£s.d.
Louis Crommelin, as overseer of linen manufacture470190
W. Crommelin, salary and rent of Kilkenny factory45167
Louis Crommelin, to repay him for sums advanced to
flax dressers and reed makers, and for services of
French ministers2,22500
Louis Crommelin, for individual expenses and for sums
paid Thomas Turner, of Lurgan, for buying flax-seed
and printing reports99340
Louis Crommelin, three years' pension60000
French minister's two years' pension12000
____________
Total£4,86097

It should be mentioned, that when the owner of Lisburn, then Earl of Hertfort, held the office of lord lieutenant in 1765, with his son, Viscount Beauchamp, as chief secretary, he rendered very valuable services to the linen trade, and was a liberal patron of the damask manufacture, which arrived at a degree of perfection hitherto unequalled, in the hands of Mr. William Coulson, founder of the great establishment of that name which still flourishes in Lisburn, and from whom not only the court of St. James's but foreign courts also received their table linen. Du Bourdieu mentions that Lisburn and Lurgan were the great markets for cambrics—the name given to cloth of this description, which was then above five shillings a yard; under that price it was called lawn. In that neighbourhood cambric had been made which sold for 1l. 2s. 9d. a yard unbleached. The principal manufacturing establishments in addition to Messrs. Coulsons' are those of the Messrs. Richardson and Co. and the Messrs. Barbour.

Lord Dufferin has written the ablest defence of the Irish landlords that has ever appeared. In that masterly work he says: 'But though a dealer in land and a payer of wages, I am above all things an Irishman, and as an Irishman I rejoice in any circumstance which tends to strengthen the independence of the tenant farmer, or to add to the comfort of the labourer's existence.' If titles and possessions implied the inheritance of religion and blood, Lord Dufferin ought indeed to be 'Irish of the Irish' as the men of Ulster in the olden times proudly called themselves. On the railroad from Belfast to Bangor there is a station constructed with singular beauty, like the castellated entrance to a baronial hall, and on the elaborately chiselled stone we read 'Clandeboye.' Under the railway from Graypoint on Belfast Lough runs a carriage-drive two miles long, to the famous seat of the O'Neills, where his lordship's mansion is situated, enclosed among aged trees, remembrancers of the past. Perhaps, there is no combination of names in the kingdom more suggestive of the barbaric power of the middle ages and the most refined culture of modern civilisation. The avenue, kept like a garden walk, with a flourishing plantation on each side, was cut through some of the best farms on the estate, and must have been a work of great expense. Taking this in connection with other costly improvements, among which are several picturesque buildings for the residence of workmen—model lodging-houses resembling fancy villas at the seaside—we can understand how his lordship, within the last fifteen years, has paid away in wages of labour the immense sum of 60,000l., at the rate of 4,000l. a year.

The Abbot of Bangor never gave employment like that. William O'Donnon, the last of the line, was found in the thirty-second year of Henry VIII. to be possessed of thirty-one townlands in Ards and Upper Clandeboye, the grange of Earbeg in the county Antrim, the two Copeland Islands, the tithes of the island of Raghery, three rectories in Antrim, three in Down, and a townland in the Isle of Man. The abbey, some of the walls of which still remain, adjoining the parish church, was built early in the twelfth century. We are informed by Archdall, that it had so gone to ruin in 1469 through the neglect of the abbot, that he was evicted by order of Pope Paul II., who commanded that the friars of the third order of St. Francis should immediately take possession of it, which was accordingly done, says Wadding, by Father Nicholas of that order. The whole of the possessions were granted by James I. to James Viscount Clandeboye.

Bangor was one of the most celebrated schools in Ireland when this island was said to have been 'the quiet abode of learning and sanctity.' As to the quiet, I could never make out at what period it existed, nor how the 'thousands' of students at Bangor could have been supported. The Danes came occasionally up the lough and murdered the monks en masse, plundering the shrines. But the greatest scourges of the monasteries in Down and elsewhere were, not the foreign pagans and pirates, but the professedly Christian chiefs of their own country. It appears, therefore, that neither the Irish clergy nor the people have much reason to regret the flight of the Celtic princes and nobles, who were utterly unable to fulfil the duties of a government; and who did little or nothing but consume what the industry of the peasants, under unparalleled difficulties, produced. The people of Clandeboye and Dufferin might have been proud that their chief received 40l. a year as a tribute or blackmail from Lecale, that he might abstain from visiting the settlers there with his galloglasse; but Lord Dufferin, the successor of the O'Neill of Clandeboye, spends among the peasantry of the present day 4,000l. a year in wages. And how different is the lot of the people! Not dwelling in wattled huts under the oaks of the primeval forest, but in neat slated houses, with whitewashed walls, looking so bright and pretty in the sunshine, like snowdrops in the distant landscape. On the hill between Bangor and Newtownards, Lord Dufferin has erected a beautiful tower, from which, reclining on his couch, he can see the country to an immense extent, from the mountains of Antrim to the mountains of Mourne, Strangford Lough, Belfast Lough, the Antrim coast, and Portpatrick at the other side of the Channel, all spread out before him like a coloured map.

CHAPTER XI.

THE REBELLION OF 1641.

The Rebellion of 1641—generally called a 'massacre'—was undoubtedly a struggle on the part of the exiled nobles and clergy and the evicted peasants to get possession of their estates and farms, which had been occupied by the British settlers for nearly a generation. They might probably have continued to occupy them in peace, but for the fanaticism of the lords justices, Sir John Parsons and Sir John Borlace. It was reported and believed that, at a public entertainment in Dublin, Parsons declared that in twelve months no more Catholics should be seen in that country. The English Puritans and Scottish Covenanters were determined never to lay down their arms till they had made an end of Popery. Pym, the celebrated Puritan leader, avowed that the policy of his party was not to leave a priest alive in the land. Meantime, the Irish chiefs were busy intriguing at Rome, Madrid, Paris, and other continental capitals, clamouring for an invasion of Ireland, to restore monarchy and Catholicity—to expel the English planters from the forfeited lands. Philip III. of Spain encouraged these aspirations. He had an Irish legion under the command of Henry O'Neill, son of the fugitive Earl of Tyrone. It was reported that, in 1630 there were in the service of the Archduchess, in the Spanish Netherlands alone, 100 Irish officers able to command companies, and 20 fit to be colonels. There were many others at Lisbon, Florence, Milan, and Naples. They had in readiness 5,000 or 6,000 stand of arms laid up at Antwerp, bought out of the deduction of their monthly pay. The banished ecclesiastics formed at every court a most efficient diplomatic corps, the chief of these intriguers being the celebrated Luke Wadding. Religious wars were popular in those times, and the invasion of Ireland would be like a crusade against heresy. But with the Irish chiefs the ruling passion was to get possession of their homes and their lands. The most active spirit among these was Roger, or Rory O'Moore, a man of high character, great ability, handsome person, and fascinating manners. With him were associated Conor Maguire, Costelloe M'Mahon, and Thorlough O'Neill, Sir Phelim O'Neill, Sir Con Magennis, Colonel Hugh M'Mahon, and the Rev. Dr. Heber M'Mahon. O'Moore visited the country, went through the several provinces, and, by communicating with the chiefs personally, organised the conspiracy to expel the British and recover the kingdom for Charles II. and the Pope.