which sixty years' possession should give a good title as against the Crown. This would have proved fatal to any projected plantations; hence the Parliament was dissolved in 1635 before such xin Act could be brought in, and before the graces promised in 1628 had been confirmed.
In July, 1635, Commissioners were sent to Connaught to establish the title of the Crown. It was plain that on a legal quibble all or most of the patents granted under James I. were invalid. But the natives could and did point out that James in 1615 and Charles in 1628 had intended to secure the landholders in their estates. This argument was brushed aside on the ground that James' letter had been obtained on false pretences, for he had believed, or was supposed to have believed, that the conditions laid down in Perrot's Composition had been adhered to, whereas it was notorious that they had been violated in many cases. So James had been deceived, and his letter and the grace of 1628, based on it, might be set aside without dishonour to the King. Furthermore, Strafford denied that the inhabitants in Elizabeth's day had had any interest which they could surrender to the Queen, or compound for, as they were all mere intruders on the lands of the Crown.
On these lines it was easy to make the Crown's title evident. The juries of Sligo, Roscommon and Mayo yielded to government threats and found the verdicts required.
But in Galway a sterner resistance was met with. The landowners there had the powerful support of the old Earl of Clanrickard, a man of noted loyalty, connected by marriage with the new
