Shortly after he had been appointed General of the Horse under Preston, Commander-in-Chief of the Confederate Catholics in Leinster, that general took, among other places, Birr, in King’s County. Here Castlehaven had the good fortune, as he says, to begin his command with an act of charity. For, going to see this garrison before it marched out, he came into a large room where he found many people of quality, both men and women. They no sooner saw him but, with tears in their eyes, they fell on their knees, desiring him to save their lives. “I was astonished,” says Castlehaven, “at their posture and petition, and, having made them rise, asked what the matter was? They answered that from the first day of the war there had been continued action and bloodshed between them and their Irish neighbors, and little quarter on either side; and therefore, understanding that I was an Englishman, begged I would take them into my protection.” It is enough to say that Lord Castlehaven, with some difficulty, and by personally taking command of a strong convoy, obtained for them the protection they prayed for from the exasperated and outraged population around them. But what we wish to point out is this: that here are those victims of Sir John Temple’s “massacre”--not the garrison of the fort, observe, but the English settlers driven in by the approach of Preston’s army, after terrorizing the country for months--now, with the fear of death before them, confessing on their knees that from the first day of the war they had arms in their hands, and that little quarter was given on either side! How well the English were able to take care of themselves at this time, and what _their_ “massacres” were like, are shown by the following extract from a letter of Colonel the Hon. Mervin Touchett to his brother, Lord Castlehaven. Col. Touchett is describing a raid made by Sir Arthur Loffens, Governor of Naas, with a party of horse and dragoons, killing such of the Irish as they met, to punish an attack upon an English party a few days before: “But the most considerable slaughter was in a great strength of furze, scattered on a hill, where the people of several villages (taking the alarm) had sheltered themselves. Now, Sir Arthur, having invested the hill, set the furze on fire on all sides, where the people, being a considerable number, were all burned or killed, men, women, and children. I saw the bodies and the furze still burning.” We remember the horror-stricken denunciations of the English press some years ago when it was stated, without much authentication, that some of the French commanders in the Algerine campaigns had smoked some Arabs to death in caves. But it would seem from Col. Touchett’s narrative that the English troopers would have been able to give their French comrades lessons in the culinary art of war some centuries ago. A grilled Irishman is surely as savory an object for the contemplation of humanity as a smoked Arab!