CHAPTER VII.

“THE CURSE O'CRUMMELL.”

A.D. 1652-1656.

THE second conquest of Ireland was complete, and the doom of the Irish was sealed. The soil of the whole island was held to be forfeit. Three-fourths of the whole population were to be expelled, and the vacant lands repeopled with new English planters. The accumulated arrears of the pay of Cromwell's soldiers had been secured to them by debentures, which were to be satisfied out of a proportionate part of the confiscated Irish land. The "adventurers," who in 1642 had filled the subscription lists for the Irish war-loans were the inequitable mortgagees of 2,500,000 of Irish acres, and were clamouring to be put in possession of the foreclosed provinces. "Justice" upon the murderers of 1641 was demanded by the popular scream in England; and the shambles of the courts-martial, in the name of justice, were to help to clear the country for the new plantation.

On Ireton's death, Fleetwood was appointed lorddeputy, and with him were associated in the civil government four commissioners: Ludlow, who commanded the army, Corbet, Jones, and Weaver. Courts-martial were

held at Dublin, Athlone, and Kilkenny for the trial of those who had been concerned in the massacre. Men and women were shot or hanged on the most shadowy evidence. Lord Mayo and Colonel Bagnal were convicted and shot in Connaught; in Leinster Lord Muskerry was honourably acquitted. Sir Phelim O'Neil was dragged out of the retirement he had sought on his supersession by Owen Roe, and tried at Dublin and hanged. He was the only man convicted in Ulster; and in all Ireland the whole number against whom the commissioners were able to prove any complicity with massacre did not exceed two hundred.

In August, 1652, the Parliament passed an ordinance "for the settling of Ireland," which in effect was a proscription of the whole nation. "Mercy and pardon both as to life and estate" were to be extended to all "husbandmen, plowmen, labourers, and artificers." For the new landowners would require hewers of wood and drawers of water. And also to those who since 1641 had manifested "a constant good affection to the interests of the Commonwealth of England," a very small company, as it turned out, seeing that one who paid even a forced contribution to a confederate or royal officer was held to have shown no constant good affection. The Presbyterian landowners of Down and Antrim were involved in the same condemnation as the Irish. For had they not latterly shown Royalist proclivities, and broken away from the Independents? They were to lose their estates and be transplanted to allotments in Leinster. The rest *Ordinance, Aug., 1652, cap. 13.

of the Irish people-peers, gentles, and commons, landowners and burgesses, were to be driven from their homes in Ulster, Leinster, and Munster, and banished into Connaught and Clare, where the desolated lands of the people of the west were to be parcelled out and allotted to them for their bare sustenance and habitation. Death was to be the penalty if they had not transplanted by May 1, 1654. Death was to be the penalty if they returned without a license. Here they were to be hemmed in, as in a penal settlement, with the ocean on the one hand and the Shannon on the other, forbidden to enter a walled town under the death penalty, with a fringe of disbanded soldiers planted in a belt one mile wide all round the sea coast and along the line of the river, to keep them from approaching the border line.

But transplantation was the mildest penalty to which the Irish were subjected. Death and forfeiture of all property was decreed for all who within twenty-eight days did not lay down their arms; to all who since the assembling of the Kilkenny Convention "had contrived, advised, counselled, promoted, acted, prosecuted, or abetted" the same by "bearing arms, or contributing men, arms, horse, plate, money, victual, or other furniture or habiliments of war;" to all Jesuits and Roman Catholic priests and all persons who had "anyways contrived, advised, counselled, promoted, continued, countenanced, aided, assisted, or abetted the rebellion; and finally to Ormonde, Castlehaven, Clanricarde, and twenty other peers, one bishop, and eighty knights and gentlemen, all especially mentioned by name.

The first step towards the accomplishment of this comprehensive scheme was the removal of the disbanded soldiers of the Irish army. The bulk of the proscribed officers and leaders of the confederates had already elected to suffer voluntary banishment, and had sought safety on the continent. The rank and file who had laid down their arms upon articles, or had dispersed to their homes, were pressed to enlist on foreign service. Whole regiments of them were eagerly recruited by the agents of the kings of Spain and Poland, and the Prince of Condé. As many as 34,000 were in this way hurried into exile. There remained behind, of necessity, great numbers of widows and orphans, and deserted wives and families; and these the Government proceeded to ship wholesale to the West Indies-the boys for slaves, the women and girls for mistresses to the English sugar-planters. The merchants of Bristol -slave-dealers in the days of Strongbow-sent over their agents to hunt down and ensnare the wretched people for consignment to Barbadoes. Orders were given them. on the governors of gaols and workhouses for boys "who were of an age to labour," and women "who were marriageable and not past breeding." Delicate ladies were kidnapped, as well as the peasant women, and forced on board the slave-ships. Between six and seven. thousand were transported, before the capture by the unscrupulous dealers of some of the wives and daughters of the English themselves, forced the Government to prohibit the seizure of any person without a warrant.

And now commenced the great transplantation of

T

the inhabitants of the three easterly provinces across the Shannon. The order was proclaimed by beat of drum in the middle of harvest. Every owner of land, with their wives, their children, their tenants, their servants, and their cattle, must pass the river by the following May, on pain of death. The flight was to be in the winter. The men were to go first, and prepare rough huts for the temporary harbouring of their families till their final allotment was made out. A court of claims was set up at Athlone to superintend the migration. Each proprietor, before leaving, was bound to give in to the revenue officer of his district written particulars of all that he was intending to take with him, with full descriptions of each person who was to accompany him. A certificate was given him in return, which entitled him on presentation at Athlone to a few acres on which to sojourn during the inquiry into his claims. The court was then to receive evidence of the extent of land he had held in his old home, and of the degree of "good affection" or disaffection which he had exhibited during the war. In proportion to which he was to receive an allotment in a Connaught barony, the occupation of which he would have to dispute with the old proprietor in possession.

And now rose up all over Ireland a great cry for a little longer time. Even the Republican officers represented that the people should be encouraged to sow the new year's crop, lest a famine should arise in the land. Petitions for dispensations were poured in to the commissioners; and a short respite had to be given to the