Cromwell is reported to have said that if there had been an Earl of Cork in every county the Irish could never have raised a rebellion. All his resources were expended in resisting it, and St. Leger, though he co-operated with him, could not but feel bitterly the inferiority of his own position. The Lords Justices never communicated with him, and though they allowed him to levy forces, sent no money to pay them; and indeed they had none to send. Earnest applications for cannon, 'six drakes and two curtoes,' were made in vain, and to take the field without guns was impossible. 'If they have not wholly deserted me,' he wrote to Ormonde, 'and bestowed the government on my Lord of Cork, persuade them to disburden themselves of so much artillery as they cannot themselves employ.' He died a few weeks later, leaving the presidential authority in Inchiquin's hands. In the meantime Cork himself had held Youghal, securing a landing-place for all succours from England. His son Broghill defended Lismore, and Kinalmeaky was governor of Bandon, which his father had walled and supplied with artillery. Clonakilty was an open place, and the Protestant settlers there and in the country round about escaped to Bandon, where the townsmen made them pay well for their quarters. 'They were compelled,' said Cork, 'to give more rent for their chamber or corner than my tenants paid me for the whole house.' After Kinalmeaky's death at Liscarrol Sir Charles Vavasour became governor, and the town was never taken; the Bandonians making frequent sallies, like the Enniskilleners in a later age. Lord Cork, who had enjoyed a rental of 50_l._ a day, lost it all for the time, and was often in difficulties, but he saved the English interest in Munster from total destruction.[11]
[1] Carte's _Ormonde_, with the letters in vol. iii. of November 8, 13, 16, 18 and 22, and December 11. _Lismore Papers_, 2nd series, vol. iv. St. Leger's letters of November 7, 10, and 28, and December 2 and 17. Bellings says 'some innocent labourers and husbandmen suffered by martial law for the transgression of others,' and Carte gives instances. St. Leger's letters from November 1 to December 11 in _Egmont Papers_, i. 142-154.