CHAPTER X.

Wide-spread scene of private spoliation. Needy projectors and rapacious courtiers. Defective titles.

IN the last chapters, we have exhibited the unbridled spirit of rapine and plunder, by which the Irish were despoiled by their government, during the grand millenium of lord Clarendon and Dr. Warner.

But, execrable as were those proceedings, and profligate and abandoned as were the rulers by whom they were perpetrated, the sufferings and spoliations experienced by the Irish, from individual rapacity,* far exceeded them, in the wide

*"Ireland had long been a prey to projectors and greedy courtiers, who procured grants of concealed lands; and, by setting up the king's title, forced the right owners of them, to avoid the plague and expense of a litigation, to compound with them on what terms they pleased. It was high time to put a stop to so scandalous a traffic, which reflected dishonour upon the crown, alienated the minds of the people from the government, and raised CONTINUAL CLAMOURS AND UNEASINESS IN EVERY PART OF THE KINGDOM. Many proprietors of lands could derive no title from the crown; the letters patents of others were insufficient in law, defective, doubtful, or not plain enough to prevent dispute. Commissions had been granted, from time to time, to remedy these defects, and compositions

scope they embraced, which was the whole extent of the kingdom.

made with the commissioners. But, as these commissions were afterwards either renewed or recalled, and new ones issued out, it was questioned whether, by such later commissions, the said former commissions, and the compositions grounded thereupon, were not revoked, countermanded, and annulled.

"Besides, the commissions themselves might possibly be defective, uncertain, or not extend to give the commissioners as much power and authority as they exercised in making compositions, or passing letters patents to the subject, who, presuming every thing to be rightly done, by persons duly authorized, and his own possession to be fully assured to him, found himself mistaken in the end. For if either the commissions, or the king's letters upon which they were grounded, were lost, or not enrolled and recorded; if the lands and tenements granted, or intended to be granted, in the letters patents, were mis-named, mis-recited, or not named and recited therein; if offices and inquisitions had not been found, for proof of the king's title, before the making of such grants or letters patents; or if there were any defect in such offices and inquisitions ; if there were any omission of sufficient and special non obstantes of particular statutes, that ought to have been mentioned in the letters patents; if there were any mistake or omission in the recital of leases upon the premises, or of some part thereof, whether of record or no; if there were any lack of certainty, miscasting, or mis-rating of the true yearly value and rates of such lands and tenements, or of some part thereof, or of the yearly rents out of the premises, or some part thereof mentioned in the letters patents; if there were any mistake in the apportioning or dividing the said rents, or the tenures of any of the land; if the premises, or any part thereof, were in such grants estimated at a less, or even at a greater value than in truth they were; if the towns, villages, places, baronies, hundreds, or counties, where the lands and tenements so granted lay, chanced to be misnamed; if the natures, kinds, sorts, qualities or quantities of such lands and tenements, or

The

This is perfectly natural; and what might have been inferred from the proceedings of the rulers, even were history silent on the subject. experience of the world proves, that severe laws and good government frequently fail to repress fraud and violence, even when corporal punishments and penalties are held out in terrorem, to awe the offenders. But, we repeat, when a government assumes the aspect of the plunderer, and sets the alluring example of spoliation; when it violates, in the most profligate manner, the rights of property, held by regular descent, for ages; when, with sacrilegious hand, it tears down all the barriers erected by law, honour, honesty, and justice; but, more particularly than all the rest, when it divides a nation into two casts, and prostrates one, tied neck and heels, at the feet of the other, as the Helots were at the feet of the Spartans,-the native Irish, previous

of any part thereof, were not truly set forth and named; or if, in grants to corporations and bodies politic, whether spiritual or temporal, the right style, by which they were denominated and distinguished, was not used: in all these, and MANY OTHER CASES, the letters patents were liable to be disputed and set aside. This rendered all possessions very precarious; and there were few gentlemen in the kingdom, but had been, some time or other, questioned for their title, or disturbed in the enjoyment of their estates. The inconveniences whereof were very visible, in the discouragement of husbandry (few persons caring to improve lands which they cannot call their own) and in the general dissatisfaction of the people."""

230 Carte, I. 60.

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to the reformation, at those of the successive swarms of needy English adventurers, who migrated thither for the purpose of repairing their shattered fortunes, and, subsequent to the reformation, the Roman Catholics at the feet of the miserable oligarchy styling itself "the Protestant ascendency;", what can be the result of such a state of things, but that the favoured cast will be base, corrupt, unjust, and tyrannical; and violate, as they generally may with impunity, every law of God and man, to the oppression of the degraded cast? and that the latter forlorn description will be abject, timid, crouching, and forced to submit to every indignity, insult, and depredation,* or, if they resist, be crushed, with added weight, to their previous sufferings.

* Among the grievances which are so pathetically enumerated in the Remonstrance of the Catholics of Ireland, agreed upon, March 17, 1642, the following is applicable to the subject of the present chapter, and is confirmed by the preceding extract from Leland: "The procuring of false inquisitions upon feigned titles of their estates, against many hundred years' possession, and no traverse or petition of right admitted thereunto, and jurors, denying to find such offices, were censured even to public infamy and ruin of their estates; the finding thereof being against their consciences and their evidences: and nothing must stand against such offices taken of great and considerable parts of the kingdom, but letters patents under the great seal and if letters patents were produced, (as in most cases they were) none must be allowed valid, nor yet sought to be legally avoided: so that of late times, by the underhand working of Sir William Parsons, knight, now one of the lords justices here, and the arbitrary illegal power of the two impeached judges in Parliament, and others drawn in by

Such was the hideous picture exhibited in Ireland, during that period, which the world, deluded by dishonest writers, of great but undeserved celebrity, has been universally led to regard as "a blessed condition of peace and security."

The great extent of the last chapters precludes the necessity of being prolix with the present one. I shall therefore be as brief as possible, and reduce it within narrow bounds.

The land was covered with hosts of pimps, spies, and informers, whose eternal employment was finding flaws in the titles of gentlemen's estates, and, if possible, ejecting them, in which they were constantly countenanced by government; or, if they failed in this part of the project, forcing them to ruinous compositions.

"Needy projectors and rapacious courtiers still continued the scandalous traffic of pleading the king's title against the possessors of estates, of seizing their lands, or forcing them to grievous compositions.”231

We have asserted that this system of rapine was more oppressive than that of James. A moment's reflection will satisfy every reader on this point. That miserable king only spoliated a twentieth part of the island; whereas the

their advice and council, one hundred and fifty letters patents were avoided in one morning; which course continued until all the patents of the kingdom, to a few, were by them and their associates declared void."232

231 Leland, III. 15.

232 Carte, III. 137.