proprietors in these was only about 270. Among the counties omitted are Tipperary, Meath, Galway and Clare, where, for various reasons, there was a very considerable sub-division of property, so that we are warranted in assuming that, for the whole island, the number of Catholic landowners in 1641 was at least 8,000, and may have been as many as 10,000, or even 12,000. So that Petty's figure of 3,000 appears to be a mere guess, or rather a piece of special pleading. Therefore, one is inclined to regard all his figures with suspicion, a suspicion heightened when we find, according to the report of the Commissioners appointed in 1700 by the English House of Commons to investigate the forfeitures under William III., that the four thousand Catholics outlawed after the downfall of James II. had between them held only about 2,250,000 English acres. The amount of land in Catholic hands had certainly increased rather than diminished between the Restoration and the Revolution, so that it is hard to accept Petty's statement that the area finally left in Catholic hands after the Restoration was over four and a half million acres of profitable land.[1]
That Petty's figures are not to be blindly trusted appears, too, from other contemporary statements.[2]
- ↑ As far as one can make out, the estates of nearly all Catholics had been held to be forfeited, after the downfall of James II., but about one-fourth of the total had been "restored " in accordance with the articles of Limerick and Galway. Some proprietors also had been restored by special favours of the Crown. And some escaped through partial juries. Altogether perhaps about 600,000 English acres were thus restored.
- ↑ See notes to Mr. Philip Wilson's article on Ireland under Charles II. in Studies in Irish History, 1649—1773. Lord Clare (speech on the Union) gives the area transferred from Catholics to Protestants as 7,800,000 acres.
