The weather was very bad during this journey in Clare, and both generals caught bad colds. Ludlow's constitution triumphed, and he lived till 1692, but Ireton succumbed. In spite of entreaties he had neglected his health during the siege, not putting 'off his clothes all that time, except to change his linen,' and never resting, though he was in a burning fever. Sir Robert King wondered that he was not as mad as a March hare, 'pen, tongue, head or both, or all, incessantly at work.' Ludlow was not with him when he died, and we have few particulars. In announcing his loss to Cromwell, the Commissioners call him an incomparable man, and it is certain that he had a high sense of duty and that he was not a self-seeker. Clarendon and others have thought that his republicanism might have prevented Cromwell's rise to supreme power, but of this there is no evidence. There have been equally vain speculations as to whether Mirabeau, had he lived, could have stopped the French Revolution. Ireton had signed the death-warrant, and as a regicide was of course against restoring the Stuarts, but he was not a theoretical republican, though he would have disliked the supremacy of the army.[221]
[194] Ludlow's _Memoirs_, i. 261; _Aphorismical Discovery_, ii. 97; Letters (Latin) of the Bishop of Waterford, March 3, 1651, of the Bishop of Emly, March 29, and of Anthony Nugent, 'capucinus indignus,' June 30, all three in _Spicilegium Ossoriense_, i. 363-373. Borlase says 17,000 were reported to have died in and about Dublin. Ireton and his officers to Cromwell and the army in Scotland, July 10, 1651, _Milton State Papers_, p. 72.
[195] The instructions to the Commissioners from the Council of State were laid before Parliament, October 4, 1650, and are given in the _Parliamentary History_, xix. 406. Corbet was substituted for Salwey, who had been named but excused at his own request; Ludlow's _Memoirs_, i. 249, 259.
[196] Hugh O'Neill to Ormonde, September 9 and 15, 1650, in _Contemp. Hist._ iii. 180; Diary of Parliamentary Officers, _ib._ 220; W. Basil, A.G., to Lenthall, November 3, _ib._ 265, and to Bradshaw, November 4, in _Parl. Hist._ xix. 439.
[197] Basil's letters and Parliamentary officers' diary, _ut sup._