ter centuries across the history
of England and of Ireland; that it is one of those damning charges which
the Puritan theology has yet to answer at the bar of humanity.

The tremendous blow at Drogheda struck terror into Ormonde's forces.
Dundalk and Trim were abandoned in haste. O'Neil swore a great oath that
as Cromwell had stormed Drogheda, if he should storm hell he should take
it. One fort after another yielded; and in a fortnight from the taking
of Drogheda Cromwell was master of the country north of Dublin. Marching
from Dublin south, on September 23d, his army took forts in Wicklow,
Arklow, and Enniscorthy; and on October 1st the general encamped before
Wexford, an important seaport at the southeastern corner of the island.
The town was strong, with a rampart fifteen feet thick, a garrison of
over two thousand men, one hundred cannon, and in the harbor two ships
armed with fifty-four guns.

Cromwell summoned the governor to surrender, not obscurely threatening
him with the fate of Drogheda. "It will clearly appear," he said, "where
the guilt will lie if innocent persons should come to suffer with the
nocent." His terms were quarter and prison to the officers, quarter and
freedom to the soldiers, protection from plunder to the town. These
terms were refused, and both sides continued the fight. Suddenly, some
breaches being made in the castle, the captain surrendered it, and by a
surprise the whole army of the Commonwealth poured into the town. The
townsmen took part in the defence; and townsmen and garrison together
were forced into the market-place.

There, as at Drogheda, a promiscuous massacre ensued. Upward of two
thousand were slain, and with them not a few of the citizens; and the
town was delivered over to pillage. It is asserted by the Catholic
writers that a body of women, who had taken refuge round the cross, were
deliberately slaughtered, and that a general massacre took place without
regard to sex or age. Priests were killed at once, and in the sack and
pillage undoubtedly some noncombatants, it may be some women and
children. But these things were incidents of such a storm, and were not
done by design or order of the general. This is his own story:

"While I was preparing of it; studying to preserve the Town from
plunder, that it might be of the more use to you and your Army--the
Captain, who was one of the Commissioners, being fairly treated, yielded
up the Castle to us. Upon the top of which our