This English adventurer, not forgetful of his promise of succour to the king, nor of his hope to become his son-in-law and successor to the throne, in hopes to be on good terms with his sovereign, Henry II. appeared at court, demanding his permission to quit the kingdom, and to seek his fortune elsewhere. Henry, being dissatisfied with him, granted his permission in an ironical manner, as to a man whose name he did not wish to hear mentioned. to profit of this permission, however equivocal, made the necessary preparations for his expedition to Ireland; but previously detached Raymond le Gros, with a small body of men, to reconnoitre the country, facilitate his intended descent, and announce his intentions to the king of Leinster.

Richard, wishing

Raymond disembarked on the first of May, 1170, at the little port of Don Domhnall, within four miles of Waterford, where he threw up entrenchments, to prevent a surprise. The Danes of Waterford, hearing of a body of English troops being encamped in their neighbourhood, assembled, with the clan of O'Faolan, king of the Desies (Co. Waterford), to the number of two or three thousand, but without discipline, and ill provided with arms. Raymond, without waiting for the enemy in his trenches, sallied out to meet them on the plain. The battle began with vigour, and the English were driven back to their entrenchments, where being enabled by the courage of despair, they rallied, and made head against their disorderly assailants, of whom

they made a great carnage. This victory of the English, though inferior in number, was owing to their discipline, and to a number of archers, who took sure aim from their ramparts, on a people unaccustomed to such a weapon of warfare. The victory was disgraced by the massacre of seventy prisoners, consisting of the chief citizens of Waterford. At a council of war, held to deliberate on their treatment, Raymond was for observing the customary laws of civilized warfare, but Hervey de Mountmorres harangued the soldiers, and prevailed on them to murder the prisoners. This they brutally performed by first breaking their legs, and then casting them from a precipice into the sea.

This was civilizing the Irish, both Danes and Milesians, on the plan of an Anglo-Irish writer, who said, that the only way to civilize the Irish was, to kill them and take their properties. It was conformable to the maxim of Gerald Barry, commonly called Gyraldus Cambrensis, a catholic priest, tutor to king John, and a relation of the Geraldines, some of the chief invaders, who laid it down as an invariable rule for the conduct of the adventurers, to debilitate and exterminate the ancient catholic proprietors of Ireland. A sanguinary maxim, more becoming the preacher of the Alcoran than a minister of the gospel, which was but too fatally adhered to. Slaughter, confiscation, colonization, formed the fatal circle of English policy towards the native Irish. Division, famine, fictitious plots, assassinations of distinguished men, were among the means of

accomplishing the destruction and degradation which they call civilization. The suppression of schools and colleges, the extinction of learning and language, and the destruction of books, formed their methods of refining and improving

a nation!

Strongbow landed at Waterford, on the 24th of August, with 1200 choice troops, where he was speedily joined by the king of Leinster, with his Irish and English forces. They held a council of war, in which it was resolved to lay siege to Waterford. This they considered as an easy conquest. That ill-fortified place was defended by the burghers who had escaped from the late defeat, and was attacked by an army superior in number, well disciplined, and commanded by able officers; yet it was defended with obstinate valour by the inhabitants. At length, taken by assault, the besiegers rushed in, making an indiscriminate slaughter of the inhabitants, until the arrival of Dermod, whose interposition saved the lives of many of his countrymen. A terrible specimen of the cruelty of those adventurers, proving that Suwarrow was not the first butcher of men who civilized mankind by destruction.

Soon after the king of Leinster fulfilled his engagements with earl Richard; and betrothing to him his daughter Eve, declared them heirs of his crown.

Their next enterprise was against the Danes of Dublin, whom the treaty concluded the year before, the hostages, the homage, the tribute yielded, could not protect from the further ag

gressions of those lawless treaty-breaking plunderers. They accordingly attacked it with all their forces. Asculph, the governor, unable to maintain a siege, charged St. Laurence O'Tool, the archbishop, to negociate a fresh peace with the king of Leinster. On the 21st of September, while this holy prelate was treating with the king in his camp, Raymond, Maurice Fitz-Gerald, and Miles Cogan, with their followers, entered through a breach into the town, making an indiscriminate slaughter of the inhabitants, without sparing age or sex.* Thus the laws of nations, the laws of war, the laws of humanity, were trampled under foot, and men, women and children barbarously butchered, while they were treating for capitulation!

Dermod, leaving a garrison in the city, of which he trusted the command to Miles Cogan, turned his arms against O'Rourk, chieftain of Brefney, with whose wife he had eloped; by whom he was twice defeated, and with difficulty escaped.

Meanwhile no effort was made by the monarch of Ireland, or its divided princes, to stem the torrent of carnage and plunder, while it remained at a distance, until it approached their own frontiers; then Roderick had recourse to expostulations, reviling the king of Leinster for his breach of treaty, threatening to execute the hostages, given as a security of good faith, among whom was his own son Arthur. But the arguments of religion and morality were thrown away on a

* Stanihurst. de Reb. in Hib. Gest. Lib. III. p. 106.

banditti spreading devastation with arms in their hands. Dermod's reply was laconic. Threatened to revenge the death of the hostages on O'Connor and his whole race. The winter following the king of Leinster took up his quarters at Fearns, where he died in the month of May, 1171. He was a man of extraordinary stature, strong, valiant, and warlike: his nation he sacrificed to his vengeance: his principle was rather to inspire terror than to win the affections of his people, for whose interest he lived too long his memory was long held in execration by his countrymen.

After his death earl Richard, pretender to the crown, became the real heir of his tyranny. He led his troops into Munster, where they committed great devastation; but he was arrested in his career by Roderic O'Connor, who gained some advantages over him.

Henry II. then in Aquitain, hearing of the progress made by Strongbow and his other subjects in Ireland, entertained violent suspicions that the earl was endeavouring to conquer a kingdom for himself, which he was long desirous of uniting to his other dominions. To defeat the supposed ambition of this subject, in whom he never had any confidence, he prohibited by edict all intercourse with Ireland, and forbade men, arms or provisions to be conveyed thither. By the same edict he commanded his subjects actually in Ireland to come to England, on an appointed day, under pain of being considered as traitors and rebels.