ion, to Connaught. Those in
authority, however, ought never to have let the English officers and
soldiers come in contact with the Irishwomen, or should have ordered
another army of young Englishwomen over, if they did not intend this
provision to be nugatory. Planted in a wasted country, amongst the
former owners and their families, with little to do but to make love,
and no lips to make love to but Irish, love or marriage must follow
between them as necessarily as a geometrical conclusion follows
from the premises. For there were but few who (in the language of a
Cromwellian patriot),

----'rather than turne
From English principles, would sooner burne;
And rather than marrie an Irish wife,
Would batchellers remain for tearme of life.'

About forty years after the Cromwellian Settlement, and just seven
years after the Battle of the Boyne, the following was written: 'We
cannot so much wonder at this [the quick "degenerating" of the English
of Ireland], when we consider how many there are of the children of
Oliver's soldiers in Ireland who cannot speak one word of English.
And (which is strange) the same may be said of some of the children
of King William's soldiers who came but t'other day into the country.
This misfortune is owing to the marrying Irishwomen for want of
English, who come not over in so great numbers as are requisite. 'Tis
sure that no Englishman in Ireland knows what his children may be as
things are now; they cannot well live in the country without growing
Irish; for none take such care as Sir Jerome Alexander [second justice
of the Common Pleas in Ireland from 1661 to his death in 1670], who
left his estate to his daughter, but made the gift void if she married
any Irishman;' Sir Jerome including in this term 'any lord of Ireland,
any archbishop, bishop, prelate, any baronet, knight, esquire, or
gentleman of Irish extraction or descent, born and bred in Ireland, or
having his relations and means of subsistence there,' and expressly,
of course, any 'Papist.'--'True Way to render Ireland happy and
secure; or, a Discourse, wherein 'tis shown that 'tis the interest
both of England and Ireland to encourage foreign Protestants to plant
in Ireland; in a letter to the Hon. Robert Molesworth.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Cromwellian Settlement, p.130.]

The impossibility of getting a sufficient number of settlers from
England to cultivate the land, produce food, and render the estates
worth holding, led to