o him with tears and prayer to save her
life." Touched by her beauty and her entreaties he attempted to save
her, and took her out of the church; but even his protection could not
save her. A soldier thrust his sword into her body; and the officer,
recovering from his momentary fit of compassion, "flung her down over
the rocks," according to his own account, but first took care to possess
himself of her money and jewels. This officer also mentions that the
soldiers were in the habit of taking up a child, and using it as a
buckler, when they wished to ascend the lofts and galleries of the
church, to save themselves from being shot or brained. It is an evidence
that they knew their victims to be less cruel than themselves, or the
expedient would not have been found to answer.

Cromwell wrote an account of this massacre to the "Council of State."
His letters, as his admiring editor observes, "tell their own
tale;"[486] and unquestionably that tale plainly intimates that whether
the Republican General were hypocrite or fanatic--and it is probable he
was a compound of both--he certainly, on his own showing, was little
less than a demon of cruelty. Cromwell writes thus: "It hath pleased God
to bless our endeavours at Drogheda. After battery we stormed it. The
enemy were about 3,000 strong in the town. They made a stout resistance.
I believe we put to the sword the whole number of defendants. I do not
think thirty of the whole number escaped with their lives. Those that
did are in safe custody for the Barbadoes. This hath been a marvellous
great mercy." In another letter he says that this "great thing" was done
"by the Spirit of God."

These savage butcheries had the intended effect. The inhabitants of all
the smaller towns fled at his approach, and the garrisons capitulated.
Trim, Dundalk, Carlingford, and Newry, had yielded; but Wexford still
held out. The garrison amounted to about 3,000 men, under the command of
Colonel Sinnot, a brave loyalist. After some correspondence on both
sides, a conference took place between four of the royalists and
Cromwell, at which he contrived to bribe Captain Stafford, the Governor
of the Castle. The conditions asked, preparatory to surrender, were
liberty of conscience, and permission to withdraw in safety and with
military honours. Cromwell's idea of liberty of conscience was as
peculiar as his idea of honour. He wrote to the Governor of Ross to say
that he would not "meddle with any man'