that they amounted to a
considerable number is plain from the fact that the lands allotted to
them in lieu of their third portions extended to more than eight hundred
thousand English acres. Many, however, refused. Retiring into bogs and
fastnesses, they formed bodies of armed men, and supported themselves and
their followers by the depredations which they committed on the occupiers
of their estates. They were called Raperees and Tories;[1] and so
formidable did they become to the new settlers, that in certain districts,
the sum of two hundred pounds was offered for the head of the leader of the
band, and that of forty pounds for the head of any one of the privates.[2]

To maintain this system of spoliation, and to coerce the vindictive
passions of the natives, it became necessary to establish martial law, and
to enforce regulations the most arbitrary and oppressive. No Catholic was
permitted to reside within any garrison or market town, or to remove more
than one mile from his own dwelling without a passport describing his
person, age, and occupation; every meeting of four persons besides the
family was pronounced an illegal and treasonable assembly; to carry arms,
or to have arms at home, was made a capital offence; and any transplanted
Irishman, who was found on the left bank of the Shannon, might be put to
death by the first person who met him, without the order of a magistrate.
Seldom has any nation been reduced to a state of bondage more galling and
oppressive. Under

[Footnote 1: This celebrated party name, "Tory," is derived from
"toruighim," to pursue for the sake of plunder.--O'Connor, Bib. Stowensis,
ii. 460.]

[Footnote 2: Burton's Diary, ii. 210.]

the pretence of the violation of these laws, their feelings were outraged,
and their blood was shed with impunity. They held their property, their
liberty, and their lives, at the will of the petty despots around them,
foreign planters, and the commanders of military posts, who were
stimulated by revenge and interest to depress and exterminate the native
population.[1]

IV. The religion of the Irish proved an additional source of solicitude
to their fanatical conquerors. By one of the articles concluded with Lord
Westmeath, it was stipulated that all the inhabitants of Ireland should
enjoy the benefit of an act lately passed in England "to relieve peaceable
persons from the rigours of former acts in matters of religion;" and that
no Irish recusant should be