e danger of their destruction. They have lost such a wind and
fair weather, as I doubt they shall not have again for this winter
season. Mr. Brereton (Sir William Brereton, Skeffington's second in
command) lieth here at the sea side in a readiness. If their first
appointment to Dublin had been kept, they might have been there; but now
they tarry to pass with the deputy. Sir, for the love of God, let some
aid be sent to Dublin; for the loss of that city and the castle were the
plain subversion of the land."--Allen to Cromwell, Oct. 4: _State
Papers_, Vol. II. p. 202.

[348] Instructions to Walter Cowley on behalf of the Earl of Ossory:
Ibid. p. 251.

[349] Sir William Brereton to Henry VIII.: Ibid. p. 204.

[350] Two thousand five hundred was the smallest number which Lord
Surrey previously mentioned as sufficient to do good.--_State Papers_,
Vol. II. p. 73.

[351] Fifteen miles north of Dublin; immediately off Malahide.

[352] Sir William Brereton and Sir John Salisbury to Henry VIII.: _State
Papers_, Vol. II. p. 203.

[353] A small harbour near Drogheda.

[354] Skeffington was prudently reserved in his report of these things
to Henry. He mentions having set a party on shore, but says nothing of
their having been destroyed; and he could not have been ignorant of
their fate, for he was writing three weeks after it, from Dublin. He was
silent, too, of the injury which he had received from the pirates,
though eloquent on the boats which he burnt at the Skerries.--_State
Papers_, Vol. II. p. 205. On first reading Skeffington's despatch, I had
supposed that the "brilliant victory" claimed by the Irish historians
(see Leland, Vol. II. p. 148) must have been imaginary. The Irish
Statute Book, however, is too explicit to allow of such a hope. "He
[Fitzgerald] not only fortified and manned divers ships at sea, for
keeping and letting, destroying and taking the king's deputy, army, and
subjects, that they should not land within the said land; but also at
the arrival of the said army, the same Thomas, accompanied with his
uncles, servants, adherents, &c., falsely and traitorously assembled
themselves together upon the sea coast, for keeping and resisting the
king's deputy and army; and the same time they shamefully murdered
divers of the said army coming to land. And Edward Rowkes, pirate at the
sea, captain to the said Thomas, destroyed and took many of them."---
Act of Attainder of the Earl of Kildare: 28 Hen. VIII. cap.