XXVIII. CHAP. ployment for many years to Ormond, to whom, as lord lieutenant, affifted by the privy council, the five commiffioners, appointed to execute the ftatute, were ordered to refort for advice in all affairs of doubt and difficulty. CHAP. CHAP. XXIX. Act prohibiting the importation of Irish cattle into Steadiness and caution of Ormond-Death of Offory WHEN, by the acts of fettlement and explana- CHAP. act. Non-im tion, tranquility feemed eftablifhed, and a firm XXIX. foundation laid for profperity in future, the new English colony of Ireland felt immediately the bad portation effects of national jealoufy, narrow, impolitic, and abfurd, so often difplayed by the English parliament, and foon afterward the ftill more baleful confe quences of plans formed by unprincipled ftatefmen for the establishment of defpotifm on the bafis of popery. From feveral caufcs obviously obfervable, particularly 1666. CHAP. particularly religious perfecution which had driven XXXI. thousands of induftrious puritans to Holland' and America, the rents of England had fuffered a diminution to the annual amount of near two hundred thousand pounds. The views of some courtiers, who wished to diftrefs the duke of Ormond in his government, and the vulgar inclination of many to display the fuperiority of the English over the Irish nation by oppreffive exertions of authority, confpired to reprefent this decrease to have been occafioned by the importation of Irish cattle; though the whole annual value of the cattle imported fell far short of the deficiency of rents; and though far greater numbers had been imported, before the civil wars of England, without the appearance of any fuch deficiency. So early as the year 1663 a temporary act had been passed in England to prohibit the importation of any fat cattle after the firft of July in every year; and in a parliament held at Oxford in 1665 a bill was prepared for the total prohibition of Irish cattle of every defcription from the English markets. The bill was oppofed by arguments drawn from natural juftice; from the rights of Englishmen, to which the English colony in Ireland was entitled; the mifery to which the people of Ireland must be reduced by its operation; the bad confequences of driving the Irish into the neceffity of trading with other countries; the detriment to the trade of England, whofe manufactures the Irish, deprived of their chief branch of commerce, would be no longer able to purchase; the failure of revenue in Ireland by ΧΧΙΧ. by the poverty, thus occafioned, and the confequent CHAP. infecurity of the kingdom from the non-payment of the army. Reasoning was altogether vain. To fome gentlemen of Ireland, who appear. ed for their country, a copy of the bill was denied. It paffed the houfe of commons by a fmall majority, but the parliament was prorogued before it received the fanction of the lords. It was refumed however with ftill more violence in the next feffion, and debated among the peers with a fcandalous indecorum. In the preamble to the bill the commons had declared the importation a nuisance; instead of which the words detriment and mischief were propofed in the upper house to be inferted as an amendment. Afhley, who afterwards became earl of Shaftesbury, with affected moderation. recommended the terms felony or premunire; to which the chancellor, lord Clarendon, replied that the importation might as reasonably be pronounced adultery. At the moment when the English parliament was committing an outrage on reafon as well as equity, the duke of Buckingham exclaimed that "none could oppose the bill but fuch as had Irish estates or Irish understandings." Receiving a challenge for this national infult from the gallant lord Offory, Buckingham, instead of fighting, complained to the houfe; and Offory was for a fhort time committed to the tower. As the king had involved himself in war with the Dutch and with France, and could obtain no fupply without the paffing of the bill, he found himself obliged to give it his fanction, though VOL. II. E he CHAP. he had expreffed his utmoft abhorrence of it, and XXIX. had paffionately declared that it should never receive Difcon tents. his affent. Deprived of her ufual commerce with England: difabled from trading with foreign countries by the want of fhipping and by the war; exposed to the attempts of enemies open and concealed; and in danger of infurrections from the diftreffes of its people, Ireland was reduced to a lamentable fituation. Ormond in this time of peril proceeded with vigilance and caution, detecting confpiracies, and taking the proper measures for fecurity without farther provocation to the difcontented. The danger of diforders in an unpaid army had appeared in a mutiny of the garrifon at Carrickfergus, who had feized the town and castle with a defperate defiance of authority. The garrison, after fome resistance, surrendered to Ormond, who had marched against them on the land fide, while his fon, the earl of Arran, had conducted an armament to attack them from the fea. Of a hundred and ten, tried by a court martial, nine were executed, and the companies disbanded to which they had belonged. A fupply of fifteen thousand pounds from the English treasury, together with provifions, accepted in Ireland, in place of money, in the payment of taxes, enabled the lord lieutenant to give fome content to the army, and to establish a militia, particularly in Munfter, where a formidable invafion from France was apprehended. Notwithstanding the ungenerous treatment of Ireland by the English parliament, thirty thousand beeves, the only riches then afforded by the country, were chearfully fubfcribed, at the |