y been harassed, torn, and wasted
by private and domestic broils but also by foreign arms: We therefore,
deeply and heartily commiserating the wretched state of the said
province, have esteemed it to be a work worthy of a Christian prince,
and of our royal office, to stir up and recal the same province from
superstition, rebellion, calamity, and poverty, which heretofore
have horribly raged therein, to religion, obedience, strength, and
prosperity. And whereas our beloved and faithful subjects the mayor
and commonalty and citizens of our city of London, burning with a
flagrant zeal to promote such our pious intention in this behalf, have
undertaken a considerable part of the said plantation in Ulster, and
are making progress therein'.

King James, having heard very unsatisfactory reports of the progress
of the plantation, wrote a letter to the lord deputy in 1612,
strongly complaining of the neglect of the 'Londoners' to fulfil the
obligations they had voluntarily undertaken. He had made 'liberal
donations of great proportions of those lands to divers British
undertakers and servitors, with favourable tenures and reservations
for their better encouragement; but hitherto neither the safety of
that country, nor the planting of religion and civility among those
rude and barbarous people, which were the principal motives of that
project, and which he expected as the only fruits and returns of
his bounty, had been as yet any whit materially effected. He was not
ignorant how much the real accomplishment of the plantation concerned
the future peace and safety of that kingdom; but if there was no
reason of state to press it forward, he would yet pursue and effect
that object with the same earnestness, 'merely for the goodness and
morality of it; esteeming the settling of religion, the introducing
of civility, order, and government among a barbarous and unsubjected
people, to be acts of piety and glory, and worthy also a Christian
prince to endeavour.'

The king therefore ordered that there should be a strict inquiry into
the work done, because 'the Londoners pretended the expense of great
sums of money in that service, and yet the outward appearance of it
was very small.' The lord deputy was solemnly charged to give him
a faithful account without care or fear to displease any of his
subjects, English or Scottish, of what quality soever.'

Sir Josias Bodley was the commissioner appointed for this purpose. He
reported very un