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Cromwell began his career in Ireland by massacring for five days the garrison of Drogheda, to whom quarter had been promised. Two millions and a half of acres were confiscated. Whole towns were put up in lots, and sold. The Catholics were banished from three- fourths of the kingdom, and confined to Connaught. After a certain day, every Catholic found out of Connaught was to be punished with death. Fleetwood complains peevishly “that the people DO NOT TRANSPORT READILY,” but adds, “IT IS DOUBTLESS A WORK IN WHICH THE LORD WILL APPEAR.” Ten thousand Irish were sent as recruits to the Spanish army.

“Such was Cromwell’s way of settling the affairs of Ireland; and if a nation IS to be ruined, this method is, perhaps, as good as any. It is, at least, more humane than the slow, lingering process of exclusion, disappointment, and degradation, by which their hearts are worn out under more specious forms of tyranny; and that talent of despatch which Moliere attributes to one of his physicians is no ordinary merit in a practitioner like Cromwell: –“C’est un homme expeditif, qui aime a depecher ses malades; et quand on a mourir, cela se fait avec lui le plus vite du monde.” A certain military Duke, who complains that Ireland is but half conquered, would, no doubt, upon an emergency, try his hand in the same line of practice, and, like that ‘stern hero’ Mirmillo, in the Dispensary,

“While others meanly take whole months to slay,
Despatch the grateful patient in a day!”

“Among other amiable enactments against the Catholics at this period, the price of five pounds was set on the head of a Romish priest, being exactly the same sum offered by the same legislators for the head of a wolf. The Athenians, we are told, encouraged the destruction of wolves by a similar reward (five drachms); but it does not appear that these heathens bought up the heads of priests at the same rate, such zeal in the cause of religion being reserved for times of Christianity and Protestantism.”–(pp. 97-99.)

Nothing can show more strongly the light in which the Irish were held by Cromwell than the correspondence with Henry Cromwell respecting the peopling of Jamaica from Ireland. Secretary Thurloe sends to Henry, the Lord Deputy in Ireland, to inform him that “a stock of Irish girls and Irish young men are wanting for the peopling of Jamaica.” The answer of Henry Cromwell is as follows:- “Concerning the supply of young men, although we must use force in taking them up, YET IT BEING SO MUCH FOR THEIR OWN GOOD, and likely to be of so great advantage to the public, it is not the least doubted but that you may have such a number of them as you may think fit to make use of on this account.

“I shall not need repeat anything respecting the girls, not doubting to answer your expectations to the full IN THAT; and I think it might be of like advantage to your affairs there and ours here if you should think fit to send 1,500 or 2,000 boys to the place above mentioned. WE CAN WELL SPARE THEM; and who knows but that it may be the means of making them Englishmen–I mean, rather, Christians? As for the girls, I suppose you will make provisions of clothes, and other accommodations for them.” Upon this, Thurloe informs Henry Cromwell that the council have voted 4,000 GIRLS, AND AS MANY BOYS, to go to Jamaica.

Every Catholic priest found in Ireland was hanged, and five pounds paid to the informer.

“About the years 1652 and 1653,” says Colonel Lawrence, in his Interests of Ireland, “the plague and famine had so swept away whole counties, that a man might travel twenty or thirty miles and not see a living creature, either man, or beast, or bird, they being all dead, or had quitted those desolate places. Our soldiers would tell stories of the places where they saw smoke–it was so rare to see either smoke by day or fire or candle by night.” In this manner did the Irish live and die under Cromwell, suffering by the sword, famine, pestilence, and persecution, beholding the confiscation of a kingdom and the banishment of a race. “So that there perished,” says Sir W. Petty, “in the year 1641, 650,000 human beings, whose bloods somebody must atone for to God and the King!”