grievances from the Earl of Strafford's government in 1633, and touches towards the end upon the collection of outrages by the seven despoiled ministers, called the Remonstrance, which was published in the month of April, 1642.' He does not confute the massacre, only because none is charged. His complaint is, that they had given an exaggerated account of murders and outrages. 'Doubtless the Irish did, in many places,' he says, 'kill men resisting them in their pillaging; but the reports of their killing women or men desiring quarter, and such like inhumanities, were inventions to draw contributions, and make the enemy odious. But sure I am (he continues) that there was no such thing done while I was there in Ireland, about six months after these sturres began. And though unarmed, men, women, and children were killed in thousands by command of the Lords Justices, the Irish sent multitudes of our people, both before and since these cruelties done, as well officers and soldiers as women and children, carefully conveyed, to the seaports and other places of safety; so let us call them what we will-bloody inhuman traitors, or barbarous rebels-we have suffered ourselves to be much exceeded by them in charity, humanity, and honour.

"To hear the English complain of massacres in Ireland is about as entertaining as it proved to the Rhegians to hear the Carthagenians complain of anything affected by guile. For it was only victory that decided, with her usual contempt for justice, that the Irish, and not the English, should be noted to the world for massacre.'

,,

As Charles lost ground and was opposed by the Puritans, he seemed to have felt some sympathy for the suffering then being inflicted upon the Irish people who had remained loyal to him. At their petition, he appointed a commission to hear their complaint and to receive in writing what they had to communicate but it was too late to receive more than an expression of their sympathy.

A Discourse between Two Councillors of State, the One of England and the Other of Ireland. Printed at Kilkenny the 10th of Dec., 1642. Carte Papers, vol. iv., No. 54.

CHAPTER V

CROMWELL IN IRELAND- -CATHOLICS NEARLY EXTERMINATED AND HUNTED AS WILD BEASTS-MEN OF ALL RANKS SENT TO AMERICA AND SOLD AS SLAVES-THE REMAINDER GIVEN THE CHOICE OF GOING TO "HELL OR CONNAUGHT "-FROM THESE PEOPLE OF GENTLE BIRTH AND REFINEMENT THE IRISH PEASANTRY OF TO-DAY ARE DESCENDED-NO OTHER RACE PRESENTS SUCH AN ANOMALY

MANY of Cromwell's officers were educated in this struggle undertaken for the purpose of exterminating the Irish race, so that when they were called upon to serve in his invasion of Ireland a few years later, they were in every respect soldiers of fortune. But we must be content to cite only a few circumstances connected with Cromwell's campaign in Ireland.

Mathew Carey writes':

"Of all the cases of murderous cruelty, that marked the career of the government force in Ireland, the most atrocious occurred at the surrender of Drogheda. The history of the Huns, Vandals, Goths and Ostragoths, or of those scourges of the human race, the successors of Mahomet, may be searched in vain for anything more shocking.. Cromwell had besieged this town for some time; and was finally admitted on promise of quarter. The garrison consisted of the flower of the Irish army, and might have beaten him back, had they not been seduced by

1 Vindicia Hibernica, second edition, p. 425; third edition, p. 348; see also the statement of the Marquis of Ormond, Carte, vol. ii., p. 84.

his solemn promise of mercy, which was observed till the whole had laid down their arms. Then the merciless wretch commanded his soldiers to begin the slaughter of the entire garrison, which slaughter continued for five days with every circumstance of brutal and sanguinary violence that the most cruel savages could conceive or perpetrate."

Cromwell in his canting official report of the siege wrote:

"It has pleased God to bless our endeavours at Drogheda. I wish that all honest hearts may give the glory of this to God alone, to whom indeed the praise of this mercy belongs. I believe we put to the sword the whole number of the defendants. I do not think thirty of the whole number escaped with their lives; those that did, are in safe custody for the Barbadoes, etc."

Where, it may be added, as he had previously stated, they were sold as slaves, as were thousands of other prisoners from Ireland.

Warner writes':

66

'But on the 9th of September the summons having been rejected, Cromwell began to batter the place; and continuing to do so till the next day in the evening, the assault was made and his men twice repulsed with great bravery; but in the third attack which he led himself, Colonel Wall being killed at the head of his regiment, his men were so dismayed, that they submitted to the enemy offering them quarter sooner than they need to have done and thereby betrayed themselves and their fellow-soldiers to the slaughter. The place was immediately taken by storm; and though his officers and soldiers had promised quarter to all that would lay down their arms, yet Cromwell ordered that no quarter should be given, and none was given accordingly. The slaughter continued all that day, and the next, and the Governour and four Colonels were killed in cool blood; 'which extraordinary severity,' says Ludlow, with a coolness not becoming a man-' I presume was used to discourage others from making opposition.' But are men to divest themselves of humanity, and to turn themselves into

1 P. 470.

Cromwell in Ireland

93

Devils because policy may suggest that they will succeed better as devils than as men? Such is the spirit of religion, when it is deprived of truth and reason and turned into zealous fury and enthusiasm. When Cromwell had finished the carnage by leaving only about thirty alive, whom he sent away to Barbadoes, except a few that miraculously made their escape, he went on to Dundalh."

Friar Broudine gives the following account of the massacre':

"This butchery (in which young men and virgins, children at the breast, and the aged were slain every where by these barbarians, without distinction of place, sex, religion or age) lasted five continuous days. Four thousand Catholic men, not to mention an infinite multitude of religious women, boys, girls and infants in the City fell victims to the sword of these impious rebels."

These statements are fully verified in a letter written by the Marquis of Ormond' to the King and to Lord Byron. And the additional information is given that when the official despatch was laid before the English Parliament a resolution was passed which was to be transmitted to Cromwell and his officers: "That the House doth approve of the execution done in Drogheda, both as an act of justice to them and mercy to others, who may be warned by it."

Cromwell with this endorsement after obtaining possession of the city of Wexford, in utter disregard for his pledge of quarter, showed the same degree of cruelty there as he had exercised at Drogheda.

Borlace writes':

"Commissioners, who treating with Cromwell, had procured

1 The Rev. Fr. Anthony Broudine was evidently present as an eye-witness in Drogheda at the time of the massacre and was fortunate to escape to the Continent. For many years he taught theology in the Irish college at Prague and in 1669 he published Propugnaculum Catholicæ Veritatis (Pars I (et unica) Historiæ in 5 Lebros Secta), the quotations being from part iv.

2 Life of Ormond, vol. iii., p. 477.

History of the Execrable Irish Rebellion, etc., London, 1680, p. 225.

the safety of the Inhabitants of the Town, and the preservation of it from plunder, as leave for the Soldiers to depart every one to their homes (they engaging not to bear Arms any more against the State of England), and lastly, of life to the officers."

And yet as soon as all were disarmed, in violation of the treaty over two thousand men, women and children found in the town were slaughtered without mercy! After taking Dundalh, Neury, Carlingford and a number of other places, the garrisons, with all others found in these towns, were brutally murdered after having surrendered.

In continuation we will again quote from Carey's work (third edition, p. 351):

"Three thousand men, women and children, of all ranks and ages took refuge in the Cathedral of Cashel, hoping the Temple of the living God would afford them a sanctuary from the butcheries that were laying the whole country desolate. The barbarian Ireton forced the gates of the church, and let loose his bloodhounds among them, who soon convinced them how vain was their reliance on the Temple or the altar of God. They were slaughtered without discrimination. Neither rank, dignity or character, saved the nobleman, the bishop or the priest; nor decrepitude nor his hoary head, the venerable sage bending down into the grave; nor her charms, the virgin; nor her virtues, the respectable matron; nor its helplessness, the smiling infant. Butchery was the order of the day, and all shared the common fate."

This statement is not strictly correct. It is true that Ireton was in general command but most writers agree in the statement that the attack on Cashel was made directly by Murrough O'Brien, Baron of Inchiquin, an Irishman, who had deserted the King's standard when his request to be made Governor of Munster had been refused.

MacGeoghegan states':

"It may be observed, that the houses of Thuomond and Inchiquin had imbibed, with their English titles, all the malignity 1 1 MacGeoghegan, p. 578.