victory at Kinsale in December 1601, Montjoy adopted a scorched-earth policy, massacring the natives, destroying their huts, seizing their cattle, cutting down and burning crops. The people, without grain or cattle, starved by hundreds and their bodies lay unburied over the countryside. It is asserted that 3,000 persons starved within a few months in the county of Tyrone alone.

One general’s report reads: "I burned all along the iough (lake), within four miles of Dungannon, and killed 100 people, sparing none of what quality, age or sex soever, besydes many burned to death; we kill man, woman and child; horse beast and whatsoever we find." 1 Some of the accounts related by historians and officials seem too horrible to believe. One English official said he saw three young children feeding on the flesh of their starved mother. It was reported that some old women in the Newry area "were accustomed by lighting fires, to attract children whom they murdered and devoured." 2

Hugh O’Neill, in utter defeat by the double weapons, hunger and the sword, surrendered March 30, 1603. He received full pardon and restoration of his lands and title of Earl of Tyrone. The land of Ulster, now utterly wasted and almost depopulated, was ready at last for Elizabeth’s program of plantation. However, the Irish hatred aroused by English crimes, was left to smolder for forty years, then blaze in vengeance on the children of the English and Scottish settlers.

1 Charles Hanna, The Scotch-Irish in North Britain, North Ireland and North America (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York).

2 James Barkley Woodburn, M.A., The Ulster Scot, His History and religioin, 2nd Ed. (H. R. Allenson, Ltd., London, 1915), p. 49.