Irish ; the murderer only paid a small fine to the Chief
WESLEY'S JOURNAL _ June 1760 it was always so thinly inhabited ; for he makes it plain,
1. That murder was never capital among the native Irish ; the murderer only paid a small fine to the Chief of his sept.
2. When the English settled here, still the Irish had no benefit of the English laws.
They could not so much as sue an Englishman.
So the English beat, plundered, yea, murdered them, at pleasure.
Hence, 3. Arose continual wars between them, for three hundred and fifty years together ; and hereby both the English and Irish natives were kept few, as well as poor.
4. When they were multiplied during a peace of forty years, from 1600 to 1641, the general massacre, with the ensuing war, again thinned their numbers; not so few as a million of men, women, and children, being destroyed in four years' time.
5. Great numbers have ever since, year by year, left the land merely for want of employment.
6. The gentry are continually driving away hundreds, yea, thousands, of them that remain, by throwing such quantities of arable land into pasture, which leaves them neither business nor food.
This it is that now dispeoples many parts of Ireland, of Connaught in particular, which, it is supposed, has scarce half the inhabitants at this day which it had fourscore years ago.
Attack on Wesley's Hat Tues. June 1o.—I rode to Drumersnave, a village delightfully situated.
At noon William Ley, James Glasbrook, and I rode to Carrick-upon-Shannon.
In less than an hour, an Esquire and Justice of the peace came down with a drum, and what mob he could gather.
I went into the garden with the congregation, while he was making a