By the Commissioners of Parliament for the Affairs of Ireland.

’Whereas we are informed by divers persons of repute and godliness, that Mrs. Jane Preswick hath, through the blessing of God, been very successful within Dublin and parts about, through the carefull and skillfull discharge of her midwife’s duty, and instrumental to helpe sundry poore women who needed her helpe, which bathe abounded to the comfourte and preservation of many English women, who (being come into a strange country) had otherwise been destitute of due helpe, and necessitated to expose their lives to the mercy of Irish midwives, ignorant in the profession, and bearing little good will to any of the English nation, which being duly considered, we thought fitt to evidence this our acceptance thereof, and willingness that a person so eminently qualified for publique good and so well reported of for piety and knowledge in her art should receive encouragement and protection,’ &c.

Cromwell and his ministers did not hesitate about applying heroic remedies for what they conceived to be grievances.  The Irish parliament was abolished, like the Irish churches, the Irish cities, and everything else that could be called Irish, except the thing for which they fought—­the land, which was to be Irish no more.  The new England which the Protector established in the Island of Saints was represented, like Scotland, in the united parliament at Westminster—­which first assembled in 1657.  In that parliament, Major Morgan represented the county of Wicklow.  In speaking against some proposed taxation for Ireland, he said, among other things, the country was under very heavy charges for rewards paid for the destruction of three beasts—­the wolf, the priest, and the tory.  ’We have three beasts to destroy,’ he said, ’that lay burdens upon us.  The first is a wolf, on whom we lay 5 l. a head if a dog, and 10 l. if a bitch.  The second beast is a priest, on whose head we lay 10 l.; if he be eminent, more.  The third beast is a tory, on whose head, if he be a public tory, we lay 20 l.; and 40 s. on a private tory.  Your army cannot catch them:  the Irish bring them in; brothers and cousins cut one another’s throats.’

In May, 1653, the council issued the following printed declaration.  ’Upon serious consideration had of the great multitudes of poore swarming in all parts of this nacion, occasioned by the devastation of the country, and by the habits of licentiousness and idleness which the generality of the people have acquired in the time of this rebellion; insomuch that frequently some are found feeding on carrion and weeds,—­some starved in the highways, and many times poor children who have lost their parents, or have been deserted by them, are found exposed to and some of them fed upon by ravening wolves and other beasts and birds of prey.’

No wonder the wolves multiplied and became very bold, when they fed upon such dainty fare as Irish children!  By what infatuation, by what diabolical fanaticism were those rulers persuaded that they were doing God a service, or discharging the functions of a Government, in carrying out such a policy, and consigning human beings to such a fate!