THE

HISTORY OF IRELAND.

JAMES I.

A. D.

NOTWITHSTANDING the calamities which the 1603. people of Ireland had suffered for their fidelity to their religion, we have still to witness the existence of a spirit, which no persecution, short of annihilation, seemed wholly able to extinguish. On the death of Elizabeth, a gleam of hope animated the bosom of Ireland, and the character and policy of the queen's successors, gave her some reasonable grounds for supposing that the sword would be sheathed, and that her ancient religion would no longer be a subject of reproach, or of penalty. Foreign powers took advantage of the interval of peace which the death of Elizabeth bestowed upon Ireland; and to the industry with which they inculcated the principles of unappeasable hostility to the doctrines of the reformation,

may be attributed a great portion of that jealousy and hatred entertained by James and his counsellors against the catholics of Ireland. The extirpation of the catholic and his religion, was considered as the only mode of securing the power of England against the perpetual experiments of foreign powers. Mountjoy, therefore, marched into the south of Ireland, determined to extinguish the rising spirit of insurrection: Cashel, Clonmel, Limerick, which had declared for the free and public exercise of catholicity, submitted to the discretion of the deputy. The public heart was now so completely broken down, that the government of James conceived it a proper season to allay the jealousies and apprehensions of the Irish, by freeing them from the dreadful vengeance of those laws which had been so lately violated. For this purpose, an act of oblivion and indemnity was proclaimed throughout the country; all offences committed against the crown, committed at any time before the king's accession, were pardoned, and the whole body of the Irish yeomanry were received into his majesty's most gracious protection. This was the last act of Mountjoy's administration. Soon after, he returned to England, accompanied by the Earl of Tyrone and Roderic O'Donnell. They were both graciously received by the king, who confirmed Tyrone in all the honours of his house. The extension of English law, and the establishment of public justice followed the restoration of public peace; and, if we are to credit the authority of Sir John Davis (one of the itinerant judges who visit

ed the province of Ulster), the common people experienced great comfort from the overthrow of that petty oppression under which they had been accustomed to live.

Sir Arthur Chichester succeeded Lord Mountjoy, as governor of Ireland; and in his government we find the work of reformation advancing with rapid strides. He suppressed the sept of the O'Byrnes of Wicklow, and converted their territory into an English county; he established courts of justice in Connaught, and restored the circuit of Munster; he abolished the old Irish customs of tanistry and gavelkind. Irish estates were made descendable according to the course of the common law of England. The Brehon jurisdiction was set aside,* and the native Irish were admitted to all the privileges of English law. The impartial dispensation of justice conciliated the affections of

By the Brehon law or custom, every crime, however enor mous, was punished, not with death, but by a fine, or pecuniary mulct, which was levied upon the criminal. Murder, according to the best authorities, was a crime particularly excepted, as one for which nothing short of the forfeiture of the offender's life could make atonement. The customs of gavelkind and tanistry were attended with the same absurdities in the distribution of property. Upon the death of any person, his land, by the custom of gavelkind, was divided among all the males of the sept or family, both bastard and legitimate; and after partition made, if any of the sept died, his portion was not shared out among his sons; but the chieftain, at his discretion, made a new partition of all the lands belonging to that sept, and gave every one his share. As no man, by reason of this custom, enjoyed the fixed property of any land, -to build, to plant, to inclose, to cultivate, to improve, would have been so much lost labour.

the people, who had so long suffered under the tumultuous violence of the Irish chieftains. The next important measure adopted by James, was the settlement of property, correctly ascertaining the rights of individuals. For this purpose, a commission of grace was issued under the great seal of England, for securing the subjects of Ireland against all claims of the crown. From various motives, from fear of the past, and from apprehension of the future, to guard against the vengeance of the crown, as well as to improve their tenure for life, to an estate in fee, numbers surrendered their lands, and received them back again as the tenants of the crown. The poorer classes of the community were protected against the exaction of their landlords, by the certainty of an annual rent, beyond which the landlord could not advance his claim. Just regulations gave every man a valuable interest in the lands of which he was the master; and building, planting, cultivation, and civilization, were their immediate fruits. The towns soon followed the example of the country, and new charters, granting new privileges, were liberally substituted for the old discouraging charters under which they had heretofore exercised their power. The benefit which would have flowed to Ireland from that mild and conciliating system upon which the servants of James had hitherto acted, would soon have obliterated the remembrance of all that violence of which we have given an account, were it not that the virulence of religious animosity was doomed to succeed to the desolation of the sword,