Of the spirit in which these several sieges were conducted, it is impossible to speak without a shudder. It was, in truth, a spirit of hatred and fanaticism, altogether beyond the control of the revolutionary leader. At Drogheda, the work of slaughter occupied five entire days. Of the brave garrison of 3,000 men, not thirty were spared, and these, "were in hands for the Barbadoes;" old men, women, children and priests, were unsparingly put to the sword. Wexford was basely betrayed by Captain James Stafford, commander of the castle, whose midnight interview with Cromwell, at a petty rivulet without the walls, tradition still recounts with horror and detestation. This port was particularly obnoxious to the Parliament, as from its advantageous position on the Bristol channel, its cruisers greatly annoyed and embarrassed their commerce. "There are," Cromwell writes to Speaker Lenthall, "great quantities of iron, hides, tallow, salt, pipe and barrel staves, which are under commissioners' hands to be secured. We believe there are near a hundred cannon in the fort and elsewhere in and about the town. Here is likewise some very good shipping; here are three vessels, one of them of thirty-four guns, which a week's time would fit for sea; there is another of about twenty guns, very nearly ready likewise." He also reports two other frigates, one on the stocks, which "for her handsomeness' sake" he intended to have finished for the Parliament, and another "most excellent vessel for sailing," taken within the fort, at the harbour's mouth. By the treachery of Captain Stafford, this strong and wealthy town was at the mercy of those "soldiers of the Lord and of Gideon," who had followed Oliver to his Irish wars. The consequences were the same as at Drogheda—merciless execution on the garrison and the inhabitants.
In the third month of Cromwell's campaign, the report of Owen O'Neil's death went abroad, palsying the Catholic arms. By common consent of friend and foe, he was considered the ablest civil and military leader that had appeared in Ireland during the reigns of the Stuart kings. Whether in native ability he was capable of coping with Cromwell, was for a long time a subject of discussion; but the consciousness of irreparable national loss, perhaps, never struck deeper than amid the crash of that irresistible cannonade of the walled towns and cities of Leinster and Munster. O'Neil had lately, despairing of binding the Scots or the English, distrustful alike of Coote and of Monck, been reconciled to Ormond, and was marching southward to his aid at the head of 6,000 chosen men. Lord Chancellor Clarendon assures us that Ormond had the highest hopes from this junction, and the utmost confidence in O'Neil's abilities. But at a ball at Derry, towards the end of August, he received his death, it is said, in a pair of poisoned russet leather slippers presented to him by one Plunkett; marching southward, borne in a litter, he expired at Clough Oughter Castle, near his old Belturbet camp, on the 6th of November, 1649. His last act was to order one of his nephews—Hugh O'Neil—to form a junction with Ormond in Munster without delay. In the chancel of the Franciscan Abbey of Cavan, now grass-grown and trodden by the hoofs of cattle, his body was interred; his nephew and successor did honour to his memory at Clonmel and Limerick. It was now remembered, even by his enemies, with astonishment and admiration, how for seven long years he had subsisted and kept together an army, the creature of his genius; without a government at his back, without regular supplies, enforcing obedience, establishing discipline, winning great victories, maintaining, even at the worst, a native power in the heart of the kingdom. When the archives of those years are recovered (if they ever are), no name more illustrious for the combination of great qualities will be found preserved there than the name of this last national leader of the illustrious lineage of O'Neil.