Note 545 — Chapter XVIII · ON THE CONSTITUTION OF IRELAND

Sir John Temple reckons the number of protestants murdered, or destroyed in some manner, from the breaking out of the rebellion in October 1641, to the cessation in September 1643, at three hundred thousand, an evident and enormous exaggeration; so that the first edition being incorrectly printed, and with numerals, we might almost suspect a cipher to have been added by mistake (p. 15, edit. Maseres). Clarendon says forty or fifty thousand were murdered in the first insurrection. Sir William Petty, in his Political Anatomy of Ireland, from calculations too vague to deserve confidence, puts the number massacred at thirty-seven thousand. Warner has scrutinised the examinations of witnesses, taken before a commission appointed in 1643, and now deposited in the library of Trinity College, Dublin; and, finding many of the depositions unsworn, and others founded on hearsay, has thrown more doubt than any earlier writer on the extent of the massacre. Upon the whole, he thinks twelve thousand lives of protestants the utmost that can be allowed for the direct or indirect effects of the rebellion, during the two first years, except losses in war (History of Irish Rebellion, p. 397), and of these only one-third by murder. It is to be remarked, however, that no distinct accounts could be preserved in formal depositions of so promiscuous a slaughter, and that the very exaggerations show its tremendous nature. The Ulster colony, a numerous and brave people, were evidently unable to make head for a considerable time against the rebels; which could hardly have been, if they had only lost a few thousands. It is idle to throw an air of ridicule (as is sometimes attempted) on the depositions, because they are mingled with some fabulous circumstances, such as the appearance of the ghosts of the murdered on the bridge at Cavan; which by the way, is only told, in the depositions subjoined to Temple, as the report of the place, and was no cold-blooded fabrication, but the work of a fancy bewildered by real horrors.

Carte, who dwells at length on every circumstance unfavourable to the opposite party, despatches the Ulster massacre in a single short paragraph, and coolly remarks, that there were not many murders, "considering the nature of such an affair," in the first week of the insurrection. Life of Ormond, i. 175-177. This is hardly reconcilable to fair dealing. Curry endeavours to discredit even Warner's very moderate estimate; and affects to call him in one place (p. 184) "a writer highly prejudiced against the insurgents," which is grossly false. He praises Carte and Nalson, the only protestants he does praise, and bestows on the latter the name of impartial. I wonder he does not say that no one protestant was murdered. Dr. Lingard has lately given a short account of the Ulster rebellion (Hist. of England, x. 154), omitting all mention of the massacre, and endeavouring in a note at the end of the volume, to disprove, by mere scraps of quotation, an event of such notoriety, that we must abandon all faith in public fame if it were really unfounded.