29th of January; and your Letter, which was to be the rule of my obedience, coming to my hands after our having been so long in action,— with respect had to the reasons you were pleased to use therein, 'I knew not what to do.' And having received a Letter signed by yourself, of the 26th of February,* which mentions not a word of the continuance of your pleasure concerning my coming over, I did humbly conceive it much consisting with my duty, humbly to beg a positive signification what your will is; professing (as before the Lord) that I am most ready to obey your commands herein with all alacrity; rejoicing only to be about that work which I am called to by those whom God hath set over me, which I acknowledge you to be; and fearing only in obeying you, to disobey you. I most humbly and earnestly beseech you to judge for me, Whether your Letter doth not naturally allow me the liberty of begging a more clear expression of your command and pleasure. Which, when vouchsafed unto me, will find most ready and cheerful obedience from, Sir, Your most humble servant, OLIVER CROMWELL.† LETTER LXXXV. HERE, of the same date, is a Letter to Mayor; which concludes what we have in Ireland. For my very loving Brother, Richard Mayor, Esquire, at Hursley in Hampshire: These. DEAR BROTHER, Carrick, 2d April, 1650. For me to write unto you the state of our affairs here were more indeed than I have leisure well to do; and therefore I hope you do not expect it from me; seeing when I write to the Parliament I usually am, as becomes me, very particular with them; and usually from thence the knowledge thereof is spread. Only this let me say, which is the best intelligence to Friends that are truly Christian: The Lord is pleased still to vouchsafe us His presence, and to prosper His own work in our hands;--which to us is the more *See Letter LXXXII † Newspapers (in Cromwelliana, pp. 78-81). eminent because truly we are a company of poor weak worthless creatures. Truly our work is neither from our own brains nor from our courage and strength: but we follow the Lord who goeth before, and gather what He scattereth, that so all may appear to be from Him. The taking of the City of Kilkenny hath been one of our last works; which indeed I believe hath been a great discomposing the Enemy,-it's so much in their bowels. We have taken many considerable places lately, without much loss. What can we say to these things! If God be for us, who can be against us? Who can fight against the Lord and prosper? Who can resist His will? The Lord keep us in His love. I desire your prayers; your Family is often in mine. I rejoice to hear how it hath pleased the Lord to deal with my daughter.* The Lord bless her, and sanctify all His dispensations to them and us. I have committed my Son to you; I pray counsel him. Some Letters I have lately had from him have a good savor: the Lord treasure up grace there, that out of that treasury he may bring forth good things. Sir, I desire my very entire affection may be presented to my dear Sister, my Cousin Ann and the rest of my Cousins,—and to idle Dick Norton when you see him. Sir, I rest, Your most loving Brother, OLIVER CROMWELL.† In the end of this month, the President Frigate,' President Bradshaw Frigate, sails from Milford Haven' to attend his Excellency's pleasure,' and bring him home if he see good to come. He has still one storm to do there first; that of Clonmel, where 'Two-thousand foot, all Ulster men,' are gathered for a last struggle; the death-agony of this War, after which it will fairly die, and be buried. A very fierce storm, and fire-whirlwind of last agony; whereof take this solid account by an eye-witness and hand-actor; and so leave this part of our subject. The date is 10th May, 1650; a Letter from Clonmel in Ireland :' "Worthy Sir,-Yesterday," Thursday, 9th May, "we stormed Clonmel in which work both officers and soldiers did as much and more than could be expected. We had, with our guns, made a breach in their works ;—where, after an hot fight, we *In a hopeful way, I conclude! Richard's first child, according to Noble's registers, was not born till 3d November,. 1652 (Noble, i., 189); a boy, who died within three weeks. Noble's registers, as we shall soon see, are very defective. † Harris, p. 512. gave back a while; but presently charged up to the same ground again. But the Enemy had made themselves exceeding strong, by double-works and traverse, which were worse to enter thạn the breach; when we came up to it, they had cross-works, and were strongly flanked from the houses within their works. The Enemy defended themselves against us that day, until towards the evening, our men all the while keeping up close to their breach; and many on both sides were slain." The fierce deathwrestle, in the breaches here, lasted four hours: so many hours of hot storm and continuous tug of war, "and many men were slain." "At night, the Enemy drew out, on the other side, and marched away undiscovered to us; and the Inhabitants of Clonmel sent out for a parley. Upon which, Articles were agreed on, before we knew the Enemy was gone. After signing of the Conditions, we discovered the Enemy to be gone; and, very early this morning, pursued them; and fell upon their rear of stragglers, and killed above 200,-besides those we slew in the storm. We entered Clonmel this morning, and have kept our Conditions with them. The place is considerable; and very advantageous to the reducing of these parts wholly to the Parliament of England."* Whitlocke has heard by other Letters, That they found in Clonmel the stoutest Enemy this Army had ever met in Ireland; and that there was never seen so hot a storm of so long continuance, and so gallantly defended, either in England or Ireland.'† The Irish Commander here was Hugh O'Neil, a kinsman of Owen Roe's:-vain he too, this new brave O'Neil! It is a lost Cause. It is a Cause he has not yet seen into the secret of, and cannot prosper in. Fiery fighting cannot prosper in it; no, there needs something other first, which has never yet been done! Let the O'Neil go elsewhither, with his fighting talent; here it avails nothing, and less. To the surrendered Irish Officers the Lord Lieutenant granted numerous permissions to embody regiments, and go abroad with them into any Country not at war with England. Some Five-and-forty Thousand' Kurisees, or whatever name they had, went in this way to France, to Spain, and fought there far off; and their own land had peace. * Newspapers (in Cromwelliana, p. 81). † Whitlocke, p. 441. The Lord Lieutenant would fain have seen Waterford surrender before he went: but new Letters arrive from the Parliament; affairs in Scotland threaten to become pressing. He appoints Ireton his Deputy, to finish the business here; rapidly makes what survey of Munster, what adjustment of Ireland, military and civil, is possible;-steps on board the President Frigate, in the last days of May, and spreads sail for England. He has been some nine months in Ireland; leaves a very handsome spell of work done there. At Bristol, after a rough passage, the Lord Lieutenant is received with all the honors and acclamations, 'the great guns firing thrice;' hastens up to London, where, on Friday, 31st May, all the world is out to welcome him. Fairfax, and chief Officers, and Members of Parliament, with solemn salutation, on Hounslow Heath from Hounslow Heath to Hyde Park, where are Trainbands and Lord Mayors; to Whitehall and the Cockpit, which are better than these,—it is one wide tumult of salutation, congratulation, artillery-volleying, human shouting;-Hero-worship after a sort, not the best sort. It was on this occasion that Oliver said, or is reported to have said, when some sycophantic person observed, "What a crowd come out to see your Lordship's triumph !"-"Yes, but if it were to see me hanged, how many would there be !"* Such is what the Irish common people still call the "Curse of Cromwell;" this is the summary of his work in that country. The remains of the War were finished out by Ireton, by Ludlow : Ireton died of fever at Limerick, in the end of the second year ;† and solid Ludlow, who had been with him for some ten months, succeeded. The ulterior arrangements for Ireland were those of the Commonwealth Parliament and the proper Official Persons; not specially Oliver's arrangements, though of course he remained a chief authority in that matter, and nothing could well be done that he with any emphasis deliberately condemned. There goes a wild story, due first of all to Clarendon I think, * Newspapers (in Kimber, p. 148; Whitlocke, p. 441). † 26 November, 1651 (Wood in voce); Ludlow had arrived in January of the same year (Memoirs, i., 322, 332, &c.). who is the author of many such, How the Parliament at one time had decided to exterminate' all the Irish population; and then, finding this would not quite answer, had contented itself with packing them all off into the Province of Connaught, there to live upon the moorlands; and so had pacified the Sister Island.* Strange rumors no doubt were afloat in the Council of Kilkenny and other such quarters, and were kept up for very obvious purposes in those days; and my Lord of Clarendon at an after date, seeing Puritanism hung on the gallows and tumbled in heaps in St. Margaret's, thought it safe to write with considerable latitude respecting its procedure. My Lord had, in fact, the story all his own way for about a hundred and fifty years; and, during that time, has set afloat through vague heads a great many things. His authority is rapidly sinking; and will now probably sink deeper than even it deserves. The real procedure of the Puritan Commonwealth towards Ireland is not a matter of conjecture, or of report by Lord Clarendon; the documentary basis and scheme of it still stands in black-on-white, and can be read by all persons.† In this Document the reader will find, set forth in authentic business-form, a Scheme of Settlement somewhat different from that of'extermination ;' which, if he be curious in that matter, he ought to consult. First, it appears by this Document, 'all husbandmen, ploughmen, laborers, artificers and others of the meaner sort' of the Irish Nation are to be,-not exterminated; no, but rendered exempt from punishment and question, as to these Eight Years of blood and misery now ended which is a very considerable exception from the Clarendon Scheme! Next, as to the Ringleaders, the rebellious Landlords, and Papist Aristocracy; as to these also, there is a carefully graduated scale of punishments established, that punishment and guilt may in some measure correspond. All that can be proved to have been concerned in the Massacre of Forty-one; for these, and for certain other persons of the turncoat species, whose names are given, there shall be no pardon : extermination,' actual death on the gallows, or per * Continuation of Clarendon's Life (Oxford, 1761), pp. 116, &c., &c. † Scobell, Part ii., p. 197 (12 August, 1652); see also p. 317 (27 June, 1656). |