[Footnote 1:  Carew Papers; Froude, vol. xi. p.225.]

Ormond was the arch-destroyer of his countrymen.  In a report of his services he stated that in this one year 1580, he had put to the sword ’forty-six captains and leaders, with 800 notorious traitors and malefactors, and above 4,000 other people.’[1] In that year the great Desmond wrote to Philip of Spain that he was a homeless wanderer.  ’Every town, castle, village, farm-house belonging to him or his people had been destroyed.  There was no longer a roof standing in Munster to shelter him.’  Hunted like a wolf through the mountains, he was at last found sleeping in a hut and killed.  In vain his wife pleaded with Ormond, and threw herself on his protection.  Even she was not spared.  Mr. Froude gives an interesting account of Desmond’s last hours.  He was hunted down into the mountains between Tralee and the Atlantic.  M’Sweeny had sheltered him and fed him through the summer, though a large price was set on his head; and when M’Sweeny was gone, killed by an Irish dagger, the earl’s turn could not be distant.  Donell M’Donell Moriarty had been received to grace by Ormond, and had promised to deserve his pardon.  This man came to the captain of Castlemayne, gave information of the hiding-place, a band was sent—­half-a-dozen English soldiers and a few Irish kerne, who stole in the darkness along the path which followed the stream—­the door was dashed in, and the last Earl of Desmond was killed in his bed.

[Footnote 1:  Carew Papers; Froude, vol. xi. p.225.]

Ormond had recourse to a horrible device to extinguish the embers of the rebellion.  It was carrying out to a diabolical extent the policy of setting one Irishman against another.  If the terror-stricken wretches hoped for pardon, they must deserve it, by murdering their relations.  Accordingly sacks full of the heads of reputed rebels were brought in daily.  Yet concerning him Mr. Froude makes this singular remark:  ’To Ormond the Irish were human beings with human rights.  To the English they were vermin, to be cleared from off the earth by any means that offered.’

Consequently, when it was proposed to make Ormond viceroy, the Pale was in a ferment.  How could any man be fit to represent English power in Dublin Castle, who regarded the Irish as human beings!  Not less curious is the testimony which the historian bears to the character of the English exterminators.  He says, ’They were honourable, high-minded men, full of natural tenderness and gentleness, to every one with whom they were placed in human relations.  The Irish, unfortunately, they looked upon as savages who had refused peace and protection when it was offered to them, and were now therefore to be rooted out and destroyed.’  A reformer in 1583, however, suggested a milder policy.  He recommended that ’all Brehons, carraghs, bards, rhymers, friars, monks, jesuits, pardoners, nuns, and such-like should be executed by martial law, and that with this clean sweep the work of death might end, and a new era be ushered in with universities and schools, a fixed police, and agriculture, and good government.’