Page:Confiscation in Irish history.djvu/156

 much more extensive than in others. Sixty-six Kerry landlords were transplanted with nearly 5,000 followers. In Tipperary the clearance is said to have been so complete that no Irish inhabitant was left in certain districts able to point out the boundaries of the various territories and lands in them, and four fit and knowing persons had to be sent back in December, 1654, to the barony of Eliogarty to give the surveyors the information they required.

But soon it was found that there were difficulties in the way of such a complete clearance. The time limit, May 1st, 1654, was extended, first in particular cases then more generally. And as late as July, 1655, the transplantation was not fully accomplished. Some of the Irish declared they preferred death to transplantation. Accordingly one or two landlords were hanged, to encourage the rest, and a certain number were shipped as slaves or indentured labourers to the West Indies.

But meantime many of the English had begun to object to a complete transplantation of the whole native population. They declared that they could not get Protestant tenants to cultivate the farms, and that they themselves being soldiers or townsmen could not cultivate the land themselves, neither could they get labourers from England. Already the Act of 1652 had declared that it was not the intention of Parliament to extirpate the whole nation, and had pardoned all ploughmen, husbandmen, labourers, artificers, and others of the inferior sort, if they were not possessed of goods to the value of £10, and if they did not come under those classes excepted from pardon. Unfor-