The Irish were kept out of the enclosed part of the city till a late period. In the memory of the present generation there was no Catholic house within the walls, and I believe it is not much longer since the Catholic servants within the sacred enclosure were obliged to go outside at night to sleep among their kinsfolk. The English garrison did not multiply very fast. In 1626 there were only 109 families in the city, of which five were families of soldiers liable to be removed. Archbishop King stated that in 1690 the whole of the population of the parish, including the Donegal part, was about 700.

But the irrepressible Irish increased and multiplied around the walls with alarming rapidity. The tide of native population rose steadily against the ramparts of exclusion, and could no more be kept back than the tide in the Foyle. In the general census of 1800 there were no returns from Derry. But in 1814 it was stated in a report by the deputation from the Irish Society, that the population amounted at that time to 14,087 persons. This must have included the suburbs. In the census of 1821 the city was found to have 9,313 inhabitants. The city and suburbs together contained 16,971.

The report of the commissioners of public instruction in 1831 made a startling disclosure as to the effect of the system of exclusion in this 'branch of the City of London.' In the parish of Templemore (part of) there were--

Members of the Established Church 3,166 Presbyterians 5,811 Roman Catholics 9,838

The report of 1834 gave the Roman Catholics, 10,299; the Presbyterians, 6,083; and the Church only 3,314.

The figures now are--Catholics 12,036 Protestants of all denominations 8,839 Majority of Irish and Catholics in this 'branch of the City of London' 3,197

This majority is about equal to the whole number which the exclusive system, with all its 'protection' and 'bounties,' could produce for the Established Church in the course of two centuries! If the Irish had been admitted to the Pale of English civilisation, and instructed in the industrial arts by the settlers, the results with respect to religion might have been very different. In the long run the Church of Rome has been the greatest gainer by coercion. Derry has been a miniature representation of the Establishment. The 'prentice boys, like their betters, must yield to the spirit of the age, and submit with the best grace they can to the rule of religious equality.

The plantation was, however, wonderfully successful on the whole. In thirty years, towns, fortresses, factories, arose, pastures, ploughed up, were converted into broad corn-fields, orchards, gardens, hedges, &c. were planted. How did this happen? 'The answer is that it sprang from the security of tenure which the plantation settlement supplied.

The landlords were in every case bound to make fixed estates to their tenants at the risk of sequestration and forfeiture. Hence their power of selling their plantation rights and improvements. This is the origin of Ulster tenant-right.'

Yet the work went on slowly enough in some districts. The viceroy, Chichester, was not neglected in the distribution of the spoils. He not only got the O'Dogherty's country, Innishown, but a large tract in Antrim, including the towns of Carrickfergus and Belfast. An English tourist travelling that way in 1635 gives a quaint description of the country in that transition period:--

On July 5 he landed at Carrickfergus, where he found that Lord Chichester had a stately house, 'or rather like a prince's palace.'

In Belfast, he said, my Lord Chichester had another _daintie_, stately palace, which, indeed, was the glory and beauty of the town. And there were also _daintie_ orchards, gardens, and walks planted. The Bishop of Dromore, to whom the town of Dromore entirely belonged, lived there in a 'little timber house.' He was not given to hospitality, for though his chaplain was a Manchester man, named Leigh, he allowed his English visitor to stop at an inn over the way. 'This,' wrote the tourist, 'is a very dear house, 8 d. ordinary for ourselves, 6 d. for our servants, and we were overcharged in _beere_.' The way thence to Newry was most difficult for a stranger to find out. 'Therein he wandered, and, being lost, fell among the Irish _touns_.' The Irish houses were the poorest cabins he had seen, erected in the middle of fields and grounds which they farmed and rented. 'This,' he added, 'is a wild country, not inhabited, planted, nor enclosed.' He gave an Irishman 'a groat' to bring him into the way, yet he led him, like a villein, directly out of the way, and so left him in the lurch.

Leaving Belfast, this Englishman said: 'Near hereunto, Mr. Arthur Hill, son and heir of Sir Moyses Hill, hath a brave plantation, which he holds by lease, and which has still forty years to come.

The plantation, it is said, doth yield him 1,000 l. per annum.

Many Lancashire and Cheshire men are here planted. They sit upon a rack-rent, and pay 5 s. or 6 s. for good ploughing land, which now is clothed with excellent good _corne_.'

According to the Down survey, made twenty-two years later, Dromore had not improved: 'There are no buildings in this parish; only Dromore, it being a market town, hath some old thatched houses and a ruined church standing in it. What other buildings are in the parish are nothing but removeable _creaghts_.'

To the economist and the legislator, the most interesting portions of the state papers of the 16th and 17th centuries are, undoubtedly, those which tell us how the people lived, how they were employed, housed, and fed, what measure of happiness fell to their lot, and what were the causes that affected their welfare, that made them contented and loyal, or miserable and disaffected. Contemporary authors, who deal with social phenomena, are also read with special interest for the same reason. They present pictures of society in their own time, and enable us to conceive the sort of life our forefathers led, and to estimate, at least in a rough way, what they did for posterity.

Harris was moved to write his 'History of Down' by indignation at the misrepresentations of the English press of his day. They had the audacity to say that 'the Irish people were uncivilised, rude, and barbarous; that they delighted in b.u.t.ter _tempered_ with oatmeal, and sometimes flesh without bread, which they ate raw, having first pressed the blood out of it; and drank down large draughts of usquebaugh for digestion, reserving their little corn for the horses; that their dress and habits were no less barbarous; that cattle was their chief wealth; that they counted it no infamy to commit robberies, and that in their view violence and murder were in no way displeasing to G.o.d; that the country was overgrown with woods, which abounded in wolves and other voracious animals,' &c. It was, no doubt, very provoking that such stories should be repeated 130 years after the plantation of Ulster, and Harris undertook, with laudable patriotism, to show 'how far this description of Ireland was removed from the truth, from the present state of only one county in the kingdom.' The information which the well-informed writer gives is most valuable, and very much to the purpose of our present inquiry.

More than half the arable ground was then (in 1745) under tillage, affording great quant.i.ties of oats, some rye and wheat, and 'plenty of barley,' commonly called English or spring barley, making excellent malt liquor, which of late, by means of drying the grain with Kilkenny coals, was exceedingly improved. The ale made in the county was distinguished for its fine colour and flavour. The people found the benefit of '_a sufficient tillage_, being not obliged to take up with the poor unwholesome diet which the commonalty of Munster and Connaught had been forced to in the late years of scarcity; and sickness and mortality were not near so great as in other provinces of the kingdom.'

Yet the county Down seemed very unfavourable for tillage. The economists of our time, perhaps our viceroys too, would say it was only fit for bullocks and sheep. It was 'naturally coa.r.s.e, and full of hills; the air was sharp and cold in winter, with earlier frosts than in the south, the soil inclined to _wood_, unless constantly ploughed and kept open, and the low grounds degenerated into mora.s.s or bog where the drains were neglected. Yet, by the constant labour and industry of the inhabitants, the mora.s.s grounds had of late, by burning and proper management, produced surprisingly large crops of rye and oats. Coa.r.s.e lands, manured with lime, had answered the farmers' views in wheat, and yielded a great produce, and wherever marl was found there was great store of barley. The staple commodity of the county was linen, due care of which manufacture brought great wealth among the people. Consequently the county was observed to be 'populous and flourishing, though it did not become amenable to the laws till the reign of Queen Elizabeth, nor fully till the reign of James I.' The English habit, language, and manners almost universally prevailed. 'Irish,' says Harris, 'can be heard only among the inferior rank of _Irish Papists_, and even that little diminishes every day, by the great desire the poor natives have that their children should be taught to read and write in the English tongue in the Charter, or other English Protestant schools, to which they willingly send them.'

The author exults in the progress of Protestantism. There were but two Catholic gentlemen in the county who had estates, and their income was very moderate. When the priests were registered in 1704 there were but thirty in the county. In 1733 the books of the hearth-money collectors showed--

Protestant families in the county Down 14,000 Catholic families 5,210 Total Protestants, reckoning five a family 70,300 Total Catholics 26,050 ______ Protestant majority 44,250

Our author, who was an excellent Protestant of the 18th century type, with boundless faith in the moral influence of the Charter schools, would be greatly distressed if he could have lived in these degenerate days, and seen the last religious census, which gives the following figures for the county of Down:--

Protestants of all denominations 202,026 Catholics 97,240 _______ Total population 299,266

The total number of souls in the county in the year 1733 was 96,350.

These figures show that the population was more than trebled in 130 years, and that the Catholics have increased nearly fourfold.

The history of the Hertfort estate ill.u.s.trates every phase of the tenant-right question. It contains 66,000 acres, and comprises the barony of Upper Ma.s.sereene, part of the barony of Upper Belfast, in the county of Antrim, and part of the baronies of Castlereagh and Lower Iveagh, in the county of Down; consisting altogether of no less than 140 townlands. It extends from Dunmurry to Lough Neagh, a distance of about fourteen miles as the crow flies. When the Devon commission made its inquiry, the population upon this estate amounted to about 50,000. It contains mountain land, and the mountains are particularly wet, because, unlike the mountains in other parts of the country, the substratum is a stiff retentive clay. At that time there was not a spot of mountain or bog upon Lord Hertfort's estate that was not let by the acre. About one-third of the land is of first-rate quality; there are 15,000 or 16,000 acres of mountain, and about the same quant.i.ty of land of medium quality.

In the early part of Elizabeth's reign this property formed a section of the immense territory ruled over by the O'Neills. One of these princes was called the Captain of _Kill-Ultagh_. In those times, when might was right, this redoubtable chief levied heavy contributions on the settlers, partly in retaliation for aggressions and outrages perpetrated by the English upon his own people. The queen, with the view of effecting a reconciliation, requested the lord deputy, Sir H.

Sidney, to pay the Irish chief a visit. He did so, but his welcome was by no means gratifying. In fact, O'Neill would not condescend to receive him at all. His reason for exhibiting a want of hospitality so un-Irish was this:--He said his 'home had been pillaged, his lands swept of their cattle, and his va.s.sals shot like wild animals.' The lord deputy, in his notes of the northern tour, written in October, 1585, says:--'I came to Kill-Ultagh, which I found rich and plentiful, after the manner of these countries. But the captain was proud and insolent; he would not come to me, nor have I apt reason to visit him as I would. But he shall be paid for this before long; I will not remain in his debt.' The 'apt reason' for carrying out this threat soon occurred. Tyrone had once more taken the field against the queen; the captain joined his relative; all his property was consequently forfeited, and handed over to Sir Fulke Conway, a Welsh soldier of some celebrity. Sir Fulke died in 1626, and his brother, who was a favourite of Charles I., succeeded to the estate, to which his royal patron added the lands of Derryvolgie, thus making him lord of nearly 70,000 statute acres of the broad lands of Down and Antrim. The Conways brought over a number of English and Welsh families, who settled on the estate, and intermarrying with the natives, a race of st.u.r.dy yeomen soon sprang up. The Conways were good landlords, and greatly beloved by the people. With the addition made to the property the king conferred upon the fortunate recipient of his bounty the t.i.tle of Baron. At the close of 1627, Lord Conway began the erection of a castle (finished in 1630) on a picturesque mount overlooking the Lagan, and commanding a view of the hills of Down. During the struggles of 1641 the castle was burned down, together with the greater part of the town, which up to this time was called Lisnagarvah, but thenceforth it received the name of Lisburn. Very little, however, had been done by the settlers when the outbreak occurred, for an English traveller in 1635 remarked that 'neither the town nor the country thereabouts was _planted_, being almost all woods and moorish.' About a month after the breaking out of the rebellion the king's forces, under Sir George Rawdon, obtained a signal victory over the Irish commanded by Sir Phelim O'Neill, Sir Con M'Guinness, and General Plunket. In 1662 the town obtained a charter of incorporation from Charles II., and sent two members to the Irish parliament, the church being at the same time made the cathedral for Down and Connor. The Conway estates pa.s.sed to the Seymours in this way. Popham Seymour, Esq., was the son of Sir Edward Seymour, fourth baronet, described by Bishop Burnet as 'the ablest man of his party, the first speaker of the House of Commons that was not bred to the law; a graceful man, bold and quick, and of high birth, being the elder branch of the Seymour family.' Popham Seymour inherited the estates of the Earl of Conway, who was his cousin, under a will dated August 19, 1683, and a.s.sumed in consequence the surname of Conway.

This gentleman died unmarried, and was succeeded by his brother Francis, who was raised to the peerage in 1703 by the t.i.tle of Baron Conway, of Kill-Ultagh, county Antrim. His eldest son, the second baron, was created Viscount Beauchamp and Earl of Hertfort in 1750. In 1765 he was Viceroy of Ireland, and in 1793 he was created Marquis of Hertfort. The present peer, born in the year 1800, is the fourth marquis, having succeeded his father in 1842.

Lisburn is cla.s.sic ground. It represents all sorts of historic interest. On this hill, now called the Castle Gardens, the Captain of Kill-Ultagh mustered his gallogla.s.se. Here, amid the flames of the burning town, was fought a decisive battle between the English and the Irish, one of the Irish chiefs in that encounter being the ancestor of the restorer of St. Patrick's Cathedral. The battle lasted till near midnight, when the Irish were put to flight, leaving behind them dead and wounded thrice the number of the entire garrison. Here, on this mount, stood William III. in June, 1690. I saw in the church the monument of Jeremy Taylor, and the pulpit from which the most eloquent of bishops delivered his immortal sermons. I saw the tablet erected by his mother to the memory of Nicholson, the young hero of Delhi, and those of several other natives of Lisburn who have contributed, by their genius and courage, to promote the fame and power of England.

Among the rest Lieutenant Dobbs, who was killed in an encounter with Paul Jones, the American pirate, in Carrickfergus Bay.

I received a hospitable welcome from a loyal gentleman in the house which was the residence of General Munroe, the hero of '98, and saw the spot in the square where he was hanged in view of his own windows.

But I confess that none of the monuments of the past excited so much interest in my mind as the house of Louis Crommelin, the Huguenot refugee, who founded the linen manufacture at Lisburn. That house is now occupied by Mr. Hugh M'Call, author of 'Our Staple Manufactures,'

who worthily represents the intelligence, the public spirit, and patriotism of the English and French settlers, with a dash of the Irish ardour, a combination of elements which perhaps produces the best 'staple' of character. I stood upon the identical oak floor upon which old Crommelin planned and worked, and in the grave-yard Mr. M'Call deciphered for me the almost obliterated inscriptions, recording the deaths of various members of the Crommelin family. Their leader, Louis himself, died in July, 1727, aged 75 years.

The revocation of the Edict of Nantes drove three quarters of a million of Protestants out of France. A great number settled in London, where they established the arts of silk-weaving in Spitalfields and of fancy jewellery in St. Giles's. About 6,000 fled to Ireland, of whom many settled in Dublin, where they commenced the silk manufacture, and where one of them, La Touche, opened the first banking establishment. Wherever they settled they were missionaries of industry, and examples of perseverance and success in skilled labour, as well as integrity in commerce. Many of those exiles settled in Lisburn, and the colony was subsequently joined by Louis Crommelin, a native of Armandcourt near St. Quentin, where for several centuries his forefathers had carried on the flaxen manufacture on their own extensive possessions in the province of Picardy. Foreseeing the storm of persecution, the family had removed to Holland, and, at the personal request of the Prince of Orange, Louis came over to take charge of the colonies of his countrymen, which had been established in different parts of Ireland. The linen trade had flourished in this country from the earliest times. Linen formed, down to the reign of Elizabeth, almost the only dress of the population, from the king down--saffron-coloured, and worn in immense flowing robes, occasionally wrapped in various forms round the body. Lord Stafford had exerted himself strenuously to improve the fabric by the forcible introduction of better looms; but little had been done in this direction till the Huguenots came and brought their own looms, suited for the manufacture of fine fabrics. Mark Dupre, Nicholas de la Cherois, Obre, Rochet, Bouchoir, St. Clair, and others, whose ashes lie beside the Lisburn Cathedral and in the neighbouring churchyards, and many of whose descendants still survive among the gentry and manufacturers of Down and Antrim, were, with Crommelin, the chief promoters of the linen trade which has wrought such wonders in the province of Ulster. Lord Conway granted the Lisburn colonists a site for a place of worship, which was known as the French Church, and stood on the ground now occupied by the Court-house in Castle Street.

The Government paid 60 l. a year to their first minister, Charles de la Valade, who was succeeded by his relative, the Rev. Saumarez du Bourdieu, distinguished as a divine and a historian. His father was chaplain to the famous Schomberg, and when he fell from his horse mortally wounded the reverend gentleman carried him in his arms to the spot on which he died a short time after. Talent was hereditary in this family, the Rev. John du Bourdieu, rector of Annahilt, was author of the Statistical Surveys of Down and Antrim, published by the Royal Dublin Society. Referring to his ancestors he says that his father had been fifty-six years minister of the French Church in Lisburn. Mr.

M'Call states that, for some time before his death in 1812, he held the living of Lambeg, the members of the French Church having by that time merged into union with the congregation of the Lisburn Cathedral.

A similar process took place in Dublin, Portarlington, and elsewhere, the descendants of the Huguenots becoming zealous members of the Established Church.

Du Bourdieu informs us that Louis Crommelin obtained a patent for carrying on and improving the linen manufacture, with a grant of 800 l. per annum, as interest of 10,000 l., to be advanced by him as a capital for carrying on the same; 200 l. per annum for his trouble; 120 l. per annum for three a.s.sistants; and 160 l. for the support of the chaplain. Mr. M'Call, in his book, copies the following note of payments made by the Government from 1704 to 1708:--

s. d.

Louis Crommelin, as overseer of linen manufacture 470 19 0

W. Crommelin, salary and rent of Kilkenny factory 451 6 7

Louis Crommelin, to repay him for sums advanced to flax dressers and reed makers, and for services of French ministers 2,225 0 0

Louis Crommelin, for individual expenses and for sums paid Thomas Turner, of Lurgan, for buying flax-seed and printing reports 993 4 0

Louis Crommelin, three years' pension 600 0 0

French minister's two years' pension 120 0 0 _______________ Total 4,860 9 7

It should be mentioned, that when the owner of Lisburn, then Earl of Hertfort, held the office of lord lieutenant in 1765, with his son, Viscount Beauchamp, as chief secretary, he rendered very valuable services to the linen trade, and was a liberal patron of the damask manufacture, which arrived at a degree of perfection hitherto unequalled, in the hands of Mr. William Coulson, founder of the great establishment of that name which still flourishes in Lisburn, and from whom not only the court of St. James's but foreign courts also received their table linen. Du Bourdieu mentions that Lisburn and Lurgan were the great markets for cambrics--the name given to cloth of this description, which was then above five shillings a yard; under that price it was called lawn. In that neighbourhood cambric had been made which sold for 1 l. 2 s. 9 d. a yard unbleached. The princ.i.p.al manufacturing establishments in addition to Messrs. Coulsons' are those of the Messrs. Richardson and Co. and the Messrs. Barbour.

Lord Dufferin has written the ablest defence of the Irish landlords that has ever appeared. In that masterly work he says: 'But though a dealer in land and a payer of wages, I am above all things an Irishman, and as an Irishman I rejoice in any circ.u.mstance which tends to strengthen the independence of the tenant farmer, or to add to the comfort of the labourer's existence.' If t.i.tles and possessions implied the inheritance of religion and blood, Lord Dufferin ought indeed to be 'Irish of the Irish' as the men of Ulster in the olden times proudly called themselves. On the railroad from Belfast to Bangor there is a station constructed with singular beauty, like the castellated entrance to a baronial hall, and on the elaborately chiselled stone we read 'Clandeboye.' Under the railway from Graypoint on Belfast Lough runs a carriage-drive two miles long, to the famous seat of the O'Neills, where his lordship's mansion is situated, enclosed among aged trees, remembrancers of the past. Perhaps, there is no combination of names in the kingdom more suggestive of the barbaric power of the middle ages and the most refined culture of modern civilisation. The avenue, kept like a garden walk, with a flourishing plantation on each side, was cut through some of the best farms on the estate, and must have been a work of great expense.

Taking this in connection with other costly improvements, among which are several picturesque buildings for the residence of workmen--model lodging-houses resembling fancy villas at the seaside--we can understand how his lordship, within the last fifteen years, has paid away in wages of labour the immense sum of 60,000 l., at the rate of 4,000 l. a year.

The Abbot of Bangor never gave employment like that. William O'Donnon, the last of the line, was found in the thirty-second year of Henry VIII. to be possessed of thirty-one townlands in Ards and Upper Clandeboye, the grange of Earbeg in the county Antrim, the two Copeland Islands, the t.i.thes of the island of Raghery, three rectories in Antrim, three in Down, and a townland in the Isle of Man. The abbey, some of the walls of which still remain, adjoining the parish church, was built early in the twelfth century. We are informed by Archdall, that it had so gone to ruin in 1469 through the neglect of the abbot, that he was evicted by order of Pope Paul II., who commanded that the friars of the third order of St. Francis should immediately take possession of it, which was accordingly done, says Wadding, by Father Nicholas of that order. The whole of the possessions were granted by James I. to James Viscount Clandeboye.

Bangor was one of the most celebrated schools in Ireland when this island was said to have been 'the _quiet_ abode of learning and sanct.i.ty.' As to the quiet, I could never make out at what period it existed, nor how the 'thousands' of students at Bangor could have been supported. The Danes came occasionally up the lough and murdered the monks _en ma.s.se_, plundering the shrines. But the greatest scourges of the monasteries in Down and elsewhere were, not the foreign pagans and pirates, but the professedly Christian chiefs of their own country. It appears, therefore, that neither the Irish clergy nor the people have much reason to regret the flight of the Celtic princes and n.o.bles, who were utterly unable to fulfil the duties of a government; and who did little or nothing but consume what the industry of the peasants, under unparalleled difficulties, produced. The people of Clandeboye and Dufferin might have been proud that their chief received 40 l. a year as a tribute or blackmail from Lecale, that he might abstain from visiting the settlers there with his gallogla.s.se; but Lord Dufferin, the successor of the O'Neill of Clandeboye, spends among the peasantry of the present day 4,000 l. a year in wages. And how different is the lot of the people! Not dwelling in wattled huts under the oaks of the primeval forest, but in neat slated houses, with whitewashed walls, looking so bright and pretty in the sunshine, like snowdrops in the distant landscape. On the hill between Bangor and Newtownards, Lord Dufferin has erected a beautiful tower, from which, reclining on his couch, he can see the country to an immense extent, from the mountains of Antrim to the mountains of Mourne, Strangford Lough, Belfast Lough, the Antrim coast, and Portpatrick at the other side of the Channel, all spread out before him like a coloured map.

CHAPTER XI.

THE REBELLION OF 1641.

The Rebellion of 1641--generally called a 'ma.s.sacre'--was undoubtedly a struggle on the part of the exiled n.o.bles and clergy and the evicted peasants to get possession of their estates and farms, which had been occupied by the British settlers for nearly a generation. They might probably have continued to occupy them in peace, but for the fanaticism of the lords justices, Sir John Parsons and Sir John Borlace. It was reported and believed that, at a public entertainment in Dublin, Parsons declared that in twelve months no more Catholics should be seen in that country. The English Puritans and Scottish Covenanters were determined never to lay down their arms till they had made an end of Popery. Pym, the celebrated Puritan leader, avowed that the policy of his party was not to leave a priest alive in the land.

Meantime, the Irish chiefs were busy intriguing at Rome, Madrid, Paris, and other continental capitals, clamouring for an invasion of Ireland, to restore monarchy and Catholicity--to expel the English planters from the forfeited lands. Philip III. of Spain encouraged these aspirations. He had an Irish legion under the command of Henry O'Neill, son of the fugitive Earl of Tyrone. It was reported that, in 1630 there were in the service of the Archd.u.c.h.ess, in the Spanish Netherlands alone, 100 Irish officers able to command companies, and 20 fit to be colonels. There were many others at Lisbon, Florence, Milan, and Naples. They had in readiness 5,000 or 6,000 stand of arms laid up at Antwerp, bought out of the deduction of their monthly pay.

The banished ecclesiastics formed at every court a most efficient diplomatic corps, the chief of these intriguers being the celebrated Luke Wadding. Religious wars were popular in those times, and the invasion of Ireland would be like a crusade against heresy. But with the Irish chiefs the ruling pa.s.sion was to get possession of their homes and their lands. The most active spirit among these was Roger, or Rory O'Moore, a man of high character, great ability, handsome person, and fascinating manners. With him were a.s.sociated Conor Maguire, Costelloe M'Mahon, and Thorlough O'Neill, Sir Phelim O'Neill, Sir Con Magennis, Colonel Hugh M'Mahon, and the Rev. Dr. Heber M'Mahon. O'Moore visited the country, went through the several provinces, and, by communicating with the chiefs personally, organised the conspiracy to expel the British and recover the kingdom for Charles II. and the Pope.