"THEY are accustomed here to have all their christenings and marriages in their private houses; and which is odd, they never marry till after supper, and so to bed. This breeds a great mischief in the commonwealth, which is seen in this, that because these rites of the church are not solemnized in the public and open assemblies, there is nothing so common as for a man to deny his wife and children, abandon the former, and betake himself to a new task. I conceive it were fit these particulars should be reduced to the custom of England, which is not only much better for the public, but the more civil and comely." STRAFFORD to Laud. Ibid. vol. 1, p. 188.

Ibid. p. 195. STATE of the army. "Their horsemen's staves rather of trouble to themselves, than of offence against an enemy." He wished the staves changed into carabines, musket-bore, and he would have had the calevers changed for muskets, but the king disapproved this, considering the manner of service in those parts.

1633. HERE STRAFFORD says, " they have swallowed down this maxim, that the revenue of this crown must ever be rather over than undercharged; because if there be once a surplus, it will be carried over into England, and so by little and little drain the kingdom of all her wealth; where in the other case, this rather fetches from,

than communicates any thing with England. An opinion I should better excuse in them, if those were less English that practise it; and yet this have they drunk so far down as it will be impossible to gain it from them: unless it be not only against their wills, but before they be aware of what is intended.”—Ibid. vol. 1, p. 223.

SIR HENRY SIDNEY down to Strafford's time was called by the people the good deputy," and the common people, who knew not his name, would account from the time of the good deputy, making an æra of his being there."-İbid. vol. 1, p. 224.

CHARLES thought that when men proposed to be undertakers in plantations (in Ireland) he might "pleasure servants in that way with doing himself rather good than hurt," he says.-Ibid. vol. 1, p. 252.

1634. THE Council of Ireland "grant it undeniable in all reason and justice, after so long a peace and our estates so much improved under the happy government of your Majesty and your royal father, that this kingdom should defray itself without any further charge to your crown of England."—Ibid. vol. 1, p. 264.

THEY speak of "great annual disbursements continually issued for the good and quiet settlement of this kingdom alone.”— Ibid.

A WISE refusal to one of Mr. Attorney's (Noy) proposals that laws might be passed without certifying them first to the English Government.-Ibid. vol. 1, p. 269.

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"THIS the Irish have transcendently," says STRAFFORD, "to be the people of all others lothest to be denied any thing they desire,

1634. "ACTs past for restraining the barbarous customs of ploughing by the tail, of pulling the wool off living sheep, of burning corn in straw, and barking of standing trees, of cutting of young trees by stealth, of forcing cows to give milk, and of building houses without chimneys."-Ibid. vol. 1, p. 291.

1634. "JUST at this present," says STRAFFORD to Laud, "I am informed that my Lord Clanricard hath engrossed as many parsonages and vicarages as he hath mortgaged for £4000 and £80 rent: but in faith have at him, now this parliament is well past, and all the rest of the ravens : if I spare a man among them, let no man ever spare me. Howbeit I foresee this is so universal a disease, that I shall incur a number of men's displeasures of the best rank amongst them. But were I not better lose these for God Almighty's cause, than lose Him for theirs ?"-Ibid. vol. 1, p. 299.

DUBLIN College.

"Above all things I would recommend that we might have half-a-dozen good scholars to be sent us over to be made fellows, there will be room for so many once in a year; and this encouragement I will give them, cæteris paribus I will prefer them before any but my own chaplains, which I assure you are not many. But to make my offer no better than it is, the most spiritual livings in my gift are not above £100 a year, or thereabouts. But I purpose to hook into the crown again as many advowsons as I can, so abominably do I find them abused where they fall into other hands."-Ibid. vol. 1, p. 299.

would, found they at home decency and handsomeness to entertain them. I confess this must be remedied by time and degrees; yet if there were some strict course used to bring them in this town to a good order in building, the example might stir up an emulation through the whole kingdom to intend and accommodate their own dwellings much more than now they do. Certainly the proclamation you have in England might be of good use here." 1634. —Ibid. vol. 1, p. 306.

1634. STRAFFORD says, "I should advise the planter should pay a rent for ever of a full half of what the land is worth at an improved value; as if the land will give two shillings an acre I should reserve twelve pence an acre rent, which considering the covenants of building, of maintaining horse and foot on the land for your majesty's service, and such like, I take to be sufficient. Nor would I advise there might be any greater proportions allotted to any one man than 1000 acres. For I find where more have been granted the covenants of plantation are never performed, nor doth it bring in half so many planters to undergo the public service of the crown, to secure the kingdom against the natives, or to plant civility, industry and religion amongst them, which are indeed the chief and excellent goods the plantation hath wrought in the kingdom."-STRAFFORD'S Letters, vol. 1, p.

341.

"CERTAINLY the Irish here are the least sensible of the dignity and state which ought not only inwardly to attend the services of great kings, but also to appear to the people in the outward motions of it, that ever I knew. And the reason is very plain; they would have nothing shew more great or magnificent than themselves, that so they might, secundum usum Sarum, lord it the more bravely and uncontrolably at home, take from the poor churl what, and as they pleased."—Ibid. vol. 1, p. 348.

"Ir may seem strange that this people should be so obstinately set against their own good, and yet the reason is plain; for the Friars and Jesuits fearing that these laws would conform them here to the manners of England, and in time be a means to lead them on to a conformity in religion and faith also, they catholickly oppose and fence up every path leading to so good a purpose. And indeed I see plainly, that so long as this kingdom continues popish, they are not a people for the crown of England to be confident of. Whereas if they were not still distempered by the infusion of these Friars and Jesuits, I am of belief, they would be as good and loyal to their King, as any other subjects."-Ibid, vol. 1, p. 351,

STRAFFORD says of Dublin, "this town is the most dangerous for corrupting the disposition of youth that ever I came in."Ibid. vol. 1, p. 362,

THE rebellions, and disorders and looseness of the war, had almost as much ruined them in civility and the paths of virtue, as in their estates and fortunes. Ibid. vol. 1, p. 366.

STRAFFORD advises the re-establishment of the mint, which had been discontinued

during the troubles in Elizabeth's time. "Very little of the foreign coin brought into this kingdom ever comes to the Tower of London to be minted, but is transported back into France, much into the Low Countries, and much back into Spain itself. And considering that it is most evident, the exportation of this kingdom exceeds the importation at least £200,000 a year, it doth necessarily follow that great quantities of coin is brought in to balance the trade yearly, which if the Mint was once settled amongst them, would in a great part be coined here, and be so considerable a profit to the crown, beside an excellent means to increase the trade of this kingdom which is now all lost, and hindered exceedingly for want of it."-Ibid. vol. 1, p. 366.

The friars and seminaries must have been the means of drawing from Ireland the money which would otherwise have been plentiful here.

1635. "THE proportion we were guided by was to rate every £1000 a year at £40 payment to the King for each subsidy, which in itself is no great matter, nor would indeed seem so, but when they compare it with the rates of England: wherein this is to be said more than in their case, that it is now above twenty years since they here gave a subsidy, where the other have been in yearly payments all that while. That in these late contributions the nobility in a manner, wholly laid the burthen upon the poor tenants, most unequally freeing themselves, and therefore it is reason they should pay the more now. As for example my Lord of Cork, as sure as you live, paid towards the £20,000 yearly contribution, not a penny more than 6s. 8d. Irish, a quarter. -STRAFFORD'S Letters, vol. 1,

p. 407.

1"

1 A quarter was 120 acres, but whether time or measure be meant in this passage, I am not

sure.

LAUD writes to Strafford, 1635. "I have lately understood of some practising on the Queen's side about portions of tithes, to keep them still alienated from the Church; I am bold to give your Lordship notice of this which I hear, that if there be any such thing you would be pleased to make stay of it, till his Majesty's pleasure be farther known, whose royal intendments I make no doubt are alike gracious touching the portions of tithes as the impropriations themselves."-Ibid. p. 431.

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I HEAR they have sent over agents, forsooth, into England, to what intent I know not; but I trust they will be welcomed as they deserve; it having been anciently the chief art of this nation, by the intervention of these agencies to destroy the services of the crown, and strike thorough the honour and credit of this state and the ministers thereof. But I trust they will find this receipt to fail them now, and the temper of their constitution better understood than that such physic as this shall be longer thought to be proper to recover them forth of that superstition and barbarism which hath hitherto been the reproach almost of the English."—Ibid. vol. 1, p. 473.

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STRAFFORD calls the army "an excellent minister and assistant in the execution of all the King's writs, the great peace-maker between the British and the natives, betwixt the Protestant and the Papist; and the chief securer, under God and his Majesty, of the future and past plantations." -Ibid. vol. 2, p. 18.

1637. He writes :-"Yet methinks something begins to appear amongst us, as if this nation might in time become a strength, a safety, and without charge, to that crown; a purpose the English have long had, but hitherto never effected. Their trade, their

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rents, their civility, increase daily; and together with them, the King's revenue doth in some measure grow upon us, so as we shall be presently able to defray ourselves, which at my coming fell short near thirty thousand pounds a year."-Ibid. vol. 2, p. 80.

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Ir was Strafford's advice that the King should not permit gunpowder to be made in Ireland.-Ibid. vol. 2, p. 87.

STRAFFORD recovered or purchased the customs, which had been usurped or alienated. Upon asking authority to purchase back the grant of those of Carrickfergus, he says:" And then are all the customs thorough the kingdom entirely the King's, as in all reason of state they ought to be, and so preserved; for when they are in several hands, each labouring to improve the profit of his own port, and by favouring merchants, to draw them thither, hinders the King far more in other places, and consequently in a great part impairs the revenue itself."—Ibid. vol. 2, p. 91.

"As for the Archbishop of Cashell, I know him to be as dangerous and ill-affected a person as is in the kingdom, and know also he is a pensioner of Spain. You would little imagine, perhaps, that the titular bishoprick should be worth above two thousand pounds sterling a year, yet it is no less."-Ibid. vol. 2, p. 111.

"FOR the Cathedral of Down, if it shall be thought fit, (as stands with reason in my opinion,) there should be an act of state enjoining that whole diocese to contribute their several proportions of the charge it shall be estimated at, and to be raised upon the abler sort, not upon the poor people. I assent it with all my heart,-neither for that alone, but for all the Cathedrals throughout the whole kingdom. For, methinks, it