5.  The terms of indignation, and abhorrence in which the sack of Drogheda was described by the royalists of that period are well known.  I shall add here another testimony; not that it affords more important information, but because I am not aware that it has ever met the eye of more recent historians; the testimony of Bruodin, an Irish friar, of great eminence and authority in the Franciscan order.  “Quinque diebus continuis haec laniena (qua, nullo habito locorum, sexus, religionis aut aetatis discrimine, juvenes et virgines lactantes aeque ac senio confecti barbarorum gladiis ubique trucidati sunt) duravit.  Quatuor milia Catholicorum virorum (ut de infinita multitudine religiosorum, foeminarum, puerorum, puellarum et infantium nihil dicam) in civitate gladius impiorum rebellium illa expugnatione devoravit.”—­Propugnaculum Cathol.  Veritatis, lib. iv. c. 14, p. 678.

6.  Here another question occurs.  How did Cromwell obtain possession of Drogheda? for there appears in his despatches a studied evasion of the particulars necessary to give a clear view of the transaction.  The narrative is so confused that it provokes a suspicion of cunning and concealment on the part of the writer.  The royalists affirmed that the place was won through promises of quarter which were afterwards perfidiously violated, and their assertion is supported by the testimony of Ormond in an official letter written from the neighbourhood to Lord Byron.  “Cromwell,” he says, “having been twice beaten from the breach, carried it the third time, all his officers and soldiers promising quarter to such as would lay down their arms, and performing it as long as any place held out, which encouraged others to yield; but when they had all once in their power, and feared no hurt that could be done them, then the word no quarter went round, and the soldiers were, many of them, forced against their wills to kill their prisoners.  The governor and all his officers were killed in cold blood, except some few of least consideration that escaped by miracle.”—­Sept. 29, Carte’s Letters, ii. 412.  It is possible, though not very probable, that Ormond suffered himself to be misled by false information.  It should, however, be observed, that there is nothing in his account positively contradicted by Cromwell’s despatch.  Cromwell had, not forbidden the granting of quarter before the storm.  It was afterwards, “in the heat of the action,” that he issued this order.  But at what part of the action?  On what account?  What had happened to provoke him to issue it?  He tells us that within the breach the garrison had thrown up three entrenchments; two of which were soon carried, but the third, that on the Mill-Mount, was exceedingly strong, having a good graft, and strongly palisaded.  For additional particulars we must have recourse to other authority, from which we learn that within this work was posted a body of picked soldiers with every thing requisite for a vigorous defence, so that it could not have