[79] The last volume of Russell’s and Prendergast’s Calendar passim, especially T. Raven to Phillips, June 24, 1621; Survey of the Londoners’ Plantation, August 10 to October 10, 1622; Phillips’s petition to the King, July 6, 1624, and his proposed remedies, September 24.
[80] Three papers among the Carew MSS. for 1611 calendared as Nos. 130, 131, and 132.
[81] Nicoll’s Progresses of King James, ii. 733, where Chamberlain’s letter to Carleton is dated January 5, 1513-14.
[CHAPTER VI]
CHICHESTER’S GOVERNMENT TO 1613
Optimism of Sir John Davies.
Establishment of circuits
In the course of a very thorough investigation Carew found that while much had been done by the settlers, much still remained to do. There were indeed many surveys and inquiries yet to come, before the outbreaks which he foresaw. He knew Ireland thoroughly, and was not to be deceived by false appearances of quiet and contentment. Davies, whose acquaintance with the island was of much later date, remained optimistic. ‘When this plantation,’ he wrote in 1613, ‘hath taken root, and been fixed and settled but a few years ... it will secure the peace of Ireland, assure it to the Crown of England for ever; and finally make it a civil, and a rich, a mighty, and a flourishing kingdom.’ He had been one of the first commissioners of assize who ever sat in Tyrone and Tyrconnel, and the justice which he administered, ‘though it was somewhat distasteful to the Irish lords, was sweet and most welcome to the common people.’ Davies has left a pretty full account of some of his various circuits. He visited every part of Ireland, and as his power of observation and description were unusually great it may be as well to follow him in his journeys. General peace having been made possible, first by arms and afterwards by an Act of Oblivion, it was from the establishment of justice that the greatest good was to be expected, and it was necessary to make it visible by regular assizes held in every county. ‘These progresses of the law,’ Davies wrote, ‘renew and confirm the conquest of Ireland every half year, and supply the defect of the King’s absence in every part of the Realm; in that every judge sitting in the seat of justice, doth represent the person of the King himself.’[82]
Leinster Assizes, 1604.