The Irish Catholics had in 1648 concluded a treaty with Ormond, the king’s lieutenant; in which they had stipulated pardon for their past rebellion, and had engaged, under certain conditions, to assist the royal cause: and though the violence of the priests and the bigotry of the people had prevented, in a great measure, the execution of this treaty, yet were there many, who, having strictly, at the hazard of their lives, adhered to it, seemed on that account well entitled to reap the fruits of their loyalty. Cromwell, having without distinction expelled all the native Irish from the three provinces of Munster, Leinster, and Ulster, had confined them to Connaught and the county of Clare; and among those who had thus been forfeited, were many whose innocence was altogether unquestionable. Several Protestants likewise, and Ormond among the rest, had all along opposed the Irish rebellion; yet having afterwards embraced the king’s cause against the parliament, they were all of them attainted by Cromwell. And there were many officers who had from the commencement of the insurrection served in Ireland, and who, because they would not desert the king, had been refused all their arrears by the English commonwealth.
To all these unhappy sufferers some justice seemed to be due: but the difficulty was, to find the means of redressing such great and extensive iniquities. Almost all the valuable parts of Ireland had been measured out and divided, either to the adventurers, who had lent money to the parliament for the suppression of the Irish rebellion, or to the soldiers, who had received land in lieu of their arrears. These could not be dispossessed, because they were the most powerful and only armed part of Ireland; because it was requisite to favor them, in order to support the Protestant and English interest in that kingdom; and because they had generally, with a seeming zeal and alacrity, concurred in the king’s restoration. The king, therefore, issued a proclamation, in which he promised to maintain their settlement, and at the same time engaged to give redress to the innocent sufferers. There was a quantity of land as yet undivided in Ireland; and from this and some other funds, it was thought possible for the king to fulfil both these engagements.
A court of claims was erected, consisting altogether of English commissioners, who had no connection with any of the parties into which Ireland was divided. Before these were laid four thousand claims of persons craving restitution on account of their innocence; and the commissioners had found leisure to examine only six hundred. It already appeared, that if all these were to be restored, the funds, whence the adventurers and soldiers must get reprisals, would fall short of giving them any tolerable satisfaction. A great alarm and anxiety seized all ranks of men: the hopes and fears of every party were excited: these eagerly grasped at recovering their paternal inheritance; those were resolute to maintain their new acquisitions.
The duke of Ormond was created lord lieutenant; being the only person whose prudence and equity could compose such jarring interests. A parliament was assembled at Dublin; and as the lower house was almost entirely chosen by the soldiers and adventurers, who still kept possession, it was extremely favorable to that interest. The house of peers showed greater impartiality.
An insurrection was projected, together with a surprisal of the Castle of Dublin, by some of the disbanded soldiers; but this design was happily defeated by the vigilance of Ormond. Some of the criminals were punished. Blood, the most desperate of them, escaped into England.
But affairs could not long remain in the confusion and uncertainty into which they had fallen. All parties seemed willing to abate somewhat of their pretensions, in order to attain some stability; and Ormond interposed his authority for that purpose. The soldiers and adventurers agreed to relinquish a third of their possessions; and as they had purchased their lands at very low prices, they had reason to think themselves favored by this composition. All those who had been attainted on account of their adhering to the king, were restored; and some of the innocent Irish. It was a hard situation that a man was obliged to prove himself innocent, in order to recover possession of the estate which he and his ancestors had ever enjoyed: but the hardship was augmented by the difficult conditions annexed to this proof. If the person had ever lived in the quarters of the rebels, he was not admitted to plead his innocence; and he was, for that reason alone, supposed to have been a rebel. The heinous guilt of the Irish nation made men the more readily overlook any iniquity which might fall on individuals; and it was considered that, though it be always the interest of all good governments to prevent injustice, it is not always possible to remedy it, after it has had a long course, and has been attended with great successes.
Ireland began to attain a state of some composure, when it was disturbed by a violent act passed by the English parliament, which prohibited the importation of Irish cattle into England.[*]
* In 1666.
Ormond remonstrated strongly against this law. He said, that the present trade carried on between England and Ireland was extremely to the advantage of the former kingdom, which received only provisions or rude materials in return for every species of manufacture: that if the cattle of Ireland were prohibited, the inhabitants of that island had no other commodity by which they could pay England for their importations, and must have recourse to other nations for a supply: that the industrious inhabitants of England, if deprived of Irish provisions, which made living cheap, would be obliged to augment the price of labor, and thereby render their manufactures too dear to be exported to foreign markets: that the indolent inhabitants of Ireland, finding provisions fall almost to nothing, would never be induced to labor, but would perpetuate to all generations their native sloth and barbarism: that by cutting off almost entirely the trade between the kingdoms, all the natural bands of union were dissolved, and nothing remained to keep the Irish in their duty but force and violence: and that by reducing that kingdom to extreme poverty, it would be even rendered incapable of maintaining that military power, by which, during its well-grounded discontents, it must necessarily be retained in subjection.
The king was so much convinced of the justness of these reasons, that he used all his interest to oppose the bill; and he openly declared, that he could not give his assent to it with a safe conscience. But the commons were resolute in their purpose. Some of the rents of England had fallen of late years, which had been ascribed entirely to the importation of Irish cattle: several intrigues had contributed to inflame that prejudice, particularly those of Buckingham and Ashley, who were desirous of giving Ormond disturbance in his government: and the spirit of tyranny, of which nations are as susceptible as individuals, had extremely animated the English to exert their superiority over their dependent state. No affair could be conducted with greater violence than this was by the commons. They even went so far, in the preamble of the bill, as to declare the importation of Irish cattle to be a nuisance. By this expression they gave scope to their passion, and at the same time barred the king’s prerogative, by which he might think himself entitled to dispense with a law so full of injustice and bad policy. The lords expunged the word; but as the king was sensible that no supply would be given by the commons, unless they were gratified in their prejudices, he was obliged both to employ his interest with the peers for making the bill pass, and to give the royal assent to it. He could not, however, forbear expressing his displeasure at the jealousy entertained against him, and at the intention which the commons discovered of retrenching his prerogative.