of Irish government, adopted in order to further the Protestant and English interest, and the severe penal code against the Catholics, though unsuccessful in converting the natives to the reformed faith, nevertheless so coerced the mass of the people, as to prevent any open insurrection. By degrees, however, as population increased, the closer contact of the miserable peasantry led them to form local and limited combinations, for the purpose of shaking off those burdens which pressed most heavily upon them, but which, when thinly scattered over the face of the country, they could not hope successfully to resist*. The first of the risings which originated in this new state of things, and which had little or nothing in common with the previous troubles in Ireland, (such as the great rebellion of 1641,) was that of the Whiteboys, or Levellers, in 1761. These insurgents were so called, because they wore white shirts over their clothes, as a badge of their union, and because one of their principal objects was the levelling of the fences of newly-inclosed waste land. The immediate cause of their rising is stated as follows by Dr. Curry, the earliest and best informed writer on the subject:

me, 'We expect little good from any of the race of Sheemas-a-caccagh.' P. 273. See also Curry's Review of the Civil Wars in Ireland, vol. ii. p. 252, 260. On the tranquillity of Ireland about the middle of the eighteenth century, see a pamphlet by Dr. Lucas, entitled " A short but true History of the Rise, Progress, and happy Suppression of several late Insurrections, commonly called Rebellions, in Ireland." Reprinted. Dublin, 1760.

* It appears, from accounts which cannot be very wide of the truth, that the number of Catholics in Ireland, in 1733, was less than a million and a half. See Edinburgh Review, No. 124, p. 514. Towards 1790, the population of Ireland was about four millions; of which about three millions were Catholics. London Review, No. 3, p. 230. In 1834 the number of Catholics in Ireland was 6,427,712, as returned by the Commissioners of Public Instruction. It has therefore more than quadrupled itself in a century.

"About this time great tumults had been raised, and some outrages committed in different parts of Munster, by cottiers and others of the lowest class of its inhabitants, occasioned by the tyranny and rapacity of their landlords. These landlords had set their lands to cottiers far above their value, and, to lighten their burden, had allowed commonage to their tenants. Afterwards, in despite of all equity, contrary to all compacts, the landlords inclosed those commons*, and precluded their unhappy tenants from the only means of making their bargains tolerable. Another cause of these people's discontents was the cruel exactions of tithe-mongers; these harpies squeezed out the very vitals of the people, and by process, citation, and sequestration, dragged from them the little which the landlord had left them. These are the real causes of the late tumults in Munster, and it may be safely affirmed that there is no nation that has not had tumults from such or the like causes, without religion coming into question."

A letter from a gentleman in Youghall to his son in London (printed in the Gentleman's Magazine for April, 1762), likewise states, that the Whiteboys" all along pretended that their assembling was to do justice to the poor, by restoring the ancient commons and redressing other grievances ."

* By commons is here doubtless meant merely waste land. If there had been a right of commonage over these wastes, and they had not been private property, the landlords would have been unable to inclose them without the consent of the commoners.

Dr. Curry's State of the Catholics of Ireland, in his Review of the Civil Wars in Ireland, vol. ii. pp. 271-2, (London, 1786). Dr. Curry was the author of an anonymous pamphlet, published in 1766, entitled, "A candid Enquiry into the Causes and Motives of the late Riots in Munster; together with a brief Narrative of the Proceedings against the Rioters, in a Letter to a Noble Lord in England," which he in part repeats in the extract given in the text. See the Preface to his Review, p. iv., and for the high opinion of this tract entertained by impartial persons, see O'Conor's History of the Irish Catholics, Part I., p. 318-9.

This statement occurs in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xxxii., in "A succinct Account of a Set of Miscreants in the Counties of Waterford, Cork, Limerick, and Tipperary, called Bougheleen Bawins (i. e.

The following letter from Mr. O'Conor to Dr. Curry, dated 4th June, 1762, and therefore written soon after

White Boys). Being an Extract of a Letter from a Gentleman residing in Youghall to his Son in London." The following is a further extract from this authentic account of the proceedings of the early Whiteboys:Their first rise was in October last [1761], and they have ever since been increasing: they then, and all along, pretended that their assembling was to do justice to the poor, by restoring the ancient commons and redressing other grievances; for which purpose they always assemble in the night with their shirts over their clothes, which caused them to be called White Boys. Their number in the county of Waterford is computed at 600 or 700. They have done infinite damage in the county, levelling ditches and stone-walls, rooting up orchards, &c. On the 11th ult. [March, 1762], I saw several ditches they had levelled, part of an orchard destroyed, and two graves they had dug on the road between Clonmel and Cappoquin; the graves were to hold those that did not comply with their orders. Some time before this, they came by night into the town (a large village) of Cappoquin, where is a horse-barrack, drew up in the green near the barrack, fired several shots, marched by the sentry with their piper, playing the Lad with the White Cockade. The 13th, I saw a bier near Affane Church, which they had carried [caused?] two days before to be made, to carry people alive, and bury them in those graves. An esquire at Cappoquin, when a bachelor, agreed with a peasant for the use of his daughter, for which he passed the peasant his bond for 1007.; but on the esquire's entering the matrimonial state, he was compelled to take up his bond. They wrote to the peasant to refund the money, upon pain of having his tongue drawn through his under-jaw, and fastened with a skewer. On the 14th they assembled at Lismore (between Cappoquin and Tallow), posted an advertisement on the door of the post-office, requiring the inhabitants to have their houses illuminated, and a certain number of horses bridled and saddled, ready for them to mount against next night; which was complied with. On the night of the 10th they mounted, went to Tallow Bridge (near Tallow), where they levelled the ditches of several fine parks, and cut down a number of full-grown ash-trees (knee high); they then proceeded to Tallow; the horse marched to the West Bridge, where the commander called out, Halt, to the right about, and then proceeded into the market-place in a smart trot. They broke open the Marshalsea, discharged the debtors; sent an advertisement to the justice, to lower the price of provisions one-half; which he tamely complied with, though a troop and a half of dragoons were quartered very near him. On the 22nd they came to the Ferry-point opposite this town, levelled the ditches of a small park opposite the back-window of my parlour, and a musketshot off the town; they made a large fire, dug a grave, and erected a gallows over it, fired several shots, and at each discharge huzza'd;

and

the first outbreak of these disturbances, gives a perfectly similar account:

"In relation to the disorders of the poor in Munster (he says), I assured him (Dr. Warner) that they proceeded from the throwing of that province, like Connaught and Leinster, into pasture-inclosures, which excluded these poor and reduced them into a state of desperation, and into that rage which despair on such occasions will dictate. I told him that the whole proceeded from laws which leave the better sort of our people no occupation in the inland counties but pasturage alone; agriculture being virtually forbid on account of the shortness of their tenures. That in such a state papists worry papists, the rich excluding the poorer sort to make room for flocks and herds, which are easily converted into ready money and find a ready market*.”

Arthur Young, in his description of the early Whiteboys, exactly agrees with these accounts; as he states that " they began in Tipperary, and were owing to some inclosures of commons which they threw down, levelling the ditches; and were first known by the name of Levellers †."

A more detailed statement of the causes of the Whiteboy risings in 1762, but precisely agreeing with the accounts just quoted, is given by Crawford, in his History of Ireland, published in 1783. After having

sent several audacious letters to the inhabitants of this town, threatening to pull down several houses, particularly a handsome house at a small distance, which they said was built upon the waste. The 29th, the ditches of Tirkelling and Ballydaniel, near Tallow, were levelled: 500 men in a day could not repair the damage."—Pp. 182-3.

* O'Conor's History of the Irish Catholics, part I. pp. 287-8. On the extent of pasturage in Ireland during the last century, see Newenham's Inquiry into the Population of Ireland, pp. 44—57.

+ Page 75.-Arthur Young may be considered as an original authority on this subject, inasmuch as he travelled in the South of Ireland in 1776, and collected his information on the spot.

mentioned that there had been for several years preceding 1761 a murrain amongst horned cattle in England, whither it had spread from Germany and Holland, he proceeds to say

"From this cause a foreign demand for butter and beef became uncommonly great. In proportion these articles rose in value, until at last they grew to an immoderate price. Hence ground appropriated to grazing was more valuable - than that under tillage. Cottiers being tenants at will were everywhere dispossessed of their little holdings, which, in considerable tracts, were set by the landlords to monopolizers who, by feeding cattle, were enabled to pay them a higher rent. In this manner even whole baronies were laid open to pasturage. Pressed by want of subsistence, numbers of the poor fled to large cities, or emigrated to foreign countries. Those who remained took small spots of land consisting of about an acre each, at an exorbitant price, [from] which they laboured to procure, if possible, the means of support for themselves and their miserable families. To lessen somewhat the burdens by which they were oppressed, some of their landlords granted them the liberty of commonage. The relief was but temporary, for some time after, in breach of justice and positive compact, they were deprived of this privilege. Tithes, and the small price given for labour, which, notwithstanding the increased price of necessaries, did not exceed the wages given in the days of Elizabeth, were circumstances which aggravated their distresses. As the calamities of these unhappy creatures arose principally from the extravagant price of land, a number of them, either ignorant or incapable of the

* Plowden, Hist. Review, vol. i. p. 337, states that the early Whiteboys called these monopolizers land pirates. Land shark is a word now used with a similar sense in Ireland.

The number of those who emigrated was probably very inconsiderable. The Catholic peasantry of the South were too poor to raise the means of emigrating to America. The Protestant peasantry of the North were better able to emigrate, as will appear lower down, in the account of the Steelboys.