atched the splendour of the sunset.'

[Footnote 1: Carew Papers; Froude, vol. xi. p.225.]

Ormond was the arch-destroyer of his countrymen. In a report of his
services he stated that in this one year 1580, he had put to the
sword 'forty-six captains and leaders, with 800 notorious traitors
and malefactors, _and above_ 4,000 other people.'[1] In that year
the great Desmond wrote to Philip of Spain that he was a homeless
wanderer. 'Every town, castle, village, farm-house belonging to him or
his people had been destroyed. There was no longer a roof standing in
Munster to shelter him.' Hunted like a wolf through the mountains,
he was at last found sleeping in a hut and killed. In vain his wife
pleaded with Ormond, and threw herself on his protection. Even she was
not spared. Mr. Froude gives an interesting account of Desmond's last
hours. He was hunted down into the mountains between Tralee and the
Atlantic. M'Sweeny had sheltered him and fed him through the summer,
though a large price was set on his head; and when M'Sweeny was gone,
killed by an Irish dagger, the earl's turn could not be distant.
Donell M'Donell Moriarty had been received to grace by Ormond, and
had promised to deserve his pardon. This man came to the captain
of Castlemayne, gave information of the hiding-place, a band was
sent--half-a-dozen English soldiers and a few Irish kerne, who stole
in the darkness along the path which followed the stream--the door was
dashed in, and the last Earl of Desmond was killed in his bed.

[Footnote 1: Carew Papers; Froude, vol. xi. p.225.]

Ormond had recourse to a horrible device to extinguish the embers of
the rebellion. It was carrying out to a diabolical extent the policy
of setting one Irishman against another. If the terror-stricken
wretches hoped for pardon, they must deserve it, by murdering their
relations. Accordingly sacks full of the heads of reputed rebels were
brought in daily. Yet concerning him Mr. Froude makes this singular
remark: 'To Ormond the Irish were human beings with human rights. To
the English they were _vermin, to be cleared from off the earth_ by
any means that offered.'

Consequently, when it was proposed to make Ormond viceroy, the Pale
was in a ferment. How could any man be fit to represent English power
in Dublin Castle, who regarded the Irish as human beings! Not less
curious is the testimony which the historian bears to the character of
the English exterminators. He says, 'They wer