( xii )
istence, must always remain doubtful; but, after much research and inquiry, I have not discovered any evidence or notice indicating that another had been made, or was known to be extant. If there be another copy or fragment, either in the autograph of Sir William, or a transcript by some other hand, it is most likely to be found in the Marquis of Lansdowne's collections of Sir William's papers and muniments of title to the property he inherits from him.
As to the intrinsic value of the manuscript, independently of all personal matter in vindication of his own conduct, or in crimination of the parties opposed to him, it contains numerous official documents, relating to the several surveys of Irish forfeited estates, made under the direction of the Earl of Strafford, when Lord Deputy of Ireland in the reign of King Charles I., as well as those called the Grosse and Civill Surveys, and Sir William's own Survey, called the Down Survey, made in pursuance of the Act of 1653, and according to which last-mentioned Survey upwards of eight million acres of land were assigned and distributed under the provisions of the Acts of Settlement and Explanation, temp. Charles II., which constitute the foundation of more than half the present titles to property in Ireland.
The transcripts of those documents contained in the volume are, I have some reason to believe, the only existing record of all or the greater part of them, for it is believed that the original office-books, which contained entries of the Proceedings, were all destroyed by the fire at the Council Office, in Dublin, which occurred in 1711; and after the numerous researches I have had occasion to make, during the last ten years, among all the records and muniments preserved in the public offices in Dublin, relating to the forfeited estates, and likewise among private collections, I have never alighted upon any of the originals, or copies of any of them.
For these reasons, great care should be taken for the preservation of this volume, and which I would myself deposit in the New Record Office at Dublin, if in justice to my family I could afford to sacrifice to public use the money it ought to produce to them by a sale of it.
This volume, and the folio volume in MS. relating to the Irish Forfeitures of 1689, and the volume of printed Proclamations, published in Ireland during the reign of James II., are beyond all estimate the most valuable articles in my collections.
April 16, 1837.
