med to kneel at the foot
of that cross in prayer, now, with life itself at stake, they would
instinctively press towards it to escape from the swords of the enemy. But,
as far an regards the atrocity of the thing, it makes little difference on
what particular spot they were murdered. You cannot relieve the memory
of Cromwell from the odium of such murder, but by proving, what it is
impossible to prove, that at Wexford the women and children were specially
excepted out of the general massacre.

5. I have already copied Bruodin's description of the sack of Drogheda;
here I may transcribe his account of the sack of Wexford. "Ipse strategus
regicidarum terrestri itinere Dublinium praetergressus, Wexfordiam (modicam
quidem, et maritimam, munitam et opulentam civitatem) versus castra movet,
occupatoque insperate, proditione cujusdam perfidi ducis castro, quod
moenibus imminebat, in civitatem irruit: opposuere se viriliter aggressori
praesidiarii simul cum civibus, pugnatumque est ardentissime per unius
horae spatium inter partes in foro, sed impari congressu, nam cives fere
omnes una cum militibus, sine status, sexus, aut aetatis discrimine,
Cromweli gladius absumpsit."--Bruodin, Propag. 1. iv. c. 14, p. 679. The
following is a more valuable document, from the "humble petition of the
ancient natives of the town of Wexford," to Charles II., July 4, 1660. "Yet
soe it is, may it please your Majestie, that after all the resistance they
could make, the said usurper, having a great armie by sea and land before
the said toune, did on the 9th of October, 1649, soe powerfully assault
them, that he entered the toune, and put man, woman, and child, to a very
few, to the sword, where among the rest the governor lost his life,
and others of the soldiers and inhabitants to the number of 1,500
persons."--Gale's Corporation System in Ireland, App. p. cxxvi.

6. My object in these remarks has been to enable the reader to form a
correct notion of the manner in which Cromwell conducted the war in
Ireland. They will give little satisfaction to the worshippers of the
hero. But his character is not a mere matter of taste or sympathy. It is a
question of historic inquiry. Much indeed has been written to vindicate
him from the imputation of cruelty at Drogheda and Wexford; but of the
arguments hitherto adduced in his defence, it will be no presumption
to affirm that there is not one among them which can bear the test of
dispassionate investigation.