y multitudes of seals, which preyed on the fish
of the bay. Yet the seal was not an unwelcome visitor: his fur was
valuable,; and his oil supplied light through the long nights of winter.
An attempt was made with great success to set up iron works. It was not
yet the practice to employ coal for the purpose of smelting; and the
manufacturers of Kent and Sussex had much difficulty in procuring timber
at a reasonable price. The neighbourhood of Kenmare was then richly
wooded; and Petty found it a gainful speculation to send ore thither.
The lovers of the picturesque still regret the woods of oak and arbutus
which were cut down to feed his furnaces. Another scheme had occurred
to his active and intelligent mind. Some of the neighbouring islands
abounded with variegated marble, red and white, purple and green. Petty
well knew at what cost the ancient Romans had decorated their baths
and temples with many coloured columns hewn from Laconian and African
quarries; and he seems to have indulged the hope that the rocks of his
wild domain in Kerry might furnish embellishments to the mansions of
Saint James's Square, and to the choir of Saint Paul's Cathedral, [125]

From the first, the settlers had found that they must be prepared to
exercise the right of selfdefence to an extent which would have been
unnecessary and unjustifiable in a well governed country. The law was
altogether without force in the highlands which lie on the south of
the vale of Tralee. No officer of justice willingly ventured into those
parts. One pursuivant who in 1680 attempted to execute a warrant
there was murdered. The people of Kenmare seem however to have been
sufficiently secured by their union, their intelligence and their
spirit, till the close of the year 1688. Then at length the effects of
the policy of Tyrconnel began to be felt ever, in that remote corner
of Ireland. In the eyes of the peasantry of Munster the colonists
were aliens and heretics. The buildings, the boats, the machines, the
granaries, the dairies, the furnaces, were doubtless contemplated by the
native race with that mingled envy and contempt with which the ignorant
naturally regard the triumphs of knowledge. Nor is it at all improbable
that the emigrants had been guilty of those faults from which civilised
men who settle among an uncivilised people are rarely free. The power
derived from superior intelligence had, we may easily believe,
been sometimes displayed with insolence, and