handsome and suitable exordium to a discourse intended to justify the dispossession of probably an hundred and fifty thousand subjects, great and mean together. As a proper corollary to this, he declared, that "his majesty not only might, but absolutely ought to dispose of the lands as he had done, in law, in conscience, and in honour," although a gross violation of law, conscience, and honour. He gravely urged, that they had "no certain estates of inheritance," which, he says, "is manifest by two arguments," the cogency of which cannot fail to strike the reader with some force. The first is,

That "they never esteemed lawful matrimony, to the end they might have lawful heirs ;"

And the second,

That "they never did build any houses, nor plant orchards or gardens, nor take any care of their posterities."

Who can read such miserable chicanery, without ineffable disgust at the impudence, and abhorrence of the fraud and imposture, that attempted to justify the spoliation of possessions, many of which had descended from father to son for perhaps five hundred or a thousand years, because the owners did not "esteem lawful matrimony," nor "plant orchards or gardens, nor build any houses?" and this covered over with the holy mantle of "law, conscience, and honour?"

Not satisfied with this reasoning, he undertook to prove, that the plantation was absolutely

for the good of the natives; for that by this Agrarian hocus pocus, five hundred acres thenceforward would produce more than five thousand had previously done. It followed, of course, that the man who was plundered of four thousand five hundred acres out of five thousand, was actually, according to this logic, a gainer by the robbery!

He closes his discourse by asserting, that the transplantation of the natives was made "more like a father, than like a lord or monarch." In proof of this position, he displays great learning on the transplantation of nations by the Romans, the Spaniards, and the English themselves, in former times; and states, that when the English Pale was first planted, the natives were so wholly expelled, that “not one Irish family had so much as an acre of freehold in all the five counties." This argument ought to have removed all doubts from the minds of the Irish; as it proved that the English had, from time immemorial, a prescriptive right to seize their lands, and not leave them so much as "one acre of freehold," if they judged proper; and, of course, that James I. did prove himself "a father," when he refrained from availing himself of his rights to their full extent.

The whole of the argument, if such miserable quibbles and trash can be called argument, is to be found in the preceding note, which is particularly recommended to the attention of the reader. I have given it in extenso, that he may

have a fair sample of the "law, conscience, and honour," displayed towards the "savage Irish," during the millenium of forty years, when, according to Clarendon, "whatsoever their land, labour, or industry produced, was their own, being free from fear of having it taken from them by the king, on any pretence whatsoever."

It is extraordinary that the Boeotian dulness of the Irish rendered them incapable of comprehending the cogency of Sir John Davies's reasoning it was too elegant and refined for their uncultivated minds. The poor idiots could not conceive why they should be stripped of their estates, because an anonymous and nonsensical letter had been dropped in the Privy Council Chamber.

The lord deputy, however, had stronger argument than Sir John, to which they were forced to submit:

"The natives seemed not unsatisfied in reason, though they remained in their passions discontented, being much grieved to leave their possessions to strangers, which they had so long after their manner enjoyed; howbeit, MY LORD DEPUTY DID

SO MIX THREATS WITH ENTREATY, PRECIBUSQUE MINAS REGALITER ADDIT, as they promised to give way to the undertakers, if the sheriff, by warrant of the commissioners, did put them in possession."213

He judiciously "mixed threats with entreaties, precibusque minas regaliter addit," that is, in the true polite Tyburn style, persuasion on the

213 Davies, 284.

tongue, and the pistol in hand. Whatever difficulty there might be in yielding to the one, was removed by the application of the other. There is no mode of conviction so powerful. Make a low bow, with entreaties, and add threats, properly supported, in case of refusal. He must have been a most stubborn disputant, that could resist the conviction arising from the overwhelming arguments of the deputy, with an army at his command, the power of proclaiming martial law at pleasure, and the executioner ready at hand, to support his reasoning with a rope. Neither Demosthenes, Cicero, Burke, Pitt, nor Fox, could withstand such logic.

It were endless to recapitulate the odious features of this "magnificent project." With one more, I shall close the catalogue of oppression.

The adjustment of the rent, payable by the different descriptions of persons to whom these lands were allotted, affords a striking instance of gross partiality and injustice. The undertakers, who had the choicest portions of the soil, were to pay to the crown a rent of six shillings and eight-pence, for every sixty acres; the servitors, ten shillings; and the natives, who were plundered of their paternal estates, and reduced from the enviable condition of independent freeholders to that of tenants, were to pay thirteen shillings and four-pence. That is to say, the despoiled

214

214 Hibernica, 125, 128, 129.

owners of the soil were to pay exactly twice as much rent for inferior lands, as the despoilers paid for the superior: and, to add to the iniquity, the undertakers and servitors were to pay no rent till the third year, being rent-free for two years; whereas the natives were to pay the second year, being rent-free only one year.