It looks, indeed, as though the whole transaction, including the promises and the call for ascertaining the quantity of land occupied by each inhabitant, as also the sham plot into which the earls were inveigled, was but a cunning device to bring about the plantation, in which manors of one thousand, fifteen hundred, and three thousand acres, were offered to such English and Scotch as should undertake to plant their lots with British Protestants, and engage that no Irish should dwell upon them. Meanwhile, all who had been in arms during Tyrone's war were to be transplanted with their families, cattle, and followers, to waste places in Munster and Connaught, and there set down at a distance from one another. Over and above this, the Irish were indebted to James for a new project--a most ingenious invention for successful plunder. He was the real author of the celebrated "Commission for the investigation of defective titles." It would seem that the province of Ulster was too small for the rapacity of those who were constantly urging upon the king a greater thoroughness in his plans. It was clear, moreover, that the English occupation of the other three provinces had hitherto proved a failure. The island had failed to become Anglicised, and it was necessary to begin the work anew. The new commission was presented to the Irish people in a most alluring guise. That political hypocrisy, which to-day stands for statesmanship, is not a growth of our own times. The intention of James confined itself to putting an end to all uncertainty on the subject of titles, and bestowing on each land- owner one which, for the future, should be unimpeachable. But the result went beyond his intention. This measure became, in fact, an engine of universal spoliation. It failed to secure even those who succeeded in retaining a portion of their former estates in possession, as Strafford made manifest, who, despite all the unimpeachable titles conferred by James, managed to confiscate to his own profit the greater part of the province of Connaught. It is fitting to give a few details of this new measure of James, in order to show the gratitude which the Irish owed the Stuarts, if on that account only. In "Ireland under English Rule," the Rev. A. Perraud justly remarks: "Most Irish families held possession of their lands but by tradition, and their rights could not be proved by regular title-deeds. By royal command, a general inquiry was instituted, and whoever could not prove his right to the seat of his ancestors, by authentic documents, was mercilessly but juridically despoiled of it; the pen of the lawyer thus making as many conquests as the blade of the mercenary."