Page:Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687.djvu/161

 since his Matys Restoration? And to how many unrestored Estates is the said Gain equivalent?

'12. By the last Clause of the Act of Settlement the Lord Lieutenant and Council had Power to alter all the premises.

'Memorandum. That the Duke of Ormond, to keep himself unconcern'd in these Matters, got his Lands restored (Ao 1660) by an Act of Parliament in England, and also his Pardon; and soon after his Regalities in Tipperary were set up.

'He only endeavour'd to have gotten some Lands in Desmond as holding of his ancient mannors, but quitted ye same.'

Such, for the time, was the result of the dealings with Irish land by the successive Governments which existed between the Rebellion of 1641 and the year 1665. The whole story forms one of the most extraordinary chapters in the history of any country, and leaves the reader to wonder how any notion of right or respect for law could survive such an ordeal. 'If in Ireland you are conquered,' Sir William afterwards wrote, examining why the number of years' purchase of land was so far less than in England, 'all is lost; or, if you conquer, yet you are subject to swarms of thieves and robbers, and the envy which precedent missions of English have against the subsequent. Perpetuity itself is but forty years long, as within which time some ugly disturbances hath hitherto happened, almost ever since the first coming of the English thither. The claims upon claims which each hath to the other's estates, and the facility of making good any pretence whatsoever, by the favour of someone or other of the Governors and ministers which within forty years shall be in power there; as also the frequency of false testimonies and abuse of solemn oaths,' rendered a real security of title impossible. It specially irritated him that in the settlement many of the great Roman Catholic nobles, whom he regarded as the prime fomenters of the Civil War,