But the irrepressible Irish increased and multiplied around the walls with alarming rapidity.  The tide of native population rose steadily against the ramparts of exclusion, and could no more be kept back than the tide in the Foyle.  In the general census of 1800 there were no returns from Derry.  But in 1814 it was stated in a report by the deputation from the Irish Society, that the population amounted at that time to 14,087 persons.  This must have included the suburbs.  In the census of 1821 the city was found to have 9,313 inhabitants.  The city and suburbs together contained 16,971.

The report of the commissioners of public instruction in 1831 made a startling disclosure as to the effect of the system of exclusion in this ‘branch of the City of London.’  In the parish of Templemore (part of) there were—­

Members of the Established Church 3,166
Presbyterians 5,811
Roman Catholics 9,838

The report of 1834 gave the Roman Catholics, 10,299; the
Presbyterians, 6,083; and the Church only 3,314.

The figures now are—­Catholics 12,036
Protestants of all denominations 8,839
Majority of Irish and Catholics in this
‘branch of the City of London’ 3,197

This majority is about equal to the whole number which the exclusive system, with all its ‘protection’ and ‘bounties,’ could produce for the Established Church in the course of two centuries!  If the Irish had been admitted to the Pale of English civilisation, and instructed in the industrial arts by the settlers, the results with respect to religion might have been very different.  In the long run the Church of Rome has been the greatest gainer by coercion.  Derry has been a miniature representation of the Establishment.  The ’prentice boys, like their betters, must yield to the spirit of the age, and submit with the best grace they can to the rule of religious equality.

The plantation was, however, wonderfully successful on the whole.  In thirty years, towns, fortresses, factories, arose, pastures, ploughed up, were converted into broad corn-fields, orchards, gardens, hedges, &c. were planted.  How did this happen?  ’The answer is that it sprang from the security of tenure which the plantation settlement supplied.  The landlords were in every case bound to make fixed estates to their tenants at the risk of sequestration and forfeiture.  Hence their power of selling their plantation rights and improvements.  This is the origin of Ulster tenant-right.’

Yet the work went on slowly enough in some districts.  The viceroy, Chichester, was not neglected in the distribution of the spoils.  He not only got the O’Dogherty’s country, Innishown, but a large tract in Antrim, including the towns of Carrickfergus and Belfast.  An English tourist travelling that way in 1635 gives a quaint description of the country in that transition period:—­