“WITH HEARTS BURNING” Ch: 3

“WITH HEARTS BURNING” Ch: 3

Chapter 3

“WITH HEARTS BURNING”

After their brave and successful defence of Protestantism for Throne and State from 1688 until 1690, it was not unreasonable for the settlers in Ulster to expect they would, at least, be treated fairly by those in authority when William of Orange became king. If they thought thus, they were to be bitterly disappointed. Even the dauntless defenders of Londonderry and Enniskillen were to be blatantly cheated. Payments to which many of those in Londonderry, especially, were entitled were delayed by Parliament and very much reduced.

King William III Statue at Carrickfergus

A Committee of the House of Commons admitted that well over £130,000 was due to the citizen army of Londonderry alone. Less than £10,000 was paid, and payment of this was so much delayed that Colonel Mitchelburn, one of the most prominent of the brave defenders, had to wait so long for his share that he was jailed for non-payment of outstanding debt.

What a mean reward for such a strong defence of the Protestant constitution, even to the point of starvation! Even this extent of ingratitude was to be further increased in 1699 by the passing of the first Parliamentary Act restricting the sale of Irish-made goods. This unfairly favoured English manufacturers to the detriment of those in Ulster, especially. Following further protests of those in England in the woollen trade, Parliament brought in a Bill prohibiting the sale of Irish woollen goods to anywhere but England. In this way the buyers were able to control the prices. By 1715 the importing into Britain of all livestock and livestock products, except wool, was forbidden. Within a very short time Irish woollen manufacture was but a memory.

Similar very selfish attitudes in England’s mercantilist practices, when applied to American colonies were to lead, in the same century, to the revolt of these colonists, and the Independence of the United States of America. These injustices were meted out to the Ulster settlers generally, at the beginning of the 18th century, but again for the Presbyterians even more was yet to come. Following the death of William III, and the enthronement of Queen Anne, Test Act of 1704 was passed. As a result of this. only those taking the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper according to the rites of the Anglican Church could hold any office, civil or military, under the Crown. Even a Roman Catholic lawyer, Sir Theobald Butler, was to say at the time. “Surely the Presbyterians did not do anything to deserve worse treatment at the hands of the Government than any other Protestants. On the contrary, it is more than probable that if they had not put a stop to the career of the Irish army at Derry and Enniskillen; the settlement of the country might not have proved so easy as it did. And to pass a Bill now to deprive them of their birthright for their good services would be the worst reward ever granted to a people so deserving.” His concentration here on “Presbyterian” activities at Derry and Enniskillen is well founded, since they were very much in the majority in those two places in the critical days. It has been reckoned that to Episcopalians they were in proportion of 18 to 1.

As a result of the passing of the Test Act, no Presbyterian could be a magistrate, a teacher, a police officer above the rank of constable, or a member of a town corporation, In Londonderry ten aldermen and fourteen burgesses were deprived of their offices, Presbyterian ministers, too, were not allowed to perform the marriage ceremony, such weddings being termed as “licences for sin,” It would be difficult to exaggerate the enormity of this prohibition, with all the attendant scandalous denunciation of the children of such marriages, In addition, ministers of that religion were forbidden in many cases to officiate at the burial of the dead.

Their churches were once again closed, Presbyterians were not permitted to join the army or the militia. Professor Leyburn has written, “This Test Act was more than unjust, it was demeaning and stupid,” To add insult to injury Presbyterians had to pay towards the upkeep of the clergy and buildings of the Established Church, These contributions came under the headings of tithes and church cess. They could be quite crippling to many deprived of settled jobs. by the same church. The tithe, the most bitterly resented, was supposed to represent one tenth of each man’s crops and new-born cattle, but it often included levies on those not in the farming line. These could be, say one shilling for every tradesman, two and sixpence for every shop-keeper, and one penny for every owner of a garden.

The clergy of the Established Church had the legal right to collect these tithes, The resentment felt by Presbyterians at having to contribute thus is not difficult to imagine. Several factors contributed to the mass emigration of people of this religion to America in the 18th century, but it can hardly be doubted that this severe religious discrimination was one that had the deepest effects on those who suffered the indignities. It formed the foundation of their frustration and ill-feeling towards not only the Episcopalian church but also towards England whose power underpinned that church.

This base of grievances largely determined that almost all who left Ulster for the American colonies at that time were of the Presbyterian faith. These unjustly treated settlers in Ulster had come originally from three distinct regions of Scotland:

(1) From the ancient kingdom of Strathclyde in the South West which included:-Galloway,Dumbartonshire, Renfrewshire, Lanarkshire, and Dumfrieshire.

(2) The counties around Edinburgh namely Edinburghshire, Haddingtonshire, and Berwickshire.

(3) The ancient province of Moray lying between Aberdeen and Inverness.

In addition, even before the Plantation, the counties of Antrim and Down had been settled by people from the South West of Scotland. There were also many who had moved into the East coast of Antrim from Argyllshire. It would, perhaps, be appropriate to recall now in the 1980′s that the most of these settlers from Scotland and Northern England came over in response to encouragement from King James the First and the British Government’s Privy Council. They were British subjects who were responding to a need outlined by the governing authorities of their country at that time.

Nowadays one gets the impression. not discouraged by the present British governing bodies, that their descendants are generally regarded as “a race apart”, somehow not quite British. This is stressed by various media agencies again and again. without any real rebuttal from Government sources. One wonders, also, if the lineage of some of the detractors, especially in Parliamentary circles, would stand up to a “Britishness” investigation.

The strangling of the woollen trade was not the only thing that led to the loss of much money by the Ulster people in the] 8th century. In the years following 1710 many of the land leases of those who had settled around Plantation time expired. Due to their consistent hard work and planning, most of the farms were very well established and in fairly prosperous state. in spite of the loss of the woollen trade. Many of the farmers had introduced the growing of flax for linen spinning and weaving, not only by their own families, but in many cottages throughout the Ulster countryside.

The landlords, many of whom were not resident in Ulster, took this improved state of farms into account, and greatly increased the rents under the new leases, which were for much shorter periods. In addition they raised the “fines” for occupation much higher. One example will illustrate how much money was involved in these changes for the tenants to pay. In 1663 one family who lived in the Coleraine area was paying a rent of £300 and a “fine” of £500. By the year 1714 the rent was raised to £420 and the “fine” to an almost unbelievable £6,000. In many years bad harvests added to the troubles of the tenants and, if they could not pay in time, in many cases they were evicted. In the 1770′s there were many such evictions from Lord Donegall’s and a Mr. Upton’s estates. The resentment among farmers was intense and many of those thus deprived of their’ means of living were in a short time to emigrate to America.

When it was realised, not only in Ulster, but in America, too, the fierce desire of the Ulster Scots to emigrate, attempts were made by many to encourage and enable them to do so. Many of those who sought to expedite their leaving did so largely for self. interest, but others had the interests of the emigrants at heart. In some cases ships which were used to bring flax-seed from America took back to that country those who wished to emigrate, and that at a lower rate.

The five main ports for emigrants were Belfast, Londonderry, Larne, Newry, and Portrush. Inducements of many kinds were offered from America itself, principally of tracts of land at very low prices. In some cases bounty money would be paid to cover the cost of the journey and tools needed by the settlers. Some vast areas of land had been granted to prominent men, in some cases by the Crown, itself, with the condition that sufficient suitable people could be persuaded by the grantee to come and settle on the land. Then, in Ulster, agents were appointed or put themselves forward to publicize all the opportunities that life in the new land offered. Prominent among these inducements was freedom to worship. The offer of cheap land and attractive climate were also stressed. At the beginning these agents were largely in one of the ports, often shop-keepers, but later they operated in some of the inland towns like Ballymena, Ballynahinch, etc.

As Dr. R.J.Dickson has pointed out the cost of the passage to America varied from £6 to £10 at the beginning of the 18th century to £5 to £6 nearer to 1800. Archbishop Boulter wrote in a letter to the English Secretary of State in 1728, “The whole North is in a ferment, and people every day are engaging one another to go next year.” At times like this when the numbers of emigrants were very large, there was fierce opposition from employers and magistrates to the exodus of so many. Even the English Government was asked to stop it, but the Privy Council turned down the request. In Lisburn there was a threat by a Justice of Peace that he would horse-ship anyone who advertised for passengers for an emigrant ship.

However, the movement of people continued. The numbers involved was summed up very well by the late Rev. W.F. Marshall in the wording for the title of his excellent book on the subject – “ULSTER Sails West.” John Fiske, the historian, estimated that between 1730 and 1770 more than half the Presbyterian population of Ulster sailed to America, where he claimed that those involved and their descendants formed one sixth of the entire white population in that country at the time of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

James Leyburn reckoned that even in 1790 the Scotch-Irish (the name given in America to the Ulster Presbyterians) would have been 14.3%, about 1 in every 7 of the white population. Since it in that year was given as over 3 million, this would mean that then there would have been some 450,000 Ulster emigrants and their descendants. In view of the way they had been treated in the land they had left, surely Lecky, the historian, was not exaggerating when he wrote, “They went with hearts burning with indignation.”‘ This was to have a very great influence on the future history of the American colonies, as we shall find later. But why did they chose America to be their new home. We shall consider the early settlement of Ulster Scots in that vast land and how others were encouraged to follow, in the next two chapters.