been penetrated by Sir Henry Dowcra, a brave and skilful soldier, from Derry in the north; by Sir Arthur Chichester, from Carrickfergus in the east; and by Mountjoy, from the south-till they met in the middle of Tyrone.

"Tyrone" [the Earl], says Mountjoy in a letter to the Council in England, "is already beaten out of his country, and lives in a part of O'Kane's, a place of incredible fastness, where, though it be impossible to do him any great hurt so long as he shall be able to keep any force about him—the ways to him being inaccessible with an army-yet, by lying about him, as we mean to do, we shall in short time put him to his uttermost extremity, and if not light upon his person yet force him to fly the kingdom. In the mean time we can assure your lordships thus much-that from O'Kane's country, where now he liveth, which is to the northward of his own country of Tyrone, we have left none to give us opposition, nor of late have seen any but dead carcasses, merely starved for want of meat, of which kind we found many in divers places as we passed."

On returning to Dublin he directed Dowcra to station himself at Omagh, and Chichester to garrison the fort of Mountjoy, on Lough Neagh, near Dungannon, with orders to drive the inhabitants from Tyrone, to spoil all the corn he could not preserve for the garrison, and to deface all the islands taken.

He writes from Newry, on his way to Dublin, on the 12th of September, that

'In Tyrone, which had been reduced to a desert, and in the neighbouring counties also, he had found everywhere men dead of famine, insomuch that O'Hagan [a chieftain of

Tyrone] protested unto us, that between Tullahogue and Toome [a distance of about twenty miles] there lay a thousand dead, and that since our first drawing this year to Blackwater there were above three thousand starved in Tyrone.”

Moryson's testimony is to the same effect :

"Now because I have often made mention formerly of our destroying the rebels' corn, and using all means to famish them, let me by two or three examples shew the miserable estate to which the rebels were thereby brought. Sir Arthur Chichester, Sir Richard Moryson, and the other commanders of the forces sent against Brian MacArt [O'Neill] aforesaid, in their return homewards saw a most horrid spectacle of three children (whereof the eldest was not above ten years old) all eating their dead mother, upon whose flesh they had fed twenty days past. [I omit here some most revolting particulars.] Former mention hath been made in the Lord Deputy's letters, of carcases scattered in many places-all dead of famine. And no doubt the famine was so great, as the rebel soldiers taking all the common people had to feed upon, and hardly living thereupon (so as they besides fed not only on hawkes, kites, and unsavory birds of prey, but on horse-flesh and other things unfit for man's feeding), as that the common sort were brought to unspeakable extremities (beyond the record of most histories that ever I did read in that kind), the ample relating whereof were an infinite task, yet will I not pass it over without adding some few instances. Captain Trevor and many honest gentlemen lying in the Newry can witness that some old women in those parts were used to make a fire in the fields, and divers little children driving out the cattle in the cold mornings, and coming thither to warm them, were by them surprised, killed, and eaten, which at last was discovered by a great girl breaking from them by the strength of her body; and Captain Trevor sending out soldiers to know the truth, they found the childrens' skulls and bones, and apprehended the old women, who were executed for the

fact.

The captains of Carrickfergus and the adjacent garrisons of the northern parts can witness that upon the making of peace and receiving the rebels to mercy, it was a common practice among the common sort of them (I mean such as were not sword-men) to thrust long needles into the horses of our English troops, and they dying thereupon, to be ready to tear out one another's throat, for a share of them. And no spectacle was more common in the ditches of towns, and especially in the wasted countries, than to see multitudes of these poor people dead, with their mouths all coloured green by eating nettles, docks, and all things they could rend up above ground. These and very many like lamentable effects. followed their rebellion, and no doubt the rebels had been utterly destroyed by famine had not a general peace shortly followed Tyrone's submission."

Soon after Mountjoy's departure to Dublin, Tyrone fled to the mountain fastnesses south-west of Lough Erne in Fermanagh. The utmost force he could now raise was 600 gallowglasses (heavy armed foot) and kerne (light armed foot), and fifty horse. Nearly all his vassals and allies, O'Donnell and O'Kane amongst them, had made their peace, and he himself, reduced to despair, repeatedly made the most urgent appeals to Mountjoy for mercy and solemn promises of the most submissive loyalty to Elizabeth for the rest of his life. He wrote upon 12th November, 1602:

"I will, from henceforth," says he, " both renounce all other princes but her, and serve her highness the residue of my life, humbly requesting of your honor, now that you have brought me so low, to remember I am a nobleman, and to take compassion on me, that the overthrow of my house and posterity may be prevented by your good means and honorable care

towards her Majesty for me, which with all humility I desire and will accept."

Early in 1603, when Elizabeth was on her deathbed, Mountjoy permitted O'Neill to appear before him at Mellifont, near Drogheda, and there the proud but humiliated chieftain, on his knees before the Lord Deputy for an hour, made ample confession of the wickedness of his rebellion, and renewed protestations of future loyalty, and received pardon.

I have entered thus particularly into the history of this rebellion, because it affords a demonstration that O'Neill and O'Donnell could not have entertained the thought of a new rebellion within four years of O'Neill's submission, or before the half-starved Ulster youth of 1603 had ripened into fighting men. Under the circumstances, no man, not a cross between a lunatic and an idiot, could have entertained the thought for a moment.

One of the worst evils that afflicted Ireland for centuries arose from a succession of penniless adventurers who flocked to Dublin Castle, and by virtue of a manufacture, at this time brought to great perfection, became, in short space, lords of broad and fertile lands. It may with perfect confidence be asserted, that if the manufactures of iron, flax, silk, wool, and cotton-wool had been brought here to the same condition of perfection, Ireland would long have been, instead of the poorest and most manufactureless

country in Europe, the most rife of manufacture and the richest of all countries. I allude to the manufacture in Dublin Castle of Irish traitors and rebels, whose confiscated lands the adventurers were resolved to be possessed of. Goldwin Smith, speaking of the spirit of adventure so prevalent in the time of Elizabeth, says :

"The eagles took wing for the Spanish main; the vultures descended upon Ireland. A daring use of his sword procured for the adventurer in the Spanish colonies romantic wealth in the shape of ingots and rich bales; a dexterous use of intrigue, chicanery, and the art of inciting to rebellion, procured for the sharper in Ireland wealth less romantic, but more solid and lasting, in the shape of confiscated lands. The appearance of these adventurers, and the commencement of their hateful trade, made war internecine. Submission may avail with the tyrant, but never with the confiscator."

The raw material, in the present instance, was most unpromising, but the operatives were not discouraged, and their audacity was approved by perfect success. The process of manufacture was very simple. An anonymous letter, addressed to Sir William Usher, Clerk of the Privy Council, was dropt in the Council chamber, stating that O'Neill, O'Donnell, and Richard Nugent, a young man, Baron of Delvin, had entered into a conspiracy to seize the Castle of Dublin, put the Lord-Deputy to death, and raise a general rebellion with the aid of a Spanish army. Experience," says the proverb, "keeps a dear school, but fools will learn at no other." The chieftains had a terrible lesson