Ludlow’s last service in the field, Aug.-Sept., 1652.
Fugitives smoked in a cave.
A modern instance.
After the surrender of Muskerry, Ludlow turned his attention to Wicklow and Wexford, where Phelim MacHugh O’Byrne and others still had a considerable force under arms. He placed garrisons in suitable places, who reduced the Irish by destroying their means of subsistence. The green corn was cut and burned, and in a few months the soldiers knew every hiding-place as well as the mountaineers themselves. Early in August, Ludlow turned northwards and garrisoned Carrickmacross. Between that place and Dundalk he came to a cave where a number of men had taken refuge. The soldiers tried to smoke them out, and entered when they supposed them smothered, but the leader was killed by a pistol from inside. It turned out that the cave was ventilated by a hole some way off, and Ludlow ordered this to be stopped. After a time groans were heard, which soon grew fainter, and the man who had fired the shot was drawn out dead. ‘The passage being cleared, the soldiers entered, and, having put about fifteen to the sword, brought four or five out alive, with the priest’s robes, a crucifix, chalice, and other furniture of that kind. Those within preserved themselves by laying their heads close to water that ran through the rock. We found two rooms in the place, one of which was large enough to turn a pike.’ This is not a nice story; but Ludlow, who wrote in cold blood long afterwards, does not offer any apology nor show that he thought any necessary. Nearly two hundred years later the French in Algiers did the same thing on a much larger scale, but they knew that public opinion would be against them, and it was. St. Arnaud did not even venture to tell his own men that five hundred enemies of both sexes and all ages lay suffocated in the cave.[239]
The last of the ‘creaghts.’
Arrival of Fleetwood, September.
After filling the mouth of the cave with large stones, Ludlow established posts at Castle Blayney and Agher, where he found one of the O’Neills living with his wife, whom he described as the Duchess of Artois’ niece, and some children. They wandered about with the cattle as ‘creaghts,’ seeking for grass and water, and at each halt building a house ‘in an hour or two.’ Steps were soon afterwards taken to abolish this system, as one ‘whereby the enemy comes to be relieved and sustained and the contribution oft damaged.’ It was impossible to catch people who had no fixed abode, and who might even commit murder with every chance of impunity. Lisnaskea was fortified and small holds of the Irish at Belturbet and in one of the Lough Erne islands were taken. Reynolds, who had reduced Leitrim, joined Ludlow at Lisnaskea, and the news of Fleetwood’s arrival reached them there. Ludlow says he was glad to be superseded, his exertions for the public having been ‘recompensed only with envy and hatred,’ and he hastened to join the new commander-in-chief at Kilkenny.[240]
FOOTNOTES:
[222] Diary in Contemp. Hist., iii. 260; Ludlow, i. 289, 294. Ireton’s correspondence with Galway, December 7-12, 1651, is printed in Hardiman’s Hist. of Galway, 129; Corbet, Jones, and Weaver to Lenthall, and to Cromwell, December 2, in appx. to Firth’s Ludlow, i. 496.
[223] Ludlow, i. 265; Bishop of Down’s letters, May 13 and 29, 1651, in Nicholas Papers, i. 250, 255.