em; and as Mackworth told Winter when he proposed it, the only plan
was for him to make San Josepho a present of his ships, and swim home
himself as he could. To turn loose in Ireland, as Captain Touch urged,
on the other hand, seven hundred such monsters of lawlessness, cruelty,
and lust, as Spanish and Italian condottieri were in those days, was
as fatal to their own safety as cruel to the wretched Irish. All the
captains, without exception, followed on the same side. "What was to be
done, then?" asked Lord Grey, impatiently. "Would they have him murder
them all in cold blood?"

And for a while every man, knowing that it must come to that, and yet
not daring to say it; till Sir Warham St. Leger, the marshal of Munster,
spoke out stoutly: "Foreigners had been scoffing them too long and too
truly with waging these Irish wars as if they meant to keep them alive,
rather than end them. Mercy and faith to every Irishman who would show
mercy and faith, was his motto; but to invaders, no mercy. Ireland was
England's vulnerable point; it might be some day her ruin; a terrible
example must be made of those who dare to touch the sore. Rather pardon
the Spaniards for landing in the Thames than in Ireland!"--till Lord
Grey became much excited, and turning as a last hope to Raleigh, asked
his opinion: but Raleigh's silver tongue was that day not on the side
of indulgence. He skilfully recapitulated the arguments of his
fellow-captains, improving them as he went on, till each worthy soldier
was surprised to find himself so much wiser a man than he had thought;
and finished by one of his rapid and passionate perorations upon his
favorite theme--the West Indian cruelties of the Spaniards, ". . .
by which great tracts and fair countries are now utterly stripped of
inhabitants by heavy bondage and torments unspeakable. Oh, witless
Islanders!" said he, apostrophizing the Irish, "would to Heaven that you
were here to listen to me! What other fate awaits you, if this viper,
which you are so ready to take into your bosom, should be warmed to
life, but to groan like the Indians, slaves to the Spaniard; but to
perish like the Indians, by heavy burdens, cruel chains, plunder and
ravishment; scourged, racked, roasted, stabbed, sawn in sunder, cast to
feed the dogs, as simple and more righteous peoples have perished ere
now by millions? And what else, I say, had been the fate of Ireland
had this invasion prospered, which God has now, by our weak