ick.]

Several of the leading gentry of Limerick were also executed; and the
traitor Fennell met the reward of his treachery, and was also hanged.
Hugh O'Neill was saved through the remonstrances of some of the
Parliamentary officers, who had the spirit to appreciate his valour and
his honorable dealing.

Ludlow now took the command, and marched to assist Coote, who was
besieging Galway. This town surrendered on the 12th of May, 1652. The
few Irish officers who still held out against the Parliament, made the
best terms they could for themselves individually; and there was a brief
peace, the precursor of yet more terrible storms.

I have already given such fearful accounts of the miseries to which the
Irish were reduced by confiscations, fines, and war, that it seems
useless to add fresh details; yet, fearful as are the records given by
Spenser of 1580, when neither the lowing of a cow nor the voice of a
herdsman could be heard from Dunquin, in Kerry, to Cashel, in Munster,
there seems to have been a deeper depth of misery after Cromwell's
massacres. In 1653 the English themselves were nearly starving, even in
Dublin; and cattle had to be imported from Wales. There was no tillage,
and a licence was required to kill lamb.[490] The Irish had fled into
the mountains, the only refuge left to them now; and the Parliamentary
officers were obliged to issue proclamations inviting their return, and
promising them safety and protection. But the grand object of the
revolutionary party was still to carry out the wild scheme of unpeopling
Ireland of the Irish, and planting it anew with English--a scheme which
had been so often attempted, and had so signally failed, that one
marvels how it could again have been brought forward. Still there were
always adventurers ready to fight for other men's lands, and subjects
who might be troublesome at home, whom it was found desirable to occupy
in some way abroad. But a grand effort was made now to get rid of as
many Irishmen as possible in a peaceable manner. The valour of the Irish
soldier was well known abroad;[491] and agents from the King of Spain,
the King of Poland, and the Prince de Conde, were contending for those
brave fellows, who were treated like slaves in their native land; and
then, if they dared resist, branded with the foul name of rebels. If a
keen had rung out loud and long when O'Donnell left his native land
never to return, well might it ring out now yet more wildly. In Ma