,
getting up to them, were ordered by me to put them all to the sword." In my
opinion this passage affords a strong corroboration of the charge made by
Ormond. If the reader compare it with the passage already quoted from the
Diurnal, he will find it difficult to suppress a suspicion that Axtell
and his men had obtained a footing on the Mill-Mount through the offer of
quarter; and that this was the reason why Cromwell, when he knew that they
had obtained possession, issued an order forbidding the granting of quarter
on any account. The consequence was, that the governor and his officers
went into the mill, and were there disarmed, and afterwards all slain. The
other prisoners were treated in the same manner as their officers.

7. Ormond adds, in the same letter, that the sack of the town lasted during
five days, meaning, probably, from September 11 to September 15, or 16,
inclusively. The same is asserted by most of the royalists. But how could
that be, when the storm began on the 11th, and the army marched from
Drogheda on the 15th? The question may perhaps be solved by a circumstance
accidentally mentioned by Dr. Bates, that on the departure of the army,
several individuals who had hitherto succeeded in concealing themselves,
crept out of their hiding-places, but did not elude the vigilance of the
garrison, by whom they were put to the sword.--Bates's Rise and Progress,
part ii. p. 27.

II. 1. It did not require many days to transmit intelligence from Dublin to
the government; for the admiralty had contracted with a Captain Rich, that
for the monthly sum of twenty-two pounds he should constantly have two
swift-sailing vessels, stationed, one at Holyhead, the other at Dublin,
ready to put to sea on the arrival of despatches for the service of the
state.--Lords' Journ. ix. 617. From an accidental entry in Whitelock, it
would appear that the letters from Cromwell reached London on the 27th
of September; on the 28th, parliament, without any cause assigned in the
Journals, was adjourned to October 2nd, and on that day the official
account of the massacre at Drogheda was made public. At the same time an
order was obtained from the parliament, that "a letter should be written to
the lord lieutenant of Ireland, to be communicated to the officers there,
that the house doth approve of the execution done at Drogheda both as
an act of justice to them and mercy to others, who may be warned by it"
(Journals, vi. 301), which are the