J5&J-3 THE DESMOND REBELLION. $$$ men to supper, and when they rose from the table had them all stabbed/ 1 Of the neighbourhood of Dublin there is a curious account at this time in a letter of an ^ English lawyer named Trollope, who appears to have been sent over by Walsingham, to learn the real con- dition of the country. The pardon had been rejected in Munster ; the OTooles and the O'Birnes of Wicklow, who had escaped killing, had taken advantage of it, but only to gain time to secure their harvests. The min- gled wretchedness, savagery, and defiant audacity which Trollope describes, show how desperate the Irish pro- blem had by this time become. l They desire now to get in their corn/ he wrote, ' and then they will break out again. Meanwhile, they murder privately any one who was loyal to the Queen during the rebellion. They have had a dozen pardons a-piece. Every Irishman who gets a pardon, makes his account to be pardoned again as often as he wishes, let him murder, burn, and rob whom he list; They never did or will delight in anything else than murder, treason, theft, and mischief, which their countenances now at this instant at their coming in make apparent for if they meet an English- man or two walking in the streets, they shake their heads, they rouse themselves in their lowsy mantles, and advance themselves on tiptoe, as who should say, "We are those who have done all this mischief ; what say ye to us?' 2 1 Mendoza to Philip, August 15, 1581 : MSS. Simancas. 2 Andrew Trollope to Walsingham, September 12, 1581 : MSS. Ireland.
