178 | Essays 3 
houses, farms, and towns so lately destroyed, and re- 
lations scalped under the conduct of these royalists, 
is not wonderful; though I believe the opposition 
given by many to their re-establishing among us is 
owing to a firm persuasion that there could be no re- 
liance on their oaths; and that the effect of receiving 
those people again would be an introduction of that 
very anarchy and confusion they falsely reproach us 
with. Even the example you propose, of the Eng- 
lish Commonwealth’s restoring the estates of the 
royalists after their being subdued, seems rather to 
countenance and encourage our acting differently, as 
probably if the power, which always accompanies 
property, had not been restored to the royalists, if 
their estates had remained confiscated, and their per- 
sons had been banished, they could not have so much 
contributed to the restoration of kingly power, and 
the new government of the republic might have been 
more durable. 
The majority of examples in your history are on 
the other side of the question. All the estates in 
England and south of Scotland, and most of those 
possessed by the descendants of the English in Ire- 
land, are held from ancient confiscations made of the 
estates of Caledonians and Britons, the original pos- 
sessors 1n vour island, or the native Irish, in the last 
century only. It is but a few months since, that your 
Parliament has. in a few instances, given up confisca- 
tions incurred by a rebellion suppresed forty vears 
ago. The war against us was begun by a general act 
of Parliament declaring all our estates confiscated; 
and probably one great motive to the loyalty of the 
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