III. CHAP. occupied with those frivolous and uninterefting disputes, which at laft rose so high that 1666. parliament was diffolved, after the royal affent had been given to eight bills by the lord lieutenant in perfon. How much to be lamented was that idle difpute, which not only caused a diffolution, but was one cause alfo, of parliament not meeting for twentyfive years, till the year one thousand fix hundred and ninety-two, after the Revolution ! The great business of the parliaments which were held in Ireland in the reign of Charles the fecond, was the appropriation of all the forfeited lands, which form the far greater part of the Irish territory. In confequence of this appropriation, an actual furvey was made by the furveyor general, fir William Petty, of which a general rental was formed, which was depofited in the auditor general's office, and other III. other public offices in Ireland: this rental CHAP. is called the Down Survey *. All these forfeited lands are subjected by the act of settlement to quitrents, which may be considered as a species of land-tax, of about fivepence in the pound; the total of which, in one thousand feven hundred and eighty-eight, amounted to about £. 64,158 †. Many difputes and claims about these quitrents were filenced, and questions about certain lands being fubjected to them were annulled, by a quieting act in one thousand feven hundred and eighty-four; by which, if it fhould be proved that no quitrents had been * The best copy of the Down Survey which I have seen is in the valuable library of the earl of Effex at Cashioberry, whose ancestor was lord lieutenant in 1677, to whom fir William Temple addreffed his valuable letter upon the improvement of the trade of Ireland. + Public Accounts of Ireland for 1788, No. 1. Under this head alfo were comprehended Crown and Compofition Rents. 1666. III. 1666. CHAP. paid for twenty years before the claim was made, upon a petition to the Court of Exchequer, ftating this and their agreement to pay the growing quitrent, or that which fhall become due in future, the lands are to be liberated from arrears. Maps were also delineated of every county in Ireland according to the Down Survey from fir William Petty's obfervations*: some copies of these maps were depofited in the * Sir William Petty's ftate of Ireland was very accurate and fatisfactory; and it is to be lamented that that great mafter of political arithmetic did not propose a fyftem for the progreffive enumeration of the people. This fyftem prevails in the United States of America, and also, it is faid, in China. A bill for establishing annual returns by a parochial cenfus, was introduced in 1754 by Mr. Potter, fon of the learned archbishop; but it did not pafs: a copy of the bill which I have feen in the parliament office contained an admiral plan for thofe returns from the different parishes and counties in England. Various statements have prevailed of the population of Ireland, which are ftill conjectural; but from fome late extensive and ingenious enquiries of Mr. Bufhe, the population of Ireland may be stated at three millions and an half, with a rea fonable approximation to truth. public offices in Ireland, and others were CHAP. fent to England. Among the latter, a copy which was shipped for England, was taken by a French privateer, and carried into France about the latter end of the laft, or the beginning of this century; and fome time afterwards they "were depofited, with a defcription of their importance in the hand-writing of cardinal Dubois, in a great literary collection. The copy of this furvey was discovered, it is faid, by the induftry of colonel Vallancy before the late Revolution. The liberality of the French government enabled him to take a copy, and to complete the maps of three counties, or more, which were wanting this collection, with the note of the French minifter in his autograph, I remember to have seen about fix years ago in the king's library at Paris. III. 1666. CHAP. IV. 1613. CHA P. IV. Of the principal Speakers in the Irish Parliament from 1613 to 1666:-Characters of Sir John Davis, Primate Ufher, the Duke of Ormond, Primate Bramhall, Sir James Ware, Sir Audley Mervyn, Mr. Whalley, Sir John Temple, Lord Masereene, the Earl of Rofcommon, Sir William Petty, and Sir William Temple. SIR John Davis, who had been chosen a member in one thoufand fix hundred and one, in the last English parliament of Elizabeth, and who appears in D'Ewes's Journals to have been a very active and useful, as well as a ftrenuous opposer of the courtly doctrines of monopolies, was appointed folicitor general in Ireland in one thousand fix hundred and three, and foon after attorney general, where he was employed in fettling the province of Ulfter, after it had been reduced to the king's obedience; a work which was confidered as the |