power, imperious temper, and unrelenting disposition, were too well known, and the awe felt for him was too great to admit of hesitation. His sovereign dictum was therefore as completely the law in this instance, as the dictum of the emperor of Morocco in his capital. In this parliament, after Wentworth had gained his end by the grant of the subsidies for the crown, he contrived to prevent any other business being done." But independent of the frauds perpetrated in the elections, another grievance of a most serious nature existed in respect to parliament. The members, whose speeches or conduct in that body displeased the administration, were arbitrarily punished by imprisonment, so as to destroy the freedom of debate. "The same day, [Nov. 4, 1634,] the lord deputy Wentworth communicated an act of council, for CONFINING AND IMPRISONING SIR JOHN DUNGAN AND CAPTAIN CHARLES PRICE, FOR WORDS SPOKEN IN PARLIAMENT !?9471 I shall close this disgusting detail with the case of sir Piers Crosby, which proves that the despotism of the deputy was not confined to the parliament, but extended equally to the privy council. Of this latter body sir Piers was a member, and likewise of the house of commons. In the latter capacity he voted against a bill, to which he had assented in the former. For this offence, as the deputy styled it, he was sequestered from the privy council board,† and refused permission mons, telling them it was not worth their contention, considering the power of allowance was undeniably in the king, and that if he rejected, they were still to chuse another, and another, till his majesty approved thereof; and that it would be taken as an ill presage of some waywardness or frowardness of mind, reigning in them, if they should go about to deny such for their speaker as should be recommended by his majesty's privy council, which England never did, or to struggle in a business wherein the conclusion must needs be according to his majesty's good will and pleasure, whether they would or no. So they departed; and before dinner, without any noise or opposition at all, chose the recorder for their speaker.”+73 *"The rest of this session we have entertained and spun them out in discourses, but kept them nevertheless from concluding any thing, yet have finished within the first limited time. No other laws passed but the two acts of subsidies, and that other short law for confirming all such compositions as are or shall be made upon the commission of defective titles."478 + Sir Piers Crosby, "in the second session of the late parliament, ventured to oppose some measures of administration. The deputy reprimanded and accused him of a violation of his oath, in voting against bills to which he had assented in council, and concurred in transmitting them. Crosby was sequestered from the council-board. He complained of the severity, by petition. He desired license to repair to England, as if resolved to appeal to the king. IT WAS REFUSED.' 99474 471 Mountmorres, II. 10. 472 Strafford, I. 277. 473 Idem, 278. 474 Leland, III, 39. to go to England, where he was desirous of laying his case before the king. Having, however, escaped clandestinely, he was arrested and imprisoned in London by order of Charles I.** The reader will probably be amazed at the fact of the refusal of license to repair to England. But such was the real state of the case, No man in public employment could leave the kingdom, even to repair to the court of the British monarch, without license obtained from his deputy, which was never granted to characters obnoxious to him, who might seek an opportunity to expose his misdeeds. The case of sir Piers is strong and striking. His standing in society was high; as he was a soldier of distinguished merit, and had acquired great reputation in an expedition to the coast of France, where he had been the principal means of preserving the English army in their retreat.475 His sole offence, as above stated, was voting against an act proposed by the privy council. If the merits of such a man could not secure him from the degradation inflicted merely for the independent discharge of his duty as a member of the legislature, it is easy to conceive the slavish and abject state in which those members were generally held, who had no such claims to attention as belonged to the knight. His removal from the privy council board took place by the express direction of the king, on the representation of Wentworth.t From parliaments constituted in the manner above detailed, few measures were to be hoped for, but what were fraught with destruction to the happiness of Ireland. Majorities were almost universally secured in both houses, whose interests were in direct hostility with the best interests of the nation. And, in consequence, a large portion of the legislation has been an almost invariable tissue of outrage on every principle of sound political economy, honour, honesty, and good faith. In a venal and corrupt parliament, packed in the reign of Henry VII. sir Edward Poynings, then deputy, had a law passed which nearly destroyed the legislative power in Ireland; reduced her parliament almost to a level with a bed of justice in France; limited its operations to the mere enregisterment or rejection of edicts; and left it but a bare negative power of rejecting,t not of proposing, any law.§ "Besides these agents there is notice also taken that sir Piers Crosby is come over without license; which being made known to his majesty, by his command I have sent a messenger to apprehend him, and bring him before the lords of the council, who are required forthwith to commit him for his contempt."476 "On the representations of Wentworth, his majesty directed him to be removed from the privy council."477 "A set of statutes were enacted, in the 10th Henry VII. (sir Edward Poynings being then lord deputy, from whence they were called Poynings laws) which restrained the power, as well of the deputy, as of the parliament: and in time there was nothing left to the parliament of Ireland, but a bare negative, or power of rejecting, NOT OF PROPOSING ANY LAW."7478 "This day [August 2, 1634] was remarkable for a dispute be 475 Leland, III. 39. 476 Strafford, I. 476. 477 Leland, III. 39. 478 Jacobs, III. 534. By another law, passed during the administration of the same satrap, all the laws previously existing in England, were, at one stroke, made of force within the kingdom of Ireland.* And, subsequently to this period, Ireland, without a single representative in the British parliament, was subjected to the operation of all the British statutes, in which she was "specially named or included under general words."479 If the experience of the world did not afford numberless instances to prove, that those nations, which are the most jealous assertors of their own liberties, are the most consummate tyrants over subordinate nations, it would be a matter of astonishment that England, which, at various periods of her history, had lavished so much blood and treasure, in defence of her own rights and freedom, should have so uniformly violated every principle, not merely of liberty, but of justice, in her treatment of, and displayed such wanton tyranny towards, Ireland. The case of these two nations affords a most felicitous illustration of the judicious and profound remark of Hume, that it may be regarded as "a fixed maxim," that "though free governments have been commonly the most happy for those who partake of their freedom; yet ARE THEY THE MOST RUINOUS AND OPPRESSIVE TO THEIR PROVINCES."480 tween the lords and the lord deputy, about the framing of acts; which right by Poynings' law, he contended, was in himself and the council only; and parliament had only power to prefer a petition to them for that purpose: and lord Strafford entered a memorable protest, upon this occasion, in the journals."481 "It was enacted, by another of Poynings' laws, that all acts of parliament, before that time made in England, should be of force within the kingdom of Ireland."482 479 Jacobs, III. 534. 481 Mountmorres, 1. 323. 480 Hume's Essays, I. 47. 482 Jacobs, III. 534. CHAPTER XVII. Definition of Plantations in Ireland. Nefarious scheme for subverting the title of every estate in Connaught. Barefaced bribery of judges. Packing of juries. Lawless depredations. Enormous fines. Unjust imprisonment. Obduracy. "Not ev❜n the high anointing hand of heav'n THE plantation, as it is called, or rather, the spoliation of Connaught, demands a special chapter, as forming a most important feature in the history of the period embraced in the present division of this work, and exhibiting a complicated scene of rapine, fraud, and oppression not often exceeded in the annals of human injustice. It is necessary to enter into some explanation of the term "plantation," a favourite but deceptious expression in the reign of James I. and Charles I. Plantations were undertaken under the hypocritical cloak of a regard for the civilization of the Irish, the good of religion, and the glory of God-but the real motive was a devouring spirit of rapine and plunder. In the disordered state of Ireland, the records of deeds were frequently lost or destroyed-and the titles of estates that had remained in the same families for centuries, were by these and other means sometimes involved in doubt, which invited the depredations of those harpies, the spies and informers, whose proceedings are developed in Chapter XIV. and who were constantly employed in seeking out what they called defective titles, and setting up claims for the crown. If the party acquiesced in the claim without opposition, a certain portion of his land, perhaps a fourth or a fifth part, was taken for the benefit of the informer, and an annual rent imposed on the owner for the remainder. If he resisted the claim, relying on the justice of his title, the question was brought before a jury-when no council was allowed!!! and no time given for preparation!!!* As the juries were liable to be cited into the castle chamber, under pretence of perjury, if their verdicts did not suit the purposes of the government, the decision was generally in favour of the crown. this case, as a punishment for what was styled the contumacy of the party, and as a terror to others, one-third or one-halft of the estate was sequestrated, and "a plantation" established there of English or Scotchmen. In *These shameful facts rest on the authority of the deputy Wentworth, who, as we shall see, page 246, claims merit for innovating op the ancient practice. † For a confirmation of the existence of this hideous practice I likewise refer to Strafford's letters, quoted page 251. 240 It has been seen page 189, that James had proposed to make a "plantation" in Connaught; but that his project was defeated by Death, who snatched him away in the midst of his career, to render an account in another world, before the omniscient Judge of mankind, of his rapine and depredation in this. But, alas! the respite thus afforded to the western province of Ireland, was of short duration. During the succeeding reign, the nefarious project was revived, by the arrogant, rapacious, and vindictive Wentworth, who meditated nothing less than the subversion of the title of every estate in the province." He had so managed the elections of members of the parliament of 1634, and was so fully determined on the plantation of Connaught, that he was quite confident of being able to procure sage of an act for that purpose, should he be disappointed of a verthe pasdict of a jury in favour of the crown.† *"His project was nothing less than to subvert the title to every estate in every part of Connaught, and to establish a new plantation through this whole province; a project, which, when first proposed in the late reign, was received with horror and amazement, but which suited the undismayed and enterprising genius of lord Wentworth. For this he had opposed the confirmation of the royal graces, transmitted to lord Faulkland, and taken to himself the odium of so flagrant a violation of the royal promise. The parliament was at an end; and the deputy at leisure to execute a scheme, which, as it was offensive and alarming, required a cautious and deliberate procedure. Old records of state, and the memorials of ancient monasteries, were ransacked, to ascertain the king's original title to Connaught. It was soon discovered, that in the grant of Henry the Third to Richard De Burgo, five cantreds were reserved to the crown, adjacent to the castle of Athlone; that THIS GRANT INCLUDEĎ THE WHOLE REMAINDER OF THE PROVINCE, which was now alleged to have been forfeited by Aedn O'Connor, the Irish provincial chieftain; that the lands and lordship of De Burgo descended lineally to Edward the Fourth; and were confirmed to the crown by a statute of Henry the Seventh. The ingenuity of court lawyers was employed to invalidate all patents granted to the possessors of these lands, from the reign of queen Elizabeth."483 "This house is very well composed, so as the protestants are the major part, clearly and thoroughly with the king. *** And considering, in truth, that the popish party only have appeared to be averse to all reformation or order in the government, it will be a good rod to hold over them, when they shall see it is in the king's power to pass upon them by a plurality of voices all the laws of England concerning religion, which, howbeit, I do not now dispute whether it be fit or not fit; yet to have the power with the king is not amiss; and may be otherwise used with great advantage for his majesty's service. It may serve of great use to confirm and settle his majesty's title to the plantations of Connaght and Ormond. For, this you may be sure, all the protestants are for plantations, all the other against them; so as those 4 Leland, U. 35. |