in such manner as might introduce all the happy consequences of peace and cultivation. The experience of ages bears the most honorable testimony to the design, and Ireland must gratefully acknowledge that here were the first foundations laid of its affluence and security.".

So much, then, for the motives of the plantation of Ulster; they were purely political and philanthropic, and partook in no degree of sectarian bigotry or prejudice. It was impossible, however, from the very nature of the measure, although we believe it was never once contemplated at the time, that it could fail in having a most important influence on the religion of the population; and looking at the result after so many years, we cannot but regard it as the most important measure ever undertaken by the English government, as connected with the religion of Ireland.

As our present object is to show the causes of this great measure having failed to influence the religion of the country, as much as from its nature it ought to have done, we need not enter very minutely into the details and particulars of the plantation; but as it is possible, indeed very probable, that many of our readers are unacquainted

with the conditions on which lands were

granted to the settlers, we shall give them in the concise form of the historian, and we do so the more readily as they lead us to the true cause of the failure of the measure in the reformation of the religion of Ireland.

"Estates were assigned to all to be held of them and their heirs. The undertakers of two thousand acres were to hold of the King in capite-those of fifteen hundred by knights' service-those of a thousand in common soccage. The first were to build a castle, and enclose a strong court-yard or bawn, as it was called, within four years; the second to finish a house and bawn in two years; and the third to enclose a bawn, for even this rude species of fortification was accounted no inconsiderable defence against the incursions of an Irish enemy. The first were to plant upon their lands, within three years, forty-eight able men of English or Scottish birth, to be reduced to twenty families, to keep a demesne of six hundred acres in their own hands, to have four fee farmers on a hundred and twenty acres each, six leaseholders each on a

hundred acres, and on the rest, eight families of husbandmen, artificers, and cottagers. The others were under the like obligations proportionately. All were, for five years after the date of their patents, to reside, either in person or by such agents as should be approved by the state, and to keep a sufficient quantity of arms for defence. The British and servitors were not to alienate their lands to mere Irish, or to demise any portion of them to such persons as should refuse to take the oaths to government. They

were to let them at determined rents, and for no less term than twenty-one years, or three lives. Their tenants' houses were to be built after the English fashion, and united together in towns or villages. The old natives whose estates were granted in fee simple, to be held in soccage, were allowed the like privileges; they were enjoined to set their lands at certain rents, and for the like terms as the other undertakers, to take no Irish exactions from their inferior tenants, and to oblige them to forsake their old Scythian custom of wandering with their cattle from place to place for pasture, or CREAGHTING, as they called it, to dwell in towns, and conform to the English manner of tillage and husbandry."

Such was the conditions of the cele

brated plantation of Ulster, and it will be at once perceived that there was no spirit of wrong or oppression against the natives. The Irish were permitted to hold and locate their own lands with their own countrymen, and to claim and possess the same privileges as the English or Scotch, and in all the couditions exacted from all parties, there was nothing that savoured of the narrow spirit of sectarian bigotry, but all had reference to the civilization of a wild and barbarous district. Nothing could be devised more wisely adapted to accomplish this noble end and measure of philanthropy, and the result has proved, in the experience of two centuries, the consummate wisdom of the design, for ever since that plantation, the province of Ulster has been the seat of manufactures, the model of agriculture, the example of loyalty and peace, and the garden of true religion to this island.

It is precisely at this point, and arising out of this fact, that the difficulty commences, for it may well and reasonably be asked, whence has it arisen, that although this plantation of

Ulster-and the same question is applicable to the subsequent plantations elsewhere--has weaned the natives from their primitive barbarism of life, it yet has not won them from their religious prejudices, and that though it has led them to habits of civilization,it has never induced them to embrace the principles of the Reformation. It must ever be carefully kept in view that although a vast body of English and Scottish Protestants were thus located in this country, and thereby a vast accession was made to the numerical amount of the Protestant population, which has increased and multiplied in full obedience to the primitive commandments; yet it does not appear that they were to any extent worth noticing. The means of Protestantizing the nation, they themselves were Protestants, and maintained steadily, and do still maintain, their Protestant principles; but the same may be said of the natives, who were Roman Catholics, and maintained steadily, and do still maintain, their Roman Catholic principles. Neither sect seems to have made any great advance on its opponent, and it is a remarkable and important fact, that at this day the comparative numbers, belonging to both sects, are pretty much the same relatively that they were two centuries ago. The oldest estimate of any value which we possess, is that of Sir William Petty, who states the relative proportion of the two classes as follows: Roman Catholics to Protestants as two and two-thirds to one-and the latest upon which we can place any confidence, is that of Mr. Forster, who estimates the proportion at two and threeeighths to one. So that although a century and a half has intervened between these two estimates, and although they shew a small advance on the part of the Protestant population, yet on the whole we may say that these plantations did not as much as might reasonably have been expected, influence the religion of the natives. It is, therefore, the inquiry remains as to the causes of this failure, why was it that those measures failed to establish the principles of the Reformation in this country? Why was it that while they introduced civilization and industry-the English name and English habits-they yet failed to introduce the religious principles of England?

We feel no hesitation-none whatever-in stating that these causes were of a political and not a religious nature. This we urged in an article in a former number, and think we proved was the case with tnose causes which led to the failure of the Reformation in the palmy times of Elizabeth. It is very facile work for factious demagogues and interested priests, to declaim about the love and attachment of the Irish peasantry to the religion of their fathers, and it is just as smooth and oily an occupation for the sectarian bitterness of some separatists to wag their filthy tongues against the apathy, and neglect, and carelessness of the Established Church. But the truth--the naked truth--is, that the reformation of the natives from their old superstitions was not impeded by either any attachment to the Church of Rome, or any negligence of the Established Clergy, but by causes that had their birth amidst the political throes of the country.

We feel convinced that no sensible and unprejudiced mind will think otherwise of this matter, provided always he knows any thing about it. We throw in these provisos, because we have often met very adventurous and very flippant cits-mere club-house talkers-who dilate as dogmatically as if they were really the profound sages they affect to be thought, while they, in sober sadness, are fully as well acquainted with what passes in the moon, as with the chequered history of this island. Now we, who profess to be something like authority in all matters connected with Irish history, whether of politics, or religion, or literature, or antiquities-we, The Dublin University Magazine, do assert, without any fear of contradiction from any quarter to be respected, that the ancient superstitions of the natives of Ireland have not been perpetuated either by their fancied attachment to the principles of the Church of Rome, or by any pretended neglect on the part of the Church of England, but by that great evil which has ever walked through the land with the rampant step of a giant, and lashed it with a scourge of scorpions-namely, the political state of the country, which has ever exposed it a prey to be torn in pieces by intestine distractions, and a theatre for the contention

It

of every faction in the empire. was this spirit-the evil genius of Ireland-that marred the noble and glorious prospects that were opened in the days of Elizabeth; and it was this spirit that passed again over the land, and desolated, as with a whirlwind, the fair and beautiful vista that opened to the view in the plantation of Ulster.

Let us not, however, be misunderstood. We mean not to fasten the failure of that great measure in reforming the religion of Ireland altogether upon the troublous bearing of the natives. Far from it: we feel that the failure arose from the conduct of the plantation through the mistakes of some and the wickedness of othersin connexion with the evil condition and general political and social state of the native population, a state that required more cautious sagacity and more political wisdom on the part of those who conducted the settlements than they appear to have exercised, for although the crown had devised the measure with consummate wisdom and disinterested feeling, those who carried it into effect were too often either reckless adventurers, or grasping spirits that did not enter into the feelings and spirit of the crown, and it was, therefore, the less to be marvelled at,that the natives always delighting in stormy strife and agitation-habitually addicted to the reckless bearing of faction, and naturally burning for some plausible pretext for disaffection-should take fire at every thing that was not perfected with that prudent caution that was so necessary in even the details of the conduct of so great a measure.

There is, therefore, much in the way of apology may be offered on behalf of the natives. We may farther note, that among a wild and ignorant population like that which had possessed the province of Ulster, there was a vast difference between embracing the civilization, and receiving the religion of · England. They could easily perceive the comforts of houses constructed in the English manner, and would naturally be led to adopt it. They could readily observe the advantages of tillage and a settled farm, and would, therefore, easily be led to prefer it to their half-Scythian fashion of creaghting, or

wandering about for pasture, as if the whole island were an open common, to which all had an equal right who could show an equal might. They could thus naturally be led to adopt what appeared evidently and on the face of it, to be a palpable advantage, and accordingly they did, to a certain extent, adopt the civilization of the settlers. We say to a certain extent, because it is a fact that to this day those portions of Ulster which have continued in the hands of the original inhabitants, and who have still clung to their original religion, are very far inferior in culture and civilization to those portions which came into the hands of the settlers. Thus, while to a certain extent they embraced the habits of order and industry, which were introduced among them, because they saw them so plainly to be advantageous to themselves, they did not equally embrace their religious principles, because, among other reasons, they could not so easily discern the advantage of doing so.

This distinction requires to be kept in view, for the population were altogether in too barbarous a stage-immersed to the throat in absurd superstitions and impenetrable ignorance, and could not form an opinion-were, in fact, incapable of thinking on the principles of a religion which, like Christianity, in its pure state after the Reformation, presented itself to their eyes divested and disrobed of those external trappings and sensible displays in which ignorance soon generally invests it. They could see, therefore, but little attraction in this religion; while, perhaps, they saw, or thought they saw, something not always recommendatory of it in the conduct of the settlers. If we, then, throw into the scale that feeling-that gigantic feeling among even savage tribes—which arose out of their relative situations, they were the conquered in the presence of their conquerors-slaves, as their leaders would tell them, doomed to hear and to bear the clanking of their chains, even in the presence of their foreign masters. There were not wanted in those days ample pretexts for sowing disaffection, discontent, and agitation; there, unhappily, were not wanted acts of wrong, which the spirit of faction