a moment on what might have been done for Lisburn and the
+surrounding country if the Marquis of Hertfort had rebuilt his castle
+and resided among his people. What an impulse to improvement of every
+kind, what employment for tradesmen of every class, what business for
+shops might have resulted from the local expenditure of 50,000 l. or
+60,000 l. a year! What public buildings would have been erected--how
+local institutions would have flourished! The proverb that 'absence
+makes the heart grow fonder' does not apply to the relations of
+landlord and tenant. But there is another proverb that applies
+well--'Out of sight, out of mind.' Of this I shall now give two or
+three illustrations. Some years ago, it was discovered that no
+lease of the Catholic chapel at Lisburn could be found, and in the
+recollection of the oldest member of the congregation no rent had been
+paid. Kent, however, was now demanded, and the parish priest agreed
+to pay a nominal amount, which places the congregation at the mercy
+of the office. Ground was asked some time ago to build a Presbyterian
+Church, but it was absolutely refused. A sum of money was subscribed
+to build a literary institute, but, though a sort of promise was given
+for ground to build it on, it was never granted, and the project fell
+through. Lord Hertfort spends no portion of his vast income where it
+is earned. His estate is like a farm to which the produce is never
+returned in the shape of manure, but is all carted off and applied to
+the enrichment of a farm elsewhere. One might suppose that where such
+an exhausting process has been going on for so long a time an effort
+would be made at some sort of compensation, especially at periods of
+calamity. Yet, when the weavers on his estate were starving, owing to
+the cotton famine during the American war, his lordship never replied
+to the repeated applications made to him for help to save alive those
+honest producers of his wealth. The noble example of Lord Derby and
+other proprietors in Lancashire failed to kindle in his heart a spark
+of humanity, not to speak of generous emulation. The sum of 3,000 l.
+was raised in Lisburn, and by friends in Great Britain and America,
+which was expended in saving the people from going _en masse_ to
+the workhouse. Behold a contrast! While the great peer, whose family
+inherited a vast estate for which they never paid a shilling, was deaf
+to the cries of famishing Christians, whom he was bound by every tie
+to commiserate and relieve, an American citizen, who owed nothing
+to Ireland but his birth--Mr. A.T. Stewart, of New York--sent a ship
+loaded with provisions, which cost him 5,000 l. of his own money, to
+be distributed amongst Lord Hertfort's starving tenants, and on
+the return of the ship he took out as many emigrants as he could
+accommodate, free of charge. The tourist in Ireland is charmed with
+the appearance of Lisburn--the rich and nicely cultivated town parks,
+the fields white as snow with linen of the finest quality, the busy
+mills, the old trees, the clean streets, the look of comfort in the
+population, the pretty villas in the country about. Mrs. S.C. Hall
+says that there is, probably, no town in Ireland where the happy
+effects of English taste and industry are more conspicuous than at
+Lisburn. 'From Drumbridge and the banks of the Lagan on one side,
+to the shores of Lough Neagh on the other, the people are almost
+exclusively the descendants of English settlers. Those in the
+immediate neighbourhood of the town were mostly Welsh, but great
+numbers arrived from the northern English shires, and from the
+neighbourhood of the Bristol Channel. The English language is perhaps
+spoken more purely by the populace of this district than by the same
+class in any other part of Ireland. The neatness of the cottages, and
+the good taste displayed in many of the farms, are little, if at all,
+inferior to aught that we find in England, and the tourist who visits
+Lough Neagh, passing through Ballinderry, will consider it to have
+been justly designated _the garden of the north._ The multitude of
+pretty little villages, scattered over the landscape, each announcing
+itself by the tapering tower of a church, would almost beguile the
+traveller into believing that he was passing through a rural district
+in one of the midland counties of England.'
+
+We have seen that after General Conway got this land, it was described
+by an English traveller as still uninhabited--'all woods and moor.'
+Who made it the garden of the north? The British settlers and their
+descendants. And why did they transform this wilderness into fruitful
+fields? Because they had permanent tenures and fair rents. The rental
+150 years ago was 3,500 l. per annum. Allow that money was three times
+as valuable then as it is now, and the rental would have been about
+10,500 l. It is now nearly six times that amount. By what means was
+the revenue of the landlord increased? Was it by any expenditure of
+his own? Did any portion of the capital annually abstracted from
+the estate return to it, to fructify and increase its value? Did the
+landlord drain the swamps, reclaim the moors, build the dwellings and
+farmhouses, make the fences, and plant the orchards? He did nothing
+of the kind. Nor was it agricultural industry alone that increased his
+revenue. He owes much of the beauty, fertility, and richness of his
+estate to the linen manufacture, to those weavers to the cries of
+distress from whose famishing children a few years ago the most noble
+marquis resolutely turned a deaf ear.
+
+But, passing from historical matters to the immediate purpose of our
+enquiry, let it suffice to remark that from Lisburn as a centre the
+linen trade in all its branches--flax growing, scutching, spinning,
+weaving and bleaching--spread over the whole of the Hertfort estate,
+giving profitable employment to the tenants, circulating money,
+enabling them to build and improve and work the estate into the
+rich and beautiful garden described by Mrs. Hall;--all this work
+of improvement has been carried on, all or nearly all the costly
+investments on the land have been made, without leases and in
+dependence on tenant-right. We have seen what efforts were made by
+landlord and agent to strengthen the faith of the tenants in this
+security. We have seen also from the historical facts I have adduced
+the sort of people that constitute the population of the borough of
+Lisburn. If ever there was a population that could be safely entrusted
+with the free exercise of the franchise it is the population of
+this town--so enlightened, so loyal, so independent in means, such
+admirable producers of national wealth, so naturally attached to
+British connection. Yet for generations Lisburn has been a pocket
+borough, and the nominee of the landlord, often a total stranger, was
+returned as a matter of course. The marquis sent to his agent a _conge
+d'elire_, and that was as imperative as a similar order to a dean
+and chapter to elect a bishop. In 1852 the gentleman whom the Lisburn
+electors were ordered to return was Mr. Inglis, the lord advocate of
+Scotland. They, however, felt that the time was come when the borough
+should be opened, and they should be at liberty to exercise their
+constitutional rights. A meeting of the inhabitants was therefore
+held, at which Mr. R. Smith was nominated as the popular candidate.
+The contest was not political; it was simply the independence of the
+borough against the _office_. Dean Stannus, as agent to an absentee
+landlord, was the most powerful personage in the place, virtually
+the lord of the manor. Before the election that gentleman published a
+letter in a Belfast paper contradicting a statement that had
+appeared to the effect that Lord Hertfort took little interest in the
+approaching contest, in which letter he said: 'I have the best reason
+for knowing that his lordship views with intense interest what is
+passing here, and that he is most anxious for the return of Mr.
+Inglis, feeling that the election of such a representative (which I am
+now enabled to say is _certain_) will do much credit to the borough of
+Lisburn, and that this _unmeaning_ contest will, at all events, among
+its other effects, prove to his lordship whom he may regard as his
+_true_ friends in his future relations with this town.'
+
+Notwithstanding this warning, so significantly emphasized, the
+candidate whom the voters selected as their real representative was
+returned. Now no one can blame the marquis or his agent for wishing
+that the choice had fallen upon Mr. Inglis. So far as politics were
+concerned, the contest _was_ unmeaning; but so far as the rights of
+the people and the loyal working of the British constitution were
+concerned, the contest was full of meaning, and if the landlord and
+his agent respected the constitution more than their own personal
+power they would have frankly acquiesced in the result, feeling that
+this Protestant and Conservative constituency had conscientiously
+done its duty to the state. But who could have imagined, after all
+the solemnly recorded pledges I have quoted, that they would have
+instantly resolved to punish the independent exercise of the franchise
+by inflicting an enormous and crushing fine amounting to nothing less
+than the whole tenant-right property of every adverse voter who had
+not a lease! Immediately after the election 'notices to quit' were
+served upon every one of them. In consequence of this outrageous
+proceeding a public meeting was held, at which a letter from John
+Millar, Esq., a most respectable and wealthy man (who was unable to
+attend) was read by the secretary. He said: 'I have at various times
+purchased places held from year to year, relying on the custom of the
+country, and on the declared determination of the landlord and his
+agent to respect such customary rights of property, for the continued
+possession of it. I have besides taken under the same landlord several
+fields as town parks, which were in very bad order. These fields I
+have drained and very much improved. I have always punctually paid the
+rent charged for the several holdings, and, I think I may venture to
+say, performed all the duties of a good tenant. At the last election,
+however, I exercised my right as a citizen of a free country,
+by giving my votes at Hillsborough and Lisburn in favour of the
+tenant-right candidates, without reference to the desires or orders of
+those who have no legal or constitutional right to control the use of
+my franchise. I have since received from the office a notice to quit,
+desiring me to give up possession of all my holdings, as tenant
+from year to year, in the counties of Down and Antrim, without any
+intimation that I shall receive compensation, and without being able
+to obtain any explanation of this conduct towards me except by popular
+rumour.' At the same meeting Mr. Hugh M'Call said that he had looked
+over some documents and found that the individuals in Lisburn who
+had received notices to quit held property to the value of 3,000 l.,
+property raised by themselves, or purchased by them with the sanction
+of the landlord. In one case the agent himself went into the premises
+where buildings were being erected, and suggested some changes. In
+fact the improvements were carried out under his inspection as an
+architect. Yet he served upon that gentleman a notice to quit. Some
+of the tenants paid the penalty for their votes by surrendering their
+holdings; others contested the right of eviction on technical points,
+and succeeded at the quarter sessions. One of the points was, as
+already mentioned, that a dean and rector could not be legally a land
+agent at the same time. It was, indeed, a very ugly fact that the
+rector of the parish should be thus officially engaged, not only in
+nullifying the political rights of his own Protestant parishioners,
+but in destroying their tenant-right, evicting them from their
+holdings, which _they_ believed to be legal robbery and oppression,
+accompanied by such flagrant breach of faith as tended to destroy all
+confidence between man and man, and thus to dissolve the strongest
+bonds of society. Sad work for a dignitary of the church to be engaged
+in!
+
+In April, 1856, there was another contested election. On that
+occasion the marquis wrote to a gentleman in Lisburn that he would not
+interfere 'directly or indirectly to influence anybody.' Nevertheless,
+notices to quit, signed by Mr. Walter L. Stannus, assistant and
+successor to his father, were extensively served upon tenants-at-will,
+though it was afterwards alleged that they were only served as matters
+of form. But what, then, did they mean? They meant that those who
+had voted against the office had, _ipso facto, forfeited their
+tenant-right property._ Many other incidents in the management of the
+estate have been constantly occurring more recently, tending to show
+that the most valuable properties created by the tenants-at-will are
+at the mercy of the landlord, and that tenant-right, so called, is
+not regarded by him as a matter of _right_ at all, but merely as a
+_favour_, to be granted to those who are dutiful and submissive to the
+office in all matters, political and social. For instance, one farmer
+was refused permission to sell his tenant-right till he consented to
+sink 100 l. or 200 l. in the shares of the Lisburn and Antrim railway,
+so that, as he believed, he was obliged to throw away his money in
+order to get his right.
+
+The enormous power of an office which can deal with property amounting
+to more than half a million sterling, in such an arbitrary manner,
+necessarily generates a spirit of wanton and capricious despotism,
+except where the mind is very well regulated and the heart severely
+disciplined by Christian duty. Of this I feel bound to give the
+following illustration, which I would not do if the fact had not been
+made public, and if I had not the best evidence that it is undeniable.
+George Beattie, jun., a grocer's assistant in Lisburn, possessed a
+beautiful greyhound which he left in charge of George Beattie, sen.,
+his uncle, on departing for America. This uncle possessed a farm on
+the Hertfort estate, the tenant-right of which he wanted to sell.
+Having applied to Mr. Stannus for permission, the answer he received
+was that he would not be allowed to sell until the head of the
+greyhound was brought to the office. The tenant remonstrated and
+offered to send the dog away off the estate to relatives, but to no
+effect. He was obliged to kill the greyhound, and to send its head in
+a bag to Lord Hertfort's office. It was a great triumph for the agent.
+What a pretty sensational story he had to tell the young ladies in the
+refined circles in which he moves. How edifying the recital must have
+been to the peasantry around him! How it must have exalted their ideas
+of the civilising influence of land agency. 'It is quite a common
+thing,' says a gentleman well acquainted with the estate, 'when a
+tenant becomes insolvent, that his tenant-right is sold and employed
+to pay those of his creditors who may be in favour. I know a lady who
+made application to have a claim against a small farmer registered in
+the office, which was done, and she now possesses the security of the
+man's tenant-right for her money.'
+
+The case of the late Captain Bolton is the last illustration I
+shall give in connection with this estate. Captain Bolton resided in
+Lisburn, and he was one of the most respected of its inhabitants.
+He was the owner of four houses in that town, a property which he
+acquired in this way:--The site of two of them was obtained by the
+late James Hogg, in lieu of freehold property surrendered. On this
+ground, his son, Captain Bolton's uncle, built the two houses entirely
+at his own expense. Two other houses, immediately adjoining, came into
+the market, and he purchased the out-going tenant's 'good-will' for
+a sum of about 40 l. These houses were thatched, and in very bad
+condition. He repaired them and slated them, and thus formed a nice
+uniform block of four workers' houses. Captain Bolton inherited these
+from his uncle and retained uninterrupted possession till 1852, when
+he voted for Johnston Smyth at the election of that date. Immediately
+afterwards he received a notice to quit, an ejectment was brought in
+due time, the case was dismissed at the quarter sessions, an appeal
+was lodged, but it was again dismissed at the assizes. Undaunted by
+these two defeats, the persistent agent served another notice to quit.
+The captain was a man of peace, whose nerves could not stand such
+perpetual worrying by litigation, and he was so disgusted with
+the whole affair that he tied up the keys, and sent them to Lord
+Hertfort's office. In his ledger that day he made the following
+entry:--'Plundered, this 20th December 1854, by our worthy agent to
+the marquis, because I voted for Smyth and the independence of the
+borough.--J.B.'
+
+The houses remained in the hands of the agent till the next election,
+when Captain Bolton voted for Mr. Hogg, the office candidate.
+The conscientious old gentleman--as good a conservative as Dean
+Stannus--voted from principle in both cases and not to please the
+agent or anyone else. The agent, however, thought proper to regard
+it as a penitent act, and as the tenant had ceased to be naughty,
+and had, it was assumed, shown proper deference to his political
+superiors, he received his houses back again, retaining the possession
+of them till his death. The profit rent of the houses is 20 l. a year.
+Either this rent belonged to Captain Bolton or to Lord Hertfort. If
+to Captain Bolton, by what right did Dean Stannus take it from him and
+give it to the landlord? If to the landlord, by what right did Dean
+Stannus take it from Lord Hertfort and give it to Captain Bolton?
+
+However, the latter gentleman having no doubt whatever, first or last,
+that the property was his own, bequeathed the houses to trustees
+for the support of a school which he had established in Lisburn. The
+school, it appears, had been placed in connection with the Church
+Education Society, and as it did not go on to his satisfaction, he
+placed it in connection with the National Board of Education, having
+appointed as his trustees John Campbell, Esq., M.D., William Coulson,
+Esq., and the Rev. W.J. Clarke, Presbyterian minister, all of Lisburn.
+Dr. Campbell died soon after, and Mr. Coulson refused to act, so that
+the burden of the trust fell upon Mr. Clarke, who felt it to be
+his duty to carry it out to the best of his ability. Dean Stannus,
+however, was greatly dissatisfied with the last will and testament of
+Captain Bolton. Yet the dying man had no reason to anticipate that
+his affectionate pastor would labour with all his might to abolish
+the trust. Dean Stannus paid the captain a visit on his deathbed, and
+while administering the consolations of religion he seemed moved
+even to tears. To a friend who subsequently expressed doubt, the
+simple-minded old Christian said: 'I will trust the dean that he will
+do nothing in opposition to my will. He was here a few days ago and
+wept over me. He loves me, and will carry out my wishes.' The captain
+died in April, 1867. He was scarcely cold in his grave when the agent
+of Lord Hertfort took proceedings to eject his trustees, and deprive
+the schools of the property bequeathed for their support. Not content
+with this, he took proceedings to get possession of the schoolhouse
+also, deeming it a sufficient reason for this appropriation of another
+man's property, this setting aside of a will, this abolition of
+a trust, that, in his opinion, the schools ought to be under the
+patronage of the rector, and in connection with the Church Education
+Society. He had a perfect right to think and say this, and it might
+be his conscientious conviction that the property would be thus better
+employed; but he ought to know that the end does not sanctify the
+means; that he had no right to substitute his own will for that of
+Captain Bolton, and that he had no right to take advantage of the
+absence of an act of parliament to possess himself of the rightful
+property of other people. Unfortunately, too, he was a judge in his
+own case, and he did not find it easy to separate the rector of the
+parish from the agent of the estate. It is a significant fact that
+when his son, Mr. Stannus, handed his power of attorney to Mr. Otway,
+the assistant-barrister, that gentleman refused to look at it, saying,
+'I have seen it one hundred times;' and the Rev. Mr. Clarke, while
+waiting in the court for the case to come on, observed that all the
+ejectment processes were at the suit of the Marquis of Hertfort. The
+school-house was built by Mr. Bolton, at his own expense twenty-eight
+years ago, and he maintained it till his death. The Rev. W.J. Clarke,
+the acting trustee, bravely defended his trust and fought the battle
+of tenant-right in the courts till driven out by the sheriff. He
+was then called on to perform the same duty with regard to the
+school-house. He has done it faithfully and well, and deserves the
+sympathy of all the friends of freedom, justice, and fair dealing.
+'I shall never accept a trust,' he says, in a letter to the _Northern
+Whig_--'I shall never accept a trust, and permit any man, whether
+nobleman, agent, or bailiff, to alienate that trust, without appealing
+to the laws of my country; and if the one-sidedness of such laws shall
+enable Dean and Mr. Stannus to confiscate this property, and turn
+it from the purpose to which benevolence designed it, then, having
+defended it to the last, I shall retire from the field satisfied that
+I have done my duty to the memory of the dead and the educational
+interests of the living.' Nor can we be surprised at the strong
+language that he uses when he says: 'The history of the case rivals,
+for blackness of persecution, anything that has happened in the north
+of Ireland for many years. But such a course of conduct only recoils
+on the heads of those who are guilty of it, and it shall be so in this
+case. The Marquis of Hertfort will not live always, and the power of
+public opinion may be able to reach his successor, and be felt even in
+Lisburn.'
+
+Dean Stannus, in his evidence before the Devon commission, stated that
+only a small portion of the estate was held by lease. The leases were
+obtained in a curious way. In 1823 a system of fining commenced. If a
+tenant wanted a lease he was required to pay in cash a fine of 10 l.
+an acre, which was equal to an addition of ten shillings an acre to
+the rent for twenty years, not counting the interest on the money thus
+sunk in the land. Yet, such was the desire of the tenants to have a
+better security than the tenant-right custom, always acknowledged on
+the estate, that 'every man who had money took advantage of it.' Mr.
+Gregg, the seneschal of the manor, gave an illustration of the working
+of this fining system. A tenant sold his farm of fourteen acres for
+205 l., eight of the fourteen acres being held at will. The person who
+bought the farm was obliged to take a lease of the eight acres, and
+to pay a proportional fine in addition to the sum paid for the
+tenant-right. Dean Stannus said 'he would wish to see the tenant-right
+upheld upon the estate of Lord Hertfort, as it always had been. It is
+that,' he said, 'which has kept up the properties in the north over
+the properties in other parts of Ireland. It is a security for the
+rent in the first instance, and reconciles the tenants to much of what
+are called grievances. If you go into a minute calculation of
+what they have expended, they are not more than paid for their
+expenditure.' It transpired in the course of the examination that a
+man who had purchased tenant-right, and paid a fine of 10 l. an acre
+on getting a lease, would have to pay a similar fine over again when
+getting the lease renewed. The result of these heavy advances was that
+the middle-class farmers lived in constant pecuniary difficulties.
+They were obliged to borrow money at six per cent. to pay the rent,
+but they borrowed it under circumstances which made it nearly 40 per
+cent., for it was lent by dealers in oatmeal and other things, from
+whom they were obliged to purchase large quantities of goods at such a
+high rate that they sold them again at a sacrifice of 33 per cent.
+
+Mr. Joshua Lamb, another witness, stated that the effect of the fining
+system had been to draw away a great deal of the accumulated capital
+out of the hands of the tenantry, as well as their anticipated savings
+for years to come, by which the carrying out of improved methods of
+agriculture was prevented. Still, the existence of a lease for 31
+years doubled the value of the tenant-right. This witness made a
+remarkable statement. With respect to this custom he said: The 'effect
+of this arrangement, when duly observed, is to prevent all disputes,
+quarrels, burnings, and destruction of property, so common in those
+parts of Ireland where this practice does not prevail. Indeed, so
+fully are farmers aware of this, that very few, except the most
+reckless, would venture on taking a farm without obtaining the
+outgoing tenant's "good-will." Such a proceeding as taking land
+"over a man's head," as it is termed, is regarded here as not merely
+dishonourable, but as little better than robbery, and as such held
+in the greatest detestation.' He added that the justice of this
+arrangement was obvious--'because all the buildings, planting, and
+other improvements, being entirely at the tenant's expense, he has a
+certain amount of capital sunk in the property, for which, if he
+parts with the place, he expects to be repaid by the sale of the
+tenant-right. He knew no case in the county in which the tenant, or
+those from whom he purchased, had made no improvements.'
+
+The first marquis occasionally visited the estate, and was proud of
+the troops of yeomanry and cavalry which had been raised from his
+tenantry. The second marquis, who died in 1822, was only once in
+that part of Ireland. The third marquis--he of Prince Regent
+notoriety--never set foot on the property; and the present, who has
+been reigning over 140 townlands for nearly thirty years, has never
+been among his subjects except during a solitary visit of three weeks
+in October, 1845, when, it is said, he came to qualify for his ribbon
+(K.G.) that he might be able to say to the prime minister that he
+was a resident landlord. He has resided almost entirely in Paris,
+cultivating the friendship of Napoleon instead of the welfare of the
+people who pay him a revenue of 60,000 l. a year. Bagatelle, his
+Paris residence, has, it is said, absorbed Irish rents in its
+'improvements', till it has been made worth three quarters of a
+million sterling. If the residence cost so much, fancy may try to
+conceive the amount of hard-earned money squandered on the luxuries
+and pleasures of which it is the temple--the most Elysian spot in the
+Elysian fields.
+
+The following curious narrative appeared in a Belfast newspaper, and
+was founded on a speech made by Dean Stannus at a public meeting.
+
+The venerable Dean of Ross and his son, Mr. W.T. Stannus, had been
+deputed to go to Paris to wait on Lord Hertfort, and urge him to
+assist in the expense of finishing the Antrim Junction Railway. The
+dean is in his eighty-first year; fifty-one years of his life have
+been spent in the management of the Hertfort estate, and whatever
+difference of opinion may exist as to his arrangements with the
+tenantry, every one who knows anything of the affair must admit that
+there never existed a more faithful representative of a landowner. On
+arriving in Paris he found the marquis ill, so much so that neither
+the dean nor his son could get an interview. For three days the
+venerable gentleman danced attendance on his chief, and on Monday the
+fourth attempt was made, the dean sent up his name, and had a reply
+that 'the marquis was too ill to see anyone.' Next day, however, the
+marquis condescended to receive his agent, and the subject of the
+railway was introduced. The dean told him that Lord Erne had given
+200,000 l. towards the railway projects on his property--that Lords
+Lucan, Annesley, and Lifford had contributed largely, and that Lord
+Downshire had been exceedingly liberal in promoting lines on his
+estate. But all was vain. The noble absentee, who drains about 60,000
+l. a year from his Irish property, and who often pays 5,000 l. for
+a picture, refused to lend 15,000 l. to aid in finishing a railway,
+which runs for three-fourths of the mileage through his own estate.
+During the interview Mr. W.T. Stannus urged on the marquis that the
+investment would be the best that could be made, as preference shares
+paying five per cent. would be allocated to him as security for the
+amount. All arguments and entreaties, however, were lost on the noble
+invalid. Even the appeal of the old gentleman who, for more than half
+a century, had managed the estate so advantageously for the successive
+owners of that splendid property, was made in vain. 'You never refused
+me anything before,' urged the dean, 'and I go away in very bad
+spirits.' What a wonderful history lies in this episode of Irish
+landlordism. Here is an unmarried nobleman whose income from
+investments in British and French securities is said to exceed 30,000
+l. a year, besides the immense revenue of his English and Irish
+estates, and yet he refuses to part with 15,000 l. towards aiding in
+the construction of a railway on his own property.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+TENANT-RIGHT IN ARMAGH.
+
+
+Among the undertakers in the county of Armagh were the two Achesons,
+Henry and Archibald, ancestors of Lord Gosford, who founded Market
+Hill, Richard Houlston, John Heron, William Stanbowe, Francis
+Sacheverell, John Dillon, John Hamilton, Sir John Davis, Lord Moore,
+Henry Boucher, Anthony Smith, Lieutenant Poyntz, and Henry M'Shane
+O'Neill.
+
+In connection with each of these settlements Pynar uses the phrase,
+'I find planted and estated.' What he means is more fully explained
+in his reference to the precinct of Fews, allotted to Scottish
+undertakers, where Henry Acheson had obtained 1,000 acres. The
+surveyor says: 'I find a great number of tenants on this land: but not
+any that have any estates but by promise, and yet they have been many
+years upon the land. There are nominated to me two freeholders and
+seventeen leaseholders, all which were with me, and took the oath of
+supremacy, and petitioned unto me that they might have their leases,
+the which Mr. Acheson seemed to be willing to perform it unto them
+presently. These are able to make thirty men with arms. Here is great
+store of tillage.' The whole of the reports indicate that the Crown
+required of the undertakers two things. First, that they should
+themselves reside on the land, that they should build strong houses,
+fortified with bawns, and keep a certain number of armed men for
+the defence of the settlement. Secondly, that the English and Scotch
+settlers who were expected to reclaim the land and build houses, were
+to have 'estates' in their farms, either as freeholders or lessees.
+The grants were made to the undertakers on these conditions--they
+should be resident, and they should have around them a number of
+independent yeomanry to defend the king when called upon to do so.
+Everything connected with the plantation gives the idea of permanent
+tenures for the settlers. A curious fact is mentioned about Sir John
+Davis, who had been so active in bringing about the plantation. He
+obtained a grant for 500 acres. 'Upon this,' says Pynar, 'there is
+nothing at all built, nor so much as an English tenant on the land.'
+It seems his tenants were all of the class for whose extirpation
+he pleaded, as weeds that would choke the Saxon crop. Henry M'Shane
+O'Neill got 1,000 acres at Camlagh, 'but he being lately dead, it was
+in the hands of Sir Toby Caulfield, who intended to do something upon
+it, for as yet there was nothing built.' Sir Toby was the ancestor of
+the Earl of Charlemont, always one of the best landlords in Ulster.
+
+It is gratifying to find that both the undertakers and the original
+tenants are still fairly represented--a considerable number of the
+former having founded noble houses, and the latter having multiplied
+and enriched the land to such an extent that, though the population
+is dense and the farms are generally very small, they are the most
+prosperous and contented population in the kingdom. Leases were common
+in this county at the close of the last century, but the terms were
+short--twenty-one years and one life. Some had leases for thirty-one
+years or three lives, and there were some perpetuities. Land was
+then so valuable that when a small estate came into the market--large
+estates hardly ever did--they brought from twenty-five to thirty
+years' purchase. The large tracts of church land, which are now among
+the richest and most desirable in the country, presented at the
+close of the last century, a melancholy contrast to the farms that
+surrounded them. The reason is given by Sir Charles Coote. It is most
+instructive and suggestive at the present time. He says, 'It is very
+discouraging for a wealthy farmer to have anything to do with church
+lands, as his improvements cannot even be secured to him during his
+own life, or the life of his landlord, but he may at any time be
+deprived of the fruits of his industry, by the incumbent changing his
+living, as his interest then terminates.' This evil was remedied first
+by making the leases renewable, on the payment of fines, and, in our
+own time, an act was passed enabling the tenants to convert their
+leaseholds into perpetuities. The consequence is, that the church
+lands now present some of the finest features in the social landscape,
+occupied by a class of resident gentry, an essential link, in any
+well-organised society, between the people and the great proprietors.
+The Board of Trinity College felt so strongly the necessity of giving
+fixed tenures, if permanent improvements were to be effected on their
+estates, that, without waiting for a general measure of land reform,
+they obtained, in 1861, a private act of parliament giving them power
+to grant leases for ninety-nine years. 'The legislature,' says Dr.
+Hancock, 'thus gave partial effect in the case of one institution to
+the recommendation which the Land Occupation Commissioners intended to
+apply to all estates in the hands of public boards in Ireland.'
+
+Armagh was always free from middlemen. The landlord got what Sir
+Charles Coote calls a rack rent from the occupying tenant, and it
+was his interest to divide rather than consolidate farms, because the
+linen trade enabled the small holder to give a high rent, while
+the custom of tenant-right furnished an unfailing security for its
+payment.
+
+The country, when seen from an elevation, is one continuous patchwork
+of corn, potatoes, clover, and other artificial grasses. Wonders
+are wrought in the way of productiveness by rotation of crops and
+house-feeding. Cattle are not only fattened much more rapidly than on
+the richest grazing land, but large quantities of the best manure are
+produced by the practice of house-feeding. The more northern portions
+of the county, bordering on Down and Lough Neagh, and along the banks
+of the rivers Bann and Blackwater, are naturally rich, and have been
+improved to the highest degree by ages of skilful cultivation. But
+other parts, particularly the barony of Fews, embracing the high
+lands stretching to the Newry mountains, and bordering on the County
+Monaghan, were, about the close of the last century, nearly all
+covered with heather, and absolutely waste. Sir Charles Coote
+remarked, in 1804, that it had been then undergoing reclamation.
+Within the last fifteen years the land had doubled in value, and was
+set at the average rate of 16 s. an acre. Mr. Tickell, referring to
+this county, remarked that the Scotch and English settlers chiefly
+occupied the lowland districts, and that the natives retired to this
+poor region, retaining their old language and habits; and he was
+occasionally obliged to swear interpreters where witnesses or parties
+came from the Fews, which were 'very wild, and very unlike other parts
+of the county of Armagh.'
+
+Now let us see what the industry of the people has done in that wild
+district. The farms are very small, say from three to ten English
+acres. They have been so well drained, cleared, sub-soiled, and
+manured, that the occupier is able to support on one acre as many
+cattle as on three acres when grazed; while affording profitable
+employment to the women and children. Great labour has been bestowed
+in taking down crooked and broad fences. Every foot of ground is
+cultivated with the greatest care, and in the mountain districts,
+patches of land among rocks, inaccessible to horses, are tilled by the
+hand. In many cases in the less exposed districts, two crops in the
+year are obtained from the same ground, viz., winter tares followed by
+turnips or cabbages, and rape followed by tares, potatoes, turnips,
+or cabbages. These crops are succeeded by grain or flax the next year,
+with which clover is sown for mowing and stall-feeding, yielding two
+or three cuttings. The green crops are so timed as to give a full
+supply for house-feeding throughout the year. Nothing is neglected by
+those skilful and thrifty farmers; the county is famous for orchards,
+and when I was in the city of Armagh, last autumn, I saw in the market
+square almost as many loads of apples as of potatoes.
+
+The connection of large grazing farms with pauperism, as cause and
+effect, has not received sufficient attention from the friends
+of social progress. I resolved last year to test this matter by a
+comparison. We have at present no check upon the legally enforced
+depopulation of this country except the _interest_ of the landlords,
+or what they imagine to be their interest. It is well that the
+question should be determined whether it is really for the benefit
+of the owners of the land that they should clear it of Christians and
+occupy it with cattle--in other words, whether Christians or cattle
+will pay more rent and taxes. I omit all higher considerations,
+because some of the most philanthropic and enlightened defenders of
+the present land system have defended it on this low ground. In order
+to make the test complete and unexceptionable, I have selected a
+comparatively poor district for tillage, and one of the richest I
+could find for grazing, giving all possible natural advantages to
+Scullyism. But the test would not be fair unless the occupiers of the
+poorer land had a tolerably secure tenure so long as they paid the
+highest rent that a reasonable agent could impose. I thought also that
+possible objections would be obviated if the tenantry were destitute
+of 'the fostering care of a resident landlord.' Therefore, instead
+of selecting the tenants of Lord Downshire, or Lord Roden, or Lord
+Dufferin, I have fixed upon the tenants of Lord Kilmorey, because he
+and the producers of the rents which he enjoys have never seen
+one another in the flesh, and they have never received one word of
+encouragement or instruction from him in the whole course of their
+lives. Accordingly, with the Union of Kilkeel, which comprises the
+Mourne district, I have compared the Union of Trim, which comprises
+some of the richest grazing land in Ireland. Travellers have noted
+that population always grows thick on rich lands, while it is sparse
+on poor lands. No one requires to be told the reason of this.
+
+The Unions of Kilkeel and Trim have populations very nearly
+equal--viz., Kilkeel, 22,614; Trim, 22,918. The total arable land in
+Kilkeel is 50,000 statute acres, giving 2 1/3 acres on an average
+for each person, and 14 acres for each holding. Trim contains 119,519
+statute acres, giving 5 acres to each person, and 42 to each holding.
+
+In Mourne the area of land under crops is 20,904 acres (nearly half),
+giving one acre of tillage to each inhabitant, and 6 acres to each
+holding of 14 acres. In Trim the area under crops is 38,868 acres,
+giving 2 acres for each inhabitant, and 14 for each holding of 42
+acres.
+
+The significance of these figures is shown by the Government valuation
+in 1867. The valuation of Mourne Union is 40,668 l., the average for
+each person being 2 l. and for each holding 11 l. The valuation of
+Trim is 109,068 l., allowing 5 l. for each person and 38 l. for each
+holding. In other words, the capability of the land of Trim to support
+population is as five to two when compared with Mourne; but whereas
+in Mourne 2 1/3 acres support one person, in Trim it takes 5 acres
+to support one person--about double the quantity. As the value of the
+land in Meath is more than double what it is in Mourne, each acre in
+Meath ought to maintain its man. That is, if Meath were cultivated
+like Down, its population ought to be _five times as large as it is_!
+
+But this is not the whole case. The Mourne population may be too
+large. With so many families crowded on such a small tract of poor
+land, the Union must be overwhelmed with pauperism. If so, the case
+for tenant-right and tillage would fall to the ground, and Scullyism
+would be triumphant. Let us see, then, how stands this essential fact.
+The number of paupers in the workhouse and receiving outdoor relief in
+the Union of Trim, in 1866, was 2,474. This large amount of pauperism
+is not peculiar to Trim. It belongs to other Unions of this rich
+grazing district, which so fully realises the late Lord Carlisle's
+ideal of Irish prosperity. Navan Union has 3,820 paupers, and Kells
+has 1,306. Now, the population of Trim and Mourne being nearly the
+same, and Trim being twice as rich as Mourne, and not half as thickly
+peopled, it follows that Mourne ought to have at least four times as
+many paupers as Trim--that is, it ought to have 9,896. But it actually
+has only 521 persons receiving relief in and out of the workhouse!
+
+Consequently, Scullyism and grazing produce nearly twenty times the
+amount of poverty and misery produced by tenant-right and tillage.
+
+I have not overlooked the difference of race and religion. On the
+contrary, they were uppermost in my mind when rambling among the
+nice, clean, comfortable, orderly homesteads of Mourne, reminding me
+strongly of Forth and Bargy in the county Wexford. I said to the owner
+and driver of my car, who is a Roman Catholic, 'Do the Roman
+Catholics here keep their houses and farms in as nice order as the
+Presbyterians?' He answered, 'Why should they not? Are they not the
+same flesh and blood?'
+
+According to the census of 1861, the Roman Catholics greatly outnumber
+the Protestants in this Union. The exact figures are:--
+
+Total population of Mourne Union     22,614
+Protestants of all denominations      8,080
+Roman Catholics                      14,534
+
+The result of this comparison may perhaps make a better impression
+on the reader's mind if cast in the form of tables, as given on
+succeeding page.
+
+Table Headings:
+
+Col A. Population in 1861
+Col B. No. of Holdings in 1864
+Col C. Total Area (in Stat. Acres)
+Col D. Area under Crops, 1864 (in Stat. Acres)
+Col E. Valuation in 1807 (in L)
+Col F. No. in Workhouse and receiving Out-door Relief
+Col G. Protestants of all denominations
+Col H. Roman Catholics
+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+                        TENANT-RIGHT AND TILLAGE.
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+Names of Unions  |  A.  |  B.  |  C.   |  D.  |  E.   |  F. |  G. |  H.
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+Kilkeel          |22,614| 3,540| 50,000|20,904| 40,668| 521 |8,080|14,534
+ Average for each|      |      |       |      |       |     |     |
+   person        |      |      | 2-1/2 |   1  |   2   |     |     |
+ Average for each|      |      |       |      |       |     |     |
+   holding       |      |      |  14   |   6  |  11   |     |     |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+                        LARGE FARMS AND GRAZING.
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+Trim             |22,918| 2,816|119,519|38,867|109,068|2,474|1,700|21,218
+ Average for each|      |      |       |      |       |     |     |
+  person         |      |      |   5   |   2  |   5   |     |     |
+ Average for each|      |      |       |      |       |     |     |
+  person         |      |      |  42   |  14  |  38   |     |     |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+In Kilkeel Union there were 4,012 acres of flax in 1864, which at 20
+l. an acre would produce 80,000 l., considerably more than the rental
+of the entire district. Trim, in that year, produced only 78 acres of
+flax.
+
+What everyone wants to know now is this--whether any measure can be
+devised that will satisfy the cultivators of the soil without wronging
+the landlords, or militating against the interests of the state. A
+measure that will not satisfy the tenants and put an end to their
+discontent, would be manifestly useless. It would be but adding to the
+numerous legislative abortions that have gone before it. A man engaged
+in such enquiries as this, is to ascertain what will satisfy the
+people. It is for the legislature to determine whether it can be
+rightly or safely granted. I have, therefore, directed my attention to
+this point in particular, and I have ascertained beyond question, from
+the best possible sources of information, that nothing will satisfy
+the people of this country but what they do not hesitate to name with
+the most determined emphasis--'Fixity of Tenure.' Whether they are
+Protestants or Catholics, Orangemen or Liberals, Presbyterians or
+Churchmen, this is their unanimous demand, the cry in which they all
+join to a man. Every case in which tenant-right is disregarded, or in
+which, while admitted nominally, an attempt is made to evade it, or
+to fritter it away, excites the bitterest feeling, in which the whole
+community sympathises.
+
+They deny, however, that the existing tenant-right is a sufficient
+security:--
+
+Because it depends on the option of the landlord, and cannot be
+enforced by law.
+
+Because even the best disposed landlord may be influenced to alter his
+policy by the advice of an agent, by the influence of his family, or
+by the state of his finances.
+
+Because a good landlord, who knows the tenants and cares for them, may
+be succeeded by a son who is a 'fast young man,' addicted to the
+turf and overwhelmed in debt, while the estate gets into the hands of
+usurers.
+
+Because in such a case the law affords no protection to the property
+of the tenant, which his family may have been accumulating on the
+land since the first of them came over from England or Scotland,
+and settled around their commander, after helping by their swords to
+conquer the country, and preserve it to the crown of England.
+
+Because it is not in human nature to avoid encroaching on the rights
+and property of others, if it can be done at will--done legally, and
+done under the pretext that it is necessary for 'improvement,' and
+will be a benefit even to those who are despoiled.
+
+Because the custom is no protection to a man's political rights as
+a British subject. No tenant farmer can vote against his landlord in
+obedience to his conscience without the risk of ruining his family.
+The greater his interest in the land, the larger his investments,
+the heavier his stake; the greater his accumulations in his bank--the
+farm--the greater will be his dependence, the more complete
+his political bondage. He has the more to lose. Therefore, if a
+Conservative, he must vote for a Radical or a Catholic, who would pull
+down the Church Establishment; or if a Catholic, he must vote for a
+'No-popery' candidate, who ignores tenant-right, and against a
+Liberal statesman, whose life has been devoted to the interests of the
+country.
+
+It appears to me that the difficulty of settling this question is
+much aggravated by the importation of opinions from the United States
+hostile to the aristocracy; and as this source of discontent and
+distrust is likely to increase every year, the sooner the settlement
+is effected the better. What is the use of scolding and reviling the
+tenant's advocates? Will that weaken one iota the tremendous force of
+social discontent--the bitter sense of legal injustice, with which
+the legislature must deal? And will the legislature deal with it more
+effectually by shutting its eyes to facts?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+FARNEY--MR. TRENCH'S 'REALITIES.'
+
+
+When the six Ulster counties were confiscated, and the natives were
+all deprived of their rights in the soil, the people of the county
+Cavan resolved to appeal for justice to the English courts in Dublin.
+The Crown was defended by Sir John Davis. He argued that the Irish
+could have no legal rights, no property in the land, because they did
+not enclose it with fences, or plant orchards. True, they had boundary
+marks for their tillage ground; but they followed the Eastern custom
+in not building ditches or walls around their farms. They did not
+plant orchards, because they had too many trees already that grew
+without planting. The woods were common property, and the apples,
+if they had any, would be common property too, like the nuts and the
+acorns.
+
+The Irish were obliged to submit to the terms imposed by the
+conquerors, glad in their destitution to be permitted to occupy their
+own lands as tenants at will. The English undertakers, as we have
+seen, were bound to deal differently with the English settlers; but
+their obligations resolved themselves into promises of freeholds and
+leases which were seldom granted, so that many persons threw up their
+farms in despair, and returned to their own country.
+
+In the border county of Monaghan, we have a good illustration of the
+manner in which the natives struggled to live under their new masters.
+The successors of some of those masters have in modern times taken a
+strange fancy to the study of Irish antiquities. Among these is Evelyn
+P. Shirley, Esq., who has published 'Some Account of the Territory
+or Dominion of Farney.' The account is interesting, and, taken in
+connection with the sequel given to the public by his agent, Mr. W.
+Steuart Trench, it furnishes an instructive chapter in the history
+of the land war. The whole barony of Farney was granted by Queen
+Elizabeth to Walter Earl of Essex in the year 1576, in reward for the
+massacres already recorded. It was then an almost unenclosed plain,
+consisting chiefly of coarse pasturage, interspersed with low
+alder-scrub. When the primitive woods were cut down for fuel,
+charcoal, or other purposes, the stumps remained in the ground, and
+from these fresh shoots sprang up thickly. The clearing out of these
+stumps was difficult and laborious; but it had to be done before
+anything, but food for goats, could be got out of the land. This was
+'the M'Mahons' country,' and the tribe was not wholly subdued till
+1606, when the power of the Ulster chiefs was finally broken. The
+lord deputy, the chancellor, and the lord chief justice passed through
+Farney on their way to hold assizes for the first time in Derry and
+Donegal. They were protected by a guard of 'seven score foot, and
+fifty or three score horse, which,' wrote Sir John Davis, 'is an
+argument of a good time and a confident deputy; for in former times
+(when the state enjoyed the best peace and security) no lord deputy
+did ever venture himself into those parts, without an army of 800 or
+1000 men.' At this time Lord Essex had leased the barony of Farney
+to Evor M'Mahon for a yearly rent of 250 l. payable in Dublin. After
+fourteen years the same territory was let to Brian M'Mahon for 1,500
+l. In the year 1636, the property yielded a yearly rent of 2022 l.
+18 s. 4 d. paid by thirty-eight tenants. A map then taken gives the
+several townlands and denominations nearly as they are at present.
+Robert Earl of Essex, dying in 1646, his estates devolved on his
+sisters, Lady Frances and Lady Dorothy Devereux, the former of whom
+married Sir W. Seymour, afterwards Marquis of Hertfort, and the latter
+Sir Henry Shirley, Bart., ancestor of the present proprietor of half
+the barony. Ultimately the other half became the property of the
+Marquis of Bath. At the division in 1690, each moiety was valued at
+1313 l. 14 s. 4-1/2 d. Gradually as the lands were reclaimed by the
+tenants, the rental rose. In 1769 the Bath estate produced 3,000 l.,
+and the Shirley estate 5,000 l. The total of 8,000 l. per annum, from
+this once wild and barren tract, was paid by middlemen. The natives
+had not been rooted out, and during the eighteenth century these
+sub-tenants multiplied rapidly. According to the census in 1841 the
+population of the barony exceeded 44,000 souls, and they contributed
+by their industry, to the two absentee proprietors, the enormous
+annual revenue of 40,000 l., towards the production of which it does
+not appear that either of them, or any person for them, ever invested
+a shilling.
+
+Mr. S. Trench was amazed to find 'more than one human being for every
+Irish acre of land in the barony, and nearly one human being for every
+1 l. valuation per annum of the land.' The two estates join in the
+town of Carrickmacross. When Mr. Trench arrived there, March 30, 1843,
+to commence his duties as Mr. Shirley's agent, he learned that the
+sudden death of the late agent in the court-house of Monaghan had been
+celebrated that night by fires on almost every hill on the estate,
+'and over a district of upwards of 20,000 acres there was scarcely
+a mile without a bonfire blazing in manifestation of joy at his
+decease.' Mr. Trench says, the tenants considered themselves
+ground down to the last point by the late agent. As he relates the
+circumstances, the people would seem to be a very savage race; and
+he gives other more startling illustrations to the same effect as he
+proceeds. But here, as elsewhere, he does not state all the facts,
+while those he does state are most artistically dressed up for
+sensational effect, Mr. Trench himself being always the hero, always
+acting magnificently, appearing at the right place and at the right
+moment to prevent some tremendous calamity, otherwise inevitable, and
+by some mysterious personal influence subduing lawless masses, so
+that by a sudden impulse, their murderous rage is converted into
+admiration, if not adoration. Like the hearers of Herod or of St.
+Paul, when he flung the viper off his hand, they are ready to cry out,
+'He is a god, and not a man.' Of course he, as a Christian gentleman,
+was always 'greatly shocked,' when these poor wretches offered him
+petitions on their knees. Still he relates every case of the kind with
+extraordinary unction, and with a picturesqueness of situation and
+detail so stagey that it should make Mr. Boucicault's mouth water, and
+excite the envy of Miss Braddon. Not even she can exceed the author of
+'Realities of Irish Life,' in prolonging painful suspense, in piling
+up the agony, in accumulating horrors, in throwing strong lights on
+one side of the picture and casting deep shade on the other.
+
+It is with the greatest reluctance that I thus allude to the work of
+Mr. Trench. I do so from a sense of duty, because I believe it is one
+of the most misleading books on Ireland published for many years. It
+has made false impressions on the public mind in England, which will
+seriously interfere with a proper settlement of the land question.
+The mischief would not be so great if the author did not take so
+much pains to represent his stories as realities 'essentially
+characteristic of the country.' It is very difficult to account for
+the exaggeration and embellishment in which he has permitted himself
+to indulge, with so many professions of conscientious regard for
+truth. They must have arisen from the habit of reciting the adventures
+to his friends during a quarter of a century, naturally laying stress
+on the most sensational passages, while the facts less in keeping with
+startling effects dropped out of his memory. Very few of the actors in
+the scenes he describes now survive. Those who do, and who might
+have a more accurate memory, are either so lauded that it would
+be ungrateful of them to contradict--or so artfully discredited as
+'virulent' and base that people would not be likely to believe them if
+their recollections were different. There is one peculiarity about Mr.
+Trench's dialogues. There were never any witnesses present. He always
+took the wild Irishman, on whom he operated so magically, into his
+private office; or into a private room in the house of the 'subject;'
+or into a cell alone, if secrets were to be extracted from a Ribbonman
+in gaol. Even conversations with the gentler sex, who knelt before
+him as if he were a bishop, were not permitted to reach the ear of his
+chief clerk. On some matters, however, others have spoken since his
+book appeared. He is very precise about the trial for an agrarian
+murder in Monaghan, giving details from his own actual observation.
+Mr. Butt, Q.C., who was engaged in the case, has published a letter,
+stating that Mr. Trench was quite mistaken in his account. It seems
+strange that he did not refresh his memory by looking at a report of
+the trial in some newspaper file.
+
+Mr. Trench 'adds his testimony to the fact that Ireland is not
+altogether unmanageable,' that 'justice fully and firmly administered
+is always appreciated in the end.' And at the conclusion of his volume
+he says:--
+
+'We can scarcely shut our eyes to the fact that the circumstances and
+feelings which have led to the terrible crime of murder in Ireland,
+are usually very different from those which have led to murder
+elsewhere. The reader of the English newspaper is shocked at the list
+of children murdered by professional assassins, of wives murdered
+by their husbands, of men murdered for their gold. In Ireland that
+dreadful crime may almost invariably be traced to a wild feeling of
+revenge for the national wrongs, to which so many of her sons believe
+that she has been subjected for centuries.'
+
+There is a mistake here. No murders are committed in Ireland for
+'national wrongs.' The author has gathered together, as in a chamber
+of horrors, all the cases of assassination that occurred during
+the years of distress, provoked by the extensive _evictions_ which
+succeeded the _famine_, and by the infliction of great hardships on
+tenants who, in consequence of that dreadful calamity, had fallen
+into arrears. People who had been industrious, peaceable, and
+well-conducted were thus driven to desperation; and hence the young
+men formed lawless combinations and committed atrocious murders.
+But every one of these murders was agrarian, not national. They were
+committed in the prosecution of _a war_, not against the Government,
+but against the landlords and their agents and instruments. It was a
+war _pro aris et focis_, waged against local tyrants, and waged in the
+only way possible to the belligerents who fought for home and
+family. Mr. Trench always paints the people who sympathise with their
+champions as naturally wild, lawless, and savage. If he happens to
+be in good humour with them, he makes them ridiculous. His son, Mr.
+Townsend Trench, who did the illustrations for the work, pictures the
+peasantry as gorillas, always flourishing shillelaghs, and grinning
+horribly. With rare exceptions, they appear as an inferior race, while
+the ruling class, and the Trenches in particular, appear throughout
+the book as demigods, 'lords of the creation,' formed by nature to be
+the masters and guides and managers of such a silly, helpless people.
+Nowhere is any censure pronounced upon a landlord, or an agent, with
+one exception, and this was the immediate predecessor of Mr. Trench
+at Kenmare. To his gross neglect in allowing God to send so many human
+beings into the world, he ascribes the chaos of misery and pauperism,
+which he--a heaven-born agent--had to reduce to order and beauty.
+But there were other causes of the 'poetic turbulence' which he
+so gloriously quelled, that he might have brought to light, had he
+thought proper, for the information of English readers. He might have
+shown--for the evidence was before him in the report of the Devon
+Commission--with what hard toil and constant self-denial, amidst what
+domestic privations and difficulties, Mr. Shirley's tenants struggled
+to scrape up for him his 20,000 l. a year, and how bitterly they must
+have felt when the landlord sent an order to add one-third to their
+rack-rent. I will supply Mr. Trench's lack of service, and quote the
+evidence of one of those honest and worthy men, given before the Devon
+Commissioners.
+
+Peter Mohun, farmer, a tenant on the Shirley estate, gave the
+following evidence:--
+
+'What family have you?--I am married, and have two daughters, and my
+wife, and a servant boy.
+
+'What rent do you pay?--Sometime ago I paid 3 l. 19 s. 11d. I was
+doing well at that time; and then my rent was raised to 5 l. 19 s. 9
+d., and sometimes 6 l., and one year 5 l. 19 s. 6 d.
+
+'How do you account for the difference?--I do not know; perhaps by the
+bog rent. We had the bog free before, and we were doing well; and then
+we were cut down from the bog, and we were raised from 3 l. 19 s. 11
+d. to 6 l. We are beaten down now quite.
+
+'What does the county-cess come to?--Sometimes we pay 1 s. 6-1/2 d. an
+acre, and oftener 1 s. 7-1/2 d., the half-year.
+
+'Have you paid your rent pretty punctually?--Yes, I have done my best
+so far to pay the rent.
+
+'How much do you owe now?--I believe I shall pay the rent directly
+after May; I am clear till May. I cannot pay it till harvest comes
+round.
+
+'How do you get the money to pay the rent?--When I had my land cheap,
+and myself a youth, I was a good workman, and did work by the loom,
+and I would be mowing in the summer season, and earn a good deal, and
+make a little store for me, which has stood by me. I buy some oats and
+make meal of it, and I make money in that way. It was not by my land I
+was paying my rent, but from other sources.
+
+'How much wheat have you now?--Half an acre, rather above.
+
+'How much oats have you?--Half a rood.
+
+'How much potato land shall you have?--Three and a half roods besides
+the garden.
+
+'Have you any clover?--Very near a rood of clover.
+
+'What is the smallest quantity of land that you think a man who has
+no other means of support can subsist and pay rent upon?--I was paying
+rent well myself when I had three acres, when I was paying 3 l. 19 s.
+11 d.
+
+'You weave a little?--Yes, but very little; but there was a good price
+for the barrel of wheat, and for pigs, and so I made a little store.
+But as for any man to support himself out of a small farm, at the
+high price of land, and the price of labour that is going, it is
+impossible.
+
+'What is the smallest farm upon which a man can support himself at the
+present rate of rent, taking a man with five or six children?--That is
+a hard question.
+
+'Supposing a man to pay 35 s. an acre, and to have two acres, and to
+be obliged to live out of the farm, do you think he could do it and
+pay rent?--He could not; his land must be very good. Unless he lived
+near a town, and had cheap land, it would be impossible. But a man
+with five acres, at a moderate rent, he could support his family upon
+it.
+
+'What should you earn at weaving?--I only weave for my own family. I
+weave my own shirt.
+
+'Do your family ever spin any wool and weave it?--Yes.
+
+'Do you live upon the Shirley estate?--Yes.
+
+'How much bog do you require to keep your house in fuel?--Half a rood,
+if it was good; but it is bad bog ground, red mossy turf, white and
+light; it requires more than the black turf.
+
+'What do you pay for half a rood of turf?--It is 13 s. 4 d. for a
+rood--that is, 6 s. 8 d. for half a rood. There is 4 s. 6 d. paid for
+bad bog.
+
+'Do you pay anything for the ticket of leave to cut?--Yes, I do; I
+have not a ticket unless I pay 6 d. for it.
+
+'That is over and above the 4 s. 6 d.?--Yes.
+
+'Did you ever pay more than 6 s. 8 d. for the bog in the late agent's
+time?--He took the good bog off us; we were paying 6 s. 8 d. for it.
+They left us to the bad bog, and we do not pay so high for that.
+
+'Was the good bog dearer or cheaper than the bad bog at 4 s. 6
+d.?--Half a rood of the good bog was worth half an acre or an acre of
+the other. The bad bog smokes so we have often to leave the house: we
+cannot stay in it unless there is a good draught in the chimney.'
+
+The Rev. Thomas Smollan, P.P., has published a letter to the Earl of
+Dunraven, a Catholic Peer, to whom Mr. Trench has dedicated his book.
+In this letter the parish priest of Farney says:--
+
+'In pages 63 and 64 Mr. Trench tells his readers that on the very
+night the news of the late agent's sudden death, in the county
+courthouse of Monaghan, reached Carrickmacross, "fires blazed on
+almost every hill on the Shirley estate, and over a district of more
+than 20,000 acres there was scarcely a mile without a bonfire blazing
+in manifestation of joy at his decease." This paragraph, my lord,
+taken by itself and unexplained in any way, would at once imply that
+the people were inhuman, almost savages, whom Mr. Trench was sent to
+tame--that they were insensible to the agent's sudden death, a death
+so sudden that it would make an enemy almost relent. Mr. Trench
+assigns no cause for this strange proceeding except what we read in
+page 64, and what he learned from the chief clerk, viz., "that the
+people were much excited, that they were ground down to the last point
+by the late agent, and they were threatening to rise in rebellion
+against him," &c. One would think that Mr. Trench having learned so
+much on such authority, would have set to work to try and find out
+the cause of the discontent and apply a remedy. He does not say in his
+book that he did so, but seems still unable to understand this to him
+incomprehensible proceeding. However, I am of opinion that Mr. Trench
+knew the whole of it, if not then at all events before "The Realities"
+saw the light, for in a speech of his, when Lord Bath visited Farney
+(page 383), he said, "A dog could not bark on the estate without
+it coming to his knowledge." And therefore I say that a man so
+inquisitive as to find out the barking of a dog on the Bath estate,
+who had so many sources of information close at hand, could not have
+been long without knowing the causes of the "excitement, threatened
+rebellion, bonfires, &c., on the Shirley estate," if he had only
+wished for the information. Either he knew the cause of all this when
+he wrote his book, or he did not. If he did, I say he was bound
+in fair play to tell it to the public; if he did not know it his
+self-laudation in his speech goes for nought. But, my lord, with your
+permission, I will inform your lordship, Mr. Trench, and the public,
+as to some of the causes of so remarkable an occurrence, which could
+not pass unobserved by Mr. Trench. At the memorable election of 1826,
+Evelyn John Shirley, Esq., and Colonel Leslie, father of the present
+M.P., contested the county of Monaghan, and the former brought all
+his influence to bear on his tenants to vote for himself (Shirley)
+and Leslie, who coalesced against the late Lord Rossmore. The electors
+said "they would give one vote for their landlord, and the other they
+would give for their religion and their country;" the consequence was,
+Shirley and Westenra were returned, and Leslie was beaten. Up to this
+time Mr. Shirley was a good landlord, and admitted tenant-right to
+the fullest extent on the property, but after that election he never
+showed the same friendly feelings towards the people. Soon after the
+election Mr. Humphrey Evatt, the agent, died, and was succeeded in the
+agency by Mr. Sandy Mitchell, who very soon set about surveying and
+revaluing the estate, of course at the instance of his master, Evelyn
+John Shirley, Esq. He performed the work of revaluation, &c., and
+the result was that the rents were increased by one-third and in
+some cases more. The bog, too, which up to this time was free to the
+tenants, was taken from them and doled out to them in small patches of
+from twenty-five to forty perches each, at from 4 l. to 8 l. per
+acre. At the instance of the then parish priest, President Reilly, Mr.
+Shirley gave 5 l. per year to a few schools on his property, without
+interfering in any way with the religious principles of the Catholics
+attending these schools; but the then agent insisted on having the
+authorised version of the Bible, without note or comment, read in
+those schools by the Catholic children. The bishop, the Most Rev. Dr.
+Kernan, could not tolerate such a barefaced attempt at proselytism,
+and insisted on the children being withdrawn from the schools. For
+obeying their bishop in this, the Catholic parents were treated most
+unsparingly. I have before me just now a most remarkable instance
+of the length to which this gentleman carried his proselytising
+propensities, which I will mention. In the vestry, or sacristy,
+attached to Corduff Chapel, was a school taught by a man named Rush,
+altogether independent of the schools aided by Mr. Shirley, and by
+largely subsidising the teacher, the then agent actually introduced
+his proselytism into that school too. The priests and people tried
+legal means to get rid of the teacher, but without success, and in the
+end the people came by night and knocked down the sacristy, so that in
+the morning when the teacher came he had no house to shelter him.
+The Catholics were then without a school, and in order to provide the
+means of education for them the Rev. F. Keone, administrator, under
+the Most Rev. Dr. Kernan, applied for aid to the Commissioners of
+National Education, and obtained it; but where was he to procure
+building materials? The then agent, in his zeal for "converting"
+Catholics, having issued an order forbidding the supplying of them
+from any part of the Shirley estate, which extends over an area of
+fifteen miles by ten, Father Keone went on the next Sunday to the
+neighbouring chapels outside the Shirley estate, told his grievances,
+and on the next day the people came with their horses and carts and
+left sand, lime, and stones in sufficient quantities to build the
+house inside the chapel-yard. The priest and people thought it
+necessary to "thatch" their old chapel, and, though strange it may
+seem, the agent actually served an ejectment process on the father
+of the two boys who assisted the priest to make the collection at the
+chapel door for so absolutely necessary a work. I may add, this man
+owed no rent. Lastly, the then agent was in the habit of arranging
+matrimonial alliances, pointing out this girl as a suitable match for
+that boy, and the boy must marry the girl or give up his farm. These
+facts being true, my lord, and more which I might state, but that I
+have trespassed too much already on your lordship's time, I ask you,
+my Lord Dunraven--I ask any impartial man, Irishman or Englishman--for
+whom Mr. Trench wrote his "book," is it strange or wonderful that the
+Catholic people, so treated, would rejoice--would have bonfires on
+the hill tops at their deliverance from such conduct? I flatter myself
+that you, my lord--that the learned reading public--that the English
+people would sympathise with any people so treated for conscience'
+sake; and having pronounced the sentence of condemnation against Mr.
+Trench for not having noticed these facts, that you will direct your
+name to be erased from the "book." I have the honour to remain,
+my lord, with the most profound respect, your lordship's faithful
+servant.'
+
+  'THOMAS SMOLLAN, P.P.
+
+  'Clones, Feb. 15, 1869.'
+
+The electors of Monaghan, in their simplicity, thought they were
+fairly exercising the rights conferred by the constitution when they
+gave one vote for the landlord, and one for their religion and their
+country, thus securing the return of one Liberal. But Mr. Shirley soon
+taught them that the blessings of our glorious constitution belong not
+to the tenant, but to the landlord; and so he punished their mistake
+by adding one-third to their rent, and depriving them of proper fuel.
+Not content with this, he carried the war into their chapels and
+schools, and punished them for their religion. These facts may help to
+explain the scenes which Mr. Trench describes so poetically.
+
+The persecuting agent died suddenly in the court-house. The landlord
+and a new agent, Mr. Trench, arrived at Carrickmacross; and the
+tenants presented a petition, imploring him to remove the new and
+intolerable burden that had been put on their shoulders. They were
+told to come back for an answer on the following Monday:--
+
+'"Monday! Monday!" was shouted on all sides. The most frenzied
+excitement ensued. Hats were thrown in the air, sticks were flourished
+on all sides, and the men actually danced with wild delight. After a
+little time, however, the crowd cleared away, and the news flew like
+wildfire over the town and country, that the whole tenantry were told
+to come in on Monday next, that they might know the amount of the
+reduction to be granted, and have all their grievances removed!'
+
+Mr. Shirley quickly repented having given the invitation, and sent out
+a circular countermanding it, and requesting the tenants to stay at
+home. On Monday, however, a vast excited mass assembled to hear his
+_ultimatum_, which was announced by the new agent. 'He would not
+reduce their rents. They might give up their lands if they pleased;
+but they had little or no cause of complaint.' They insisted on his
+mounting a chair and making a speech. He softened the message as well
+as he could. When he had done there was a dead silence. In describing
+what follows Mr. Trench surpasses the wildest romancers in piling
+up the agony. I copy the description that the reader may see the
+difference between romance and history.
+
+'There was a dead silence when I stopped speaking. It was broken by a
+stentorian voice.
+
+'"Then you won't reduce our rents?"
+
+'"I have already given you Mr. Shirley's answer upon that point," said
+I. "Stranger as I am, it is impossible for me to form any opinion as
+to whether they are too high or not."
+
+'"_Down on your knees, boys!_" shouted the same voice; "we will ask
+him once more upon our knees!" and to my horror and amazement the vast
+crowd, almost all at least who were in my immediate vicinity, dropped
+suddenly on their knees, and another dead silence ensued.
+
+'It was a dreadful spectacle. Their hats were on their heads, and
+their sticks in their hands, some leaning upon them as they knelt,
+others balancing and grasping them. It was fearful to see the attitude
+of supplication, due only to a higher power, thus mingled with a wild
+defiance.
+
+'"_We ask you upon our knees, for God's sake, to get us a reduction of
+our rents!_" again the same voice cried aloud.
+
+'I was greatly shocked. I instantly got down off the chair. I
+entreated them to rise. I told them that I was distressed beyond
+measure, but that I had given them the only message I was authorised
+to give; and quite overcome by such a scene, I endeavoured to move
+again across the crowded space from the office, in order to enter the
+house, and report proceedings to Mr. Shirley, intending to request
+that he would himself appear and address his excited tenantry.
+
+'The moment I moved towards the door, the vast crowd leaped again to
+their feet; I was instantly surrounded, hustled, and prevented from
+getting near it. I bore this good-humouredly, and the door being
+quite close to me, I had no doubt they would ultimately let me in. But
+whilst this scene was going on, a shout was raised by those who were
+at a distance up the road leading to the town, and who had not heard
+what had been said. "Bring him up--bring him up, and let us see him!"
+In a moment I was seized, and though I resisted to my utmost, I was
+dragged up the narrow road which led from Shirley House to the town. I
+was kicked and beaten, and pushed and bruised, my hat knocked off, and
+my clothes torn; and in this state I was dragged into the main street
+of Carrickmacross.
+
+'Here a scene of the wildest excitement took place, some cried one
+thing--some another. I was beaten again, my clothes torn off my back,
+and sticks whirled over my head. Four or five policemen met me as I
+was being dragged along, but they might as well have attempted to
+stop the rushing of an Atlantic wave, as to stern the crowd that had
+assembled around me; _and they only looked on and let me pass_.'
+
+If the sub-inspector, who was present, and his men acted in this
+manner, I venture to say it is the only instance in the whole history
+of the force in which the Royal Irish constabulary were guilty of such
+a cowardly neglect of duty. However, not only the police, but the best
+part of the crowd deserted this strange gentleman, and he was 'left
+in the hands of the vilest and most furious of the mob.' Where was Mr.
+Shirley? Where were the clergy and the respectable inhabitants of the
+town? The mob dragged him along towards Loughfea Castle--a mile and a
+half--whither they heard Mr. Shirley had fled, still beating, kicking,
+and strangling their victim, without any object; for how could they
+serve their cause by killing an agent who had never injured them? And
+how easy it was to kill him if they wished! But here comes the climax;
+he asked the murderous multitude to let him stop a few moments to
+breathe--he then proceeds: 'I shall never forget that moment. I was
+then about a mile from the town on the broad and open road leading to
+Loughfea Castle. I turned and looked around me, thinking my last
+hour was come, and anxious to see if there was one kind face, one
+countenance, I had ever seen before, who could at least tell my
+friends how I had died. But I looked in vain. The hills were crowded
+with people. The long line of road was one mass of human beings,
+whilst those immediately around me, mad with excitement, seemed only
+to thirst for my blood.
+
+'Having got a few moments' breathing-time, and seeing all appeal to
+be vain, I turned again on my way, determined, however, to hold out
+to the last, as I felt that to fall or to faint must be certain death.
+Just then I became conscious of an able hand and a stout heart beside
+me, and I heard a whisper in my ear: "They are determined to have your
+blood, but hold up, they shall have mine first." The speaker grasped
+my arm firmly under his own, and walked on steadily by my side.
+
+'By this time I was _completely naked with the exception of my
+trousers_. My coat, even my shirt, had been torn off, and I walked on,
+still beaten and ill-treated, like a man to execution; my head bare,
+and _without any clothes from my waist upwards_. To increase the
+misery of my situation, I found that my friend had been beaten and
+dragged away in spite of himself, and again I was left alone in the
+hands of those merciless men. I felt also I could now go no further,
+and that a last effort must be made before my senses left me from
+exhaustion. Stopping therefore once more, I asked to be led towards a
+high bank at the roadside, and leaning against this I turned and faced
+those whom I now believed would soon become my murderers.
+
+'"I can go no further," said I; "what have you brought me here for?
+What do you want me to do?" Again the same voice which I had first
+heard at the office, though I could not identify the speaker from the
+shouting and confusion around me, cried aloud, "We want a reduction of
+our rents, will you promise to get us that?"
+
+'There are times of instant danger, when it is said that the whole of
+a man's past life rushes before him in the spaces of a single moment.
+If ever there be such a time, this was such to me. I stood there,
+exhausted, without one friendly face on which to rest, and surrounded
+by _the worst of ten thousand men who seemed determined to have a
+victim_. I knew and felt all this. So I said very quietly, as a last
+effort to save my life, and hoping they would name something I could
+promise to ask,
+
+'"And what reduction will you be content with?"
+
+'Again the same voice replied,
+
+'"We will never pay more than one-half our present rents."
+
+'"Then," said I, "there ends the matter, _I never will promise that_."
+
+'There was a pause, and a dead silence. I stood _naked and bareheaded
+before them_. They stood opposite to me, with their sticks clenched in
+their hands, ready to strike. I looked at them, and they at me. They
+hesitated; _no one would strike me first_. I saw that they wavered,
+and instinctively, in a moment I _felt_ that I had won. This sudden
+revulsion of feeling--though I was still externally motionless--sent
+the blood throbbing to my temples with a rush that became almost
+oppressive. But the strange pause continued--when at length a shout
+was raised from the old stentorian voice again, "Stand off, boys--for
+your lives! no one shall harm him--he is a good man after all!" and in
+a moment I was surrounded by a new set of faces, who dashed furiously
+towards me. They raised me on their shoulders, swept my old enemies
+away from me, procured me some water to drink, and carried me, now
+completely overcome, exhausted, and almost fainting, into the demesne
+of Loughfea.
+
+'Here again these suddenly converted friends desired me to get up on
+a chair, and speak to the crowd now assembled before the castle. I did
+so. A reaction for the moment had taken place within me, and I felt
+some return of strength.
+
+'I told the people I had never injured them. That it was a shame, and
+a disgrace of which I had not believed any Irishman to be capable, to
+treat a stranger as they had dealt with me that day. That in my own
+country I could have as many to fight for me as were now against me,
+and in short I abused them right heartily and soundly. They bore it
+without a murmur. My new friends cheered me vociferously, and I was
+carried, now quite unable to walk, into the Castle of Loughfea. Mr.
+Shirley's architect here appeared upon the scene, and perceiving that
+the people were much exasperated at not finding Mr. Shirley at the
+castle, and that some of the most violent were disposed in consequence
+to make a fresh attack upon me as I was being carried exhausted inside
+the gates, he promised to speak to Mr. Shirley in their favour, and
+in some degree calmed their feelings. The excitement was past. Mr.
+Shirley had not been there, and the people at last quietly dispersed.
+
+'In the evening I was conveyed in a covered carriage to
+Carrickmacross, blackened with bruises, stiff and sore, and scarcely
+able to stand--musing over the strange transactions which had happened
+that day--and wrapped in a countryman's frieze coat which had been
+borrowed to cover _my nakedness_.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Realities of Irish Life, chap. v.]
+
+When the reader recovers his breath after this. I will ask him to turn
+to the history of this transaction--bad enough in itself--and see
+what fancy and art can do in dressing up a skeleton so that it becomes
+'beautiful for ever.' Mr. Trench himself shall be the historian,
+writing to the authorities when the occurrences were all fresh in his
+mind. The narrative was handed in to the Devon commissioners as his
+_sworn evidence_:
+
+'_William Steuart Trench, esq., agent._
+
+'Have there been any agrarian outrages, and in what have they
+originated?--There have been none, except _during a late short period
+of peculiar local excitement_.
+
+'Will you state the particulars of that excitement, and what then
+occurred?--I think my best mode of doing so will be by handing in
+the copy of a letter which I addressed to a local magistrate for
+the information of government.--[_The witness read the following
+letter_:--]
+
+'Dear Sir--In reply to your communication, enclosing a letter from Mr.
+Lucas, requesting that I should give a statement of the particulars
+which occurred to me in Carrickmacross, on Monday last, I beg leave to
+lay before you the facts, as follows:--
+
+'Mr. Shirley has recently appointed me to the agency over his Monaghan
+estate. We both arrived here on Thursday, the 30th of March, and on
+the following morning we went together into the office; and having
+remained there about an hour, we were much surprised, on our return,
+to find an immense mass of people outside the door, who immediately
+presented a petition to Mr. Shirley, requesting a reduction of rent.
+
+'Mr. Shirley declined giving an immediate answer to such an unexpected
+request; but having read the petition, he told them he would give an
+answer to it on the Monday following. By Saturday, however, he had
+arrived at a full conclusion upon the point, and, anxious to avoid any
+unpleasant altercation with his tenants, he thought it advisable to
+let his determination be known as soon as possible; and accordingly,
+on Saturday, he issued and circulated a printed notice, stating the
+determination at which he had arrived, and declining any further
+communications upon the subject. I enclose a copy of the notice.
+
+'Notwithstanding this notice, the people came in on Monday in immense
+numbers; and at about 11 o'clock in the forenoon, the upper part of
+the street opposite to Shirley House, where we were residing, was
+filled with dense masses of men. I then thought it my duty to go out,
+and repeat to them in my capacity as agent, the determination at which
+their landlord had arrived. I did so in the mildest terms. I told them
+I had been able to go over only a part of the estate; but that from
+what I had seen, I was of opinion that a better system of farming
+and of general management of their land, was in my judgment much more
+required than a reduction of the rent. That I knew Mr. Shirley had the
+kindest feeling towards them, and that I was myself quite prepared and
+willing to render them any assistance--to go to every man's farm, if
+possible, and to assist them by my counsel and advice. But that as Mr.
+Shirley had come to a determination to make no present reduction in
+his rental, I did expect that all who were able to pay their rents
+would come in and do so; that the utmost leniency would be extended
+towards those who could not pay; but that my duty was plain, and if
+those who really were able to pay, refused to come forward and do
+so, that I had no alternative left but to take advantage of the power
+which the law afforded for the recovery of the rent--and this I was
+fully prepared and determined to do, if driven to that unpleasant
+necessity. I also made some further observations, of less importance;
+but my manner towards them was quiet and calm, and I expressed myself
+most anxious to do everything in my power to promote their welfare and
+comfort.
+
+'_I then attempted to return to the house, across the street; but
+the mob closed in upon me, and prevented my doing so_, _and with much
+violence dragged me up into the town, where I was repeatedly struck
+and kicked, and nearly strangled, and my coat torn to pieces._
+
+'_The mob continued thus to ill-treat me for about a mile along the
+road to Lough Fea, Mr. Shirley's residence, repeatedly kicking me,
+especially when I showed symptoms of exhaustion, and pressing their
+hands violently upon my throat, till I was almost overcome by fatigue,
+heat and pain._
+
+'_All this appeared to be done for the purpose of forcing me to
+promise to induce Mr. Shirley to lower the rents to 10 s. per acre
+(upwards of fifty per cent.). This I refused to do. They then brought
+me on to Lough Fea, where they thought Mr. Shirley was; and upon not
+finding him, they appeared much exasperated. Mr. Shirley's architect
+then appeared, and by promising to speak to Mr. Shirley in their
+favour, and by requesting them to send a deputation, instead of coming
+in a manner like the present, he induced them to desist from further
+injury to me._
+
+
+  'Believe me, dear Sir, very truly yours,
+  '(Signed) 'WILLIAM STEUART TRENCH.
+
+  'Carrickmacross, April 8, 1844.
+
+'What has been the general demeanour of the people towards you since
+that time?--Though they resisted my measures for the recovery of the
+rent, _to myself they have been perfectly civil; nor have I received
+any personal insult or unpleasantness, arising from the above cause
+since that period._
+
+'How long did this kind of combination exist?--For about six months.'
+
+Setting aside the embellishments, let us note one or two differences
+as to facts. In the book the suddenly converted friends placed him on
+a chair and asked him to make a speech before the castle door. He did
+so, and there is a grand statuesque picture of the hero, naked to the
+waist, and standing on the chair as lofty pedestal. In the torn coat
+the artist could never have made him look like Apollo. Even the shirt
+would have been too commonplace; so off went the shirt. Three or four
+times attention is directed to the fact of the nakedness by the hero
+himself, while the pencil of the filial illustrator has rendered him
+immortal in this primitive costume. In his speech he 'abused them
+heartily and soundly.' Yet they cheered him vociferously, and then
+carried him into the castle, where he could get nothing to cover his
+nakedness but a countryman's frieze coat. It was when he had been
+cheered vociferously, and kindly carried in, that Mr. Shirley's
+architect appeared on the scene. Mr. Trench has not been just to that
+gentleman, for he really came to his rescue, and perhaps saved his
+life, by giving the people the only sensible advice they got that day.
+In his sworn statement, made twenty-five years ago, Mr. Trench said:
+'Mr. Shirley's architect then appeared, and by promising to speak
+to Mr. Shirley in their favour, and by requesting them to send a
+deputation, instead of coming in a manner like the present, _he
+induced them to desist from further injury to me._'
+
+If we had contemporary accounts of all the other romantic scenes which
+have fascinated so many readers, the 'Realities' would lose much
+of their gilding. Indeed, in most cases the internal evidence is
+sufficient to convince us that the sensationalist has been laying on
+his colours pretty heavily. In the sketch of the Farney rent campaign,
+however, I am willing to accept Mr. Trench as a faithful historian. It
+is a most suggestive narrative, because it shows what mischief could
+be done by driving the agricultural population to desperation. A
+general strike against the payment of rent would convulse society.
+If the war which raged in Farney had spread all over the island, the
+landlords would be in serious difficulty. The British army might then
+have become rent collectors, as they had been tithe collectors in
+1831.'
+
+Mr. Shirley resolved, after much deliberation, to enforce his legal
+rights to the utmost. The bailiff was sent to warn the backward
+tenants to come in with the rent, and he everywhere received the same
+answer--'We will pay no rent till our grievances are redressed.' Now
+all the missiles of the law were showered on the recusants--notices
+to quit, _latitats_, processes for arrears, &c. Grippers,
+process-servers, keepers, drivers, were in full requisition. The
+grippers were to arrest all tenants against whom decrees had been
+obtained at the quarter-sessions; the keepers were employed to watch
+the crops that had been seized; and the drivers were to bring the
+cattle, sheep, horses, or pigs to pound. These constituted the
+landlord's army, having the police as a reserve, and the military if
+necessary.
+
+On the other hand, the tenants organised a body called the 'Molly
+Maguires'--stout young men dressed up in women's clothes, their
+faces disguised and besmeared in the most fantastic manner. These men
+waylaid and maltreated the officers of the law so severely, that in a
+short time no money could induce a gripper, process-server, driver or
+bailiff to show his nose on the estate. In this dilemma, Mr. Shirley,
+as commander-in-chief, ordered his lieutenant and his subordinates
+to go forth, with a body of police, and drive in all the cattle they
+could seize on the lands of the defaulting tenants. The expedition
+started one fine morning, led on by the mounted bailiff, a fat man,
+trembling like a hare at the thought of encountering the 'Molly
+Maguires.'
+
+Mr. Trench's description of this foray is very graphic:--'No sooner
+had this formidable party appeared upon the roads in the open country,
+than the people rushed to the tops of the numerous hills with which
+the district abounds; and as we moved forward, they ran from one hill
+to another shouting and cheering with wild defiant cries, and keeping
+a line parallel to that in which our party was travelling.
+
+'The object of our expedition was clearly understood by the people;
+and the exact position of our company was indicated to those in
+the lowlands by the movements of the parties on the hills; and
+accordingly, as we advanced, every beast belonging to every tenant who
+owed rent was housed or locked up, or driven somewhere away. Thus, as
+we had no legal right to break open any door, or take any cattle out
+of any house, but only to seize those we might find in the open fields
+and upon the lands of the defaulting tenants, we soon perceived (as
+we might have known before we started) that we were likely to return
+without success. The bailiff declared with a sigh, "that not a hoof
+nor a horn was left in the whole country-side."
+
+'At length when about to return home, without having secured any
+booty whatever, we came unexpectedly upon a poor little heifer calf,
+browsing quietly on the long grass beside a hedge. The bailiff having
+ascertained that she was grazing on the land of a tenant who was
+a defaulter, we seized upon the unhappy little beast, and drove it
+ingloriously home to the pound at Carrickmacross, a distance of about
+two miles, amidst the jeers and laughter of the populace, at the
+result of our formidable day's driving.'
+
+Thus baffled, Mr. Shirley resolved to try another move.
+
+He applied to the authorities in Dublin for an order for 'substitution
+of service.' That is, instead of delivering the legal notices at the
+houses of the parties, which was impracticable, they were to be posted
+up on the chapel-door. To effect this object, a large police force
+was necessary, and it was accompanied by a stipendiary magistrate. 'As
+soon as the party came near the chapel grounds a shout of defiance was
+raised by the peasantry, who began to crowd into the chapel yard, and
+with uplifted sticks and threatening gestures swore that they would
+never allow the walls of the chapel to be desecrated by such a notice.
+The bailiff, a most respectable and temperate man, did his utmost to
+pacify the excited mob. He reasoned with them as best he could;
+and assured them that no desecration was intended--that he was only
+carrying out the law, which required that the notice should be posted
+on the chapel walls. But his voice had no more power than if he
+had spoken to a storm of wind; they leaped and danced madly about,
+whirling their sticks over their heads, and shouting that they would
+never allow him to touch the sacred edifice.
+
+'The stipendiary magistrate now ordered him to do his duty, and that
+he would be protected in doing it by the police, and he, trembling
+with fear, as well he might, at length approached with the notice in
+his hand to post it in due form. No sooner had he approached towards
+the chapel than a volley of stones sent him staggering back, though
+none actually struck him. The police were now ordered to advance. They
+did so amidst another shower of stones. The storm of missiles still
+continuing and several of the police having been struck and injured,
+they were at length ordered to fire. They aimed low, and directing
+their fire straight into the crowd of stone-throwers, they soon
+checked the vigour of the assault--six or seven men fell under the
+volley and rolled upon the ground. There was a short pause, a dead
+silence ensued--but it was only for a moment, and before the police
+could recover themselves and load again, a furious rush was made upon
+them by the enraged populace. Stones were seen flying as thick
+as hail; and finally the police, apprehending that they must be
+annihilated if they remained, ran to their cars, which were waiting at
+a little distance, and drove into Carrickmacross as fast as the horses
+could gallop, accompanied by the stipendiary magistrate!
+
+'The field thus quickly won, remained in the possession of the
+insurgents. One of the rioters was killed upon the spot--shot through
+the body. The others who fell were only slightly injured; one had his
+ear taken off, another was wounded in the finger, another shot in the
+arm.'
+
+This was 'the battle of Magheracloon.' Mr. Trench wisely recommended
+a cessation of hostilities till the harvest was gathered in, promising
+the landlord that he would then by quiet means, acting on the tenants
+individually and privately, induce them to pay their rents. He
+succeeded, but as Mr. Shirley declined to adopt his plans for the
+better management of the estate, he resigned.
+
+He came back, however, after some years, as agent to the Marquess of
+Bath--a post which he occupies still, being manager-in-chief at the
+same time of the large estates of the Marquess of Lansdowne, in Kerry,
+and Lord Digby, in the King's County. In all these undertakings,
+ably assisted by his sons and his nephew, he has been pre-eminently
+successful. If the Farney men had been driven off in 1843, or swept
+away by the famine, it would have been said that their fate was
+inevitable, nothing could be made of them. They were by nature prone
+to disorder and rebellion. Well, Lord Bath visited his estate in 1865.
+On that occasion a banquet was given to the tenants, at which Mr.
+Trench made an eloquent speech. Referring to the outbreak in 1848, he
+said: 'And yet never, my Lord, never even in the worst of times, did I
+bate one jot of heart or hope in the noble people of Farney, never for
+one moment did I doubt their loyalty to their Queen, their loyalty to
+their country, their respect for their landlord, and above all, that
+they would be true and loyal to themselves.' So much for the incurable
+perversity of the Celtic race, for the 'black morass of Irish nature'
+that can never be drained!
+
+The people of Farney got justice, and they were contented and orderly.
+They got security, and they were industrious and thriving. They
+got protection under the constitution, and they were loyal. Densely
+peopled as the estate is, the agent could not coax one of them to
+emigrate; and after his former experience at Farney, he did not
+venture on eviction, though, no doubt, he would gladly repeat the
+Kenmare experiment in thinning the masses with which he has had to
+deal. Mr. Horsman, a prophet of the same school of economists, says
+that Providence sent the famine to relieve the landlords, by carrying
+away a third of the population, and he seems to think it desirable
+that another third should be got rid of somehow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+BELFAST AND PERPETUITY.
+
+
+Belfast, not being blessed with a cathedral like Armagh and Derry,
+is not called a 'city.' It is only a 'town;' but it is the capital of
+Ulster, and surpasses all other places in Ireland in the rapidity of
+its progress and in its prosperity. It can boast but little of its
+antiquity. There is probably not a house in the borough more than 150
+years old. The place is first noticed by history in 1178, merely as
+the site of a fort of the O'Neills, which was destroyed by John De
+Courcy. It was only a poor village at the time of Bruce's invasion, in
+1315, though Spencer erroneously calls it 'a very good town.' It was
+so insignificant in 1586 that Holinshed does not mention it among the
+towns and havens of Down and Antrim. Whatever town existed there had
+been destroyed by the Earl of Kildare when lord-deputy. In 1552 it was
+repaired and garrisoned, and shortly after it was granted by the
+crown to Hugh O'Neill of Clandeboye. In 1571 the castle, with a large
+portion of territory adjoining it, was bestowed upon Sir Thomas Smith
+and his son. The latter was assassinated by the 'wicked, barbarous,
+and uncivil people;' and the former, not being able to fulfil the
+conditions of his tenure, the district reverted with the whole earldom
+of Ulster to the crown in the reign of James I. Belfast was then
+surrounded by extensive forests, abounding in fine timber for
+building. The best specimen--perhaps the only one in the kingdom--of
+a forest like what covered the country at that time, still exists at
+Shane's Castle, the magnificent demesne of Lord O'Neill, where may be
+seen enormous oaks decaying with age, under whose shade probably the
+famous Shane marshalled his galloglasse.
+
+In 1613 the castle and manor of Belfast were granted to Sir Arthur
+Chichester, lord-deputy, ancestor of the Marquis of Donegal, who did
+so much to effect the final conquest of Ulster. He may be said to
+be the founder of the town. From the estates of his family, in
+Devonshire, and from Scotland, many families came over and made a
+strong settlement here. Ultimately it became a corporation sending two
+members to the Irish Parliament. The chief magistrate was called 'the
+sovereign;' and the first who held the office was Thomas Pottinger,
+ancestor of the celebrated Sir Henry Pottinger. In 1758 the population
+was 8,549; in 1821, it was 37,000; in 1831, it was 53,000; in 1841, it
+had increased to 75,000; in 1851, it amounted to 103,000; and the last
+census shows it to be 121,602. About 1,500 houses are built annually
+in the borough, and the present population is estimated at 150,000.
+The rateable property is more than 394,000 l. The sum of 560,000 l.
+has been spent on the harbour improvements, to which is to be added
+250,000 l. for building new docks. I remember the quays when they were
+small, irregular, inconvenient, dirty, and when the channel worked its
+doubtful course through shifting masses of liquid mud, at low water.
+Now there are quays which extend in a line about a mile, covered
+with spacious sheds for the protection of the goods being shipped
+and unshipped. There are docks of all sorts, and great shipbuilding
+establishments standing on ground created out of the floating chaos
+of mud. 'Year by year,' as one of its poets has said, 'Belfast is
+changing its aspect and overstepping its former boundaries, climbing
+the hill-side, skirting the river margin, and even invading the sea's
+ancient domain.
+
+  'Ambition's mistress of the fertile land,
+  Shuts out the ocean and usurps the strand.'
+
+Among the 'usurpations' is Queen's Island, a beautiful people's
+park, standing in the midst of the Lough. The people of Belfast have
+effected all these vast improvements from their own resources,
+without a shilling from the lord of the soil, without any help from
+Government, except a loan of 100,000 l. from the Board of Works.
+Belfast is the 'linen capital' of the empire, as Manchester is the
+'cotton capital.' The linen trade was fostered in its infancy there
+by Strafford, and encouraged by William III., as a set-off against the
+abolition of the woollen trade. The first spinning of flax by steam
+power was commenced in 1830, by the Messrs. Mulholland, who employ
+2,000 hands, principally females. Mills have sprung up in every
+direction, and it is estimated that they give employment to 15,000
+persons. To supply the consumption of flax, in addition to the home
+produce, about 50,000 tons are imported every year. Linen is the
+staple manufacture; but industrial arts of every kind flourish, with
+all the usual manifestations of wealth.
+
+We have seen in a former chapter that the people of Londonderry, vexed
+that the maiden city has been left so far behind her younger sister,
+ascribe the difference to the fact that the Belfast manufacturers were
+favoured with long building tenures. We hear it said often that the
+Marquis of Donegal gave his tenants perpetuity leases, implying that
+he acted very liberally in doing so. If, however, you speak to persons
+acquainted with the local history, they will ascribe this advantage
+to 'Lord Donegal's necessities.' If you ask an explanation of this
+phrase, you will be told that towards the end of last century, and
+later, Lord Donegal was obliged to adopt extraordinary methods
+for raising money, and that the perpetuity leases in question were
+purchased, and at a very high rate too. You will further learn that
+the tenants were compelled to take the leases, and pay heavy fines for
+them in lump sums, and that if unable to produce the money they were
+evicted, and their farms were given to others who were able to pay. It
+is alleged that his agent got leases in blank, ready to be filled up
+when the cash was forthcoming, and that all the cash did not reach the
+landlord's hands. At any rate, attempts have been made to break some
+of the leases. There has been long pending litigation on the subject.
+Whatever may be the defects of title on the part of the landlord,
+the tenant must suffer. Dr. Hancock alludes to this fact in his
+first report. Referring to Sir John Romilly's Leasing Powers Bill, he
+says:--
+
+'The details of these Bills it is not necessary now to refer to; but
+there was one principle provided for in them which has been neglected
+in subsequent measures. In the ordinary course of business a tenant
+does not investigate his landlord's title; the cost of doing so would
+be nearly always too great; besides, the landlord would not think of
+consenting to the investigation on every occasion of granting a lease.
+It follows from this that it is a great hardship, if a flaw should
+be discovered in a landlord's title, that leases granted before the
+tenants had any notice of the litigation should be bad. Take the
+case of the estate which the late Duke of Wellington and Mr.
+Leslie recovered from Lord Dungannon after he had been for years in
+possession; or the case which is now pending for so many years between
+the Marquis of Donegal and Viscount Templemore. Is it not a great
+hardship that leases which tenants took, trusting in the title of
+Lord Dungannon or Viscount Templemore, who were then visible owners
+of great estates, should afterwards turn out to be worthless on some
+point of law in title-deeds which they never had the opportunity of
+seeing; and which may be so subtle as to take Courts of Law years to
+decide?'
+
+Dr. Hancock says the principle that in such cases the tenant should
+be protected, was neglected in subsequent measures. Now, what must the
+tenants think of legislation that subjects them to be robbed of their
+dearly-bought leases because of flaws, frauds or blunders with which
+they could have nothing to do? The leases granted to the tenants of
+Lord Donegal, however, in Belfast and the neighbourhood were generally
+valid, and to these perpetuities we must undoubtedly ascribe the
+existence of a middle class of remarkable independence of character,
+and the accumulation of capital for manufactures and commerce. Had
+Lord Donegal been able to hold the town in a state of tutelage and
+dependence--had he been an 'improving landlord' of the modern type,
+with an agent like Mr. Trench, so vigilant and curious that a dog
+could not bark on the estate without his knowledge and consent,
+Belfast might have been far behind Derry to-day--as stationary as
+Bangor, Hillsborough, Antrim, or Randalstown. Under such paternal care
+as Mr. Trench bestows upon tenants, with his omnipresent surveillance,
+there could be no manly self-reliance, no freedom of speech or action,
+no enterprise. The agent would take care that no interests should grow
+up on the estate, which his chief could not control or knock down. It
+is not likely that Lord Donegal would have suffered the landscape to
+be spoiled, the atmosphere of the deer park and gardens to be darkened
+and tainted by the smoke of factory chimneys, which could add nothing
+to his rental, while crowding around him the race which his great
+progenitor did so much to extirpate. So Belfast may well be thankful
+that the Marquis of Donegal, for some generations, could not afford to
+be 'an improving landlord,' fond of paternal intermeddling with other
+people's affairs, playing the part of Providence to an inferior race.
+
+But there is one memorable fact connected with those perpetuity leases
+which applies more immediately to our purpose. The tenants who were
+evicted to make way for the men who had money to advance to the lord
+of the soil, feeling themselves seriously aggrieved, formed the first
+of the more modern agrarian combinations under the title of 'the
+Hearts of Oak;' which continued for a long time to disturb the peace
+in Antrim and Down. The farms being extensively turned into pasture
+by the landlords and large graziers, there was no employment for the
+houseless wanderers, no provision of any kind for their support.
+They consequently had no respect for the rights of property, in
+the vindication of which their homes had been demolished and their
+families sacrificed, because they were not able to purchase fixity of
+tenure.
+
+It was, however, very fortunate for Belfast that the landlord was
+obliged to sell it; that the head of the great house founded by the
+conqueror of Ulster, enriched with territory so vast, should have been
+under the necessity of giving a perpetual property in the soil to
+some of the sons of industry. By that simple concession he did more to
+advance the prosperity of the town, than could have been accomplished
+by centuries of fostering care, under the shadow of feudalism. Belfast
+shows, on a grand scale, what might be done on many an estate in
+Ireland, in many a town and village where the people are pining away
+in hopeless misery, if the iron bonds of primogeniture and entail
+which now cramp landed property were struck off. The Greek philosopher
+declared that if he had a standing-place he could move the earth. Give
+to capital the ground of perpetuity of tenure, whereon to plant
+its machinery, and it will soon lift this island from the slough of
+despond. Then may it be said more truly than Grattan said it in 1782,
+that Ireland had got nearer to the sun.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+LEASE-BREAKING--GEASHILL.
+
+
+The history of the Manor of Geashill in the King's County furnishes
+another instructive illustration of the land question and of the
+effect upon the people of the system of management, under the new
+school of agents, of which Mr. Steuart Trench may be regarded as the
+brightest ornament, if not the apostle. The epoch was favourable for
+his mission, and he was the man for the epoch; he had been quietly
+training himself for the restoration of disordered estates, and the
+critical emergencies of the times thrust him into the front rank of
+social reformers. When he describes the wonderful revolutions wrought
+by his instrumentality, the whirlwinds on which he rode, the storms
+which he directed and quelled, the chaos out of which he evoked order,
+he assumes that the hurricane and the chaos were the normal state of
+things. A mysterious pestilence had blighted the principal food of
+the people for two or three years, and brought on a desolating famine.
+Millions perished by that visitation chiefly because the legislature
+had persistently refused up to that period to make any provision for
+the Irish poor such as it had made centuries before for the English
+poor, and because no care had been taken to distribute the population
+over the waste lands which their labour would have reclaimed and
+fertilized; or to improve their position, so that they might not be
+wholly dependent on one sort of food, and that the most precarious and
+perishable. Mr. Sadler, in his work on Population, had proved that,
+even in the case of Ireland before the famine, there was really no
+'surplus population;' that if the resources of the country had been
+developed by a wise Government, sympathising with the people, the text
+which he adopted would have been applicable there: 'Dwell in the land,
+and verily ye shall be fed.' There was hasty legislation to meet the
+emergency, but in all the haste, the heartless economists found time
+to devise clauses and provisions, by means of which, when the small
+farmers had consumed all their stock to keep their families alive,
+they were compelled to relinquish their holdings in order to get food
+for their famishing children. They must submit to the workhouse test,
+they must not hold more than a quarter of an acre of land, if they
+would get relief. Under the dire instigation of hunger, in the
+stupor and recklessness of their misery, they accepted any terms the
+landlords chose to impose, and so whole villages disappeared from the
+landscape, swept off with the besom of destruction.
+
+The political economists (all the new school of land-agents are rigid
+political economists), taught by their prophet Malthus, ascribed the
+famine and every other social evil to surplus population, and to the
+incurably lazy and thriftless habits of the Celtic race. According to
+them the potato blight had only hastened an inevitable catastrophe.
+Therefore they set to work with all their agencies and all their
+might to get rid of the too prolific race, and to supplant the native
+cultivators by British settlers and wealthy graziers.
+
+This has been done ever since by a quiet and gradual process,
+steadily, systematically, inexorably, propelled by many powerful
+tendencies of the age, and checked only by assassination. What are the
+agrarian outrages which have become so terribly rife of late, but the
+desperate struggles of a doomed race to break the instruments which
+pluck them out of their native soil? A generation of instruction in
+the national schools and a generation of intercourse with the
+free citizens of the United States, who call no man 'master' under
+heaven--have taught them that it is an enormous iniquity to sacrifice
+humanity to property, to make the happiness, the freedom, the very
+existence of human beings, secondary to the arbitrary power and
+self-interest of a small class called landlords. They regard the
+'improving landlord' system as nothing but a legal and civilised
+continuation of the barbarous policy of extermination by fire and
+sword which we have seen pursued so ruthlessly in the seventeenth
+century. It is still the land-war, conducted according to modern
+tactics, aiming with deadly effect at the same object, the slow but
+sure destruction of a nuisance called the 'Celtic race.' This may be
+a delusion on their part; but it is the deep-rooted conviction of
+priests and people, and hence the utter inadequacy of any enactment
+which will not render such a policy impossible, by making the tenure
+of the occupiers independent of the will of the landlords. Until such
+time the peasantry will continue to offer a bloody resistance to the
+legal attempts to crush them out of the country.
+
+In this self-defensive war, they cannot cope with the armed power
+of England in the open field; and they are driven upon the criminal
+resource of the oppressed in all ages and all lands--secret
+combination and assassination. For this crime they feel no remorse;
+first, because it is _war_--just as the soldier feels no remorse
+for killing the enemy in a battle; and, secondly, because their
+conquerors, and the successors of those conquerors, have taught them
+too well by repeated examples the terrible lesson of making light of
+human life. Poor ignorant creatures, they cannot see that, while
+the most illustrious noblemen in England won applause and honours
+by shooting down Irish women and children like seals or otters,
+the survivors of the murdered people should be execrated as cruel,
+barbarous, and infamous for shooting the men that pull down the
+rooftrees over the heads of their helpless families and trample upon
+their household gods. These convictions of theirs are very revolting
+to our feelings, but they are facts; and as facts the legislature must
+deal with them. If there be a people, otherwise singularly free from
+crime, who regard the assassination of the members of a certain
+class with indifference, or approbation, the phenomenon is one which
+political philosophy ought to be able to explain, and one which cannot
+be got rid of by suspending the constitution and bringing railing
+accusations against the nation.
+
+Mr. Trench speaks with something like contempt or pity of 'good
+landlords,' a class which he contradistinguishes from 'improving
+landlords.' But it should be remembered that by this last phrase he
+always means agents of the Trench stamp. For he observes that the
+landlord himself cannot possibly do much more than authorize his agent
+to do what he thinks best; and it is rather an advantage that the
+proprietor should be an absentee, otherwise his good nature might
+prompt him to interrupt the work of improvement. Now there is this to
+be said of the good landlords, who may be counted by hundreds, and who
+are found in all the counties of Ireland. Their estates are free from
+the 'poetic turbulence' in which Mr. Trench is the 'stormy petrel.'
+They preserved their tenants through the years of famine, and have
+them still on their estates. Nor should the fact be omitted that among
+those good landlords, who abhor the idea of evicting their tenants,
+are to be found the lineal descendants of some of the most cruel
+exterminators of the seventeenth century. Their goodness has
+completely obliterated, among their people, the bitter memories of the
+past. The present race of Celts would die for the men whose ancestors
+shot down their forefathers as vermin. But the improving landlords run
+their ploughshares through the ashes of old animosities, turning up
+embers which the winds of agitation blow into flames. We seldom hear
+of Ribbonism till the improving agent comes upon the scene, warring
+against natural rights, warring against the natural affections,
+warring against humanity, warring against the soul.
+
+These remarks bring us to the case of the barony of Geashill, the
+estate of Lord Digby, to which Mr. Trench became agent in 1857. Lord
+Digby desired to obtain his services, but he did not communicate his
+desire to Mr. Trench himself, though nothing would seem easier. It was
+first conveyed by Lieut.-General Porter, the confidential friend of
+Lord Digby, and next by Mr. Brewster, afterwards Lord Chancellor of
+Ireland. When the police received a notice that the new landlord of
+Geashill would certainly meet with a 'bloody death' if he persisted in
+his threatened dealings with the tenants, there was no more time
+for diplomatic delicacy in approaching Mr. Trench. The landlord's
+extremity is Mr. Trench's opportunity. When leases are to be broken,
+when independent rights are to be extinguished, or 'contracted away,'
+when an overcrowded estate is to be thinned at the least possible
+cost to the owner, when a rebellious tenantry are to be subdued, and
+Ribbonmen are to be banished or hanged, Mr. Trench is the man to do
+the work of improvement. He admits that he never had before him an
+uglier job than this at Geashill, and he had the worst apprehensions
+as to the danger of the enterprise.
+
+It was nothing less than to break 120 leases, which had been granted
+from time to time by the late Lord Digby during the sixty years that
+he had enjoyed the property. The value of these leases was 30,600 l.,
+for the terms unexpired after his death. Among those 120 leaseholders
+were the descendants of English settlers, gentlemen farmers, one of
+them a magistrate, and a number of substantial yeomen, the sort of men
+the country so much wanted to form an independent middle class. But to
+an 'improving landlord,' the existence of such a class on his estate
+is intolerable. At all hazards they must be made tenants-at-will, and
+brought completely under his control.
+
+They had built houses and planted trees; they had reclaimed the deep
+bog and converted it into good arable land. They had employed the
+peasantry, and given them plots of ground, and, more than all, they
+had allowed a number of families to squat on bits of bog by the
+roadside, where they lived as well as they could; working when
+there was a demand for labour, cutting turf and selling it in the
+neighbouring town of Tullamore, and perhaps carrying on some little
+dealings. At all events they had survived the famine; and there they
+were in 1857 with their huts standing on their 'estates,' for they had
+paid no rent for twenty years, and they had as good a title in law
+as Lord Digby himself. Mr. Trench seems to have been horrified at
+not finding the names of these householders in the rent-books of the
+estate! The idea!--that there should be within the four corners of the
+King's County, even on the bog of Allen, a number of natives holding
+land, without a landlord! It was monstrous. But as they could not be
+evicted for non-title, they were all severally tempted by the offer
+of money, in sums varying from 5 l. to 20 l. each, to sell their
+freeholds to the landlord. Pity they were not preserved as a remnant
+of the antediluvian period, ere the ancient tenures were merged in
+floods of blood. Like a bit of primitive forest, they would be more
+interesting to some minds than the finest modern plantation.
+
+It was not so easy to deal with the 120 leaseholders. To what extent
+they had improved their farms before they got the leases, Mr. Trench
+does not say. But as the absentee landlord had done nothing, and spent
+nothing, whatever increase to the value had been made was undoubtedly
+the work of the tenants; and after the leases were obtained, they
+would naturally feel more confidence in the investment of their
+savings in the land. However that may be, a professional man, employed
+by Lord Digby, estimated the value over and above the reserved rent
+at 30,600 l., which sum the new landlord proposed to put into his own
+pocket, by increasing the rent one-third. The plea for this sweeping
+confiscation was, that the late Lord Digby, cousin to the present, had
+only a life interest in the Irish estate, and therefore, the leases
+were all illegal and worthless. Accordingly the new lord commenced
+proceedings to evict the whole of the tenantry for non-title. They
+were astounded. They held meetings; they deliberated; they appealed to
+the landlord; they appealed to the executors of the late peer, who
+had large estates in England, and died worth a million sterling in
+the funds, all of which he willed away from the heir of his title and
+Irish estates. Says Mr. Trench:--
+
+'It may readily be supposed that circumstances so peculiar as these
+created considerable anxiety in the district. The tenantry, _many_ of
+them large and respectable land-holders, now learned, for the first
+time, that their leases were good for nothing in law. They had been
+duly 'signed, sealed, and delivered' to them under a full belief on
+their part that the contract was not only just and honourable, but
+also perfectly legal; and their feelings may be imagined when they
+found that they were suddenly threatened with a total loss of the
+property which they had always looked upon as secure.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: 'Realities of Irish Life,' p.314.]
+
+Pending the ejectment proceedings, they were knocked about from post
+to pillar, without getting any satisfaction. The landlord referred
+them to the executors, although he knew well they had no legal claim
+on them whatever, and that to legal claims only could they pay any
+attention. The executors again referred them to their landlord, who
+was determined to break the leases, come what would. Now, if the Irish
+law regulating the relations of landlord and tenant were based upon
+justice and equity, the wrong done by the late earl, if any, was a
+wrong for which the tenants should in no way be held responsible. The
+wrong was done to the heir-at-law. To him, and not to the tenants,
+compensation should have been made by the executors. And after all, it
+was really to him that the money was advanced to buy up the leases,
+in order to save him from assassination, for the tenants had no legal
+claim upon them.
+
+The natural, proper, and honest course, then, for the landlord, was to
+have kept the 30,600 l. as compensation to himself for the mistake
+of his predecessor, and to let the leases stand. If he considered
+the peace of the country, if he wished to inspire in the minds of
+the people respect for the rights of property, or confidence in the
+Government, he would not have adopted the desperate course of breaking
+120 contracts, kindling the flames of agitation, and planting Ribbon
+lodges all over a district hitherto peaceful and tranquil. But he was
+bent on crushing the independent yeomanry into the abject condition
+of tenants-at-will. To carry out this purpose, Mr. Trench was
+indispensable. He knew how to tame the wild Irish. And Mr. Trench was
+equal to the occasion. He went to reside a few weeks at Tullamore, to
+reconnoitre the enemy's position. He writes as if this was the first
+time he made acquaintance with the estate. But his own residence
+was in the Queen's County, not far off; and there is good reason to
+believe that he knew all about Geashill long before; and all about
+every estate belonging to an English absentee in the four provinces;
+for he had, growing up around him, a young generation of land-agents,
+trained in all the arts of modern management, and one of the ablest
+of these, his son, Mr. T.W. Trench, became his partner in this agency.
+Mr. Trench's tactics are not new, though he excels all men in their
+skilful application. His plan, adopted on all occasions, is to divide
+and conquer. Violent measures being dangerous and contrary to his
+own feelings, he trusts to diplomacy, dealing with individuals,
+taken separately into a private room, where his irresistible personal
+fascination invariably brings matters to a satisfactory issue.
+
+In this case, he went over to the English executors, and persuaded
+them to advance the 30,600 l. to be distributed among the tenants,
+under the guarantee of Lord Digby that this sum would cover all
+possible claims. Thus provided with funds, he summoned the tenants,
+not all, but ten of the most influential, to meet him at Geashill. He
+left this meeting, purposely, to the last day and the last hour, as a
+piece of generalship. He says:--
+
+'They appeared puzzled and anxious, and very uncertain what to do. At
+length one of them proposed that they should do nothing until they had
+had an opportunity of consulting the remainder of the leaseholders, of
+whom there were upwards of 120 upon the estate.
+
+'"No," replied I, "you must come to a decision now; there is a
+messenger at the door on horseback, to ride to the telegraph station
+at Portarlington to stop the English witnesses coming over. This must
+be done within an hour, or they will start for Ireland, and _then_ it
+will be out of my power to stop the lawsuit. You must determine _now_,
+each man for himself, or the lawsuit must go on."
+
+'"Will you state the amount of money you will give to each of us?"
+asked one of the party.
+
+'"Certainly," replied I, "if you will _each come separately with me
+into another room_."
+
+'They did so. I named to each an amount something less than the sum
+set down by the notary, partly as a reserve, lest any tenants holding
+under these leaseholders should afterwards require to be paid, and
+partly lest it might be supposed we were yielding to a legal claim
+already granted. After a little consideration, they all severally
+signed the consent for judgment.'
+
+The other leaseholders followed. The leases were all surrendered, and
+the holders became tenants-at-will. I had the pleasure of meeting one
+of the most influential of them a short time ago at Geashill--a fine
+tall, patriarchal-looking gentleman, the representative of one of the
+English settlers. He was waiting about humbly and patiently for an
+opportunity of speaking to the young agent, who is as courteous and
+kind as he is efficient. But I could not help reflecting how different
+would be the bearing of the tenant if he had been still in possession
+of his lease! His dwelling-house was not as grand as the stylish villa
+which the landlord has erected beside it. But every stick and stone
+about the place were his own property. So also were the old timber
+trees, which his ancestors planted. But now every stick and stone
+and tree belong to Lord Digby, and as such the agent exhibits them to
+visitors--the buildings, the gardens, the trees, the hedges, the rich
+pasture fields, all having such a look of comfort and independence. I
+asked, 'Did you ever know a place like this old home of yours to have
+been made by a tenant-at-will?' He answered in the negative.
+
+The tenant on an 'improved estate' must be very careful about his
+speech. An agent has a hundred eyes and a hundred ears. People who
+seek 'favours' at the office, find it useful to be spies upon their
+neighbours, to detect violations of the 'rules of the estate.' It is
+mainly through the spy-system that Mr. Steuart Trench, according to
+his own avowal, won most of his victories over refractory tenants. For
+example, on this estate he had a woman acting as a spy at the meetings
+of the Ribbonmen; and he boasted that a dog could not bark at Farney
+without his knowledge. I refer to this matter here again for the
+purpose of saying that I cannot regard as an improvement of the
+country a system which establishes a despot on every estate, which
+degrades the tenant into a day-labourer, which--land being limited and
+scarce--substitutes the old, barbarous, pastoral system for tillage,
+which banishes the poor and enslaves the rich. Lord Digby levelled
+cottages, gardens, farms, manured the land, got an enormous crop,
+which in one year paid all the expenses; and then laid out the land in
+vast tracts of pasture, for which he gets from 30 s. to 40 s. an acre.
+That is improvement for _him_, but not for the people, not for the
+country, not for the state, not for the Queen. It may crush Ribbonism.
+But for every Ribbonman crushed, a hundred Fenians spring up; and
+disaffection becomes not a mere local plague, but an endemic. Mr.
+Trench gives a significant hint to other landlords to follow the
+example of Lord Digby, assuring them that it will '_pay_.'
+
+A still more flagrant case of lease-breaking occurred some years ago
+in the county of Galway. Dr. Hancock has put the facts of this case
+before the Government in his recent report:--
+
+'The plaintiff was the Rev. Dr. O'Fay, parish priest of Craughwell, in
+the county of Galway, and the defendant the landlord on whose estate
+the priest resided. About ten years ago the priest was induced to
+take a farm that had been held by a former parish priest; the previous
+proprietor, the father of the defendant, promising a lease for three
+lives, or thirty-one years. After the priest entered into possession
+the landlord ascertained that he could not fulfil his promise.
+
+'As he did not possess such a power under the terms of the estate
+settlement, he offered, instead, a lease for the priest's own
+life, and 20 l. to aid in building a house. The priest continued
+in possession of the farm, and paid the rent agreed on, thus, as he
+alleged, accepting the arrangement proposed. He was on excellent terms
+with the landlord, and expended 70 l. in permanent improvements, and
+did not ask for the 20 l. which the landlord had promised. In 1854 the
+landlord died, and his son, the defendant, succeeded to the property.
+He gave notice to all his yearly tenants of an intention to raise
+their rents. The priest claimed to have a promise of a lease, and the
+agent of the property, during the landlord's absence abroad, admitted
+this claim, and did not raise the rent. The landlord said he had no
+notice of his father's promise; he, however, allowed the priest to
+remain in possession, and the priest expended 400 l. in buildings, on
+the faith that he would not be disturbed. A dispute subsequently arose
+about trespass, and the fences on the boundary between the priest's
+farm and some land in the possession of the landlord. The landlord
+served notice to quit, and brought an ejectment. After some delay
+judgment was given in his favour, subject to an application to the
+Court of Chancery to compel him to fulfil his father's promise of a
+lease.'
+
+The Master of the Rolls thus characterised the law which justifies the
+robbery of the tenants by unscrupulous and vindictive landlords:--
+
+'Even if the Rev. Dr. O'Fay had no claim except as tenant from year to
+year, I have no hesitation in stating that, although in point of law
+on the authorities I have referred to, and particularly the case of
+Felling _v._ Armitage, the petitioner's suit could not be sustained,
+_yet noticing can be more repugnant to the principles of natural
+justice than that a landlord should look on at a great expenditure
+carried on by a tenant from year to year, without warning the tenant
+of his intention to turn him out of possession_. The defendant's offer
+to allow Dr. O'Fay to remove the buildings was a mockery. _I have no
+jurisdiction to administer equity in the natural sense of that term,
+or I should have no difficulty whatever in making a decree against the
+defendant._ I am bound to administer an artificial system, established
+by the decisions of eminent judges, such as Lord Eldon and Sir William
+Grant, and _being so bound, I regret much that I must administer
+injustice in this case, and dismiss the petition_, but I shall dismiss
+it without costs. _I should be very glad for the sake of justice that
+my decision should be reversed by the Court of Appeal._'
+
+Lest it might be supposed that this was the opinion of a single judge,
+we find in the Court of Appeal equally strong views stated:--It
+was thrown out that it was a case for amicable settlement, but the
+respondent's counsel assured the Court that his client 'had resolved
+to spend his fortune, if necessary, in resisting the claim of the
+Rev. Dr. O'Fay.' Lord Justice Blackburne pronounced this to be a very
+irrational determination, although he had to decide that the claim
+could not be sustained in law or equity.
+
+Lord Chancellor Napier, in concluding his judgment, said:--
+
+'I think I am not overstepping my duty in suggesting to the
+respondent, that, under all the circumstances of this case, he will
+best maintain the character and honour of a British officer, satisfy
+the exigencies of justice, and uphold the rights of property, by
+making _such an arrangement_ with Dr. O'Fay, as to the possession of
+this farm, _as may leave him the full benefit of an expenditure made
+in good faith, and with the reasonable expectation of having the full
+benefit of it sufficiently secured by an undisturbed possession_.'
+
+It is a favourite theory with the new school of agents and improving
+landlords, that long leases cause bad cultivation; in other words,
+that industry prospers best where there is no security that you can
+reap what you have sown, except the honour of a man whose interest it
+is to appropriate the fruits of your labours, which he can _legally_
+do. Now, in every class and profession, there are failures,--persons
+that are good for nothing, indolent, improvident, and thriftless. If
+such a man has a long lease at a low rent, he may be overwhelmed in
+debt, and leave his land in very bad condition. Others may imitate
+their aristocratic superiors in their contempt for labour and their
+habits of expenditure, and so get into a state of hopeless poverty on
+a good estate. If there are cases where industrious sober men are the
+worse for having an old lease, it should be remembered that the most
+insecure of all tenures is a lease dependent on a single bad life,
+which may drop at any hour. But there are other causes of the facts
+urged against long tenures, for which the legislature is responsible,
+not the unimproving tenant. Dr. Hancock explains this point very
+satisfactorily:--
+
+'Instances of bad cultivation and neglect of improvements, where long
+leases exist, are sometimes brought forward to show the inutility of
+tenure as a security for capital, and the strange economic theory
+is propounded that a precarious interest is more favourable to the
+investment of capital than a secure one. As well might the state of
+landed property in Ireland before the Incumbered Estates Court was
+established be adduced as an argument against property in land. The
+remedy, however, which the legislature applied to incumbered estates
+of large proprietors was not to destroy property in land, but simply
+to secure its prompt, cheap, and effectual transfer to solvent hands.
+
+'For tenants' interests under leases where the value is small, and
+where the interests have become complicated, the Landed Estates
+Court is too expensive, and so these interests remain often for years
+untransferred, in the hands of some one who has a very limited and
+often uncertain interest in them. Such a leaseholder is deterred from
+making improvements by the state of the law which deprives him of the
+entire value of his improvements if anyone should disturb him under
+a prior charge or claim, however obscure or unknown, affecting his
+interest. The remedy is to be found in an extension of the principle
+of the Record of Title Act to the local registry of small leasehold
+interests, and in the providing for the local sale of such interests
+in a cheap manner, with an absolute title.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+THE LAND SYSTEM AND THE WORKING CLASSES.
+
+
+We have been told over and over again that the business of Ireland,
+and all its improvements, requiring education and integrity, are
+carried on 'by the Protestants, by whose intelligence, and labour,
+mental and bodily, its prosperity, such as it is, has been produced.'
+This assertion has been made with great confidence, by many writers
+and speakers. It is a gross exaggeration, and absurd as it is gross. I
+say nothing of the unseemly egotism of a dominant caste, thus parading
+its own merits, flaunting its plumes, strutting and crowing over the
+common folk--of this pharisaic spirit of the ascendant Protestant,
+standing close to the altar, reciting to God and the world the number
+of his resplendent virtues, and scornfully contrasting his excellent
+moral condition with the degraded Catholic--the vile publican and
+sinner, overwhelmed with enormous guilt. These monopolising Pharisees,
+who laboured at such a rate to assert their natural superiority, as
+the favourites of Heaven, and members of the Sovereign's church, over
+a race which England enabled them to subjugate and impoverish, have
+found no trumpeter so loud as Master Fitzgibbon, a chancery judge. In
+the same spirit the last census has been analysed by one of the ablest
+defenders of the Irish establishment, the Rev. Dr. Hume, of Liverpool,
+in order to prove that everything good in Ireland has been done by
+the Protestants, and everything bad by the Catholics. But he does not
+state fairly the conditions of the race. He does not state that one of
+the competitors had been master for centuries, well-fed, well-trained,
+possessed of all advantages which give strength, skill, courage, and
+confidence, while the other was ill-fed, untrained, enfeebled, and
+_over-weighted_, having to work out of himself the slavish spirit
+which oppression had produced, and to gain, by extra efforts, the
+skill which the law had forbidden him to acquire. Nevertheless the
+Catholics have acquired skill, and the extent to which the empire is
+dependent on their knowledge of the industrial arts is much greater
+than many people suppose. Of the farming class in Ireland, 76 per
+cent. are Roman Catholics. But we are indebted to the obnoxious race
+in other respects than as producers of food.
+
+From the classification of occupations and professions, we learn that
+the Roman Catholics bear the following proportions to the Protestants
+of all denominations.
+
+Persons employed in the manufacture of:          Roman Catholics.
+
+Skin clothing                                      .77 per cent.
+Woollen do.                                        .88    "
+Flax do.                                           .43    "
+Cotton do.                                         .53    "
+Straw do.                                          .66    "
+Silk do.                                           .66    "
+Miscellaneous do.                                  .67    "
+In producing furniture                             .84    "
+In unclassed industrial employments                .84    "
+In amusements                                      .80    "
+In architecture                                    .78    "
+In making machinery                                .76    "
+In conveyance and travelling                       .73    "
+In literature and education                        .56    "
+In charity and benevolence                         .52    "
+In health                                          .50    "
+In science and art                                 .47    "
+In justice and government                          .46    "
+In banking and agency                              .40    "
+
+There are other suggestive figures in the census, bearing on
+this question. While three-fourths of the farmers are Catholics,
+three-fourths of the land-agents are Protestants, who, as a rule,
+have an unconquerable antipathy to the Catholic clergy, as the only
+obstacle to their absolute power over the tenants, with whom they find
+it hard to sympathise. Of farm labourers and domestic servants, nine
+out of ten belong to the race supposed by some to be incapable of
+virtue and loyalty. Again, of the whole British army of all ranks, 37
+per cent. are Irishmen, and of these Irish soldiers, 67 per cent. are
+Catholics. More than three-fourths of the magistrates are Protestants;
+and they bear about the same proportion on the grand juries. According
+to the theory and practice of the constitution, all power, legislative
+and administrative, must be based on the ownership of land. The
+rate-payers have a voice indeed, but it is generally nothing but
+an echo of the landlord's voice; what else can it be when they are
+tenants-at-will, depending on the mercy of the proprietor for the
+means of existence? In county offices, the Protestants have an
+overwhelming majority. It is the same in all the offices filled by
+government patronage, except the judges of the superior courts. There
+Catholics are in the majority, because they had obtained seats in the
+House of Commons.
+
+On the boards of guardians the mass of the poor might expect that
+a majority of guardians would be prompted by national and religious
+feeling to sympathise with them, so that they would find in the master
+and matron, the doctor and the relieving officer, something like the
+natural tenderness which a common kindred and creed inspire. But half
+the guardians are _ex-officio_ members, as magistrates; nearly all
+landlords and Protestants. They have in addition 'property votes,' and
+'residence votes;' so that, with their influence over the elections,
+they are generally able to pack the board; and in that case the
+officials are almost invariably Protestants and conservatives. I know
+a union in which three-fourths of the rate-payers are Roman Catholics;
+and yet, with the utmost efforts of the priests, they were not able to
+elect a single Catholic guardian. To meet the landlord pressure,
+some of the rate-payers were required to sign their voting papers in
+presence of their pastors, yet so terrible was that pressure that they
+afterwards took them to the agent's office, and, to make assurance
+doubly sure, tore them up before his face. I have been told by a
+priest, that such is the mortal dread of eviction, or of a permanent
+fine in the form of increased rent, that he had known tenants who,
+when produced in the witness-box, denied on oath acts of oppression of
+which they had been bitterly complaining to himself, and which he well
+knew to be facts.
+
+Thus the land-war rages at every board of guardians, in every
+dispensary, in every grand jury room, at every petty sessions,
+in every county court, in every public institution throughout the
+kingdom. The land-agent is the commanding officer, his office is a
+garrison, dominating the surrounding district. He is able, in most
+cases, to defy the confessional and the altar; because he wields
+an engine of terror generally more powerful over the mind of the
+peasantry than the terrors of the world to come. Armed with the 'rules
+of the estate' and with a notice to quit, the agent may have almost
+anything he demands, short of possession of the farm and the home of
+the tenant. The notice to quit is like a death warrant to the family.
+It makes every member of it tremble and agonise, from the grey-headed
+grandfather and grandmother, to the bright little children, who read
+the advent of some impending calamity in the gloomy countenances and
+bitter words of their parents. The passion for the possession of land
+is the chord on which the agent plays, and at his touch it vibrates
+with 'the deepest notes of woe.' By the agent of an improving landlord
+it is generally touched so cunningly, that its most exquisite torture
+cannot easily be proved to be a grievance. He presents an alternative
+to the tenant; he does less than the law allows. He could strike a
+mortal blow, but he lends a helping hand. Resistance entails ruin;
+compliance secures friendship. Give up the old _status_, and accept
+a new one: cease to stand upon _right_, consent to hang upon _mercy_,
+and all may be well.
+
+Passing a cottage by the road-side, one of the kindest and best of
+those agents said to me, 'See with what infatuation these people cling
+to their old places! There is a man in that dilapidated cabin, with
+only one acre of ground. It is an eyesore. I have offered him a nice
+new slated cottage with ten acres, within a short distance, and he
+obstinately refuses to quit.'
+
+Why did he refuse? I suppose, because the place was _his own_. The
+house was probably built by his father; it is the house in which he
+was born, endeared to him, no doubt, by many powerful associations,
+little appreciated by those who never condescend to read the 'simple
+annals of the poor.' He felt, that if, like his neighbours, he moved
+into a house built by the landlord, he would cease to be a free man,
+and would pass under the yoke of a _master._ I was with some visitors
+in one of the new cottages. The wife of the cottier with smiles
+assented to all that was said as to the neatness and comfort of the
+place. I thought the smiles were forced. I was last in going out, and
+I heard her heave a heavy sigh. Perhaps she longed for the old home
+and its freedom, envying the lot of the sturdy peasant to whom I have
+alluded. Poor fellow! he must give way at last. But his proud manhood
+is the stuff of which Hampdens are made.
+
+I have devoted much time and attention to personal enquiries from town
+to town, from village to village, and from house to house, seeking
+corroborative evidence from men of all ranks and professions, on the
+effect of the _Improved Land System_ on the working classes, and I
+will here faithfully record as briefly as possible the result of my
+enquiries. I must premise a few words as to the principles of the
+system which is called 'English.'
+
+1. There is the principle of _contract_, by which alone any tenant
+is to be permitted to occupy land. There is to be no foothold in the
+island, from the centre all round to the sea, from the top of the
+highest mountain to the shore at low-water-mark, for any Irishman in
+his native land, unless he obtains it by contract from a landlord and
+pays for it.
+
+2. There is the principle of _compensation_ for unexhausted
+improvements at the rate of five or six per cent. on the outlay,
+provided the improvements have been made with the knowledge and
+consent of the landlord. A certain number of years is held to be
+sufficient to recoup the tenant for his outlay. If he is removed
+before that time he is entitled to the balance of his invested
+capital; just as if the relation were strictly commercial, and as if
+he had no further claim than his percentage. If the landlord makes the
+improvement--which he prefers doing, on the new system--he requires
+the tenant to pay at the rate of four to six per cent. in the form of
+rent--a clear gain to the landlord, who can borrow money on much lower
+terms, and can hardly invest his capital so profitably or so safely
+elsewhere.
+
+3. _Absenteeism_ is no disadvantage or loss to the country. This
+principle is in great favour with the agents. There is no theme on
+which they are so eloquent or so argumentative. In the absence of the
+landlord the agent is all-powerful. What the Irish lord deputy was to
+the Tudors and Stuarts, the Irish agent now is to the great absentee
+proprietor residing in London or Paris. He will undertake to
+demonstrate that the West-end of London would be just as prosperous if
+the Queen and her court resided constantly at Balmoral or Killarney;
+if the parliament met alternately in Edinburgh and Dublin, and if
+the government offices were all at Liverpool. With the blessing of
+absenteeism, houses in London would be built as fast, and would bring
+as high rents; trade would be as brisk, artizans of all sorts as well
+paid, life as happy, and the Londoners as well content. The Irish,
+however, have, in their ignorance of political economy, conceived the
+idea, that if the millions sterling sent annually out of the country
+to London were spent among those by whose labour the money is made,
+there would be more employment for all sorts of tradesmen, more
+business for the shopkeepers, more opportunities of advancement for
+the farmers' sons, more houses built, more trees planted, more land
+reclaimed, more factories established, more money stirring, more
+wealth, more life, more enjoyment, an immense increase of national
+prosperity. The agents say that this is all a delusion.
+
+4. The next principle of the new agents is this--and to carry it out
+is the aim of all their improvements--that their mission is to produce
+the greatest amount of rent from the smallest number of tenants.
+
+5. To reduce the population by _emigration_ or other means until there
+is barely a sufficient number of labourers to attend the agricultural
+machines, and herd the cattle.
+
+6. To discourage _marriage_ in every possible way, and to diminish
+pauperism till there shall be no further use of the workhouses but to
+serve as lying-in hospitals for the thrifty spinsters, as they do
+in Cumberland and Westmoreland--where the arrangement seems the
+most natural thing in the world. It is certainly not an unnatural
+consequence of the practice of men and women sleeping in the same
+apartment.
+
+Now let us see the working of this new system in Ireland; for it is at
+work more or less extensively in all the four provinces. The rules
+of the estate, when rigidly enforced, as they generally are by the
+improving agents, tend steadily, powerfully, to break down the small
+farmers. They are disappearing by thousands every year. Some take
+their chance across the Atlantic. Others fall into the condition of
+labourers, and may earn 2 s. a day on the estate. This will last for
+awhile until the land is drained, manured, and turned into permanent
+pasture. Then their occupation is gone. There is nothing more for them
+to do. There is no place for them, no room, no support in their native
+land. The grass will grow without their labour, and the bullocks will
+fatten without their care.
+
+We are constantly hearing of the immense rise in wages since the
+famine. Well, they are nominally higher, but in the old times the
+labourer could get more for 8 d. or 10 d. than he can now get for 1
+s. 6 d. or 2 s. Fuel is now three times as dear as it was, because the
+'rules of the estate' will not allow the tenants to sell turf even
+on the verge of extensive bogs. Milk, which was formerly abundant and
+very cheap, is scarcely to be had at all now in the country towns
+and villages, because the land is devoted to feeding sheep and 'dry
+cattle.' Under the old system, the cottiers in the small towns and
+villages, as well as on the roads in the country, were enabled to keep
+pigs. The pig paid the rent, and made manure which was put out on the
+ground of some neighbouring farmer, hired as 'conacre.' The crop of
+potatoes thus obtained was a great help in the winter months, when
+employment was rarely to be had. This practice still prevails in
+Ulster. The farmer puts in the crop for the manure, the cottier paying
+the farmer's rent--5 s. to 10 s. a rood, or whatever it may be. With
+this help the family get over the winter, and feed the pig, without
+which help, they say, it would be impossible to exist, even with
+constant employment at a shilling a day. But on the estates of
+improving landlords in the other provinces, the rules forbid the
+tenant to give the use of any ground for conacre. He must not, on pain
+of eviction, take manure for such a purpose, though it would help to
+enrich his land for the ensuing year. The evicted cottiers and small
+farmers are forced to go to towns and villages, shut up in unwholesome
+rooms. When they have been thus so far got rid of, the most ingenious
+devices are resorted to in order to render it impossible for them to
+live. By the 'rules of the estate,' the supply of necessaries is
+cut off on every side. Without fuel, without milk, without potatoes,
+unless bought at a high rate for ready money, how are they to live?
+The strong members of the poor man's family emigrate or go to
+service; the weak ones and the young children pine away in a state
+of semi-starvation, preferring that to the best fare in the hated
+workhouse.
+
+The people are fully sensible of the causes of these privations. They
+know that they have been forced into this condition by the landlords
+and their improving agents, induced in some cases by the temptation of
+a few pounds to surrender their little holdings. The lord lieutenant
+of the King's County has thus cleared an immense district, and has
+himself become a grazier and a cattle-dealer on a monster scale,
+attending the markets in person, and driving hard bargains with the
+farmers and jobbers. By such means the population of that county has
+been reduced one-third in the last twenty years. The moral aspect of
+this new system is worthy of consideration. It is thus presented by
+Archdeacon Redmond of Arklow, one of the most moderate and respected
+parish-priests in Ireland. When lately presenting an address to Lord
+Granard from his Wexford tenantry, he said:--
+
+'I have always heard the house of Forbes eulogised for its advocacy of
+civil and religious liberty, and the name of Grogan Morgan has become
+a household word through this county as one of the best landlords in
+Ireland. He never broke down a rooftree during or since the terrible
+famine. Under his fostering care they have all tided over the
+calamitous time, and are happy and prosperous in their homes. He did
+not think his estate overcrowded, nor did he avail himself of the
+mysterious destruction of the fruits of the earth, to clear off
+beings made in God's image, and to drive them to the poorhouse, the
+fever-shed, or the emigrant ship, to whiten the bottom of the sea
+with their bones, or to face the moral and physical perils of
+the transatlantic cities. He did not read his bible, like Satan,
+backwards, nor did he turn out the Son of God in the person of His
+poor. Hence his name is in benediction, and his estates are more
+prosperous than the estates of those who forget God in their worldly
+wisdom, and would seem to have no belief in a judgment to come. What
+a happiness it is, my Lord and Lady Granard, for you to have such a
+heritage, and to know that you live in the hearts of your tenantry,
+who would spill the last drop of their blood to shield you and your
+dear children from hurt and harm!'
+
+Let it not be supposed that such sentiments are peculiar to the
+Catholic clergy, or that their causes exist only in the south and
+west. The Rev. Dr. Drew, a rector in the county Down, an Orange
+chaplain, a veteran champion of Protestantism and Toryism, but an
+honourable and humane man, wrote the following letter last autumn:--
+
+If the magnificent lecture of Mr. Butt had done nothing more than
+elicit this letter from Dr. Drew, it would have been much. But will
+not the thoughts of many hearts be revealed in the same manner? What
+a number of plain-speaking Drews we shall have denouncing tyranny when
+their consciences are relieved from the incubus of the Establishment!
+
+  _To Isaac Butt, Esq., LL.D._
+
+'My dear Butt--If every other man in the world entertained doubts of
+my sincerity, you, at least, would give me credit for honesty and
+just intentions. I write to you accordingly, because my mind has been
+stirred to its inmost depths by the perusal of your address in my
+native city of Limerick. I do not regard the subject of your address
+as a political one. It ought to be regarded solely as a question of
+humanity, justice, common sense, and common honesty. I wish my lot had
+never been cast in rural places. As a clergyman I hear what neither
+landlords nor agents ever hear. I see the depression of the people;
+their sighs and groans are before me. They are brought so low as
+often to praise and glorify those who, in their secret hearts, are the
+objects of abhorrence. All this came out gradually before me. Nor did
+I feel as I ought to feel in their behalf until, in my own person and
+purse, I became the victim of a system of tyranny which cries from
+earth to heaven for relief. Were I to narrate my own story it
+would startle many of the Protestants of Ireland. There are good
+landlords--never a better than the late Lord Downshire, or the living
+and beloved Lord Roden. But there are too many of another state of
+feeling and action. There are estates in the north where the screw is
+never withdrawn from its circuitous and oppressive work. Tenant-right
+is an unfortunate and delusive affair, simply because it is almost
+invariably used to the landlord's advantage. Here we have an election
+in prospect, and in many counties no farmer will be permitted to think
+or act for himself. What right any one man has to demand the surrender
+of another's vote, I never could see. It is an act of sheer felony--a
+perfect "stand-and-deliver" affair. To hear a man slavishly and
+timorously say, "I must give my votes as the landlord wishes," is an
+admission that the legislature, which bestowed the right of voting on
+the tenant, should not see him robbed of his right, or subsequently
+scourged or banished from house and land, because he disregarded a
+landlord's nod, or the menace of a land agent. At no little hazard of
+losing the friendship of some who are high and good and kind, I write
+as I now do.--Yours, my dear Butt, very sincerely,
+
+  'THOMAS DREW.
+
+  'Dundrum, Clough, County Down,
+  September 7, 1868.'
+
+Some resident landlords employ a considerable number of labourers, to
+each of whom they give an excellent cottage, an acre of land, and
+the grass of a cow, with work all the year round at seven shillings
+a week. The tenants are most comfortable and most grateful, while the
+praise of those landlords is in the mouths of the peasantry all round
+the country. But these considerate landlords are in a minority. As a
+rule, on the estates where the improvement system is going on, where
+farms are being consolidated, and grazing supersedes tillage, an iron
+pressure weighs upon the labouring classes, crushing them out of
+the country. It is a cold, hard, calculating, far-reaching system of
+inhumanity, which makes the peasant afraid to harbour his own flesh
+and blood. It compels the grandmother to shut the door in the face of
+the poor homeless orphan, lest the improving agent should hear of the
+act of sheltering him from the pitiless storm, not more pitiless than
+the agent himself. The system of terrorism established by the threats
+of eviction de-humanizes a people remarkable for their hospitality to
+the poor. Mr. Thomas Crosbie, of Cork, a gentleman whom I believe to
+be as truthful and honourable as any agent in Ireland, gives appalling
+illustrations of this in his account of 'The Lansdowne Estates,'
+published in 1858. Mr. Trench has given the English public several
+pretty little romances about these estates; but he omitted some
+realities that ought to have impressed themselves upon his memory as
+deeply as any of his adventures. Mr. Crosbie found that the 'rules
+of the estate,' which were rigidly enforced, forbid tenants to build
+houses for their labourers, 'the consequence of which was that men and
+women servants, no matter how great the number, must live under one
+roof.' The rules forbid marriage without the agent's permission. A
+young couple got married, and were chased away to America; and 'the
+two fathers-in-law were not merely warned; they were punished for
+harbouring their son and daughter, by a fine of a gale of rent.' It
+was a rule 'that no stranger be lodged or harboured in any house
+upon the estate, lest he should become sick or idle, or in some way
+chargeable upon the poor-rates.' 'Several were warned and punished for
+giving lodging to a brother-in-law, a daughter,' &c. 'A poor widow got
+her daughter married without the necessary permission; she was served
+with a notice to quit, which was withdrawn on the payment of three
+gales of rent.' Mr. Crosbie gives a number of cases of the kind. The
+following are the most remarkable. A tenant, Timothy Sullivan, of
+Derrynabrack, occasionally gave lodging to his sister-in-law, whilst
+her husband was seeking for work. He was afraid to lodge both or
+either; 'but the poor woman was in low fever, and approaching her
+confinement. Even under such circumstances his terror was so great
+that he removed her to a temporary shed on Jeremiah Sullivan's land,
+where she gave birth to a child. She remained there for some time.
+When "the office" heard of it, Jeremiah Sullivan was sent for and
+compelled to pay a gale of rent (as fine), and to throw down the shed.
+Thus driven out, and with every tenant on the estate afraid to
+afford her a refuge, the miserable woman went about two miles up the
+mountain, and, sick as she was, and so situated, took shelter in a dry
+_cavern_, in which she lived for several days. But her presence even
+there was a crime, and a mulct of another gale of rent was levied off
+Jeremiah Sullivan. Thus, within three weeks he was compelled to
+pay two gales of 3 l. 2 s. 6 d. each. It was declared also that
+the mountain being the joint property of Jeremiah Sullivan, Timothy
+Sullivan, and Thady Sullivan, Timothy Sullivan was a participator in
+the crime, and should be fined a gale of rent. The third, it appears,
+escaped.' 'S.G.O.' narrated another horrifying case in the _Times_,
+at the period of its occurrence, in 1851. Abridged, it runs thus:--'An
+order had gone forth on the estate (a common order in Ireland) that
+no tenant was to admit any lodger into his house. This was a general
+order. It appears, however, that sometimes special orders were given;
+and one was promulgated that Denis Shea should not be harboured. This
+boy had no father living. He had lived with a grandmother, who had
+been turned out of her holding for harbouring him. He had stolen
+a shilling, a hen--done such things as a neglected twelve-year-old
+famishing child will do. One night he came to his aunt Donoghue, who
+lodged with Casey. The latter told the aunt and uncle not to allow him
+into the house, as the agent's drivers had given orders about him.
+The aunt beat him away with a pitchfork, the uncle tied his hands
+with cord behind his back. The poor child crawls to the door of a
+neighbour, and tries to get in. The uncle is called to take him away,
+and he does so. He yet returns with hands still tied behind, having
+been severely beaten. The child seeks refuge in other cabins; but all
+were forbidden to shelter him. He is brought back by some neighbours
+in the night, who try to force the sinking child in upon his relation.
+There is a struggle at the door. The child was heard asking some one
+to put him upright. In the morning there is blood upon the threshold.
+The child is stiff dead--a corpse, with its arms tied; around it every
+mark of a last fearful struggle for shelter--food--the common rights
+of humanity.' Chief Baron Pigot tried the case, and gave a statement
+of the facts in his charge which Mr. Trench ought to have quoted, as a
+faithful recorder of 'realities.'
+
+'On the western estate, that of Cahirciveen, there was some difference
+in the rules. If a son or daughter married, the father was obliged
+to retire with an allowance of 'a cow's grass' or grazing for his
+support. 'Only the newly married person will be left on the land, or
+any portion of it, even though the farm should contain 100 acres,
+or even though there should be two farms. This arbitrary regulation
+operates injuriously in point of morality, and keeps the land
+uncultivated. The people have to go to Nedeen, a distance of forty or
+fifty miles, to get leave to marry.'[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See the 'North British Review,' No. CI. p.193.]
+
+The Kenmare tenantry have recovered from the fearful shock of the
+famine, after thousands of deaths from hunger, and thousands shipped
+off to America at 4 l. 10 s. a head. Mr. Trench's son, Mr. Townshend
+Trench, the pictorial illustrator of his father's book, is the acting
+agent, and an eloquent propagandist of his father's principles. The
+young marquis paid a visit to his tenantry in 1868, and he was almost
+worshipped. It is gratifying to know that in a speech on that occasion
+he promised to see and judge for himself.
+
+'I feel,' he said, 'that my visit to Kenmare has taught me a valuable
+lesson. As you all know, I was called to my present position at a very
+young age, and I felt when I came in for my property that I had
+much to learn; and that is the reason why I was so anxious to travel
+through the country, and study the desires and comfort of the people.
+That will afford me occupation for many a year to come, and it will
+afford me an occupation not only interesting but pleasing.
+Nothing will do me a more hearty pleasure than to see the marks of
+civilisation and progress in Kenmare--and not alone in Kenmare, but in
+the whole country; and I shall hail every manifestation of improvement
+with delight.'
+
+Lord Lansdowne's system is beautiful, but it is unfinished. Let him
+'crown the edifice with _liberty_.' He possesses a giant's power, and
+he uses it like an angel. When he comes to trouble the waters, the
+multitude gathers around the fountain to be healed. But his visits
+are, like angels' visits, few and far between. Many of the sick and
+impotent folk, after long waiting, are not able to get near till the
+miracle-worker has departed. An absentee landlord, be he ever so good,
+must delegate his power to an agent. Agents have good memories,
+and their servants, the bailiffs, are good lookers-on. There is
+a hierarchy in the heaven of landlordism--the under-bailiff, the
+head-bailiff, the chief-clerk in the office, the sub-agent, the
+head-agent. All these must be submissively approached and anxiously
+propitiated before the petitioner's prayers can reach the ears of Jove
+himself, seated aloft on his remote Olympian throne. He may be,
+and for the most part really is--if he belongs to the old stock of
+aristocratic divinities--generous and gracious, incapable of meanness,
+baseness, or cruelty. But the tenant has to do, not with the absentee
+divinity, but with his priest--not with the good spirit, but his
+medium; and this go-between is not always noble, or disinterested,
+or unexacting. To him power may be new--a small portion of it may
+intoxicate him, like alcohol on an empty stomach. He was not born to
+an inheritance of sycophancy; it comes like an _afflatus_ upon him,
+and it turns his head. It creates an appetite, like strong drink,
+which grows into a disease. This appetite is as capricious as it is
+insatiable. Hence, the chief characteristic of landlord power, as
+felt by the tenant, is _arbitrariness_. The agent may make any rule
+he pleases, and as many exceptions to every rule as he pleases. He
+may allow rents to run in arrear; he may suddenly come down upon the
+defaulter with 'a fell swoop;' he may require the rents to be paid
+up to the day; he may, without reason assigned, call in 'the hanging
+gale;' he may abate or increase the rents at will; he may inflict
+fines for delay or give notices to quit for the sole purpose of
+bringing in fees to his friend or relative, the solicitor. But
+whatever he may choose to do, the tenant has nothing for it but to
+submit; and he must submit with a good grace. Woe to him if the agony
+of his spirit is revealed in the working of his features, or in an
+audible groan! Most of the poor fellows do submit, till their hearts
+are broken--till the hot iron has entered their souls and seared their
+consciences. When the _slave_ is thus finished, the agent and his
+journeymen are satisfied with their handiwork; their 'honours' can
+then count on any sort of services they may choose to exact--may bid
+defiance to the priest and the agitator, and boast of an orderly and
+deserving tenantry devoted to the best of landlords, who is their
+natural protector. It would be wicked to interfere with these amicable
+persons. Why talk about leases? The tenants will not have them; they
+don't want security or independence by contract. So most of the agents
+report--but not all. There are noble exceptions which relieve the
+gloomy picture.
+
+There is certainly one disadvantage connected with a settlement of the
+land question which would abolish the arbitrary power of proprietors
+and their agents--it would put an end to the romance of Irish
+landlordism. The Edgeworths, the Morgans, the Banims, the Carletons,
+and the Levers would then be deprived of the best materials for their
+fictions. The fine old family, over-reached and ruined by a dishonest
+agent; the cruelly evicted farmer, with his wife and children
+fever-stricken, and his bedridden mother cast out on the roadside on
+Christmas Eve, exposed to the pelting of the hailstorm, while their
+home was unroofed and its walls levelled by the crowbar brigade; the
+once comfortable but now homeless father making his way to London, and
+trying day after day to present a petition in person to his landlord,
+repulsed from the gate of the great house, and laughed at for his
+frieze and brogue by pampered flunkeys. Then he travels on foot to his
+lordship's country-seat, scores or hundreds of miles--is taken up, and
+brought before the magistrates as 'an Irish rogue and vagabond.' At
+length he meets his lordship accidentally, and reveals to him the
+system of iniquity that prevails on his Irish estate at Castle
+Squander: Next we have the sudden and unexpected appearance of the god
+of the soil at his agent's office, sternly demanding an account of his
+stewardship. He gives ready audience to his tenants, and fires with
+indignation at bitter complaints from the parents of ruined daughters.
+Investigation is followed by the ignominious eviction of the
+tyrannical and roguish agent and his accomplices, a disgorging of
+their ill-gotten wealth, compensation to plundered and outraged
+tenants, the liberal distribution of poetical justice right and left.
+
+Many other agents have followed Mr. Trench's example in forbidding
+to marry, and commanding to abstain from hospitality and charity. An
+ejectment was lately obtained at the quarter sessions in a southern
+county against a widow who had married without leave, or married a
+different person from the one the agent selected. But it is supposed
+that the threat of assassination prevented a recourse to extremities
+in this and other cases. For the people seem with one consent to have
+made a desperate stand against this cruel tyranny. A landlord said
+to me, 'No one in this part of the country would _presume_ to evict
+a tenant now from fear of assassination. _That_ is the tenant's
+security.'
+
+The wretched outcasts, whom 'improvement' has swept off the estates,
+are crowded into cities and towns, without employment, without food.
+Feeling bitterly their degradation and misery, and taught to blame the
+Government, they become demoralized and desperately disaffected. From
+these fermenting masses issues the avenging scourge of Fenianism--'the
+pestilence that walketh in darkness, and slayeth at noonday.'
+
+For my part, I cannot understand the meaning of improving a country by
+disinheriting and banishing its inhabitants. I do not understand men
+who say the population is too dense, and yet give to one family a
+tract of land large enough to support ten families, turning out the
+nine to make room for the one. A great deal has been said about the
+evils of small farms. But the most disturbed and impoverished parts of
+Ireland are those in which the farms are largest; while the two most
+prosperous and best ordered counties--Armagh and Wexford--are the
+counties in which small farms most abound. I call a reluctant witness,
+Master Fitzgibbon, to testify that when the Irish tenant, be his
+holding ever so small, gets common justice and is not subjected to
+caprice, he gives no trouble. That gentleman informs us that there are
+650 estates of all magnitudes, from 100 l. to 20,000 l. a-year, under
+the control and management of the court of chancery; the total rents
+of these amount to 494,056 l. a-year payable by 28,581 tenants. These
+estates are in all parts of Ireland, not only in all the provinces,
+but in all the counties, without exception; and, according to Master
+Fitzgibbon, they fairly represent the tenantry of the whole country.
+He has 452 of the estates under his own jurisdiction, and the rents
+of these amount to 330,809 l., paid by 18,287 tenants. He has now
+been ten years in the office, during which 'the rents have been paid
+without murmuring or complaints worth noticing.' 'The pressure of
+legal remedies for these rents has been very little used; the
+number of evictions absolutely trifling; and of between 400 and 500
+receivers, who collect these rents, _not one has ever been assailed_,
+or interfered with, or threatened in the discharge of his duty, as
+far as I have been able to discover; and I am the person to whom the
+receiver should apply for redress if anything of the kind occurred.
+It is very well known that my ears are open to any just complaint
+from any tenant, and yet I am very seldom appealed to, considering the
+great number of tenants; and whenever a complaint is well-founded,
+it is promptly and effectually redressed, at scarcely any expense of
+costs. I believe the other three Masters would make substantially
+a similar report to this in respect of the estates under their
+jurisdiction.'
+
+Master Fitzgibbon proceeds to state that 'on one estate there are
+2,500 tenants, paying 13,000 l.,--being an average of 6 l. a-year.
+This estate has been sold, and three of the lots fetched over 30
+years' purchase of the yearly profit rents. The fourth lot is held by
+small cottiers, at rents which average only 2 l., and this lot fetched
+23 years' purchase. This estate has been under a receiver for three
+years, and there has never been one complaint from a tenant. What is
+stated of this estate may be said of every one of them in all the four
+provinces.' He adds: 'Clamour, agitation, or violence of any kind I
+have never had to deal with amongst the tenantry of any one of these
+estates since I came into office.'
+
+Another witness of larger views, and free from unhappy prejudices
+against the majority of his countrymen--Mr. Marcus Keane, agent to the
+Marquis of Conyngham--in a letter to Colonel Vandeleur, M.P., lately
+gave the result of his experience for thirty years as agent of several
+large estates, and as a landlord, on the Irish land question. I
+submit his suggestions to my readers, as eminently worthy of the
+consideration of statesmen at the present time:--
+
+'The outline of measures submitted for your consideration combines
+the very unusual recommendation of meeting, on the one hand, with
+the approbation of some good landlords of the higher class (who, like
+yourself, have long been practically acknowledging the just claims of
+tenants), and, at the same time, of satisfying the claims of many of
+the warmest advocates of the tenant class. It is calculated to protect
+the farmers from selfish landlords, whose conduct has tended much to
+produce the serious disaffection that now prevails.
+
+'I need not burthen you with a lengthened recital of the facts which
+render such legislation absolutely necessary to the tranquillity of
+society. In outline, however, they may be briefly stated--
+
+'_First_--The great mass of Irish tenantry have no better title to
+their holdings than the will of their landlords.
+
+'_Second_--Education is daily rendering the tenant class more
+impatient of the condition of dependence which their want of title
+necessitates.
+
+'_Third_--Every good tenant must improve his land more or less, in
+order to live in comparative comfort.
+
+'_Fourth_--The rentals of Ireland are steadily following the
+improvements of the tenants. Some landlords suffer a considerable
+margin to exist between the actual value and the rent paid; while
+others lose no opportunity of forcing the rents to the highest amount
+that circumstances permit.
+
+'_Fifth_--Although good tenants must improve in order to live
+comfortably, their improvements are not one-fourth of what the
+condition of the country invites, and are far below what they would be
+if the occupiers were afforded equitable security.
+
+'_Sixth_--Trade, manufactures, and industrial occupations require
+local accumulations of surplus capital in order to their prosperity;
+and such accumulations are hindered by the general want of security
+of tenure. Society at large is therefore deeply interested in the
+protection of the tenant class.
+
+'_Seventh_--The increased expense of the governmental establishments,
+civil and military, which Irish disaffection entails, renders it a
+matter of imperial importance that the Irish land question should be
+satisfactorily settled.
+
+'Irish rentals have, in some counties, increased more than tenfold
+since the beginning of the eighteenth century.'
+
+The next witness shall be a landlord, one of the best and noblest of
+his class. At a tenant-right meeting of the county Longford, the Earl
+of Granard said:--'The proposition commences by asserting that which
+has been acknowledged by successive administrations--that the present
+state of the land laws of Ireland is highly unsatisfactory. The
+necessity for their reform has been urged upon parliament since the
+days of O'Connell up to the present time. The want of reform upon the
+most vital question which affects the prosperity of Ireland has
+been the fruitful source of agrarian disturbance, of poverty and
+of misfortune in every county in Ireland. To take an example near
+home,--what rendered Ballinamuck a by-word for deeds of violence? Why,
+that system which permitted a landlord to treat the people of that
+district with high-handed injustice. And why is that district
+now amongst the most peaceable in the county? Because it is now
+administered by its proprietor in a spirit of justice and fair play,
+and because that proprietor recognises the fact that property has its
+duties as well as its rights. I believe that similar results are to
+be obtained everywhere that the warm-hearted and kindly people of this
+country are treated with justice. In his evidence before Mr. Maguire's
+committee, Mr. Curling, the excellent agent of an equally excellent
+landlord--Lord Devon--speaking of his property in Limerick, said that
+the most warm-hearted and grateful people he had ever met with were
+the Irish. He was asked, "Grateful for what?" and he replied, "Even
+for fair play." That is to say, they were grateful for that which in
+every country save this would have been theirs by law. And it is to
+a people thus described by, mind you, not an Irishman, but an English
+gentleman--to a people, I believe, the most religious and affectionate
+in Europe, that the simple act of justice, of repealing unjust
+statutes, has been refused. I say it advisedly, that to the system
+of land laws, which we hope to alter--which at least we are here to
+protest against--are to be attributed those fearful agrarian outrages
+which disgrace the fair fame of our country. A celebrated minister of
+police in France, whenever he heard of a conspiracy, used to ask who
+was the woman, believing that there was always one mixed up with such
+organisations, and in a similar spirit, whenever I hear of an outrage
+in Ireland, I am always inclined to enquire, "Who is the landlord?"
+For I do not hear of such things occurring on estates where justice
+and fair play are the rule and not the exception. But brighter days
+are now in store for us. We have at the head of affairs the most
+earnest, the most conscientious minister that has ever sat on the
+treasury bench. He has promised to redress your grievances, and having
+as his able lieutenants Mr. Bright, who has ever a kindly word for
+Ireland, and Lord Kimberley, whose first act after giving up the
+lord-lieutenancy was to say to the House of Lords that until the
+church and land questions were settled there would be neither peace
+nor contentment in the land--he must be successful. As to what we
+want there can be no doubt. The five points of the Irish charter
+are--fixity of tenure at reasonable rents; recognition of right of
+occupancy as distinct from right of ownership; standard valuation
+for letting purposes; retrospective compensation for 20 years; and
+arbitration courts in cases of dispute between owner and occupier.'
+
+I cannot better express the conclusion of the whole matter than in
+the words of a writer in the _Pall Mall Gazette_, who thoroughly
+understands the question. Nothing can be more truthful and accurate
+than the way in which he puts the tenants' case:--
+
+'"Morally," they say, "we are part-owners. We have a moral right to
+live here. If a great landlord considered that he could make more
+of his estate by clearing it of its inhabitants, and accordingly
+proceeded to do so, he would do a cruel act. What we wish is to see
+our moral rights converted into legal rights. If you ask us precisely
+what it is that we wish, we reply that we wish to be able to live in
+moderate comfort in our native land, and to be able to make our plans
+upon the assumption that we shall not be interfered with. It is
+not for us ignorant peasants to draw an Act of Parliament upon this
+subject, or to say how our views are to be reconciled with your
+English law, which, on other accounts, we by no means love. You, the
+English Government, must find out for yourselves how to do that. What
+we want is to be secure and live in reasonable comfort, and we shall
+never be at rest, and we will never leave you at peace, till this is
+arranged in some way or other." We do not say whether this feeling is
+right or wrong, we do not say how it is to be dealt with, but we do
+say that it is as intelligible, not to say as natural, a feeling as
+ever entered into human hearts, and we say, moreover, that it would
+be very difficult to exaggerate either its generality, its force, its
+extent, or the degree to which it has been excited by recent events.
+We are deeply convinced that to persist in regarding the relation
+between landlord and tenant as one of contract merely, to repeat again
+and again in every possible form that all that the Irish peasants
+have a right to say is that they have made a hard bargain with their
+landlords which they wish the legislature to modify, is to shut
+our eyes to the feelings of the people, feelings which it will be
+difficult and also dangerous to disregard. The very gist and point
+of the whole claim of the tenants is that their moral right (as they
+regard it) is as sacred, and ought to be as much protected by law, as
+the landlords' legal right, and that it is a distinct grievance to a
+man to be prevented from living in Ireland on that particular piece
+of land on which he was born and bred, and which was occupied by his
+ancestors before him.'
+
+The whole drift of this history bears on this point. The policy of the
+past must be reversed. The tenants must be rooted in the soil instead
+of being rooted out. 'Improvement' must include the people as well
+as the land, and agents must no longer be permitted to arrogate to
+themselves the functions of Divine Providence.
+
+    '_Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret._'
+
+One of the best pamphlets on the Irish Land Question is by Mr. William
+M'Combie, of Aberdeen. A practical farmer himself, his sagacity
+has penetrated the vitals of the subject. His observations, while
+travelling through the country last year, afford a remarkable
+corroboration of the conclusions at which I have arrived. Of the new
+method of 'regenerating Ireland,' he says:--
+
+'In it the resources of the soil--to get the most possible out of it
+by the most summary process--is the great object; the people are of
+little or no account, save as they can be made use of to accomplish
+this object. But, indeed, it is not alone by the promoters of the
+grand culture that the people have been disregarded, but by Irish
+landlords, generally, of both classes. By the improving landlords--who
+are generally recent purchasers--they are regarded merely as
+labourers; by the leave-alone landlords as rent-producers. The one
+class have ejected the occupiers, the other have applied, harder and
+harder, the screw, until the "good landlord"--the landlord almost
+worshipped in Ireland at this hour--is the landlord who neither evicts
+his tenants nor raises their rents. The consequences are inevitable,
+and, over a large portion of the island, they are patent to every
+eye--they obtrude themselves everywhere. The people are poor; they are
+despondent, broken-spirited. In the south of Ireland decay is written
+on every town. In the poorer parts you may see every fifth or sixth
+house tenantless, roofless, allowed from year to year to moulder
+and moulder away, unremoved, unrepaired.... To make room for these
+large-scale operations, evictions must go on, and as the process
+proceeds the numbers must be augmented of those who are unfit to
+work for hire and unable to leave the country. The poor must be
+made poorer; many now self-supporting made dependent. Pauperism must
+spread, and the burden of poor rates be vastly increased. If the
+greatest good of the greatest number be the fundamental principle of
+good government, this is not the direction in which the state should
+seek to accomplish the regeneration of Ireland. The development of the
+resources of the land ought to be made compatible with the improvement
+of the condition of the people.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+CONCLUSION--AN APPEAL TO ENGLISHMEN.
+
+
+The difficulty of understanding the case of Ireland is proverbial.
+Its most enlightened friends in England and Scotland are often charged
+with 'gross ignorance of the country.' They might excuse themselves by
+answering, that when they seek instruction from Irishmen, one native
+instructor is sure to contradict the other. Yet there must be some
+point of view from which all sides of the Irish question can be seen,
+some light in which the colours are not confused, the picture is not
+exaggerated, the features are not distorted. Every nation has its
+idiosyncrasy, proceeding from race, religion, laws, institutions,
+climate, and other circumstances; and this idiosyncrasy may be the
+key of its history. In Ireland three or four nationalities are bound
+together in one body politic; and it is the conflict of their several
+idiosyncrasies which perplexes statesmen, and constitutes the main
+difficulty of the Irish problem. The blood of different races is
+mingled, and no doubt greatly modified by ages of intercourse.
+But _religion_ is an abiding force. The establishment of religious
+equality in Ireland is a glorious achievement, enough in itself to
+immortalise any statesman. It is a far greater revolution than was
+effected by the Emancipation Act, and more to the credit of the chief
+actor; because, while Mr. Gladstone did spontaneously what he
+firmly believed to be right in principle. Sir Robert Peel did, from
+necessity, what he as firmly believed was wrong in principle. But no
+reasonable man expected that the disestablishment of the Church would
+settle all Irish questions; in fact, it but clears the way for the
+settlement of some of the most important and urgent. It makes it
+possible for Irishmen of every creed to speak in one voice to
+the Government. Their respective clergy, hitherto so intent on
+ecclesiastical claims and pretensions, will no longer pass by on the
+other side, but turn Samaritans to their bleeding country, fallen
+among the thieves of Bigotry and Faction. There are many high
+Protestants--indeed, I may say all, except the aristocracy--who, while
+firmly believing in the vital importance of the union of the three
+kingdoms, earnestly wishing that union to be real and perpetual,
+cannot help expressing their conviction that Ireland has been greatly
+wronged by England--wronged by the legislature, by the Government,
+and most of all by the crown. In no country in the world has loyalty
+existed under greater difficulties, in none has it been so ill
+requited, in none has so much been done as if of set purpose to
+starve it to death. In the reign of Elizabeth the capricious will of
+a despotic sovereign was exerted to crush the national religion, while
+the greatest military exploits of her ablest viceroys consisted of
+predatory excursions, in which they slaughtered or carried away the
+horses and cattle, burned the crops and houses, and laid the country
+waste and desolate, in order to create famines for the wholesale
+destruction of the population, thus spoiled and killed as a punishment
+for the treason of their chiefs, over whom they had no control.
+
+In the reigns of James I. and Charles I. there was a disposition among
+the remnant of the people--
+
+    To fly from petty tyrants to the throne.
+
+But the Stuarts appealed to Irish loyalty merely for the support of
+their dynasty, and William III. laid the laurels won on the banks of
+the Boyne upon the altar of English monopoly. In the reigns of Anne
+and the three Georges, law was made to do the work of the sword, and
+the Catholics of Ireland, constituting the mass of the nation,
+knew their sovereign only as the head of an alien power, cruel and
+unrelenting in its oppression. They were required to love a German
+prince whom they had never seen. He called himself the father of
+his subjects; and he had millions of subjects on the other side of a
+narrow channel, whom he never knew, and never cared to know. When at
+length the dominant nation relented, and wished to strike the penal
+chains from the hands of her sister, the king forbade the act of
+mercy, pleading his conscience and his oath as a bar to justice and to
+freedom, but yielding at last to English state necessity, and robbing
+concession of its grace, of all its power to conciliate. From the
+battle of the Boyne to Catholic emancipation, the king of Ireland had
+never set foot on Irish soil, except in the case of George IV., whose
+visit was little better than a melodramatic exhibition, repaid by
+copious libations of flattery, which however failed to melt his
+bigotry, or to persuade him to redeem his solemn promises and pledges,
+until, nine years later, he was compelled to yield by the fear of
+impending civil war.
+
+Ireland may get from her sister, England, everything but that for
+which the heart yearns--affection--that which alone 'can minister to
+a mind diseased, can pluck from the memory its rooted sorrow, and rase
+out the written troubles from the brain.' That is just what Ireland
+needs above all things. She wants to be kept from brooding morbidly
+over the dismal past, and to be induced to apply herself in a cheerful
+spirit to the business of life. The prescriptions of state physicians
+cannot fully reach the root of the disease. Say that it is a
+sentimental malady--a delusion. What is gained by saying _that_,
+if the sentiment or the delusion makes life wretched, unfits for
+business, produces suicidal propensities, and renders _keepers_
+necessary?
+
+In theory, Ireland is one with England; in practice, she is hourly
+made to feel the reverse. _The Times_, and all the journals which
+express the instincts of the dominant nation, constantly speak of the
+Irish people as '_the subjects of England_, whom Englishmen have
+a right to control. They are the subjects of the Queen only in a
+secondary sense--_as_ the Queen of England, and reigning over them
+through England. Every sovereign, from Queen Elizabeth to Queen
+Victoria, was sovereign of Ireland merely in this subordinate sense,
+even when there was an Irish parliament. The King of _Ireland_ could
+speak to his Irish parliament only as he was advised by his English
+ministers; and their advice was invariably prompted by English
+interests. Her king was not _hers_ in the true sense. His _heart_ and
+his company were wholly given to another, to whose pride, power,
+and splendour she was made to minister. That state of things
+still continues in effect, and while it lasts Ireland can never be
+contented. Her heart will always be disquieted within her. Something
+bitter will ever be bubbling up from the bottom of that troubled
+fountain.
+
+Nor let it be supposed that this is due to a peculiar idiosyncrasy
+in Ireland--to some unhappy congenital malformation, or some original
+taint in the blood. It has been often asked whether England would have
+submitted to similar treatment from Ireland if their relations were
+reversed. Englishmen have not answered that question because they
+cannot understand it. They find it difficult to apply the Divine
+maxim, 'Do as you would be done by.' in their dealings with other
+nations. But they can scarcely conceive its application to their
+dealings with Ireland, any more than the American planter could have
+conceived the duty of fraternizing with his negroes. If we draw from
+this fact the logical inference, we shall be at a loss to discern
+whether the Celt or the Saxon suffers more from the moral perversity
+of his nature. The truth is, both are perverted by their unnatural
+relations, which are a standing outrage on the spirit of Christianity.
+
+The Emperor of Austria long laboured to govern one nation through
+another and for another, in right of conquest, and we know the result
+in Italy and Hungary. Lombardy, though well cultivated and materially
+prosperous, could never be reconciled to Austrian rule. Even the
+nobility could not be tempted to appear at court. Venetia was more
+passionately and desperately hostile, and was consequently crushed by
+military repression, till the country was turned into a wilderness,
+and the capital once so famous for its commerce and splendour, became
+one of the most melancholy scenes of ruin and desolation to be found
+in the world. The Austrians, and those who sympathised with Austria
+as the great conservative power of the Continent, ascribed all this
+to the perversity of the Italian nature, and to the influence of
+agitators and conspirators. Austria was bountiful to her Italian
+subjects, and would be more lenient if she could, but their vices of
+character and innate propensity to rebellion, rendered necessary
+a system of coercion. Hence the prisons were full of political
+offenders; the soldier and the executioner were constantly employed in
+maintaining law and order. All the Emperor wanted was that his Italian
+provinces should be so thoroughly amalgamated with Austria, as to form
+one firmly united empire, and that the inhabitants should be content
+with their position as _Austrian_ subjects, ruled by Austrian
+officials. But this was precisely what they could not or would not
+be. 'They smiled at the drawn dagger and defied its point.' They would
+sacrifice their lives, but they would not sacrifice their nationality
+at the bidding of an alien power.
+
+This illustrates the force of the national sentiment, and the
+tremendous magnitude of the calamities to which its persistent
+violation leads. But the case of Hungary is still more apposite as an
+illustration of the English policy in Ireland. The Hungarians had
+an ancient constitution and parliament of their own. The Emperor of
+Austria was their legitimate king, wearing the crown of Hungary. In
+this capacity the Hungarians were willing to yield to him the most
+devoted loyalty. But he wanted to weld his empire into a compact
+unity, and to centralise all political power at Vienna, so that
+Austria should be the head and heart of the system, and the other
+provinces her hands and her feet. Hungary resisted, and revolted. The
+result was a desolating civil war, in which she was triumphant, till
+the Czar came to the rescue of his brother despot, and poured his
+legions in overwhelming numbers into the devoted country. Hungary was
+now at the feet of her sovereign, and Austria, the dominant state,
+tried to be conciliatory, in order to bring about the desired
+amalgamation and consolidation of the empire. She did so, with
+every apparent prospect of success, and it was generally considered
+throughout Europe that there was an end of the Hungarian kingdom.
+But Hungarian nationality survived, and still resisted Austrian
+centralisation. The Hungarians struggled for its recognition
+constitutionally, manfully, with admirable self-control, moderation,
+and wisdom, until at length they achieved a peaceful victory. Their
+sovereign reigns over them as King of Hungary; he and the empress
+dwell among them, without Austrian guards. Their children are born
+among them, and they are proud to call them natives of Hungary. The
+Hungarians, as subjects of _Austria_, were discontented, miserable,
+incurably disaffected. As subjects of their own king (though he is
+also Emperor of Austria) they are intensely loyal. They are prosperous
+and happy, because they are free. And though they have their
+distinctions of race and religion, they are united. The Magyars of
+Hungary correspond very nearly to the Protestants of Ireland. Though
+a minority, their energy, their education, their natural talent
+for organisation and government, their love of freedom, their frank
+recognition of the rights of conscience, enable them to lead without
+inspiring jealousy, just as the Protestants of Ireland were enabled to
+lead in 1782, notwithstanding the existence of Protestant Ascendancy.
+Religious equality is not a cause of tranquillity in itself. It
+tranquillises simply because it implies the absence of irritation.
+It takes a festering thorn out of the side of the unestablished
+community--a thorn which inflames the blood of every one of its
+members. Let worldly interest, political power, and social precedence
+cease to be connected with the profession of religion, and religious
+differences would cease to produce animosity and intolerance. If the
+Magyars had been the Hungarian party of Protestant ascendancy, and if
+the Protestant interest had also been the Austrian interest; if the
+mission of the Magyars had been to act as a garrison, to keep down the
+Roman Catholic majority, their cause could never have triumphed till
+Protestant ascendancy should be abolished. But Hungarian Protestantism
+did not need such support, although the Pope has as much authority in
+Hungary as in Ireland. Of course the cases of Hungary and Ireland
+are in many respects dissimilar. But they are alike in this: their
+respective histories establish the great fact that the most benevolent
+of sovereigns, and the wisest of legislatures, can never produce
+contentment or loyalty in a kingdom which is ruled _through_ and _for_
+another kingdom.
+
+We can easily understand that when the light of royalty shines upon a
+country _through a conquering nation still dominant_, the medium is of
+necessity dense, cold, refracting, and discolouring. Of this the
+best illustration is derived from the relations between Austria and
+Hungary, now so happily adjusted to the unspeakable advantage of
+both nations. Austrian rule was unsympathetic, harsh, insolent,
+domineering, based upon the arrogant assumption that the Hungarians
+were incapable of managing their own affairs without the guidance
+of Austrian wisdom and the support of Austrian steadiness. But the
+Hungarians, united among themselves, putting their trust, not in
+boastful, vapouring, and self-seeking agitators, but in honest,
+truthful, high-minded, and capable statesmen, persevered in a course
+of firm, but temperate and constitutional, national self-assertion,
+until the Austrians were compelled to put away from them their
+supercilious airs of natural superiority, and to concede the principle
+of international equality and the right of self-government.
+
+What sickens the reader of Irish history most of all is the anarchy
+of the old clan system, the everlasting alternation of outrages
+and avenging reprisals. One faction, when it felt strong and had a
+favourable opportunity, made a sudden raid upon another faction, taken
+at a disadvantage, plundering and killing with reckless fury. The
+outraged party treasured up its anger till it had power to retaliate,
+and then glutted its vengeance without mercy in the same way. When
+this fatal propensity to mutual destruction was restrained by law, it
+broke out from time to time in other ways. What was wanted to cure it
+effectually was a strong, steady, central government, such as England
+enjoys herself. But the very system which is most calculated to foster
+factiousness is the one which has reigned for centuries in Dublin
+Castle. The British sovereign knows no party, and, whatever other
+sovereigns have done, Queen Victoria has never forgotten this
+constitutional principle. But the Irish lord-lieutenant is always a
+party-man, and is always surrounded by party-men. They were Whigs or
+Tories, Liberals or Conservatives, often extreme in their views and
+violent in their temper. The vice of the old clan system was its
+tendency to unsettle, to undo, to upset, to smash and destroy. Instead
+of counteracting that vice (which still lingers in the national
+blood), by a fixed, unchanging system of administration, based on
+principles of unswerving rectitude, which knows no distinction
+of party, no favouritism, England ruled by the alternate sway of
+factions.
+
+_The Times_, referring to the debate on the Irish Church, remarked
+that the viceroyalty was more and more 'a mere ornament.' It is
+really nothing more. The viceroy has no actual power, and if he has
+statesmanship, it is felt to be out of place. He can scarcely give
+public expression to his sentiments on any political questions without
+offending one party or the other, whereas the estate of the realm
+which he represents is neutral and ought to keep strictly to neutral
+ground. As to the effect of the office in degrading the national
+spirit among the nobility and gentry, we could not have a better
+illustration than the fact that the amiable Lord Carlisle was
+accustomed, at the meeting of the Royal Dublin Society, to tell its
+members that the true aim, interest, glory, and destiny of Ireland was
+to be a pasture and a dairy for England,--a compliment which seemed to
+have been gratefully accepted, or was at all events allowed to pass.
+
+But even as an 'ornament' the viceregal system is a failure. The
+Viceroy with his family ought to be the head of society in Ireland,
+just as the Queen is in England. The royal family are the same to all
+parties and classes, showing no partiality on the ground of politics,
+but smiling with equal favour and recognition upon all. In Ireland,
+however, a liberal lord lieutenant is generally shunned by the
+Conservative portion of the aristocracy, which forms the great
+majority of the class. On the other hand the Conservatives flock in
+large numbers to the court of a Tory Viceroy, while Liberals stand
+aloof. Instead therefore of being a centre of union to all sections
+of the best society, and bringing them together, so that they may know
+one another, and enjoy the advantages due to their rank, the viceregal
+court operates as a source of jealousy and division. So that, looking
+at the institution as a mere ornament of society, as a centre of
+fashionable life and refining influences, facilitating intercourse
+between ranks and classes, bringing the owners of land and the men
+of commerce more in harmony, it is not worth preserving. On the other
+hand it produces some of the worst features of conventionalism. It
+cultivates flunkeyism and servility, while operating as a restraint
+upon the manly expression of opinion. It fosters a spirit of spurious
+aristocracy, which shows itself in contempt for men who prefer honest
+industry to place-hunting and insolvent gentility.
+
+But while I thus speak of the viceregal court as at present
+constituted, I still maintain that, like Hungary, this country is
+so peculiarly situated, and is animated by so strong a spirit of
+nationality, that it ought to have a court of its own, and a sovereign
+of its own. The case of Hungary shows how easily this great boon might
+be granted, and how gratifying the results would be to all the parties
+concerned. The Queen ought to reside in Ireland for some portion of
+the year. A suitable palace should be provided for the royal family.
+The Prince of Wales, during her majesty's reign, ought to be the
+permanent Viceroy, with the necessary addition to his income. The
+office would afford an excellent training for his duties as king. The
+attraction of the Princess of Wales would make the Irish court very
+brilliant. It would afford the opportunity of contact with real
+royalty, not the shadowy sort of thing we have had--reflected through
+Viceroys very few of whom were ever _en rapport_ with the Irish
+nation. Not one of them could so speak to the people as to elicit a
+spark of enthusiasm. Of course they could not have the true ring of
+royalty, for royalty was not in them. But they could not play the part
+well. One simple sentence from the Queen or the Prince of Wales, or
+even from Prince Arthur, would be worth all the theatrical pomp
+they could display in a generation. Those noblemen had no natural
+connection with the kingdom, fitting them to take the first place
+in it. They were not hereditary chiefs. They were not elected by the
+people. They were mere 'casual' chief-governors; and they formed
+no ties with the nation that could not be broken as easily as the
+spider's thread. The _hereditary principle_ has immense force in
+Ireland. The landlords are now seeking to weaken it; or rather they
+are ignoring it altogether, and substituting the commercial principle
+in dealing with their tenants, preferring not the most devoted
+adherents of the family, but the man with most money. But I warn them
+that they are doing so at the peril of their order. A prince who was
+_heir presumptive to the throne as Viceroy_, and who, when he ascended
+the throne, should be crowned King of _Ireland_, as well as King of
+Great Britain, crowned in his own Irish palace, and on the _Lia Fail_
+or stone of destiny, preserved at Westminster, would save many a
+million to the British exchequer, for it would be no longer necessary
+to support a large army of occupation to keep the country. If the
+throne of Queen Victoria stood in Dublin, there is not a Fenian in
+Ireland who would not die in its defence. Standing in Westminster it
+is doubtful whether its attraction is sufficient to retain the
+hearts even of Orangemen. There, it is the _English_ throne. So the
+_Englishman_ regards it with instinctive jealousy. He feels it is his
+own; but, say what we may, the Irish loyalist, when he approaches it,
+is made to feel, by a thousand signs, that he is a stranger and an
+intruder. He returns to his own bereaved country with a sad heart,
+and a bitter spirit. Can he be _Anglicised_? Put this question to
+an English philosopher, and he will answer with Mr. Froude--'Can the
+Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?' We can bridge
+the channel with fast steamers; but who will bridge the gulf, hitherto
+impassable, which separates the English Dives from the Irish Lazarus?
+
+'We have,' said Canning, 'for many years been erecting a mound--not to
+assist or improve, but to thwart nature; we have raised it high above
+the waters, and it has stood there, frowning hostility and effecting
+separation. In the course of time, however, the necessities of man,
+and the silent workings of nature, have conspired to break down this
+mighty structure, till there remains of it only a narrow isthmus,
+standing
+
+  Between two kindred seas,
+  Which, mounting, viewed each other from afar,
+  And longed to meet.
+
+What then, shall be our conduct? Shall we attempt to repair
+the breaches, and fortify the ruins? A hopeless and ungracious
+undertaking! Or shall we leave them to moulder away by time and
+accident--a sure but distant and thankless consummation; or, shall
+we not rather cut away at once the isthmus that remains, allow free
+course to the current which has been artificially impeded, and float
+upon the mingling waves the ark of our glorious constitution?'
+
+Much has been done since Canning's time to remove the narrow isthmus.
+Emancipation cut deep into it. The disestablishment of the Irish
+Church submerged an immense portion of it. If Mr. Gladstone's land
+bill be equally effective, a breach will be made through which the
+two kindred seas will meet, and, in their commingling flux and reflux,
+will quickly sweep away all minor obstacles to their perfect union. A
+just settlement of the land question will reconcile the two races, and
+close the war of seven centuries. That is the rock against which the
+two nationalities have rushed in foaming breakers, lashed into fury
+by the storms of faction and bigotry. Remove the obstruction, and the
+world would hear no more the roaring of the waters. Then would
+float peacefully upon the commingling waves the ark of our common
+constitution, in which there would be neither Saxon nor Celt, neither
+English nor Irish, neither Protestant nor Catholic, but one united,
+free, and mighty people. Then might the Emperor of the French mark the
+epoch with the announcement--'England has done justice to Ireland!'
+
+
+
+
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