By this one transaction the British crown came into possession of some ten millions of acres, which was a little more than one half of all the available land in Ireland.
Between five and six hundred thousand men, women, and children were slaughtered, or died from starvation. Many thousand were sent to the West Indies, or to the American colonies, and sold as slaves. A limited number escaped to the mountains, where many died from starvation, and the remainder lived for years a life in common with the wild beasts, with a price upon their heads, and were hunted as such. The whole and entire population of this great tract of country disappeared, and was literally wiped out.
Shortly after, Cromwell overran the south and southwestern portion of Ireland which was also chiefly settled by Catholics, and they received as little mercy from his army as had been meted out to those of their creed in Connaught. When Cromwell had completed his work at least two thirds of the landed property in Ireland had been confiscated; and after the greater portion of the Catholic Irish men, women, and children had been put to the sword, or driven into exile, the whole country became resettled with his soldiers, or by persons devoted to the English interest. Over one hundred thousand young children, who had been made orphans, or who were taken from their Catholic parents, were sent to the West Indies, to Virginia, or to New England, that they might thus lose their faith, as well as all knowledge of their nationality.
During this period thousands of Irishmen were driven into exile, to enter the armies of European nations, or to emigrate and settle on the frontiers of the American colonies, as a bulwark against the Indians, for the protection of the more favored settlers on the coast.
In addition, a host of both men and women who were taken prisoners, were sold in Virginia and New England as slaves, and without respect to their former station in life.
In later years, certain writers have attempted to pervert the truth by claiming that these men and women, who were refined and educated, and who had been the owners of the confiscated lands, were convicts. But I have not been able to obtain any reliable evidence to prove that Virginia or any of the American colonies were ever made penal settlements.
The Catholics of Ireland were the only people of Europe who had at this time so great a necessity for leaving their country. It is a well established fact that during the greater part of the eighteenth century thousands of able-bodied male Catholics, in the south and western portion of Ireland, left the country at an early period of life for some European port, and very few ever returned. This is corroborated by the circumstance that the Catholic population of Ireland steadily decreased during this period, and at one time it was less than half a million of individuals scattered through the bogs and wilds of the country.
The wealthy English people invested their money freely in the early settlement of the West Indies and in Virginia, but they remained at home. The middle and lower classes, who were more likely to have emigrated to a new country, were, to a great extent, contented at home. They had no cause to leave it, as the political changes which occurred in England during the seventeenth century had a decided tendency to better their condition.
I believe that with the exception of some among the first settlers in Virginia and New England, the far greater portion of the English who did emigrate during the seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth century, went to Bermuda, Barbadoes, Jamaica, and the other West India Islands, and did not come to this country. The American colonies were mostly settled under a grant to some proprietor or corporation, with more restrictions on business pursuits than were made by the English government for the West India Islands. Consequently the field for individual enterprise was greater on the Islands.
Those of English birth who settled on the main land did so largely in Virginia and Carolina, and as a rule their business was confined to the seaport towns. I believe that a larger proportion of the English than of any other people, when successful in business, returned in after life to their native country, or went with their families to Barbadoes or Jamaica to invest their money in sugar plantations. It is from this circumstance that these islands have always been more English in character than any American colony now within the territory of the United States.