ceeded to indict and outlaw the partisans of James. One would expect that as regards this, the final confiscation in our story, the information available would be full and clear. But, when one comes to examine the various printed accounts one finds that there is scarcely any set of transactions in our whole history as to which it is so difficult to arrive at the exact facts. I have endeavoured to set out these facts as accurately as possible, yet there are many points which still appear to me obscure.
Unlike the Cromwellians, the Williamites did not proceed to a wholesale confiscation, leaving to the victims the onus of proving their innocence. Commissions were issued to various persons to inquire into the conduct during the late "rebellion" as the support of James was now called, and verdicts were to be brought in in the usual way by juries of freeholders.
These inquiries went on from 1691 until Sept. 1st, 1699, the date fixed by the Act passed in 1697, entitled an Act to Hinder the Reversal of Several Outlawries and Attainders, etc.[1]
One would expect that apart from persons who through infancy, physical disabilities, or absence could not be considered guilty of rebellion, and apart from those few persons, if there were any such, who saved their estates by a timely submission, the persons outlawed by this procedure would have included all Catholic landowners in Ireland.
- ↑ It was laid down in the Act to Confirm the Articles of Limerick that the "rebellion" was to be deemed to have commenced on April 1st, 1689, that being the date allowed for submission by William's proclamation of February of that year.
