106 DEATH OF JAMES I. of men called discoverers, was employed to hunt up defects in the titles of landholders, who, of course, were rewarded in proportion to their success, or, in other words, a premium was given to the best informer. It was not difficult to find defective titles in a land that had for centuries been afloat on the turbulent waves of civil war, especially when witnesses were suborned for the purpose, and bribes, violence and tortures were freely employed to wring the Irish estates from their rightful owners. The annual expense of carrying out this robber scheme, exceeded by £16,000, or nearly $80,000, the entire revenue of the kingdom. We cannot help contrasting a commission like this, and one, a modern commission, appointed to inquire into wants of the pauperized people, in order to administer relief from starvation. But even this could not satisfy the rapacity of that lion which seems to take a peculiar pleasure in devouring its own young. A scheme was set on foot which was designed to throw the entire province of Connaught into the hands of the crown. The proprietors of the land in this province, seeing the fate that awaited them, and knowing they had nothing to expect from the justice or honor of a venal king, appealed to his cupidity. They offered him £10,000 to desist from the pillage. While the avaricious monarch was hesitating between a small certain sum, and a large uncertain one, the King of kings summoned him to a higher tribunal, to answer for his follies and his crimes. VIII. THE Confiscated HE Irish now became thoroughly alarmed. ruthlessly in war, and confiscated not less ruthlessly in time of peace, they beheld their lands rapidly passing over into the hands of their enemies. On the accession of Charles I. they held a meeting at Dublin, to take into consideration the state of the country. This was in 1628. They drew up a Bill of Rights, moderate and just in its demands, and humbly besought the king to grant them-promising if he would, "to CONFISCATIONS UNDER CHARLES I. 107 raise a voluntary assessment of £100,000 for the use of the crown.' These articles were called "Graces." In them they asked simply for security of property, deliverance from military exactions, and impartial justice in the courts. Charles, as villainous as he was weak, took the money and then deferred granting the graces, with the secret determination never to do it. On the contrary, the Earl of Strafford, the king's minion, endeavored-right in the teeth of the king's promise-to carry out the original plan of James, in the settlement of Connaught. He took with him "500 horsemen as lookers on." He legalized his robberies and extortions by submitting each case to a jury; but the jurors were picked by himself, and the sheriff secretly ordered to return them. But in one instance, the sheriff returning a true and impartial jury, which of course rendered a verdict against the crown, Strafford in his rage fined him £1000, and bound over the jurors to the Star Chamber, to answer for the flagrant crime of being "good men and true." In one instance, he forced an Irish family to pay £17,000 or over $80,000 to remedy a defect in a title that never existed. In another instance £70,000 was extorted on a similar frivolous excuse. It is strange it never occurred to the monarch and his advisers, to appoint a commissioner to see if there was any defect in their titles to these same lands. Emboldened by success, new acts of oppression were committed, which ended as they always must, in new rebellion; which in its turn, being crushed by overwhelming physical force, led to new confiscations. In two days "bills of indictment for high treason were found against all the Catholic nobility and gentry in the counties of Meath, Wicklow, and Dublin, and three hundred gentlemen in the county of Kildare.” Even Parliament joined in for the sale of 2,500,000 acres, owned by those they pleased to call "rebels." This extensive pillage must of course be sanctioned by an Irish Parliament, which was assembled in Dublin for the purpose, and sat only three days. Excluding all who had joined the adversaries of the government, and all who would not take the oath of suprema 108 CROMWELL'S TYRANNY. cy, they reduced the number of members to a few servile and unscrupulous creatures of the English government. In this mere skeleton of facts, in which the years of suffering, the bloody battles, and bloodier victories are wholly omitted, we can partially see the causes of each Irish "rebellion." Persecuted in their religion-abused in the delay of the graces for which they had paid beforehand-made aliens in the land of their fathers, they had nothing left but to fight for it, and even this availed them nothing. It was simply the writhing of the worm under the heel that crushed it. A treaty was finally entered into ; but before it could be carried out, the head of Charles rolled on the scaffold, and England was without a king-but Ireland was none the better for it, and to this day "the curse of Cromwell" is a form of execration familiar to every peasant in the land. IX. YROMWELL, the champion of English liberty, regarded Ire CROM land as the British monarchs had before him,-the exclusive property of England. Every resistance to this claim was called rebellion. Cromwell declared their attachment to the house of Stuart, treason. The unfortunate Irish, do what they would, could not escape the charge, and doom of traitors. Fighting for their king or against him—for their property or their rights, it mattered not-it was all treason. It is singular that those distinguished for their love of freedom, and even humanity in other respects, should lose it all when they had any transaction with Ireland. The chivalric Sir Walter Raleigh could coolly butcher the entire garrison of Limerick after they had surrendered, and receive as a reward for the deed forty thousand acres of Irish ground. Even the amorous poet Spenser, who received three thousand acres of land out of the confiscated estates of the Earl of Desmond for his royal flattery, and on which he lived-soberly recommended ASCENDENCY OF BRITISH POWER. 109 to government the repetition of those acts which had reduced the Irish peasantry to the state he thus fearfully describes. He says," out of every corner of the woods and glynnes they came creeping forth upon their hands, for their legs could not bear them. They looked like anatomies of death-they spake like ghosts crying out of their graves-they eat the dead carrion, happy when they could find them, yea and one another soon after; insomuch as the very carcases they spared not to scrape out of their graves, and if they found a plot of water cresses, or shamrocks, to these they flocked as to a feast for the time, yet not able to continue there withal, that in a short space there were none almost left, and a most populous and plentiful country suddenly left void of man and beast." Even a poet's heart could refuse sympathy with such suffering, because forsooth, it came from Irishmen-nay, recommend a repetition of the cruelties that caused it, for the sake of the ascendency it gave to British power. He would see all Ireland creeping out of the forests they rightfully owned, upon their hands, because their famine-shrunk legs could not support them, staring over the desolated fields they once called their homes-speaking like ghosts out of the sepulchre, and tearing the rotten dead from their graves to appease the ferocity of famine, if by it England could maintain her robber power in peace. The effeminate poet found the reward of his deeds when a just Irish vengeance lighted his castle over his head, and he was compelled to flee for his life. This vivid picture represents the desolation that followed every invasion of the British: "before them the land was a fruitful field, behind them a barren wilderness." CROM X. ROMWELL possessed the feelings of his predecessors, and although armed against oppression, he emulated the tyrant he had just slain, in his dealings with that unhappy country. He invaded Ireland, and party strifes and fierce factions accom 110 THE SLAUGHTER OF IRISH" CANAANITES.” plished for him, what his own forces never could have done-conquered it. We will not attempt to describe the cruelties of this war. It was the custom of Cromwell to offer pardon to every town he approached, if they would immediately surrender; but if compelled to besiege it, he crowned his victory with a massacre. It could hardly be called a war,-it was a slaughter. After it was ended, and before the butchers had time to wipe their blades, confiscation commenced. The estates thus seized, were settled with English Protestants, who regarded the Irish Catholics as Canaanites, and themselves as the commissioners of God to pursue them with fire and sword. Mercy to the conquered, was rebellion against God. The flower of the country fled into foreign lands, and took refuge in foreign service. As before, unjust and oppressive laws followed in the path of the sword, to seize what it had left. Among other things, it was decreed, that all who had borne arms against the Parliament, should be banished during the pleasure of the Parliament, and forfeit two-thirds of their estates; also that all papists who had not exhibited constant affection for the commonwealth, should forfeit one-third of their estates; also that all who had not borne arms for the Parliament should forfeit one-fifth of theirs. These enactments were certainly broad enough to embrace every Irishman, and the land was effectually divided to the spoilers. It was also decreed that this land should be settled by English colonists, in order to effect the more complete subjugation of the country. Under this iniquitous settlement, it was found difficult to obtain laborers to cultivate the soil they had seized. In prosecuting this exterminating war, they had ma sacred the peasantry by thousands; others they had transported as slaves, and multitudes more exiled themselves from the land where they could no longer be free. The few that were left, were converted into slaves to till the soil for the robber and the murderer, and bleed under the iron scourge that was laid on their backs. The Catholic clergy were banished; the per |