ers had been in trouble all the
winter: the people who were to be driven out of their farms refused to
sow for those who were to succeed them; and the very plotters of the
iniquity began to tremble for the consequences which might accrue to
themselves. They fasted, they prayed, and they wrote pages of their
peculiar cant, which would be ludicrous were it not profane. They talked
loudly of their unworthiness for so great a service, but expressed no
contrition for wholesale robbery. Meanwhile, however, despite cant,
fasts, and fears, the work went on. The heads of each family were
required to proceed to Loughrea before the 31st of January, 1654, to
receive such allotments as the commissioners pleased to give them, and
that they might erect some kind of huts on these allotments, to shelter
their wives and daughters when they arrived. The allotment of land was
proportioned to the stock which each family should bring; but they were
informed that, at a future day, other commissioners were to sit at
Athlone, and regulate even these regulations, according to their real or
supposed affection or disaffection to the Parliament. All this was
skilfully put forward, that the unfortunate people might transplant the
more quietly, in the hope of procuring thereby the good-will of their
tyrants; but the tyrants were quite aware that the stock would probably
die from the fatigue of transportation and the want of food; then the
land could be taken from the victim, and, as a last favour, he might be
allowed to remain in the poor hut he had erected, until misery and
disease had terminated his life also.

Remonstrances and complaints were sent to the faction who governed
England, but all was in vain. The principal petitioners were the
descendants of the English nobles; they were now, by a just retribution,
suffering themselves the very miseries which they had so ruthlessly
inflicted on the native Irish. The petitioners, says Mr.
Prendergast,[496] were the noble and the wealthy, men of ancient English
blood, descendants of the invaders--the FitzGeralds, the Butlers, the
Plunkets, the Barnwalls, Dillons, Cheevers, Cusacks, names found
appended to various schemes for extirpating or transplanting the Irish,
after the subduing of Lord Thomas FitzGerald's rebellion in 1535--who
were now to transplant as Irish. The native Irish were too poor to pay
scriveners and messengers to the Council, and their sorrows were
unheard; though under their rough coa