“By these considerations, More engaged all the heads of the native Irish into the conspiracy. The English of the pale, as they were called, or the old English planters, being all Catholics, it was hoped would afterwards join the party, which restored their religion to its ancient splendour and authority. The intention was, that Sir Phelim O’Neale and the other conspirators, should begin an insurrection on one day throughout the provinces, and should attack all the English settlements; and that, on the same day, Lord Maguire and Roger More should surprise the castle of Dublin. The commencement of the revolt was fixed on the approach of winter, that there might be more difficulty in transporting forces from England: succours to themselves and supplies of arms they expected from France, in consequence of a promise made them by Cardinal Richelieu; and many Irish officers, who served in the Spanish troops, had engaged to join them as soon as they saw an insurrection entered on by their Catholic brethren. News, which every day arrived from England, of the fury expressed by the Commons against all Papists, struck fresh terror into the Irish nation, and both stimulated the conspirators to execute their fatal purpose, and gave them assured hopes of the concurrence of all their countrymen.
“Such propensity to a revolt was discovered in all the Irish, that it was deemed unnecessary as it was dangerous to entrust the secret to many hands; and the appointed day drew nigh, nor had any discovery been yet made to the government. The king, indeed, had received information from his ambassadors, that something was in agitation among the Irish in foreign parts; but, though he gave warning to the administration in Ireland, the intelligence was entirely neglected: secret rumours likewise were heard of some approaching conspiracy; but no attention was paid to them. The Earl of Leicester, whom the King had appointed lieutenant, remained in London: the two justices, Sir William Parsons and Sir John Borlace, were men of small abilities; and, by an inconvenience common to all factious times, owed their advancement to nothing but their zeal for the party by whom everything was now governed. Tranquil from their ignorance and inexperience, these men indulged themselves in the most profound repose on the very brink of destruction.
“But they were awakened from their security on the very day before that which was appointed for the commencement of hostilities.[288] The castle of Dublin, by which the capital was commanded, contained arms for 10,000 men, with thirty-five pieces of cannon and a proportionable quantity of ammunition: yet was this important place guarded, and that too without any care, by no greater force than fifty men. Maguire and More were already in town with a numerous band of their partisans; others were expected that night: and, next morning, they were to enter on what they esteemed the easiest of all enterprises, the surprisal of the castle. O’Conolly, an Irishman, but a Protestant, betrayed the conspiracy to Parsons: the justices and council fled immediately for safety into the castle, and reinforced the guards: the alarm was conveyed to the city, and all the Protestants prepared for defence. More escaped; Maguire was taken; and Mahone, one of the conspirators, being likewise seized, first discovered to the justices the project of a general insurrection, and redoubled the apprehensions which already were universally diffused throughout Dublin.
“But though O’Conolly’s discovery saved the castle from a surprise, the confession extorted from Mahone came too late to prevent the intended insurrection. O’Neale and his confederates had already taken arms in Ulster: the Irish, everywhere intermingled with the English, needed but a hint from their leaders and priests to begin hostilities against a people whom they hated on account of their religion, and envied for their riches and prosperity. The houses, cattle, goods of the unwary English were first seized: those who heard of the commotions in their neighbourhood, instead of deserting their habitations, and assembling for mutual protection, remained at home, in hopes of defending their property; and fell thus separately into the hands of their enemies. After rapacity had fully exerted itself, cruelty—and the most barbarous that ever in any nation was known or heard of—began its operations: a universal massacre commenced of the English, now defenceless, and passively resigned to their inhuman foes: no age, no sex, no condition was spared: the wife, weeping for her butchered husband, and embracing her helpless children, was pierced with them, and perished by the same stroke: the old, the young, the vigorous, the infirm, underwent a like fate, and were confounded in one common ruin. In vain did flight save from the first assault; destruction was everywhere let loose, and met the hunted victims at every turn: in vain was recourse had to relations, to companions, to friends: all connections were dissolved, and death was dealt by that hand from which protection was implored and expected. Without provocation, without opposition, the astonished English, living in profound peace and full security, were massacred by their nearest neighbours, with whom they had long upheld a continual intercourse of kindness and good offices.
“But death was the slightest punishment inflicted by those rebels: all the tortures which wanton cruelty could devise, all the lingering pains of body, the anguish of mind, the agonies of despair, could not satiate revenge excited without injury, and cruelty derived from no cause. To enter into particulars would shock the least delicate humanity: such enormities, though attested by undoubted evidence, appear almost incredible: depraved nature, even perverted religion, encouraged by the utmost license, reach not to such a pitch of ferocity; unless the pity inherent in human breasts be destroyed by that contagion of example, which transports men beyond all the usual motives of conduct and behaviour.
“The weaker sex themselves, naturally tender to their own sufferings and compassionate to those of others, here emulated their more robust companions in the practice of every cruelty: even children, taught by the example, and encouraged by the exhortation of their parents, essayed their feeble blows on the dead carcasses or defenceless children of the English. The very avarice of the Irish was not a sufficient restraint of their cruelty: such was their frenzy, that the cattle which they had seized, and by rapine made their own, yet, because they bore the name of English, were wantonly slaughtered, or, when covered with wounds, turned loose into the woods and deserts.
“The stately buildings or commodious habitations of the planters, as if upraiding the sloth and ignorance of the natives, were consumed with fire, or laid level with the ground; and where the miserable owners, shut up in their houses, and preparing for defence, perished in the flames, together with their wives and children, a double triumph was afforded to their insulting foes.
“If any where a number assembled together, and, assuming courage from despair, were resolved to sweeten death by revenge on their assassins; they were disarmed by capitulations and promises of safety, confirmed by the most solemn oaths: but no sooner had they surrendered, than the rebels, with perfidy equal to their cruelty, made them share the fate of their unhappy countrymen.
“Others, more ingenious still in their barbarity, tempted their prisoners by the fond love of life, to imbrue their hands in the blood of friends, brothers, parents; and having thus rendered them accomplices in guilt, gave them that death which they sought to shun by deserving it.
“Amidst all these enormities, the sacred name of religion resounded on every side; not to stop the hands of these murderers, but to enforce their blows, and to steel their hearts against every movement of human or social sympathy. The English, as heretics, abhorred of God, and detestable to all holy men, were marked out by the priests for slaughter; and, of all actions, to rid the world of these declared enemies to Catholic faith and piety, was represented as the most meritorious. Nature, which, in that rude people, was sufficiently inclined to atrocious deeds, was farther stimulated by precept, and national prejudices empoisoned by those aversions, more deadly and incurable, which arose from an enraged superstition. While death finished the sufferings of each victim, the bigoted assassins, with joy and exultation, still echoed in his expiring ears, that these agonies were but the commencement of torments infinite and eternal.