It was to the reconquest of Ireland that the Commonwealth first addressed itself, and naturally Cromwell was chosen for the work. He was given the rank of Lieutenant-General; but before he started he had to deal with dangerous mutinies and uprisings in the army. The religious sectaries and political levellers, who had given to the army the fiery zeal that made it irresistible by Parliament or King, English Royalists or Scotch Covenanter, had also been infected with a spirit peculiarly liable to catch flame from such agitations as were going on roundabout. Here and there, in regiment after regiment, were sudden upliftings of the banner of revolt in the name of every kind of human freedom, and often of some fierce religious doctrine quite incompatible with human freedom. Cromwell acted with his usual terrible energy, scattered the mutineers, shot the ringleaders, and reduced army and kingdom alike to obedience and order. Then he made ready for the invasion of Ireland. The predominant motives for the various mutinies in the army, offer sufficient proof of its utter unlikeness to any other army. At the outset of the civil wars the Ironsides were simply volunteers of the very highest type; not wholly unlike, at least in moral qualities, some of those belated Cromwellians—the Boers of to-day. They did not take up soldiering as a profession, but primarily to achieve certain definite moral objects. Of course, as the force gradually grew into a permanent body, it changed in some respects; but the old spirit remained strong. The soldiers became in a sense regulars; but they bore no resemblance to regulars of the ordinary type—to regulars such as served under Turenne or Marlborough, Frederick the Great or Wellington. If in Grant’s army a very large number of the men, including almost all the forceful, natural leaders, had been of the stamp of Ossawatomie Brown, we should have had an army much like Cromwell’s. Such an army might usually be a power for good and sometimes a power for evil; but under all circumstances, when controlled by a master hand, it was certain to show itself one of the most formidable weapons ever forged in the workshop of human passion and purpose.