The Land-War In Ireland (1870) Part 12

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 ent.i.tle 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 n.o.ble 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 const.i.tutional 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 G.o.dly 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 ma.s.se, 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 G.o.d.'

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 const.i.tuted 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 pa.s.sing 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 G.o.dliness, that Mrs. Jane Preswick hath, through the blessing of G.o.d, 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 dest.i.tute 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 a.s.sembled 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 b.i.t.c.h. 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 mult.i.tudes 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 G.o.d 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 b.i.t.c.h 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 a.s.sessments 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 pet.i.tion 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 pet.i.tion 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 pet.i.tion 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 pet.i.tion 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 pet.i.tion, 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 cla.s.s 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 ma.s.sacre 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, pa.s.sed 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 ent.i.tled 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 grat.i.tude 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 a.s.sembled 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 pa.s.sed in 1665, it was declared that no Papist, who had not already been adjudged innocent, should ever be ent.i.tled 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 a.s.sa.s.sination 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.]

CHAPTER XIII.

THE PENAL CODE, A NEW SYSTEM OF LAND-WAR.

The accession of James II. was well calculated to have an intoxicating effect on the Irish race. He was a Catholic, he undertook to effect a counter-reformation. He would restore the national hierarchy to the position from which it had been dragged down and trampled under the feet of the Cromwellians. He would give back to the Irish gentry and n.o.bility their estates; and to effect this glorious revolution, he relied upon the faith and valour of the Irish. The Protestant militia were disarmed, a Catholic army was formed; the corporations were thrown open to Catholics. Dublin and other corporations, which refused to surrender their exclusive charters, were summarily deprived of their privileges; Catholic mayors and sheriffs, escorted by troops, went in state to their places of worship. The Protestant chancellor was dismissed to make way for a Catholic, Baron Rice. The plate of Trinity College was seized as public property. The Protestants, thoroughly alarmed by these arbitrary proceedings, fled to England in thousands. Many went to Holland and joined the army of the Prince of Orange. Dreadful stories were circulated of an intended invasion of England by wild Irish regiments under Tyrconnel. There was a rumour of another ma.s.sacre of the English, and of the proposed repeal of the act of settlement. Protestants who could not cross the channel fled to Enniskillen and to Derry, which closed its gates and prepared for its memorable siege. James, who had fled to France, plucked up courage to go to Ireland, and make a stand there in defence of his crown.

His progress from Kinsale to Dublin was an ovation. Fifteen royal chaplains scattered blessings around him; Gaelic songs and dances amused him; he was flattered in Latin orations, and conducted to his capital under triumphal arches. In Dublin the trades turned out with new banners; two harpers played at the gate by which he entered; the clergy in their robes chanted as they went: and forty young girls, dressed in white, danced the ancient _rinka_, scattering flowers on the newly sanded streets. Tyrconnell, now a duke, the judges, the mayor and the corporation, completed the procession, which moved beneath arches of evergreens, and windows hung with 'tapestry and cloth of arras.' The recorder delivered to his majesty the keys of the city, and the Catholic primate, Dominick Maguire, waited in his robes to conduct him to the royal chapel, where the _Te Deum_ was sung. On that day the green flag floated from the main tower of the castle, bearing the motto, 'Now or never--now and for ever.'

The followers of James, according to Grattan, 'though papists, were not slaves. They wrung a const.i.tution from King James before they accompanied him to the field.' A const.i.tution wrung from such a man was not worth much. His parliament pa.s.sed an act for establishing liberty of conscience, and ordering every man to pay t.i.thes to his own clergy only, with some other measures of relief. But he began to play the despot very soon. The Commons voted him the large subsidy of 20,000 l. He doubled the amount by his own mere motion. He established a bank, and by his own authority decreed a bank monopoly. He debased the coinage, and fixed the prices of merchandise by his own will.

He appointed a provost and librarian in Trinity College without the consent of the senate, and attempted to force fellows and scholars on the university contrary to the statutes. The events which followed are well known to all readers of English history. Our concern is with their effects on the land question.