had been forfeited during the late troubles. But of the
value of this large territory very different estimates were formed.
The commissioners acknowledged that they could obtain no certain
information. In the absence of such information they conjectured the
annual rent to be about two hundred thousand pounds, and the fee simple
to be worth thirteen years' purchase, that is to say, about two millions
six hundred thousand pounds. They seem not to have been aware that much
of the land had been let very low on perpetual leases, and that much was
burdened with mortgages. A contemporary writer, who was evidently well
acquainted with Ireland, asserted that the authors of the report had
valued the forfeited property in Carlow at six times the real market
price, and that the two million six hundred thousand pounds, of which
they talked, would be found to shrink to about half a million, which, as
the exchanges then stood between Dublin and London, would have dwindled
to four hundred thousand pounds by the time that it reached the English
Exchequer. It was subsequently proved, beyond all dispute, that this
estimate was very much nearer the truth than that which had been formed
by Trenchard and Trenchard's colleagues.

Of the seventeen hundred thousand acres which had been forfeited, above
a fourth part had been restored to the ancient proprietors in conformity
with the civil articles of the treaty of Limerick. About one seventh
of the remaining three fourths had been given back to unhappy families,
which, though they could not plead the letter of the treaty, had been
thought fit objects of clemency. The rest had been bestowed, partly on
persons whose seances merited all and more than all that they obtained,
but chiefly on the King's personal friends. Romney had obtained a
considerable share of the royal bounty. But of all the grants the
largest was to Woodstock, the eldest son of Portland; the next was to
Albemarle. An admirer of William cannot relate without pain that he
divided between these two foreigners an extent of country larger than
Hertfordshire.

This fact, simply reported, would have sufficed to excite a strong
feeling of indignation in a House of Commons less irritable and
querulous than that which then sate at Westminster. But Trenchard and
his confederates were not content with simply reporting the fact. They
employed all their skill to inflame the passions of the majority. They
at once applied goads to its anger a