Acts of attainder were speedily passed against some two thousand Protestant landed proprietors, all of whom had obtained their lands by the settlement of Cromwell.
A land tax was voted to the king, of twenty thousand pounds a month, and he proceeded to raise other levies by his private authority.

The result was that the resources of Ireland were speedily exhausted, money almost disappeared, and James, being at his wits' end for funds, issued copper money stamped with the value of gold and silver; and a law was passed making this base money legal tender, promising that, at the end of the war, it should be exchanged for sterling money.
This was a measure which inflicted enormous loss and damage.

At first, the people raised the prices of goods in proportion to the decrease in the value of the money, but James stopped this, by issuing a proclamation fixing the prices at which all articles were to be sold; and having done this, proceeded to buy up great quantities of hides, butter, corn, wood, and other goods, paying for them all with a few pounds of copper and tin, and then shipping them to France, where they were sold on his own account.

It need hardly be said that conduct of this kind speedily excited great dissatisfaction, even among those who were most loyal in his cause.
Captain Davenant was shocked at the state of things he found prevailing in Dublin.
"I regret bitterly," he said, when alone with his wife and mother, "that I have taken up the sword.

Success appears to me to be hopeless.