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dangerous pitch of rigour. In several antient grants, there had been a reservation of rents to the crown; during long intervals of commotion, the king's revenue had not been, nor could be, regularly collected; nor had such rents been put in charge by his officers, for ages. Acquittances were now demanded; it was impossible to produce them and the failure was pleaded as sufficient to overthrow the fairest titles.

"It was an age of project and adventure; men's minds were particularly possessed with a passion for new discoveries, and planting of countries. They, who were too poor, or too spiritless to engage in distant adventures, courted fortune in Ireland. Under pretence of improving the king's revenue in a country where it was far less than the charge of government, they obtained commissions of enquiry into defective titles, and grants of concealed lands and rents belonging to the crown; the great benefit of which was generally to accrue to the projector, whilst the king was contented with an inconsiderable proportion of the concealment, or a small advance of rent. Discoverers were every where busily employed in finding out flaws in men's titles to their estates. The old pipe-rolls were searched to find the original rents with which they had been charged; the patent-rolls in the Tower of London were ransacked for the antient grants; no means of industry or devices of craft were left untried, to force the possessors to accept of new grants at an advanced rent. In general, men were either conscious of the defects in their titles, or alarmed at 20

VOL. IV.

the trouble and expence of a contest with the crown; or fearful of the issue of such a contest, at a time, and in a country, where the prerogative was highly strained, and strenuously supported by the judges. These enquiries, therefore, commonly ended in a new composition, made at as cheap a rate, and as easy an advance of rent as the possessors could obtain. Yet there are not wanting proofs of the most iniquitous practices, of hardened cruelty, of vile perjury, and scandalous subornation, employed to despoil the fair and unoffending proprietor of his inheritance."*

In the maritime parts of Leinster, between Dublin and Waterford, for ages possessed by powerful Irish septs, sixty-six thousand acres were seized upon, as the property of the crown; sixteen thousand five hundred of which, that lay nearest to the sea, James reserved for an English colony, and disposed of the remainder under regulations and covenants similar to the Ulster plantation.

In Leix and Offaly, Longford, Leitrim and Westmeath, three hundred and eighty-five thousand acres were confiscated, under the pretence of rebellion, and of having been antiently possessed by English settlers, long expelled.†

Chichester had not completed this plantation, when he was recalled, and sir Oliver St. John succeeded, in 1616.

* Leland. Hist. Ireland, B. IV. c. viii. p. 466.

+ Carte's Ormond,

This new governor, peculiarly zealous against popery, immediately proceeded to a vigorous execution of the penal laws. The regular clergy he banished by proclamation; and seized on the liberties and revenues of the city of Waterford, whose magistrates, in succession, had refused to take the oath of supremacy. He caused presentments to be made of those who did not attend at church; and ecclesiastical censures were severely executed in every part of the kingdom. Those who lay under them were thrown into jails; even their dead bodies did not escape; they were denied christian burial, and their corpses thrown into holes dug in the highways.*

Such were the consequences of the censures of ecclesiastical courts, which "were often managed by a chancellor that bought his place, and so thought he had a right to all the profits he could make out of it; and their whole business seemed to be nothing but oppression and extortion, The solemnest and sacredest of all church censures, which was excommunication, went about in so sordid and base a manner, that all regard to it, as it was a spiritual censure, was lost; and the - effects it had in law made it be cried out upon, as a most intolerable piece of tyranny. The officers of the courts thought they had a sort of right to oppress the natives; and that all was well got that was wrung from them. Of which primate Usher was so sensible, that he told archbishop Laud, such was then the venality of all

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* Analecta Sacra.

things sacred in Ireland, that he was afraid to mention any thing about them."*

At length Sir Oliver, who had carried on this violent persecution uncontrouled, laid claim to lands, in the possession of some leading members of the state, as belonging to the church. Their complaints were conveyed to the throne. A new deputy, Lord Faulkland, was nominated; and Sir Oliver St. John, at the repeated instances of the Irish council, in 1621, was obliged to resign his authority immediately to two lords justices, who were vested with the administration till lord Faulkland's arrival. He was soon after created viscount Grandison of Ireland, baron Trogose of Highworth in England, lord high treasurer of Ireland, and privy counsellor of both kingdoms.

The removal of Sir Oliver, while it encouraged the Roman catholics, who avowed their religious principles with less reserve, and the deep sense with which they felt the hardships of their situation, alarmed the persecuting Puritans. Primate Usher was appointed to preach before lord Falkland on his arrival. 6 He beareth not the sword in vain' he chose for his text, condemned a relaxation of the penal statutes; but was under the necessity of preaching an explanatory discourse, in which restraints to preserve a decent reserve were alone recommended.

The army, which, at the accession of James, amounted to twenty thousand, during this war against the religion and property both of the

Burnet's Life of bishop Bedell,

English and Irish race, was reduced to seventeen hundred and thirty-five foot, and two hundred and twelve horse; which inconsiderable number, in 1622, were further reduced to thirteen hundred and fifty foot, divided into twenty-seven companies, of fifty each, and seven troops of horse, amounting to about two hundred; and these in such a condition, that they could have been of little use, had they been called out to service. The captains, privy-counsellors, men of the greatest property and influence, secured their own pay, by stopping the rents due by them to the crown, and made the privates compound with them annually for theirs, at a third or fourth part of what was their due by the establishment. The companies were incomplete, and dispersed in small parties through the estates of their officers, to cultivate their lands, or discharge the menial duties of their houses. The soldier of fortune shared all the miseries of a long arrear of pay with the private centinel; and, instead of restraining his men within the bounds of discipline, concurred with them in those outrages and oppressions, by which they endeavoured to supply their necessities."*

The revenue was considerably short of the charge of government. The customs had increased in the present reign, from £50 to £9700, wardships and tenures yielded £10,000; yet the annual charge exceeded the revenue £16,000. The commissioners, sent from England, had re

* Carte's Ormond. Leland.

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