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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 license, 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 behavior.
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.[****] Even children, taught by the example and encouraged by the exhortation of their parents, essayed their feeble blows on the dead carcasses or defenceless children of the English.[v]
* Temple, p. 42. ** Temple, p. 40. *** Temple, p. 39, 40 **** Temple, p. 96, 101. Rush. vol. v. p. 415. v Temple, p. 100
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 deserts.[*]
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.[**]
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.[***]
Others, more ingenious still in their barbarity, tempted their prisoners, by the fond love of life, to imbrue 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.[****]
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.[v] Nature, which in that rude people was sufficiently inclined to atrocious deeds, was further 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 bigoted assassins, with joy and exultation, still echoed in his expiring ears, that these agonies were but the commencement of torments infinite and eternal.[v*]
* Temple, p. 84. ** Temple, p. 99, 106. Rash. vol. v. p. 414 *** Whitlocke, p. 47. Rush. vol. v. p. 416. **** Temple, p 100. v Temple, p. 85, 106. v* Temple, p 94, 107, 108. Rush. vol. v. p. 407.
Such were the barbarities by which Sir Phelim O’Neale 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 O’Neale’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 ascendent over the northern rebels.[*] The English colonies were totally annihilated in the open country of Ulster: the Scots at first met with more favorable 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.[**]
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 clothes, and turned them out, naked and defenceless, to all the severities of the season.[***] 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.[****] 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 rigors of cold and hunger.
* Temple, p. 44. ** Temple, p. 41 Rush, i. p. 416. *** Temple, p. 42. **** Temple, p. 64
Here the husband, bidding a final adieu to his expiring family, envied them that 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 nor 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.[*]
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.[**] 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 enlisted 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 succor, they expired; without other consolation than that of receiving among their countrymen the honors of a grave, which, to their slaughtered companions, had been denied by the inhuman barbarians.[***]
