proper mode of redress, had recourse to illegal expedients, to oblige the proprietors to set it on more reasonable terms*." The consolidation of farms, and the increase of pasturage caused by a rise in the price of cattle, and the consequent dispossession of many cottier tenants, appear to have led to disturbances exactly similar in their character to those which occurred in England in the reign of Edward VI.; and to mark a corresponding change in the manner of cultivating the soil t. The same transition likewise took place in Scotland towards the end of the last century; when the surplus rural population was absorbed into the towns, and employed in mechanical trades, or in the newly-established manufactures; so that the change was made without any violent reaction. In England and Scotland the new state of things has become permanent; in Ireland (as we shall have occasion to show) this transition has never been effected, and it is to prevent its completion that the Whiteboy combinations have principally been organized. The proceedings of the Whiteboys, at their first appearance, may also be taken as evidence of the objects which they had in view; since they seem, at first, to have met with scarcely any opposition, the rural police of Ireland having been in about the same state in 1761 as that of England was in the disturbances of 1830. They are stated to have gone about the country in large * History of Ireland, in a series of Letters addressed to Wm. Hamilton, Esq., by Wm. Crawford, A.M., one of the Chaplains of the First Tyrone Regiment (Dedicated to Lord Charlemont). Strabane, 1783. vol. ii. p. 317-8. See the beginning of Hume's 35th chapter, and Campbell's Phil. Survey of Ireland, p. 294-7. The conspiring to put down all inclosures was ruled to be high treason in Burton's case, 39 Eliz. See 1 Hale's P. C. 132, 153. bodies, throwing down fences, rooting up orchards, cutting down trees, destroying bullocks*, and doing various injuries to property. The general character of their proceedings may be collected from the preamble of an Irish Act passed in 1775, “to prevent and punish tumultuous risings of persons," (commonly called the Whiteboy Act,) which recites that "It has frequently happened of late years, in different parts of this kingdom, that several persons calling themselves Whiteboys, and others, as well by night as in the daytime, have in a riotous, disorderly, and tumultuous manner, assembled together, and have abused and injured the persons, habitations, and properties of many of his Majesty's loyal and faithful subjects, and have taken away and carried away their horses and arms, and have compelled them to surrender up, quit, and leave their habitations, farms, and places of abode; and have, with threats and violence, imposed sundry oaths and solemn declarations contrary to law, and solicited several of his Majesty's subjects, by threats and promises, to join with them in such their mischievous and iniquitous proceedings; and have also sent threatening and incendiary letters to several persons, to the great terror of his Majesty's peaceable subjects; and have taken upon themselves to obstruct the exportation of corn, grain, meal, malt and flour, and to destroy or damage the same when intended for exportation; and have also destroyed mills, granaries, and storehouses provided for the keeping of corn; which, if not effectually prevented, must become dangerous to the general peace of this kingdom and his Majesty's government therein." It appears, both from this recital and from accounts of particular outrages, that from the very beginning *This is stated by Crawford, vol. ii., p. 318. The Whiteboys of 1762 destroyed bullocks with the same view that the Terry Alts of 1832 turned up grass land, viz., in order that the ground being under tillage might be let at a cheaper rate for setting potatoes. 15 & 16 Geo. III., c. 21. the Whiteboys used the same means for enforcing their will as have since been unhappily so common in Ireland; intimidation, by threatening notices, of persons who refused to join their combination, or who disobeyed their orders; and punishment for disobedience by destruction of property, personal violence or murder. The singular cruelty which has characterized the combinations of Ireland appears very early in the proceedings of the Whiteboys. Thus we are told that they ordered a peasant at Cappoquin to refund some money upon pain of having his tongue drawn through his under-jaw, and fastened with a skewer*. The following affidavit of William Abraham, a Protestant farmer of Bohereed, in Queen's County, sworn before a justice of that county on the 27th December, 1774, may probably be relied on as a statement of the means then employed by some of the Whiteboys : "That a report had prevailed for some time that the Whiteboys intended to carry off examinant the night of the 15th instant; that a party of them, blowing horns, and armed with muskets, and dressed in white shirts and frocks, entered his house, and put him behind one of them on horseback; that his wife, endeavouring to prevent their doing so, received a stroke of a musket in the small of the back; that before examinant was mounted, they gave him a violent blow in the head with the lock and hammer of a gun, which inflicted a deep wound therein, and rendered him stupid and senseless; they carried him off mounted behind one of them, with only his breeches and a loose great coat on; that in their progress, they beat, battered, and abused him with their guns, and the man behind whom he rode wounded him severely in the legs, with long nails in his heels, commonly called heel spurs. They carried him ten miles off, to a place near Ballyconra, where *Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xxxii, p. 182, quoted above, p. 5, they held a consultation whether they should cut out his tongue, or pull out his eyes; and at last agreed to cut off his ears, which they did with circumstances of great barbarity; that after having administered to him many unlawful oaths, they buried him up to his chin, though mangled, in a grave lined with furze*." The following is Arthur Young's account of the proceedings of the Whiteboys, soon after their first appear ance : "It was a common practice with them to go in parties about the country, swearing many to be true to them, and forcing them to join by menaces, which they very often carried into execution. At last they set up to be general redressers of grievances, punished all obnoxious persons, and having taken the administration of justice into their own hands, were not very exact in the distribution of it, forced masters to release their apprentices, carried off the daughters of rich farmers, ravished them into marriages, of which four instances happened in a fortnight. They levied sums of money on the middling and lower farmers, in order to support their cause, by paying attornies, &c., in defending prosecutions against them; and many of them subsisted for some years without work, supported by these contributions. Sometimes they committed several considerable robberies, breaking into houses, and taking the money under pretence of redressing grievances. In the course of these outrages, they burnt several houses, and destroyed the whole substance of men obnoxious to them. The barbarities they committed were shocking. One of their usual punishments (and by no means the most severe), was taking people out of their beds, carrying them naked in winter on horseback for some distance, and burying them up to their chin in a hole filled with briars, not forgetting to cut off one of their ears. In this manner the evil existed for eight or ten * Musgrave's Rebellions in Ireland, Appendix I., 8. Crawford, vol. ii., p. 241, states that the Whiteboys placed men quite naked on horseback, on saddles covered with the skins of hedgehogs. years, during which time the gentlemen of the country took some measures to quell them. Many of the magistrates were active in apprehending them; but the want of evidence prevented punishment, for many who even suffered by them had not spirit to prosecute. The gentlemen of the country had frequent expeditions to discover them in arms; but their intelligence was so uncommonly good, by their influence over the common people, that not one party that ever went out in quest of them was successful. Government offered very large rewards for informations, which brought a few every year to the gallows, without any radical cure for the evil. The reason why it was not more effective was, the necessity of any person who gave evidence against them quitting their houses and country, or remaining exposed to their resentment*." In this account we have all the main features of the Whiteboy system as it has existed within the last ten years; the swearing in of the peasantry, and the compelling them, by threats, to join the association; the enforcement of the will of the insurgents by severe inflictions; and the intimidation of witnesses and prose cutors. The principal members of the government in Dublin appear to have shown as much forbearance and impartiality in their proceedings against the early Whiteboys as was consistent with their situation. They sent some eminent lawyers, of distinguished loyalty, to inquire, on the spot, into the true causes and circumstances of the riots; and upon the report of these persons (afterwards confirmed by the judges of assize), was grounded an official declaration inserted in the Dublin and London Gazettes, that-- "The authors of these disturbances have consisted indiscriminately of persons of different persuasions, and that no *P. 75-6. |