With him the old inhabitants were simply a nuisance from the highest to the lowest; and if there were no other way of getting rid of them, he would no doubt have adopted the plan recommended by Lord Bacon, who said, 'Some of the chiefest of the Irish families should be transported to England, and have recompense there for their possessions in Ireland, till they were cleansed from their blood, incontinency, and theft, which were not the lapses of particular persons, but the very laws of the nation.' The Lord Deputy Chichester, however, agreed thoroughly with his attorney-general, for he certainly made no more account of rooting out the 'mere Irish' from their homes than if they were the most noxious kinds of weeds or vermin.

'If,' said he, writing to Lord Salisbury, 'I have observed anything during my stay in this kingdom, I may say it is not _lenity_ and good works that will reclaim the Irish, but _an iron rod_, and severity of justice, for the restraint and punishment of those firebrands of sedition, _the priests_; nor can we think of any other remedy but to proclaim _them, and their relievers and harbourers, traitors_.' Considering that those Englishmen were professedly Christian rulers, engaged in establishing the reformed religion, the accounts which they give with perfect coolness of their operations in this line, are among the most appalling passages to be met with in the world's history.

For instance, the lord deputy writes: 'I have often said and written, it is _famine that must consume the Irish_, as our _swords_ and other endeavours worked not that, speedy effect which is expected; _hunger_ would be a better, because a speedier, weapon to employ against them than the sword.' He spared no means of destruction, but combined all the most fearful scourges for the purpose of putting out of existence the race of people whom God in his anger subjected to his power.
Surely the spirit of cruelty, the genius of destruction, must have been incarnate in the man who wrote thus: 'I burned all along the Lough (Neagh) within four miles of Dungannon, and killed 100 people, sparing none, of what quality, age, or sex soever, besides _many burned to death_.

We killed man, _woman and child_, horse, beast, and whatsoever we could find.' At the time of the flight of the earls, however, he was very anxious about the safety of the kingdom.

He was aware that the people were universally discontented, he had but few troops in the country, and little or no money in the treasury, so that in case of a sudden invasion, it was quite possible that the maddened population would rise and act in their own way upon his own merciless policy of extermination.