When the English had destroyed all the houses and churches, burnt all the corn, and driven away all the cattle, they were disgusted at the savage state in which the remnant of the peasantry lived.  A gentleman named Andrew Trollope gave expression to this feeling thus:  ’The common people ate flesh if they could steal it, if not they lived on shamrock and carrion.  They never served God or went to church; they had no religion and no manners, but were in all things more barbarous and beast-like than any other people.  No governor shall do good here,’ he said, ’except he show himself a Tamerlane.  If hell were open and all the evil spirits abroad, they could never be worse than these Irish rogues—­rather dogs, and worse than dogs, for dogs do but after their kind, and they degenerate from all humanity.’[1]

[Footnote 1:  Froude, vol. xi. p.246.]

The population of Ireland was then by slaughter and famine reduced to about 600,000, one-eighth of the population of England; but far too many, in the estimation of their English rulers.  Brabason succeeded Malby in Connaught, and surpassed him in cruelty.  The Four Masters say:  ’Neither the sanctuary of the saint, neither the wood nor the forest valley, the town nor the lawn, was a shelter from this captain and his people, till the whole territory was destroyed by him.’  In the spring of 1582 St. Leger wrote from Cork:  ’This country is so ruined as it is well near unpeopled by the murders and spoils done by the traitors on the one side, and by the killing and spoil done by the soldiers on the other side, together with the great mortality in town and country, which is such as the like hath never been seen.  There has died by famine only not so few as 30,000 in this province in less than half a year, besides others that are hanged and killed.’

At length the world began to cry shame on England; and Lord Burghley was obliged to admit that the English in Ireland had outdone the Spaniards in ferocious and blood-thirsty persecution.  Remonstrating with Sir H. Wallop, ancestor of Lord Portsmouth, he said that the ’Flemings had not such cause to rebel against the oppression of the Spaniards, as the Irish against the tyranny of England.’  Wallop defended the Government; the causes of the rebellion were not to be laid at the door of England at all.  They were these, ’the great affection they generally bear to the Popish religion, which agreeth with their humour, that having committed murder, incest, thefts, with all other execrable offences, by hearing a mass, confessing themselves to a priest, or obtaining the Pope’s pardon, they persuade themselves that they are forgiven, and, hearing mass on Sunday or holyday, they think all the week after they may do what heinous offence soever and it is dispensed withal.’  Trollope said they had no religion.  Wallop said they had too much religion.  But their nationality was worse than their creed.  Wallop adds, ’They also much hate our nation, partly through the general mislike or disdain one nation hath to be governed by another; partly that we are contrary to them in religion; and lastly, they seek to have the government among themselves.’