Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/525

Conditions sitrroiinding Settlement of J Irgima 5 1 5 An English colony had been established in Ireland in the twelfth century, and additional settlers had come from England and Wales during the thirteenth and the earliest years of the fourteenth century, but after that time immigration had with small exceptions come to an end.^ This " first colonization " had however been largely ab- sorbed into the native population or had returned to England, and the end of the fifteenth century had seen the English occupation and domination in Ireland reduced to its lowest limits. Within the sixteenth and the early seventeenth century, however, a great reac- tion took place, first in the government, which became more vigorous and extended its power more widely in the island ; then in the popu- lation, into which with great labor an English and Scottish element was injected. The colonization of Ireland with Britons may indeed be looked on as largely a part of the political policy of the govern- ment. The maintenance of an armed body in Ireland was an ex- pensive necessity ; if this could be provided by the military services exacted from a body of English settlers, money would be saved and the end more efifectively reached. Again, the evident failure to induce the native population or the old English element to abandon Catholicism made it highly desirable for political reasons to intro- duce a Protestant element from the outside. Since the only con- ception of orderly government which English statesmen of the time could form was the system already in existence in England, with its county and parish administration, its justices of the peace, grand and petty juries, and town corporations ; and since these could only be counted on to act in accordance with the desires of the administra- tion if they were made up of Englishmen and Protestants, this re- quirement made a still further need for settlers. Therefore the gov- ernment was more than ready to respond to the enterprise, the adven- turous spirit, and the acquisitiveness of the times ; and as a matter of fact an extensive colonization by English and Scots took place nearly if not quite contemporary with the earliest settlement of America. There was much that was alike in the two movements. The simul- taneity of dates is striking. It is true that in Ireland the process began sooner, but these first efforts were hardly more successful than the tentative sixteenth-century settlements in America. In 1566 a " plantation " was begun in Leix and OfJaly in the centre of Ireland in the lands of the O'Mores and O'Conors, far earlier than any definite project of English settlement in America was mooted, unless it were Stukely's plan for the settlement of Florida in 1563 and the 'Bonn, Die Englisclte Kolonisation in Irland, I. 83-89; English Historical Review, October, 1906, p. 774. AM. HIST. REV., VOL. XU. — XA.