James II
Attainder De Burgo, Bishop of Ossory, has very justly described as "Decreta de quibus, etsi aequissimis, dum murumarent Acatholici aptissime potuerunt Orthodoxi deponere Neque alienam terram sumpsimus neque aliena detinemus, sed haereditatem patrum nostrorum quae injuste ab inimicis nostris aliquo tempore possessa est. Nos vero, tempus habentes, vindicamus haereditatem patrum nostrorum." Hibernia Dominicana, cap. vii.
90 Journal of the Proceedings of the Parliament in Ireland.
91 The preamble sent up by the Commons, attributing the rebellion of 1641 to "the ambition and avarice of the Lords Justices" was not adopted. It is printed with the Act.
92 King, III, 12, *1.
93 17 and 18 Charles I., cap. 33.
94 In England 60 years undisturbed possession was necessary to establish a prescriptive right. In the 'time of Charles I. the Irish had petitioned in vain to have a similar statute of limitation extended to their own country. See a letter of Wentworth to Secretary Coke, August 18, 1634.
In 1787, the English Government restored the estates confiscated in Scotland in 1745. (Parliamentary History, vol. xxiv., 1316-1322.) I am not aware that this measure has been censured by any of the writers who have denounced the repeal of the Act of Settlement.
95 Clarendon, in a letter to James (August 14th, 1686) probably over-rates the number of purchasers. "There are very few of the original soldiers and adventurers now left, or of their descendants: of the latter not twenty families and no great number of the former. But the generality of those two great interests sold their lots."
96 King, Appendix 22.
198
