135

Harrison; whose hands upon view I found to have been counterfeited; as will appear, if he be called upon to produce the said paper, whilst sir W. Flower is here to judge of his own handwriting."

Nolan had flattered himself that the prayer of his petition would have been readily granted, and that the examination of the matter of it would have been referred to the beforementioned commissioners (appointed in consequence of colonel Talbot's petition) for reviewing the settlement of Ireland. He thought himself sure of finding powerful friends among them, who would help out the defects of his evidence, and did not question but they would be glad to countenance every thing that would throw a reflection on the duke of Ormond. But the order of council on Nov. 29, requiring him to prove his allegations before the board, entirely disconcerted all his measures. In the following month, when he was to produce his witnesses pursuant to that order, he presented another petition to the king, praying, that his majesty would be graciously pleased to order that colonel Richard Talbot might appear before his majesty at council, to declare his knowledge of the matter depending between his grace the duke of Ormond and the petitioner. This was granted, but Talbot, apprehensive that it might prove at last a scandalous affair, and that himself might possibly be involved in the censure which it deserved, thought fit to pretend business in Ireland, and set out for that kingdom. Nolan hereupon presented another petition, which was read on Jan. 19 in council, representing, that he was not able to produce his witnesses 436 before his majesty in England, and that colonel R. Talbot had departed for Ireland before his knowledge in the premises had been examined, and that the rest of his witnesses were in Ireland, and in the records of his majesty's exchequer, and other courts in that kingdom, that would farther justify and clear the true allegations of the

petitioner in his said former petition; for which reasons he prayed that his majesty would be pleased to order that the petitioner's witnesses, and all other necessary proofs concerning the premises, might be examined in Dublin before any persons that his majesty should think fit.

136 After seven weeks' trifling in this manner, without producing any one witness, it was not thought reasonable to countenance Nolan's new shift and pretences; so that no order was made for examining witnesses in Dublin. Yet the man met with such extraordinary indulgence, that upon a representation from some body at the board (for it is not mentioned in Nolan's petition) that sir Bernard Gascoigne could give an account of what colonel Talbot said on that occasion before his departure for Ireland, it was ordered, that sir B. Gascoigne should be spoken with to deliver his testimony in writing unto the clerk of the council attending. This was a new kind of evidence, which, however it was allowed on this, was never admitted before on any occasion; yet it did not serve the turn, sir Bernard not being able to say any thing in the matter. At last the several petitions of Nolan, and the duke of Ormond's answer, being read in council in February, the king declared, that the complaint against the duke for seizing lands in the county of Catherlogh without title was false and scandalous, and commanded that as such the same should be dismissed from the council board. It happened very luckily for captain Nolan that his grace had not yet received the accounts of his murders at Ballenunry, nor the deputy clerk of the crown Patrick Lambert's certificate (dated Feb. 10) of the record among the pleas of the crown of the county of Catherlogh, containing the captain's indictment for the murder of Thady Nolan, with the depositions relating to that fact; which did not come to the duke till the 21st of that month.

137

138

When these two persons, Byrne and Nolan, were the only witnesses that could be found, and their little parcels of land the only instances that could be alleged, to colour the charge laid upon the duke of Ormond of passing other people's land for his own; if colonel Talbot, agent general for the Irish, could find nothing more to countenance a calumny he was fond of spreading, at a time when all the parties aggrieved (if there were any) might well be supposed to be living, when it was meritorious to accuse the duke, when the proving of such accusation would have been a sure way to preferment, and when the proving of this particular charge would have served so usefully to the point then in view-the overthrowing of the acts of settlement; if neither the commissioners for reviewing the settlement, nor those appointed for the discovery of concealed lands, nor the contractors for the farm of the revenue, (who upon the clamour raised by these men flattered themselves with recovering from this [his] grace the whole barony of Forth, which they valued at one thousand five hundred pounds a year, and expected to make him answerable for twelve or fourteen thousand pounds of the mean profits;) if none of these sets of men, whose passions and interests set them at work at this time with their utmost diligence to find out some practice of this nature either in the duke or his agents, were yet able to discover nothing of this kind, nothing that could throw a blemish on the honour and virtue of his conduct, it must be a strange prejudice or as strange a weakness in anybody now to give the least credit or entertainment to so groundless a calumny.

I have perhaps said already more than was necessary to refute it, and yet I must add one thing more, in reference to what the duke mentions in his answer as to 437 the incredibility of a person's entering into so low and unwarrantable contracts, who had parted with the value of some thousands a year to such as he thought worthy of

compassion. His grace's generosity and tenderness of nature were such, that he could not bear to see the old proprietor of an estate (decreed him for a just debt) in distress, without doing something for his relief. Among the estates assigned him for his arrears was that of Mr. Wogan's of Rathcoffy in the county of Kildare, worth seven hundred pounds a year: the family was ancient; the father was killed in the battle of Rathmines; and the son being innocent had his estate given him back in fee by the duke, upon paying only a chief-rent of ten pounds a year. Mr. Nicholas Wogan, the heir of that gentleman who now enjoys it, hath assured me of this fact; and the counterpart of the conveyance to his ancestor is still preserved among the evidences in the castle of Kilkenny. In the same repository of deeds is a like grant of the seat and lands of Dunboyne to the lord of that name, and others of the same nature. For to those two before named, to the lord Ikerrin, sir R. Everard, Mr. Walsh of the Mountain, Mr. Comerford of Colin, Mr. Walsh of Balnakeen, Mr. Keating of Nicholstown, captain Burgh of Iliegh, and Mr. Ulick Wall of the county of Catherlogh, he thus reconveyed to them and their heirs eight thousand one hundred and ninety-two acres of the lands so decreed him by the court of claims, at a very small chief-rent, over and above his majesty's patent-rent; so that out of thirty-six thousand one hundred and fifty-five acres decreed him, he had only remaining to himself twenty-seven thousand nine hundred and sixty-three acres in addition to his ancient inheritNor did he enjoy these without expense; for he gave to some annuities for life, to others allowances for seven years, and to most or all the rest of the ancient proprietors of such parcels of land as were adjudged to him by that court, in proportion to the benefit which he received out of the said lands, and to the number of acres therein contained. I have already observed that his grace paid above seven thousand pounds a year

ance.

139

annuities to the end of his life; and as I never saw any of them mentioned in any of the computations (which he made every year of his income and goings out in order to adjust his annual expenses) till after the time of these decrees, I am persuaded that a considerable part of those annuities were mere voluntary grants of his for the subsistence of those gentlemen whose estates were lost by their forfeiture. Nobody could know this better than Mr. George Matthews, who paid those annuities; and in a paper of his dated March 9, 1680, after recounting the aforementioned particulars, he says, that, if all things were duly considered, his grace was rather a loser than any gainer by the forfeiture or punishment of the Irish.

There was one person, who for want of a proper application, or by the extravagance of his behaviour, and the scandalousness of his character, had no relief from the duke, till his misfortunes had rendered him an object of compassion. This was Edward, son of Philip Purcel of Ballifoyle in the county of Kilkenny. Philip was living after the restoration, and prosecuted by the soldiers, to whom his estate had been set out for some murders, which it was pretended he had committed during the rebellion. When his case came to be heard before the court of claims, he was acquitted of murder; but they proved his living in the rebels' quarters, and paying them contributions, with other matters, which brought him under the nocency of the act of settlement. His estate, between four and five hundred pounds a year, was hereupon adjudged to the soldiers, only about fifty pounds a year mountain land, not having been set out either to adventurer or soldier, fell to the duke of Ormond, of whom it was held. Notwithstanding this decree, Edward, after his father's death, claimed the estate, and would frequently come to the house or castle of Ballifoyle (which had been allotted to Mr. Toby Cramer) with a party of men armed with swords and pistols, to take possession of it, breaking