All that he did was right in Froude's eyes, including the prescription of "Hell or Connaught" for "the men whose trade was fighting, who had called themselves lords of the soil," and the abolition of the Irish Parliament.

"I as an Englishman," said Froude, "honour Cromwell and glory in him as the greatest statesman and soldier our race has produced.

In the matter we have now in hand I consider him to have been the best friend, in the best sense, to all that was good in Ireland." This is of course an opinion which can honestly be held.
But to the Irish race all over the world such language is an irritating defiance, and they simply would not listen to any man who used it.
The expulsion of Presbyterians under Charles II.

was foolish as well as cruel, for it deprived the English Government in Ireland of their best friends, and supplied the American colonies with some of their staunchest soldiers in the War of Independence.

Enough were left, however, to immortalise the siege of Derry, while the native Irish failed to distinguish themselves, or, in plain English, ran away, at the Battle of the Boyne, and the defeat of James II.