If this part of the rising failed, the other portions, unhappily, were only too successful.  The same day the Protestant settlers in Armagh and Tyrone, unsuspicious of any danger, were suddenly set upon by a horde of armed or half-armed men, dragged out of their houses, stripped to the skin, and driven, naked and defenceless, into the cold.  No one dared to take them in, every door was shut in their faces, and though at first no actual massacre seems to have been intended, hundreds perished within the first few days of exposure, or fell dead by the roadside of famine and exhaustion.

Sir Phelim O’Neill—­a drunken ruffian for whom even the most patriotic historian finds it hard to say a redeeming word—­was here the ringleader.  On the same day—­the 23rd of October—­he got possession of the fort of Charlemont, the strongest position in the new plantation, by inviting himself to dinner with Lord Caulfield, the governor, and suddenly seizing him prisoner.  Dungannon, Mountjoy, and several of the other forts, were also surprised and taken.  Enniskillen, however, was saved by its governor, Sir William Cole, and Derry, Coleraine, and Carrickfergus, had also time fortunately to shut their gates, and into these as many of the terrified settlers as could reach them crowded.

These were few, however, compared to those who could find no such haven of refuge.  Sir Phelim O’Neill, mad with excitement, and intoxicated with the sudden sense of power, hounded on his excited and undisciplined followers to commit every conceivable act of cruelty and atrocity.  Disappointed by the failure of the more important part of the rising, and furious at the unsuccess of his attempts to capture the defended towns, he turned like a bloodhound upon those unfortunates who were within his grasp.  Old Lord Caulfield was murdered in Sir Phelim’s house by Sir Phelim’s own foster-brother; Mr. Blaney, the member for Monaghan, was hanged; and some hundreds of the inhabitants of Armagh, who had surrendered on promise of their lives, were massacred in cold blood.  As for the more irregular murders committed in the open field upon helpless, terrified creatures, powerless to defend themselves, they are too numerous to relate, and there is happily no purpose to be gained in repeating the harrowing details.  The effect produced by the condition of the survivors upon those who saw them arrive in Dublin and elsewhere—­spent, worn out, frozen with cold, creeping along on hands and knees, and all but at the point of death—­was evidently ineffaceable, and communicates itself vividly to us as we read their descriptions.