Charles II
supposed to have been altogether free from the prejudices then common among their countrymen, "were trusted with an arbitrary power, because it was foreseen that juries were not like to be entire."24 It was evident that the Cromwellians at least would have little reason to complain.
Between five and six thousand Irishmen claimed restitution.25 The court sat for six months and heard some six hundred claims. It is creditable to the Commissioners that they so far overcame a natural partiality for their countrymen that, in spite of a great deal of very hard -swearing, "in which," as Clarendon significantly observes, "the English were not behindhand with the Irish";26 seven-eighths of the claimants were restored.27 The colonists complained that the fund for reprisals would be inadequate; and a conspiracy, associated with the name of Colonel Thomas Blood, was formed to seize Dublin Castle and murder the Viceroy.28 The plot was detected and a few of the more prominent conspirators executed; but the Government was now thoroughly alarmed, and judged it prudent to make some further concessions to the Protestant party. A Bill was introduced, and carried with little opposition, "explaining" the previous Act in the Protestant interest.29 The Cromwel-
79
