action the factions which had lain dormant since the departure of the nuncio. The recent treachery of Inchiquin's forces had engendered feelings of jealousy and suspicion; and many contended that it was better to submit at once to the conqueror than to depend on the doubtful fidelity of the lord lieutenant. Cromwell met with little resistance: wherever he came, he held out the promise of life and liberty of conscience;[1] but the rejection of the offer, though it were afterwards accepted, was punished with the blood of the officers; and, if the place were taken by force, with indiscriminate slaughter.[2] Proceeding on this plan, one day granting quarter, another putting the leaders only to the sword, and on the next immolating the whole garrison, hundreds of human beings at a time, he quickly reduced most of the towns and castles in the three counties of Limerick, Tipperary, and Kilkenny. But this bloody policy at length recoiled upon its author. Men, with no alternative but victory or death, learned to fight with the energy of despair. At the siege of Kilkenny the assailants, though twice repulsed from the breach, were, by the timidity of some of the inhabitants, [Footnote 1: Liberty of conscience he explained to mean liberty of internal belief, not of external worship.--See his letter in Phil. Iren. i. 270.] [Footnote 2: The Irish commanders disdained to imitate the cruelty of their enemies. "I took," says Lord Castlehaven, "Athy by storm, with all the garrison (seven hundred men) prisoners. I made a present of them to Cromwell, desiring him by letter that he would do the like with me, as any of mine should fall in his power. But he little valued my civility. For, in a few days after, he besieged Gouvan; and the soldiers mutinying, and giving up the place with their officers, he caused the governor, Hammond, and some other officers, to be put to death."--Castlehaven, 107. Ormond also says, in one of his letters, "the next day Rathfarnham was taken by storm, and all that were in it made prisoners; and though five hundred soldiers entered the castle before any officer of note, yet not one creature was killed; which I tell you by the way, to observe the difference betwixt our and the rebels making use of a victory."--Carte, Letters, ii. 408.]