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test, and such assistants could be readily obtained in any numbers without waiting for others. He then very reasonably claims the right, as he is responsible for the work, to choose his own hands for performing it. Next it was objected that he was about to employ papists; to which he replied, that it was no more dangerous to have the measurer a papist than the man who pointed out the boundaries (the meresman), who, for the most part, must be so.
Then the Provost of Trinity College prohibited his employing the scholars of the College. After which, as a climax, Mr. Worsley proposed, that all surveyors to be employed should be examined, in the first instance, by him, and that all the office parties should be paid by the State, "to remove their dependence on the Doctor." These propositions would have been fatal to his due authority, and he accordingly met them boldly, by denying the competency of Mr. Worsley to examine the surveyors; by proposing, if the former surveyors were to be examiners, he should himself be allowed to examine those surveyors before the council; and, by remarking that if soldiers were not proper to be employed in the survey, neither were their officers (which Mr. Worsley's superior assistants were) proper judges of the surveyors.
This appears to have satisfied the council, who accordingly order, that it be referred to the Attorney-General, the Commissioner-General of Revenue, and the Surveyor-General, to consider of the articles prepared and agreed upon between the council of officers and the Doctor, and to draw up a legal contract.
On the 11th December, "after a solemn seeking of God, performed by Colonel Thomlinson," the articles of agreement, nineteen in number, were completed; and, on the 25th December, 1654, ratified by the remarkable signature, among others, of Miles Corbet, who then resided at Malahide, that ancient castle and lands having been granted to him, and, till the Restoration, diverted from an unbroken descent in the ancient line of the Talbots, who, with the exception of that brief interval, have held it from the time of the Normans to the present day. On the same day, the 11th December, on which the articles were agreed to, it was resolved, at a council of war held at Corke House (which stood near the Castle Gate, the name being still retained in that part of the street called Cork Hill), that the army should contribute the penny an acre before adverted to, of which one-third was to be paid forthwith, the remainder after the survey should be completed, and possession given.
The articles, it will be seen, are in conformity with the Doctor's proposals, and the recommendation of the committee. They enjoin a survey of all forfeited lands in the ten half-counties mentioned in the Act of the 26th of September, 1653, for the satisfaction of the adventurers and soldiers, viz.: Limerick, Tipperary, and Waterford, the King's and Queen's Counties, Meath, Westmeath, Down, Antrim; and Armagh; also within the counties of Wexford, Wicklow, Kilkenny, Kerry, Longford, Cork, Kildare, Tyrone, Londonderry, and Donegal, "which shall be set out as satisfaction for the arreares" of the soldiers; also, "all forfeited, not yet disposed of or set out" in Dublin, Carlow, and the remaining part of Cork; and of all Church lands and Crown lands.
In explanation of these clauses it is necessary to mention, by reference to the Act before quoted, that at the breaking-out of the rebellion in 1641, an Act of the Parliament of Charles I. (17 Car. I.) declared the lands of the rebels forfeited, and called for contributions
