MURDER OF PRIESTS, WOMEN, & CHILDREN. 445 murder all the males able to bear arms, in places where the rebels were harboured." We now proceed to prove, that these barbarous orders were fully carried into operation. Leland and Warner inform us, that, "in the execution of these orders, the soldiers slew all persons promiscuously."* They state this on the authority of the lords justices themselves, whose testimony must be regarded as indisputable. But was not this the consequence the miscreants calculated on producing? Could they have reasonably expected any other? When the devouring sword is invited from its scabbard by public authority, for the indiscriminate slaughter of "men able to bear arms," will not the expiring and bed-rid wretch be despatched to the other world, as a man "able to bear arms?" Will his cassock protect the priest? her bonnet or shawl the pity-inspiring female? or its cradle and tender cries the helpless infant? No: he must be a mere novice in human nature and human affairs, who entertains a doubt on the subject. "Monroe put sixty men, EIGHTEEN WOMEN, and two priests to death, in the Newry."512 "The lord president of Munster, St. Leger, is so cruel and merciless, that he causes honest men and women to be most execrably executed, and amongst the rest, caused a woman great "The soldiers, in executing their orders, murdered all persons that came in their way promiscuously, NOT SPARING THE WOMEN, AND SOMETIMES NOT THE CHILDREN.' 99513 512 Leland, III. 201. 513 Leland, III. 198. Warner, 194. with child to be ript up, and three babes to be taken out of her womb, and then thrust every of the babes with weapons through their little bodies. This act of the lord president hath set many in a sort of desperation." Lord of Upper Ossory's Letter to the Earl of Ormond.514 "Sir Theophilus Jones had taken a castle, put some men to the sword, and thirteen priests, having with them two thousand pounds.”515 "Their friars and priests were knocked on the head promiscuously with the others, who were in arms.' 99516 "Letters from Ireland, that the Lord Inchiquin relieved some garrisons of the English in Tipperary, entered Carricke and fortified a pass to make good his retreat, blew open the gate of Cullen by a petard, entered the town, took two castles by assault, and put three hundred soldiers to the sword, and some women, notwithstanding order to the contrary.' 99517 "Sir William Parsons hath by late letters advised the governor to the burning of Corn, and to put man, woman, and child to the sword; and Sir Adam Loftus hath written in the same strain.""518 Our second position is, II. "Men who had been overcome in battle; thrown down their arms; made no further resistance; and begged for quarter; were butchered by hundreds, and sometimes by thousands." "A neighbouring bog tempted the Irish foot to retire thither for refuge, while their horse marched off with very little loss, and unmolested. The bog was too small to afford them protection. Jones surrounded it with his horse, whilst his foot entered it, and attacked the Irish, who threw down their arms, and begged for quarter. Above three thousand of them were put to the sword.”519 514 Carte, III. 51. 516 Idem, 412. 518 Ormond, II. 350. 515 Whitelock, 502. 517 Idem, 296. 519 Carte, II. 5. "They defeated and pursued them with great slaughter, granting quarters to none but officers. About two thousand fell by the weapons of an enemy transported by zeal and resentment, about five hundred plunged into lake Erne, and but one of all the multitude escaped." 520 "As no quarter was given, except to colonel Richard Butler, son to the lord Ikerin (who was the last man of the Irish army that retired) few prisoners were made."521 "The left, commanded by Mac-Allisdrum, consisting of brave northern Irish, stood their ground; but were at last forced to yield to the conquerors; their commander giving up his sword to colonel Purden. But lord Inchiquin having, before the battle, ordered that no quarter should be given to the enemy, the brave Mac-Allisdrum and most of his men were put to the sword in cold blood." 11522 "Lieutenant colonel Sanderson, at the same time, and Sir Francis Hamilton coming in the nick of time with his troop, they had all execution upon them for five miles."523 "Colonel Mathews, at Dromore, getting together a body of two hundred men, attacked five hundred of the rebels; and, having killed three hundred of them without the loss of a man, the next day he pursued the rest, who had hid themselves about in the bushes, and, starting them like hares out of their formes, killed a hundred and fifty more. 97524 "The lord Inchiquin took Pilborne castle by storm, and put all in it but eight to the sword." 99525 "His men had the pursuit of the rebels seven miles, three several ways, as long as the day lasted, and in the flight and pursuit, were slain of the rebels about four thousand.”526 "The rebels were pursued without mercy; and, in their flight, spread a general consternation through all their adherents."527 520 Leland, IV. 256. 525 Whitelock, 225. 527 Leland, III. 201. 521 Smith II. 142. 522 Idem, 162. 524 Warner, 113. 526 Idem, 283. "In the battle, and a bloody pursuit of three miles, 7,000 of the Irish were slain. The unrelenting fury of the victors appeared in the number of their prisoners, which amounted only to 450." 19528 Our third position is, III. "After surrender made, and quarter promised, the faith pledged to the Irish was perfidiously violated, and they were butchered in cold blood."* "The army, I am sure, was not eight thousand effective men; and of them it is certain there were not above six hundred killed; and the most of them that were killed were butchered after they had laid down their arms, and had been almost an hour prisoners, and divers of them murdered after they were brought within the works of Dublin."529 The bishop of Clogher "having detached colonel Swiney with a strong party, to make an attempt upon Castledoe, in the county Donegal, he ventured, contrary to the advice of the most experienced officers, with 3,000 men, to fight Sir Charles Coote, with near double his number, at Letterkenny. Major general O'Cahan, many of his principal officers, and fifteen hundred common soldiers, were killed on the spot; and the colonels Henry Roe, and Phelim M'Tuol O'Neile, Hugh Macguire, Hugh Mac-Mahon, and others, slain after quarter given."530 We cannot allow ourselves to doubt, for a moment, that we have fully established our positions on the most impregnable ground. Limiting * A most striking instance, in proof of this accusation, is afforded by the slaughter at Drogheda; of which an account will be found at the close of this chapter. 528 Leland, IV. 342. 530 Carte, II. 113. 529 Ormond, II. 396. ourselves, as we have done, to the accounts of the perpetrators of the murders, and their historians, it is matter of astonishment, that we have been able to adduce such strong evidence. But it is a peculiar feature in this history, that the criminals narrate their crimes, with as little ceremony as if they claimed glory from them. A few circumstances, of peculiar atrocity, which add strong corroboration to the testimony, are reserved for the close of this chapter. The pretences on which the Irish were slaughtered, were, in many instances, of the most frivolous and contemptible character: but it is a trite observation, that those who are wicked enough to perpetrate crimes, are never without a plea to justify, or at least to palliate, their guilt. Sir S. Harcourt besieged a castle in the vicinity of Dublin, where, venturing too near, he was shot. The barbarian besiegers, when they took the castle, to revenge the death of their general, slaughtered every man, woman, and child it contained.* * "Sir S. Harcourt was sent out with a small party, in order to dislodge them. But being obliged to send back for some battering cannon, whilst he waited for these, and was giving his soldiers some orders, one of the rebels perceiving him, discharged his piece at him, and gave him a mortal wound; of which he died the next day, to the prejudice of the service and the great grief of the English. His men, who loved him greatly, were so enraged at the cowardly manner in which he was killed, that when the cannon came up, and had made a |