lics and in turn themselves even more unfairly treated by the
Crown. They could not--these Presbyterians--worship as they chose;
rather the place and form was set by the State. Their ships were barred
from foreign trade, even with America; they were forbidden to ship
products or cattle back to England, though after the Great Fire of
London, Ireland generously sent thousands of head of cattle to London.
Barred then from engaging in profitable cattle trade, they turned to
growing wool. This too was defeated by prohibitive duties, and when
Ireland undertook to engage in producing linen, England thwarted that
industry too. They were forbidden to possess arms, they were expelled
from the militia, and what with incessantly being called upon to pay
tithes, added rents, and cess they had little left to call their own,
little to show for their labors. Then adding insult to injury, the Crown
declared illegitimate the children born of a marriage performed by the
ministers of these Presbyterians, so that such offspring could not
legally inherit the lands of their parents.

Oppressed and persecuted for a century, they could bear it no longer;
these transplanted Scotch-Irish (as America came to call them) turned
their faces to the new world.

The massacres of 1641 sent them across the uncharted seas in great
numbers. And to stimulate and spur their continued migration to America
these "adventurers" and "planters" were offered land in Maryland by Lord
Baltimore--three thousand acres for every thirty persons brought into
the state, with the provision of "free liberty of religion." But
Pennsylvania offered a heartier welcome and "genuine religious liberty"
besides.

Oppression and unfairness continued to grow in Ireland. Protestants
there had never owned outright the land which they struggled to clear
and cultivate. Moreover they toiled without pay. Protest availed them
little. And the straw that broke the camel's back was laid on in the
form of rent by Lord Donegal. In 1717 when their leases had expired in
County Antrim, they found themselves in a worse predicament than ever.
Their rents were doubled and trebled. Now, to hand over more than two
thirds of what they had after all the other taxes that had been imposed
upon them left them with little or nothing. How was a man to pay the
added rent? Pay or get out! demanded Lord Donegal. Eviction from the
lands which their toil had developed--a wasteland converted into fertile
productive