elected and appointed, or thereafter from time to time to be elected and appointed, or any nine of them, whereof the Governor or Deputy for the time being, to be one, should have full power and authority to hold and keep a Court, and in the same to treat, debate and determine of all matters and causes concerning the business that to them in their discretions should think fit. And also to direct appoint and command what should be done or performed on the behalf of the City, concerning the said Plantation; and also should give direction in England, either by letters or otherwise sent to Ireland, for the ordering, managing and disposing of all things whatsoever concerning the intended plantation, or any thing belonging to the Citizens of London's undertaking in that part of Ireland called Ulster; as also for the receiving, ordering, disposing, and disbursing of all sums of money that were or should be collected or gathered for that purpose, and generally for any other cause, matter, or thing whatsoever, incident to or belonging to the business and affairs in Ulster; and in the courts so to be holden, should have full power and authority to nominate and appoint their Clerk, Beadle, and such other Officers as they in their discretion shonld think fit; and that whatsoever should be done, decreed, or resolved by and at any such Court so to be holden, should be firm and stable; and the Court of Common Council thereby declared it ratified and confirmed by them. The wardrobe in Guildhall was appointed to be the place where the Courts of the Company should be held. The times of meeting were to be appointed by the Governor, or Deputy Governor, who were respectively to give orders for summoning the Company together. The City Chamberlain was at the same Court of Common Council appointed the Treasurer of the monies to be raised of the City for the purposes of the said Plantation, who was to pay all monies conformably to warrants to be signed by the Governor, or Deputy Governor, with three of the Assistants of the Company.

The Society being thus established by the Court of Common Council, Tristram Beresford and John Rowley, were appointed general agents for the City, who immediately proceeded to Ireland; and soon afterwards the Society were put in possession of the estates.*

Arrangements were at the same time made in London, for raising and collecting the sum agreed to be raised by the City for the purposes of the Plantation, and in building towns and fortifications; which was, at length, determined to be done according to the assessment of the corn rate, made on the various companies of the City. This sum, however, was found to be insufficient; and other assessments were, from time to time, occasionally made, which eventually exceeded the sum of £60,000.

14th April, 1611.-The new settlers, soon after receiving possession of the estates, made an exchange with Sir Thomas Phillips, then governor of the county of Coleraine, of the castle of Lymavaddy, and three thousand acres of ground adjoining it, being part of their division for other lands belonging to him. Sir Thomas Phillips afterwards made himself very obnoxious to the Irish Society, by intermeddling in their concerns with regard to the Plantation; and the Governor and Assistants remonstrated with him, by correspondence, on the occasion.

21st December, 1612.—The King having been informed, that the settlers were negligent in performing the conditions

* About this time the hereditary order of Knighthood, with the title of Baronet was introduced; King James the First devised this species of honour, which was purchaseable; that from the sale of such titles to all those who chose thus to contribute, the charges of maintaining the English power in the remote province of Ulster might in part be defrayed, and hence it is, that the coat of arms borne by Baronets, is the armorial ensign of Ulster. Vide Sampson's Memoir, p. 13.

of the Plantation, wrote a letter to Sir Arthur Chichester, then Lord Deputy of Ireland, as follows, viz.—

"By the King-Right, trusty, and well-beloved, we greet you well.

"It is well known unto you how great a revenue we might have raised to our crown, by our escheated lands in the province of Ulster, if we had not preferred the reformation of that disordered country by a civil plantation to be made therein, before the private profit which we might have reaped by it. For the more steady effecting whereof, we made liberal donations of great proportions of those lands, so escheated unto us, to divers British undertakers and servitors, with favourable tenures and reservations for their better encouragement, and enabling them, in their estates, to expedite the work of their Plantation, according to those articles which they voluntarily bound themselves; but, as we are informed, they have made so slow progression therein, hitherto, that neither the safety of that country, nor the planting of religion and civility amongst those rude and barbarous people, which were the principal motives of that project, and which we expected as the only fruits and returns to us of our bounty from them, are any whit, as yet, materially effected by them. We are not ignorant how much the real accomplishment of that Plantation concerns the future peace and safety of that kingdom; but if there were no reason of state to press it forward, yet we would pursue and effect that work, with the same earnestness as we now do, merely for the goodness and morality of it; esteeming the settling of religion, the introducing of civility, order, and government, among a barbarous and unsubjected people, to be the acts of piety and glory, and worthy also a Christian Prince to endeavour. Though we understand, by some of the undertakers and servitors there, with whom we had speech, that there is a general backwardness and slack proceeding in the Plantation, yet the

particulars thereof are either concealed from us, or diversely reported unto us, every man being willing to improve his own merit in that service, and to transfer the faults and omissions therein upon other men; wherefore, we have thought fit, for our particular information, to have a true and exact survey taken, and, with as much speed as conveniently you may, transmitted unto us, of the whole state, as it now stands, of the Plantation; wherein we precisely require you, that respecting only your duty to us, and this commandment of ours, and setting aside all favour, partiality, care, or fear, to please or displease any man, you make a sincere and faithful narration unto us, what every undertaker and servitor is bound to do by the articles of the Plantation, what he hath already done, whether slightly or substantially, and wherein any of them are deficient; and this we would have performed by you, in so particular a manner, that every man may bear his own burthen, and his own reward; and that we being truly certified, by this inquisition, where the obstructions be, may likewise better know the ways hereafter how to open and remove them. And because the Londoners here pretend the expense of great sums of money in that service, and yet (as we are informed) the outward appearance of it, in their works, are very small; we require you to give us a true account of what they have done, and to make, as near as you can, a true valuation of it, that they might discover the ignorance or abuse of their ministers, to whom they have committed that employment; and withal to send us your opinion what course were fittest for them to follow hereafter, both for their own good and advancement of our service, in the management of that business. We have been informed, that some undertakers, who had portions assigned unto them, at the first allotment, have sold them away to men of mean ability, and unfit for that service; and that some other undertakers, which before had more land than they were

able to plant and inhabit, according to the articles of the Plantation, have, notwithstanding, gotten the proportions of other undertakers, by contract with them, into their hands, which we conceive to be an impediment so mischievous to the progression of the Plantation, that we require you to take particnlar cognition of the several transactions in this kind, and make certificate of them unto us, in that survey which we are to receive from you. We rely on your integrity to discharge this trust which we repose you; and you will deserve well the favour we bear you, and the dignity of your place wherein you are appointed, and will submit all respects whatsoever to the faithful execution of the trust which we have laid upon you. Given under our signet, at our palace, &c. the 21st December, in the tenth year of our reign of England, France, &c. and of Scotland the forty-sixth.

in

"We are so desirous to understand from you the true state of the Plantation, that once again we do strictly injoin you to give us a faithful account of this trust which we repose in you, without care or fear to please or displease any of our subjects, English or Scottish, of what quality soever.”

29th December.-A Privy Council was held at Whitehall, at which Sir Henry Montague, Knight, Recorder of the City, and Mr. Alderman Cockaine, Governor of the City's Plantation in Ulster, together with divers other Aldermen and Commoners, Assistants of the Society, attended, and there discussed certain matters relative to the proposed grant of his Majesty, which being then concluded upon, the Society 29th Mar. Was soon afterwards, (29th March, 1613) incorporated by charter, wherein the Irish Society were styled, "The Society of the Governor and Assistants of London, of the New Plantation in Ulster, within the Realm of Ireland; and on the 28th June following, a charter was granted to the town of Coleraine."

1613.