Page:Confiscation in Irish history.djvu/138

 refuge with them, and not only successfully defended themselves against all attack, but in many cases had made counter attacks against the Irish in their neighbourhood. And they had in these counter attacks shown no mercy. Prisoners were hanged, women and children slain in cold blood. There are few more horrible records of atrocities extant than the diary which complacently sets forth the exploits of the garrison of Manor Hamilton. Yet as these English landowners and their followers could scarcely have been said to have been publicly entertained and maintained in arms, any Irishman who in self-defence had killed one of them was liable to be accounted as a murderer under the first part of the definition.

And that people were executed under this clause as " murderers" merely for killing armed Englishmen is shown by at least two cases.

And while the definition of murder was thus strained against the Irish, no mention was made of punishing the horrible murders of defenceless women and children which fill whole pages of some of the records left by English officers, and of the official reports to the Lords Justices.

Mr. Gardiner, in his article in the English Historical Review on "The Transplantation to Connaught" estimates that clauses one and four of the Act condemned to death perhaps one hundred thousand Irishmen.