THE PURITAN PLANTATION.
It is a fearful thing to undertake the destruction of a nation
by slaughter, starvation, and banishment. When we read of such
enormities, perpetrated by some 'scourge of God,' in heathen lands and
distant ages, we are horrified, and we thank Providence that it is our
lot to be born in a Christian country. But what must the world think
of our Christianity when they read of the things that, in a most
Bible-reading age, Englishmen did in Ireland?
The work of transplanting was slow, difficult, and intensely painful
to the Irish, for Connaught was bleak, sterile, and desolate, and the
weather was inclement. The natural protectors of many families had
been killed or banished, and the women and children clung with frantic
fondness to their old homes. But for the feelings of such afflicted
ones the conquerors had no sympathy. On the contrary, they believed
that God, angry at their lingering, sent his judgments as a
punishment. Mr. Prendergast has published a number of letters, written
at the time by the English authorities and others, from which some
interesting matters may be gleaned. The town of Cashel had got a
dispensation to remain. 'But,' says the writer, 'the Lord, who is a
jealous God, and more knowing of, as well as jealous against their
iniquity than we, by a fire on the 23rd inst. hath burned down the
whole town in little less than a quarter of an hour, except a few
houses that a few English lived in,' &c. In consequence of the delay,
the Irish began to break into 'torying' (plundering). 'The tories fly
out and increase. What strange people, not to starve in peace.' To
be inclined to plunder under such circumstances, with so gracious a
Government, must be held to be a proof of great natural depravity, as
well as of a peculiar incapacity to respect, or even to understand,
the rights of property.
At length, however, the land was ready for the enjoyment of the
officers and soldiers. On August 20, 1655, the lord deputy, Fleetwood,
thus addressed one of the officers:--
'Sir,--In pursuance of his highness's command, the council here
with myself and chief officers of the army having concluded about
disbanding part of the army, in order to lessening the present charge,
it is fit that your troope be one. And, accordingly, I desire you
would march such as are willing to plant of them into the barony of
Shelmaliere, in the county of Wexford, at or before the first day of
September, where you shall be put into possession of your lands, for
your arrears, according to the rates agreed on by the committee and
agents. As also you shall have, upon the place wherein you are, so
much money as shall answer the present three months' arrear due to you
and your men, but to continue no longer the pay of the army than upon
the muster of this August. The sooner you march your men the better;
thereby you will be enabled to make provision for the winter.' After
some sweetening hints that they will be perhaps paid hereafter as a
militia he concludes:--
'And great is your mercy, that after all your hardships and
difficulties you may sit down, and, if the Lord give His blessing, may
reape some fruits of your past services. Do not think it a blemish
or underrating of your past services, that you are now disbanded; but
look upon it as of the Lord's appointing, and with cheerfulness submit
thereunto; and the blessing of the Lord be upon you all, and keep you
in His fear, and give you hearts to observe your past experience of
signal appearances. And that this fear may be seen in your hearts, and
that you may be kept from the sins and pollutions which God hath so
eminently witnessed against in those whose possessions you are to take
up, is the desire of him who is
'Your very affectionate friend, to love and serve you,
'CHARLES FLEETWOOD.'
He congratulated them that, 'having by the blessing of God obtained
their peace, they might sit down in the enjoyment of the enemies'
fields and houses, which they planted not nor built not. They had no
reason to repent their services, considering how great an issue God
had given.' Yet many refused to settle, and sold their debentures to
their officers. What could they do with the farms? They had no horses
or ploughs, no cattle to stock the land, no labourers to till it.
Above all, they had no women. Flogging was the punishment for amours
with Irish girls, and marriage with the idolatrous race was forbidden
under heavy penalties. Hence the soldiers pretended that their wives
were converted to Protestantism. But this was to be tested by a strict
examination of each as to the state of her soul, and the means by
which she had been enlightened. If she did not stand the test, her
husband was degraded in rank, and, if disbanded, he was liable to
be sent to Connaught with the fair seducer. The charms of the Irish
women, however, proved irresistible, and the hearts of the pious
rulers were sorely troubled by this danger.
'In 1652, amongst the first plans for paying the army their arrears
in land, it was suggested there should be a law that any officers or
soldiers marrying Irishwomen should lose their commands, forfeit their
arrears, and be made incapable of inheriting lands in Ireland. No such
provision, however, was introduced into the act, because it provided
against this danger more effectually by ordering the women to
transplant, together with the whole nation, to Connaught. Those in
authority, however, ought never to have let the English officers and
soldiers come in contact with the Irishwomen, or should have ordered
another army of young Englishwomen over, if they did not intend this
provision to be nugatory. Planted in a wasted country, amongst the
former owners and their families, with little to do but to make love,
and no lips to make love to but Irish, love or marriage must follow
between them as necessarily as a geometrical conclusion follows
from the premises. For there were but few who (in the language of a
Cromwellian patriot),
----'rather than turne
From English principles, would sooner burne;
And rather than marrie an Irish wife,
Would batchellers remain for tearme of life.'
About forty years after the Cromwellian Settlement, and just seven
years after the Battle of the Boyne, the following was written: 'We
cannot so much wonder at this [the quick "degenerating" of the English
of Ireland], when we consider how many there are of the children of
Oliver's soldiers in Ireland who cannot speak one word of English.
And (which is strange) the same may be said of some of the children
of King William's soldiers who came but t'other day into the country.
This misfortune is owing to the marrying Irishwomen for want of
English, who come not over in so great numbers as are requisite. 'Tis
sure that no Englishman in Ireland knows what his children may be as
things are now; they cannot well live in the country without growing
Irish; for none take such care as Sir Jerome Alexander [second justice
of the Common Pleas in Ireland from 1661 to his death in 1670], who
left his estate to his daughter, but made the gift void if she married
any Irishman;' Sir Jerome including in this term 'any lord of Ireland,
any archbishop, bishop, prelate, any baronet, knight, esquire, or
gentleman of Irish extraction or descent, born and bred in Ireland, or
having his relations and means of subsistence there,' and expressly,
of course, any 'Papist.'--'True Way to render Ireland happy and
secure; or, a Discourse, wherein 'tis shown that 'tis the interest
both of England and Ireland to encourage foreign Protestants to plant
in Ireland; in a letter to the Hon. Robert Molesworth.'[1]
[Footnote 1: Cromwellian Settlement, p.130.]
The impossibility of getting a sufficient number of settlers from
England to cultivate the land, produce food, and render the estates
worth holding, led to some fraudulent transactions for the benefit
of the natives who were 'loath to leave.' The officers in various
counties got general orders giving dispensations from the necessity
of planting with English tenants, and liberty to take Irish, provided
they were not proprietors or swordsmen. But the proprietors who had
established friendships with their conquerors secretly became tenants
under them to parts of their former estates, ensuring thereby the
connivance of their new landlords against their transplantation. On
June 1, 1655, the commissioners for the affairs of Ireland (Fleetwood,
lord deputy, one of them), being then at Limerick, discovered this
fraud, and issued a peremptory order revoking all former dispensations
for English proprietors to plant with Irish tenants; and they enjoined
upon the governor of Limerick and all other officers the removing of
the proprietors thus sheltered and their families into Connaught, on
or before that day three weeks. But, happily, says Mr. Prendergast,
all penal laws against a nation are difficult of execution. The
officers still connived with many of the poor Irish gentry and
sheltered them, which caused Fleetwood, then commander of the
parliament forces in Ireland, upon his return to Dublin, and within a
fortnight after the prescribed limit for their removal was expired,
to thunder forth from Dublin Castle a severe reprimand to all
officers thus offending. Their neglect to search for and apprehend
the transplantable proprietors was denounced as a great dishonour and
breach of discipline of the army; and their entertaining any of them
as tenants was declared a hindrance to the planting of Ireland with
English Protestants. 'I do therefore,' the order continued, 'hereby
order and declare, that if any officer or soldier under my command
shall offend by neglect of his duty in searching for and apprehending
all such persons as by the declaration of November 30, 1654, are
to transplant themselves into Connaught; or by entertaining them as
tenants on his lands, or as servants under him, he shall be punished
by the articles of war as negligent of his duty, according to the
demerit of such his neglect.'
The English parliament resolved to clear out the population of all
the principal cities and seaport towns, though nearly all founded and
inhabited by Danes or English, and men of English descent. In order to
raise funds for the war, the following towns were offered to English
merchants for sale at the prices annexed:--Limerick, with 12,000 acres
contiguous, for 30,000 l., and a rent of 625 l. payable to the state;
Waterford, with 1,500 acres contiguous, at the same rate; Galway, with
10,000 acres, for 7,500 l., and a rent of 520 l.; Wexford, with 6,000
acres, for 5,000 l., and a rent of 156 l. 4 s.
There were no bidders; but still the Government adhered to its
determination to clear out the Irish, and supply their place with a
new English population. Artisans were excepted, but strictly limited
in number, each case being particularly described and registered,
while dispensations were granted to certain useful persons, on the
petition of the settlers who needed their services.
On July 8 in the same year, the governor of Clonmel was authorised to
grant dispensations to forty-three persons in a list annexed, or as
many of them as he should think fit, being artificers and workmen, to
stay for such time as he might judge convenient, the whole time not
to exceed March 25, 1655. On June 5, 1654, the governor of Dublin was
authorised to grant licences to such inhabitants to continue in the
city (notwithstanding the declaration for all Irish to quit) as he
should judge convenient, the licences to contain the name, age,
colour of hair, countenance, and stature of every such person; and the
licence not to exceed twenty days, and the cause of their stay to
be inserted in each licence. Petitions went up from the old native
inhabitants of Limerick; from the fishermen of Limerick; from the
mayor and inhabitants of Cashel, who were all ordered to transplant;
but, notwithstanding these orders, many of them still clung about
the towns, sheltered by the English, who found the benefit of their
services.
The deserted cities of course fell speedily into ruins. Lord
Inchiquin, president of Munster, put many artisans, menial servants,
grooms, &c. in the houses, to take care of them in Cork; still about
3,000 good houses in that city, and as many in Youghal, out of which
the owners had been driven, were destroyed by the soldiers, who used
the timber for fuel. The council addressed the following letter to
Secretary Thurloe:--
'Dublin Castle, March 4, 1656.
'Right Honourable,--The council, having lately taken into their
most serious consideration what may be most for the security of this
country, and the encouragement of the English to come over and plant
here, did think fitt that all Popish recusants, as wel proprietors
as others, whose habitations are in any port-towns, walled-towns, or
garrisons, and who did not before the 15th of September 1643 (being
the time mentioned in the act of 1653 for the encouragement of
adventurers and soldiers), and ever since profess the Protestant
religion, should remove themselves and their families out of all such
places, and two miles at the least distant therefrom, before the
20th of May next; and being desirous that the English people may take
notice, that by this means there will be both security and conveniency
of habitation for such as shall be willing to come over as planters,
they have commanded me to send you the enclosed declaration, and to
desire you that you will take some course, whereby it may be made
known unto the people for their encouragement to come over and plant
in this country.
'Your humble servant,
'THOMAS HERBERT, Clerk of the Council.'
On July 23, 1655, the inhabitants of Galway were commanded to quit the
town for ever by the 1st of November following, the owners of houses
getting compensation at eight years' purchase.
'On October 30, this order was executed. All the inhabitants, except
the sick and bedrid, were at once banished, to provide accommodation
for English Protestants, whose integrity to the state should entitle
them to be trusted in a place of such importance; and Sir Charles
Coote, on November 7, received the thanks of the Government for
clearing the town, with a request that he would remove the sick and
bedrid as soon as the season might permit, and take care that the
houses while empty were not spoiled by the soldiery. The town was thus
made ready for the English. There was a large debt of 10,000 l., due
to Liverpool for their loss and suffering for the good cause. The
eminent deservings and losses of the city of Gloucester also had
induced the parliament to order them 10,000 l., to be satisfied in
forfeited lands in Ireland. The commissioners of Ireland now offered
forfeited houses in Galway, rated at ten years' purchase, to the
inhabitants of Liverpool and Gloucester, to satisfy their respective
debts, and they were both to arrange about the planting of it with
English Protestants. To induce them to accept the proposal, the
commissioners enlarged upon the advantages of Galway. It lay open for
trade with Spain, the Straits, the West Indies, and other places;
no town or port in the three nations, London excepted, was more
considerable. It had many noble uniform buildings of marble, though
many of the houses had become ruinous by reason of the war, and the
waste done by the impoverished English dwelling there. No Irish were
permitted to live in the city, nor within three miles of it. If it
were only properly inhabited by English, it might have a more hopeful
gain by trade than when it was in the hands of the Irish that
lived there. There never was a better opportunity of undertaking a
plantation and settling manufacturers there than the present, and they
suggested that it might become another Derry.'[1]
[Footnote 1: The Cromwellian Settlement.]
Some writers, sickened with the state of things in Ireland, and
impatient of the inaction of our rulers, and of the tedious forms of
constitutional government, have exclaimed: 'Oh for one day of Oliver
Cromwell!' Well, Ireland had him and his worthy officers for many
years. They had opportunities, which never can be hoped for again, of
rooting out the Irish and their religion. '_Thorough_' was their word.
They dared everything, and shrunk from no consequences. They found
Dublin full of Catholics; and on June 19, 1651, Mr. John Hewson had
the felicity of making the following report on the state of religion
in the Irish metropolis:--
'Mr. Winter, a godly man, came with the commissioners, and they flock
to hear him with great desire; besides, there is in Dublin, since
January last, about 750 Papists forsaken their priests and the masse,
and attends the public ordinances, I having appointed Mr. Chambers,
a minister, to instruct them at his own house once a week. They all
repaire to him with much affection, and desireth satisfaction. And
though Dublin hath formerly swarmed with Papists, I know none (now)
there but one, who is a chirurgeon, and a peaceable man. It is much
hoped the glad tidings of salvation will be acceptable in Ireland, and
that this savage people may see the salvation of God.'
Political economists tell us that when population is greatly thinned
by war, or pestilence, or famine, Nature hastens to fill up the void
by the extraordinary fecundity of those who remain. The Irish must
have multiplied very fast in Connaught during the Commonwealth; and
the mixture of Saxon and Celtic blood resulting from the union of the
Cromwellian soldiers with the daughters of the land must have produced
a numerous as well as a very vigorous breed in Wexford, Kilkenny,
Tipperary, Waterford, Cork, East and West Meath, King's and Queen's
Counties, and Tyrone. But these were not 'wholly a right seed.' This
was to be found only in the union of English with English, newly
arrived from the land of the free. The more precious this seed was,
the more care there should be in bringing it into the field. This
matter constituted one of the great difficulties of the plantation.
There were plenty of Irish midwives: they might have been affectionate
and careful, possibly skilful; but if they had any good quality, the
council could not see it. On the contrary, it gave them credit
for many bad qualities, the worst of all being their idolatry and
disloyalty. It was really dreadful to think of English mothers and
their infants being at the mercy of Irish nurses. Consequently, after
much deliberation, and 'laying the matter before the Lord' in prayer,
it was resolved to bring over a state nurse from England, and to her
special care were to be entrusted all the _accouchements_ in the city
of Dublin. Endowed with such a monopoly, it was natural enough that
she should be an object of envy and dislike to those midwives whom she
had supplanted. She was therefore annoyed and insulted while passing
through the streets. To put a stop to these outrages, a proclamation
was issued from Dublin Castle for her special protection, which began
thus:--
_By the Commissioners of Parliament for the Affairs of Ireland_.
'Whereas we are informed by divers persons of repute and godliness,
that Mrs. Jane Preswick hath, through the blessing of God, been very
successful within Dublin and parts about, through the carefull and
skillfull discharge of her midwife's duty, and instrumental to helpe
sundry poore women who needed her helpe, which bathe abounded to the
comfourte and preservation of many English women, who (being come
into a strange country) had otherwise been destitute of due helpe,
and necessitated to expose their lives to the mercy of Irish midwives,
ignorant in the profession, and bearing little good will to any of
the English nation, which being duly considered, we thought fitt to
evidence this our acceptance thereof, and willingness that a person
so eminently qualified for publique good and so well reported of
for piety and knowledge in her art should receive encouragement and
protection,' &c.
Cromwell and his ministers did not hesitate about applying heroic
remedies for what they conceived to be grievances. The Irish
parliament was abolished, like the Irish churches, the Irish cities,
and everything else that could be called Irish, except the thing for
which they fought--_the land_, which was to be Irish no more. The new
England which the Protector established in the Island of Saints
was represented, like Scotland, in the united parliament at
Westminster--which first assembled in 1657. In that parliament, Major
Morgan represented the county of Wicklow. In speaking against some
proposed taxation for Ireland, he said, among other things, the
country was under very heavy charges for rewards paid for the
destruction of three beasts--the wolf, the priest, and the tory. 'We
have three beasts to destroy,' he said, 'that lay burdens upon us. The
first is a wolf, on whom we lay 5 l. a head if a dog, and 10 l. if a
bitch. The second beast is a priest, on whose head we lay 10 l.; if he
be eminent, more. The third beast is a tory, on whose head, if he be
a public tory, we lay 20 l.; and 40 s. on a private tory. Your army
cannot catch them: the Irish bring them in; brothers and cousins cut
one another's throats.'
In May, 1653, the council issued the following printed declaration.
'Upon serious consideration had of the great multitudes of poore
swarming in all parts of this nacion, occasioned by the devastation
of the country, and by the habits of licentiousness and idleness
which the generality of the people have acquired in the time of this
rebellion; insomuch that frequently some are found feeding on carrion
and weeds,--some starved in the highways, and many times poor children
who have lost their parents, or have been deserted by them, are found
exposed to and some of them fed upon _by ravening wolves and other
beasts and birds of prey._'
No wonder the wolves multiplied and became very bold, when they fed
upon such dainty fare as Irish children! By what infatuation, by what
diabolical fanaticism were those rulers persuaded that they were
doing God a service, or discharging the functions of a Government,
in carrying out such a policy, and consigning human beings to such a
fate!
By a printed declaration of June 29, 1653, published July 1, 1656,[1]
the commanders of the various districts were to appoint days and times
for hunting the wolf; and persons destroying wolves and bringing their
heads to the commissioners of the revenue of the precinct were to
receive for the head of a bitch wolf, 6 _l_; of a dog wolf, 5 _l_; for
the head of every cub that preyed by himself, 40 s.; and for the head
of every sucking cub, 10 _s_: The assessments on several counties
to reimburse the treasury for these advances became, as appears from
Major Morgan's speech, a serious charge. In corroboration it appears
that in March, 1655, there was due from the precinct of Galway 243
l. 5 s. 4 d. for rewards paid on this account. But the most curious
evidence of their numbers is that lands lying only nine miles north of
Dublin were leased by the state in the year 1653, under conditions of
keeping a hunting establishment with a pack of wolf hounds for killing
the wolves, part of the rent to be discounted in wolves' heads, at
the rate in the declaration of June 29, 1653. Under this lease Captain
Edward Piers was to have all the state lands in the barony of Dunboyne
in the county of Meath, valued at 543 l. 8 s. 8 d., at a rent greater
by 100 l. a year than they then yielded in rent and contribution, for
five years from May 1 following, on the terms of maintaining at Dublin
and Dunboyne three wolf-dogs, two English mastiffs, a pack of hounds
of sixteen couple (three whereof to hunt the wolf only), a knowing
huntsman, and two men and one boy. Captain Piers was to bring to the
commissioners of revenue at Dublin a stipulated number of wolf-heads
in the first year and a diminishing number every year; but for every
wolf-head whereby he fell short of the stipulated number, 5 l. was to
be defalked from his salary.[2]
[Footnote 1: A/84, p.255. Republished 7th July, 1656.--'Book of
Printed Declarations of the Commissioners for the Affairs of Ireland.'
British Museum.]
[Footnote 2: Cromwellian Settlement, p.154.]
Twenty pounds was paid for the discovery of a priest, the second
'burdensome beast,' and to harbour him was death. Again I avail myself
of the researches of Mr. Prendergast, to give a few orders on this
subject.
'_August_ 4, 1654.--Ordered, on the petition of Roger Begs, priest,
now prisoner in Dublin, setting forth his miserable condition by being
nine months in prison, and desiring liberty to go among his friends
into the country for some relief; that he be released upon giving
sufficient security that within four months he do transport himself to
foreign parts, beyond the seas, never to return, and that during that
time he do not exercise any part of his priestly functions, nor move
from where he shall choose to reside my above five miles, without
permission. Ordered, same date, on the petition of William Shiel,
priest, that the said William Shiel being old, lame, and weak, and
not able to travel without crutches, he be permitted to reside in
Connaught where the Governor of Athlone shall see fitting, provided,
however, he do not remove one mile beyond the appointed place without
licence, nor use his priestly function.'
At first the place of transportation was Spain. Thus:--'_February_
1, 1653. Ordered that the Governor of Dublin take effectual course
whereby the priests now in the several prisons of Dublin be forthwith
shipped with the party going for Spain; and that they be delivered
to the officers on shipboard for that purpose: care to be taken that,
under the colour of exportation, they be not permitted to go into the
country.'
'_May_ 29, 1654.--Upon reading the petition of the Popish priests
now in the jails of Dublin; ordered, that the Governor of Dublin take
security of such persons as shall undertake the transportation of
them, that they shall with the first opportunity be shipped for some
parts in amity with the Commonwealth, provided the five pounds for
each of the said priests due to the persons that took them, pursuant
to the tenor of a declaration dated January 6, 1653, be first paid or
secured.'
The commissioners give reasons for this policy, which are identical
with what we hear constantly repeated at the present day in Ireland
and England and in most of the newspapers conducted by Protestants.
For two centuries the burden of all comments on Irish affairs is 'the
country would be happy but for priests and agitators.' 'Hang or banish
the priests!' cry some very amiable and respectable persons, 'and then
we shall have peace.' 'We can make nothing of those priests,' says the
improving landlord, or agent, 'they will not look us straight in the
face.'
On December 8, 1655, in a letter from the commissioners to the
Governor of Barbadoes, advising him of the approach of a ship with a
cargo of proprietors deprived of their lands, and then seized for not
transplanting, or banished for having no visible means of support,
they add that amongst them were three priests; and the commissioners
particularly desire they may be so employed as they may not return
again where that sort of people are able to do much mischief, having
so great an influence over the Popish Irish, and alienating their
affections from the present Government. 'Yet these penalties did not
daunt them, or prevent their recourse to Ireland. In consequence of
the great increase of priests towards the close of the year 1655, a
general arrest by the justices of the peace was ordered, under which,
in April, 1656, the prisons in every part of Ireland seem to have
been filled to overflowing. On May 3, the governors of the respective
precincts were ordered to send them with sufficient guards from
garrison to garrison to Carrickfergus, to be there put on board such
ship as should sail with the first opportunity for the Barbadoes. One
may imagine the pains of this toilsome journey by the petition of one
of them. Paul Cashin, an aged priest, apprehended at Maryborough,
and sent to Philipstown on the way to Carrickfergus, there fell
desperately sick, and, being also extremely aged, was in danger of
perishing in restraint for want of friends and means of relief. On
August 27, 1656, the commissioners, having ascertained the truth of
his petition, ordered him sixpence a day during his sickness; and
(in answer probably to this poor prisoner's prayer to be spared from
transportation) their order directed that it should be continued to
him in his travel thence (after his recovery) to Carrickfergus, in
order to his transportation to the Barbadoes.'
At Carrickfergus the horrors of approaching exile seem to have shaken
the firmness of some of them; for on September 23, 1656, Colonel
Cooper, who had the charge of the prison, reporting that several would
under their hands renounce the Pope's supremacy, and frequent the
Protestant meetings and no other, he was directed to dispense with the
transportation, if they could give good Protestant security for the
sincerity of their professions.
As for the third beast--the tory, the following extract gives an idea
of the class to which he belonged, or, rather, from which he sprang.
'And whereas the children, grandchildren, brothers, nephews, uncles,
and next pretended heirs of the persons attainted, do remain in
the provinces of Leinster, Ulster, and Munster, having little or no
visible estates or subsistence, but living only and coshering upon
the common sort of people who were tenants to or followers of the
respective ancestors of such persons, waiting an opportunity, as
may justly be supposed, to massacre and destroy the English who, as
adventurers or souldiers, or their tenants, are set down to plant upon
the several lands and estates of the persons so attainted,' they
are to transplant or be transported to the English plantations in
America.'[1]
[Footnote 1: Act for Attainder of the Rebels in Ireland, passed 1656.
Scobell's 'Acts and Ordinances.']
No wonder that Mr. Prendergast exclaims:--
'But how must the feelings of national hatred have been heightened,
by seeing every where crowds of such unfortunates, their brothers,
cousins, kinsmen, and by beholding the whole country given up a prey
to hungry insolent soldiers and adventurers from England, mocking
their wrongs, and triumphing in their own irresistible power!'
Every possible mode of repression that has been devised at the
present time as a remedy for Ribbonism was then tried with unflinching
determination. John Symonds, an English settler, was murdered near
the garrison town of Timolin, in the county Kildare. All the Irish
inhabitants of the town and neighbourhood were immediately transported
to Connaught as a punishment for the crime. A few months after two
more settlers were murdered at Lackagh.
'All the Irish in the townland of Lackagh were seized; four of them
by sentence of court-martial were hanged for the murder, or for not
preventing it; and all the rest, thirty-seven in number, including two
priests, were on November 27 delivered to the captain of the "Wexford"
frigate, to take to Waterford, there to be handed over to Mr. Norton,
a Bristol merchant, to be sold as bond slaves to the sugar-planters in
the Barbadoes. Among these were Mrs. Margery Fitzgerald, of the age
of fourscore years, and her husband, Mr. Henry Fitzgerald of Lackagh;
although (as it afterwards appeared) the tories had by their frequent
robberies much infested that gentleman and his tenants--discovery that
seems to have been made only after the king's restoration.'
The penalties against the tories themselves were to allow them no
quarter when caught, and to set a price upon their heads. The ordinary
price for the head of a tory was 40 s.; for leaders of tories, or
distinguished men, it varied from 5 l. to 30 l.
'But,' continues Mr. Prendergast, 'a more effective way of suppressing
tories seems to have been to induce them, as already mentioned,
to betray or murder one another--a measure continued after the
Restoration, during the absence of parliaments, by acts and orders
of state, and re-enacted by the first parliament summoned after
the Revolution, when in that and the following reigns almost every
provision of the rule of the parliament of England in Ireland was
re-enacted by the parliaments of Ireland, composed of the soldiers and
adventurers of Cromwell's day, or new English and Scotch capitalists.
In 1695 any tory killing two other tories proclaimed and on their
keeping was entitled to pardon--a measure which put such distrust and
alarm among their bands on finding one of their number so killed,
that it became difficult to kill a second. Therefore, in 1718, it was
declared sufficient qualification for pardon for a tory to kill one
of his fellow-tories. This law was continued in 1755 for twenty-one
years, and only expired in 1776. Tory-hunting and tory-murdering thus
became common pursuits. No wonder, therefore, after so lengthened an
existence, to find traces of the tories in our household words. Few,
however, are now aware that the well-known Irish nursery rhymes have
so truly historical a foundation:--
'Ho! brother Teig, what is your story?'
'I went to the wood and shot a tory:'
'I went to the wood, and shot another;'
'Was it the same, or was it his brother?'
'I hunted him in, and I hunted him out,
Three times through the bog, and about and about;
Till out of a bush I spied his head,
So I levelled my gun and shot him dead.'
After the war of 1688, the tories received fresh accessions, and, a
great part of the kingdom being left waste and desolate, they betook
themselves to these wilds, and greatly discouraged the replanting of
the kingdom by their frequent murders of the new Scotch and English
planters; the Irish 'choosing rather' (so runs the language of
the act) 'to suffer strangers to be robbed and despoiled, than to
apprehend or convict the offenders.' In order, therefore, for the
better encouragement of strangers to plant and inhabit the kingdom,
any persons presented as tories, by the gentlemen of a county, and
proclaimed as such by the lord lieutenant, might be shot as outlaws
and traitors; and any persons harbouring them were to be guilty of
high treason.[1] Rewards were offered for the taking or killing of
them; and the inhabitants of the barony, of the ancient native race,
were to make satisfaction for all robberies and spoils. If persons
were maimed or dismembered by tories, they were to be compensated by
10 l.; and the families of persons murdered were to receive 30 l.'
[Footnote 1: The Cromwellian Settlement, p.163, &c.]
The Restoration at length brought relief and enlargement to the
imprisoned Irish nation. They rushed across the Shannon to see their
old homes; they returned to the desolated cities, full of hope
that the king for whom they had suffered so much would reward
their loyalty, by giving them back their inheritances--the 'just
satisfaction' promised at Breda to those who had been unfairly
deprived of their estates. The Ulster Presbyterians also counted on
his gratitude for their devotion to his cause, notwithstanding the
wrongs inflicted on them by Strafford and the bishops in the name of
his father. But they were equally doomed to disappointment. Coote
and Broghill reigned in Dublin Castle as lords justices. The first
parliament assembled in Dublin for twenty years, contained an
overwhelming majority of undertakers, adventurers, and Puritan
representatives of boroughs, from which all the Catholic electors
had been excluded. 'The Protestant interest,' a phrase of tremendous
potency in the subsequent history of Ireland, counted 198 members
against 64 Catholics in the Commons, and in the Lords 72 against 21
peers. A court was established under an act of parliament in Dublin,
to try the claims of 'nocent' and 'innocent' proprietors. The judges,
who were Englishmen, declared in their first session that 168 were
innocent to 19 nocent. The Protestant interest was alarmed; and,
through the influence of Ormond, then lord lieutenant, the duration of
the court was limited, and when it was compelled to close its labours,
only 800 out of 3,000 cases had been decided. If the proportions
of nocent and innocent were the same, an immense number of innocent
persons were deprived of their property. In 1675, fifteen years after
the Restoration, the English settlers were in possession of 4,500,000
acres, while the old owners retained 2,250,000 acres. By an act passed
in 1665, it was declared that no Papist, who had not already been
adjudged innocent, should ever be entitled to claim any lands or
settlements.'
Any movement on the part of the Roman Catholics during this reign,
and indeed, ever since, always raised an alarm of the 'Protestant
interest' in danger. While the panic lasted the Catholics were
subjected to cruel restrictions and privations. Thus Ormond, by
proclamation, prohibited Catholics from entering the castle of Dublin,
or any other fortress; from holding fairs or markets within the walls
of fortified towns, and from carrying arms to such places. By another
proclamation, he ordered all the _relatives_ of known 'tories' to be
arrested and banished the kingdom, within fourteen days, unless such
tories were killed or surrendered within that time. There was one tory
for whose arrest all ordinary means failed. This was the celebrated
Redmond O'Hanlon, still one of the most popular heroes with the Irish
peasantry. He was known on the continent as Count O'Hanlon, and was
the brother of the owner of Tandragee, now the pretty Irish seat of
the Duke of Manchester. As no one would betray this outlaw, who levied
heavy contributions from the settlers in Ulster, it was alleged
and believed that the viceroy hired a relative to shoot him. 'Count
O'Hanlon,' says Mr. D. Magee, 'a gentleman of ancient lineage, as
accomplished as Orrery, or Ossory, was indeed an outlaw to the code
then in force; but the stain of his cowardly assassination must for
ever blot the princely escutcheon of James, Duke of Ormond.'[1]
[Footnote 1: See 'The Tory War of Ulster,' by John P. Prendergast,
author of 'The Cromwellian Settlement.' This pamphlet abounds in the
most curious information, collected from judicial records, descriptive
of Ireland from the Restoration to the Revolution--A.D. 1660-1690.]