was to be established, and 'every soldier to be made master of his own land, to him and his heirs for ever.' It was supposed that 600 or 700 men would be enough, and that the penniless younger sons, who could no longer fall back on the decent idleness of the abbeys, would seize upon this golden opportunity. The examples chosen to prove how easily a small English force might overcome a larger body of Irish were singularly inapplicable to a plan of colonisation. It was true that Gilbert with 100 men had driven the Munster rebels before him, that Collyer with one company had discomfited 1,000 Redshanks, that Randolph with 300 had beaten 3,000 O'Neills before Derry. But it was equally true that the rebels were as strong as ever when Gilbert's back was turned, that Scots continued to pour in, and that the settlement at Derry was abandoned. It was argued that 300 horse and 400 foot would be enough to settle the Ards, and their pay would amount to 10,000_l._ a year. For the first three years they were to pay no rent for their holdings, after which it was estimated that they would be self-supporting. How Sir Thomas Smith could imagine that private adventurers would lend 10,000_l._ a year without interest for three years, upon the security of Irish land still unconquered, may well puzzle us; but sanguine hope was a characteristic of the sixteenth century. 'Many shall say,' the candid pamphleteer admits, 'that they shall go into a place where they shall want meat, housing, and all things necessary, for that no prince yet hath been able to victual their army ... that the soldier is always constrained to march through the bogs and rivers, and in the night to lodge upon the grass without meat and fire. This is indeed a great misery ... but consider the difference that is between the Deputy's journey who seeketh to apprehend the rebels' bodies ... and his enterprise, who desireth the land only.'[214] [Sidenote: The O'Neills are alarmed.]