Page:Confiscation in Irish history.djvu/153

 to Cromwell they were again expelled, this time in the dead of an October night, and again robbed of all they possessed. But the Cromwellian government had some regard for their sufferings. It was provided that their having lived among the Irish during the period of their expulsion was not to be counted as an act of hostility to the parliament, and they were allowed to return to their homes and dispensed from going to be tried at Loughrea or Athlone. In 1656 the Connaught Commissioners, having finished their work in that province, came to Mallow and opened a court there to try the cases of the landowners and inhabitants of Cork, Youghal and Kinsale.

They seem to have conducted the trial as fairly as could have been expected. The townsmen were represented by English Protestant lawyers, who discharged their task conscientiously. The court began with the inhabitants of Kinsale whose case was the strongest. Not only had they remained loyal, but they had fought against the insurgents, who had assaulted and very nearly taken Kinsale in 1641 or 1642. They had always kept watch and ward on the walls alongside of the English troops, and had not been turned out of their homes in 1644.

The first case heard was that of one Thomas Toomey, a shipwright, who owned a house in Kinsale. It was proved that he had helped to close the gates against the Irish and had served as a corporal under an English captain during all the time