principled
distribution of Irish property, made by Cromwell's government, amongst
those who had served it best, or, what meant nearly the same thing, who
had most injured the Irish. The acts of settlement gave legality to a
revolution which transferred the lands of the natives to military
colonists. The repeal of those acts, within 24 years after they passed,
and within about 37 years after that revolution took place, cannot
excite much surprise. The _one-third_ of their holdings (which the
Cromwellian soldiers were obliged by the acts of the settlement to give
up) could not have made a fund to reprize those who had been ousted
from the entire. However, the giving up of that one-third was not
strictly enforced, and the stock resulting was wasted by commissioners,
and distributed as the applicants had interest at court, not as they
had title to the lands. Thus, Lord Ormond got some HUNDRED THOUSAND
acres; albeit he had done more substantial injury to the Irish, and to
the royalist cause in which they foolishly embarked, than any of the
parliamentarians, from Coote to Ireton. Under such circumstances, we
are not exaggerating the effect of the acts of settlement, passed after
the Restoration, in saying, that they confirmed by law the Cromwellian
robbery. The testimony of all the credible writers of the time goes to
the same effect. Indeed, the repeal of the acts of settlement would
have been against the interests of the natives, if they had received
justice from those acts. This, in itself, is sufficient to prove how
much hardship they had caused. The repeal of those acts by the Irish,
as soon as they were in power, seems natural, considering how great and
how recent was the injury they inflicted. Still, as we said, 24 years
had passed since those acts had become law. Many persons had got
possession of properties under that law, and many of those properties
had, doubtless, been sold, leased, subdivided, improved, and
incumbered, upon the faith of that law. It might be urged that persons
interested by such means in these properties had become so with full
knowledge that they had been acquired by violence and injustice, and
that the original owners and their families were in existence, ready
and resolved to take their first opportunity of regaining their rights.
Such reasoning fixes all who had advanced money, made purchases, or
become in any wise interested under the acts of settlement, with such
injustice and imprudence as