which they had yielded to the Earl had but been extorted by force, and they had always protested against them.
Even in the case of those exactions which at first sight seemed to English officials most arbitrary, there were certain fixed limits outside of which the Earl did not go.[1]
Long disputes raged round these points. Various commissions were sent to Munster to determine the matter. The report of the first was distinctly adverse to the old inhabitants. But these did not submit and the controversy went on until the year 1592, nine years after the Earl's death. It was decided finally in favour of the old inhabitants. All who could make reasonable proof of being freeholders were secured in their property, paying to the Crown or to the Undertakers whatever fixed rents and services they had paid to the Earl, and compounding at a certain sum for all the uncertain payments which did not clearly rest on mere extortion.[2]
The result was that, instead of the estimated 577,000 acres, only 202,000 were confiscated and given to the Undertakers.[3] So far, therefore, was the project of a great English colonisation defeated. Besides, those "Undertakers" who
- ↑ See for the case of the "chargeable lands" Cal. State Papers, 1589, p. 256. Ibid. May, 1592, p. 528, for very clear directions as to what should be done. Ibid. Oct., 1592, p. 3 for account of the proceedings of the Commissioners. Car. Cal., 1594, p. 102, gives instructions to the final set of Commissioners for granting lands to the Undertakers.
- ↑ Even where they did rest on extortion, but yet had been paid from of old, if they were certain rents they were to be paid to the Crown.
- ↑ These are Dr. Bonn's figures. I cannot find, however, where he gets his 202,000 acres; possibly by adding up the acreage of the actual grants. The acres were probably Irish
