Hib. ii. 521.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. Jan. 29.]

action the factions which had lain dormant since the departure of the
nuncio. The recent treachery of Inchiquin's forces had engendered feelings
of jealousy and suspicion; and many contended that it was better to submit
at once to the conqueror than to depend on the doubtful fidelity of the
lord lieutenant. Cromwell met with little resistance: wherever he came,
he held out the promise of life and liberty of conscience;[1] but the
rejection of the offer, though it were afterwards accepted, was punished
with the blood of the officers; and, if the place were taken by force, with
indiscriminate slaughter.[2] Proceeding on this plan, one day granting
quarter, another putting the leaders only to the sword, and on the next
immolating the whole garrison, hundreds of human beings at a time, he
quickly reduced most of the towns and castles in the three counties of
Limerick, Tipperary, and Kilkenny. But this bloody policy at length
recoiled upon its author. Men, with no alternative but victory or death,
learned to fight with the energy of despair. At the siege of Kilkenny the
assailants, though twice repulsed from the breach, were, by the timidity of
some of the inhabitants,

[Footnote 1: Liberty of conscience he explained to mean liberty of internal
belief, not of external worship.--See his letter in Phil. Iren. i. 270.]

[Footnote 2: The Irish commanders disdained to imitate the cruelty of their
enemies. "I took," says Lord Castlehaven, "Athy by storm, with all the
garrison (seven hundred men) prisoners. I made a present of them to
Cromwell, desiring him by letter that he would do the like with me, as any
of mine should fall in his power. But he little valued my civility. For,