'Your humble servant, 'THOMAS HERBERT, Clerk of the Council.' On July 23, 1655, the inhabitants of Galway were commanded to quit the town for ever by the 1st of November following, the owners of houses getting compensation at eight years' purchase. 'On October 30, this order was executed. All the inhabitants, except the sick and bedrid, were at once banished, to provide accommodation for English Protestants, whose integrity to the state should entitle them to be trusted in a place of such importance; and Sir Charles Coote, on November 7, received the thanks of the Government for clearing the town, with a request that he would remove the sick and bedrid as soon as the season might permit, and take care that the houses while empty were not spoiled by the soldiery. The town was thus made ready for the English. There was a large debt of 10,000 l., due to Liverpool for their loss and suffering for the good cause. The eminent deservings and losses of the city of Gloucester also had induced the parliament to order them 10,000 l., to be satisfied in forfeited lands in Ireland. The commissioners of Ireland now offered forfeited houses in Galway, rated at ten years' purchase, to the inhabitants of Liverpool and Gloucester, to satisfy their respective debts, and they were both to arrange about the planting of it with English Protestants. To induce them to accept the proposal, the commissioners enlarged upon the advantages of Galway. It lay open for trade with Spain, the Straits, the West Indies, and other places; no town or port in the three nations, London excepted, was more considerable. It had many noble uniform buildings of marble, though many of the houses had become ruinous by reason of the war, and the waste done by the impoverished English dwelling there. No Irish were permitted to live in the city, nor within three miles of it. If it were only properly inhabited by English, it might have a more hopeful gain by trade than when it was in the hands of the Irish that lived there. There never was a better opportunity of undertaking a plantation and settling manufacturers there than the present, and they suggested that it might become another Derry.'[1] [Footnote 1: The Cromwellian Settlement.] Some writers, sickened with the state of things in Ireland, and impatient of the inaction of our rulers, and of the tedious forms of constitutional government, have exclaimed: 'Oh for one day of Oliver Cromwell!' Well, Ireland had him and his worthy officers for many years. They had opportunities, which never can be hoped for again, of rooting out the Irish and their religion. '_Thorough_' was their word. They dared everything, and shrunk from no consequences. They found Dublin full of Catholics; and on June 19, 1651, Mr. John Hewson had the felicity of making the following report on the state of religion in the Irish metropolis:--