The tract of country thus
unceremoniously bestowed on an English adventurer, was in the possession
of Sir Rowland Savage. His first ancestor was one of the most
distinguished of the Anglo-Norman settlers who had accompanied De Courcy
to Ireland. Thus, although he could not claim the prescriptive right of
several thousand years for his possessions, he certainly had the right
of possession for several centuries. An attempt had been made about ten
years before to drive him out of part of his territory, and he had
written a letter to "The Right Hon. the Earl of Sussex,
Lieutenant-General of Ireland," asking for "justice," which justice he
had not obtained. He was permitted to hold the Southern Ards, because he
could not be expelled from it without considerable difficulty, and
because it was the least valuable part of his property.

Smith confided the conduct of the enterprise to his natural son who has
already been mentioned as the person who attempted to poison Shane
O'Neill. The first State Paper notice of this enterprise is in a letter,
dated February, 8, 1572, from Captain Piers to the Lord Deputy, stating
that the country is in an uproar "at Mr. Smith coming over to plant in
the north." There is a rare black letter still extant, entitled,
["Letter by F.B. on the Peopling of the Ardes"] which Smith wrote to
induce English adventurers to join him in his speculation. It is
composed with considerable ability. He condemns severely the degeneracy
of the early English settlers, "who allied and fostered themselves with
the Irish." He says that "England was never fuller of people than it is
at this day," and attributes this to "the dissolution of abbeys, which
hath doubled the number of gentlemen and marriages." He says the younger
sons who cannot "maintain themselves in the emulation of the world," as
the elder and richer do, should emigrate; and then he gives glowing
accounts of the advantages of this emigration.

Strange to say, one of the principal inducements he offers is that the
"churle of Ireland is very simple and toylsomme man, desiring nothing
but that he may not be eaten out with ceasse [rent], coyne, and
liverie." He passes over the subject of rent without any comment, but he
explains very fully how "the churle is eaten up" with the exactions of
"coyne and liverie." He says these laborious Irish will gladly come "to
live under us, and to farm our ground;" but he does not say anything
about the kind of treatment th