less ferocity that reigned in battle and after defeat, when neither age nor sex was spared. In particular, he states, that, in the pursuit of the royalists, after the battle of Naseby, there were about one hundred women slaughtered, and among them the wives of some of the officers.* According to Burnet, prisoners were slaughtered in cold blood, and after quarter given: and the preachers, from the pulpit, deprecated the extension of mercy towards them, and denounced all those who were for moderate measures.t I conclude with an account from Rushworth, of the ruthless and savage progress of Montross, in Scotland, anno-1644, which may stand a parallel with the murderous exploits of Ireton or Cromwell. For six weeks he acted the part of a demon incarnate, as far as his power extended, laying the whole country in flames, and, in imitation of the sanguinary orders of the lords justices of Ireland, slaughtering all the males able to carry arms, or, in other words, "fit for war."+ I cannot close this chapter without some reflexions on the conduct and character of Phelim O'Neil, whose history is involved in considerable uncertainty. He appears to be given up to unqualified censure, as having been guilty of excessive and unparalleled cruelties. The characteristic falsehood, which, as I have shown, strongly marks the Anglo-Hibernian histories of Ireland, should make us, unless disposed to be deceived, receive with extreme caution, whatever they assert that is not supported by unimpeachable documents. And the evidence on which the accusation rests, is by no means conclusive. On the contrary, there is every reason to believe, that the severe censures of which he has been the object, are unfounded. That he put to death many of his prisoners in cold blood, appears highly probable. But it is not only equally probable, but almost certain, that it was in retaliation for horrible cruelties perpetrated on the Irish by the government forces, which, as I have fully proved by the testimony of Nalson, Carte, Warner, and Leland, slaughtered men, women, and even "The enemy left no manner of cruelty unexercised that day; and in the pursuit killed about one hundred women, whereof some were the wives of officers of quality."946 "Upon this occasion, many prisoners that had quarter given them, were murdered in cold blood. The preachers thundered in their pulpits against all that were for moderate proceedings, as guilty of the blood that had been shed. Thine eye shalt not pity, and thou shalt not spare,' were often inculcated after every execution."947 6 66 Montross dividing his army into three brigades, ranged over the whole country, and laid it waste; as many as they find in arms, going to the rendezvous, they slay, and spared no man fit for war; and so destroyed, or drove out of the country, or into holes unknown, all the service, and fired the villages and cottages, and drove away and destroyed all their cattle. These things lasted from the 13th of December, 1644, to the end of January following."948 946 Clarendon, II. 509. 947 Burnet, I. 40. 948 Rushworth, V. 985. children, indiscriminately. The detestable orders of the lords justices, to "kill all the men able to bear arms, in the places where the rebels were harboured," did but give official sanction to a system then in full operation. This system was a full warrant and justification of the slaughter of the prisoners, in retaliation, and to arrest the progress of that horrible warfare. From the commencement of the insurrection, such had been the career of the armies of the government, who were taught by many of their fanatical preachers, that the Irish idolaters were to be served as the Canaanites were served by Joshua the son of Nun. This was a doctrine held out distinctly, and acted upon by Cromwell and many of his precursors-"Cromwell," they say, "made his soldiers believe, that the Irish ought to be dealt with as the Canaanites in Joshua's time." This accounts for cutting off "the nits as well as the lice."* I trust, if a ferocious enemy were to land on our shores, and to murder unoffending men, women, and children, there is no rational nan, who will deny, that we would not only be justified, but be imperiously called on by duty to ourselves, our wives, our children, and our country, to destroy them by every means we could devise, as so many wolves, or tigers. Warner offers a condemnation of the justices, which, though more brief than the occasion requires, is yet a justification of the retaliatory system of the Irish. "Can any one read this order, and think that these justices had any reason to complain of the cruelties of the ignorant and savage Irish ?""950 I most earnestly request the reader's attention to the following statement, which I trust will place the conduct and character of sir Phelim, in so strong and clear a point of light, as to insure a correct decision. On the 5th of November, 1641, the Castle of Ballaghie surrendered to him, on terms of capitulation, which he honourably observed. The people were allowed to depart in perfect safety, and to carry away trunks of plate and money. Had he been the ferocious and sanguinary ruffian he is represented, would he not have availed himself of this opportunity to gratify his thirst of blood, and his lust of plunder, to which the strongest temptations were offered? There cannot be a question on the subject. The most deadly and rancorous enemy that Ireland ever had, even Cromwell himself, if alive, were he to answer this question ingenuously, could not but answer it in the affirmative. But it is triumphantly said, that on the 15th when he took the castle of Lurgan, on capitulation, he violated the terms-plundered the people and killed or allowed to be killed several of the servants.f +"On the 15th of November, the rebels, after a fortnight's siege, reduced the castle of Lurgan; sir William Bromley, after a stout defence, surrendering it on the terms of marching out with his family and goods: but such was the unworthy disposition of the rebels, that they kept him, his lady, and children, prisoners; rifled his house, plundered, stripped, and killed most of his servants; and treated all the townsmen in the same manner. This was the first breach of faith. 950 Warner, 165. 949 Anderson's Royal Genealogies, 786. Supra, 413. Light and darkness are not more opposite than his conduct on the 5th and that on the 15th. This contradiction cannot be accounted for on any ordinary principles. Men's character and conduct, though liable to occasional vicissitudes, do not change to such a degree in so short a space of time. Something very extraordinary, indeed, must have taken place, to transform an honourable man into a demon, as he would have been, were this act incapable of justification. All the Irish writers account for this change of conduct satisfactorily. They assert that this measure of severity was adopted in retaliation for a most horrible massacre perpetrated about the beginning of November on the island of Magee, of three thousand, men, women, and children. On this ground, the anomaly vanishes. A proceeding, which at the first blush appears to wear the aspect of the grossest inconsistency, and the most ferocious cruelty, on this explanation at once loses all its inconsistency, and assumes the aspect of rigorous and inflexible justice-a resort to the lex talionis, "an eye for an eye-a tooth for a tooth"-not on the offenders, who were wholly out of his reach-but on their friends, to arrest the career of murder. Here our path is straight and plain. Nothing is incoherent or irreconcileable to reason and common sense. On any other ground, we are in utter darkness. But Leland contends, that the massacre took place in the beginning of January-and he and Warner regard the numbers as greatly exaggerated-as the island could not support near so many persons. That a massacre was perpetrated there on the Irish, has never been denied for a moment, by any of the Anglo-Hibernian writers. Whether the number is exaggerated or not, makes no difference as to the measure of retaliation. Moreover, let it be observed, that it is not pretended that these murdered persons were inhabitants of the place. They were fugitives from the circumjacent country, who had fled thither for refuge. But, I repeat, the number, whether correct, or too great or small, is unimportant. The date is the material point. Leland, to disprove the date, refers to the depositions in Trinity College, of which I have given a specimen in Chapter which the rebels were guilty of, at least in these parts," [there was then no other insurrection in any of the other parts of Ireland,]" in regard of articles of capitulation; for when Mr. Conway, on November the 5th, surrendered his castle of Bally-aghie, in the county of Derry, to them, they kept the terms for which he stipulated, and allowed him to march out with his men, and to carry away trunks with plate and money in them to Antrim. Whether the slaughter made by a party from Carrickfergus, in the territory of Magee, a long narrow island, running from that town up to Oldenfleet, in which it is affirmed, that near three thousand harmless Irish, men, women, and children, were cruelly massacred, happened before the surrender of Lurgan, is hard to be determined; the relations published of facts, in those times, being very indistinct, and uncertain, with regard to the time when they were committed; though it is confidently asserted, that the said massacre happened in this month of November."951 91 Carte, I. 188. XXIX. and which are nearly all tales of what "one body heard another body say," and are not entitled to any attention whatever, being a mass of perjury and fraud. Carte, according to Leland, seems "to favour the opinion" of the massacre having taken place in the beginning of November. I present in the preceding note his statement of these events, which will pass with the reader for what it is worth. But the reason given by Warner and Leland for the ferocious proceedings of sir Phelim O'Neil, generally, will not stand investigation, admitting them to be truly stated, without exaggeration, which, considering the data on which they rest, cannot for a moment be conceded. It is said that when he heard of any ill success of the Irish, he was transported with fury, and ordered his prisoners to be murdered in violation of treaty. Is it not, I repeat, infinitely more probable, that he had recourse to these sanguinary measures, that is, admitting he was guilty of them, as a retaliation for the slaughter perpetrated by the government forces, than in consequence of defeat? A recent writer presents the subject in so strong a point of light, that it cannot fail to make a deep impression on the reader-“ Defeat and disaster would rather dispirit than brutalize-would rather produce kindness to prisoners, as a means of reconciliation, than cruelty, which would cut off all hopes of accommodation." With this re mark I leave the whole subject to the calm reflexion of the reader. The unceasing efforts that have been employed to stifle the truth, and to keep the world in a state of darkness, on the subject of the barbarous carnage perpetrated on the Irish, are incredible. They have unfortunately been but too successful. One instance displays such profligacy, that it only requires to be stated, to excite the indignation of every honourable mind. The government forces in Ulster had committed some frightful massacres on the Irish, of which an account was published in London. "Upon any ill success, he would in a fury order his prisoners to be murdered, or some act of barbarous cruelty and senseless vengeance to be done. In some of these frantic fits, he caused Mr. Richard Blaney, knight of the shire of Monaghan, to be hanged in his own garden; and the old lord Charlemont to be shot: in another when the rebels were repulsed in the attack of the castle of Augher, and several of the sept of O'Neil slain, he ordered Mulmory Mac Donnel, to kill all the English and Scots within the parishes of Mullebrack, Logilly, and Kilcluney; in another, when he heard of the taking of Newry by lord Conway, he went in the beginning of May in all haste to Armagh, and in breach of his own promise under his hand and seal at the capitulation, murdered an hundred persons in that place, burnt the town and cathedral church, a venerable and ancient structure, said to be built by St. Patrick, and called by a name reverenced enough among the Irish, to have been an effectual protection to the fabric dedicated to his honour; fired all the villages and houses in the neighbourhood, and murdered many of all ages and sexes, as well in the town as in the country round about."953 The House of Commons, actuated by the most rancorous spirit of hostility towards the Irish, took the alarm. They had the printers committed to prison, without trial; ordered the book to be burned by the hands of the common hangman; and directed the Stationers' Company to seize all the copies that could be found, which were to be committed to the flames. Thus early began the work of deception; thus early was the veil thrown over the enormities of which the Irish were the victims; and thus early were the streams of history poisoned by public authority. The following extract from a most virulent book published in London, anno 1647, affords a full display of the infernal spirit of rancour and malice that then prevailed in England against the Irish; and will serve in some measure, to account for the butcheries of the St. Legers, the Monroes, the Cootes, the Iretons, and the Cromwells, as exhibited in the present chapter. "The Simple Cobler of Aggavvam in America. Willing to help 'mend his Native Country, lamentably tattered, both in the upperleather and sole, with all the honest stitches he can take. And as willing never to bee paid for his work, by Old English wonted pay. It is his trade to patch all the year long, gratis. Therefore I pray Gentlemen keep your purses. By Theodore de la Guard. In rebus arduis ac tenui spe, fortissima quæque consilia tutissima sunt.Cic. in English. When bootes and shoes are torne up to the lefts, This no time to feare Appelles gramm: Ne Sutor quidem ultra crepidam. London, printed by J. D. & R. I. for Stephen Bowtell, at the sign of the Bible in Popes-Head-Alley, 1647. "A Word of Ireland: Not of the Nation universally, nor of any man in it, that hath so much as one haire of Christianity or Humanity growing on his head or beard, but onely of the truculent Cut-throats, and such as shall take up Armes in their Defence. "These Irish, anciently called Anthropophagi, man-eaters, Have a Tradition among them, That when the Devill shewed our Saviour *❝ June 8, 1642. Ordered, That the book, intituled 'A True Relation of the Proceedings of the Scots and English Forces in the North of Ireland,' shall be burnt by the hands of the common hangman, in the New Palace yard, at Westminster: and the master and wardens of the Company of Stationers are required to seize all such of these books as are any where to be had, that they may be burnt accordingly. "Resolved, That Robert White shall be forthwith committed prisoner to the King's Bench prison, for printing and publishing of a scandalous libel, to the dishonour of the Scots nation; and he be referred to the King's Bench, to be proceeded with there according to law."954, 994 Journals, II. 619. |
