No less than three thousand heads of families, constituting the Catholic nobility and gentry, and the owners of the land in the west of Ireland were imprisoned, charged with treason, and their property was seized. A new commission was now formed, consisting of judge and jurymen in English interests, yet who were sworn, it is supposed, to investigate with some pretext to honesty the charge of treason against these individuals. As a result of their labors _over one thousand indictments were drawn up by this commission in two days_, by which each individual was found guilty of treason, thus losing his life, and his property was seized for the crown! If it be assumed that this jury worked continuously each day for twelve hours, the average would be about one indictment for a little less than every minute and a half. During which time it was supposed that witnesses duly sworn were examined as to the guilt of each individual, and after due deliberation, and after giving the prisoner the benefit of all doubt, where the testimony was deemed unreliable, the verdict had been rendered. Is it possible to conceive of a more complete travesty on justice? The prisoners knew nothing of the proceedings, and the average time for conviction of less than one minute and a half was scarcely sufficient to add the signatures necessary to give each death warrant a semblance of legality. By this one transaction the British crown came into possession of some ten millions of acres, which was a little more than one half of all the available land in Ireland. Between five and six hundred thousand men, women, and children were slaughtered, or died from starvation. Many thousand were sent to the West Indies, or to the American colonies, and sold as slaves. A limited number escaped to the mountains, where many died from starvation, and the remainder lived for years a life in common with the wild beasts, with a price upon their heads, and were hunted as such. The whole and entire population of this great tract of country disappeared, and was literally wiped out. Shortly after, Cromwell overran the south and southwestern portion of Ireland which was also chiefly settled by Catholics, and they received as little mercy from his army as had been meted out to those of their creed in Connaught. When Cromwell had completed his work at least two thirds of the landed property in Ireland had been confiscated; and after the greater portion of the Catholic Irish men, women, and children had been put to the sword, or driven into exile, the whole country became resettled with his soldiers, or by persons devoted to the English interest. Over one hundred thousand young children, who had been made orphans, or who were taken from their Catholic parents, were sent to the West Indies, to Virginia, or to New England, that they might thus lose their faith, as well as all knowledge of their nationality.