Not until 1653, when Cromwell, in command of the English rebels, bloodily ended the struggle, was the country subdued. Then the clearances of the Ulster Plantation were extended to Leinster and Munster. “Commonwealth” ordinances proclaimed a new “settlement.” James I. aimed at planting a province. The Ironsides applotted a kingdom. One of the Statutes of the Long Parliament assured the Irish, in an amiable preamble, that “it was not intended to extirpate their nation as a whole.” Thanks to this moderation, only three of the four provinces were parcelled out among the soldiers, and the bracing crags and bogs of Connacht were left largely to the Catholics. Still Oliver’s Plantation, though thorough, did not meet with complete success. It withered with the despotism that begot it. During his sway a strange chapter was added to the story of the Northern waters. CHAPTER XX. THE PURITAN SCRIVENERS. In February, 1654, the London Corporation petitioned Cromwell to be restored to their Irish estates. The Protector readily consented. Indeed, his kingly victim had promised in 1641 to cancel the confiscations of the Star Chamber. A Commonwealth Patent regranting everything that had been seized from the City by Charles I. was enrolled at Westminster and Dublin in March, 1657. The Londoners retook possession beforehand, and once more became masters of the Bann. Hardly were they reinstated when they fell victims to a second parchment-plot to filch the river away. This time it was contrived not by the Chichesters but by one of their prayerful pupils, Sir John Clotworthy. That adventurer (mentioned already as Pym’s tool in compassing the death of Strafford) was son to an old servitor of the “great Deputy,” Sir Hugh Clotworthy, who came to Ireland during the Elizabethan wars, and was appointed “Captain of the Boats” on Lough Neagh. In 1605 Hugh received from Chichester a grant of the lands of Massereene, and was afterwards knighted by him. In 1618 Sir Hugh was awarded a pension of 6s. 8d. a day for the joint lives of himself and his son, John, then not twelve years old. Much history turns on this episode. Pensions for joint lives had just been prohibited by royal order, and Sir Hugh’s salary as “Captain of the Boats” was only £40 a year, while a pension of 6s. 8d. a day comes to £121 13s. 4d. a year. Even in Stuart days such a job could not stand. It took four years to unmask; and then, under pressure, the pension was gracefully “surrendered.”