er the whole territory in one
day, a duty which must have required a great number of men, and sharp
men too; for, if the owners were dishonestly inclined, and were
as active in that kind of work as the peasantry were during the
anti-tithe war in our own time, the cattle could be driven off into
the woods or on to the lands of a neighbouring lord. However, during
the three years that Caulfield was receiver, the rental amounted
to 12,000 l. a year, a remarkable fact considering the enormous
destruction of property that had taken place during the late wars, and
the value of money at that time.

A similar process was adopted with regard to the property of O'Donel,
and guards were placed in all the castles of the two chiefs. In order
that their territories might pass into the king's possession by due
form of law, the attorney-general, Sir John Davis, was instructed to
draw up a bill of indictment for treason against the fugitive
earls and their adherents. With this bill he proceeded to Lifford,
accompanied by a number of commissioners, clerks, sheriffs, and a
strong detachment of horse and foot. At Lifford, the county town of
Donegal, a jury was empanelled for the trial of O'Donel, consisting
of twenty-three Irishmen and ten Englishmen. Of this jury Sir Cahir
O'Dogherty was foreman. He was the lord of Inishowen, having the
largest territories in the county next to the Earl of Tyrconnel. The
bill being read in English and Irish, evidence was given, wrote the
attorney-general, 'that their guilty consciences, and fear of losing
their heads, was the cause of their flight.' The jury, however, had
exactly the same sort of difficulty that troubled the juries in our
late Fenian trials about finding the accused guilty of compassing the
death of the sovereign. But Sir John laboured to remove their scruples
by explaining the legal technicality, and arguing that, 'whoso would
take the king's crown from his head would likewise, if he could, take
his head from his shoulders; and whoever would not suffer the king to
reign, if it lay in his power, would not suffer the king to live.' The
argument was successful with the jury. In all the conflicts between
the two races, whether on the field of battle or in the courts of law,
the work of England was zealously done by Celtic agents, who became
the eager accusers, the perfidious betrayers, and sometimes the
voluntary assassins of men of their own name, kindred, and tribe.

The commissioners ne