Thus 22,000 acres, or one-third of the country were available for a plantation. In reality the loss to the Irish was much greater than a third. For first there were several of the old English who had by purchase or by grant obtained heavy chief rents on certain of the districts in question, and these were now to be commuted for grants of land, and Sir Richard Masterson had claims to a large extent of land, which claims were to be fully satisfied; and secondly very few Irish were to be provided for in distributing the 24,000 acres set apart for the old inhabitants.[1]
These proposals caused dismay among the natives. Fortunately they were able to secure the services of many of the old English equally threatened by the project, and in particular those of a lawyer named Walsh.
It was held to be necessary that the King's title should be found by a jury of the county. At the first trial the jury refused to find a verdict for the Crown. Then the case was tried again in the Exchequer with the same jury. Eleven were for the King; five were against him, and were duly sent to prison. The case was then sent back to Wexford, and the eleven compliant jurymen together with Sir Thomas Colclough, and John Murchoe, a patentee in the new plantation, found a title for the King based on the forfeiture of the Beaumont grant.
- ↑ The Report of the Commission of 1613 gives different figures. According to it nineteen Undertakers got 19,900 acres; Sir R. Masterson 10,000; fifty-six others of the old inhabitants got 25,000, leaving 12,000 acres available for "martial men," i.e. servitors.
