The above is from Sir John Temple's _History of the Irish Rebellion_, and it has been quoted by Catholics and Protestants alike when alluding to Mellifont; they each add, however, a little spice to suit the palates of their respective readers. Of this attack on Mellifont we have no less than four versions, two of which deserve but little credence, viz., that already given, and that of Dean Bernard. The account given by the latter is fuller, and enters more minutely into detail, so that some particulars tax the capacity of the most credulous; as, for instance, when he tells us that twenty-four musketeers killed one hundred-and-forty rebels though they had only "six shots" of powder, "some only four," and that they rammed in six bullets together, and how each shot killed several. Verily, every bullet had its billet there! That be sharp practice without doubt! He also tells, how the loss on the part of the garrison was thirteen killed, "whom a _Friar was so forward for deed of charity as to procure them burial in the church adjoining_." Thank goodness, he has the grace to credit even a Friar with some remnant of humanity! He does not say that the rebels stripped all. They could not have done so; for eleven escaped to Drogheda. These godless Papists capped their iniquity in this holy man's estimation when they "threw a fair church Bible into the mill-pond." The last charge on the sheet is--"Their best language to them all was 'English dogs,' 'rogues,' etc." Before producing the other two versions, let us examine the characters of both these witnesses as drawn by Protestant writers. Sir John Temple wrote his History in 1656, from the "Depositions" preserved then in Dublin Castle, but which are now in Trinity College. These "Depositions" comprise the list of murders, burnings, etc., said to have been perpetrated by the Irish on the English Protestants during the war, and fill thirty-two volumes. He was some time Privy Councillor, but was removed by Ormonde, and Carte tells how "two traitorous and scandalous letters against his Majesty written by Temple were read in Committee." And Dr. Nalson, another Protestant writer, accuses him of having been in league with the Parliamentarians, whom Ormonde describes as those who became the "murderers of his (the King's) royal person, the usurpers of his rights, and destroyers of the Irish nation; by whom the nobility and gentry of it were massacred at home, and led into slavery, or driven into beggary abroad." In 1674, Temple protested that the work was published without his knowledge, as appears from _State Papers_, Dublin edition, p. 2.