Historical and Political Notes on the Life of Oliver Cromwell

continues from previous page: the Irish, under James I, had conspired in a peaceful union into one body and Kingdom; and all rancor and discord, through the pursuit of peace, had subsided under just Kings, and a sincere affection of the peoples and tranquility of spirits had flourished again. And had it not been for the disturbers of the peace (sounding the trumpet of war to the English), a long and uncorrupted happiness would have undoubtedly remained. However, those disturbers of the peace are spoken of by the author, as I surmise, who grieved that the King had been snatched away and beheaded against the force of their oath, and who consented only with difficulty to an uncontrolled dominion and one that dragged the Republic toward itself. The Author boasts that he perhaps restored these tumultuous people to a constant peace, but alas! with the loss of English and Scottish liberty; and in Ireland, with the near excision of the entire nation. For when he perceived that the grief for the lost King and hatred of himself had taken root so deeply in the nation that they could not be captured by any of his soothing measures; but rather, their arms had turned to fury and their anger to desperation: he pursued the ultimate and most violent plan to remove the obstacle of his dominion, and rendered the soil to solitude and the fields to those widowed of their owners. For they fought, deprived of all aid, so pertinaciously that, after they fell defending themselves several times, they were slaughtered with impunity as victims of public English wrath; neither sex nor rank exempted anyone, until, as the anger subsided a little, what remained of the nation was sold as if under the spear, part passing to New England (they call the islands Barbados) for rustic servitude, part given to the Spanish (with whom he was then on excellent terms) for military service, and the remainder allowed the most miserable right of emigration, and a hatred more than Vatinian A reference to Vatinius, a figure notorious for being universally hated, thus implying an intense, irrational animosity. was indulged as travel money; and those whom hiding places or their own poverty had covered, finally yielded to servitude in the new colonies brought over from England. The nobler fiefs were applied to the treasury, while the rest were conceded to those who were either accomplices in the crimes and hoped for a small gain from the most unjust servitude, or to those who bought them, who, being privately needy and degenerate, measured all their hopes from the public ruin. This is that excellent restoration of public peace. Certainly, surgeons are not pleasing to whom no care in curing diseases occurs other than the cutting off of the most important limbs of the body. And it is true: he came, he saw, he conquered, but add this too: he destroyed the nation, he ruined Liberty.