ce of
the great increase of priests towards the close of the year 1655, a
general arrest by the justices of the peace was ordered, under which,
in April, 1656, the prisons in every part of Ireland seem to have
been filled to overflowing. On May 3, the governors of the respective
precincts were ordered to send them with sufficient guards from
garrison to garrison to Carrickfergus, to be there put on board such
ship as should sail with the first opportunity for the Barbadoes. One
may imagine the pains of this toilsome journey by the petition of one
of them. Paul Cashin, an aged priest, apprehended at Maryborough,
and sent to Philipstown on the way to Carrickfergus, there fell
desperately sick, and, being also extremely aged, was in danger of
perishing in restraint for want of friends and means of relief. On
August 27, 1656, the commissioners, having ascertained the truth of
his petition, ordered him sixpence a day during his sickness; and
(in answer probably to this poor prisoner's prayer to be spared from
transportation) their order directed that it should be continued to
him in his travel thence (after his recovery) to Carrickfergus, in
order to his transportation to the Barbadoes.'

At Carrickfergus the horrors of approaching exile seem to have shaken
the firmness of some of them; for on September 23, 1656, Colonel
Cooper, who had the charge of the prison, reporting that several would
under their hands renounce the Pope's supremacy, and frequent the
Protestant meetings and no other, he was directed to dispense with the
transportation, if they could give good Protestant security for the
sincerity of their professions.

As for the third beast--the tory, the following extract gives an idea
of the class to which he belonged, or, rather, from which he sprang.

'And whereas the children, grandchildren, brothers, nephews, uncles,
and next pretended heirs of the persons attainted, do remain in
the provinces of Leinster, Ulster, and Munster, having little or no
visible estates or subsistence, but living only and coshering upon
the common sort of people who were tenants to or followers of the
respective ancestors of such persons, waiting an opportunity, as
may justly be supposed, to massacre and destroy the English who, as
adventurers or souldiers, or their tenants, are set down to plant upon
the several lands and estates of the persons so attainted,' they
are to transplant or be transported to the English plantations in
Ame