part payment of her late husband's debt and she would endeavour forthwith
to discharge the remainder. To this the court acceded.(88)

(M29)

In 1726 the New River Company petitioned the Common Council for a direct
conveyance to be made to the company of all the statutory rights and
privileges the City had originally made over to Middleton. The reason
given for this request was that the company found themselves obliged at
the time to prosecute a number of trespassers, and that it had been
advised by counsel that in order to get a verdict in the company's favour
it would have to prove its title, "through all times and through all the
mean conveyances," from the passing of the original Act of Parliament to
the present time. The company represented that such a proceeding would
involve enormous difficulty, but this difficulty could be got over if the
City would consent to give an immediate grant to the company of all that
they had formerly conveyed to Middleton, and upon the same terms. The
matter, urged the company, was one that affected the interests of the
City, for unless the offenders were punished the water of the New River
would continue to be intercepted before it reached the city. The petition
was referred to the City Lands Committee for consideration.(89)

(M30)

Just at the time when the City was meditating a transfer of their powers
under the New River Acts to Middleton, a scheme was being set on foot for
colonising a vast tract of land in the north of Ireland, which, after the
flight of the earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnel in 1607, was declared to be
confiscated to the Crown. In October, 1608, commissioners had been
appointed to draw up a plan for the proposed colonisation, or, as it was
called, the "Plantation of Ulster," and by the following January (1609)
their reports were sent in.(90) The next step was the formulating of
orders and conditions to be observed by the undertakers of the plantation,
and by the end of January these were ready, although they do not appear to
have been published before the following March.(91) The object of
promulgating these orders and conditions was to attract persons to take a
share in the work of the plantation, not so much with the view of
benefiting themselves as of doing service to the Crown and commonwealth.
Whatever attraction the scheme as put forth in this Collection of Orders
and Conditions--often referred to in subsequent proceedings as the "printed
book"--may have ha