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beard flowing down on the long white robe of a Camaldolese lay brother; while on the shelves behind are ranged quaint medicinejars, phials of Venetian glass, and old pottery, and, above all, two superb vases of Raphael ware, which, to my untutored eyes, appeared to be treasures. I left at mid-day the good Fathers, whose kindness is written in prose and verse by many great, many small, and many stupid men and women, in their visitors' book. I remember but one extract: "Kenelm Digby was permitted to remain an unworthy guest in this habitation of saints.-Istorum est enim regnum cœlorum qui contempserunt vitam mundi et pervenerunt ad præmium regni et laverunt stolas suas in sanguine Agni."

And as I went along to Bibbiena the church-bells were chiming merrily for the Feast of the Rosary, and the villages were either silent and at prayer, or the peasants were crowding out into the road from the evening Benediction.

DD

VOL. III.

The Settlement of Ireland under Cromwell.

MOST people have some vague notion that Ireland was not very gently handled by Cromwell and his subordinates; but the actual facts of the case have either been avoided or suppressed by historians. Time, however, brings all things to light; and among the important revelations of the present day must certainly be counted those which have been lately embodied in a work on the subject named in the title of this article by Mr. Prendergast. It is based on authentic documents, and is therefore truly historical. Its chief value must, however, be considered to consist in the witness which it bears to the barbarous intentions of the "settlers," in whose favour the wholesale decree of confiscation was issued, and of the usurping government that sanctioned such a measure. The real history of what actually took place in consequence can never be written. If we may judge from analogy, it is probable that many cruelties were practised on the Irish beyond what were legalised by any authority; and that on the other hand the attempt to drive the native population beyond the Shannon into the desolate wilds of Connaught was in reality a failure. It was, in fact, one of those schemes which can never be executed; but it gave occasion to countless barbarities on the one side, and an immense amount of misery and, what in a Christian view is a still greater affliction and degradation, of implacable vindictiveness on the other.

The idea of the transplantation of the Irish nation seems not to have been new. While England was engaged in war with France, and afterwards in the War of the Roses, her dominion in Ireland was reduced to a very small portion of the island, and even there it was almost nominal. But Henry VIII., after the execution of the famous Silken Thomas, Earl of Kildare, and his five uncles at Tyburn, projected anew the clearing of Ireland to the Shannon, and the colonising it with English. The carrying out of this project was attempted by Henry's children, and with still more success by James I., whose son availed himself of the genius of Lord Strafford to develop the same policy.

The rebellion, however, of 1641 gave a more favourable opportunity than had ever offered before of clearing the land of the Irish.

To this we must now turn our attention, if we would understand subsequent events. Though the forty years preceding the rebellion are represented as the period of the greatest prosperity in Ireland since it became part of the English dominions, this was true only of the English Protestant settler; the Irishman was even more oppressed than formerly, because his religion made him doubly hated. Fines, imprisonment, and confiscation had already begun their work. denly, on the night of the 23d of October 1641, the Irish of Ulster, under Sir Phelim O'Neil, rose in insurrection, and in one night overthrew the English power in three-fourths of the kingdom. It has been represented that there was a general massacre; but this Mr. Prendergast satisfactorily disproves. The English Parliament considered this uprising as an act of hostility to themselves, rather than rebellion against the king. When the latter, therefore, attempted to raise forces for the subjugation of Ireland, Parliament, unwilling to trust him, resolved to take matters into its own hands. Accordingly they offered 2,500,000 acres of Irish lands to be forfeited, as security to those who should advance money for the raising and paying an army to subdue the Irish rebels. The subscribers, or adventurers as they were called, were to nominate the general and the officers; the king only signing the commissions. The adventurers had their private army of 5,000 foot and 500 horse at Bristol, under the command of Lord Wharton, ready to embark for the invasion of Munster, in the summer of 1642; but the civil war having broken out, the Parliament directed Lord Wharton and his troops to march against the king. The conflict in England thus prevented any forces from coming thence for seven years. In 1649 Cromwell landed at King's End, near Dublin, to carry on the war; he remained nine months, plundering and devastating the country. It was not, however, till September 1653, that the Parliament declared the rebellion finally subdued.

The question now arose as to what was to be done with the soldiers about to be disbanded. The revenue from all sources did not amount to 200,000l., while the cost of the army exceeded 500,000l. Large arrears of pay were due to both officers and men, who were eager to take Irish lands in lieu of them. The adventurers, consisting chiefly of merchants and traders in London, had advanced further sums for the subjugation of Ireland; and new acts of parliament had guaranteed their compensation in Irish lands on still more advantageous terms than were first offered; their claims, therefore, must first be disposed of. The temptation was too great. The Parliament of the Commonwealth beheld before it a country exhausted by a cruel civil war of more than ten years' duration; the last act of which was

drawn to a close by Cromwell with fire and sword. Besides, she had lost the flower of her army by emigration. The Parliament, by the Kilkenny Articles, had apprised all foreign nations in amity with England that the Irish were allowed to engage in their service. Every facility was given to induce those whose military experience might prove formidable to seek foreign service. In a pamphlet entitled The Great Case of Transplantation discussed, we find that "the chiefest and eminentest of the nobility and gentry have taken condition from the King of Spain and transported 40,000 of the most active-spirited men most acquainted with the dangers and discipline of war." But the reputation of the Irish soldier was well known on the Continent. A manuscript of 1615 says: "There lives not a people more active, hardy, and painful." And "the Prince of Orange's Excellency uses often publiquely to deliver that the Irish are souldiers the first day of their birth. The famous Henry IV., late king of France, said there would prove no nation so resolute martial men as they, would they be ruly and not too headstrong And Sir John Norris was wont to ascribe this particular to that nation above others, that he never beheld so few of any country as of Irish that were idiots and cowards, which is very notable." Agents from the King of Poland and the Prince de Condé, as well as from the King of Spain, were now contending for the services of Irish troops. And we have little doubt that when John Sobieski rolled back for ever the tide of Turkish invasion from the walls of Vienna, he was aided by the impetuous valour of the Irish exiles.

had

Things being now ready, the great work of settlement began.. On the 11th of October 1652, what Mr. Prendergast significantly calls the first trumpet was sounded; that is the Irish nation was warned by an act, read in all the market-places, that they were to lose their lands, and take up their residence wherever the Parliament should order. By the 26th of September 1653, the scheme, too monstrous even for Cromwell's government to entertain at once, developed. On that day, the second trumpet was sounded, and the doom of the Irish nation was sealed. All the ancient estates and farms of the Irish people were declared to belong to the adventurers and army of England; and it was announced that Parliament had assigned Connaught for the habitation of the Irish people, whither they must transplant with their wives and children, before the 1st of May 1654, under penalty of death, if found at this side of the Shannon after that day. Connaught was at this time the most wasted province in the kingdom. Sir Charles Coote had ravaged it with fire and sword, like another Attila. But "to hell or to Connaught"

1

was the only choice given the unfortunate Irishman-hell being impiously considered by the Puritans as synonymous with death for a Papist. The Parliament made one exception. Those Irish who could show that they had borne "constant good affection" to the English Parliament during the ten years' contest were to be exempt from transplantation. To render this more difficult to prove, however, the claim was barred if it was shown the claimant had dwelt on an estate in the Irish quarters, or that rents were remitted to him though dwelling in the English quarters. The exception too of husbandmen, ploughmen, and others of the lower rank, for the use of the English settlers, did not save them; for all swordsmen were to transplant; and in this term were included all who had attended muster, and any who had kept watch and ward, and so comprised almost every one. For their share in the war, the proprietors of lands were to suffer a loss of the greater part of their estates, and to receive an equivalent for the residue in Connaught. Irish women married to English Protestants, provided they became Protestants, (otherwise their husbands became transplantable), and boys under fourteen, girls under twelve, in Protestant service, were also exempted. The government reserved for itself all towns, church-lands, and tithes; also the four counties of Kildare, Dublin, Carlow, and Cork.

Our space will not allow us to follow in detail the narrative of what now took place. Nothing shows more clearly the utter despair that had seized the nation than the tone of the petitions that went forth from all parts of the kingdom claiming exemption. They are the prayer of a people without hope, who have no longer the power of resistance.

The harvest was not yet gathered in, and the commissioners began to see that a famine would probably be the result of forcing a wholesale transplantation at that season of the year. It was therefore arranged that the women with some servants should remain to gather in the crops, while the unfortunate heads of families went to prepare a dwelling for them-often only a miserable cabin for those whose home had been a castle. Notwithstanding their prostrate condition, many resisted the cruel edict, and declared they would rather die than leave their ancestral homes. The commissioners complained that the work was proceeding slowly. A letter dated Dublin, July 1654, tells us that "the transplanting moves on but slowly; not above six score families have removed to Connaught; they begin to break out into Torying, and the waters begin to rise on us.' Again, "the work of transplanting is at a stand-still. The Tories fly out and increase. It is the nature of this people to be rebellious. The

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