Page:Studies in Irish History, 1649-1775 (1903).djvu/86

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Charles II

however, until all other claims had been satisfied. Roman Catholics, on the other hand, who had accepted lands in Clare or Connaught, were held to have forfeited all claim to restitution.

Such were the arrangements for the settlement of Ireland foreshadowed by the declaration of November, 1660. There was, however, one insuperable obstacle to their fulfilment. "If the adventurers and soldiers," wrote Ormond, "must be satisfied to the extent of what they suppose intended to them by the declaration, and if all that accepted and constantly adhered to the peace of 1648 be restored, as the same declaration seems also to intend, there must be new discoveries made of a new Ireland, for the old will not serve to satisfy these engagements. It remains, then to determine which party must suffer in default of means to satisfy all."12

To Charles and to his principal advisers, to the English Parliament and to the Anglo-Irish oligarchy, it seemed only right and natural that "the loss should fall on the Irish."13 All other parties, however divided among themselves, were, in the words of Clarendon, "united and agreed in one unhappy extreme, that is their implacable malice to the Irish, in so much as they concurred in their desire that they might gain nothing by the King's return."14 The King him-

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