There were other noblemen, lords of the Pale, descended from illustrious English ancestors, the Fitzgeralds, the Butlers, the Plunkets, the Barnwells, the Dillons, the Cheevers, the Cusacks, &c., who petitioned, praying that their flight might not be in the winter, or alleging that their wives and children were sick, that their cattle were unfit to drive, or that they had crops to get in.  To them dispensations were granted, provided the husbands and parents were in Connaught building huts, &c., and that not more than one or two servants remained behind to look after the respective herds and flocks, and to attend to the gathering in and threshing of the corn.  And some few, such as John Talbot de Malahide, got a pass for safe travelling from Connaught to come back, in order to dispose of their corn and goods, giving security to return within the time limited.  If they did not return they got this warning in the month of March—­that the officers had resolved to fill the jails with them, ’by which this bloody people will know that they (the officers) are not degenerated from English principles.  Though I presume we should be very tender of hanging any except leading men, yet we shall make no scruple of sending them to the West Indies,’ &c.  Accordingly when the time came, all the remaining crops were seized and sold; there was a general arrest of all ’transplantable persons.  All over the three provinces, men and women were hauled out of their beds in the dead hour of night to prison, till the jails were choked.’  In order to further expedite the removal of the nobility and gentry, a court-martial sat in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and ordered the lingering delinquents, who shrunk from going to Connaught, to be hanged, with a placard on the breast and back of each victim—­’For not transplanting.’

Scully’s conduct at Ballycohy, was universally execrated.  But what did he attempt to do?  Just what the Cromwellian officers did at the end of a horrid civil war 200 years ago, with this difference in favour of Cromwell, that Scully did not purpose to ‘transplant,’ He would simply uproot, leaving the uprooted to perish on the highway.  His conduct was as barbarous as that of the Cromwellian officers.  But what of Scully?  He is nothing.  The all-important fact is, that, in playing a part worse than Cromwellian, he, acting according to English law, was supported by all the power of the state; and if the men who defended their homes against his attack had been arrested and convicted, Irish judges would have consigned them to the gallows; and they might, as in the Cromwellian case, have ordered a placard to be put on their persons:—­

    ‘FOR NOT TRANSPLANTING!’