178 | Essays 3
houses, farms, and towns so lately destroyed, and relations
 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 reliance
 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 English
 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 persons
 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 Ireland,
 are held from ancient confiscations made of the
estates of Caledonians and Britons, the original possessors
 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 confiscations
 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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