The stage of Irish politics now presented the most extraordinary complications political and military.  The confederation was occupied with endless debates and dissensions.  Commanders changed positions so rapidly, the several causes for which men had been fighting became so confused in the unaccountable scene-shifting, giving glimpses now of the king, now of the commonwealth, and now of the pope, that no one knew what to do, or what was to be the end.  The nuncio went home in disgust that his blessings and his curses, which he dispensed with equal liberality, had so little effect.

At length appeared an actor who gave a terrible unity to the drama of Irish politics.  Cromwell left London in July 1649, ’in a coach drawn by six gallant Flanders mares,’ and made a grand progress to Bristol.  He landed at Ring’s End, near Dublin, on August 14.  He entered the city in procession and addressed the people from ‘a convenient place,’ accompanied by his son Henry, Blake, Jones, Ireton, Ludlow, Hardress, Waller, and others.  The history of Cromwell’s military exploits in Ireland is well known.  I pass on, therefore, to notice the effects of the war on the condition of the people.

As usual, in such cases, the destruction of the crops and other provisions by the soldiers, brought evil to the conquerors as well as to their victims.  There had been a fifteen years’ war in Ulster, when James I. ascended the throne, and it left the country waste and desolate.  Sir John Davis, his attorney-general, asserted the unquestionable fact that perpetual war had been continued between the two nations for ‘four hundred and odd years,’ and had always for its object to ‘root out the Irish.’  James was to put an end to this war, and, as we have seen, the lord deputy promised the people ‘estates’ in their holdings.  The effect of this promise, as recorded by Davis, is remarkable.  ’He thus made it a year of jubilee to the poor inhabitants, because every man was to return to his own house, and be restored to his ancient possessions, and they all went home rejoicing.’

Poor people! they soon saw the folly of putting their trust in princes.  Now, after a seven years’ war, the nation was again visited with famine, and the country converted into a wilderness.  Three-fourths of the cattle had been destroyed; and the commissioners for Ireland reported to the council in England in 1651, that four parts in five of the best and most fertile land in Ireland lay waste and uninhabited, stating that they had encouraged the Irish to till the land, promising them the enjoyment of the crops.  They had also given orders ’for enforcing those that were removed to the mountains to return.’  The soldiers were employed to till the lands round their posts.  Corn had to be imported to Dublin from Wales.  So scarce was meat that a widow was obliged to petition the authorities for permission to kill a lamb; and she was ’permitted and lycensed to kill and dresse so much lambe as shall be necessary