Milford with a single division;
his son-in-law, Ireton, followed with the remainder of the army, and a
fortnight was allowed to the soldiers to refresh themselves after their
voyage. The campaign was opened with the siege of Drogheda.[a] Ormond had
thrown into the town a garrison of two thousand five hundred chosen
men, under the command of Sir Arthur Aston, an officer who had earned a
brilliant reputation by his services to the royal cause in England during
the civil war. On the eighth day a sufficient breach had been effected in
the wall:[b] the assailants on the first attempt were driven back with
immense loss. They returned a second, perhaps a third, time to the assault,
and their perseverance was at last crowned with success. But strong works
with ramparts and pallisades had been constructed within the breach, from
which the royalists might have long maintained a sanguinary and perhaps
doubtful conflict. These entrenchments, however, whether the men were
disheartened by a sudden panic, or deceived by offers of quarter--for
both causes have been assigned--the enemy was suffered to occupy without
resistance. Cromwell (at what particular moment is uncertain) gave orders
that no one belonging to the garrison should be spared; and Aston, his
officers and men, having been previously disarmed, were put to the sword.
From thence the conquerors, stimulated by revenge and fanaticism, directed
their fury against the townsmen, and on the next morning one thousand
unresisting victims were immolated together within the walls of the great
church, whither they had fled for protection.[1][c]

[Footnote 1: See Carte's Ormond, ii. 84; Carte, Letters, iv. 412; Philop.
Iren. i. 120; Whitelock, 428; Ludlow, i. 261; Lynch, Cambrensis Eversos,
in fine; King's Pamph. 441, 447; Ormond in Carte's Letters, ii. 412; and
Cromwell in Carlyle's Letters and Speeches, i. 457.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1649. Sept. 3.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1649. Sept. 11.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1649. Sept. 12.]

From Drogheda the conqueror led his men, flushed with slaughter, to the
seige of Wexford. The mayor and governor offered to capitulate; but whilst
their commissioners were treating with Cromwell, an officer perfidiously
opened the castle to the enemy; the adjacent wall was immediately
scaled;[a] and, after a stubborn but unavailing resistance in the
market-place, Wexford was abandoned to the mercy of the assailants. The
tragedy, so recently acted at Drogheda, was rene