yal party to seat
Charles II. on the throne. In this exigency Cromwell was appointed by
the Parliament Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland.

Then followed the conquest of Ireland, in which Cromwell distinguished
himself for great military abilities. His vigorous and uncompromising
measures, especially his slaughter of the garrison of Drogheda (a
retaliatory act), have been severely commented on. But war in the hands
of masters is never carried on sentimentally: the test of ability is
success. The measures were doubtless hard and severe; but Cromwell knew
what he was about: he wished to bring the war to a speedy close, and
intimidation was probably the best course to pursue. Those impracticable
Irish never afterwards molested him. In less than a year he was at
leisure to oppose Charles II. in Scotland; and on the resignation of
Fairfax he was made Captain-General of all the forces in the empire. The
battle of Dunbar resulted in the total defeat of the Scots; while the
"crowning mercy" at Worcester, Sept. 3, 1651, utterly blasted the hopes
of Charles, and completely annihilated his forces.

The civil war, which raged nine years, was now finished, and Cromwell
became supreme. But even the decimated Parliament was jealous, and
raised an issue,--on which Cromwell dissolved it with a file of
soldiers, and assembled another, neither elective nor representative,
composed of his creatures, without experience, chiefly Anabaptists and
Independents; which he soon did away with. He then called a council of
leading men, who made him Lord Protector, December 13, 1653. Even the
shadow of constitutional authority now vanishes, and Cromwell rules with
absolute and untrammelled power, like Julius Caesar or Napoleon
Bonaparte. He rules on the very principles which he condemned in Charles
I. The revolution ends in a military despotism.

If there was ever a usurpation, this was one. Liberty gave her last sigh
on the remonstrance of Sir Harry Vane, and a military hero, by means of
his army, stamps his iron heel on England. He dissolves the very body
from which he received his own authority he refuses to have any check on
his will; he imposes taxes without the consent of the people,--the very
thing for which he took up arms against Charles I.; he reigns alone, on
despotic principles, as absolute as Louis XIV.; he enshrouds himself in
royal state at Hampton Court; he even seeks to bequeath his absolute
power to his son. And if Richard Cromwell had rei