Of the justice of its proceedings we have
not the means of forming a satisfactory notion; but the cry for blood was
too violent, the passions of men were too much excited, and the forms of
proceeding too summary to allow the judges to weigh with cool and cautious
discrimination the different cases which came before them. Lords Muskerry
and Clanmaliere, with Maccarthy Reagh, whether they owed it to their
innocence or to the influence of
[Footnote 1: Journals, Aug. 34.]
friends, had the good fortune to be acquitted; the mother of Colonel
Fitzpatric was burnt; Lord Mayo, colonels Tool, Bagnal, and about two
hundred more, suffered death by the axe or by the halter. It was, however,
remarkable, that the greatest deficiency of proof occurred in the province
where the principal massacres were said to have been committed. Of the
men of Ulster, Sir Phelim O'Neil is the only one whose conviction, and
execution, have been recorded.[1]
II. Cromwell had not been long in the island before he discovered that
it was impossible to accomplish the original design of extirpating the
Catholic population; and he therefore adopted the expedient of allowing
their leaders to expatriate themselves with a portion of their countrymen,
by entering into the service of foreign powers.
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