conquerors, glad in their destitution to be permitted to occupy their
own lands as tenants at will. The English undertakers, as we have
seen, were bound to deal differently with the English settlers; but
their obligations resolved themselves into promises of freeholds and
leases which were seldom granted, so that many persons threw up their
farms in despair, and returned to their own country.

In the border county of Monaghan, we have a good illustration of the
manner in which the natives struggled to live under their new masters.
The successors of some of those masters have in modern times taken a
strange fancy to the study of Irish antiquities. Among these is Evelyn
P. Shirley, Esq., who has published 'Some Account of the Territory
or Dominion of Farney.' The account is interesting, and, taken in
connection with the sequel given to the public by his agent, Mr. W.
Steuart Trench, it furnishes an instructive chapter in the history
of the land war. The whole barony of Farney was granted by Queen
Elizabeth to Walter Earl of Essex in the year 1576, in reward for the
massacres already recorded. It was then an almost unenclosed plain,
consisting chiefly of coarse pasturage, interspersed with low
alder-scrub. When the primitive woods were cut down for fuel,
charcoal, or other purposes, the stumps remained in the ground, and
from these fresh shoots sprang up thickly. The clearing out of these
stumps was difficult and laborious; but it had to be done before
anything, but food for goats, could be got out of the land. This was
'the M'Mahons' country,' and the tribe was not wholly subdued till
1606, when the power of the Ulster chiefs was finally broken. The
lord deputy, the chancellor, and the lord chief justice passed through
Farney on their way to hold assizes for the first time in Derry and
Donegal. They were protected by a guard of 'seven score foot, and
fifty or three score horse, which,' wrote Sir John Davis, 'is an