d God,' led them up
again with courage and resolution, though they met with a hot dispute."
Thus encouraged to recover their loss, they got ground of the enemy,
forced him to quit his intrenchments, and poured into the town. There
many retreated to the Millmount, a place very strong and difficult of
access; "exceedingly high and strongly palisaded." This place commanded
the whole town: thither Sir Arthur Ashton and other important officers
had betaken themselves. But the storming party burst in, and were
ordered by Cromwell to put them all to the sword. The rest of the
garrison fled over the bridge to the northern side of the town; but the
Ironsides followed them hotly, both horse and foot, and drove them into
St. Peter's Church and the towers of the ramparts.

St. Peter's Church was set on fire by Cromwell's order. He writes to the
speaker: "Indeed, being in the heat of action, I forbade them to spare
any that were in arms in the town: and I think that night they put to
the sword about two thousand men." Next day the other towers were
summoned, and the work of slaughter was renewed for two days, until the
entire garrison was annihilated. It was unquestionably a massacre. "That
night they put to the sword about two thousand men." In St. Peter's
Church "near a thousand of them were put to the sword, fleeing thither
for safety." "Their friars were knocked on the head promiscuously." "I
do not think we lost a hundred men upon the place." Such are a few
passages from Cromwell's own despatches.

The slaughter was indeed prodigious. The general writes: "I believe we
put to the sword the whole number of the defendants. I do not think
thirty of the whole number escaped with their lives." "The enemy were
about three thousand strong in the town." "I do not believe, neither do
I hear, that any officer escaped with his life, save only one
lieutenant." He subsequently gives a detailed list of the slain,
amounting to about three thousand. Hugh Peters, the chaplain, reports as
follows:

"Sir, the truth is, Drogheda is taken, three thousand five hundred
fifty-two of the enemy slain, and sixty-four of ours. Ashton the
governor, killed, none spared." It is also certain that quarter was
refused. "I forbade them to spare any that were in arms in the town." It
is expressly told us that all officers and all priests taken were
killed. From the days of Clarendon it has been repeated by historians
that men, women, and children were indiscrim