livings for ministers in that county. And this preparation being made, his Lordship may lastly provide sufficient incumbents to serve in these churches.

Next, for His Majesty's profit, there will be revived and assured unto the Crown £500 per annum out of Monaghan; which, though it was formerly reserved, was never paid to the King's coffers; and out of the other two counties there will be raised £500 a year now, at least, for rent and composition. Besides, the Crown is restored to all the patronages of ecclesiastical promotions, which heretofore were usurped by the Pope and utterly neglected by the State here. Lastly, His Majesty shall have wardships, escheats, fines, amercements, and other casualties which were never had nor heard of before in these parts.

Finally, for the common good, not only of these parts, but of all the kingdom besides, His Lordship in this journey hath cut off three heads of that hydra of the North, namely, M'Mahon, M'Guire, and O'Reilly; for these three names of chiefry, with their Irish duties and exactions, shall be utterly abolished; the customs of tanistry and gavelkind, being absurd and unreasonable as they are in use here, and which have been the cause of many murders and rebellions, shall be clearly extinguished. All the possessions shall descend and be conveyed according to the course of the Common Law. Every man shall have a certain home and know the extent of his estate, whereby the people will be encouraged to manure their land with better industry than heretofore hath been used, to bring up their children more civilly, to provide for their posterity more carefully. These will cause them to build better houses for their safety and to love neighbourhood. Thence will arise villages and towns, which will draw tradesmen and artificers. So as we conceive a hope that these countries in a short time will not only be quiet neighbours to the Pale, but be made as rich and as civil as the Pale itself.

This is the effect of the service which was performed in that journey which my Lord Deputy made into Ulster this summer vacation, whereof I have made unto your Lordship a broken and disjointed relation, for which I humbly crave pardon; the rather because I was continually interrupted in the writing thereof, being employed, upon my return out of the North, together with my Lord Chief-Justice, in a new commission of assize and nisi prius for the counties of Waterford, Wexford, and Wicklow. So as I have been enforced to take fractions and starts, and almost instants of time, to finish the several periods of this rude discourse; which, notwithstanding, I hope your Lordship will, according to your wonted noble disposition to me, accept in good part. And so, with the presentation of my humble service, I leave your Lordship to the Divine preservation.

JO. DAVIES.

THE PLANTATION OF ULSTER.

A

LETTER

FROM

SIR JOHN DAVIES

ΤΟ

ROBERT EARL OF SALISBURY,

CONCERNING THE STATE OF IRELAND.

1бло.

A LETTER.

MY MOST HONOURABLE GOOD LORD:—

THOUGH I perform this duty of advertising your Lordship

how we proceed in the plantation of Ulster very late, yet cannot I accuse myself either of sloth or forgetfulness in that behalf; but my true excuse is the slow despatch of Sir Oliver Lambert from hence, into whose hands I thought to have given these letters more than a month since.

In the perambulation which we made this summer over the escheated counties in Ulster we performed four principal points of our commission.

1. First, the land assigned to the natives we distributed among the natives in different quantities and portions, according to their different qualities and deserts.

2. Next, we made the like distribution of the lands allotted to the servitors.

3. Thirdly, we published by proclamation in each county what lands were granted to British undertakers, and what to servitors, and what to natives; to the end that the natives should remove from the precincts allotted to the Britons, whereupon a clear plantation is to be made of English and Scottish without Irish, and to settle upon the lands assigned to natives and servitors, where there shall be a mixed plantation of English and Irish together.

4. Lastly, to the British undertakers, who are for the most part