Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/634

 6i4 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [cil. 62. soever gave the Queen advice thus to write is fitter to execute such, base service than I am. Saving my duty to her Majesty, I would I were to have revenge by my sword of any man that thus persuaded - the Queen to write to me.' x To Ormond the Irish were human beings, with human rights. To the English they were vermin, to be cleared from off the earth by any means that offered. Desmond, unhappily for himself, was beyond even Ormond's concern or pity. A price was set upon his head ; one by one the remaining companions of his misfortunes were taken from him. The priest was captured first, brought handcuffed to Cork, and hanged. MacSweeny of the Kenrnare mountains fell next. MacSweeny was the best friend that he had left, and had sheltered him and fed him through the summer ; and when MacSweeny was gone, killed by an Irish dagger, the Earl's turn could not be distant. He was October. hunted down into the mountains between Tralee and the Atlantic. Escape was impossible either by sea or land, and the reward offered for his head was a temptation which the savages among whom he had taken refuge were not likely long to resist. One of these, Donell Macdonell Moriarty, 2 had been received to grace by Ormond on his last visit to Tralee, and had promised to deserve his pardon. One night, a fortnight after the dispatch of MacSweeny, this man came to the captain of Castlemaine, and informed him that the 1 Orraond to Burgliley, September 10 : MSS. Ireland. 2 The name Moriarty still hangs about those parts of Kerry.