Chapter XII

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

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),

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 30,000l., and a rent of 625l. payable to the state; Waterford, with 1,500 acres contiguous, at the same rate; Galway, with 10,000 acres, for 7,500l., and a rent of 520l.; Wexford, with 6,000 acres, for 5,000l., and a rent of 156l. 4s.

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:—

'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.

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.

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 5l. a head if a dog, and 10l. if a bitch. The second beast is a priest, on whose head we lay 10l.; if he be eminent, more. The third beast is a tory, on whose head, if he be a public tory, we lay 20l.; and 40s. 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!

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.

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 40s.; for leaders of tories, or distinguished men, it varied from 5l. to 30l.

'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:—

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.'