Scheme of two Protestant Pales.
Claim of the Adventurers.
Meeting of officers at Kilkenny.
Effect of the evidence about 1641.
At the beginning of 1652 the Commissioners in Ireland could see that the war was near its end, but there were still about 30,000 men in arms against them. Their first object was to get these fighting men out of Ireland, in which they succeeded, and after that to begin the scheme of colonisation which had been contemplated from the first. They adhered to the original idea of the Act of March 1642, by which forfeited lands were to be assigned to the Adventurers in each of the four provinces, the counties earmarked for the purpose being Kilkenny, Wexford, Carlow, Westmeath, and Longford in Leinster, Limerick and Kerry in Munster, Cavan, Monaghan, Fermanagh, and Donegal in Ulster, Clare, Galway, Leitrim, and Sligo in Connaught, as the divisions then ran, others being held in reserve in case the above-named should be insufficient. By this means the settlers would be near one another, and afford mutual protection. It was also proposed to make a permanent Pale between the Boyne and the Barrow with a strong garrison in Wicklow, and another between the Suir and the southern Blackwater. The territory within those rivers could be easily and cheaply protected, and would soon be well inhabited, and the soldiers who held it were to be fixed in Roman fashion with reduced pay and farms instead of arrears, ‘provided that such of them as marry with Irish women shall lose their commands, forfeit their arrears, and be made incapable to inhabit lands in Ireland.’ After the receipt of the Commissioners’ despatch, the Committee of Adventurers were called upon to make proposals for a speedy plantation. They accordingly claimed 281,812l. for original advances, and 12,283l. under the ordinance of 1643, involving grants of 1,038,234 acres. They objected to the suggested arrangements, and demanded contiguous lands in Leinster and Munster, including the city of Waterford. The war was not yet over, and Tories were numerous, so that there would be no safety otherwise, and English labourers were scarce on account of the disafforestations at home. They therefore refused to be bound to time or to pay taxes until the country was really settled, lest they should be ruined while their highly paid servants grew rich, as had happened in New England. Weaver was sent over in April to represent the Irish Government, but the Adventurers stood their ground. Three years from September 29, 1652, had been proposed as the limit of time to be occupied in planting, but it would be impossible within it to provide dwellings for 40,000 men and their families. Less than that number would not do, nor could the work begin until the counties assigned were ‘cleared of Tories or of other Irish which by the propositions may not be admitted to be in the plantation, though Protestants.’ They only waited till the country was made safe, and till they knew more accurately what lands they had to escheat, ‘and that all men’s estates not forfeited should be cleared and known.’ Otherwise they might be involved in hopeless litigation with Lord Cork and many others, who were not at all implicated in the rebellion. On April 17, one month before this answer was given, the general and field officers in Ireland, including Ludlow, Corbet, and Jones, met at Kilkenny, where they heard Dr. Jones’s abstract of the depositions taken concerning murders committed during the rebellion. They were already inclined to think that some of the capitulations had been too lenient, and the reading of this terrible paper confirmed them. To many the facts were new, others, who had been in Ireland since 1641, had never known them in so concrete a form, and they feared that men at a distance might be moved through ignorance to lenity, ‘which we have found no small temptation in ourselves ... and considering that so many murders have been committed that few of the former English were left undestroyed (especially men who had any particular knowledge of the massacre, and of those the greater part are since deceased) so that few of the rebels can be particularly discriminated by any evidence now to be produced, as the usual course of justice doth require, yet those barbarous, cruel murders having been so generally joined in and since justified by the whole nation, &c.’ And they suggested to Parliament that ‘in duty towards God, the great avenger of such villainies,’ they should not delay to decide upon the ‘qualifications and exceptions’ desirable. The abstract of evidence which had so greatly impressed the officers accompanied their despatch, which was read in Parliament on May 18, and we may well believe that its effect was considerable in moulding legislation. In the interval between May and August the idea of transplantation took shape, and Connaught was left out of the area within which Adventurers and soldiers might seek their reward.[257]
Classification of Irish delinquents.
Exceptions by name.
First sketch of transplantation.
Existing agreements to be observed.
The Act of Settlement upon which all subsequent proceedings were founded declared that it was ‘not the intention of the Parliament to extirpate that whole nation.’ Pardon might be extended to the inferior sort of people on condition of submission and peaceable behaviour. Those of higher rank, ‘according to the respective demerits and considerations under which they fell,’ were divided into ten classes or qualifications, of which the first five were excepted from pardon for life and estate. The first comprised all who before November 10, 1642, when the Kilkenny assembly first met, had anything to say to the rebellion, murders, or massacre. The second clause included all ecclesiastical persons in Roman orders who had been so concerned, the penalty in their cases extending to ‘violences’ less than murder or open insurrection. The third consisted of one hundred and four persons excepted by name, including Ormonde, Castlehaven, Clanricarde, Inchiquin, Muskerry, and seventeen other temporal peers. Bishop Bramhall came next, and among the rest were Sir Phelim O’Neill, General Preston, and Roger O’More. The fourth qualification covered those who at any time after October 1, 1641, had a hand in killing any one except soldiers, and all Irishmen who, not being soldiers themselves, had killed Englishmen who were. The fifth clause condemned all who did not lay down their arms within twenty-eight days of the Act being published by authority in Ireland. The sixth clause provided for the banishment of all superior military officers and for the forfeiture of two-thirds of their estates, the value of the remaining third to be enjoyed by their wives and children ‘in such places in Ireland as the Parliament, in order to the more effectual settlement of the peace of this nation, shall think fit to appoint for that purpose.’ The seventh clause empowered the Commissioners to pardon others who had fought and submitted, and they also were deprived of two-thirds of their property, but might continue in Ireland upon the equivalent of one-third wherever the Parliament might assign it. The eighth applied to Papists who had lived in Ireland since October 23, 1641, ‘and had not manifested their constant good affection to the interest of the Commonwealth of England’; they were to forfeit one-third, and other persons who might have helped the Parliament and failed to do so were deprived of only one-fifth. The ninth clause granted pardon for life and estate to those who had no land and not more than ten pounds personalty, provided they laid down their arms within the prescribed time. The tenth clause swept into the net all estates tail and trusts created after March 25, 1639, but English Protestants who purchased for value before the beginning of the rebellion were protected. There was a final proviso granting to all the benefit of any articles granted provided they had observed them on their part, but the Commissioners had, nevertheless, power to ‘transplant’ them to any such place in Ireland as should be ‘judged most consistent with public safety,’ where they were to have land equivalent to what they would have enjoyed had they not been so removed.[258]