Ireland under the Stuarts and During the Interregnum, Vol. 2 (of 3), 1642-1660

by Richard Bagwell

The Loughrea commissioners.

The Athlone commissioners.

The process of transplantation went on slowly, and was never carried to its extreme lengths, for very few would have escaped if the Act of Settlement had been carried out to the letter. But vast numbers did remove during the year 1654, and it would probably be difficult to exaggerate the hardships they underwent. In some cases at least whole districts were depopulated, for it was officially reported that ‘no inhabitant of the Irish nation that knows the country’ was left in the barony of Eliogarty in Tipperary, which contains the town of Thurles, and orders were given for the return of four families, who might live near their old homes and assist the surveyors. Those who crossed the Shannon were provided with land in a temporary way, and two commissions were appointed to consider claims with a view to more permanent arrangements. In October 1653 the transplanted were ordered to go to Galway and inform the commissioners of revenue there as to their families and the nature of their claims. Afterwards these commissioners sat at Loughrea, and it became their duty to distribute land in accordance with the findings of another commission at Athlone. The latter were appointed on December 28, 1654, as the ‘Court of Claims and Qualifications of the Irish,’ and were generally known as the Athlone commissioners. Their business was to find under which qualification or degree of guilt each Irish claimant fell, and to give him lands proportionate to those which he had enjoyed east of the Shannon. The Loughrea commissioners used the maps and registers made for Strafford’s intended plantation in Connaught and in the northern half of Tipperary. For the rest of Ireland it was necessary to make a new survey. Meanwhile transplantation proceeded very slowly, and in March 1656 there were 1000 men under restraint who had borne arms during the rebellion, but refused to cross the Shannon.[271]

A fresh survey. Benjamin Worsley.

William Petty.

Petty’s proposals accepted.

Benjamin Worsley, who had been a surgeon or apothecary in Strafford’s army, came over again in 1652, and was appointed Surveyor-General. He had been an unsuccessful projector and according to Petty had tried his hand at universal medicine, gold-making, saltpetre sowing, and other ‘mountain-bellied conceptions which ended only in abortive mice,’ he and his friend Sankey being stigmatised as a ‘multiloquial pair of monti-parturists.’ He began to make a survey, at which he expected to be employed for many years, but Petty soon began to criticise his proceedings and to suggest that he could do the work a great deal better in as many months. Despatch was of the essence of the business, for both adventurers and soldiers were clamouring for possession of the promised lands. Petty had come over at the same time as Worsley, and the Irish Government very soon found that he was a man of extraordinary ability and very likely to carry anything he undertook to a successful issue. Ireton made him Physician-General to the army, and he claimed to have so reformed the drug department as to get rid of all abuses and at the same time save the State 500l. a year. Worsley’s plan was to survey the forfeited lands without any regard to the established divisions into baronies, parishes, and town lands, or to the physical features of the country. He was to be paid only for the profitable lands, and thus there was a constant tendency to include worthless tracts. Moreover the subdivision would still have to be done either at a great charge to the State or at the expense of the grantees. In the latter case no authentic record would remain, and there would be no unity of action. Nobody was satisfied at the prospect, and Petty declared that Worsley’s great object ‘was so to frame committees of conceited, sciolous persons, intermixing some of credit and bulk amongst them, as whereby he might screen himself in case of miscarriage.’ He made proposals of his own, and the rival schemes were submitted to the judgment of a committee consisting of Sir Hardress Waller, Colonels Lawrence and Hewson, and nine others, including Petty and Worsley.[272]

The Down survey.

Surveying dangerous work.

Petty’s plan was approved, though Worsley worked hard against him, and had at first the help of Sir Charles Coote and some other officers. Afterwards Coote and Reynolds were added to the committee, and the final result was a complete victory for Petty. Worsley remained Surveyor-General, and it was with him that his rival contracted to do the work. Petty engaged to make in thirteen months a general map of twenty-two counties, ascertaining and defining the bounds of baronies so that there should be no future doubt. He undertook within the same counties accurately to set out all forfeited lands as well as all Crown lands and the property of bishops, deans, and chapters, ‘or any other officer belonging to that hierarchy,’ showing their quality and physical character, and all civil subdivisions. He was to receive 7l. 2s. 4d. for every thousand acres of forfeited profitable land that shall be admeasured and actually sent out to ‘the soldiery by him,’ and 3l. for every thousand acres of unprofitable land. One of the conditions made by Petty was that those whom he employed in the survey should be protected from Tories, and this was no superfluous precaution. Eight surveyors were actually captured near Timolin in Kildare, carried off to the Wicklow mountains, and there murdered. In spite of such drawbacks the survey was completed, or very nearly so, within the specified time, and the distribution of land to the disbanded soldiers went on in the meantime. Henry Cromwell visited Kilkenny, Waterford, and Wexford in September and October 1655, and reported that good progress had been made in the work.[273]