II.  Cromwell had not been long in the island before he discovered that it was impossible to accomplish the original design of extirpating the Catholic population; and he therefore adopted the expedient of allowing their leaders to expatriate themselves with a portion of their countrymen, by entering into the service of foreign powers.  This plan was followed by his successors in the war, and was perfected by an act of parliament, banishing all the Catholic officers.  Each chieftain, when he surrendered, stipulated for a certain number of men:  every facility was furnished him to complete his levy; and the exiles hastened to risk their lives in the service of the Catholic powers who hired them; many in that of Spain, others of France, others of Austria, and some of the republic of Venice.  Thus the obnoxious population was reduced by the number of thirty, perhaps forty thousand able-bodied men; but it soon became a question how to dispose of their wives and families, of the wives and families of those who had perished by the ravages of disease and the casualties of war, and of the multitudes who, chased from their homes and employments, were reduced to a state of titter destitution.  These at different times, to the amount of several

[Footnote 1:  Ludlow, ii. 2, 5, 8-11.  Heath, 332, 333.]

thousands, were collected in bodies, driven on shipboard, and conveyed to the West Indies.[1] Yet with all these drains on the one party, and the continual accession of English and Scottish colonists on the other, the Catholic was found to exceed the Protestant population in the proportion of eight to one.[2] Cromwell, when he had reached the zenith of his power, had recourse to a new expedient.  He repeatedly solicited the fugitives, who, in the reign of the late king, had settled in New England, to abandon their plantations and accept of lands in Ireland.  On their refusal, he made the same offer to the Vaudois, the Protestants of Piedmont, but was equally unsuccessful.  They preferred their native valleys, though

[Footnote 1:  According to Petty (p. 187), six thousand boys and women were sent away.  Lynch (Cambrensis Eversus, in fine) says that they were sold for slaves.  Bruodin, in his Propugnaculum (Pragae, anno 1660) numbers the exiles at one hundred thousand.  Ultra centum millia omnis sexus et aetatis, e quibus aliquot millia in diversas Americae tabaccarias insulas relegata sunt (p. 692).  In a letter in my possession, written in 1656, it is said:  Catholicos pauperea plenis navibus mittunt in Barbados et insulas Americae.  Credo jam sexaginta millia abivisse.  Expulsis enim ab initio in Hispaniam et Belgium maritis, jam uxores et proles in Americam destinantur.—­After the conquest of Jamaica in 1655, the protector, that he might people it, resolved to transport a thousand Irish boys and a thousand Irish girls to the island.  At first, the young women only were demanded to which it is replied:  “Although we must use force