"That is not true," said Jane. "Think only of this: they have commanded the laws of England to be written in English. This order alone justifies them with the people. Also, they have received foreign ambassadors with dignity, and taught Holland, France and Spain by the voice of Blake's cannon that England is not to be trifled with; and in Ireland they are carrying on, through Ireton and Ludlow, the good work Cromwell began there."
"Good work, indeed!" cried Matilda.
"Yes, it was good work, grand work, the best work Cromwell ever did," answered Neville positively; "a most righteous dealing with assassins, who had slain one hundred thousand Protestants—men, women and children—while they dwelt in peace among then, thinking no evil[2] and looking for no injury. When men mad with religious hatred take fire and sword, when they torture the helpless with hunger and thirst and freezing cold, in the name of the merciful Jesus, then there is no punishment too great for them."
[2] See Knight's History of England, Vol. 3, p. 464; Clarendon (royalist historian) says 50,000; Paxton Hood, Life of Cromwell, p. 141, says as high as 200,000; Church (American edition) from 50,000 to 200,000 with mutilations and torture; Imgard, the Catholic historian, in Vol. X, p. 177, admits the atrocity of the massacre. Many other authorities, notably Hickson's "Ireland in the 17th Century," which contains the depositions before Parliament relating to the massacre. These documents, printed for the first time in 1884, will cause simple wonder that a terrible massacre on a large scale could ever be questioned, nor in the 17th century was it ever questioned, nor in the face of these documents can it ever be questioned, except by those who put their personal prejudice or interest before the truth.
"The number slain was not as great as you say," interrupted Matilda. "I have heard it was only ten thousand."
"I care not for the number of thousands," said Neville in a voice trembling with passion; "men were put to death with all the horrors religious fanaticism could invent; women and children outraged, starved, burned or drowned with relentless fury. There were months of such persecution before help could be got there."
"Very well, Lord Neville," said Matilda in great anger, "Episcopalians and Calvinists should not have gone to Ireland. I bought a song from a packman the other day for a farthing, that just suits them—
"'People who hold such positive opinions
Should stay at home in Protestant dominions.'
I am sure Cromwell has made a name to be hated and feared in Ireland for generations."
"England has far more cause to hate and ban the name of O'Neal for generations; but England does not bluster; she rights her wrong, and then forgives it. She is too magnanimous to hate for generations any race because one generation did wrong. Nowhere was Cromwell more just and merciful than in Ireland. There have been English sieges—for instance Colchester—far more cruel than that of Drogheda; and at Drogheda it was mostly rebel Englishmen that were slain, Englishmen fighting in Ireland against the Commonwealth. Cromwell, even at Drogheda, offered mercy to all who would surrender and so spare blood. He was throughout as merciful as he could be, as the Irish themselves permitted him to be. I shake hands with Cromwell in Ireland and I clasp a clean, merciful hand!"