“Let us alight here,” said Mike. “My wings are tired.”
We came down in a field just outside of the town. It was the worst landing Mike made. We alit on one runner of the aeroplane, and got a severe jar, but, fortunately, no damage was done.
After an hour’s rest and a walk around town, we sailed on to Drogheda, where we expected to spend the night.
If we had been Theodore Roosevelt himself, or even Edward VII., we could not have attracted more attention and honor from the people of the country than we did that afternoon between Dundalk and Drogheda. Mike made a superb landing at Drogheda. We alit beside a two-storied house on the edge of town, creating a sensation. Some children, near the door, saw us swooping down, and ran, screaming into the house. Just as we were landing a woman ran out and as she saw the aeroplane alight, she uttered a shriek, as though she had seen a ghost.
Presently a man came running, and we introduced ourselves. Leaving the aeroplane with him and the gathering crowd, we went to a hotel. I was interested in Drogheda, on account of its historic siege by Oliver Cromwell in 1649. We saw two of the old towers standing, just as they were left after the siege.
Oliver Cromwell is as unpopular in Ireland as the Duke of Alva in the Netherlands, and when we read his report of his doings at this city we were not surprised. Here is what he wrote from Drogheda in reporting to Parliament:
“Divers of the enemy retreated to the Milmount, a place very strong and of difficult access, being exceedingly high, having a good graft, and strongly palisadoed. The Governor, Sir Arthur Aston, and divers considerable officers being there, our men getting up to them, were ordered by me to put them all to the sword. And, indeed, being in the heat of action, I forbade them to spare any that were in arms in the town; and I think that night they put to the sword about 2000 men. Then our horse and foot followed them so fast over the bridge, which goes over a broad river; and being very long and houses on both sides, yet they had not time to pull up their draw bridge, that our men fell violently upon them, and I believe there were 2000 of them put to the sword. Divers of the officers and soldiers being fled over the bridge into the other parts of the town, where about 100 of them possessed St. Peters church-steeple, some the West Gate, others a strong round tower next the gate called St. Sundays. These being summoned to yield to mercy refused, whereupon I ordered the steeple of St. Peters to be fired, when one of them was heard to say in the midst of the flames, ‘God confound me, I burn! I burn!’
“The next day the two other towers were summoned, in one of which was about six or seven score, but they refused to yield themselves; and we, knowing that hunger must compel them, set only good guards to secure them from running away until their stomachs were come down. From one of the said towers, notwithstanding their condition, they killed and wounded some of our men. When they submitted, their officers WERE KNOCKED ON THE HEAD, and every tenth man of the soldiers killed, and the rest shipped for the Barbadoes.”
After writing this gentle epistle, Oliver continues:
“I am persuaded that this is a righteous judgment of God upon these barbarous wretches, who have embrued their hands in so much innocent blood, and that it will tend to prevent the effusion of blood, for the future, which are the satisfactory grounds for such actions, which otherwise cannot but work remorse and regret.”