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Cromwell in Ireland were English or Anglo-Irish regiments, which had been fighting against the Irish for seven years. But more than that. It is doubtful whether there was in the garrison of Drogheda a single soldier who had been in arms eight years earlier, or who could have taken part in the so-called massacres of 1641. Cromwell must have been aware that six years before this time his own army in England had been reinforced from Scotland by large numbers of these old Irish rebels of 1641. This is what Carte says, when writing of the state of affairs in Ulster in 1044:—"Hereupon great numbers of the country people listed, and abundance even of the Ulster rebels, who had imbued their hands the deepest in Protestant blood were taken into the Scottish service, transported to Scotland, and sent to fight against the King in England."

Cromwell's letter addressed to Bradshaw, the President of the Council of State, was written from Dublin on the 16th September. On the following day he wrote a second and longer letter to the Speaker of Parliament, Lenthall. From this letter I will make another quotation:—"Divers of the enemy retreated into the Mill Mount, a place very strong and difficult. of access, the Governor, Sir Arthur Aston, and divers considerable officers being there. Our 41