children, the infirm, the
sick, the high and the low, peer and peasant, sharing alike the vast
sentence of banishment and starvation. The fate of others was even
worse, many thousands, ladies, children, people of all ranks, had for
various reasons been left behind. Wholesale executions of so great a
number of helpless beings were impossible, so they were sold in batches
and shipped, most of them to the West Indies and to the newly acquired
island of Jamaica, to be heard of never more; while of the sturdier
remnant left, a few fled into exile in other lands, and the rest to the
woods, there to lead lives of wild brigandage, hiding like wolves in
caves and clefts of rocks, with a price upon their heads!

{218}

Of the two crimes, the Cromwellian settlement and the massacre of 1641,
it seems to the writer of this that Cromwell's is the heavier burden
for the conscience of a nation to carry! Who can wonder that the Irish
did not love England, and that the task of governing a people so
estranged has been a difficult one for English statesmanship ever since?

But the extinction of a nation requires time, even when accomplished by
measures so admirable as those employed in the Cromwellian settlement.
In 1660 Charles II. was on his father's throne, and we hear of hopes
revived, and the expectation that the awful suffering endured for the
father would be rewarded by his son. The land of the exiles in
Connaught had been bestowed by Cromwell upon his followers. But quick
to discern the turn in the tide, these men had helped to bring the
exiled Prince Charles back to his throne. They expected reward, not
punishment! Like many another successful candidate, Charles was
embarrassed by obligations to his friends; besides, he must not offend
the anti-Catholic sentiment in England, which since the massacre of
{219} 1641 had become a passion. The matter of the land was finally
adjudicated; such Irish as could clear themselves of complicity with
the Papal Nuncio and of certain other serious offences, of which almost
all were guilty, might have their possessions restored to them. So a
small portion of the land came back to its owners, and the Duke of
Ormond, a stanch Protestant, was created Viceroy.

Although nominally a Protestant, to the pleasure-loving Charles the
religion of his kingdom was the very smallest concern. So, more from
indifference than indulgence, things became easier for the Irish
Catholics, and exiles began