BOOK IX. CHAP. I. The marquis of Clanrickard leaves Ireland, now entirely subjec to the English rebels. THE affairs of the confederate catholics being now absolutely irretrievable,* the marquis of Clanrickard, in 1652, left Ireland, carrying with him the royal authority. « And within a twelvemonth after, Mortogh O'Brien, the last of the Irish commanders, submitted to the parliament, on the usual terms of transportation;t by the favor of which," adds my author, "twenty-seven thousand men had been that year sent away." "Cromwell," says a late historian,3« in order to get free of his enemies, did not scruple to transport forty thousand Irish from their own country, to fill all the armies in Europe with complaints of his cruelty, and admiration of their own valor," 3 Dalrymp. Mem. of Great Brit. vol. i. part 2. p. 267. Borlase observing how easily and quickly (in a few months) the usurpers got possession of Ireland, adds, "such a winter's campaign, by so inconsiderable a party, against so considerable a kingdom, was never read or heard of; considering especially, that to the support of the Irish interests from January, 1649, to January, 1650, there was raised £533,564 10s. 11d. besides meal, beeves, wheat, winter-quarters, king's customs, excise, and enemies' estates, if we may credit the relation of Mercurius Politicus." Reduct. of Irel. p. 256.-Of so little avail are the greatest supplies to the most numerous army, when divisions among its members, and distrust of its principal leader, prevail in it. + "The earl of Clanrickard, finding the Irish affairs in a desperate condition, with what forces he had left, retired into the town of Carrick, where, being encompassed by our men on all sides, he submitted, and obtained liberty to transport himself with three thousand men, to any foreign country in friendship with the commonwealth, within the space of three months."-Ludlow's Mem. vol. i. p. 418. Col. Fitzpatrick was the first (in 1652) who submitted (to the parlia ment's commissioners in Ireland), on condition to be transported with his regiment, into the service of the king of Spain; which was a great blow This, together with the multitudes destroyed by the sword, during the war, and by famine and pestilence after it, caused a prodigious scarcity of people in the kingdom. But to supply that defect, Fleetwood, deputy for the parliament, invited over several colonies from England; offering good conditions to such families as would settle in Ireland; whereupon great numbers of all sorts and sexes, flocked to that kingdom." "It cannot be imagined, in how easy a method, and with what peaceable formality, that whole great kingdom was taken from the just owners and proprietors, and divided among those who had no other right to it, but that they had power to keep it. In less than two years after lord Clanrickard left Ireland, this new government seemed to be perfectly established; insomuch that there were many buildings erected for ornament, as well as use; orderly and regular plantations of trees, fences and enclosures raised throughout the kingdom; purchases made by one from the other, at very valuable rates; and jointures settled upon marriages; and all the conveyances and settlements executed, as in a kingdom at peace within itself, and where no doubt could be made of the validity of titles," On the 26th of September, 1653, the English parliament declared, that the rebels in Ireland were subdued, and the rebellion ended; and thereupon proceeded to the distribution of their lands, in pursuance of the act of subscriptions 17° Caroli. "This being notified to the government of Ireland, lord Broghill, afterwards earl of Orrery, proposed at a council of war of all the chief commanders for the parliament, that the 4 Borl. ubi supra to the Irish confederacy, who were very desirous to treat in conjunction, hoping to obtain more favorable terms, in consideration of their numbers, insomuch that they published declarations against him, and the Irish clergy excommunicated him, and all those who joined him. Notwithstanding which colonel O'Dwyer, commander-in-chief of the Irish in the Counties of Waterford and Tipperary, followed his example.”—Iḍ. ib. p. 403. "The Irish that submitted were about three thousand."-Id. ib. p 411. "In the summer of 1650, the plague so exceedingly raged in Dublin, as 'tis reported there died thereof 17,000 persons."-Borl. Hist. of the Irish Rebel. f. 345. whole kingdom should be surveyed, and the number of acres taken, with the quality of them; and then, that all the soldiers should bring in their demands of arrears; and so give every man, by lot, as many acres as should answer the value of his demand." "But a good and great part (says lord Clarendon)7 as I remember, of the province of Munster (county of Tipperary), Cromwell had reserved to himself, as a demesne, as he called it, for the state; and in which no adventurer or soldier should demand his lot to be assigned; and no doubt, intended both it and the state for the making great his own fa, mily." This proposal was agreed to, and all Ireland being surveyed, the best land was rated only at four shillings an acre, and some only at a penny. The soldiers drew lots in what part of the kingdom their portions should be assigned them. Great abuse was committed in setting out the adventurers satisfaction for the money they had advanced, at the beginning of the war; for they had whole baronies set out to them in gross; and then they employed surveyors of their own, to make their admeasurements.10 "No men had so great shares as they who had been instruments to murder the king. What lands they were pleased to call unprofitable (which were thrown in gratis), they returned as such, let them be never so good and profitable:" The lands held by the soldiers as unprofitable, and as such returned into the surveyor's office, amounted to 605,670 acres. In this manner was the whole kingdom divided between the soldiers and the adventurers of money.* CHAP. II. The transplantation of the Irish into Connaught, "CROMWELL' and his council, finding the utter extirpation of the nation, which they had intended, to be in itself 7 Ib. vol. ii. p. 117. 8 Id. ib. 10 Id. ib. 11 Id. ib. Cart. Orm. vol. ii. fol. 301. 1 Clarend. Life, vol. ii. p. 116. * Lord Antrim's estate, consisting of 107,611 acres, was allotted to sir John Clotworthy, afterwards lord Massarcene, and a few others, in consideration of their adventures and pay, which did not in all exceed the sum of £7000-Cart. Orm, vol. ii. fol. 278. very difficult, and to carry in it somewhat of horror, that made some impression upon the stone-hardness of their own hearts, after so many thousands destroyed by the sword, fire, famine, and the plague; and after so many thousands transported into foreign parts, found out the following expedient of transplantation, which they called an act of grace. There was a large tract of land, even to the half of the province of Connaught, that was separated from the rest, by a long and large river, and which, by the plague and many massacres, remained almost desolate. Into this space and circuit of land, they required all the Irish (" whom Cromwell had declared innocent of the rebellion," says Leland,) to retire by a certain day,* under the penalty of death; and all who after that time, should be found in any other part of the kingdom, man, woman, or child, might be killed, by any body who saw or met them. The land within this circuit, the most barren in the kingdom, was, out of the grace and mercy of the conquerors, assigned to those of the nation who were enclosed, in such proportions as might with great, industry preserve their lives; and to those persons from whom they had taken great quantities of land in other provinces, they assigned greater proportions within this precinct. And that they might not be exalted with this merciful donative, it was a condition that accompanied this their accommodation, that they should all give releases of their for 2 Hist. Ir. vol. iii. p. 409. By a proclamation of Cromwell and his council, printed at Dublin by William Bladon, in the year 1654, "they were commanded to transplant themselves before the 1st day of March next ensuing, into the province of Connaught, and county of Clare, according to former declarations, and to address themselves to those that are there empowered for that purpose, to take out their respective assignments for lands, and proceed to build and settle themselves there, and make provision for their families; and this upon the highest penalties.-See Walsh's Reply to a Person of Quality, p. 33. The same contemporary writer mentions, "the rigorous execution of this proclamation, in the long imprisonment of some, the exile of others, and the death of Hethrington in the market-place of Dublin, for not obeying it, as the paper on his breast when he was executed, expressing the cause of his death, did manifest: and in the general rule so well known, which they had to force the obedience of all the Irish to that proclamation, turning them to Barbadoes, or putting them to death, expressed in plain English at Kilkenny by colonel Axtel, in the case of Mrs. Martha Harpol," Id. ib. p. 148 mer rights and titles to the land that was taken from them, in consideration of what was now assigned them; and so they should for ever bar themselves, and their heirs, from laying claim to their old inheritance* What should they do," continues my author, "they would not be permitted to go out of this precinct, to shift for themselves elsewhere; and without this assignation, they must starve here, as many did daily die of famine." "In this deplorable condition,3 and under this consternation, they found themselves obliged to accept, or submit to, the hardest conditions of their conquerors; and so signed such conveyances and releases as were prepared for them, that they might enjoy those lands which belonged to other men. And by this means, the plantation of Connaught, as they called it, was finished, and all the Irish nation was enclosed within that circuit; the rest of Ireland being left to the English. Some. 3 Clarend. Life, vol. ii. p. 117. • “That all the transplanted Irish (says Walsh) to a man, at least the generality of them, and hereof I am very certain, deny any kind of exchange or bargain made by them for such lands, in lieu of their own proper estates, or any release given, or disclaim made, or promise engaged to quit from thenceforth, or at any time after, their own former titles to those estates, whence they had been so forcibly removed: and likewise deny that they could, if they would, prejudice, or blind, those of their children who had, by antient or late agreement, before the wars, those very estates entailed upon them."--Id. ib. Yet even those unhappy gentlemen, who were thus violently driven from their own fair estates, into those barren wastes of Connaught and Clare (though after a most rigorous inquisition by the late usurpers, they were found innocent of the rebellion), were, after the king's return, debarred by his declaration for the settlement of Ireland, from being ever restored to their estates, on pretence “that they had sued out decrees from the usurpers (which, on the highest penalty, they were compelled to do), and were bound thereby, and were not to be relieved against their own act."-See his Majesty's Declaration, November, 1660 Cart. Orm. vol. ii. fol. Father Walsh, who was thoroughly acquainted with the affairs of these transplanted gentlemen, asserts, "that he knew some of those who had not ten pounds lands per annum assigned them in Connaught, whose proper estates at home, in their own countries, whence they had been removed, were worth a thousand a year." Reply to a Person of Quality, 147,—“ Others were transplanted that got nothing at all—Id. ib. p. 148. |