Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 13.djvu/175

 imbrued their hands in so much innocent bloody and that it will tend to prevent the effusion of blood for the future, which arc the satisfactory grounds of such actions, which otherwise cannot but work remorse and regret’ (, Letter cv.) At Wexford the massacre which took place was accidental and unintentional, for Cromwell wished to preserve the town ; but he was far from regretting the accident. 'God, by an unexpected providence, in his righteous justice brought a just judgment upon them, causing them to become a prey to the soldiers who in their piracies had made preys of so many families, and with their bloods to answer the cruelties which they had exercised upon the lives of divers poor protestants' (Letter cvii.) Relentless though Cromwell was, he abhorred the indiscriminating barbarities practised by so many English commanders in Ireland. For soldiers who had put him to a storm, renegades who had once served the parliament, or priests taken in the captured towns, he had no mercy. But no other general was so careful to protect peaceable peasants or noncombatants from plunder or violence. ‘Give us an instance,’ he challenged the catholic clergy, ‘of one man, since my coming into Ireland, not in arms, massacred, destroyed, or banished, concerning the massacre or the destruction of whom justice has not been done or endeavoured to be done.’ In the manifesto which called forth the answer, the Irish prelates had admitted ‘the more moderate usage’ of ‘the common people’ by Cromwell, but urged them not to be deceived by this show of clemency. What terms those Irish who submitted were to expect the same declaration plainly stated. Cromwell thoroughly approved the parliament’s policy of land forfeiture. Those who had been or wore now in arms were to suffer for it in their estates, as parliament should determine, according to their actions. The leaders and chief contrivers of the rebellion were to be reserved for exemplary justice. Those who had taken no part in the rebellion were promised equal justice with the English, equal taxation, and equal protection from the law. On the question of religion the declaration was equally explicit. Cromwell held that the catholic doctrine was poisonous and antichristian; that the catholic clergy were the chief promoters of the rebellion ; and that the catholic religion had no legal right to exist in Ireland. In conformity with these principles, the exorcise of the catholic worship was not to be suffered, and the laws against it strictly enforced against all offenders. Liberty of conscience in the narrowest sense of the term was left to the people. ‘I meddle not with any man’s conscience As for the people, what thoughts they have in matters of religion in their own breasts I cannot reach, but shall think it my duty, if they walk honestly and peaceably, not to cause them in the least to suller for the same.’ Cromwell trusted that these measures would be followed in time by the conversion of the Irish. ‘We find the people,’ he wrote to John Sadler, ‘very greedy after the word, and flocking to christian meetings, much of that prejudice which lies upon people in England being a stranger to their minds. I mind you the rather of this because it is a sweet symptom, if not an earnest of the good we expect’ (, app. 17).

His second remedy for the condition of Ireland was the establishment of a free and impartial administration of justice. ‘We have a great opportunity to set up a way of doing justice amongst these poor people, which, for the uprightness and cheapness of it, may exceedingly gain upon them who have been accustomed to as much injustice, tyranny, and oppression from their landlords, the great men, and those that should have done them right as any people in that which we call Christendom. If justice were freely and impartially administered here, the foregoing darkness and corruption would make it look so much the more glorious and beautiful, and draw more hearts after it’ (ib.)

From the colonisation of Ireland with fresh settlers from England Cromwell also hoped much. In announcing the reduction of Wexford he pointed out to the parliament the advantages it offered for the establishment of a new colony (ib. Letter cvii.) He also wrote to New England to invite 'godly people and ministers' to transplant themselves to Ireland, and found many who were willing to accept his proposal (, Letters addressed to Cromwell, p. 44). But there is no suggestion in his letters of the wholesale transplantation of the Irish to Connaught which afterwards took place, for it had not yet been decided on by parliament. In other respects the policy announced by Cromwell was in all essentials the policy ultimately adopted by parliament.

Immediately after the capture of Clonmel Cromwell returned to England, having been recalled by parliament on 8 Jan. 1650, to take part in the impending war with Scotland. Parliament wished to utilise the services both of Cromwell and Fairfax, and voted on 12 June that the latter should command, with Cromwell as his lieutenant-general. But Fairfax retracted his consent and laid down his commission, and on 26 June Cromwell was appointed captain-general and