terms than twenty-one years, or three lives: their tenants' houses were to be built after the English fashion, and united together in towns or villages. They had power to erect manors, to hold courts baron, and to create tenures. The old natives, whose estates were granted in fee simple, to be held in soccage, were allowed the like privileges. They were enjoined to let their farms at certain rents, and for the like terms as the other undertakers, to take no Irish exactions from their inferior tenants, and oblige them to forsake their old Scythian custom of wandering with their cattle from place to place, for pasture, or creaghting, as they called it; to dwell in towns, and to conform to the English manner of tillage and husbandry. An annual rent from all the lands was reserved to the crown; for every sixty English acres, six shillings and eightpence from the British undertakers, ten shillings from servitors, and thirteen and fourpence from Irish natives. But for two years they were exempt from such payment, except the natives, who were not subject to the charges of removal. What gave particular credit to this undertaking, was the capital part which the city of London was persuaded to assume in it. The king was sensible, as he expressed it, that When his enemies should hear that the famous city of London had a footing therein, they would be terrified from looking into Ireland, the back door to England and Scotland. The corporation accepted of large grants in the county of Derry, or London Derry, for that was the new title, both of the county and its capital city. They engaged to expend twenty thousand pounds on the plantation, to build the cities of Derry (built 1617), and Coleraine, and stipulated for such privileges as might make their settlements convenient and respectable. As a competent force was necessary to protect this infant plantation, the king, to support the charge, or at least with this pretence, instituted the order of baronets, an hereditary dignity, to be conferred on a

number not exceeding two hundred; each of them, on passing his patent, was to pay into the exchequer such a sum as would maintain thirty men in Ulster for three years, at eightpence daily pay.

Elevated with the success of the great northern plantation, James resolved to execute the same schemes in other unsettled districts. The maritime parts of Leinster, between Dublin and Waterford, had been for ages possessed by powerful Irish septs, which had kept the English government in continual alarm, and harassed its forces by perpetual irruptions. Sixty-six thousand acres, between the river of Arklow and that of Slane, had been found by inquisition to be the property of the crown. Of these, 16,500, lying nearest to the sea, James determined to dispose of to an English colony, and to re-grant the rest, in certain proportions, to the old proprietors, under the same regulations and covenants which had been prescribed to the planters of Ulster. Leitrim, Longford, Westmeath, King's and Queen's counties, on the western borders of the Pale, were the safe receptacles of robbers, where, surrounded with woods, bogs, and mountains, they defied the ministers of justice. This district had served as a passage for Tyrone and his forces into Munster, and a retreat in his flight from Kinsale. James distributed 385,000 acres in these counties, regranting large portions to the old inhabitants (1616).

Amidst all this exertion for the improvement of the agriculture and habits of Ireland, lay involved a vast amount of cruelty and injustice. Inquisition into the validity of titles was made with the most iniquitous severity; every legal and technical advantage was taken, the absence of deeds four or five hundred years old was fatal, and the records of the state were ransacked to oust from their properties by flaws and errors the real owners. The compensations which the king commanded to the chieftains were not rendered them, and we learn that, in the small county of Longford alone, twenty-five

of one sept were deprived of their estates, and no means of subsistence assigned them.

Large numbers of the new-comers were Scots, who brought with them the strong Protestant feelings of presbyterianism. Their principles infected the whole of the pure English population; livings were held by presbyterian clergy who never read the service of the liturgy; and some years later, a bishop was deprived by the government for an angry defence of the Solemn League and Covenant.

CHAPTER VII.

CHARLES I.

KING CHARLES the First governed Ireland upon the same principles as he did England. Prerogative was his theory in politics, and insincerity his skill. Vacillation in the execution of his purposes seemed in Ireland in some measure controlled by the daring energy of Strafford, but the king finally triumphed over the subject, and involved both in a common ruin.

Hostilities abroad did not permit Charles to continue his Irish establishment upon the same economical footing as that of his father; he raised his army to five thousand foot and five hundred horse; but, to support it had recourse to prerogative, that is to say, to illegal and unpopular measures. He ordered the troops to be quartered on the counties and towns of Ireland, to be maintained in turn for three months with money, clothes, and victuals. To insure acquiescence, certain graces were promised (1628.) Inquisitions into the titles of estates might yet be arbitrarily instituted, and the penal laws about supremacy and uniformity might be enforced. These promises led to a negotiation in London, by which the Irish agents undertook for three subsidies in three years of forty thousand pounds each, and, in return, the king pledged himself to grant the following graces: that titles to lands should be unquestioned after sixty years' possession; that the recusants who declined the oath of supremacy might obtain livery of their lands depending in the Court of Wards, and might practise in the courts of law on taking an oath of allegiance; and that certain land-owners of Connaught, whose titles were defective by reason of the neglect of the officers in Chancery to make the neces

sary enrolments, might have them secured and validated. Other articles referred to the oppressions of the soldiery, monopolies, protections, royalties, reprieves, fees, martial law, the intimidation of witnesses and jurors, the Court of Wards, the exemptions of ecclesiastical lands, parochial cures, clerical exactions, free trade, the penalties for ploughing by the tails of the oxen, the grants of new settlers rendered void by non-fulfilment of the clauses, and an act of amnesty. The provisions which had reference to these articles were reasonable and equitable: and were to be confirmed by Act of Parliament.

A mistake in issuing the writs served as an excuse for not assembling parliament, and the subsidies were collected without a confirmation of the graces. When the time of payment expired (1632,) a fresh voluntary contribution of £20,000 was extorted by threatening the pressure of the penal laws; and Wentworth assumed the administration. In the meantime the Roman Catholics had been in a great measure tolerated; only that in Dublin a fraternity of Carmelites gave offence by the publicity of their worship to the lord mayor and archbishop (1630,) who attempted to disperse them, and were beaten back. This affront was followed by the seizure of fifteen religious houses to the king's use, and the confiscation of the Romish college in Dublin to protestant purposes.

The principles of Wentworth are well described by his own word, THOROUGH. He assumed the government with a mind and affection fixed on one single object, the immediate interest of his royal master. The Irish he considered as a conquered people; and that whatever the subjects enjoyed depended upon the royal grace.' It was true that the turbulence and disorder of the country involved the necessity of a severe and vigorous administration, and the character of the man was well fitted to rule the unwilling, and overbear opposition. Charles was averse to the assem

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