Three Acts to explain or extend the original one were passed soon afterwards. By the first special arrangements were made for admitting Scotch adventurers and Dutch Protestants on or before May 10, 1642; by the second, subscribers who paid all their money before July 20, 1642, were to have Irish acres based upon a perch of twenty-one feet, new contributors and those who were not so prompt, being still confined to English measure, with a perch of sixteen and a half feet, by the third corporations and companies were admitted to contribute as well as individuals. A permanent committee sat in London to watch the interests of the adventurers. Ordinances affecting them were made from time to time, of which one of the most important was that of July 14, 1643, doubling the amount of land to be given in Irish acres for an additional one-fourth to the original subscription, and encouraging merchants and manufacturers to advance money on the security of the towns and neighbourhoods of Limerick, Waterford, Galway, and Wexford. All chantry lands 'given, unto superstitious uses for maintenance of popish priests and idolatrous masses' were thrown in, and also all lands 'given for maintenance of lazars and lazarous people and concealed in possession and occupation of such who are now or shall be rebels, and have been by their ancestors enjoyed by many descents.' Some months before this, at the beginning of October 1642, the House of Commons sent a committee to Ireland consisting of Robert Goodwin and Robert Reynolds, adventurers and members of Parliament, and of Captain William Tucker, who was associated with them by the City of London. They disagreed among themselves, and effected nothing for the adventurers, but their pretensions gave the King an opportunity of interfering. Dublin was secured in Ormonde's hands, and so it remained until Charles was overthrown in England. But civil government was in abeyance long after that, and it was not until August 1652, when the Irish war seemed to be nearly over, that Parliament was able to declare how Irish land should be dealt with.[256]
[241] _Aphorismical Discovery_, iii. 143; John Jones to Major Scott, March 1, 1652-3, _ib._ 370; Articles for Arran, January 15, _Contemp. Hist._, iii. 364; Articles for Innisbofin, February 14, _ib._ See also O'Flaherty's _Western Connaught_, pp. 78, 116.