be gotten in a measurement"—a significant admission.[1]
By March of 1616 Chichester understood that most of the new patentees had surrendered; but, as late as December of the same year we find him writing to the Lord Carew protesting against giving only 16,500 acres to the Undertakers, and suggesting that twenty of them should get 25,300 acres, leaving almost two-thirds to the old inhabitants.[2] In the same month he wrote to the Lords of the Council giving a history of all his dealings in the matter.[3]
His first plan had been to assign 32,000 acres to the planters, and 34,000 to natives: among these he must have included some at least of the native patentees. Then he explains the subsequent course of the proceedings, evidently trying to justify himself against any charges of unfair dealing. It appears that by now the old inhabitants, or the chief of them, had submitted to the King's decision of 1614.
In the meantime there must have been a curious state of affairs in Wexford. As far as can be made out, although it was finally decided that only one-quarter of the territory was to be given to the Undertakers, only the fifty-seven old proprietors provided for under the scheme of 1611, and possibly the old patentees, had so far got any of the lands thus reserved from the planters.[4]
The old inhabitants, possibly owing to the
