ignorant peasants, believing them to be endowed with miraculous
powers, followed them with the blind adherence that only fanaticism
can inspire. And yet--so strangely contradictory is everything in
Ireland--there is clear evidence that amongst those priestly agitators
many were at heart deists, who were making use of religion in the
hope of furthering Jacobinism. Many Protestants saved their lives by
apostatizing, or by allowing their children to be rebaptized; it is
but fair to add, however, that several of the older priests, shocked
at the conduct of the rebels, concealed heretics in their houses and
churches; and that all through the war many priests, in spite of the
difficulty of their position, remained loyal and did what they could
to aid the king's troops.

The rebels for some weeks held command of the town and county of
Wexford, their chief camp being at a place called Vinegar Hill. The
country around was searched and plundered; the Protestants who were
captured were brought into the rebel camp, and there deliberately
butchered in cold blood. How many perished it is impossible to say;
the number must have been at the least 400.

I would willingly pass over this dreadful episode. I have no more
desire to dwell on it than I have on Cromwell's conduct at Drogheda.
I regard it merely as one of those terrible incidents which alas have
taken place in almost every campaign. It was probably equalled in
character if not in magnitude by several outrages committed by the
other side; and certainly parallels could be found in the French
invasion of Algeria fifty years later and in many other wars of the
nineteenth century. When men have been fired with the diabolical
passions that war arouses, and have grown accustomed to the ghastly
sights on battlefields, they cease to be reasoning beings; they become