To maintain this system of spoliation, and to coerce the vindictive passions of the natives, it became necessary to establish martial law, and to enforce regulations the most arbitrary and oppressive.  No Catholic was permitted to reside within any garrison or market town, or to remove more than one mile from his own dwelling without a passport describing his person, age, and occupation; every meeting of four persons besides the family was pronounced an illegal and treasonable assembly; to carry arms, or to have arms at home, was made a capital offence; and any transplanted Irishman, who was found on the left bank of the Shannon, might be put to death by the first person who met him, without the order of a magistrate.  Seldom has any nation been reduced to a state of bondage more galling and oppressive.  Under

[Footnote 1:  This celebrated party name, “Tory,” is derived from “toruighim,” to pursue for the sake of plunder.—­O’Connor, Bib.  Stowensis, ii. 460.]

[Footnote 2:  Burton’s Diary, ii. 210.]

the pretence of the violation of these laws, their feelings were outraged, and their blood was shed with impunity.  They held their property, their liberty, and their lives, at the will of the petty despots around them, foreign planters, and the commanders of military posts, who were stimulated by revenge and interest to depress and exterminate the native population.[1]

IV.  The religion of the Irish proved an additional source of solicitude to their fanatical conquerors.  By one of the articles concluded with Lord Westmeath, it was stipulated that all the inhabitants of Ireland should enjoy the benefit of an act lately passed in England “to relieve peaceable persons from the rigours of former acts in matters of religion;” and that no Irish recusant should be compelled to assist at any form of service contrary to his conscience.  When the treaty was presented for ratification, this concession shocked and scandalized the piety of the saints.  The first part was instantly negatived; and, if the second was carried by a small majority through the efforts of Marten and Vane, it was with a proviso that “the article should not give any the least allowance, or countenance, or toleration, to the exercise of the Catholic worship in any manner whatsoever."[2]

In the spirit of these votes, the civil commissioners ordered by proclamation[a] all Catholic clergymen to quit Ireland within twenty days, under the penalties of high treason, and forbade all other persons to harbour any such clergymen under the pain of death.  Additional provisions tending to the same object followed in succession.  Whoever knew of the concealment

[Footnote 1:  Bruodin, 693.  Hibernia Dominicana, 706.]

[Footnote 2:  Journals, 1652, June 1.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1653.  Jan. 6.]