tongue, and the pistol in hand. Whatever difficulty there might be in yielding to the one, was removed by the application of the other. There is no mode of conviction so powerful. Make a low bow, with entreaties, and add threats, properly supported, in case of refusal. He must have been a most stubborn disputant, that could resist the conviction arising from the overwhelming arguments of the deputy, with an army at his command, the power of proclaiming martial law at pleasure, and the executioner ready at hand, to support his reasoning with a rope. Neither Demosthenes, Cicero, Burke, Pitt, nor Fox, could withstand such logic.

It were endless to recapitulate the odious features of this "magnificent project." With one more, I shall close the catalogue of oppression.

The adjustment of the rent, payable by the different descriptions of persons to whom these lands were allotted, affords a striking instance of gross partiality and injustice. The undertakers, who had the choicest portions of the soil, were to pay to the crown a rent of six shillings and eight-pence, for every sixty acres; the servitors, ten shillings; and the natives, who were plundered of their paternal estates, and reduced from the enviable condition of independent freeholders to that of tenants, were to pay thirteen shillings and four-pence.21 That is to say, the despoiled

214 Hibernica, 125, 128, 129.

owners of the soil were to pay exactly twice as much rent for inferior lands, as the despoilers paid for the superior: and, to add to the iniquity, the undertakers and servitors were to pay no rent till the third year, being rent-free for two years; whereas the natives were to pay the second year, being rent-free only one year.

CHAPTER VIII.

The Egyptians spoiled once more. Regal rapine, in the King's and Queen's counties, Leitrim, Longford, and Westmeath. Three hundred and eighty-five thousand acres forfeited, for the charitable purpose of civilizing the natives.

JAMES'S predominating passion for plunder and plantation had been tolerably satisfied with the spoliation of Ulster, where, by a princely exercise of law, honour, and conscience, he had involved in ruin the once proud owners of princely estates, raised to rank and fortune many of the lowest orders of society, and, in a word, changed the whole face of the country. He for a while rested from his labours: but the devouring lust of plunder and plantation returned; and, being too imperiously craving to be resisted, he resolved to gratify it. Encouraged by the facility with which he had effected his spoliations in Ulster, he displayed himself, on this occasion, in the bold character of a public depredator, scorning disguise or artifice. It was thought unnecessary to hire letter-droppers, or false witnesses, to swear to plots or conspiracies. Without any of the tricks played off by his predecessors, or

by himself, in the province of Ulster, he plundered his subjects, in King's and Queen's counties, Leitrim, Longford, and Westmeath, of estates to the amount of three hundred and eighty-five thousand acres. Thus this vain, sottish, contemptible, and rapacious monarch, in a time of profound peace, at two successive operations, seized about a twentieth part of the whole island; five hundred thousand acres in Ulster, and three hundred and eighty-five thousand in Leinster and it is more than probable, that, had his inglorious career continued as long as that of some of his successors, he would have seized every acre of the island, belonging to the Roman Catholics; for, after his depredations in Leinster were completed, he was seriously occupied in preparations for the plantation of Connaught,* when death humanely rescued his Irish subjects from the merciless gripe of the canting, hypocritical oppressor, who had, throughout his reign, plundered them as "a father, not as a monarch," and, according to the sovereign dictates of "law, honour, and conscience," reduced them to beggary here, for "the good of their souls hereafter."

*"The project recommended to the king was nothing less than that of establishing an extensive plantation in Connaught, SIMILAR TO THAT OF ULSTER; and, in his rage for reformation, IT WAS MOST FAVOURABLY RECEIVED."215

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215 Leland, II. 558.

But, as it was only "spoiling the Egyptians," to borrow a phrase from Rob Roy, it is passed over by Leland, Carte, and Hume, not merely as an innocent, but as a necessary measure; nay, it appears from their statements as entitled to applause.

Leland informs us, that those counties, "by their situation and circumstances, required particular regulation." And what was the "particular regulation," which they required? It was simply, that all the rights of property, held sacred among the most barbarous nations, the Moors and Algerines, should be basely invaded by a wretched monarch, who, as I have already hinted, has been fraudulently ranked among the civilizers and benefactors of mankind :

Naturally strong, and difficult of access, they afforded, in the very heart of the island, a safe retreat and shelter to the old inhabitants, who were tenacious of their barbarous customs, nestling in their filthy cottages in winter, in summer wandering with their cattle over the mountains. Through these districts, the Irish insurgents had usually passed from Connaught or Ulster, to annoy the Pale. They had served for a passage to Tyrone and his forces into Munster, and a retreat in his inglorious flight from Kinsale. In time of peace, they were the safe receptacles of robbers, where they defied the ministers of justice; and, surrounded with woods, bogs, and mountains, lived in a sort of independence, and contemptuous resistance to the law. To reduce these savages to order and subjection," [that is, reader, those savages, than whom, according to Sir John Davies and Edward Coke, NO PEOPLE UNDER THE SUN LOVED JUSTICE BETTER; and who were MORE FEARFUL TO OFFEND THE LAW THAN THE ENGLISH] 66 inquisitions were held to examine the king's title to the whole