The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 (391 page)

But though Oconolly’s discovery saved the castle from a

Irish insurrection and

surprize, the confession extorted from Mahone, came too late to massacre.

prevent the intended insurrection. ONeal and his confederates had already taken arms in Ulster. The Irish, every where intermingled with the PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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English, needed but a hint from their leaders and priests to begin hostilities against a people whom they hated on account of their religion, and envied for their riches and

prosperity.i
The houses, cattle, goods, of the unwary English were first seized. Those, who heard of the commotions in their neighborhood, instead of deserting their habitations, and assembling for mutual protection, remained at home, in hopes of defending their property; and fell thus separately into the hands of their enemies.
k

After rapacity had fully exerted itself, cruelty, and the most barbarous, that ever, in any nation, was known or heard of, begin its operations. An universal massacre commenced of the English, now defenceless, and passively resigned to their inhuman foes. No age, no sex, no condition was spared. The wife weeping for her butchered husband, and embracing her helpless children, was pierced with them, and perished by the same stroke.
l
The old, the young, the vigorous, the infirm, underwent a like fate, and were confounded in one common ruin. In vain did flight save from the first assault: Destruction was, every where, let loose, and met the hunted victims at every turn. In vain was recourse had to relations, to companions, to friends: All connexions were dissolved, and death was dealt by that hand, from which protection was implored and expected. Without provocation, without opposition, the astonished English, living in profound peace, and full security, were massacred by their nearest neighbours, with whom they had long upheld a continued intercourse of kindness and good offices.
m

But death was the lightest punishment, inflicted by those rebels: All the tortures which wanton cruelty could devise, all the lingering pains of body, the anguish of mind, the agonies of despair, could not satiate revenge excited without injury, and cruelty derived from no cause. To enter into particulars would shock the least delicate humanity. Such enormities, though attested by undoubted evidence, appear almost incredible. Depraved nature, even perverted religion, encouraged by the utmost licence, reach not to such a pitch of ferocity; unless the pity, inherent in human breasts, be destroyed by that contagion of example, which transports men beyond all the usual motives of conduct and behaviour.

The weaker sex themselves, naturally tender to their own sufferings, and compassionate to those of others, here emulated their more robust companions, in the practice of every cruelty.
n
Even children, taught by the example, and encouraged by the exhortation, of their parents, essayed their feeble blows on the dead carcasses of

defenceless children of the English.o
The very avarice of the Irish was not a sufficient restraint to their cruelty. Such was their frenzy, that the cattle, which they had seized, and by rapine made their own, yet, because they bore the name of English, were wantonly slaughtered, or, when covered with wounds, turned loose into the woods or

desarts.p

The stately buildings or commodious habitations of the planters, as if upbraiding the sloth and ignorance of the natives, were consumed with fire, or laid level with the ground. And where the miserable owners, shut up in their houses, and preparing for defence, perished in the flames, together with their wives and children, a double

triumph was afforded to their insulting foes.q

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If any where a number assembled together, and, assuming courage from despair, were resolved to sweeten death by revenge on their assassins; they were disarmed by capitulations, and promises of safety, confirmed by the most solemn oaths. But no sooner had they surrendered, than the rebels, with perfidy equal to their cruelty, made them share the fate of their unhappy countrymen.
r

Others, more ingenious still in their barbarity, tempted their prisoners, by the fond love of life, to embrue their hands in the blood of friends, brothers, parents; and having thus rendered them accomplices in guilt, gave them that death, which they sought to shun by deserving it.
s

Amidst all these enormities, the sacred name of Religion resounded on every side; not to stop the hands of these murderers, but to enforce their blows, and to steel their hearts against every movement of human or social sympathy. The English, as heretics, abhorred of God, and detestable to all holy men, were marked out by the priests for slaughter; and, of all actions, to rid the world of these declared enemies to catholic faith and piety, was represented as the most meritorious.
t
Nature, which, in that rude people, was sufficiently inclined to atrocious deeds, was farther stimulated by precept; and national prejudices empoisoned by those aversions, more deadly and incurable, which arose from an enraged superstition. While death finished the sufferings of each victim, the bigotted assassins, with joy and exultation, still echoed in his expiring ears, that these agonies were but the commencement of torments, infinite and

eternal.u

Such were the barbarities, by which Sir Phelim ONeale and the Irish in Ulster signalized their rebellion: An event, memorable in the annals of human kind, and worthy to be held in perpetual detestation and abhorrence. The generous nature of More was shocked at the recital of such enormous cruelties. He flew to ONeale’s camp; but found, that his authority, which was sufficient to excite the Irish to an insurrection, was too feeble to restrain their inhumanity. Soon after, he abandoned a cause, polluted by so many crimes; and he retired into Flanders. Sir Phelim, recommended by the greatness of his family, and perhaps too, by the unrestrained brutality of his nature, though without any courage or capacity, acquired the entire

ascendant over the northern rebels.w
The English colonies were totally annihilated in the open country of Ulster: The Scots, at first, met with more favourable treatment. In order to engage them to a passive neutrality, the Irish pretended to distinguish between the British nations; and claiming friendship and consanguinity with the Scots, extended not over them the fury of their massacres. Many of them found an opportunity to fly the country: Others retired into places of security, and prepared themselves for defence: And by this means, the Scottish planters, most of them at least, escaped with their lives.
x

From Ulster, the flames of rebellion diffused themselves, in an instant, over the other three provinces of Ireland. In all places death and slaughter were not uncommon; though the Irish, in these other provinces, pretended to act with moderation and humanity. But cruel and barbarous was their humanity! Not content with expelling the English their houses, with despoiling them of their goodly manors, with wasting their cultivated fields; they stripped them of their very cloaths, and turned them out, naked PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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and defenceless, to all the severities of the season.
y
The heavens themselves, as if conspiring against that unhappy people were armed with cold and tempest, unusual to the climate, and executed what the merciless sword had left unfinished.
z
The roads were covered with crowds of naked English, hastening towards Dublin and the other cities, which yet remained in the hands of their countrymen. The feeble age of children, the tender sex of women, soon sunk under the multiplied rigours of cold and hunger. Here, the husband, bidding a final adieu to his expiring family, envied them for fate, which he himself expected so soon to share: There, the son, having long supported his aged parent, with reluctance obeyed his last commands, and abandoning him in this uttermost distress, reserved himself to the hopes of avenging that death, which all his efforts could not prevent or delay. The astonishing greatness of the calamity deprived the sufferers of any relief from the view of companions in affliction. With silent tears, or lamentable cries, they hurried on through the hostile territories; and found every heart, which was not steeled by native barbarity, guarded by the more implacable furies of mistaken piety and religion.
a

The saving of Dublin preserved in Ireland the remains of the English name. The gates of that city, though timorously opened, received the wretched supplicants, and presented to the view a scene of human misery, beyond what any eye had ever before

beheld.b
Compassion seized the amazed inhabitants, aggravated with the fear of like calamities; while they observed the numerous foes, without and within, which every where environed them, and reflected on the weak resources, by which they were themselves supported. The more vigorous of the unhappy fugitives, to the number of three thousand, were inlisted into three regiments: The rest were distributed into the houses; and all care was taken, by diet and warmth, to recruit their feeble and torpid limbs. Diseases of unknown name and species, derived from these multiplied distresses, seized many of them, and put a speedy period to their lives: Others, having now leisure to reflect on their mighty loss of friends and fortune, cursed that being which they had saved. Abandoning themselves to despair, refusing all succour, they expired; without other consolation, than that of receiving among their countrymen, the honours of a grave, which, to their slaughtered companions, had been denied by the inhuman barbarians.
c

By some computations, those, who perished by all these cruelties, are supposed to be a hundred and fifty, or two hundred thousand: By the most moderate, and probably the most reasonable account, they are made to amount to 40,000; if this estimation itself be not, as is usual in such cases, somewhat exaggerated.

The justices ordered to Dublin all the bodies of the army, which were not surrounded by the rebels; and they assembled a force of 1500 veterans. They soon inlisted, and armed from the magazines above 4000 men more. They dispatched a body of 600

men to throw relief into Tredah, besieged by the Irish. But these troops, attacked by the enemy, were seized with a panic, and were most of them put to the sword. Their arms, falling into the hands of the Irish, supplied them with what they most wanted.
d

The justices, willing to foment the rebellion, in a view of profiting by the multiplyed forfeitures, henceforth thought of nothing more than providing for their own present security and that of the capital. The earl of Ormond, their general, remonstrated PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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against such timid, not to say, base and interested counsels; but was obliged to submit to authority.

The English of the pale, who probably were not, at first, in the secret, pretended to blame the insurrection, and to detest the barbarity, with which it was accompanied.
e

By their protestations and declarations, they engaged the justices to supply them with arms, which they promised to employ in defence of the government.
f
But in a little time, the interests of religion were found more prevalent over them than regard and duty to their mother country. They chose lord Gormanstone their leader; and, joining the old Irish, rivaled them in every act of violence towards the English protestants.

Besides many smaller bodies, dispersed over the kingdom, the principal army of the rebels amounted to twenty thousand men, and threatened Dublin with an immediate

siege.g

Both the English and Irish rebels conspired in one imposture, with which they seduced many of their deluded countrymen: They pretended authority from the king and queen, but chiefly from the latter, for their insurrection; and they affirmed, that the cause of their taking arms was to vindicate royal prerogative, now invaded by the puritanical parliament.
h
Sir Phelim ONeale, having found a royal patent in lord Caufield’s house, whom he had murdered, tore off the seal, and affixed it to a commission, which he had forged for himself.
i

The king received an account of this insurrection by a messenger, dispatched from the north of Ireland. He immediately communicated his intelligence to the Scottish parliament. He expected, that the mighty zeal, expressed by the Scots for the protestant religion, would immediately engage them to fly to its defence, where it was so violently invaded: He hoped, that their horror against popery, a religion, which now appeared in its most horrible aspect, would second all his exhortations: He had observed with what alacrity they had twice run to arms, and assembled troops in opposition to the rights of their sovereign: He saw with how much greater facility they could now collect forces, which had been very lately disbanded, and which had been so long enured to military discipline. The cries of their affrighted and distressed brethren in Ireland, he promised himself, would powerfully incite them to send over succours, which could arrive so quickly, and aid them with such promptitude in this uttermost distress. But the zeal of the Scots, as is usual among religious sects, was very feeble, when not stimulated either by faction or by interest. They now considered themselves entirely as a republic, and made no account of the authority of their prince, which they had utterly annihilated. Conceiving hopes from the present distresses of Ireland, they resolved to make an advantageous bargain for the succours, with which they should supply their neighbouring nation. And they cast their eye towards the English parliament, with whom they were already so closely connected, and who could alone fulfil any articles, which might be agreed on. Except dispatching a small body to support the Scottish colonies in Ulster, they would, therefore, go no farther at present, than sending commissioners to London, in order to treat with that power, to