This last condition of the Cromwellian settlement distinguished it, in our annals, from every other proscription of the native population formerly attempted.  The great river of Ireland, rising in the mountains of Leitrim, nearly severs the five western counties from the rest of the kingdom.  The province thus set apart, though one of the largest in superficial extent, had also the largest proportion of waste and water, mountain and moorland.  The new inhabitants were there to congregate from all the other provinces before the first day of May, 1654, under penalty of outlawry and all its consequences; and when there, they were not to appear within two miles of the Shannon, or four miles of the sea.  A rigorous passport system, to evade which was death without form of trial, completed this settlement, the design of which was to shut up the remaining Catholic inhabitants from all intercourse with mankind, and all communion with the other inhabitants of their own country.

A new survey of the whole kingdom was also ordered, under the direction of Dr. William Petty, the fortunate economist who founded the house of Lansdowne.  By him the surface of the kingdom was estimated at 10,500,000 plantation acres, three of which were deducted for waste and water.  Of the remainder, above 5,000,000 were in Catholic hands, in 1641; 300,000 were church and college lands; and 2,000,000 were in possession of the Protestant settlers of the reigns of James and Elizabeth.  Under the Protectorate, 5,000,000 acres were confiscated; this enormous spoil, two-thirds of the whole island, went to the soldiers and adventurers who had served against the Irish, or had contributed to the military chest, since 1641—­except 700,000 acres given in ‘exchange’ to the banished in Clare and Connaught; and 1,200,000 confirmed to ‘innocent Papists.’  Such was the complete uprooting of the ancient tenantry or clansmen from their original holdings, that, during the survey, orders of parliament were issued to bring back individuals from Connaught to point out the boundaries of parishes in Munster.  It cannot be imputed among the sins so freely laid to the historical account of the native legislature, that an Irish parliament had any share in sanctioning this universal spoliation.  Cromwell anticipated the union of the kingdoms by 150 years, when he summoned, in 1653, that assembly over which ’Praise-God Barebones’ presided; members for Ireland and Scotland sat on the same benches with the commons of England.  Oliver’s first deputy in the government of Ireland was his son-in-law Fleetwood, who had married the widow of Ireton; but his real representative was his fourth son Henry Cromwell, commander-in-chief of the army.  In 1657, the title of lord deputy was transferred from Fleetwood to Henry, who united the supreme civil and military authority in his own person until the eve of the restoration, of which he became an active partisan.  We may thus properly embrace the five years of the Protectorate as a period of Henry Cromwell’s administration.