been taken by force without the loss of some hundreds of men on the part of the assailants.  It so happened, however, that the latter entered it without opposition, and “Colonel Axtell, with some twelve of his men, went up to the top of the mount, and demanded of the governor the surrender of it, who was very stubborn, speaking very big words, but at length was persuaded to go into the windmill at the top of the mount, and as many more of the chiefest of them as it could contain, where they were disarmed, and afterwards all slain.”—­Perfect Diurnal from Oct. 1 to Oct. 8.  Now Cromwell in his despatch says “The governor, Sir Arthur Ashton, and divers considerable officers, being there (on the Mill-Mount), our men, getting up to them, were ordered by me to put them all to the sword.”  In my opinion this passage affords a strong corroboration of the charge made by Ormond.  If the reader compare it with the passage already quoted from the Diurnal, he will find it difficult to suppress a suspicion that Axtell and his men had obtained a footing on the Mill-Mount through the offer of quarter; and that this was the reason why Cromwell, when he knew that they had obtained possession, issued an order forbidding the granting of quarter on any account.  The consequence was, that the governor and his officers went into the mill, and were there disarmed, and afterwards all slain.  The other prisoners were treated in the same manner as their officers.

7.  Ormond adds, in the same letter, that the sack of the town lasted during five days, meaning, probably, from September 11 to September 15, or 16, inclusively.  The same is asserted by most of the royalists.  But how could that be, when the storm began on the 11th, and the army marched from Drogheda on the 15th?  The question may perhaps be solved by a circumstance accidentally mentioned by Dr. Bates, that on the departure of the army, several individuals who had hitherto succeeded in concealing themselves, crept out of their hiding-places, but did not elude the vigilance of the garrison, by whom they were put to the sword.—­Bates’s Rise and Progress, part ii. p. 27.

II. 1.  It did not require many days to transmit intelligence from Dublin to the government; for the admiralty had contracted with a Captain Rich, that for the monthly sum of twenty-two pounds he should constantly have two swift-sailing vessels, stationed, one at Holyhead, the other at Dublin, ready to put to sea on the arrival of despatches for the service of the state.—­Lords’ Journ. ix. 617.  From an accidental entry in Whitelock, it would appear that the letters from Cromwell reached London on the 27th of September; on the 28th, parliament, without any cause assigned in the Journals, was adjourned to October 2nd, and on that day the official account of the massacre at Drogheda was made public.  At the same time an order was obtained from the parliament, that “a letter should be written to the lord lieutenant of Ireland, to be communicated to the officers