A British General on Oliver Cromwell.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 23, 5 June 1902, Page 2

A British General on Oliver Cromwell.

A few weeks ago an address, which has created a mild sensation in England, on ' The Cromwellian War in Ireland ' was delivered by General Sir William Butler, X.C.8., under the auspices of the Irish Literary Society in London. General Butler, it will be remembered, was the officer in command of the troops stationed in South Africa before the war broke out, and was recalled because he was outspoken enough to tell the B'itibh Government that in order to subdue the Boers an army would be required five times greater than that which the War Office authorities proposed. Sir William Butler is a student as well as a distinguished soldier, and is consequently specially qualified to appraise at its true value the work of a man whose only claim te gieatness rests on his supposed soldierly qualities and military achievements. As to these latter Sir William ButLr has formed his own opinion, and, as will be seen, he does not mince matters in giving expression to it. Dealing first with the great Irish Rebellion the lecturer showed that spoliation planned in London was the real cause and explanation of the outbreak. He pointed out that long before an English soldier had set a foot m Ireland to suppress the tebellion of 1641 the edict of Confiscation had gone out I torn Parliament. Two million five hundred thousand acres were declared iorfeited and offered as security to those who lent money to the Parliament. On this security a loan of a quarter or a million had been raised. And a body called adventurers had been formed in connection with these securities. In these days ihey would be called a joint stock company. Oi this company Cromvsdl was a leading director,

and they were told that, although far from wealthy, he had contributed £600 to forward the campaign in Ireland. But it appeared that for this £600 he had a security which pave between two and three thousand acres of the richest Inn is in Ireland. It was said that history was the playground of liars, and never since the days of Ht.rodotus had it bef n used for more mendacious purposes than in di-.Jing with the Irish Rebellion. In this mendacity Cromwil himself bore a prominenl pait, and he wa-. the fir t Prc_3 writer and the first Press censor of whom we had record. ♦ Referring to the memorable slaughter at Droghe.'a, the lecturer described it as an exhibition uf unparalk led sivigery. 1 It was,' said Sir William, ' one of the bloodiest landmarks on the long road of human guilt. Cromwell, in a letter to Speaker Lenthal, told him of the evening's retreat into the mill wall, a place very strong and difficult of access, the Governor Ashton and divers considerable officers being there, Our men, said Cromwell, followed up to them, ordered by me to put them to the sword. I forb ide them to spare any. Cromwell in the same letter said he thought that night the soldiers put to the sword about 2000 men. About 100 took up their position in St. Peter's Church steeple, and refused to yield, and I ordered, said Cromwell, the steeple to be fired. •God confound me-,' exel limed one of them, ' I burn.' Proceeding, Sir W. Butler s-<id it would appear from Cromwell's statement, * I forbade them to spare any,' as if some of his soldiers had been wishful to show mercy. Did ever a general commanding ?n army descend to such miserable details ! Imagine a Commander-in-Chief of an army writing to the Speaker of Parliament gloating over the fren/ied exclamations of soldiers whom he had condemned to death. Was there ever heard of in the despatch of a general in the field a parallel for petty publication of savagery, <-uch lip-licking of vengeance as they had there? This nnn a great soldier ! This Parliament a great institution ! Humbug. * After referring to other acts of savagery perpetrated by the great Puritan, General Butler proceeds to give his final verdict on the man, and it is a very emphatic verdict. ' Let him now,' concluded the lecturer, ' say a word about Cromwell. It had been the fashion to speak of him as one of the greatest of men. He and his were the saints, and were to possess the earth. Underneath his pious pretence, the two chief objects of Cromwell's effort were plunder and persecution. He could commit the most appalling massacres with the name of God on his lips and the Bible in bis hand. He was the greatest dissembler that history held recotd of. Cromwell left nothing behind him. He was the dismalest failure in English history ; and this was the man in whose pi aise histories were imagined and statues inaugurated ' ' General Butler, a, might have been safely expected, received a good deal of abuse at the hands of several of the English Conservative papers for this outspoken deliverance, and was the subject ol a special violent attack from the London Spectator. This journal, however, very wisely refused to allow a discussion of the question in its columns. The evidence of Cromwell's guilt a, id the proof of General Butler's terrible indictment were only too complete.