Foreigners were not allowed to buy from or sell to foreigners, and there was to be no market for the accommodation of the unprivileged inhabitants within seven miles of the city.
Similar exclusive privileges were conferred upon the corporation of Coleraine. Such was the system established by the City of London in its model communities in Ireland—normal schools of freedom, fountains of civilising and Christianising influences which were to reclaim and convert the barbarous and superstitious natives into loyal subjects and enlightened Protestants! What the natives beheld in Londonderry was, in fact, a royal organisation of selfishness, bigotry, and monopoly, of the most intensely exclusive and repulsive character. In one sense the Londoners in Derry showed that they peculiarly prized the blessings of civilisation, for they kept them all to themselves. The fountain was flowing in the most tempting manner before the thirsty Irish, but let them dare to drink of it at their peril! A fine which no Irishman was then able to pay must be the penalty for every attempt at civilisation!
The representatives of Derry and Coleraine were not only elected without cost, but paid for their attendance in Parliament.
From the very beginning, the greatest possible care was taken to keep out the Irish. The society, in 1615, sent precepts to all the companies requiring each of them to send one or two artisans, with their families, into Ulster, to settle there; and directions were also given, in order that Derry might not in future be peopled with Irish, that twelve Christ's Hospital and other poor children should be sent there as apprentices and servants, and the inhabitants were to be prohibited from taking Irish apprentices. Directions were also given to the companies, to repair the churches on their several proportions, and furnish the ministers with a bible, common-prayer book, and a communion cup. The trades which the society recommended as proper to introduce into Ulster were, weavers of common cloth, fustians, and new stuffs, felt-makers and trimmers of hats, and hat-band makers, locksmiths and farriers, tanners and fellmongers, iron makers, glass-makers, pewterers, coast fishermen, turners, basket-makers, tallow-chandlers, dyers, and curriers.
The Christ's Hospital children arrived safe, and became the precious seed of the 'prentice boys.
In 1629 the following return was made of the total disbursements by the Londoners in Derry from January 2, 1609, to this year:—
| £ | |
| For 77-1/2 houses at 140l. a house | 10,850 |
| For 33 houses at 80l. a house | 2,680 |
| For the Lord Bishop's house | 500 |
| For the walls and fortifications | 8,357 |
| For digging the ditch and filling earth for the rampire | 1,500 |
| For levelling earth to lay the rampire | 500 |
| For building a faggot quay at the water-gate | 100 |
| For two quays at the lime kilns | 10 |
| For the building of the town house | 500 |
| For the quays at the ferry | 60 |
| For carriage and mounting the ordnance | 40 |
| For arms | 558 |
| For a guardhouse | 50 |
| For the platforms for bulwarks | 300 |
| For some work done at the old church | 40 |
| For some work done at the town pike | 6 |
| For sinking 22 cellars, and sundry of the houses not done | |
| at first, at 20s. cellar, one with another | 440 |
| For the building of lime kilns | 120 |
| 26,611 | |
| ______ | |
| Sum total, as given in the Commissioners' account | 27,197 |
The exclusive and protective system utterly failed to accomplish its purpose in keeping out the Irish.
Sir Thomas Phillips made a muster-roll in 1622, in which he gives 110 as the number of settlers in the city of Derry capable of bearing arms. There are but two Irish names in the list—Ermine M'Swine, and James Doherty. The first, from his Christian name, seemed to have been of mixed blood, the son of a judge, which would account for his orthodoxy. But his presence might have reminded the citizens unpleasantly of the Irish battle-axes. Never were greater pains taken to keep a community pure than within the sacred precincts of the Derry walls; and never was Protestantism more tenderly fostered by the state—so far as secular advantages could do it. The natives were treated as 'foreigners.' No trade was permitted except by the chartered British. They were free of tolls all over the land, and for their sake restrictions were placed on everybody that could in any way interfere with their worldly interests. So complete was the system of exclusion kept up by the English Government and the London corporation, in this grand experiment for planting religion and civility among a barbarous people, that, so late as the year 1708, the Derry corporation considered itself nothing more or less than a branch of the City of London! In that year they sent an address to the Irish Society, to be presented through them to the queen. 'In this address they stated themselves to be a branch of the City of London. The secretary was ordered to wait upon the lord lieutenant of Ireland with the address and entreat the favour of his lordship's advice concerning the presenting of the same to her majesty.' A few days after it was announced that the address had been graciously received, and published in the Gazette.