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To increase the extreme rigor and misery of these terrible times of suffering, corn and provisions of every description were scarce and high priced. The great market for corn in particular, was 'Nenagh in Ormond,' to which such of the citizens of Limerick as possessed the means, were accustomed to go or to send their messengers, to purchase supplies for their household and their workmen. At this time corn was about £2 a bushel in Ormond. It may be observed that in these times and before them, it was usual not only to pay the artisan and the labourer in cash, not quite so much, indeed as they are now paid, but to bake bread, to brew malt, to lay in store barrels of herrings and quantities of butter for their consumption, a long account of which we find set forth in the MSS. of Dr. Arthur during the comparatively lengthened period he was building a great "stone howse in Mongret-street, in the south suburb of the city of Limerick," which stone house he began in 1620, but which he had scarcely finished when Ireton was thundering at the gates. Previous to the surrender, the impositions, though not so heavy, were severe. The levies were monthly. In addition, horse and foot were quartered on such of the citizens as could or could not bear the burden. There were levies and applotments also for the ditches, outworks and fortifications, previous to the siege and sur

Warding the gate whyles the new gate was a making at se-
veral nights to Owelane

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1653, payed for the savengers, town maior, & for fyre & candlelight
1653, payed for that moneth's contribution to Wm. Meroney
payed for fyre and candlelight to the citadels for the 3 months
past
payed for that moneth's contribution, p. L. R. Tickett
payed for the next moneth's contribution to come payed to
T. Arthur
To Thomas Gerrott Arthur, for Cess
paid him for the citadell moneys
paid him for the moneth's cess
paid him for the moneth's cess
lighting to the guards

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Cess Moneyes.

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I payed to Thomas Arthur a head bill for cess
I payed to Michael Stritch head bill for cess moneys
I payed him for cess moneys

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To shew the quantity and capacity of mere brewing materials in private houses in Limerick in these times I take the following from the Arthur MSS.

"A note of what goods and household stuf Doctor Thomas Arthur Fitzwilliam left in the custodie of his wife in his mansion-house at Lymerick :

1. Bras kitle, weighing four hundred weight, able to contein a whole hogsed of liquor, with his parents' names thereuppon, and cost him twenty pounds sterling, being bought from them. 2. Another bras kitle a little smaller than the former, both for brewing.

3, 4. Brass destelling pots, whereof one is bigger than the other, with their hurdles, pipes, and necessarie accommodations.

5. A deep large brass pan to boil meate in as a quarter of beeffe."

[The list enumerates several other vessels of somewhat smaller dimensions.]

8 big brass candlesticks, weighing 27 lbs. of Holland fashion, and cost me 45s. and 6d. ster. A coper cauderon capable of a barrel!

Various 'Brass Mortars with iron pestills.'

1 ould baltrey (quere paltry?) kitle in paune of Phillis Creagh's rent."

The latter item, perhaps, might be omitted, but in hard times it is no wonder that rent was due.

2 Dr. Arthur enters as follows:

"From the 2nd day of June to the 2nd of November, 1651, I payed to such horse and foot as the head bill, Wm. Morony, quartered uppon me, and for several others.

More I payed to the said Wm. Moroney towards the English guarizon."

render; and for the money "lent to James Marquis of Ormond, Lieutenant General and General Governor of Ireland." The pressure was intolerable.

The surrender of Limerick and Galway, the latter under terms better by far than Limerick,2 put an end to what has been conventionally termed the great rebellion. The only Castle in Munster that held out was Ross, in the lake of Killarney, which was thought impregnable, but Ludlow caused a small ship to be made, and carried over the mountains-this he floated in the Lough; and the Irish were so astonished that they yielded up the fort on the 27th of June, 1652.

About the same time Lord Westmeath, Lord Muskerry, O'Connor Roe, Sir William Dungan, Sir Francis Talbot and others submitted upon conditions "that they should abide a trial for the murders committed in the beginning of the rebellion, and that those who assisted only in the war were to forfeit two-thirds of their estates and be banished. Following out the fortunes of Inchiquin, who embarked for France from Galway with Lord Ormond, we find that being exempted from pardon by Cromwell, in 1652, he became a Lieutenant-General of the French army, and was appointed Viceroy of Catalonia by the king; serving afterwards in the Netherlands, and commanding the forces sent to assist the Portuguese, when they revolted from Spain, he was captured by a Sallee Rover or Algerine Corsair, with his family, and was obliged to pay a heavy ransom. He was created Earl of Inchiquin, and had a grant of £8000 from Charles II. as compensation for his losses. He lived a Catholic for fourteen years before his death, and died in Limerick; his body was interred in 1674 in the Cathedral of St. Mary's, the cannon firing during his interment. Execrations cling to his memory.

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE HIGH COURT OF BUTCHERY-SAVAGE EXECUTIONS.-COURT OF ADVENTURERS.

THE first High Court of Justice to try those who were accused by the Cromwellians of "the barbarous murders committed in this rebellion," was held before Justice Donelan, President, Commissary General Reynolds and Justice Cooke, assistants, in Kilkenny on the 4th of October, and it sat in the house occupied by the Supreme Council of the confederates in 1642. Some, as we have already mentioned, were excluded from pardon altogether. The same Court at which Sir Phelim O'Neil was tried, condemned, and ordered to be hung, was held in Dublin, before Chief Justice Lowther. Sir Phelim confessed he had no commission from the late king Charles for the rebellion of 1641, that he took the seal from a patent he had found at Charlemont,

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For this purpose to H. Casy, Dr. Arthur paid "Besides this share of moneies lent to Prince Rupert" "And the double applotment of the weekly moneies for 6 weeks" All these sums and several others were paid by Dr. Arthur, and he was but one among the many severely taxed.

Cox Hib. Anglicana, Vol. II. p. 69.

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3 Ibid, p. 70.

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4 White's MSS.

and fixed it to a commission he caused to be written in the king's name, that Michael Harrisson, then present in court, and confessing the fact, was the person who stitched the cord or label of the seal with silk of the same colour. Lord Mayo was tried, and executed by being shot to death, for falling on the English, and killing among others the Protestant Bishop of Killala, and about eighty others, after the surrender of the Castle of Castlebar. Lord Maguire, notwithstanding his vehement protest, was tried and sentenced in England, and was not permitted the ministration of a catholic priest in his dying moments! Courts were held in Cork, Waterford, and other places, and about two hundred persons were sentenced to death at the hands of the common hangman.

I will not dwell on the wholesale robberies which were perpetrated at this crisis under the name of law. The forfeited lands in Ulster, Leinster and Munster, were parcelled out in separate proportions, a part of which was divided among the soldiers and the English adventurers. The Church lands too were not spared. What remained of the forfeitures was left to the disposal of the Parliament. A large tract of barren land in Connaught, which by plague and war, had been well nigh depopulated and rendered a desert, was set apart for the Irish, for whom the alternative was 'Connaught or hell.' To such a state had the country been reduced that a proclamation was issued by Cromwell offering a reward to those who killed wolves by which the country was now overrun; and by a lease which was made to Captain Edward Piers, on the 11th of March, 1652-3, of all the forfeited lands and tithes, in the Barony of Dunboyne in the County of Meath, only five miles north of Dublin, he was obliged to keep three wolfdogs, two English mastiffs, a pack of hounds of sixteen couple, three of them to hunt the wolf only, a knowing huntsman, two men and a boy, and an orderly hunt to take place thrice a month at least. If Leinster, within a short distance of Dublin, was so fearfully reduced, what must we think of Connaught, to which the Catholics were driven wholesale; and where many of them who had enjoyed large possessions in the most favored parts of Ireland before the war, had now no place whatever to receive them, though they were transferred to that province with an assurance that they would have sufficient. To show the general desolation of the country, even two years after these times, General Fleetwood writes to his friend Secretary Thurloe, on the 27th of June in that year from Dublin, "there hath scarce been a house left undemolished, fit for an Englishman to dwell in, out of walled towns in Ireland, nor any timber left, except in very few places, undestroyed."-(Thurloe's State Papers, ii. 404.)

The Mayoralty of Limerick continued vacant for four years from the date of the surrender, the government of the city being vested in a governor appointed by Ireton.

Some important occurences took place in this year:-writing under date May 7th, 1653, from Chester, he states that they shipped away in the Cardiff frigate £40,000 to Dublin, that Sir Hardress Waller is gone in the same ship; that they proceeded to sea, with a fair wind, the day before, and that it was hoped it would bring them to their desired port speedily. letter from Tralee on the 19th of April, states that there came from Limerick two vessels with near six weeks' provisions of bread for the forces within

! See Proceedings of Kilkenny Arch. Society, Vol. III. New Series, p. 77. 2 State Papers, No. 2999.

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this precinct, which is as reasonable a relief as we ever enjoyed. The Lord set it home upon our hearts, we find it not in vain to trust in him."1

The Council of State from Whitehall, issued their orders respecting the satisfying of the claims of adventurers who had advanced considerable sums of money by way of adventure for lands forfeited in Ireland, authorising a commission to sit and enquire into all men's claims, by comparing their receipts and assignments with the original books, and directing that they shall cause an entry to be made in a book, fairly written and kept for that purpose, of all such sum and sums of money (in words not figures) as shall be by them allowed, as also the names of the first adventurers, as of the person or persons now claiming the same.' Further directions are given on this subject, and apportionments on the several Provinces and Counties, viz. :

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40,000

Co. Waterford
Co. Limerick

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20,000
30,000

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King's County
Queen's County 40,000

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The acres to be English measurement, and the Committee to receive 1d. in the £1 of and for every adventurer, for so much land as he shall be entitled or lay claim to, towards defraying of all incidental charges, &c.

The condition of the citizens of Limerick was exceedingly miserable throughout this period. Dr. Arthur writes as follows:-"On the ides of December, 1653, the citizens of Limerick, about to be enrolled" [probably for enlistment purposes]" in the city, and having no settled dwelling place, requested me to plead their cause before the general of the army and the committee of the English Parliament [comitia] who were then at Dublin, that they would please to assign to them some certain place of habitation, on the northern side of the port of Limerick [in Clare] where they might dwell in security, lest, if they were straggling about, they might perish by exposure to insults and various perils of life and fortune; but having failed in the negociation, had them informed thereof by a messenger." So unpopular was the Parliamentary service, that the natives who attempted to enlist were compelled to apply for protection which they failed to obtain ! Among the minor notabilia we may mention that Charles Fleetwood, commander-in-chief of the Parliamentary army of England in Ireland, being subject to a painful disease by which he was periodically attacked, was attended by Dr. Arthur, who, at his request, wrote a treatise on the history, cause, progress and remedy of the distemper (He'miarani)3

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4 State Papers.

2 Arthur's MSS.

3 Arthur's MSS.

CHAPTER XXX.

DEPARTURE OF THE IRISH FOR FOREIGN LANDS.-CROMWELL'S PARLIAMENT -WHOLESALE CONFISCATIONS, &c.

So desperately oppressed were the Irish now that they petitioned to transport themselves into foreign service, which several of them were allowed to do. On the 5th of May, 1653, articles of agreement were drawn up between Colonel Theophilus Jones and Colonel Philip Reilly, on behalf of himself and gentry, by which they got liberty of transportation to Spain, leave to sell their goods, and enjoyment of personal estates, and satisfaction for their houses at reasonable rates; priests were compelled to quit the country within one month; prisoners of war were set at liberty within ten days, &c. Colonel Fitzpatrick was allowed to go with his regiment into the service of the King of Spain. Colonel John O'Dwyer, commander-in-chief of the Irish in the counties of Waterford and Tipperary, followed the example. On his departure the celebrated song "John O'Dwyer of the Glen" was written,2 and having entered into a treaty with Colonel Sankey, he obtained leave to possess his estates, and those who submitted with him, received the same privilege, all under the required qualification. The sickness prevailed greatly in several parts of Ireland, and particularly about Dublin. Dalrymple states that Cromwell, 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 of Europe with complaints of his cruelty and admiration of their own valour! Colonel Prittie, who did good service for the Parliamentary cause in several places at this crisis, as well as Captain Jacob at Dundrum, Colonel Abbott and other officers "by whom the Irish were reduced to great extremities, were also rewarded." An act was passed by Cromwell's Parliament permitting the English adventurers, officers and soldiers to purchase the forfeited houses in Limerick, at six years' purchase, and that the city should have the same privileges, franchises and immunities with the city of Bristol in England, &c. The Parliament was summoned by the usurper out of England, Scotland and Ireland. Thirty members only were returned from Ireland, who under the pretext of avoiding the evils of election were 'selected' by commissioners appointed by the government. Sir Hardress Waller sat in this Parliament for the counties of Limerick, Kerry and Clare; and William Purefoy, Esq., for the city of Limerick and town of Kilmallock. The latter was succeeded in 1659 by Walter Waller, Esq.; these men, as may well be supposed, were the mere creatures of the government; and for the more effectual strengthening of his own power, Cromwell dismissed the Irish commissioners from their office, and constituted Fleetwood Deputy for three years. A short time afterwards he sent over his second son Henry, whom he

1 State Papers, No. 3103.

2 Hardiman's Minstrelsy. 3 State Papers, No. 3091.

On the 29th of June, 1653, it was stated that 1,800 Irish had transported themselves for Spain, over 5,000 more were ready to be transported, that many died, still more do die, both of the plague and famine.

Memoirs of Great Britain, vol. 1.

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