CHAPTER VIII.

THE PLANTATION OF ULSTER BY JAMES I.

SIR JOHN DAVIS, the Irish Attorney-General, a man of extraordinary ability, who took a most active part in bringing about the great changes of this revolutionary time, writing to the English Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, stated that the fugitive Earl Tyrone could never be reconciled in heart to the English Government, because he ever lived like a free prince, or rather like an absolute tyrant. The law and the ministers thereof were shackles and handlocks unto him. After the Irish manner he made all the tenants of his land villeins. Therefore, to evict any part of that land from him was as grievous unto him as to pinch away the quick flesh from his body. Besides,' he added, as for us that are here, we are glad to see the day wherein the countenance and majesty of the law, as civil government, hath banished Tyrone out of Ireland, which the best army in Europe and the expense of two millions sterling pounds did not bring to pass. And we hope his Majesty's happy government will work a greater miracle in this country than ever St. Patrick did; for St. Patrick did only banish the poisonous worms, but suffered the men full of poison to inhabit the land; but his Majesty's blessed genius will banish all that generation of vipers out of it, and make it, ere it be long, a right fortunate island.'

Certainly St. Patrick did not kill or banish the inhabitants of the country he came to convert and civilize, not to destroy; neither did he bring an army of foreigners to take possession of the soil and divide it among themselves. It never entered into his head, though living in a barbarous age, that the proper way to evangelize a country was to starve or transport the human beings that lived there; nor to regard men, made in the image

of God and redeemed by His Son, as a generation of vipers. The blessed genius' of his immaculate Majesty James I., however, was capable of nobler and holier things than were dreamt of in the Christian philosophy of the great Apostle.

At any rate it appears that ideas of a mundane kind entered into the policy of his chief advisers. Sir Geoffrey Fenton, one of these, writing to Lord Salisbury at the same time, said:— 'And now I am to put your lordship in mind what door is open to the King, if the opportunity be taken and well converted, not only to pull down for ever these two proud Houses of O'Neill and O'Donel, but also to bring in colonies to plant both countries to a great increasing of his Majesty's revenues, and to establish and settle the countries perpetually in the Crown; besides, that many well-deserving servitors may be recompensed in the distribution, a matter to be taken to heart, for that it reaches somewhat to his Majesty's conscience and honour to see these poor servitors relieved, whom time and the wars have spent even unto their later years, and now, by this commodity, may be stayed and comforted without charges to his Majesty.'

Salisbury approved the idea of the Plantation, but wished that there might be a mixture in it, the natives being made his Majesty's tenants in part, the rest to be divided amongst those who would reside; and in no case should a planter receive more than he could well manure. He said that this was an oversight in the plantation of Munster, where 12,000 acres were commonly allotted to bankrupts and country gentlemen who never knew the disposition of the Irish. This was wise and just. But Davis had no great faith in the mixture; for he compared the Irish to weeds which would grow apace and choke the wheat. Lord Bacon, too, deriving his impressions from the reports of English adventurers hungering for Irish estates, recommended that some of the chiefest of the Irish families should be transported to England, and have recompense there for their possessions in Ireland till they were cleansed from the blood, incontinency, and theft which were not the relapses of particular persons, but the very laws of the nation.'

But if the people were to continue quiet and submissive, how was it possible to get possession of their land in any legal form;

and, above all, how was it possible to get rid of the priests, who abstained from politics and quietly devoted themselves to their clerical duties? There was only one way, and that was proposed to the Prime Minister, as the result of the deliberations of the English servants of the Crown in Ireland at that critical time, by the Lord Deputy. He wrote thus :-'If I observed anything during my stay in this kingdom, I may say that it is not lenity and good works that will reclaim the Irish, but an iron rod and severity of justice for the restraint and punishment of those firebrands of sedition, the priests; nor can we think of any other remedy but to proclaim them and their relievers and harbourers, TRAITORS.'

Fatal words for the Irish race! But how were the traitors' to be got rid of? Great armies and the expenditure of 2,000,000l., equal to about 6,000,000l. in our day, had failed to accomplish the philanthropic purpose of exterminating the inhabitants of Ulster. In view of this difficulty the Lord Deputy writes again :- I have often said and written it is FAMINE that must consume the Irish, as our swords and other endeavours work not that speedy effect which is expected. Hunger would be a better, because a speedier, weapon to employ against them than the sword.' Speedy as that Christian plan might be, however, he did not wait for it. Jehovah gave the Israelites of old a choice of plagues. But the blessed genius of James I., working by his godly' statesmen in the seventeenth century, visited the unfortunate Irish with all the plagues at once-the sword, famine, and pestilence. We have seen that English armies in Munster spent weeks in the diligent destruction of corn and cattle, the burning of houses and the killing of men, women and children, and every living thing they met on their march, just like ancient Arabs; and here in Ulster we find the Viceroy reporting with exultation his progress in the same evangelistic work. He says:-'I burned all along the Lough [Neagh] within four miles of Dungannon, and killed 100 people, sparing none, of what quality, age, or sex soever; besides many burned to death. We killed man,

woman, and child; horse, beast, and whatsoever we could find.'

This was beating St. Patrick with a vengeance! But, immediately after the flight of the Earls, it was feared that they

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would be able to rouse the Catholic Powers on the Continent to interpose for the protection of their brethren in Ireland. Consequently a policy of conciliation was ostentatiously proclaimed and circulated far and wide, lest the maddened people, inspired by a gleam of hope, would rise and turn upon the ruthless exterminators. The inhabitants of Ulster were, therefore, solemnly assured that they had nothing whatever to fear; that his Majesty would secure to them their lands and goods without trouble or molestation from his officers, so long as they lived as dutiful and obedient subjects. His Majesty will graciously receive all and every of his loyal subjects into his own immediate safeguard and protection, giving them full assurance to defend them and every of them by his kingly power from all violence or wrong which any loose persons among themselves or any foreign force shall attempt against them.' Notwithstanding the treason of their chiefs, the King would extend such grace and favour to the loyal inhabitants of their territories that none of them should be impeached, troubled, or molested in their own lands, goods, or bodies, they continuing in their loyalty, and yielding unto his Majesty such rents and duties as shall be agreeable to justice and equity.' These gracious promises, however, were forgotten as soon as the danger was over. O'Dougherty, the chief of Innishowen, who had been brought up as a loyal subject, and trained in all knightly accomplishments, was unfortunately persuaded by evil advisers to revolt. Having surprised Culmore Castle, on the banks of the Foyle, and also the city of Derry, the governor of which he brutally murdered, committing many other atrocities, and reducing the town to a heap of ashes, in which Bishop Montgomery's valuable library was destroyed; and having been himself killed soon after, his vast territory was added to the regions already forfeited to the Crown. The insurgent leaders and the dangerous kerne were now effectually cleared off in various ways by the English troops, aided by treacherous Irishmen; and the whole country was overrun by the King's troops. Sir Arthur Chichester, with a numerous retinue, including the Attorney-General Davis, sheriffs, lawyers, provosts-marshal, engineers, and geographers,' made a grand progress, and penetrated for the first time the district of Innishowen, which was to

become the inheritance of his family, the great house of Donegal. 'As we passed through the glens and forests,' wrote Sir John Davis, the wild inhabitants did as much wonder to see the King's Deputy as the ghosts did to see Æneas alive in hell.' In this exploring tour a thorough knowledge of the country was for the first time obtained. And as the result, the Attorney-General reported that before Michaelmas he would be ready to present to his Majesty a perfect survey of six whole counties which he now hath in actual possession in the province of Ulster, a greater extent of land than any prince in Europe hath in his own hands to dispose of.' O'Cahan, the chief of a very fertile district lying between the Foyle and the Blackwater, having committed himself like the rest, was a prisoner in Dublin Castle when a Royal Commission met in his house at Limavaddy for the purpose of enquiring into the extent of the lands forfeited in all the Ulster principalities. It consisted of the Primate Ussher, Montgomery, Bishop of Derry, and Sir John Davis. It soon went abroad that it was determined to remove the native population, in order that those fine tracts of territory should be planted with Protestant colonists from England and Scotland. The Catholic inhabitants ventured to recall to the recollection of the new rulers the Royal promises made to them through the Lord Deputy, that they should be protected in the enjoyment of their lands and goods; but they were bitterly disappointed. They ventured, however, to hope that, so much of the summer being spent before the Commissioners came down, so great cruelty would not be showed as to remove them upon the edge of winter from their houses, and in the very season when they were employed in making their harvest.' Sir Toby Caulfield, ancestor of the Earl of Charlemont, relates that they held discourse among themselves that, if this course had been taken with them in war time, it had had some colour of justice; but, being pardoned and their land given to them, and they having lived under law ever since, and being ready to submit themselves to the mercy of the law for any offence they can be charged withal since their pardoning, they concluded to be the greatest cruelty that ever was inflicted upon any people.'

The general opinion of Christendom, and of all the civilised