subject, the annexed particulars will fully and finally remove them for ever. The dean swears, with great gravity, that "there were upwards of 12,000 slain in the Glenwood, as the rebels told this deponent!” there were "954 murdered in one morning, as the rebels themselves told him;" there were, moreover, "above 2,000 murdered in their own houses, as he was informed by a Scotsman ;" and sir Phelim O'Neil had left neither man, woman, nor child alive, from Armagh to Newry, as he heard sir Phelim himself report.” On the dean's authority rests the hacknied assertion, that the pre cise number of one hundred and fifty-four thousand were massacred, in four months, in Ulster; and yet, wonderful to tell, there is in this very deposition, on the all-important topic of the "hundred and fiftyfour thousand persons slaughtered," a most palpable and overwhelming contradiction, which at once destroys its credibility. In one part of it, the dean swears that "it was credibly told him, that the persons slaughtered amounted to one hundred and fifty-four thousand, whether in Ulster or the whole kingdom, he durst not inquire." Why he durst not inquire, is not stated; and it is impossible to assign any reason the story carries absurdity on its face; the one kind of information was as readily and as soon acquired as the other. In a subsequent page, he swears positively, that "there were then above one hundred and fifty-four thousand wanting in the province of Ulster alone." This discordance, which would destroy the evidence, in any honourable court in Christendom, of a Washington, a wattles and whips, who would therewith beat dead men's bodies about their privy members, until they beat or rather thrashed them off; then would return in great joy to their parents, who received them for such service as it were in triumph."s 99805 "Further, this deponent saith, That it was usual sport with one Mac-Mahon, captain of the castle and town of Monaghan, (as the said Mac-Mahon confessed before Mr. Hugh Echline and many others,) to take a wooden prick or broach, and thrust it up into the fundament of an English or Scotchman, and then after drive him about the room with a joint stool, until, through extreme pain, he either fainted, or gave content to the spectators by some notable skips and frisks; which rare invention he offered to put in practice at the same time and in the same place where he boasted thereof; but that the said Mr. Echline prevailed with him to omit it, as sufficiently (without any further demonstration) believing the excellency of the sport." 11806 * A petition of " the divines of the assembly," delivered to parliament, July 19, 1643, contains the following extraordinary and extravagant declaration, which the petitioners must have known to be utterly destitute of even the shadow of foundation.* It is grounded on, and nearly verbatim with, the hearsay deposition of the dean Maxwell: "In this rebellion, so barbarous and bloody, 154,000 Protestants, men, women, and children, Scotch and English, were massacred in that 805 Temple, 113 3 806 Borlace, App. 138. Franklin, a Fayette, a Sheridan, a Brougham, or a Wyndham, was of no importance in the era of perjury, anno 1642, when the lives and fortunes of the Irish were at stake, and when princely fortunes were the reward of the perjurer and his employer. Next to dean Maxwell's deposition for extent, is that of a certain Anthony Stratford, who enters into most minute details of events, not one of which he saw. The insurrection began on the 23d of October, 1641, and his deposition was taken on the 9th of March, 1648; that is, above sixteen months from the time when it commenced. By his own account, he was for fourteen months a prisoner!!* He does not kingdom, between Oct. 23, when the rebellion broke forth, and the 1st March following, by the computation of the priests themselves, who were present, and principal actors in all these tragedies, and were directed by some chief rebels of Ireland to take this computation, lest they should be reported to be more bloody than in truth there was cause. All which appears by the examination of arch-deacon Maxwell, who lived a long time a prisoner with sir Phelim O'Neil's mother, and was there when this computation was brought in."9807 To give currency to this wretched, absurd, and notorious imposture, the English House of Commons, with an utter disregard of truth and character, ordered it to be read by the ministers of every parish within the kingdom, in their several churches and chapels: July 25, 1643. "It is this day ordered by the House of Commons, that the ministers of every parish within the kingdom shall read this declaration in their several churches and chapels, on the next fastday after the same shall come to their hands, after the ending of the first sermon, and before the beginning of the next."808 Thus making the temples of the Living God the instruments of poisoning the minds of his worshippers, by the propagation of flagrant falsehood. "Captain Anthony Stratford deposeth and saith, that "These Protestant ministers following, about the beginning of the present rebellion, were murdered in the counties of Tyrone and Armagh, viz. Mr. John Mathew, Mr. Blythe, Mr. Hastings, Mr. Smith, Mr. Darragh, Mr. Birge, and eight more, whose names this deponent hath forgotten, by the rebels, none of which would the rebels permit to be buried; the names of such as murdered, this examinant knoweth not; his cause of knowledge of the said murders is, that some of his, this deponent's servants, who were among the rebels, did give him the relation!!! and he verily believeth them!!! and besides, this deponent heard the same confessed and averred by many of the rebels themselves, and by some of those Protestants that had escaped and that he this deponent was a prisoner among the rebels, at Castlecaufield, near the place of those murders, WHERE HE CONTINUED FOURTEEN MONTHS! And further saith, that in Dungannon, in the county of Tyrone, or near thereunto, the rebels murdered three hundred and sixteen Protestants; and between Charlemont and Dungannon, above four hundred; that there were murdered and drowned at and in the 07 Rushworth, V. 355. 609 Idem, 356. state when he was first confined; but we will suppose one month after the first date, and that he was released one month before the second. Yet he swears positively to various circumstances, which, as he pretends, occurred, in different parts of the province, during his imprison river of Benburb, the Black water, between the counties of Armagh and Tyrone, two hundred and six Protestants; and Patrick MacCrew, of Dungannon, aforesaid, murdered thirty-one in one morning; and two young rebels, John Begbrian and Harry, murdered in the said county of Tyrone, one hundred and forty poor women and children that could make no resistance!!! and that the wife of Brien Kelly of Loghall, in the county of Armagh, (one of the rebels' captains,) did with her own hands murder forty-five!!! And deponent further saith, that one Thomas King, sometimes sergeant to the late lord Caufield's company, (which this deponent commanded) he being forced to serve under the rebels, and was one of the provost marshals, gave the deponent a list of every householder's name so murdered, and the number of persons so murdered; which list this deponent durst not keep: At Portnedown there were drowned at several times about three hundred and eight, who were sent away by about forty, or such like numbers, at once, with convoys, and there drowned: There was a lough near Loghall aforesaid, where were drowned above two hundred, of which this deponent was informed by several persons!!! and particularly by the wife of doctor Hodges, and two of her sons, who were present and designed for the like end: but by God's mercy, that gave them favour in the eyes of some of the rebels, they escaped; and the said Mrs. Hodges and her sons gave the deponent a list of the names of many of those that were so drowned, which the deponent durst not keep. "At a mill pond in the parish of Kilamen, in the county of Tyrone, there were drowned in one day three hundred, and in the same parish there were murdered of English and Scottish twelve hundred, as this deponent was informed by Mr. Birge, the late minister of the said parish!!!* who certified the same under his hand, which note the deponent durst not keep: the said Mr. Birge was murdered three months after: all which murders were in the first breaking out of the rebellion, but the particular times this deponent cannot remember, neither the persons by whom they were committed. This deponent was credibly informed by the said sergeant and others of this deponent's servants, (who kept company with the rebels,) and saw the same, that many young children were cut into quarters and gobbets by the rebels, and that eighteen Scottish infants were hanged on a clothier's tenterhook, and that they murdered a young fat Scottish man, and made candles of his grease!!! they took another Scottish The wonderful density of the population of this parish, where fifteen hundred persons were murdered, might excite doubts, but for the circumstance, that this important fact was "certified by Mr. Birge under his own hand." It is much to be regretted that the deponent "durst not keep" this valuable document, which was worthy of being preserved in the archives of Ireland. ment, with as much confidence as if he had been an eye-witness of the whole; and so shameless was the villain, so profligate were the wretched magistrates who took his deposition, so abandoned was the spirit of the age, that, without scruple, he avowed his perjury, by stating the man and ripped up his belly, that they might come to his small guts. the one end whereof they tied to a tree, and made him go round, until he had drawn them all out of his body; they then saying, that they would try whether a dog's or a Scotchman's guts were the longer. "ANTHONY STRATFORD. "Deposed, March, 9, 1643, before us, HENRY JONES, " HENRY BRERETON." 97809 "Dame Butler being duly sworn, deposeth that she was credibly. informed by Dorothy Renals, who had been several times an eye-witness of these lamentable spectacles, that she had seen to the number of five and thirty English going to execution; and that she had seen them when they were executed, their bodies exposed to devouring ravens, and not afforded so much as burial. "And this deponent saith, That sir Edward Butler did credibly inform her, that James Butler, of Finyhinch, had hanged and put to death, all the English that were at Goran and Wells, and all thereabouts!!! "Jane Jones, servant to the deponent, did see the English formerly specified going to their execution; and, as she conceived, they were about the number of thirty-five; and was told by Elizabeth Home, that there were forty gone to execution. Jurat. Sept. 7, 1642.9810 "Thomas Fleetwood, late curate of Kilbeggan, in the county of Westmeath, deposeth, That he hath heard from the mouths of the rebels themselves of great cruelties acted by them. And, for one instance, that they stabbed the mother, one Jane Addis by name, and left her little sucking child, not a quarter old, by the corpse, and then they put the breast of its dead mother into its mouth, and bid it suck English bastard,' and so left it there to perish. Jurat. March, 22, 1642.9811 "Richard Bourk, bachelor in divinity, of the county of Fermanagh, deposeth, That he heard, and verily believeth, the burning and killing of one hundred, at least, in the castle of Tullah, and that the same was done after fair quarter promised. Jurat. July 12, 1643,"819 "William Parkinson, of Castle-Cumber, in the county Kilkenny, gent. deposeth, That by the credible report, both of English and some Irish, who affirmed they were eye-witnesses of a bloody murder committed near Kilfeal, in the Queen's county, upon an Englishman, his wife, four or five children, and a maid, all which were hanged, by the command of sir Morgan Cavanagh and Robert Harpool, and afterwards put all in one hole; the youngest child being not fully dead, put out the hand, and cried Mammy, Mammy, when without mercy they buried him alive." Jurat. February 11, 1642.""9813 809 Temple, 110. $10 Idem, 116. Idem, 90. 812 Idem, 84. 813 Idem, 87. sources of his information, which were as various as the different items of his testimony. In one case, some of his servants, who were 66 "Owen Frankland, of the city of Dublin, deposeth, That Michael Garray told this deponent, that there was a Scotchman, who being driven by the rebels out of Newry, and knocked on the head by the Irish, recovered himself, and came again into the town naked; whereupon the rebels carried him and his wife out of the town, cut him all to pieces, and with a skein ripped his wife's belly, so as a child dropped out of her womb. Jurat. July 23, 1642." 97814 "Alexander Creighton, of Glaslough, in the county of Monaghan, gent. deposeth, That he heard it credibly reported among the rebels at Glaslough, aforesaid, that Hugh Mac O'Degan, a priest, had done a most meritorious act, in drawing betwixt forty and fifty English and Scotch, in the parish of Gonally, in the county of Fermanagh, to reconciliation with the church of Rome; and, after giving them the sacrament, demanded of them whether Christ's body was really in the sacrament or no? and they said, Yea. And that he demanded further, Whether they held the pope to be supreme head of the church? They likewise answered, He was. And that thereupon he presently told them, They were in good faith, and for fear they should fall from it, and turn heretics, he and the rest that were with him cut all their throats. Jurat. March 1, 1642."815 "Richard Bourke, bachelor of divinity, deposeth, that he was informed, that Mr. Lodge, archdeacon of Killalow, being buried about six years since, and divers others ministers' bones, were digged out of their graves as patrons of heresy, by direction of the titular bishop of Killalow. Jurat. July 12, 1643.99816 "James, of Hacketstown, in the county of Catherlogh, deposeth, That an Irish gentleman told him and others, that he had turned an English woman away, who was his servant, and had a child; and that before the poor woman and child were gone half a mile, divers Irish women slew them with stones. Jurat. April 21, 1643.99817 "John Clerk, of Knockback, gentleman, deposeth, That he heard credibly from Mr. Lightbourne, minister of the Naas, that the rebels shot a parish clerk, near Kildare, through his thighs, and afterwards digged a deep hole in the ground, wherein they set him upright on his feet, and filled up the hole in the earth, leaving out only his head, in which state they left the poor wounded man, till he pined, languished, and so died. Jurat. October 24, 1643.818 Katherine, the relict of William Coke, of the county of Armagh, deposeth, That many of her neighbours, who had been prisoners among the rebels, said and affirmed, that divers of the rebels would confess, brag and boast, how they took an English Protestant, one Robert Wilkinson, at Kilmore, and held his feet in the fire until they burned him to death. Jurat. February 24, 1643."819 "Dennis Kelly, of the county of Meath, deposeth, That Garret Tallon, of Cruisetown, in the said county, gentleman, as is commonly reported, hired two men to kill Anne Hagely, wife to Edward 814 Temple, 89. 815 Idem, 100. $18 Ibid. 816 Idem, 95. $19 Ibid. |
