Many of them found an opportunity to fly the country; others retired into places of security, and prepared themselves for defence; and by this means the Scottish planters, most of them at least, escaped with their lives.[**] From Ulster the flames of rebellion diffused themselves in an instant over the other three provinces of Ireland.

In all places, death and slaughter were not uncommon; though the Irish in these other provinces pretended to act with moderation and humanity.

But cruel and barbarous was their humanity! Not content with expelling the English their houses, with despoiling them of their goodly manors, with wasting their cultivated fields, they stripped them of their very clothes, and turned them out, naked and defenceless, to all the severities of the season.[***] The heavens themselves, as if conspiring against that unhappy people, were armed with cold and tempest unusual to the climate, and executed what the merciless sword had left unfinished.[****] The roads were covered with crowds of naked English, hastening towards Dublin and the other cities which yet remained in the hands of their countrymen.

The feeble age of children, the tender sex of women, soon sunk under the multiplied rigors of cold and hunger.
* Temple, p.

44.
** Temple, p.