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“Be not dismayed,” said Elizabeth, on hearing that O’Neal meditated some designs against her government; “tell my friends, if he arise, it will turn to their advantage–THERE WILL BE ESTATES FOR THOSE WHO WANT.” Soon after this prophetic speech, Munster was destroyed by famine and the sword, and near 600,000 acres forfeited to the crown, and distributed among Englishmen. Sir Walter Raleigh (the virtuous and good) butchered the garrison of Limerick in cold blood, after Lord Deputy Gray had selected 700 to be hanged. There were, during the reign of Elizabeth, three invasions of Ireland by the Spaniards, produced principally by the absurd measures of this princess for the reformation of its religion. The Catholic clergy, in consequence of these measures, abandoned their cures, the churches fell to ruin, and the people were left without any means of instruction. Add to these circumstances the murder of M’Mahon, the imprisonment of O’Toole and O’Dogherty, and the kidnapping of O’Donnel–all truly Anglo-Hibernian proceedings. The execution of the laws was rendered detestable and intolerable by the queen’s officers of justice. The spirit raised by these transactions, besides innumerable smaller insurrections gave rise to the great wars of Desmond and Hugh O’Neal; which, after they had worn out the ablest generals, discomfited the choicest troops, exhausted the treasure, and embarrassed the operations of Elizabeth, were terminated by the destruction of these two ancient families, and by the confiscation of more than half the territorial surface of the island. The last two years of O’Neal’s wars cost Elizabeth 140,000 pounds per annum, though the whole revenue of England at that period fell considerably short of 500,000 pounds. Essex, after the destruction of Norris, led into Ireland an army of above 20,000 men, which was totally baffled and destroyed by Tyrone, within two years of their landing. Such was the importance of Irish rebellions two centuries before the time in which we live. Sir G. Carew attempted to assassinate the Lugan Earl–Mountjoy compelled the Irish rebels to massacre each other. In the course of a few months 3,000 men were starved to death in Tyrone. Sir Arthur Chichester, Sir Richard Manson, and other commanders, saw three children feeding on the flesh of their dead mother. Such were the golden days of good Queen Bess!

By the rebellions of Dogherty, in the reign of James I., six northern counties were confiscated, amounting to 500,000 acres. In the same manner, 64,000 acres were confiscated in Athlone. The whole of his confiscations amount to nearly a million acres; and if Leland means plantation acres, they constitute a twelfth of the whole kingdom according to Newenham, and a tenth according to Sir W. Petty. The most shocking and scandalous action in the reign of James, was his attack upon the whole property of the province of Connaught, which he would have effected, if he had not been bought off by a sum greater than he hoped to gain by his iniquity, besides the luxury of confiscation. The Irish, during the reign of James I., suffered under the DOUBLE evils of a licentious soldiery and a religious persecution.

Charles I. took a bribe of 120,000 pounds from his Irish subjects, to grant them what in those days were called Graces, but in these days would be denominated the Elements of Justice. The money was paid, but the graces were never granted. One of these graces was curious enough: “That the clergy were not to be permitted to keep henceforward any private prisons of their own, but delinquents were to be committed to the public jails.” The idea of a rector, with his own private jail full of Dissenters, is the most ludicrous piece of tyranny we ever heard of. The troops in the beginning of Charles’s reign were supported by the weekly fines levied upon the Catholics for non-attendance upon established worship. The Archbishop of Dublin went himself at the head of a file of musketeers, to disperse a Catholic congregation in Dublin–which object he effected after a considerable skirmish with the priests. “The favourite object” (says Dr. Leland, a Protestant clergyman, and dignitary of the Irish Church) “of the Irish Government and the English Parliament, was THE UTTER EXTERMINATION of all the Catholic inhabitants of Ireland.” The great rebellion took place in this reign, and Ireland was one scene of blood and cruelty and confiscation.