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Liberalism, Surveillance,
and Resistance
Indigenous Communities in Western Canada,
1877–1927
This page intentionally left blank
Liberalism, Surveillance,
and Resistance
Indigenous Communities in Western Canada,
1877–1927

by

Keith D. Smith
© 2009 Keith D. Smith

Published by AU Press, Athabasca University

1200, 10011 – 109 Street
Edmonton, AB T5J 3S8

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Smith, Keith D. (Keith Douglas), 1953-

Liberalism, surveillances and resistance : Indigenous communities
in Western Canada, 1877-1927 / Keith D. Smith.

(The West unbound : social and cultural studies series, 1915-8181)

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Issued also in electronic format (978-1-897425-40-4).
ISBN 978-1-897425-39-8

1. Liberalism–Alberta–History. 2. Liberalism–British
Columbia–History. 3. Indians of North America–Alberta–History.
4. Indians of North America–British Columbia–History.
5. Marginality, Social–Alberta–History. 6. Marginality, Social–
British Columbia–History. 7. Northwest Territories–History–
1870-1905. 8. Alberta–History–1905-1945. 9. British Columbia–
History–1871-. I. Title. II. Series: West unbound, social and
cultural studies

E78.C2S622 2009 971.1004’97 C2009-901394-0

This book is part of The West Unbound: Social and Cultural

Studies series
ISSN 1915-8181 (print)
ISSN 1915-819X (electronic)

Cover and book design by Alex Chan

Maps by Dwight Allott
Map, p. x, adapted from The True Spirit and Original Intent
of Treaty 7 by Treaty 7 Elders and Tribal Council with
Walter Hildebrandt, Dorothy First Rider, and Sarah Carter,
McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1996.

Printed and bound in Canada by Marquis Book Printing

This publication is licensed under a Creative Commons License,

see www.creativecommons.org. The text may be reproduced for
non-commercial purposes, provided that credit is given to the
original author.

Please contact AU Press, Athabasca University at

[email protected] for permission beyond the usage
outlined in the Creative Commons license.
To Leanne and Clayton
 Contents

Acknowledgements iv

CHAPTER ONE
The Liberal Surveillance Complex 1
Imperialism and Colonial Expansion in Western Canada 7
Liberalism 11
Liberalism and Surveillance 16
Knowing Indians 18
The Homogenizing Impact of “National” History 21
The Agency/Coercion Binary 22
Investigating Colonialism as Cultural Formation and Concrete Experience 23

CHAPTER TWO
The Transformation of Indigenous Territory 29
The Peoples of Treaty 7 31
The Peoples of the Kamloops and Okanagan Regions 36
European Disruptions 42
Reserves as Reformatory Spaces 48

CHAPTER THREE
Churches, Police Forces, and the Department of Indian Affairs 51
Missionary Surveillance and the Surveillance of Missionaries 52
Police Surveillance 56
The Pass System 60
Restriction of Movement in British Columbia 73
Mounted Police and the DIA 77
The Visual Impact of the Mounted Police 81
Relations Between the NWMP and the BCPP 82
Force Strength and External Assistance 83
Police Forces and Indigenous Employees 84
Surveillance of Police 89

CHAPTER FOUR
Disciplinary Surveillance and the Department of Indian Affairs 93
The Department of Indian Affairs’ Hierarchy 96
The Permit System 99
DIA Employees and the Expense of Surveillance 103
Surveillance by and of Indian Agents 104
DIA Surveillance, Indigenous Employment, and Cooperation 123

VI
CHAPTER FIVE
The British Columbia Interior and the Treaty 7 Region to 1877 131
Indian Policy in Canada and the United States 132
Indigenous Lands and Settler Interests 133
Application of Scientific Geography in Western Canada 134
British Columbia Before 1877 138
Indigenous Resistance to 1877 in the British Columbia Interior 143
Establishment of the Joint Reserve Commission 144
The Treaty 7 Region Before 1877 145
Comparing Treaty 7 and the British Columbia Interior Before 1877 147
British Columbia in 1877 149
The Treaty 7 Region in 1877 152
Land Retained in the Text of Treaty 7 156

CHAPTER SIX
The British Columbia Interior, 1877 to 1927 161
Churches and Indigenous Lands in British Columbia 167
Indigenous Resistance in British Columbia Before World War I 170
Long Lake Surrender 173
The McKenna-McBride Commission 179
Indigenous Resistance and the Issue of Consent in British Columbia 188
The Special Joint Committee of 1927 192

CHAPTER SEVEN
The Treaty 7 Region After 1877 197
Nakoda 198
Tsuu T’ina 200
Kainai 203
Piikani 210
Siksika 213
Reserve Reductions and the Nature of Consent 219

CHAPTER EIGHT
Exclusionary Liberalism in World War I and Beyond 223
Conclusion 231

Notes 237
Bibliography 290
Index 316

VII
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Having the opportunity to create a book is indeed a privilege and I feel truly
honoured to have been able to make this journey. Along the way from this
work’s inception as my doctoral dissertation through to this publication, I
have made many friends and accrued many debts. I apologize in advance
to those whose contribution I have neglected to recognize specifically or
adequately below, but I am fully aware that this book could never have
become a reality without the assistance and support of a great many people.
I hope some can recognize their influence here. Many others are likely not
even aware of the impact they have had. Any errors or omissions in the work
that follows are of course my own.
I would first like to extend thanks to the members my Ph.D. examining
committee Cora Voyageur, Alan Smart, Arthur Ray, and Doug Peers for
their thorough engagement with my writing and for their perceptive and
constructive suggestions. I am particularly grateful to my doctoral supervi-
sor, Sarah Carter, who consistently offered extraordinary patience, insightful
comments and suggestions, and crucial guidance and encouragement at all
stages of my doctoral program.
I would also like to acknowledge the generous support of the Social
Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Their doctoral fel-
lowship made my initial research and writing, and graduate student life in
general, a great deal less complicated.
My teachers, colleagues, and friends at Vancouver Island University (for-
merly Malaspina University-College), the University of Victoria, the Univer-
sity of Calgary, and Camosun College, played important roles in many stages
of this work, from supplying employment to providing necessary intellectual
stimulation. Special thanks to Helen Brown who introduced me to the joys
of doing history.
Numerous librarians at each of these institutions helped in countless and
varied ways as well, often well beyond their job descriptions, and seemed
always to do so quickly, happily, and with an expertise that often startled
me. Archivists at Libraries and Archives Canada, British Columbia Archives,
Glenbow Museum, and Kamloops Museum and Archives patiently helped
me gain access to and then navigate the collections under their jurisdiction.
My students in History and First Nations Studies over the past few years
may, at no fault of their own, have slowed down the pace at which this work
progressed, but their interest, their encouragement and humour, and the
unselfish way they shared their own experiences were instrumental in helping
me shape and reshape much of what is presented here.

VIII
 Shawn Cafferky, who is sadly no longer with us, and other friends, con-
tributed to the completion of this work in many ways that included knowing
when I should take a break and understanding when I could not. Thanks to
all of you.
I would further like to thank Walter Hildebrandt and everyone at AU Press
for their generous support and guidance in turning my dissertation into this
book. Scott Anderson and the anonymous reviewers provided useful com-
ments and suggestions.
I would be remiss indeed if I did not mention my parents Kathleen and
Bernard Smith who put up with a precocious child and an argumentative
teenager, but unfortunately did not survive to see the product of their for-
bearance, good and bad, decades later.
Finally, I offer my love and appreciation to Leanne Schultz, my partner
in life, who put up with my long shifts at the archives, eclectic hours
at my computer, and who did without several years of family vacations
without resentment. She constantly provided sustenance for body and
spirit without restraint. I extend loving gratitude too, to my son Clayton,
who was born in the middle of this project and has now embarked on an
academic adventure of his own. He continues to be the most effective teacher
that has ever been part of my life.

IX
X
XI
This page intentionally left blank
 CHAPTER ONE

“a net-work of machinery” 1

The Liberal Surveillance Complex

S AMUEL H. B LAKE , T ORONTO LAWYER , C HAIRMAN OF THE A DVISORY

Board on Indian Education for the Anglican Church, must have been suit-
ably impressed by his reading of the Department of Indian Affairs’ (DIA)
Annual Report for 1906.2 In February 1907, Blake wrote to Frank Oliver,
Superintendent General of Indian Affairs, and declared that Oliver indeed
must have “such a net-work of machinery” at his disposal to “be able to ascer-
tain with accuracy and despatch what it would be impossible for the ordinary
individual to discover.” Certainly the department displayed for public review
a vast array of data, collected by its army of employees stationed throughout
Canada, in its over 600-page report. The information presented in narrative
and tabular format touched on every aspect of the administration of Indian
Affairs and, it seemed, on all aspects of the lives of Indigenous people. There
was more than awe though in Blake’s letter. He also offered a warning: “We
cannot afford to run the risk of a rebellion or of great dissatisfaction with our
dealing among our Indians. We must seek to draw them by persuasion and
to educate them up to the privileges which are freely open to them.”3
These few comments seem innocuous enough, but they point to the heart
of the complex and often cloaked nature of the relations between Indigenous

1
 L I B E R A L I S M , S U RV E I L L A N C E , AND RESISTANCE

people and the newcomers to their territories in western Canada at the end of
the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. Taken together, the
network of intelligence gathering, the fear of “rebellion,” or at least the incon-
venience of dissatisfaction, the rehabilitation project, which was believed
better accomplished by “persuasion” than by force, and the presentation of
opportunities as “freely open” indicate a project that had much in common
with liberal colonial intrusions in other parts of the former British Empire.
The study that follows flows from a desire to understand how these notions
operated together as parts of a web, informed by liberalism and driven
largely by market economics, to create structures that continue to oversee
the life-threatening material conditions faced by many Indigenous peoples
in Canada. It will examine the specific application of liberalism in the period
between 1877 and 1927 in the parts of western Canada that became known
as southern Alberta and the British Columbia interior. As elsewhere, liber-
alism as it was applied in western Canada was an exclusionary rather than
inclusionary force that allowed for extraordinary measures to be employed to
remove Indigenous peoples from the territories of their ancestors.
Since my aim here is to explore the material impact of liberalism and a
market economy, and since this study begins with an understanding that
juridical equality is an insufficient remedy for any resultant inequities, it
would seem that Marxism should provide an obvious interrogatory frame-
work with which to start.4 While I owe a debt to the many scholars who write
with a Marxian understanding of social relations and political economy,
I also recognize the tensions identified by some Indigenous thinkers, between
their ideas of a sovereign future and a liberatory theory that is arguably evo-
lutionary, industrial based, spiritually bereft, Euro-centric, and contextually
bound. As American Indigenous activist Russell Means explained:

Revolutionary Marxism, as with industrial society in other forms,

seeks to ‘rationalize’ all people in relation to industry, maximum
industry, maximum production. It is a materialist doctrine which
despises the American Indian spiritual tradition, our cultures, our
lifeways. Marx himself called us ‘precapitalists’ and ‘primitive.’…
The only manner in which American Indian people could partici-
pate in a Marxist revolution would be to join the industrial system,
to become factory workers ….I think there’s a problem with
language here. Christians, capitalists, Marxists, all of them have
been revolutionary in their own minds. But none of them really
mean revolution. What they really mean is continuation.5

2
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
 “Who has not heard, while Erin yet
Strove ’gainst the Saxon’s iron bit,
Who has not heard how brave O’Neill
In English blood imbrued his steel;
Against St. George’s cross blazed high
The banners of his tanistry—
To fiery Essex gave the foil
And reigned a prince on Ulster soil?
But chief arose his victor pride
When that brave marshal fought and died,
And Avonduff[2] to ocean bore
His billows red with Saxon gore.”

2. Blackwater.

The survivors of Bagnal’s heroic, if defeated, army, fled to

Armagh, which had again fallen into the possession of the English,
and there took shelter. O’Neill invested the place and, being now
provided with artillery, captured from the enemy, speedily compelled
its surrender. The gallant Williams, starved out at Portmore, also
capitulated. O’Neill, with his customary magnanimity, after depriving
the prisoners of both places of their arms, took their parole and sent
them in safety to the Pale, and, for a time, all English power
whatever vanished from the soil of Ulster.
 CHAPTER IX
How O’Neill Baffled Essex—O’Donnell’s Victory of the Curlew Mountains

T HE limits of this simple narrative of Irish history will not permit us

to go into the details of the numerous “risings” of the Irish and
encounters with the disheartened English in the other three
provinces. O’Donnell swept through Connaught, like a very besom of
destruction, drove the English generals into their castles, and other
strong places, and carried Athenry by storm, “sword in hand.” He
also made a raid into Munster, and punished a degenerate O’Brien of
Inchiquin for accepting an English title, and hugging his English
chain as “Earl of Thomond.” Then he returned to Connaught and
finished up what English garrisons still remained there, with few
exceptions. O’Neill himself also made a visit to Munster, said his
prayers at the noble shrine of Holy Cross Abbey, on the winding Suir,
and, the legitimate—according to English notions—Earl of Desmond
being dead, set up an earl of his own. He “put heart into” the rather
slow and cautious Catholic Anglo-Normans of this province, and
caused them to join hands with their Celtic brothers in defence of
country and creed. Under the new earl, they attacked the English
with great spirit, and, although occasionally beaten, managed to
hold the upper hand in most cases.
In Leinster, the O’Mores, the O’Byrnes, the O’Tuhills, and the
Kavanaghs had also risen in arms, and never had Ireland presented
so united a military front, since the first landing of the English on her
shore. There was fighting everywhere, but, outside of O’Neill and
O’Donnell, and, perhaps, the new Desmond, there would not seem
to have been a concerted military plan—probably owing to the rather
long distances between the respective bodies and the difficulty of
communication.
Queen Elizabeth, when she heard of the Irish triumph at the
Yellow Ford, was violently exasperated, and stormed against
Ormond, her Lord Lieutenant, for remaining in Leinster, skirmishing
with the O’Mores and other secondary forces, and leaving everything
in the hands of O’Neill in Ulster. She was now an aged woman, but
still vain and thirsty for admiration. Her reigning favorite was the
brilliant Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, who had made a reputation
in the Spanish wars. In the middle of 1599, this favored warrior,
accompanied by a picked force of at least 20,000 men, landed in
Dublin and assumed chief command. Instead of at once moving with
his fine army, reinforced by the Palesmen and the relics of Norreys’
and Bagnal’s troops, against O’Neill, he imitated the dilatory tactics
of Ormond and wasted away his strength in petty encounters with
the hostile tribes of Leinster and the Anglo-Irish of Munster, most of
whom sided, because of common religious belief, with their Celtic
neighbors. He also committed the grave fault of bestowing high
command on favorites who possessed no capacity for such duties.
While marching to besiege Cahir Castle, in the present county of
Tipperary, he was obliged to pass through a wooded defile in Leix
(Queen’s County), where his rearguard of cavalry was attacked by
the fierce O’Mores and cut to pieces. The Irish tore the white plumes
from the helmets of the fallen English troopers, as trophies, and so
great was their number that the gorge has been called, ever since
that tragical day, Bearna-na-cleite—in English, the “Pass of Plumes.”
Essex, notwithstanding this disaster, which he made no immediate
effort to avenge, marched to Cahir and took the castle; but, in
subsequent encounters with the Munster Irish, he suffered severe
reverses. Near Croom, in Limerick, he was met by the Geraldines
and their allies and badly defeated. Sir Thomas Norreys, Lord
President of Munster—brother of the defeated English commander at
Clontibret—was among the slain. Thus baffled, the haughty Essex
made his way sadly back to Dublin, pursued for a whole week by the
victorious Geraldines. Smarting under his disgrace, he caused the
decimation of an English regiment that had fled from the O’Mores—
something he himself had also been in the habit of doing. He had no
heart to try conclusions with the terrible O’Neill in his Ulster
fastnesses, and sent many letters of excuse to the queen, in which
he dwelt on the strength and courage of the Irish clansmen in war,
and asked for further reinforcements, before venturing against
O’Neill. These were sent him, to the number of several thousand,
and, at length, he seemed ready to move. Sir Conyers Clifford, a
very brave and skilful officer, commanded for Elizabeth in
Connaught. Essex ordered him to march into Ulster and seize certain
strategic points that would open the way for the main army when it
should finally appear in the North. Clifford obeyed his orders with
veteran promptitude. He was soon at Boyle, in the present county of
Roscommon, where he went into camp near the beautiful abbey,
whose ruins are still the admiration of antiquarians. Thence, he
marched northward through the passes of the Corslibh, or Curlew,
Mountains, bent upon penetrating into Ulster. But, in a heavily
timbered ravine, he was fallen upon by the fierce clansmen of Red
Hugh O’Donnell, commanded by their fiery chief in person. When the
English heard the terrible war-cry of “O’Donnell Aboo!” “O’Donnell to
Victory”) echoing along the pass, they knew their hour had come.
However, they met their fate like brave men, worthy of their gallant
commander, and fought desperately, although in vain. They were
soon totally broken and fell in heaps under the stalwart blows of the
Clan O’Donnell. General Clifford and his second in command, Sir
Henry Ratcliffe, were killed, and their infantry, unable to stem the
tide of battle, fled in disorder, carrying with them the cavalry, under
General Jephson, a cool commander who displayed all the qualities
of a good soldier although completely overmatched. Had he not
gallantly covered the retreat, hardly a man of the English infantry
would have reached Boyle in safety. But the valor of Jephson did not
extend to all of his men, some of whom abandoned the field rather
precipitately. The English historian, Moryson, excuses them on the
ground that “their ammunition was all spent.” Sligo, the key of North
Connaught, fell to O’Donnell, as one result of this sharp
engagement.
The defeat and death of Clifford would seem to have utterly
demoralized Essex. He again hesitated to advance against O’Neill,
and, instead of doing so, weakly sought a parley with his able
enemy. O’Neill agreed to the proposal, and they met near Dundalk,
on the banks of a river and in presence of their chief officers. The
Irish general, with chivalrous courtesy, spurred his charger half-way
across the stream, but Essex remained on the opposite bank. This,
however, did not prevent the two leaders from holding a protracted
conversation, in the course of which the wily O’Neill completely
outwitted the English peer. They called five officers on both sides
into the conference, and O’Neill repeated the terms he offered after
the victory of Clontibret, in 1595. The Englishman said he did not
think them extravagant, but his sincerity was never tested. Soon
afterward, angered by an epistolary outburst from the old queen, he
threw up his command, and returned to the London court, where
Elizabeth swore at him, ordered him under arrest, had him tried for
treason, and, finally, beheaded—the only cruel act of her stormy life
she ever repented of. The axe that severed the head of Essex from
his body left a scar in Elizabeth’s withered heart that never healed.
 CHAPTER X
King Philip Sends Envoys to O’Neill—The Earl of Mountjoy Lord Deputy

P HILIP II of Spain died in September, 1598, and was succeeded by

his son Philip III, who, it would seem, took more interest in the
Irish struggle against Elizabeth’s temporal and spiritual power than
did his father. Philip, in all likelihood, cared very little about Ireland’s
national aspirations, but, like all of his race, he was a zealous
Catholic, and recognized the self-evident fact that the Irish were,
then, fighting not alone their own battle but also that of the Church,
with heroic vigor. O’Neill began negotiations with the young monarch
immediately after his accession, and Philip responded by sending
two envoys to the Irish general—Don Martin de la Cerda and the
Most Rev. Matthias de Oriedo, who had been appointed by the Pope
Archbishop of Dublin—a purely titular office, seeing that the English
were in full possession of that capital. The bishop presented O’Neill
with “a Phœnix plume,” blessed by his Holiness, and also with
22,000 pieces of gold—a generous contribution in that age, when
money was much more valuable in proportion than it is now.
(O’Sullivan, Moryson, and Mitchel.)
O’Neill, having sufficiently awed the English generals for a period,
made a sort of “royal progress” through Munster and Leinster,
visiting holy places, settling feuds, and inspecting military forces. He
met with, practically, no opposition, but, near Cork, had the
misfortune to lose his gallant cavalry commander, Hugh McGuire,
chief of Fermanagh. The latter was leading a body of horse on a
reconnoitring mission, when suddenly there appeared a force of
English cavalry, bent on a similar errand, under Sir Warham St. Leger
and Sir Henry Power, Queen’s Commissioners, acting in place of Sir
Thomas Norreys. St. Leger rode up to McGuire and discharged a
horse pistol at close range. The heroic Irish chief reeled in his saddle
from a mortal wound, but, before falling, struck St. Leger a crushing
blow on the head with his truncheon, and killed him on the spot.
McGuire, having avenged himself on his enemy, died on the instant.
These were the only two who fell. The English retreated to Cork and
kept within its walls until O’Neill had left the neighborhood. The
Ulster prince turned back through Ormond and Westmeath and
arrived in his own country, “without meeting an enemy, although
there was then in Ireland a royal army amounting, after all the havoc
made in it during the past year, to 14,400 foot and 1,230 horse”—
this, too, exclusive of irregular forces. (Moryson.) This force was well
provided with artillery and all military stores. (Mitchel.)
But O’Neill’s days of almost unclouded triumph were drawing to a
close. He was, at last, about to meet an English commander who, if
not as able as himself, was infinitely more cunning and
unscrupulous. This was Charles Blount, Earl of Mountjoy, a trained
soldier, a veteran diplomat, a fierce Protestant theologian, and a ripe
scholar. His motto, on assuming the duties of Lord Deputy in Ireland,
would seem to have been “Divide and Conquer.” Mountjoy saw, at
once, that steel alone could not now subdue Ireland, and he was
determined to resort to other methods, more potent but less manly.
About the same time, there also came to Ireland two other famous
English generals, Sir George Carew and Sir Henry Dowcra. The new
deputy brought with him large reinforcements, so that the English
army in Ireland was more powerful than it had ever been before;
and Mountjoy’s orders were, in effect, that Ulster, in particular,
should be honeycombed with royal garrisons, especially along its
coast-line. Although Mountjoy himself was checked, at the outset, by
O’Neill’s army, Sir Henry Dowcra, with a powerful force, transported
by sea from Carrickfergus, occupied and fortified the hill of Derry, on
the Foyle—the ground on which now stands the storied city of
Londonderry. Other border garrisons were strengthened by the Lord
Deputy, and everything was made ready for a vigorous prosecution
of the war. The penal laws against the Irish Catholics were softened,
so as, if possible, to detach the Anglo-Irish Catholics from the Celtic
Catholic Irish, and also to impress the weak-kneed among the latter
with “the friendly intentions of her Majesty’s government”—very
much like the court language in use to-day. The bait took, as might
have been expected—for every good cause has its Iscariots—and we
soon hear of jealous kinsmen of the patriot chiefs “coming over to”
the queen’s “interest” and doing their utmost—the heartless
scoundrels—to divide and distract the strength of their country,
engaged in a deadly struggle for her rights and liberty. These
despicable wretches are foul blotches on the pages of Ireland’s
history. But for them, she could have finally shaken off the English
yoke, which would have saved Ireland centuries of martyrdom and
England centuries of shame. And so we find Sir Arthur O’Neill
becoming “the queen’s O’Neill”—his branch of the family had long
been in the English interest; Connor Roe McGuire becoming “the
queen’s McGuire,” and so on ad nauseam. These creatures had no
love for England or Elizabeth, but simply hoped to further their own
selfish ends by disloyalty to their chiefs and treason to their country.
We confess that this is a chapter of Irish history from which we
would gladly turn in pure disgust did not our duty, as a writer of
history, compel us to dwell upon it yet a while longer. Dermot
O’Connor, who held a command under O’Neill’s Desmond in Munster,
yielded to the seductions of Carew and turned upon his leader, in the
interest of his brother-in-law, son of the “great earl,” who was held
as a hostage in London Tower by Elizabeth, and was now used as a
firebrand to stir up feud and faction among the Munster Irish.
Mountjoy had not been many months in Ireland, when, to use the
words of the historian Mitchel, “a network of English intrigue and
perfidy covered the land, until the leaders of the (Irish) confederacy
in Munster knew not whom to trust, or where they were safe from
treason and assassination.” Dermot O’Connor was willing to
surrender Desmond, whom he had kidnapped, to Mountjoy, for a
thousand pounds, but, before he could receive his blood-money, the
“Suggawn (hay-rope) Earl,” as he was called in derision by the
English faction, was rescued by his kinsman, Pierce Lacy. But the
White Knight—frightful misnomer—another relative of the earl—was
more fortunate than O’Connor. He managed to receive the thousand
pounds, delivered Desmond to Carew, and earned enduring infamy.
The “Suggawn Earl” was sent to London and died a miserable
prisoner in the Tower.
Thus, the policy of the Lord Deputy was doing its deadly work in
Munster and also in Leinster, where the Irish were of mixed race,
and where racial animosity could be more easily worked upon than
in Ulster and Connaught, where most of the ancient clans still
remained unbroken and uncontaminated by foreign influences. Yet
Ulster and Connaught had their Benedict Arnolds, too, as we have
shown in the cases of O’Neill and McGuire, and will show in other
cases which yet remain to be mentioned. But in these provinces the
war was national as well as religious, while in Munster it was almost
entirely religious. Most of the Catholic Anglo-Irish would have fought
with the English rather than the Celtic-Irish, if their religion had been
tolerated from the first. Among the Celtic Irish chiefs who went over
to the English in Munster, were O’Sullivan More and McCarthy More
(the Great). The latter had the cowardly excuse that his strong-
minded wife had coerced him into treason, and refused to live with
him until he came to terms with the enemy. Was there ever anything
more disgraceful in the history of manhood and womanhood? They
were, indeed, a couple entirely worthy of each other. The Lord
Deputy, in the meantime, had ravaged the “rebellious” portions of
Leinster, burning houses and crops, and doing other evil things
common to the savage warfare of that period. His greatest piece of
luck, however, was the killing of the brave O’More of Leix in a
skirmish. (Mitchel.)
 CHAPTER XI
Ireland’s Fortunes Take a Bad Turn—Defeat of O’Neill and O’Donnell at Kinsale

T HE English force in Ireland was now (1600-1601) overwhelming,

and as the Irish had no fleet whatever, the English were enabled
to plant garrisons, almost wherever they wished to, around the
Ulster coast, and sometimes posts were also established in the
interior of the country. Thus Derry, Dun-na-long, Lifford, and
numerous other places held strong garrisons, and these sallied forth
at will—the small Irish army being actively engaged elsewhere—and
inflicted heavy damage on the harmless people of the surrounding
districts. The process of crop-burning was in full blast again, and
such Irish people as escaped the sword and the halter had the
horrible vision of perishing by famine ever before their eyes. O’Neill
and O’Donnell were aware of all this, and did the best they could,
under such discouraging circumstances. They were almost at the
end of their resources, and awaited anxiously for the aid, in men and
money, solemnly promised them by the envoy of Philip of Spain. To
add to their ever-growing embarrassment, Niall Garbh (“the Rough”)
O’Donnell, cousin of Red Hugh, and the fiercest warrior of Clan-
Conal, revolted, because of some fancied slight, and also, no doubt,
inflamed by unworthy ambition, against the chief, and went over to
the enemy. Unfortunately, some of the clansmen, who did not look
beyond personal attachment, followed his dishonored fortunes, but
this was about the only serious case of clan defection. The great
body of the Irish galloglasses and kerns—heavy and light infantry—
remained true to their country and their God, and died fighting for
both to the last.
Niall Garbh, after allying himself with the English, occupied the
beautiful Franciscan monastery of Donegal, in which the Annals of
the Four Masters, Ireland’s chronological history, were compiled. Red
Hugh, fiercely indignant, marched against the sacrilegious traitor and
laid siege to him in the holy place. After three months’ investment, it
was taken by storm, and utterly destroyed by fire, except for a few
walls which still remain. The traitor’s brother, Conn O’Donnell, and
several of the misguided clansmen were killed in the conflict, but,
unfortunately, Niall Garbh himself escaped, to still further disgrace
the heroic name of O’Donnell and injure the hapless country that
gave birth to such a monster.
Mountjoy, after frequent indecisive skirmishes with O’Neill, amused
himself by offering a reward of £2,000 for that chieftain’s head, and
smaller amounts for those of his most important lieutenants. But no
man was found among the faithful clansmen of Tyrone to murder his
chief for the base bribe of the Lord Deputy. Yet Mountjoy continued
to gain ground in Ulster, little by little, and he built more forts,
commanding important passes, and garrisoned them in great force.
He also caused most of the woods to be cut away, and thus laid the
O’Neill territory wide open for a successful invasion. O’Neill was an
admirable officer, and still, assisted by Hugh O’Donnell, presented a
gallant front to Mountjoy, but he could do little that was effective
against an enemy who had five times the number of soldiers that he
had, and could thus man important posts, filled with all the
munitions of war, without sensibly weakening his force in the field.
Destitute of foundries and powder factories, he could make no
progress in the matter of artillery, and such cannon as he had were
destitute of proper ammunition. All this the Spaniards could have
supplied, but their characteristic dilatoriness, in the end, ruined
everything. Another circumstance also militated against the success
of the brave O’Neill—the English and their allies were solidly unified
for the destruction of the Irish, while the latter, as we have seen,
were fatally divided by corruption, ambition, jealousy—fostered by
their enemies—and endless English intrigue. No wonder that his
broad brow grew gloomy and that his sword no longer struck the
blows it dealt so fiercely at Clontibret and the Yellow Ford.
At last, however, out of the dark clouds that surrounded his
fortunes, there flashed one sun-ray of hope and joy. News suddenly
reached the north, as well as the Lord Deputy, that a Spanish fleet
had landed in Kinsale Harbor, on the coast of Cork. It carried a small
force—less than 6,000 men, mostly of poor quality—under the
command of the arrogant and incompetent Don Juan de Aguila. He
occupied Kinsale and the surrounding forts at once, but was
disappointed when the Munster Irish—already all but crushed by
Mountjoy—did not flock at once, and in great numbers, to his
standard. Of all the Munster chiefs there responded only O’Sullivan
Beare, O’Connor Kerry, and the brave O’Driscoll. They alone
redeemed, in as far as they could, the apathy of South Munster, and
were justified in resenting the Spanish taunt, bitterly uttered by Don
Juan himself, that “Christ had never died for such people.” The
Spaniard did not, of course, take into consideration, because he did
not know, the exhaustion of South Munster after the Geraldine war
and the wars which succeeded it. Constant defeat is a poor tonic on
which to build up a boldly aggressive patriotism.
The news of the landing at Kinsale reached Red Hugh O’Donnell
while he was in the act of besieging his own castle of Donegal,
surreptitiously seized by Niall Garbh, “the Queen’s O’Donnell,” while
he was absent “at the front,” with O’Neill. He instantly raised the
siege, and, summoning all of his forces, marched southward without
an hour’s delay, as became his ardent and gallant nature. Neither did
O’Neill hesitate to abandon “the line of the Blackwater,” which
guarded his own castle of Dungannon, to its fate, and at once
marched his forces toward Kinsale. The Clan-Conal marched at “the
route step,” through Breffni and Hy-Many, crossing the Shannon near
where it narrows at the east end of Lough Dearg. On through the
Ormonds, where “the heath-brown Slieve Bloom” mountains rise in
their beauty, they pressed, burning, at every footstep, to reach
Kinsale, join the Spaniards, and “have it out” with Mountjoy and the
English. O’Donnell, marching in lighter order and by a different
route, outstripped his older confederate, but narrowly escaped being
intercepted in Tipperary by a superior English force, under General
Carew, detached by the Lord Deputy for that purpose. As Red Hugh
had no intention of giving battle until reinforced by O’Neill, or he had
joined the Spaniards, he made a clever flank movement, by forced
march, over the Slieve Felim Hills, which interposed between him
and Limerick. But the rains had been heavy of late, the mountain
passes were boggy, and neither horses nor carriages (wagons) could
pass. Fortunately, it was the beginning of winter, and, one night,
there came a sharp frost, which sufficiently hardened the ground,
and the Irish army, taking advantage of the kindness of Providence,
marched ahead throughout the dark hours, and, by morning, had
left Carew and his army hopelessly in rear. O’Donnell made thirty-
two miles (Irish), about forty-two English miles, in that movement
and halted at Croom, having accomplished the greatest march, with
baggage, recorded in those hard campaigns. (Pacata Hibernia, cited
by Mitchel.)
His coming among them, as well as the news of the arrival of the
Spaniards, put fresh life into the Irish of West Munster, and, indeed,
Red Hugh stood on scant ceremony with such degenerate Irish as
refused to fight for their country, so that wherever he marched,
fresh patriots, eager to “save their bacon,” in many cases, sprang up
like crops of mushrooms. At Castlehaven he formed a junction with
700 newly arrived Spanish troops, and, together, they marched
toward Kinsale, which Mountjoy and Carew were preparing to invest.
O’Neill and his brave lieutenant, Richard Tyrrell, did not pursue the
route taken by O’Donnell, but had to fight their way through Leinster
and North Munster with considerable loss. At Bandon, in South
Munster, they fell in with O’Donnell and the Spaniards, and all
marched to form an immediate junction with De Aguila. Mitchel,
quoting from O’Sullivan’s narrative, gives the total strength of the
force under O’Neill and O’Donnell at 6,000 foot and 500 horse. The
Irish leader was opposed to risking a general engagement with so
small a command, although O’Donnell, when he beheld Mountjoy’s
troops beleaguering the town, wanted to attack, which, judging by
after events, might have been the better plan. O’Neill argued,
however, that the inclement season would soon destroy a good part
of the English soldiers and counseled delay. O’Donnell yielded
reluctantly, and then the Irish, very badly provided, intrenched
themselves and began “besieging the besiegers.” Prudence, on this
occasion, ruined the cause of Ireland—so often ruined by rashness,
before and since; for, three days after O’Neill’s policy had been
acceded to, that is on Christmas eve, 1601, accident brought on an
engagement, in the dark, which neither party seems to have
anticipated. The tragedy is best related by Mitchel in his life of
O’Neill, thus: “Before dawn, on the morning of the 24th (December),
Sir Richard Graham, who commanded the night guard of horse, sent
word to the deputy that the scouts had discovered the matches
(matchlock muskets were used at this period) flashing in great
numbers in the darkness, and that O’Neill must be approaching the
camp in force. Instantly the troops were called to arms; messengers
were despatched to the Earl of Thomond’s quarter, with orders to
draw out his men. The deputy (Mountjoy) now advanced to meet
the Irish, whom he supposed to be stealing on his camp, and seems
to have effectually surprised them, while endeavoring to prevent a
surprise upon himself. The infantry of O’Neill’s army retired slowly
about a mile further from the town, and made a stand on the bank
of a ford, where their position was strengthened by a bog in flank.
Wingfield, the marshal, thought he saw some confusion in their
ranks, and entreated the deputy that he might be allowed to charge.
The Earl of Clanricarde joined the marshal and the battle became
general. O’Neill’s cavalry repeatedly drove back both Wingfield and
Clanricarde, until Sir Henry Danvers, with Captains Taaffe and
Fleming, came up to their assistance, when, at length, the Irish
infantry fell into confusion and fled. Another body of them, under
Tyrrell, was still unbroken, and long maintained their ground on a
hill, but at length, seeing their comrades routed, they also gave way
and retreated in good order after their main body. The northern
cavalry covered the retreat, and O’Neill and O’Donnell, by amazing
personal exertions, succeeded in preserving order and preventing it
from becoming a total rout.”
Such was the unfortunate battle of Kinsale—the most disastrous,
perhaps, in Irish annals. It was not even well fought, because the
Irish troops, surprised in their sleep, owing to lack of vigilance on
the part of the sentinels, had lost most of their effective arms, their
baggage, and colors at the outset. Their camp, also, came into
immediate possession of the enemy. Thus, they were discouraged—
the Irish character being mercurial, like the French—if not badly
demoralized, and they did not, in this ill-fated action, fight with a
resolution worthy of the fame they had rightfully earned as soldiers
of the first class, nor did they faithfully respond, as heretofore, to
the military genius of their justly renowned leaders. They were
mostly the troops of Ulster, far from home, and lacking the
inspiration that comes to all men when conscious that they are
fighting to defend their own hearths against the spoiler. Ulster, in
that day, was almost alien to the southern province, although the
soldiers of both were fighting in a common cause. Kinsale was,
certainly, not a battle to which Ireland can look back with feelings of
pride, but she may be thankful that there are few such gloomy
failures recorded in her military annals. Yet the bitter fact remains
that Kinsale clouded forever the glory achieved by the troops of
O’Neill and O’Donnell on so many fields of victory. The Spaniards,
who had joined O’Donnell on the march, refused to fly and were
almost all destroyed. Their commander, Del Campo, two officers, and
forty soldiers were all that survived out of seven hundred men, and
they were made prisoners of war. (Mitchel.) In a note, this author,
quoting Pacata Hibernia, says: “The most merciless of all Mountjoy’s
army that day was the Anglo-Irish and Catholic Earl of Clanricarde.
He slew twenty of the Irish with his own hand, and cried aloud to
‘spare no rebels.’ Carew (the English general and writer) says that
‘no man did bloody his sword more than his lordship that day.’” This
episode shows how well Mountjoy’s policy of “Divide and Conquer”
and temporary toleration of the Catholics worked for the English
cause. Had the penal laws not been mitigated this Anglo-Irish and
Catholic Earl of Clanricarde would have fought on the side of Ireland.
De Aguila, seeing that the Irish army was defeated, and that
another effort on the part of O’Neill was rendered impossible by the
loss of his munitions and the lateness of the season, proposed to
capitulate. The Earl of Mountjoy offered him honorable terms, and
De Aguila agreed to surrender to the English all the Irish castles on
the coast to which Spanish garrisons had been admitted, “and
shortly after,” says Mitchel, “set sail for Spain, carrying with him all
his artillery, treasure, and military stores.” Some of the Irish chiefs,
notably the O’Sullivan Beare, refused to ratify that part of De Aguila’s
capitulation which agreed to surrender their castles, occupied by
Spanish troops, to the English. The fortresses had been thrown open
to the Spaniards in good faith, and General de Aguila had no moral
right to give them up. The most he could agree to do was to
withdraw his men from the Irish castles and take them back with
him to Spain. And this was the view taken by the Irish chiefs, with
bloody, but glorious, result, as we shall see.
 CHAPTER XII
Sad Death of O’Donnell in Spain—Heroic Defence of Dunboy

O’ NEILL, when he perceived the hopelessness of the Irish

situation in Munster, conducted what remained of his defeated
army back to the north and cantoned it along the Blackwater for the
winter months, where he felt quite sure the English, worn out by
their exertions at the siege and battle of Kinsale, would not attack
him. Red Hugh O’Donnell, exasperated beyond endurance at the
disregard of his bold advice to attack the beleaguering English, in
conjunction with the Spaniards, on the first arrival of the Irish army
before Kinsale, gave up the command of his clan to his brother,
Roderick, and, with a few followers, sailed for Spain, in search of
further aid. He resolved to ask King Philip for an army, not a
detachment. The chief landed at Coruna, and was received with high
honors by the Spanish authorities. He finally reached the Spanish
Court and placed the whole Irish situation clearly before Philip, who
promised a powerful force and actually gave orders to prepare at
once for a new expedition to Ireland. The sad sequel is well told in
the eloquent words of Mitchel:
“But that armament never sailed, and poor O’Donnell never saw
Ireland more; for news reached Spain, a few months after, that
Dunboy Castle, the last stronghold in Munster that held out for King
Philip, was taken, and Beare-haven, the last harbor in the South that
was open to his ships, effectually guarded by the English; and the
Spanish preparations were countermanded; and Red Hugh was once
more on his journey to court to renew his almost hopeless suit, and
had arrived at Samancas, two leagues from Valladolid, when he
suddenly fell sick. His gallant heart was broken and he died there on
the 10th of September, 1602. He was buried by order of the king
with royal honors, as befitted a prince of the Kinel-Conal; and the
stately city of Valladolid holds the bones of as noble a chief and as
stout a warrior as ever bore the wand of chieftaincy or led a clan to
battle.”
While we do not believe in “painting the devil blacker than he is,”
we think it proper to state here that more recent researches would
seem to have fixed the crime of assassination on the Earl of
Mountjoy. In an account, quoted in several lectures by Frank Hugh
O’Donnell, ex-member of the British Parliament, it is definitely stated
that Red Hugh O’Donnell was poisoned at the inn in Samancas,
where he died, by a hired murderer, named Blake, who acted for the
English Lord Deputy. Such, if the statement is true, were the political
ethics of the Elizabethan era.
Donal O’Sullivan Beare, the bravest of all the Munster leaders,
wrested his castle of Dun-buidhe (Dunboy), in English, “Yellow Fort,”
from the Spaniards after De Aguila had agreed to surrender it to the
English. He justified his conduct to the King of Spain in a pathetic
letter in which he said: “Among other places that were neither
yielded nor taken to the end that they might be delivered to the
English, Don Juan tied himself up to deliver my castle and haven,
the only key to mine inheritance, whereupon the living of many
thousand persons doth rest, that live some twenty leagues upon the
seacoast, into the hands of my cruel, cursed, misbelieving enemies.”
The defence of this castle by the Irish garrison of one hundred
and forty-three men, commanded by O’Sullivan’s intrepid lieutenant,
McGeoghegan, was one of the finest feats of arms recorded in
history. Although only a square tower, with outworks, it held out
against General Carew, the Lord President, for fifteen days. It was
bombarded by the fleet from the haven, and battered by artillery
from the land side. Indeed, Carew had an army of 4,000 veteran
soldiers opposed to McGeoghegan’s 143 heroes. A breach was finally
effected in the castle, but the storming parties were repeatedly
repulsed. The great hall was finally carried, and the little garrison,
under the undaunted McGeoghegan, retreated to the vaults beneath
it, where they sustained the unequal conflict for four-and-twenty
hours, and, by the exertion of unexampled prowess, at last cleared
the hall of the English. The latter replied with an overwhelming
cannonade, and the walls of the castle crumbled about the ears of
its heroic defenders. The latter made a desperate sortie with only
forty men and all perished. The survivors in the castle continued the
defence, but, in the end, their noble commander, McGeoghegan, was
mortally wounded and they laid down their arms. While their
wounded chief lay gasping in the agonies of approaching death, on
the floor of the vault, he saw the English enter the place. The sight
seemed to renew his life and energy. He sprang to his feet, seized a
torch, and made a rush for an open barrel of powder, intending to
blow assailants and assailed into the sky. But an English soldier was
too quick for the dying hero. He seized him in his arms, and a
comrade wrested the torch from the failing hand and extinguished it.
Then they ran their swords through McGeoghegan’s body, and his
glorious deeds and great sufferings were at an end. It should have
been stated that ten of the garrison, who were of the party that
made the sortie, on the failure of their bold effort, attempted to
reach the mainland by swimming across the haven. This movement
was anticipated by the English commander. Soldiers were stationed
in boats to intercept the swimmers, and all were stabbed or shot, as
if they had been beasts of prey. The survivors of the band of Irish
Spartans, who made Dunboy forever memorable in the annals of
martial glory, were instantly hanged by order of Carew, so that not
one of the heroic 143 was left. Ruthless as he was, the Lord
President himself, in an official letter, bore this testimony to their
valor: “Not one man escaped; all were slain, executed, or buried in
the ruins, and so obstinate a defence hath not been seen within this
kingdom.” The defence of Dunboy Castle deserves to rank in history
with Thermopylæ and the Alamo of Texas, and the butchery of its
surviving defenders, in cold blood, was a disgrace to English
manhood. How differently the gallant O’Neill treated the English
prisoners taken at Armagh, Portmore, and other places in Ulster
during the period of his amazing victories. It is cruelties of this
character that made the English name abhorred in Ireland, not the
prowess, or even the bloodthirstiness, of the English soldiery in the
heat of battle. The massacre at Dunboy is an indelible stain on the
memory of Lord President Carew.
 CHAPTER XIII
Wane of Irish Resistance—O’Neill Surrenders to Mountjoy at Mellifont

W ITH the fall of Dunboy, Ireland’s heroic day was almost at an

end for that generation. O’Sullivan and some other Munster
chiefs still held out, but their efforts were only desultory. O’Neill,
accompanied by Richard Tyrrell, the faithful Anglo-Irish leader, rallied
the remnants of his clan and attempted to hold again the line of the
Blackwater. But the English were now too many to be resisted by a
handful of brave men. They closed upon him from every side, and
advanced their posts through the country, so as to effectually cut
him off from communication with Tyrconnel, whose chief on hearing
of the death of his noble brother, Red Hugh, in Spain, made terms
with the Lord Deputy. So, also, did many other Ulster chiefs, who
conceived their cause to be hopeless. O’Neill, still hoping against
hope, and thinking that a Spanish army might yet come to his aid,
burned his castle of Dungannon to the ground, and retired to the
wooded and mountainous portions of his ancient principality, where
he held out doggedly. But the Lord Deputy resorted to his old policy
of destroying the growing crops, and, very soon, Tyrone, throughout
its fairest and most fertile regions, was a blackened waste. Still the
Red Hand continued to float defiantly throughout the black winter of
1602-3; but, at length, despair began to shadow the once bright
hopes of the brave O’Neill. His daring ally, Donal O’Sullivan Beare,
having lost all he possessed in Munster, set out at this inclement
season on a forced march from Glengariff, in Cork, to Breffni, in
Leitrim, fighting his enemies all the way, crossing the Shannon in
boats extemporized from willows and horsehides; routing an English
force, under Colonel Malby, at the “pass of Aughrim,” in Galway,
destined to be more terribly memorable in another war for liberty;
and, finally, reached O’Ruarc’s castle, where he was hospitably
welcomed, with only a small moiety of those who followed him from
their homes,
“—Marching
Over Murkerry’s moors and Ormond’s plain,
His currochs the waves of the Shannon o’erarching
And pathway mile-marked with the slain.”

Even the iron heart of Hugh O’Neill could not maintain its strength
against conditions such as those thus described by Moryson, the
Englishman, who can not be suspected of intensifying the horrid
picture at the expense of his own country’s reputation: “No
spectacle,” he says, “was more frequent in the ditches of towns, and
especially of wasted countries, than to see multitudes of poor people
dead, with their mouths all colored green, by eating nettles, docks,
and all things they could rend up above ground.” There were other
spectacles still more terrible, as related by the English generals and
chroniclers themselves, but we will spare the details. They are too
horrible for the average civilized being of this day to contemplate,
although the age is by no means lacking in examples of human
savagery which go to prove that the wild beast in the nature of man
has not yet been entirely bred out.
Baffled by gold, not by steel, by the torch rather than the sword,
deprived of all his resources, deserted by his allies, and growing old
and worn in ceaseless warfare, it can hardly be wondered at that
O’Neill sent to the Lord Deputy, at the end of February, 1603,
propositions of surrender. Mountjoy was glad to receive them—for
the vision of a possible Spanish expedition, in great force, still
disquieted him—and arranged to meet the discomfited Irish hero at
Mellifont Abbey, in Louth, where died, centuries before, old,
repentant, and despised, that faithless wife of O’Ruarc, Prince of
Breffni, whose sin first caused the Normans to set foot in Ireland. So
anxious was Mountjoy to conclude a peace, that nearly all of O’Neill’s
stipulations were concurred in, even to the free exercise of the
Catholic religion in the subjugated country. He and his allies were
allowed to retain, under English “letters patent,” their original tribe-
lands, with a few exceptions in favor of the traitors who had fought
with the English against their own kindred. It was insisted, however,
by the Deputy, that all Irish titles, including that of “The O’Neill,”
should be dropped, thenceforth and forever, and the English titles of
“nobility” substituted. All the Irish territory was converted into “shire-
ground.” The ancient Brehon Law was abolished, and, for evermore,
the Irish clans were to be governed by English methods. Queen
Elizabeth had died during the progress of the negotiations, and a
secret knowledge of this fact no doubt influenced Mountjoy in
hurrying the treaty to its conclusion, and granting such,
comparatively, favorable conditions to Hugh O’Neill and the other
“rebellious” Irish chiefs. Therefore, it was to the representative of
King James I that Tyrone, at last, yielded his sword—not to the
general of Elizabeth. It is said that in the bitter last moments of that
sovereign, her almost constant inquiry was: “What news from
Ireland and that rascally O’Neill?” The latter’s most elaborate
historian estimates that the long war “cost England many millions in
treasure, and the blood of tens of thousands of her veteran soldiers,
and, from the face of Ireland, it swept nearly one-half of the entire
population.” (Mitchel.) And, he continues: “From that day (March 30,
1603, when O’Neill surrendered at Mellifont), the distinction of ‘Pale’
and ‘Irish country’ was at an end; and the authority of the kings of
England and their (Anglo) Irish parliaments became, for the first
time, paramount over the whole island. The pride of ancient Erin—
the haughty struggle of Irish nationhood against foreign institutions
and the detested spirit of English imperialism, for that time, sunk in
blood and horror, but the Irish nation is an undying essence, and
that noble struggle paused for a season, only to recommence in
other forms and on wider ground—to be renewed, and again
renewed, until—Ah! quousque, Domine, quousque?”
 CHAPTER XIV
Treachery of James I to the Irish Chiefs—“The Flight of the Earls”

A T the outset of his reign, James I, of England, and VI of Scotland,

collateral descendant of that Edward Bruce who had been
crowned King of the Irish in the beginning of the fourteenth century,
promised to rule Ireland in a loving and paternal spirit. He had
received at his London court, with great urbanity, Hugh O’Neill and
Roderick O’Donnell, and had confirmed them in their English titles of
Earl of Tyrone and Earl of Tyrconnel, respectively. They had
accompanied Mountjoy to England, to make their “submissions” in
due form before the king, and, while en route through that country,
were grossly insulted at many points by the common people, who
could not forget their relatives lying dead in heaps in Irish soil,
because of the prowess of the chieftains who were now the guests
of England. It is most remarkable that the English people have
always honored and hospitably entertained the distinguished “rebels”
of all countries but Ireland. Refugees from Poland, from Austria,
from Hungary, from France, from Italy—many of them charged with
using assassin methods—have been warmly welcomed in London,
and even protected by the courts of law, as in the case of the Orsini-
infernal-machine conspirators against Napoleon III, in 1859; but no
Irish “rebel” has ever been honored, or sheltered, or defended by
the English people, or the English courts of law; although individual
Englishmen, like Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, and a few others of their
calibre, have written and spoken in assertion of Ireland’s right to a
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