The difficulty which the Court foresaw in raising the £100 demanded in July, 1609, was endeavoured to be surmounted by the following ingenious proposition: there had been some previous forced loans to the King amounting to £123, for which the Company held the City’s bond, and as this was considered a doubtful asset, it was suggested that £100 thereof should be adventured on behalf of the Company; it is needless to say that this innocent suggestion was scouted, and a peremptory precept for the £100 delivered, whereupon the Court assessed the various members of the Company and with the greatest difficulty £30 was thus raised and a further sum of £90 later on. The Minutes referring to these transactions are especially worthy the perusal of those persons who claim the estates of the City Companies as being the “property of the people,” or as having been “left for the poor,” &c. We see by them that (in our Company certainly, and as doubtless an examination of records would show, in all other Companies) the purchase of these lands in Ireland was not only compulsory, but that it was made from moneys contributed by individual members for the most part, and the balance from the “Stock of the house,” this “Stock” being the floating funds in the Renter Warden’s hands, derived from admissions, fines, &c. We thus see that no “trust” money was used for the purchase, and that the estates are saddled with no trust whatever, but are held free, and by an infinitely better title as far as morality goes, to say nothing of legality, than many Estates in the hands of some of the aristocratic patrons of the busybodies bent on spoliation.
In January, 1611, the Company were commanded by precept to elect whether they would for their contribution accept a tract of land in Ulster, saddled with a condition to build upon it, or refer the letting of it to the Irish Society, whereupon they chose the latter, and in July following came a precept, for its morality worthy of the Land League, for it called upon the Wardens to pay down £60 more, or else to absolutely lose the £120 already contributed!
The doleful answer of the Court, dated 19th July, 1611, is deeply interesting, and we cannot but be touched by the wrongs under which they suffered, and which constrained them to write:—“we must be forced (yf there be lawfull authoritie to take awaye & compell or Company) to loose the moneys we have alreadye disburssed.”
James, however, did not care much about the money the Company proposed to abandon; what he required was a further supply, and the proceedings thereupon are indicated by the Minute of 16th November, 1611. Shortly after, the Company wisely applied to “Mr Recorder” to construe the answer, but even his skill and interest did not avail, for on 2nd July, 1612, it was agreed that the Master and Wardens should go before the Court of Aldermen, and “stand hardlie” against paying any more money, especially as they had not any security for what had been already advanced, and if committed, they were to go to prison, rather than pay the £30 demanded, with a proviso that directly they were imprisoned, the £30 was to be paid, and it was eventually paid.
In 1613, the Company made over their interest in the Irish Estate to one of the Wardens, Mr. Allen, but this arrangement was subsequently annulled.
Many more were the precepts, and the troubles in which the Company were involved, about this business, but it is satisfactory to record that in 1623 £11 9s. 6d. was received on account of rents, and in 1625 a further sum of £10 0s. 8d.
The Company were, and are still, associated in their Irish Estates with the Ironmongers’, Brewers’, Scriveners’, Coopers’, Pewterers’, and Carpenters’ Companies; but by far the largest proportion appertains to the Ironmongers, who have always managed the property.
In 1635, the Attorney General exhibited a Bill in the Star Chamber against all of the Companies to the intent that they should surrender up all their rights and evidences touching the Irish plantation, and on our Company taking Counsel’s opinion, they were advised to submit to this monstrous piece of injustice. Judgment was given in 1637, and the Irish property of all the Companies was seized into the King’s hands. One would have thought that this flagitious iniquity might have ended here, but by the decree of the Star Chamber, the Citizens, in addition to the loss of their Estates, were fined £8,000 to the King, and on the 8th November, 1638, our unhappy predecessors were assessed at, and had to pay £64 on this account, the Ironmongers paying £272, and other Companies according to their settled proportions.
Notwithstanding these high-handed proceedings, the Barber-Surgeons, ever ready to aid those in distress, voluntarily gave in 1642, what to them in those dire days of taxation was a munificent gift, namely £20, towards the relief of the poor Protestants in the north of Ireland, and they further raised, under compulsion, by the sale of their plate and the mortgage of their property, £400, which was “lent for the Relief of Ireland upon the faith and order of Parliament,” and not one penny of which was ever refunded!