By a printed declaration of June 29, 1653, published July 1, 1656,[1] the commanders of the various districts were to appoint days and times for hunting the wolf; and persons destroying wolves and bringing their heads to the commissioners of the revenue of the precinct were to receive for the head of a bitch wolf, 6 l; of a dog wolf, 5 l; for the head of every cub that preyed by himself, 40 s.; and for the head of every sucking cub, 10 s:  The assessments on several counties to reimburse the treasury for these advances became, as appears from Major Morgan’s speech, a serious charge.  In corroboration it appears that in March, 1655, there was due from the precinct of Galway 243 l. 5 s. 4 d. for rewards paid on this account.  But the most curious evidence of their numbers is that lands lying only nine miles north of Dublin were leased by the state in the year 1653, under conditions of keeping a hunting establishment with a pack of wolf hounds for killing the wolves, part of the rent to be discounted in wolves’ heads, at the rate in the declaration of June 29, 1653.  Under this lease Captain Edward Piers was to have all the state lands in the barony of Dunboyne in the county of Meath, valued at 543 l. 8 s. 8 d., at a rent greater by 100 l. a year than they then yielded in rent and contribution, for five years from May 1 following, on the terms of maintaining at Dublin and Dunboyne three wolf-dogs, two English mastiffs, a pack of hounds of sixteen couple (three whereof to hunt the wolf only), a knowing huntsman, and two men and one boy.  Captain Piers was to bring to the commissioners of revenue at Dublin a stipulated number of wolf-heads in the first year and a diminishing number every year; but for every wolf-head whereby he fell short of the stipulated number, 5 l. was to be defalked from his salary.[2]

[Footnote 1:  A/84, p.255.  Republished 7th July, 1656.—­’Book of Printed Declarations of the Commissioners for the Affairs of Ireland.’  British Museum.]

[Footnote 2:  Cromwellian Settlement, p.154.]

Twenty pounds was paid for the discovery of a priest, the second ‘burdensome beast,’ and to harbour him was death.  Again I avail myself of the researches of Mr. Prendergast, to give a few orders on this subject.

’August 4, 1654.—­Ordered, on the petition of Roger Begs, priest, now prisoner in Dublin, setting forth his miserable condition by being nine months in prison, and desiring liberty to go among his friends into the country for some relief; that he be released upon giving sufficient security that within four months he do transport himself to foreign parts, beyond the seas, never to return, and that during that time he do not exercise any part of his priestly functions, nor move from where he shall choose to reside my above five miles, without permission.  Ordered, same date, on the petition of William Shiel, priest, that the said William Shiel being old, lame, and weak, and not able to travel without crutches, he be permitted to reside in Connaught where the Governor of Athlone shall see fitting, provided, however, he do not remove one mile beyond the appointed place without licence, nor use his priestly function.’