ment being passed in England for restoring the duke to the immediate possession of his estate, agents were employed by him to take possession in his name. Most of his old servants were dead, and after a disseisure and dispossession of twenty years, it cannot be imagined but that they must commit some errors in the taking possession of so large an estate, the deeds and conveyances not being soon to be found and digested, and the parcels much 393 more difficult to be discovered and distinguished. Yet they made as few mistakes as could be by any rational man expected in such an affair. The errors that happened this way were generally in Kerry, where possession was taken of five thousand acres of profitable, and seven thousand of barren land, to which his grace's counsel were of opinion he had a good title; but the duke, as soon as complaint was made to him, contrary to their judgment, gave orders for quitting the possession. These were the only considerable lands of which any mistaken possession was taken by his agents; and it is observable, that no lands upon which they thus entered by mistake were ever adjudged to the adventurers and soldiers, (who having no title to them, could neither be dispossessed by wrong nor restored by right,) but were by the commissioners thrown into the common stock of reprisals. could the value of these lands be great, for all that ever his grace possessed in Kerry was but eighty-six thousand two hundred and ninety acres, which being mostly barren ground never yielded more in any year than 6157. 168. which was much less than the quitrents, there being during the time he held those lands paid for quitrents 1832l. 168. 8d. more than what he received by the rents and profits of the land; so that he was a loser by the possession, and no other person prejudiced.

45

Nor

The duke gave directions to his agents and servants, that no adventurer or soldier should be dispossessed by any colour or pretence of title of his, and whenever any

46

were dispossessed contrary to his orders, he immediately gave directions for putting them in possession again, though he might by the act of settlement have kept them in his own hands. These men never complained to the duke, nor offered to implead him in any court to recover their right. And yet there were instances to be given, wherein upon such suits he had been evicted; as particularly sir W. Petty had got judgment against him in the court of claims; so that other persons might have had the like, if their case had been the same, or as good, or if they could have gotten witnesses who would have sworn through a three-inch board, as sir W. Petty bragged he had got to evict the duke. The turning out proprietors, and enclosing their lands, taking them into the Phoenix Park, was another instance to support this article: though that park was made by the king's orders, and the lands purchased by the crown upon special bargains made with every proprietor, except sir R. Parsons, in whose case it could not be done, because he was a minor; however, an agreement was made with his tenant and guardian, and he would have satisfaction, when he came of age, for the small number of acres which belonged to him.

The two last and most material points to support this general article were, the causing in 1664 all the arms of the English (excepting parliament men and justices of the peace) to be seized, and the quartering of soldiers upon Dublin. As to the first, the duke was ready to acknowledge that about 1664, soon after the design to surprise the castle of Dublin, and raise a general insurrection, orders were given to disarm, not English and protestants, but all manner of persons, except they were of such a degree or qualification. And this he conceived to be absolutely necessary, as the tempers of men then For on the one side, the papists were much to be suspected; most of them being kept out of their estates,

were.

47

and having little hopes to get into them. Nor were the disbanded officers and soldiers, who had served Cromwell all along, much safer to be trusted, considering the aforementioned design (which was brought to the very day of the execution) contrived by some of them. Besides all this, most of the arms so seized did properly belong to the king, and were therefore fittest to be kept in his magazines; and soon after, orders were given, not only to restore to all protestants such arms as were their proper goods, but the war coming on, and an invasion threatened, 394 the protestants (and they only) had above twenty thousand arms delivered to them out of the king's stores, and they were listed into a regular militia, as they had ever since continued.

But the chief article of all, that which was to give weight to all the rest, and was indeed the first occasion of them, was that about the quartering of soldiers in Dublin, the raising money upon the inhabitants (who did not care to give lodging, fire and candle to soldiers) at the rate of a shilling a week for each soldier, and the distraining upon such as did not pay what they were assessed at by an equal and indifferent rate laid by the earl of Meath's seneschal within his liberties, and by the mayor and sheriffs within the city, with the common consent of the inhabitants in each district. Here indeed his lordship did not want some sort of proofs, that is, as to the quartering of soldiers; for as to the assessing of payment in lieu of lodging, and distraining for nonpayment, the duke of Ormond never granted any one warrant, or made any one order in those points, which were adjusted by the civil magistrate and the inhabitants among themselves. The purport of all his grace's warrants was only, that the civil magistrates, to whom they were directed, should set out convenient quarters to the soldiers. One of his original warrants of this sort the earl of Meath had got, and took care to recite it, with the petition of the

mayor and commoners of Dublin to his grace, the petition of his own tenants to himself, the earl of Arran's petition to the council of Ireland, all mentioned before; but then there was no crime in all this; for it had been a constant custom beyond the memory of man to quarter soldiers upon the city, where the men found themselves meat and drink, but the inhabitants were obliged to provide them lodging, fire, candle, and stabling, or in lieu thereof to pay a certain rate, the distribution whereof was settled by common consent among themselves. This was a thing absolutely necessary for the security of the government, and of the protestants in the city. The duke of Ormond had original warrants, or authentic and attested copies, ready to produce, of the same nature, and indeed more extensive than his own, that had been given by all his predecessors in the government from the lords deputies Fitz -Williams and Sidney in queen Elizabeth's days down to his own time. He never gave any warrant but such as had been always used, and such as agreed in terms with those by which he found the army, and particularly the regiment of guards quartered by the earl of Orrery and the other lords justices, the army from 1660 to 1662 when his grace arrived, and the regiment of guards from the time of their landing. This, by the city of Dublin's petition mentioned in the article, is acknowledged to be according to custom time out of mind; and by the answer to that petition it appeared, that the duke called for instances to prove the extortions and oppressions therein mentioned, but never had any brought him. The earl of Meath refused to make proof of the injuries falsely supposed to have been done to his tenants by the officers and soldiers quartered in his liberty, as appeared by the proceedings at council. No complaint of any of the oppressions or extortions charged had been ever made to the duke, and proved, but satisfaction had been given the complainant and punishment inflicted on the offender.

It had likewise been made appear to the council, that the officers and soldiers quartered in Dublin paid more for the lodgings they hired, than they received for the quarters assigned them; and that they spent more than thirty thousand pounds a year in that city, to the enriching of the inhabitants.

48 Notwithstanding all this, and that the duke of Ormond could not conceive he had been guilty of the least crime or irregularity in this matter, the earl of Meath was confident that his grace had thereby forfeited his head, and that the quartering of soldiers would appear to be downright treason. This notion was founded upon a wrong 395 interpretation of an old obsolete Irish statute, 18 Hen. VI. c. 10. whereby it is enacted," that no lord, nor any other, of what condition soever he be, shall bring or lead from henceforth hoblers, kearnes, or hooded men, neither English rebels, nor Irish enemies, nor any other people, nor horses, to lie on horseback or on foot upon the king's subjects, without their good-wills and consents, but upon their own costs, and without hurt doing to the commons of the county, and if any do so, he shall be adjudged as traitor." It is very strange, that sir Heneage Finch and the English lawyers should ever imagine that the constant custom of quartering the guards in Dublin could be construed a breach of this law, or that the chief governor giving the usual warrants for that purpose could for that reason be deemed an offender within the reach of that statute. Their mistake shews clearly how necessary it is to know the history of the times and occasions, when and whereon statutes are made, in order to understand their true force and meaning. Not but that there were other reasons to shew that the statute did not affect the chief governor, who, representing the king's person, and vicem regis gerens in Ireland, could not be understood to be comprised within the words, no lord nor any