they met again in yet larger numbers, upon
the hill of Crofty, where they were met by some of the leaders of the
north. Rory O'Moore,--a man of no little address, who was personally
clear of the worst stain of the massacres, and who had lately issued a
proclamation declaring that he and his followers were in arms, not
against Charles, but the Parliament--was the principal speaker on this
occasion, and his arguments appear to have decided the waverers. They
agreed unanimously to throw in their lot with their co-religionists.
From that moment the rising had become a national one. The whole island
was soon in arms. Munster followed Leinster, and Connaught shortly
afterwards followed Munster. Lords Thomond, Clanricarde, and a few
others stood out, but by the end of the year, with the exception of
Dublin, Drogheda, Cork, Galway, Enniskillen, Derry, and some few other
towns, all Ireland was in the hands of the rebels.

Even then the Lords Justices seem to have but little realized the
gravity of the crisis. They occupied their time chiefly in preparing
indictments, and cheerfully calculating the fast-growing area of land
open to confiscation. In vain Ormond entreated to be allowed to proceed
against Sir Phelim O'Neill. They steadily declined to allow him to leave
the neighbourhood of Dublin.

The northern rising had by this time nearly worn itself out by its own
excesses. Sir Phelim's efforts to take Drogheda were ludicrously
unavailing, and he had been forced to take his ragged rabble away
without achieving anything. Regarded as an army it had one striking
peculiarity--there was not a single military man in it! Sir Phelim
himself had been bred to the law; Rory O'Moore was a self-taught
insurgent who had never smelt powder. They had no arms, no officers, no
discipline, no organization of any kind; what was more, the men were
deserting in all directions. In the south there was no one either to
take the command. The new levies were willing enough to fight, but there
was no one to show them how. The insurrection seemed in a fair way of
dying out from sheer want of leadership.

Suddenly reinforcements arrived in two directions almost at the same
time. Owen O'Neill--better known as Owen Roe--an honourable and gallant
man, who had served with much distinction upon the Continent, landed in
Donegal, accompanied by about a hundred French-Irish officers. He
instantly took the command of the disorganized and fast-dissolving
northern