1568.] STATE OF IRELAND. 227 in their new settlement was to be defrayed by rates on the counties from which they were taken. Each of these persons was to have a farm allotted to him, and the distribution was to be so arranged that the colonists might ' dwell together in manner of towns to the num- ber of one hundred households at least.' The lands were to be secured to them and their heirs, subject to a small annual payment to the Crown. Every gentleman who would go over at his own expense might have an increase of grant in proportion to the number of servants that he might take with him. The Queen should provide depots of food till the first year's crops were got in, and the Crown payments would furnish a fund to reimburse the counties for the cost of the original outfit. Any objections which might be raised in England would be removed, it was thought, by a circular explaining the incessant expense which the existing administration of Ireland entailed upon the Crown, and through the Crown upon the people, with the waste of life among the English troops ' sent thither to serve in the wars/ The Queen possessed lands enough, either by forfeiture, escheat, or just title of inheritance, to enable her to carry out the scheme without invading the rights of the Irish chiefs ; and she was ready to bestow these lands for the benefit of the commonwealth. If her subjects declined the pro- posal she would then be obliged ' to require their aid to collect and maintain soldiers to live therein garrisons.' 1 1 Motion for the sending men out of certain parishes into Ireland January, 1568 : MSS. Ireland.
