The Rebellion broke out, then, on the 23rd October, 1641, and the actors in it were a "tumultuous rabble" as Ormond called them, intent chiefly on plundering and driving off the English settlers, yet before the end of the month the principal towns of the North were in their hands. Leland, a Protestant historian, writes:--"That in the beginning of the insurrection, it was determined by them that the enterprise should be conducted in every quarter, with as little bloodshed as possible" (_History of Ireland_, Vol. III., p. 101). At p. 131, the same historian writes:--"The Lords Justices might have stamped out the insurrection at once had Ormond's advice to levy a large number of troops been attended to; for the Irish were then formidable only in numbers, and not six hundred of them had proper arms. But their purpose was rather to fan it, in order to gratify their personal greed by extensive forfeitures." Warner, who has been so often quoted before, writes at p. 176 of his History:--"It is evident from the Lords Justices' letter to the Lord Lieutenant that they hoped for an extermination, not of the mere Irish only, but of all the old English families who were Roman Catholics." They issued a most truculent order to Ormond "to burn, kill, spoil, waste, destroy, the rebels, their relatives, houses and property." One of these Lords Justices is thus referred to by Carte: "He was a man of mean extract, scarcely able to read and write ... plodding, assiduous, and indefatigable, greedy of gain, and eager to raise a fortune; which it is not difficult for a man of indifferent parts to do, when he is not hampered with scruples about the ways of getting it" (_Ormond_, Vol. I., p. 190). This same Lord Justice, with three members of the Privy Council, was put under arrest for disobedience to his Majesty, King Charles, and for complicity with his enemies, the Parliamentarians of England. The Lord Justice was deposed and imprisoned, but he retained his ill-gotten property.