olly; but Irish heroism, like Irish religion, was unfortunately
limited to words and feelings. The generous defiance in the cause of the
Catholic faith was followed by pillage and murder, the usual
accompaniments of Irish insurrection, as a sort of initial holocaust to
propitiate success. The open country was at the mercy of the rebels.
Fitzgerald, joined by O'Connor, proceeded to swear-in all such of the
inhabitants of the pale as would unite against England; promising
protection if they would consent, but inflicting fire and sword wherever
he met refusal. The unfortunate people, warned by experience that no
service was worse requited in Ireland than loyalty, had no spirit to
resist. The few who were obnoxious were killed; the remainder submitted;
and the growing corn was destroyed, and the farms were burnt, up to the
gates of Dublin, that when the English army arrived, they might find
neither food to maintain, nor houses to shelter them.[333] The first
object of Fitzgerald, however, was to seize Dublin itself, where a
portion of the citizens were in his favour. In the last week in July he
appeared with his followers under the walls; a small force which had
attempted to resist was defeated and driven in; and, under a threat of
burning the city, if he was refused, he demanded the surrender of town
and castle. The danger was immediate. The provident treachery of
Kildare, in stripping the castle of its stores and cannon, had made
defence all but impossible. Ormond was far off, and weeks must pass
before relief could arrive from England. Sir John White, an English
gentleman, with a handful of men-at-arms, had military command of the
city; and the Archbishop of Armagh implored him to have pity on the
citizens, and not to expose them to the consequences of a storm.[334]
White was too stout a soldier to listen to such timid counsels; yet his
position was one of extreme difficulty; his little garrison was too weak
to defend the lines of the town, without the assistance of the citizens,
and the citizens were divided and dispirited. He resolved at, length to
surrender the city, and defend the castle to the last. Fitzgerald
threatened that he would hold the townsmen responsible for the
submission of the troops; but, savage as the English commander knew him
to be, he calculated, with justice, that he would not ruin his
popularity by cutting the throats of an unresisting crowd.

[Sidenote: White surrenders the city, and withdraws in