With the exception, then, of these fortunate twenty-six, every Catholic landlord in Ireland lost his estates. Those who came under the first five clauses of the Act lost everything, unless they had been members of one of the armed forces which had secured special terms of surrender. In this case they would be in the same case as those in the favoured classes; they would receive, that is, lands equivalent to one-third or two-thirds of their former estate in whatever place the parliament might appoint.[1]
So far, there is no mention of actual transplantation. The comparatively "innocent" from the parliamentary standpoint, were to lose their actual lands, and to receive partial compensation wherever parliament might appoint, but it was not stated that they themselves would be forbidden to reside wherever they chose.
But at the end of the Act there is a foreboding of what was to come. There was a proviso that all persons who had obtained special terms of surrender were to benefit by them, in spite of anything to the contrary in the preceding clauses, but that the government might, if they saw fit, transplant them from their former place of habitation to wherever it might judge most consistent with the public safety.
Curiously enough the first proposals to transplant any one under this clause refer not to the Catholics but to the Ulster Presbyterians. It was suggested that all their chief men should be removed from Down and Antrim, as being too near
- ↑ This proviso exempted a very large number of landowners, especially the Lords of the Pale, from the penalties of clauses 1 and 3 of the Act.
