CHAPTER XII

State of Ireland at the Time of the Revolution; the Civil Power in the

Hands of the Roman Catholics--The Military Power in the Hands of the

Roman Catholics--Mutual Enmity between the Englishry and

Irishry--Panic among the Englishry--History of the Town of

Kenmare--Enniskillen--Londonderry--Closing of the Gates of

Londonderry--Mountjoy sent to pacify Ulster--William opens a Negotiation

with Tyrconnel--The Temples consulted--Richard Hamilton sent to Ireland

on his Parole--Tyrconnel sends Mountjoy and Rice to France--Tyrconnel

calls the Irish People to Arms--Devastation of the Country--The

Protestants in the South unable to resist--Enniskillen and Londonderry

hold out; Richard Hamilton marches into Ulster with an Army--James

determines to go to Ireland--Assistance furnished by Lewis to

James--Choice of a French Ambassador to accompany James--The Count of

Avaux--James lands at Kinsale--James enters Cork--Journey of James from

Cork to Dublin--Discontent in England--Factions at Dublin Castle--James

determines to go to Ulster--Journey of James to Ulster--The Fall of

Londonderry expected--Succours arrive from England--Treachery of Lundy;

the Inhabitants of Londonderry resolve to defend themselves--Their

Character--Londonderry besieged--The Siege turned into a Blockade--Naval

Skirmish in Bantry Bay--A Parliament summoned by James sits at Dublin--A

Toleration Act passed; Acts passed for the Confiscation of the Property

of Protestants--Issue of base Money--The great Act of Attainder--James

prorogues his Parliament; Persecution of the Protestants in

Ireland--Effect produced in England by the News from Ireland--Actions

of the Enniskilleners--Distress of Londonderry--Expedition under Kirke

arrives in Loch Foyle--Cruelty of Rosen--The Famine in Londonderry

extreme--Attack on the Boom--The Siege of Londonderry raised--Operations

against the Enniskilleners--Battle of Newton Butler--Consternation of

the Irish

WILLIAM had assumed, together with the title of King of England, the

title of King of Ireland. For all our jurists then regarded Ireland as

a mere colony, more important indeed than Massachusetts, Virginia, or

Jamaica, but, like Massachusetts, Virginia, and Jamaica, dependent on

the mother country, and bound to pay allegiance to the Sovereign whom

the mother country had called to the throne, [114]

In fact, however, the Revolution found Ireland emancipated from the

dominion of the English colony. As early as the year 1686, James had

determined to make that island a place of arms which might overawe Great

Britain, and a place of refuge where, if any disaster happened in Great

Britain, the members of his Church might find refuge. With this view

he had exerted all his power for the purpose of inverting the relation

between the conquerors and the aboriginal population. The execution

of his design he had intrusted, in spite of the remonstrances of his

English counsellors, to the Lord Deputy Tyrconnel. In the autumn of

1688, the process was complete. The highest offices in the state, in the

army, and in the Courts of justice, were, with scarcely an exception,

filled by Papists. A pettifogger named Alexander Fitton, who had been

detected in forgery, who had been fined for misconduct by the House of

Lords at Westminster, who had been many years in prison, and who was

equally deficient in legal knowledge and in the natural good sense

and acuteness by which the want of legal knowledge has sometimes

been supplied, was Lord Chancellor. His single merit was that he had

apostatized from the Protestant religion; and this merit was thought

sufficient to wash out even the stain of his Saxon extraction. He soon

proved himself worthy of the confidence of his patrons. On the bench of

justice he declared that there was not one heretic in forty thousand

who was not a villain. He often, after hearing a cause in which the

interests of his Church were concerned, postponed his decision, for the

purpose, as he avowed, of consulting his spiritual director, a Spanish

priest, well read doubtless in Escobar, [115] Thomas Nugent, a Roman

Catholic who had never distinguished himself at the bar except by his

brogue and his blunders, was Chief Justice of the King's Bench, [116]

Stephen Rice, a Roman Catholic, whose abilities and learning were not

disputed even by the enemies of his nation and religion, but whose

known hostility to the Act of Settlement excited the most painful

apprehensions in the minds of all who held property under that Act, was

Chief Baron of the Exchequer, [117] Richard Nagle, an acute and well

read lawyer, who had been educated in a Jesuit college, and whose

prejudices were such as might have been expected from his education, was

Attorney General, [118]

Keating, a highly respectable Protestant, was still Chief Justice of the

Common Pleas: but two Roman Catholic judges sate with him. It ought to

be added that one of those judges, Daly, was a man of sense, moderation

and integrity. The matters however which came before the Court of Common

Pleas were not of great moment. Even the King's Bench was at this time

almost deserted. The Court of Exchequer overflowed with business; for it

was the only court at Dublin from which no writ of error lay to England,

and consequently the only court in which the English could be oppressed

and pillaged without hope of redress. Rice, it was said, had declared

that they should have from him exactly what the law, construed with the

utmost strictness, gave them, and nothing more. What, in his opinion,

the law, strictly construed, gave them, they could easily infer from a

saying which, before he became a judge, was often in his mouth. "I will

drive," he used to say, "a coach and six through the Act of Settlement."

He now carried his threat daily into execution. The cry of all

Protestants was that it mattered not what evidence they produced

before him; that, when their titles were to be set aside, the

rankest forgeries, the most infamous witnesses, were sure to have his

countenance. To his court his countrymen came in multitudes with writs

of ejectment and writs of trespass. In his court the government attacked

at once the charters of all the cities and boroughs in Ireland; and he

easily found pretexts for pronouncing all those charters forfeited. The

municipal corporations, about a hundred in number, had been instituted

to be the strongholds of the reformed religion and of the English

interest, and had consequently been regarded by the Irish Roman

Catholics with an aversion which cannot be thought unnatural or

unreasonable. Had those bodies been remodelled in a judicious and

impartial manner, the irregularity of the proceedings by which so

desirable a result had been attained might have been pardoned. But it

soon appeared that one exclusive system had been swept away only to make

room for another. The boroughs were subjected to the absolute authority

of the Crown. Towns in which almost every householder was an English

Protestant were placed under the government of Irish Roman Catholics.

Many of the new Aldermen had never even seen the places over which they

were appointed to bear rule. At the same time the Sheriffs, to whom

belonged the execution of writs and the nomination of juries, were

selected in almost every instance from the caste which had till very

recently been excluded from all public trust. It was affirmed that some

of these important functionaries had been burned in the hand for theft.

Others had been servants to Protestants; and the Protestants added, with

bitter scorn, that it was fortunate for the country when this was the

case; for that a menial who had cleaned the plate and rubbed down the

horse of an English gentleman might pass for a civilised being, when

compared with many of the native aristocracy whose lives had been spent

in coshering or marauding. To such Sheriffs no colonist, even if he had

been so strangely fortunate as to obtain a judgment, dared to intrust an

execution, [119]

Thus the civil power had, in the space of a few months, been transferred

from the Saxon to the Celtic population. The transfer of the military

power had been not less complete. The army, which, under the command

of Ormond, had been the chief safeguard of the English ascendency, had

ceased to exist. Whole regiments had been dissolved and reconstructed.

Six thousand Protestant veterans, deprived of their bread, were brooding

in retirement over their wrongs, or had crossed the sea and joined

the standard of William. Their place was supplied by men who had long

suffered oppression, and who, finding themselves suddenly transformed

from slaves into masters, were impatient to pay back, with accumulated

usury, the heavy debt of injuries and insults. The new soldiers, it was

said, never passed an Englishman without cursing him and calling him by

some foul name. They were the terror of every Protestant innkeeper; for,

from the moment when they came under his roof, they ate and drank every

thing: they paid for nothing; and by their rude swaggering they scared

more respectable guests from his door, [120]

Such was the state of Ireland when the Prince of Orange landed at

Torbay. From that time every packet which arrived at Dublin brought

tidings, such as could not but increase the mutual fear and loathing of

the hostile races. The colonist, who, after long enjoying and abusing

power, had now tasted for a moment the bitterness of servitude, the

native, who, having drunk to the dregs all the bitterness of servitude,

had at length for a moment enjoyed and abused power, were alike sensible

that a great crisis, a crisis like that of 1641, was at hand. The

majority impatiently expected Phelim O'Neil to revive in Tyrconnel. The

minority saw in William a second Over.

On which side the first blow was struck was a question which Williamites

and Jacobites afterwards debated with much asperity. But no question

could be more idle. History must do to both parties the justice which

neither has ever done to the other, and must admit that both had fair

pleas and cruel provocations. Both had been placed, by a fate for which

neither was answerable, in such a situation that, human nature being

what it is, they could not but regard each other with enmity. During

three years the government which might have reconciled them had

systematically employed its whole power for the purpose of inflaming

their enmity to madness. It was now impossible to establish in Ireland

a just and beneficent government, a government which should know no

distinction of race or of sect, a government which, while strictly

respecting the rights guaranteed by law to the new landowners, should

alleviate by a judicious liberality the misfortunes of the ancient

gentry. Such a government James might have established in the day of

his power. But the opportunity had passed away: compromise had become

impossible: the two infuriated castes were alike convinced that it was

necessary to oppress or to be oppressed, and that there could be no

safety but in victory, vengeance, and dominion. They agreed only in

spurning out of the way every mediator who sought to reconcile them.

During some weeks there were outrages, insults, evil reports, violent

panics, the natural preludes of the terrible conflict which was at hand.

A rumour spread over the whole island that, on the ninth of December,

there would be a general massacre of the Englishry. Tyrconnel sent

for the chief Protestants of Dublin to the Castle, and, with his usual

energy of diction, invoked on himself all the vengeance of heaven if the

report was not a cursed, a blasted, a confounded lie. It was said that,

in his rage at finding his oaths ineffectual, he pulled off his hat and

wig, and flung them into the fire, [121] But lying Dick Talbot was so

well known that his imprecations and gesticulations only strengthened

the apprehension which they were meant to allay. Ever since the recall

of Clarendon there had been a large emigration of timid and quiet people

from the Irish ports to England. That emigration now went on faster than

ever. It was not easy to obtain a passage on board of a well built or

commodious vessel. But many persons, made bold by the excess of fear,

and choosing rather to trust the winds and waves than the exasperated

Irishry, ventured to encounter all the dangers of Saint George's Channel

and of the Welsh coast in open boats and in the depth of winter. The

English who remained began, in almost every county, to draw close

together. Every large country house became a fortress. Every visitor

who arrived after nightfall was challenged from a loophole or from a

barricaded window; and, if he attempted to enter without pass words and

explanations, a blunderbuss was presented to him. On the dreaded night

of the ninth of December, there was scarcely one Protestant mansion from

the Giant's Causeway to Bantry Bay in which armed men were not watching

and lights burning from the early sunset to the late sunrise, [122]

A minute account of what passed in one district at this time has come

down to us, and well illustrates the general state of the kingdom. The

south-western part of Kerry is now well known as the most beautiful

tract in the British isles. The mountains, the glens, the capes

stretching far into the Atlantic, the crags on which the eagles build,

the rivulets brawling down rocky passes, the lakes overhung by groves

in which the wild deer find covert, attract every summer crowds of

wanderers sated with the business and the pleasures of great cities.

The beauties of that country are indeed too often hidden in the mist and

rain which the west wind brings up from a boundless ocean. But, on the

rare days when the sun shines out in all his glory, the landscape has

a freshness and a warmth of colouring seldom found in our latitude. The

myrtle loves the soil. The arbutus thrives better than even on the sunny

shore of Calabria, [123] The turf is of livelier hue than elsewhere:

the hills glow with a richer purple: the varnish of the holly and ivy

is more glossy; and berries of a brighter red peep through foliage of a

brighter green. But during the greater part of the seventeenth century,

this paradise was as little known to the civilised world as Spitzbergen

or Greenland. If ever it was mentioned, it was mentioned as a horrible

desert, a chaos of bogs, thickets, and precipices, where the she wolf

still littered, and where some half naked savages, who could not speak a

word of English, made themselves burrows in the mud, and lived on roots

and sour milk, [124]

At length, in the year 1670, the benevolent and enlightened Sir William

Petty determined to form an English settlement in this wild district.

He possessed a large domain there, which has descended to a posterity

worthy of such an ancestor. On the improvement of that domain he

expended, it was said, not less than ten thousand pounds. The little

town which he founded, named from the bay of Kenmare, stood at the head

of that bay, under a mountain ridge, on the summit of which travellers

now stop to gaze upon the loveliest of the three lakes of Killarney.

Scarcely any village, built by an enterprising band of New Englanders,

far from the dwellings of their countrymen, in the midst of the hunting

grounds of the Red Indians, was more completely out of the pale of

civilisation than Kenmare. Between Petty's settlement and the nearest

English habitation the journey by land was of two days through a wild

and dangerous country. Yet the place prospered. Forty-two houses were

erected. The population amounted to a hundred and eighty. The land round

the town was well cultivated. The cattle were numerous. Two small barks

were employed in fishing and trading along the coast. The supply of

herrings, pilchards, mackerel, and salmon was plentiful, and would have

been still more plentiful, had not the beach been, in the finest part

of the year, covered by multitudes of seals, which preyed on the fish

of the bay. Yet the seal was not an unwelcome visitor: his fur was

valuable,; and his oil supplied light through the long nights of winter.

An attempt was made with great success to set up iron works. It was not

yet the practice to employ coal for the purpose of smelting; and the

manufacturers of Kent and Sussex had much difficulty in procuring timber

at a reasonable price. The neighbourhood of Kenmare was then richly

wooded; and Petty found it a gainful speculation to send ore thither.

The lovers of the picturesque still regret the woods of oak and arbutus

which were cut down to feed his furnaces. Another scheme had occurred

to his active and intelligent mind. Some of the neighbouring islands

abounded with variegated marble, red and white, purple and green. Petty

well knew at what cost the ancient Romans had decorated their baths

and temples with many coloured columns hewn from Laconian and African

quarries; and he seems to have indulged the hope that the rocks of his

wild domain in Kerry might furnish embellishments to the mansions of

Saint James's Square, and to the choir of Saint Paul's Cathedral, [125]

From the first, the settlers had found that they must be prepared to

exercise the right of selfdefence to an extent which would have been

unnecessary and unjustifiable in a well governed country. The law was

altogether without force in the highlands which lie on the south of

the vale of Tralee. No officer of justice willingly ventured into those

parts. One pursuivant who in 1680 attempted to execute a warrant

there was murdered. The people of Kenmare seem however to have been

sufficiently secured by their union, their intelligence and their

spirit, till the close of the year 1688. Then at length the effects of

the policy of Tyrconnel began to be felt ever, in that remote corner

of Ireland. In the eyes of the peasantry of Munster the colonists

were aliens and heretics. The buildings, the boats, the machines, the

granaries, the dairies, the furnaces, were doubtless contemplated by the

native race with that mingled envy and contempt with which the ignorant

naturally regard the triumphs of knowledge. Nor is it at all improbable

that the emigrants had been guilty of those faults from which civilised

men who settle among an uncivilised people are rarely free. The power

derived from superior intelligence had, we may easily believe,

been sometimes displayed with insolence, and sometimes exerted with

injustice. Now therefore, when the news spread from altar to altar, and

from cabin to cabin, that the strangers were to be driven out, and that

their houses and lands were to be given as a booty to the children of

the soil, a predatory war commenced. Plunderers, thirty, forty, seventy

in a troop, prowled round the town, some with firearms, some with pikes.

The barns were robbed. The horses were stolen. In one foray a hundred

and forty cattle were swept away and driven off through the ravines of

Glengariff. In one night six dwellings were broken open and pillaged. At

last the colonists, driven to extremity, resolved to die like men rather

than be murdered in their beds. The house built by Petty for his agent

was the largest in the place. It stood on a rocky peninsula round

which the waves of the bay broke. Here the whole population assembled,

seventy-five fighting men, with about a hundred women and children. They

had among them sixty firelocks, and as many pikes and swords. Round the

agent's house they threw up with great speed a wall of turf fourteen

feet in height and twelve in thickness. The space enclosed was about

half an acre. Within this rampart all the arms, the ammunition and the

provisions of the settlement were collected, and several huts of thin

plank were built. When these preparations were completed, the men of

Kenmare began to make vigorous reprisals on their Irish neighbours,

seized robbers, recovered stolen property, and continued during

some weeks to act in all things as an independent commonwealth. The

government was carried on by elective officers, to whom every member of

the society swore fidelity on the Holy Gospels, [126]

While the people of the small town of Kenmare were thus bestirring

themselves, similar preparations for defence were made by larger

communities on a larger scale. Great numbers of gentlemen and yeomen

quitted the open country, and repaired to those towns which had

been founded and incorporated for the purpose of bridling the native

population, and which, though recently placed under the government of

Roman Catholic magistrates, were still inhabited chiefly by Protestants.

A considerable body of armed colonists mustered at Sligo, another

at Charleville, a third at Marlow, a fourth still more formidable at

Bandon, [127] But the principal strongholds of the Englishry during this

evil time were Enniskillen and Londonderry.

Enniskillen, though the capital of the county of Fermanagh, was then

merely a village. It was built on an island surrounded by the river

which joins the two beautiful sheets of water known by the common name

of Lough Erne. The stream and both the lakes were overhung on every

side by natural forests. Enniskillen consisted of about eighty dwellings

clustering round an ancient castle. The inhabitants were, with scarcely

an exception, Protestants, and boasted that their town had been true to

the Protestant cause through the terrible rebellion which broke out in

1641. Early in December they received from Dublin an intimation that two

companies of Popish infantry were to be immediately quartered on them.

The alarm of the little community was great, and the greater because it

was known that a preaching friar had been exerting himself to inflame

the Irish population of the neighbourhood against the heretics. A

daring resolution was taken. Come what might, the troops should not

be admitted. Yet the means of defence were slender. Not ten pounds of

powder, not twenty firelocks fit for use, could be collected within

the walls. Messengers were sent with pressing letters to summon the

Protestant gentry of the vicinage to the rescue; and the summons was

gallantly obeyed. In a few hours two hundred foot and a hundred and

fifty horse had assembled. Tyrconnel's soldiers were already at hand.

They brought with them a considerable supply of arms to be distributed

among the peasantry. The peasantry greeted the royal standard with

delight, and accompanied the march in great numbers. The townsmen and

their allies, instead of waiting to be attacked, came boldly forth

to encounter the intruders. The officers of James had expected no

resistance. They were confounded when they saw confronting them a column

of foot, flanked by a large body of mounted gentlemen and yeomen. The

crowd of camp followers ran away in terror. The soldiers made a retreat

so precipitate that it might be called a flight, and scarcely halted

till they were thirty miles off at Cavan, [128]

The Protestants, elated by this easy victory, proceeded to make

arrangements for the government and defence of Enniskillen and of the

surrounding country. Gustavus Hamilton, a gentleman who had served

in the army, but who had recently been deprived of his commission by

Tyrconnel, and had since been living on an estate in Fermanagh, was

appointed Governor, and took up his residence in the castle. Trusty men

were enlisted, and armed with great expedition. As there was a scarcity

of swords and pikes, smiths were employed to make weapons by fastening

scythes on poles. All the country houses round Lough Erne were turned

into garrisons. No Papist was suffered to be at large in the town;

and the friar who was accused of exerting his eloquence against the

Englishry was thrown into prison, [129]

The other great fastness of Protestantism was a place of more

importance. Eighty years before, during the troubles caused by the last

struggle of the houses of O'Neil and O'Donnel against the authority of

James the First, the ancient city of Derry had been surprised by one of

the native chiefs: the inhabitants had been slaughtered, and the houses

reduced to ashes. The insurgents were speedily put down and punished:

the government resolved to restore the ruined town: the Lord Mayor,

Aldermen, and Common Council of London were invited to assist in the

work; and King James the First made over to them in their corporate

capacity the ground covered by the ruins of the old Derry, and about six

thousand English acres in the neighbourhood, [130]

This country, then uncultivated and uninhabited, is now enriched by

industry, embellished by taste, and pleasing even to eyes accustomed to

the well tilled fields and stately manor houses of England. A new city

soon arose which, on account of its connection with the capital of the

empire, was called Londonderry. The buildings covered the summit and

slope of a hill which overlooked the broad stream of the Foyle, then

whitened by vast flocks of wild swans, [131] On the highest ground stood

the Cathedral, a church which, though erected when the secret of Gothic

architecture was lost, and though ill qualified to sustain a comparison

with the awful temples of the middle ages, is not without grace and

dignity. Near the Cathedral rose the palace of the Bishop, whose see

was one of the most valuable in Ireland. The city was in form nearly an

ellipse; and the principal streets formed a cross, the arms of which

met in a square called the Diamond. The original houses have been either

rebuilt or so much repaired that their ancient character can no longer

be traced; but many of them were standing within living memory. They

were in general two stories in height; and some of them had stone

staircases on the outside. The dwellings were encompassed by a wall

of which the whole circumference was little less than a mile. On the

bastions were planted culverins and sakers presented by the wealthy

guilds of London to the colony. On some of these ancient guns, which

have done memorable service to a great cause, the devices of the

Fishmongers' Company, of the Vintners' Company, and of the Merchant

Tailors' Company are still discernible, [132]

The inhabitants were Protestants of Anglosaxon blood. They were indeed

not all of one country or of one church but Englishmen and Scotchmen,

Episcopalians and Presbyterians, seem to have generally lived together

in friendship, a friendship which is sufficiently explained by their

common antipathy to the Irish race and to the Popish religion. During

the rebellion of 1641, Londonderry had resolutely held out against the

native chieftains, and had been repeatedly besieged in vain, [133] Since

the Restoration the city had prospered. The Foyle, when the tide was

high, brought up ships of large burden to the quay. The fisheries throve

greatly. The nets, it was said, were sometimes so full that it was

necessary to fling back multitudes of fish into the waves. The quantity

of salmon caught annually was estimated at eleven hundred thousand

pounds' weight, [134]

The people of Londonderry shared in the alarm which, towards the close

of the year 1688, was general among the Protestants settled in Ireland.

It was known that the aboriginal peasantry of the neighbourhood were

laying in pikes and knives. Priests had been haranguing in a style of

which, it must be owned, the Puritan part of the Anglosaxon colony had

little right to complain, about the slaughter of the Amalekites, and

the judgments which Saul had brought on himself by sparing one of the

proscribed race. Rumours from various quarters and anonymous letters in

various hands agreed in naming the ninth of December as the day fixed

for the extirpation of the strangers. While the minds of the citizens

were agitated by these reports, news came that a regiment of twelve

hundred Papists, commanded by a Papist, Alexander Macdonnell, Earl of

Antrim, had received orders from the Lord Deputy to occupy Londonderry,

and was already on the march from Coleraine. The consternation was

extreme. Some were for closing the gates and resisting; some for

submitting; some for temporising. The corporation had, like the other

corporations of Ireland, been remodelled. The magistrates were men of

low station and character. Among them was only one person of Anglosaxon

extraction; and he had turned Papist. In such rulers the inhabitants

could place no confidence, [135] The Bishop, Ezekiel Hopkins, resolutely

adhered to the doctrine of nonresistance, which he had preached during

many years, and exhorted his flock to go patiently to the slaughter

rather than incur the guilt of disobeying the Lord's Anointed, [136]

Antrim was meanwhile drawing nearer and nearer. At length the citizens

saw from the walls his troops arrayed on the opposite shore of the

Foyle. There was then no bridge: but there was a ferry which kept up a

constant communication between the two banks of the river; and by

this ferry a detachment from Antrim's regiment crossed. The officers

presented themselves at the gate, produced a warrant directed to

the Mayor and Sheriffs, and demanded admittance and quarters for his

Majesty's soldiers.

Just at this moment thirteen young apprentices, most of whom appear,

from their names, to have been of Scottish birth or descent, flew to the

guard room, armed themselves, seized the keys of the city, rushed to the

Ferry Gate, closed it in the face of the King's officers, and let

down the portcullis. James Morison, a citizen more advanced in years,

addressed the intruders from the top of the wall and advised them to

be gone. They stood in consultation before the gate till they heard

him cry, "Bring a great gun this way." They then thought it time to get

beyond the range of shot. They retreated, reembarked, and rejoined their

comrades on the other side of the river. The flame had already spread.

The whole city was up. The other gates were secured. Sentinels paced the

ramparts everywhere. The magazines were opened. Muskets and gunpowder

were distributed. Messengers were sent, under cover of the following

night, to the Protestant gentlemen of the neighbouring counties. The

bishop expostulated in vain. It is indeed probable that the vehement

and daring young Scotchmen who had taken the lead on this occasion had

little respect for his office. One of them broke in on a discourse with

which he interrupted the military preparations by exclaiming, "A good

sermon, my lord; a very good sermon; but we have not time to hear it

just now." [137]

The Protestants of the neighbourhood promptly obeyed the summons of

Londonderry. Within forty-eight hours hundreds of horse and foot came by

various roads to the city. Antrim, not thinking himself strong enough to

risk an attack, or not disposed to take on himself the responsibility of

commencing a civil war without further orders, retired with his troops

to Coleraine.

It might have been expected that the resistance of Enniskillen and

Londonderry would have irritated Tyrconnel into taking some desperate

step. And in truth his savage and imperious temper was at first inflamed

by the news almost to madness. But, after wreaking his rage, as usual,

on his wig, he became somewhat calmer. Tidings of a very sobering nature

had just reached him. The Prince of Orange was marching unopposed to

London. Almost every county and every great town in England had declared

for him. James, deserted by his ablest captains and by his nearest

relatives, had sent commissioners to treat with the invaders, and

had issued writs convoking a Parliament. While the result of the

negotiations which were pending in England was uncertain, the Viceroy

could not venture to take a bloody revenge on the refractory Protestants

of Ireland. He therefore thought it expedient to affect for a time

a clemency and moderation which were by no means congenial to his

disposition. The task of quieting the Englishry of Ulster was intrusted

to William Stewart, Viscount Mountjoy. Mountjoy, a brave soldier, an

accomplished scholar, a zealous Protestant, and yet a zealous Tory, was

one of the very few members of the Established Church who still held

office in Ireland. He was Master of the Ordnance in that kingdom, and

was colonel of a regiment in which an uncommonly large proportion of the

Englishry had been suffered to remain. At Dublin he was the centre of a

small circle of learned and ingenious men who had, under his presidency,

formed themselves into a Royal Society, the image, on a small scale,

of the Royal Society of London. In Ulster, with which he was peculiarly

connected, his name was held in high honour by the colonists, [138] He

hastened with his regiment to Londonderry, and was well received there.

For it was known that, though he was firmly attached to hereditary

monarchy, he was not less firmly attached to the reformed religion.

The citizens readily permitted him to leave within their walls a small

garrison exclusively composed of Protestants, under the command of his

lieutenant colonel, Robert Lundy, who took the title of Governor, [139]

The news of Mountjoy's visit to Ulster was highly gratifying to the

defenders of Enniskillen. Some gentlemen deputed by that town waited on

him to request his good offices, but were disappointed by the reception

which they found. "My advice to you is," he said, "to submit to the

King's authority." "What, my Lord?" said one of the deputies; "Are we

to sit still and let ourselves be butchered?" "The King," said Mountjoy,

"will protect you." "If all that we hear be true," said the deputy, "his

Majesty will find it hard enough to protect himself." The conference

ended in this unsatisfactory manner. Enniskillen still kept its attitude

of defiance; and Mountjoy returned to Dublin, [140]

By this time it had indeed become evident that James could not protect

himself. It was known in Ireland that he had fled; that he had been

stopped; that he had fled again; that the Prince of Orange had arrived

at Westminster in triumph, had taken on himself the administration of

the realm, and had issued letters summoning a Convention.

Those lords and gentlemen at whose request the Prince had assumed the

government, had earnestly intreated him to take the state of Ireland

into his immediate consideration; and he had in reply assured them that

he would do his best to maintain the Protestant religion and the English

interest in that kingdom. His enemies afterwards accused him of utterly

disregarding this promise: nay, they alleged that he purposely suffered

Ireland to sink deeper and deeper in calamity. Halifax, they said, had,

with cruel and perfidious ingenuity, devised this mode of placing the

Convention under a species of duress; and the trick had succeeded but

too well. The vote which called William to the throne would not have

passed so easily but for the extreme dangers which threatened the state;

and it was in consequence of his own dishonest inactivity that those

dangers had become extreme, [141] As this accusation rests on no proof,

those who repeat it are at least bound to show that some course clearly

better than the course which William took was open to him; and this they

will find a difficult task. If indeed he could, within a few weeks after

his arrival in London, have sent a great expedition to Ireland, that

kingdom might perhaps, after a short struggle, or without a struggle,

have submitted to his authority; and a long series of crimes and

calamities might have been averted. But the factious orators and

pamphleteers, who, much at their ease, reproached him for not sending

such an expedition, would have been perplexed if they had been required

to find the men, the ships, and the funds. The English army had lately

been arrayed against him: part of it was still ill disposed towards him;

and the whole was utterly disorganized. Of the army which he had brought

from Holland not a regiment could be spared. He had found the treasury

empty and the pay of the navy in arrear. He had no power to hypothecate

any part of the public revenue. Those who lent him money lent it on no

security but his bare word. It was only by the patriotic liberality

of the merchants of London that he was enabled to defray the ordinary

charges of government till the meeting of the Convention. It is

surely unjust to blame him for not instantly fitting out, in such

circumstances, an armament sufficient to conquer a kingdom.

Perceiving that, till the government of England was settled, it would

not be in his power to interfere effectually by arms in the affairs of

Ireland, he determined to try what effect negotiation would produce.

Those who judged after the event pronounced that he had not, on this

occasion, shown his usual sagacity. He ought, they said, to have known

that it was absurd to expect submission from Tyrconnel. Such however

was not at the time the opinion of men who had the best means of

information, and whose interest was a sufficient pledge for their

sincerity. A great meeting of noblemen and gentlemen who had property

in Ireland was held, during the interregnum, at the house of the Duke of

Ormond in Saint James's Square. They advised the Prince to try whether

the Lord Deputy might not be induced to capitulate on honourable and

advantageous terms, [142] In truth there is strong reason to believe

that Tyrconnel really wavered. For, fierce as were his passions, they

never made him forgetful of his interest; and he might well doubt

whether it were not for his interest, in declining years and health,

to retire from business with full indemnity for all past offences, with

high rank and with an ample fortune, rather than to stake his life and

property on the event of a war against the whole power of England. It

is certain that he professed himself willing to yield. He opened a

communication with the Prince of Orange, and affected to take counsel

with Mountjoy, and with others who, though they had not thrown off their

allegiance to James, were yet firmly attached to the Established Church

and to the English connection.

In one quarter, a quarter from which William was justified in expecting

the most judicious counsel, there was a strong conviction that the

professions of Tyrconnel were sincere. No British statesman had then

so high a reputation throughout Europe as Sir William Temple. His

diplomatic skill had, twenty years before, arrested the progress of the

French power. He had been a steady and an useful friend to the United

Provinces and to the House of Nassau. He had long been on terms of

friendly confidence with the Prince of Orange, and had negotiated that

marriage to which England owed her recent deliverance. With the affairs

of Ireland Temple was supposed to be peculiarly well acquainted. His

family had considerable property there: he had himself resided there

during several years: he had represented the county of Carlow in

parliament; and a large part of his income was derived from a lucrative

Irish office. There was no height of power, of rank, or of opulence, to

which he might not have risen, if he would have consented to quit his

retreat, and to lend his assistance and the weight of his name to the

new government. But power, rank, and opulence had less attraction

for his Epicurean temper than ease and security. He rejected the most

tempting invitations, and continued to amuse himself with his books, his

tulips, and his pineapples, in rural seclusion. With some hesitation,

however, he consented to let his eldest son John enter into the service

of William. During the vacancy of the throne, John Temple was employed

in business of high importance; and, on subjects connected with Ireland,

his opinion, which might reasonably be supposed to agree with his

father's, had great weight. The young politician flattered himself that

he had secured the services of an agent eminently qualified to bring the

negotiation with Tyrconnel to a prosperous issue.

This agent was one of a remarkable family which had sprung from a noble

Scottish stock, but which had long been settled in Ireland, and which

professed the Roman Catholic religion. In the gay crowd which thronged

Whitehall, during those scandalous years of jubilee which immediately

followed the Restoration, the Hamiltons were preeminently conspicuous.

The long fair ringlets, the radiant bloom, and the languishing blue eyes

of the lovely Elizabeth still charm us on the canvass of Lely. She

had the glory of achieving no vulgar conquest. It was reserved for her

voluptuous beauty and for her flippant wit to overcome the aversion

which the coldhearted and scoffing Grammont felt for the indissoluble

tie. One of her brothers, Anthony, became the chronicler of that

brilliant and dissolute society of which he had been one of the most

brilliant and most dissolute members. He deserves the high praise of

having, though not a Frenchman, written the book which is, of all books,

the most exquisitely French, both in spirit and in manner. Another

brother, named Richard, had, in foreign service, gained some military

experience. His wit and politeness had distinguished him even in the

splendid circle of Versailles. It was whispered that he had dared to

lift his eyes to an exalted lady, the natural daughter of the Great

King, the wife of a legitimate prince of the House of Bourbon, and

that she had not seemed to be displeased by the attentions of her

presumptuous admirer, [143] The adventurer had subsequently returned to

his native country, had been appointed Brigadier General in the Irish

army, and had been sworn of the Irish Privy Council. When the Dutch

invasion was expected, he came across Saint George's Channel with the

troops which Tyrconnel sent to reinforce the royal army. After the

flight of James, those troops submitted to the Prince of Orange. Richard

Hamilton not only made his own peace with what was now the ruling power,

but declared himself confident that, if he were sent to Dublin, he could

conduct the negotiation which had been opened there to a happy close. If

he failed, he pledged his word to return to London in three weeks. His

influence in Ireland was known to be great: his honour had never been

questioned; and he was highly esteemed by the Temple family. John Temple

declared that he would answer for Richard Hamilton as for himself. This

guarantee was thought sufficient; and Hamilton set out for Ireland,

assuring his English friends that he should soon bring Tyrconnel

to reason. The offers which he was authorised to make to the Roman

Catholics and to the Lord Deputy personally were most liberal, [144]

It is not impossible that Hamilton may have really meant to perform his

promise. But when he arrived at Dublin he found that he had undertaken

a task which was beyond his power. The hesitation of Tyrconnel, whether

genuine or feigned, was at an end. He had found that he had no longer

a choice. He had with little difficulty stimulated the ignorant and

susceptible Irish to fury. To calm them was beyond his skill. Rumours

were abroad that the Viceroy was corresponding with the English; and

these rumours had set the nation on fire. The cry of the common people

was that, if he dared to sell them for wealth and honours, they would

burn the Castle and him in it, and would put themselves under the

protection of France, [145] It was necessary for him to protest, truly

or falsely, that he had never harboured any thought of submission, and

that he had pretended to negotiate only for the purpose of gaining time.

Yet, before he openly declared against the English settlers, and against

England herself, what must be a war to the death, he wished to rid

himself of Mountjoy, who had hitherto been true to the cause of James,

but who, it was well known, would never consent to be a party to the

spoliation and oppression of the colonists. Hypocritical professions of

friendship and of pacific intentions were not spared. It was a sacred

duty, Tyrconnel said, to avert the calamities which seemed to be

impending. King James himself, if he understood the whole case, would

not wish his Irish friends to engage at that moment in an enterprise

which must be fatal to them and useless to him. He would permit them,

he would command them, to submit to necessity, and to reserve themselves

for better times. If any man of weight, loyal, able, and well informed,

would repair to Saint Germains and explain the state of things, his

Majesty would easily be convinced. Would Mountjoy undertake this most

honourable and important mission? Mountjoy hesitated, and suggested

that some person more likely to be acceptable to the King should be the

messenger. Tyrconnel swore, ranted, declared that, unless King James

were well advised, Ireland would sink to the pit of hell, and insisted

that Mountjoy should go as the representative of the loyal members of

the Established Church, and should be accompanied by Chief Baron Rice,

a Roman Catholic high in the royal favour. Mountjoy yielded. The two

ambassadors departed together, but with very different commissions. Rice

was charged to tell James that Mountjoy was a traitor at heart, and

had been sent to France only that the Protestants of Ireland might be

deprived of a favourite leader. The King was to be assured that he was

impatiently expected in Ireland, and that, if he would show himself

there with a French force, he might speedily retrieve his fallen

fortunes, [146] The Chief Baron carried with him other instructions

which were probably kept secret even from the Court of Saint Germains.

If James should be unwilling to put himself at the head of the native

population of Ireland, Rice was directed to request a private audience

of Lewis, and to offer to make the island a province of France, [147]

As soon as the two envoys had departed, Tyrconnel set himself to prepare

for the conflict which had become inevitable; and he was strenuously

assisted by the faithless Hamilton. The Irish nation was called to arms;

and the call was obeyed with strange promptitude and enthusiasm. The

flag on the Castle of Dublin was embroidered with the words, "Now or

never: now and for ever:" and those words resounded through the whole

island, [148] Never in modern Europe has there been such a rising up of

a whole people. The habits of the Celtic peasant were such that he

made no sacrifice in quitting his potatoe ground for the camp. He loved

excitement and adventure. He feared work far more than danger.

His national and religious feelings had, during three years, been

exasperated by the constant application of stimulants. At every fair and

market he had heard that a good time was at hand, that the tyrants who

spoke Saxon and lived in slated houses were about to be swept away, and

that the land would again belong to its own children. By the peat fires

of a hundred thousand cabins had nightly been sung rude ballads which

predicted the deliverance of the oppressed race. The priests, most of

whom belonged to those old families which the Act of Settlement had

ruined, but which were still revered by the native population, had, from

a thousand altars, charged every Catholic to show his zeal for the true

Church by providing weapons against the day when it might be necessary

to try the chances of battle in her cause. The army, which, under

Ormond, had consisted of only eight regiments, was now increased

to forty-eight: and the ranks were soon full to overflowing. It was

impossible to find at short notice one tenth of the number of good

officers which was required. Commissions were scattered profusely among

idle cosherers who claimed to be descended from good Irish families.

Yet even thus the supply of captains and lieutenants fell short of

the demand; and many companies were commanded by cobblers, tailors and

footmen, [149]

The pay of the soldiers was very small. The private had only threepence

a day. One half only of this pittance was ever given him in money; and

that half was often in arrear. But a far more seductive bait than

his miserable stipend was the prospect of boundless license. If the

government allowed him less than sufficed for his wants, it was not

extreme to mark the means by which he supplied the deficiency. Though

four fifths of the population of Ireland were Celtic and Roman Catholic,

more than four fifths of the property of Ireland belonged to the

Protestant Englishry. The garners, the cellars, above all the flocks

and herds of the minority, were abandoned to the majority. Whatever the

regular troops spared was devoured by bands of marauders who overran

almost every barony in the island. For the arming was now universal. No

man dared to present himself at mass without some weapon, a pike, a

long knife called a skean, or, at the very least, a strong ashen stake,

pointed and hardened in the fire. The very women were exhorted by their

spiritual directors to carry skeans. Every smith, every carpenter,

every cutler, was at constant work on guns and blades. It was scarcely

possible to get a horse shod. If any Protestant artisan refused to

assist in the manufacture of implements which were to be used against

his nation and his religion, he was flung into prison. It seems probable

that, at the end of February, at least a hundred thousand Irishmen

were in arms. Near fifty thousand of them were soldiers. The rest were

banditti, whose violence and licentiousness the Government affected to

disapprove, but did not really exert itself to suppress. The Protestants

not only were not protected, but were not suffered to protect

themselves. It was determined that they should be left unarmed in the

midst of an armed and hostile population. A day was fixed on which they

were to bring all their swords and firelocks to the parish churches; and

it was notified that every Protestant house in which, after that day, a

weapon should be found should be given up to be sacked by the soldiers.

Bitter complaints were made that any knave might, by hiding a spear head

or an old gun barrel in a corner of a mansion, bring utter ruin on the

owner, [150]

Chief Justice Keating, himself a Protestant, and almost the only

Protestant who still held a great place in Ireland, struggled

courageously in the cause of justice and order against the united

strength of the government and the populace. At the Wicklow assizes

of that spring, he, from the seat of judgment, set forth with great

strength of language the miserable state of the country. Whole counties,

he said, were devastated by a rabble resembling the vultures and ravens

which follow the march of an army. Most of these wretches were not

soldiers. They acted under no authority known to the law. Yet it was,

he owned, but too evident that they were encouraged and screened by some

who were in high command. How else could it be that a market overt

for plunder should be held within a short distance of the capital? The

stories which travellers told of the savage Hottentots near the Cape of

Good Hope were realised in Leinster. Nothing was more common than for an

honest man to lie down rich in flocks and herds acquired by the industry

of a long life, and to wake a beggar. It was however to small purpose

that Keating attempted, in the midst of that fearful anarchy, to uphold

the supremacy of the law. Priests and military chiefs appeared on the

bench for the purpose of overawing the judge and countenancing the

robbers. One ruffian escaped because no prosecutor dared to appear.

Another declared that he had armed himself in conformity to the orders

of his spiritual guide, and to the example of many persons of higher

station than himself, whom he saw at that moment in Court. Two only of

the Merry Boys, as they were called, were convicted: the worst criminals

escaped; and the Chief justice indignantly told the jurymen that the

guilt of the public ruin lay at their door, [151]

When such disorder prevailed in Wicklow, it is easy to imagine what must

have been the state of districts more barbarous and more remote from the

seat of government. Keating appears to have been the only magistrate who

strenuously exerted himself to put the law in force. Indeed Nugent, the

Chief justice of the highest criminal court of the realm, declared on

the bench at Cork that, without violence and spoliation, the intentions

of the Government could not be carried into effect, and that robbery

must at that conjuncture be tolerated as a necessary evil, [152]

The destruction of property which took place within a few weeks would be

incredible, if it were not attested by witnesses unconnected with each

other and attached to very different interests. There is a close, and

sometimes almost a verbal, agreement between the description given by

Protestants, who, during that reign of terror, escaped, at the hazard

of their lives, to England, and the descriptions given by the envoys,

commissaries, and captains of Lewis. All agreed in declaring that it

would take many years to repair the waste which had been wrought in a

few weeks by the armed peasantry, [153] Some of the Saxon aristocracy

had mansions richly furnished, and sideboards gorgeous with silver bowls

and chargers. All this wealth disappeared. One house, in which there had

been three thousand pounds' worth of plate, was left without a spoon,

[154] But the chief riches of Ireland consisted in cattle. Innumerable

flocks and herds covered that vast expanse of emerald meadow, saturated

with the moisture of the Atlantic. More than one gentleman possessed

twenty thousand sheep and four thousand oxen. The freebooters who now

overspread the country belonged to a class which was accustomed to

live on potatoes and sour whey, and which had always regarded meat as

a luxury reserved for the rich. These men at first revelled in beef and

mutton, as the savage invaders, who of old poured down from the forests

of the north on Italy, revelled in Massic and Falernian wines. The

Protestants described with contemptuous disgust the strange gluttony of

their newly liberated slaves. The carcasses, half raw and half burned

to cinders, sometimes still bleeding, sometimes in a state of loathsome

decay, were torn to pieces and swallowed without salt, bread, or herbs.

Those marauders who preferred boiled meat, being often in want of

kettles, contrived to boil the steer in his own skin. An absurd

tragicomedy is still extant, which was acted in this and the following

year at some low theatre for the amusement of the English populace. A

crowd of half naked savages appeared on the stage, howling a Celtic song

and dancing round an ox. They then proceeded to cut steaks out of the

animal while still alive and to fling the bleeding flesh on the coals.

In truth the barbarity and filthiness of the banquets of the Rapparees

was such as the dramatists of Grub Street could scarcely caricature.

When Lent began, the plunderers generally ceased to devour, but

continued to destroy. A peasant would kill a cow merely in order to get

a pair of brogues. Often a whole flock of sheep, often a herd of fifty

or sixty kine, was slaughtered: the beasts were flayed; the fleeces and

hides were carried away; and the bodies were left to poison the air.

The French ambassador reported to his master that, in six weeks, fifty

thousand horned cattle had been slain in this manner, and were rotting

on the ground all over the country. The number of sheep that were

butchered during the same time was popularly said to have been three or

four hundred thousand, [155]

Any estimate which can now be framed of the value of the property

destroyed during this fearful conflict of races must necessarily be very

inexact. We are not however absolutely without materials for such an

estimate. The Quakers were neither a very numerous nor a very opulent

class. We can hardly suppose that they were more than a fiftieth part of

the Protestant population of Ireland, or that they possessed more than a

fiftieth part of the Protestant wealth of Ireland. They were undoubtedly

better treated than any other Protestant sect. James had always been

partial to them: they own that Tyrconnel did his best to protect them;

and they seem to have found favour even in the sight of the Rapparees,

[156] Yet the Quakers computed their pecuniary losses at a hundred

thousand pounds, [157]

In Leinster, Munster and Connaught, it was utterly impossible for the

English settlers, few as they were and dispersed, to offer any effectual

resistance to this terrible outbreak of the aboriginal population.

Charleville, Mallow, Sligo, fell into the hands of the natives. Bandon,

where the Protestants had mustered in considerable force, was reduced by

Lieutenant General Macarthy, an Irish officer who was descended from one

of the most illustrious Celtic houses, and who had long served, under a

feigned name, in the French Army, [158] The people of Kenmare held

out in their little fastness till they were attacked by three thousand

regular soldiers, and till it was known that several pieces of ordnance

were coming to batter down the turf wall which surrounded the agent's

house. Then at length a capitulation was concluded. The colonists were

suffered to embark in a small vessel scantily supplied with food and

water. They had no experienced navigator on board: but after a voyage

of a fortnight, during which they were crowded together like slaves in

a Guinea ship, and suffered the extremity of thirst and hunger, they

reached Bristol in safety, [159] When such was the fate of the towns, it

was evident that the country seats which the Protestant landowners had

recently fortified in the three southern provinces could no longer be

defended. Many families submitted, delivered up their arms, and

thought themselves happy in escaping with life. But many resolute and

highspirited gentlemen and yeomen were determined to perish rather than

yield. They packed up such valuable property as could easily be carried

away, burned whatever they could not remove, and, well armed and

mounted, set out for those spots in Ulster which were the strongholds of

their race and of their faith. The flower of the Protestant population

of Munster and Connaught found shelter at Enniskillen. Whatever was

bravest and most truehearted in Leinster took the road to Londonderry,

[160]

The spirit of Enniskillen and Londonderry rose higher and higher to

meet the danger. At both places the tidings of what had been done by the

Convention at Westminster were received with transports of joy. William

and Mary were proclaimed at Enniskillen with unanimous enthusiasm,

and with such pomp as the little town could furnish, [161] Lundy, who

commanded at Londonderry, could not venture to oppose himself to the

general sentiment of the citizens and of his own soldiers. He therefore

gave in his adhesion to the new government, and signed a declaration

by which he bound himself to stand by that government, on pain of being

considered a coward and a traitor. A vessel from England soon brought

a commission from William and Mary which confirmed him in his office,

[162]

To reduce the Protestants of Ulster to submission before aid could

arrive from England was now the chief object of Tyrconnel. A great force

was ordered to move northward, under the command of Richard Hamilton.

This man had violated all the obligations which are held most sacred by

gentlemen and soldiers, had broken faith with his friends the Temples,

had forfeited his military parole, and was now not ashamed to take

the field as a general against the government to which he was bound

to render himself up as a prisoner. His march left on the face of the

country traces which the most careless eye could not during many years

fail to discern. His army was accompanied by a rabble, such as Keating

had well compared to the unclean birds of prey which swarm wherever the

scent of carrion is strong. The general professed himself anxious to

save from ruin and outrage all Protestants who remained quietly at their

homes; and he most readily gave them protections tinder his hand. But

these protections proved of no avail; and he was forced to own that,

whatever power he might be able to exercise over his soldiers, he could

not keep order among the mob of campfollowers. The country behind

him was a wilderness; and soon the country before him became equally

desolate. For at the fame of his approach the colonists burned their

furniture, pulled down their houses, and retreated northward. Some

of them attempted to make a stand at Dromore, but were broken and

scattered. Then the flight became wild and tumultuous. The fugitives

broke down the bridges and burned the ferryboats. Whole towns, the seats

of the Protestant population, were left in ruins without one inhabitant.

The people of Omagh destroyed their own dwellings so utterly that no

roof was left to shelter the enemy from the rain and wind. The people of

Cavan migrated in one body to Enniskillen. The day was wet and stormy.

The road was deep in mire. It was a piteous sight to see, mingled with

the armed men, the women and children weeping, famished, and toiling

through the mud up to their knees. All Lisburn fled to Antrim; and, as

the foes drew nearer, all Lisburn and Antrim together came pouring into

Londonderry. Thirty thousand Protestants, of both sexes and of every

age, were crowded behind the bulwarks of the City of Refuge. There, at

length, on the verge of the ocean, hunted to the last asylum, and

baited into a mood in which men may be destroyed, but will not easily be

subjugated, the imperial race turned desperately to bay, [163]

Meanwhile Mountjoy and Rice had arrived in France. Mountjoy was

instantly put under arrest and thrown into the Bastile. James determined

to comply with the invitation which Rice had brought, and applied to

Lewis for the help of a French army. But Lewis, though he showed, as to

all things which concerned the personal dignity and comfort of his

royal guests, a delicacy even romantic, and a liberality approaching to

profusion, was unwilling to send a large body of troops to Ireland.

He saw that France would have to maintain a long war on the Continent

against a formidable coalition: her expenditure must be immense; and,

great as were her resources, he felt it to be important that nothing

should be wasted. He doubtless regarded with sincere commiseration and

good will the unfortunate exiles to whom he had given so princely a

welcome. Yet neither commiseration nor good will could prevent him from

speedily discovering that his brother of England was the dullest and

most perverse of human beings. The folly of James, his incapacity to

read the characters of men and the signs of the times, his obstinacy,

always most offensively displayed when wisdom enjoined concession,

his vacillation, always exhibited most pitiably in emergencies which

required firmness, had made him an outcast from England, and might, if

his counsels were blindly followed, bring great calamities on France.

As a legitimate sovereign expelled by rebels, as a confessor of the true

faith persecuted by heretics, as a near kinsman of the House of Bourbon,

who had seated himself on the hearth of that House, he was entitled to

hospitality, to tenderness, to respect. It was fit that he should have

a stately palace and a spacious forest, that the household troops should

salute him with the highest military honours, that he should have at his

command all the hounds of the Grand Huntsman and all the hawks of the

Grand Falconer. But, when a prince, who, at the head of a great fleet

and army, had lost an empire without striking a blow, undertook to

furnish plans for naval and military expeditions; when a prince, who

had been undone by his profound ignorance of the temper of his own

countrymen, of his own soldiers, of his own domestics, of his own

children, undertook to answer for the zeal and fidelity of the Irish

people, whose language he could not speak, and on whose land he had

never set his foot; it was necessary to receive his suggestions with

caution. Such were the sentiments of Lewis; and in these sentiments he

was confirmed by his Minister of War Louvois, who, on private as well as

on public grounds, was unwilling that James should be accompanied by

a large military force. Louvois hated Lauzun. Lauzun was favourite at

Saint Germains. He wore the garter, a badge of honour which has very

seldom been conferred on aliens who were not sovereign princes. It was

believed indeed at the French Court that, in order to distinguish him

from the other knights of the most illustrious of European orders, he

had been decorated with that very George which Charles the First had,

on the scaffold, put into the hands of Juxon, [164] Lauzun had been

encouraged to hope that, if French forces were sent to Ireland, he

should command them; and this ambitious hope Louvois was bent on

disappointing, [165]

An army was therefore for the present refused; but every thing else was

granted. The Brest fleet was ordered to be in readiness to sail. Arms

for ten thousand men and great quantities of ammunition were put on

board. About four hundred captains, lieutenants, cadets and gunners were

selected for the important service of organizing and disciplining the

Irish levies. The chief command was held by a veteran warrior, the

Count of Rosen. Under him were Maumont, who held the rank of lieutenant

general, and a brigadier named Pusignan. Five hundred thousand crowns in

gold, equivalent to about a hundred and twelve thousand pounds sterling,

were sent to Brest, [166] For James's personal comforts provision was

made with anxiety resembling that of a tender mother equipping her

son for a first campaign. The cabin furniture, the camp furniture, the

tents, the bedding, the plate, were luxurious and superb. Nothing,

which could be agreeable or useful to the exile was too costly for the

munificence, or too trifling for the attention, of his gracious and

splendid host. On the fifteenth of February, James paid a farewell visit

to Versailles. He was conducted round the buildings and plantations with

every mark of respect and kindness. The fountains played in his honour.

It was the season of the Carnival; and never had the vast palace and

the sumptuous gardens presented a gayer aspect. In the evening the

two kings, after a long and earnest conference in private, made their

appearance before a splendid circle of lords and ladies. "I hope," said

Lewis, in his noblest and most winning manner, "that we are about to

part, never to meet again in this world. That is the best wish that I

can form for you. But, if any evil chance should force you to return,

be assured that you will find me to the last such as you have found me

hitherto." On the seventeenth Lewis paid in return a farewell visit to

Saint Germains. At the moment of the parting embrace he said, with

his most amiable smile: "We have forgotten one thing, a cuirass for

yourself. You shall have mine." The cuirass was brought, and suggested

to the wits of the Court ingenious allusions to the Vulcanian panoply

which Achilles lent to his feebler friend. James set out for Brest; and

his wife, overcome with sickness and sorrow, shut herself up with her

child to weep and pray, [167]

James was accompanied or speedily followed by several of his own

subjects, among whom the most distinguished were his son Berwick,

Cartwright Bishop of Chester, Powis, Dover, and Melfort. Of all the

retinue, none was so odious to the people of Great Britain as Melfort.

He was an apostate: he was believed by many to be an insincere apostate;

and the insolent, arbitrary and menacing language of his state papers

disgusted even the Jacobites. He was therefore a favourite with his

master: for to James unpopularity, obstinacy, and implacability were the

greatest recommendations that a statesman could have.

What Frenchman should attend the King of England in the character of

ambassador had been the subject of grave deliberation at Versailles.

Barillon could not be passed over without a marked slight. But his

selfindulgent habits, his want of energy, and, above all, the credulity

with which he had listened to the professions of Sunderland, had made

an unfavourable impression on the mind of Lewis. What was to be done

in Ireland was not work for a trifler or a dupe. The agent of France in

that kingdom must be equal to much more than the ordinary functions of

an envoy. It would be his right and his duty to offer advice touching

every part of the political and military administration of the country

in which he would represent the most powerful and the most beneficent

of allies. Barillon was therefore passed over. He affected to bear his

disgrace with composure. His political career, though it had brought

great calamities both on the House of Stuart and on the House of

Bourbon, had been by no means unprofitable to himself. He was old, he

said: he was fat: he did not envy younger men the honour of living

on potatoes and whiskey among the Irish bogs; he would try to console

himself with partridges, with champagne, and with the society of the

wittiest men and prettiest women of Paris. It was rumoured, however that

he was tortured by painful emotions which he was studious to conceal:

his health and spirits failed; and he tried to find consolation in

religious duties. Some people were much edified by the piety of the old

voluptuary: but others attributed his death, which took place not long

after his retreat from public life, to shame and vexation, [168]

The Count of Avaux, whose sagacity had detected all the plans of

William, and who had vainly recommended a policy which would probably

have frustrated them, was the man on whom the choice of Lewis fell. In

abilities Avaux had no superior among the numerous able diplomatists

whom his country then possessed. His demeanour was singularly pleasing,

his person handsome, his temper bland. His manners and conversation

were those of a gentleman who had been bred in the most polite and

magnificent of all Courts, who had represented that Court both in

Roman Catholic and Protestant countries, and who had acquired in his

wanderings the art of catching the tone of any society into which

chance might throw him. He was eminently vigilant and adroit, fertile in

resources, and skilful in discovering the weak parts of a character.

His own character, however, was not without its weak parts. The

consciousness that he was of plebeian origin was the torment of

his life. He pined for nobility with a pining at once pitiable and

ludicrous. Able, experienced and accomplished as he was, he sometimes,

under the influence of this mental disease, descended to the level of

Moliere's Jourdain, and entertained malicious observers with scenes

almost as laughable as that in which the honest draper was made a

Mamamouchi, [169] It would have been well if this had been the worst.

But it is not too much to say that of the difference between right and

wrong Avaux had no more notion than a brute. One sentiment was to him

in the place of religion and morality, a superstitious and intolerant

devotion to the Crown which he served. This sentiment pervades all his

despatches, and gives a colour to all his thoughts and words. Nothing

that tended to promote the interest of the French monarchy seemed to him

a crime. Indeed he appears to have taken it for granted that not only

Frenchmen, but all human beings, owed a natural allegiance to the House

of Bourbon, and that whoever hesitated to sacrifice the happiness and

freedom of his own native country to the glory of that House was a

traitor. While he resided at the Hague, he always designated those

Dutchmen who had sold themselves to France as the well intentioned

party. In the letters which he wrote from Ireland, the same feeling

appears still more strongly. He would have been a more sagacious

politician if he had sympathized more with those feelings of moral

approbation and disapprobation which prevail among the vulgar. For his

own indifference to all considerations of justice and mercy was such

that, in his schemes, he made no allowance for the consciences and

sensibilities of his neighbours. More than once he deliberately

recommended wickedness so horrible that wicked men recoiled from it with

indignation. But they could not succeed even in making their scruples

intelligible to him. To every remonstrance he listened with a cynical

sneer, wondering within himself whether those who lectured him were such

fools as they professed to be, or were only shamming.

Such was the man whom Lewis selected to be the companion and monitor of

James. Avaux was charged to open, if possible, a communication with the

malecontents in the English Parliament; and he was authorised to expend,

if necessary, a hundred thousand crowns among them.

James arrived at Brest on the fifth of March, embarked there on board

of a man of war called the Saint Michael, and sailed within forty-eight

hours. He had ample time, however, before his departure, to exhibit some

of the faults by which he had lost England and Scotland, and by which he

was about to lose Ireland. Avaux wrote from the harbour of Brest that it

would not be easy to conduct any important business in concert with the

King of England. His Majesty could not keep any secret from any body.

The very foremast men of the Saint Michael had already heard him

say things which ought to have been reserved for the ears of his

confidential advisers, [170]

The voyage was safely and quietly performed; and, on the afternoon of

the twelfth of March, James landed in the harbour of Kinsale. By the

Roman Catholic population he was received with shouts of unfeigned

transport. The few Protestants who remained in that part of the country

joined in greeting him, and perhaps not insincerely. For, though an

enemy of their religion, he was not an enemy of their nation; and they

might reasonably hope that the worst king would show somewhat more

respect for law and property than had been shown by the Merry Boys and

Rapparees. The Vicar of Kinsale was among those who went to pay

their duty: he was presented by the Bishop of Chester, and was not

ungraciously received, [171]

James learned that his cause was prospering. In the three southern

provinces of Ireland the Protestants were disarmed, and were so

effectually bowed down by terror that he had nothing to apprehend from

them. In the North there was some show of resistance: but Hamilton was

marching against the malecontents; and there was little doubt that they

would easily be crushed. A day was spent at Kinsale in putting the arms

and ammunition out of reach of danger. Horses sufficient to carry a few

travellers were with some difficulty procured; and, on the fourteenth of

March, James proceeded to Cork, [172]

We should greatly err if we imagined that the road by which he entered

that city bore any resemblance to the stately approach which strikes the

traveller of the nineteenth century with admiration. At present Cork,

though deformed by many miserable relics of a former age, holds no mean

place among the ports of the empire. The shipping is more than half what

the shipping of London was at the time of the Revolution. The customs

exceed the whole revenue which the whole kingdom of Ireland, in the

most peaceful and prosperous times, yielded to the Stuarts. The town

is adorned by broad and well built streets, by fair gardens, by a

Corinthian portico which would do honour to Palladio, and by a Gothic

college worthy to stand in the High Street of Oxford. In 1689, the city

extended over about one tenth part of the space which it now covers,

and was intersected by muddy streams, which have long been concealed

by arches and buildings. A desolate marsh, in which the sportsman who

pursued the waterfowl sank deep in water and mire at every step,

covered the area now occupied by stately buildings, the palaces of

great commercial societies. There was only a single street in which two

wheeled carriages could pass each other. From this street diverged to

right and left alleys squalid and noisome beyond the belief of those

who have formed their notions of misery from the most miserable parts

of Saint Giles's and Whitechapel. One of these alleys, called, and, by

comparison, justly called, Broad Lane, is about ten feet wide. From

such places, now seats of hunger and pestilence, abandoned to the most

wretched of mankind, the citizens poured forth to welcome James. He was

received with military honours by Macarthy, who held the chief command

in Munster.

It was impossible for the King to proceed immediately to Dublin; for the

southern counties had been so completely laid waste by the banditti whom

the priests had called to arms, that the means of locomotion were not

easily to be procured. Horses had become rarities: in a large district

there were only two carts; and those Avaux pronounced good for nothing.

Some days elapsed before the money which had been brought from France,

though no very formidable mass, could be dragged over the few miles

which separated Cork from Kinsale, [173]

While the King and his Council were employed in trying to procure

carriages and beasts, Tyrconnel arrived from Dublin. He held encouraging

language. The opposition of Enniskillen he seems to have thought

deserving of little consideration. Londonderry, he said, was the only

important post held by the Protestants; and even Londonderry would not,

in his judgment, hold out many days.

At length James was able to leave Cork for the capital. On the road,

the shrewd and observant Avaux made many remarks. The first part of the

journey was through wild highlands, where it was not strange that there

should be few traces of art and industry. But, from Kilkenny to the

gates of Dublin, the path of the travellers lay over gently undulating

ground rich with natural verdure. That fertile district should have been

covered with flocks and herds, orchards and cornfields: but it was an

unfilled and unpeopled desert. Even in the towns the artisans were very

few. Manufactured articles were hardly to be found, and if found could

be procured only at immense prices, [174] The truth was that most of the

English inhabitants had fled, and that art, industry, and capital had

fled with them.

James received on his progress numerous marks of the goodwill of the

peasantry; but marks such as, to men bred in the courts of France

and England, had an uncouth and ominous appearance. Though very few

labourers were seen at work in the fields, the road was lined by

Rapparees armed with skeans, stakes, and half pikes, who crowded to look

upon the deliverer of their race. The highway along which he travelled

presented the aspect of a street in which a fair is held. Pipers came

forth to play before him in a style which was not exactly that of the

French opera; and the villagers danced wildly to the music. Long frieze

mantles, resembling those which Spenser had, a century before, described

as meet beds for rebels, and apt cloaks for thieves, were spread along

the path which the cavalcade was to tread; and garlands, in which

cabbage stalks supplied the place of laurels, were offered to the royal

hand. The women insisted on kissing his Majesty; but it should seem that

they bore little resemblance to their posterity; for this compliment

was so distasteful to him that he ordered his retinue to keep them at a

distance, [175]

On the twenty-fourth of March he entered Dublin. That city was then,

in extent and population, the second in the British isles. It contained

between six and seven thousand houses, and probably above thirty

thousand inhabitants, [176] In wealth and beauty, however, Dublin was

inferior to many English towns. Of the graceful and stately public

buildings which now adorn both sides of the Liffey scarcely one had been

even projected. The College, a very different edifice from that which

now stands on the same site, lay quite out of the city, [177] The ground

which is at present occupied by Leinster House and Charlemont House,

by Sackville Street and Merrion Square, was open meadow. Most of the

dwellings were built of timber, and have long given place to more

substantial edifices. The Castle had in 1686 been almost uninhabitable.

Clarendon had complained that he knew of no gentleman in Pall Mall who

was not more conveniently and handsomely lodged than the Lord Lieutenant

of Ireland. No public ceremony could be performed in a becoming manner

under the Viceregal roof. Nay, in spite of constant glazing and tiling,

the rain perpetually drenched the apartments, [178] Tyrconnel, since he

became Lord Deputy, had erected a new building somewhat more commodious.

To this building the King was conducted in state through the southern

part of the city. Every exertion had been made to give an air of

festivity and splendour to the district which he was to traverse. The

streets, which were generally deep in mud, were strewn with gravel.

Boughs and flowers were scattered over the path.

Tapestry and arras hung from the windows of those who could afford to

exhibit such finery. The poor supplied the place of rich stuffs with

blankets and coverlids. In one place was stationed a troop of friars

with a cross; in another a company of forty girls dressed in white and

carrying nosegays. Pipers and harpers played "The King shall enjoy

his own again." The Lord Deputy carried the sword of state before his

master. The Judges, the Heralds, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, appeared

in all the pomp of office. Soldiers were drawn up on the right and left

to keep the passages clear. A procession of twenty coaches belonging to

public functionaries was mustered. Before the Castle gate, the King was

met by the host under a canopy borne by four bishops of his church. At

the sight he fell on his knees, and passed some time in devotion. He

then rose and was conducted to the chapel of his palace, once--such are

the vicissitudes of human things--the riding house of Henry Cromwell.

A Te Deum was performed in honour of his Majesty's arrival. The next

morning he held a Privy Council, discharged Chief Justice Keating from

any further attendance at the board, ordered Avaux and Bishop Cartwright

to be sworn in, and issued a proclamation convoking a Parliament to meet

at Dublin on the seventh of May, [179]

When the news that James had arrived in Ireland reached London, the

sorrow and alarm were general, and were mingled with serious discontent.

The multitude, not making sufficient allowance for the difficulties by

which William was encompassed on every side, loudly blamed his neglect.

To all the invectives of the ignorant and malicious he opposed, as was

his wont, nothing but immutable gravity and the silence of profound

disdain. But few minds had received from nature a temper so firm as his;

and still fewer had undergone so long and so rigorous a discipline.

The reproaches which had no power to shake his fortitude, tried from

childhood upwards by both extremes of fortune, inflicted a deadly wound

on a less resolute heart.

While all the coffeehouses were unanimously resolving that a fleet and

army ought to have been long before sent to Dublin, and wondering how so

renowned a politician as his Majesty could have been duped by Hamilton

and Tyrconnel, a gentleman went down to the Temple Stairs, called a

boat, and desired to be pulled to Greenwich. He took the cover of a

letter from his pocket, scratched a few lines with a pencil, and laid

the paper on the seat with some silver for his fare. As the boat passed

under the dark central arch of London Bridge, he sprang into the water

and disappeared. It was found that he had written these words: "My

folly in undertaking what I could not execute hath done the King great

prejudice which cannot be stopped--No easier way for me than this--May

his undertakings prosper--May he have a blessing." There was no

signature; but the body was soon found, and proved to be that of

John Temple. He was young and highly accomplished: he was heir to an

honourable name; he was united to an amiable woman: he was possessed

of an ample fortune; and he had in prospect the greatest honours of the

state. It does not appear that the public had been at all aware to what

an extent he was answerable for the policy which had brought so much

obloquy on the government. The King, stern as he was, had far too

great a heart to treat an error as a crime. He had just appointed the

unfortunate young man Secretary at War; and the commission was actually

preparing. It is not improbable that the cold magnanimity of the master

was the very thing which made the remorse of the servant insupportable,

[180]

But, great as were the vexations which William had to undergo, those

by which the temper of his father-in-law was at this time tried were

greater still. No court in Europe was distracted by more quarrels and

intrigues than were to be found within the walls of Dublin Castle. The

numerous petty cabals which sprang from the cupidity, the jealousy, and

the malevolence of individuals scarcely deserve mention. But there was

one cause of discord which has been too little noticed, and which is

the key to much that has been thought mysterious in the history of those

times.

Between English Jacobitism and Irish Jacobitism there was nothing in

common. The English Jacobite was animated by a strong enthusiasm for the

family of Stuart; and in his zeal for the interests of that family he

too often forgot the interests of the state. Victory, peace, prosperity,

seemed evils to the stanch nonjuror of our island if they tended to make

usurpation popular and permanent. Defeat, bankruptcy, famine, invasion,

were, in his view, public blessings, if they increased the chance of

a restoration. He would rather have seen his country the last of the

nations under James the Second or James the Third, than the mistress of

the sea, the umpire between contending potentates, the seat of arts, the

hive of industry, under a prince of the House of Nassau or of Brunswick.

The sentiments of the Irish Jacobite were very different, and, it must

in candour be acknowledged, were of a nobler character. The fallen

dynasty was nothing to him. He had not, like a Cheshire or Shropshire

cavalier, been taught from his cradle to consider loyalty to that

dynasty as the first duty of a Christian and a gentleman. All his family

traditions, all the lessons taught him by his foster mother and by his

priests, had been of a very different tendency. He had been brought up

to regard the foreign sovereigns of his native land with the feeling

with which the Jew regarded Caesar, with which the Scot regarded Edward

the First, with which the Castilian regarded Joseph Buonaparte, with

which the Pole regards the Autocrat of the Russias. It was the boast of

the highborn Milesian that, from the twelfth century to the seventeenth,

every generation of his family had been in arms against the English

crown. His remote ancestors had contended with Fitzstephen and De Burgh.

His greatgrandfather had cloven down the soldiers of Elizabeth in the

battle of the Blackwater. His grandfather had conspired with O'Donnel

against James the First. His father had fought under Sir Phelim O'Neill

against Charles the First. The confiscation of the family estate had

been ratified by an Act of Charles the Second. No Puritan, who had been

cited before the High Commission by Laud, who had charged under Cromwell

at Naseby, who had been prosecuted under the Conventicle Act, and who

had been in hiding on account of the Rye House Plot, bore less affection

to the House of Stuart than the O'Haras and Macmahons, on whose support

the fortunes of that House now seemed to depend.

The fixed purpose of these men was to break the foreign yoke, to

exterminate the Saxon colony, to sweep away the Protestant Church, and

to restore the soil to its ancient proprietors. To obtain these ends

they would without the smallest scruple have risen up against James;

and to obtain these ends they rose up for him. The Irish Jacobites,

therefore, were not at all desirous that he should again reign at

Whitehall: for they could not but be aware that a Sovereign of Ireland,

who was also Sovereign of England, would not, and, even if he would,

could not, long administer the government of the smaller and poorer

kingdom in direct opposition to the feeling of the larger and richer.

Their real wish was that the Crowns might be completely separated, and

that their island might, whether under James or without James they cared

little, form a distinct state under the powerful protection of France.

While one party in the Council at Dublin regarded James merely as a tool

to be employed for achieving the deliverance of Ireland, another party

regarded Ireland merely as a tool to be employed for effecting the

restoration of James. To the English and Scotch lords and gentlemen who

had accompanied him from Brest, the island in which they sojourned was

merely a stepping stone by which they were to reach Great Britain.

They were still as much exiles as when they were at Saint Germains; and

indeed they thought Saint Germains a far more pleasant place of exile

than Dublin Castle. They had no sympathy with the native population of

the remote and half barbarous region to which a strange chance had led

them. Nay, they were bound by common extraction and by common language

to that colony which it was the chief object of the native population

to root out. They had indeed, like the great body of their countrymen,

always regarded the aboriginal Irish with very unjust contempt, as

inferior to other European nations, not only in acquired knowledge, but

in natural intelligence and courage; as born Gibeonites who had been

liberally treated, in being permitted to hew wood and to draw water for

a wiser and mightier people. These politicians also thought,--and here

they were undoubtedly in the right,--that, if their master's object was

to recover the throne of England, it would be madness in him to give

himself up to the guidance of the O's and the Macs who regarded England

with mortal enmity. A law declaring the crown of Ireland independent, a

law transferring mitres, glebes, and tithes from the Protestant to the

Roman Catholic Church, a law transferring ten millions of acres from

Saxons to Celts, would doubtless be loudly applauded in Clare and

Tipperary. But what would be the effect of such laws at Westminster?

What at Oxford? It would be poor policy to alienate such men as

Clarendon and Beaufort, Ken and Sherlock, in order to obtain the

applause of the Rapparees of the Bog of Allen, [181]

Thus the English and Irish factions in the Council at Dublin were

engaged in a dispute which admitted of no compromise. Avaux meanwhile

looked on that dispute from a point of view entirely his own. His object

was neither the emancipation of Ireland nor the restoration of James,

but the greatness of the French monarchy. In what way that object might

be best attained was a very complicated problem. Undoubtedly a French

statesman could not but wish for a counterrevolution in England. The

effect of such a counterrevolution would be that the power which was

the most formidable enemy of France would become her firmest ally, that

William would sink into insignificance, and that the European coalition

of which he was the chief would be dissolved. But what chance was

there of such a counterrevolution? The English exiles indeed, after

the fashion of exiles, confidently anticipated a speedy return to their

country. James himself loudly boasted that his subjects on the other

side of the water, though they had been misled for a moment by the

specious names of religion, liberty, and property, were warmly attached

to him, and would rally round him as soon as he appeared among them. But

the wary envoy tried in vain to discover any foundation for these hopes.

He was certain that they were not warranted by any intelligence which

had arrived from any part of Great Britain; and he considered them as

the mere daydreams of a feeble mind. He thought it unlikely that the

usurper, whose ability and resolution he had, during an unintermitted

conflict of ten years, learned to appreciate, would easily part with the

great prize which had been won by such strenuous exertions and profound

combinations. It was therefore necessary to consider what arrangements

would be most beneficial to France, on the supposition that it proved

impossible to dislodge William from England. And it was evident that,

if William could not be dislodged from England, the arrangement most

beneficial to France would be that which had been contemplated eighteen

months before when James had no prospect of a male heir. Ireland must

be severed from the English crown, purged of the English colonists,

reunited to the Church of Rome, placed under the protection of the House

of Bourbon, and made, in every thing but name, a French province.

In war, her resources would be absolutely at the command of her Lord

Paramount. She would furnish his army with recruits. She would furnish

his navy with fine harbours commanding all the great western outlets

of the English trade. The strong national and religious antipathy

with which her aboriginal population regarded the inhabitants of the

neighbouring island would be a sufficient guarantee for their fidelity

to that government which could alone protect her against the Saxon.

On the whole, therefore, it appeared to Avaux that, of the two parties

into which the Council at Dublin was divided, the Irish party was that

which it was for the interest of France to support. He accordingly

connected himself closely with the chiefs of that party, obtained from

them the fullest avowals of all that they designed, and was soon able to

report to his government that neither the gentry nor the common people

were at all unwilling to become French, [182]

The views of Louvois, incomparably the greatest statesman that France

had produced since Richelieu, seem to have entirely agreed with those of

Avaux. The best thing, Louvois wrote, that King James could do would

be to forget that he had reigned in Great Britain, and to think only

of putting Ireland into a good condition, and of establishing himself

firmly there. Whether this were the true interest of the House of Stuart

may be doubted. But it was undoubtedly the true interest of the House of

Bourbon, [183]

About the Scotch and English exiles, and especially about Melfort,

Avaux constantly expressed himself with an asperity hardly to have been

expected from a man of so much sense and experience. Melfort was in

a singularly unfortunate position. He was a renegade: he was a mortal

enemy of the liberties of his country: he was of a bad and tyrannical

nature; and yet he was, in some sense, a patriot. The consequence was

that he was more universally detested than any man of his time. For,

while his apostasy and his arbitrary maxims of government made him the

abhorrence of England and Scotland, his anxiety for the dignity and

integrity of the empire made him the abhorrence of the Irish and of the

French.

The first question to be decided was whether James should remain at

Dublin, or should put himself at the head of his army in Ulster. On this

question the Irish and British factions joined battle. Reasons of no

great weight were adduced on both sides; for neither party ventured to

speak out. The point really in issue was whether the King should be

in Irish or in British hands. If he remained at Dublin, it would be

scarcely possible for him to withhold his assent from any bill presented

to him by the Parliament which he had summoned to meet there. He would

be forced to plunder, perhaps to attaint, innocent Protestant gentlemen

and clergymen by hundreds; and he would thus do irreparable mischief to

his cause on the other side of Saint George's Channel. If he repaired to

Ulster, he would be within a few hours' sail of Great Britain. As soon

as Londonderry had fallen, and it was universally supposed that the fall

of Londonderry could not be long delayed, he might cross the sea

with part of his forces, and land in Scotland, where his friends were

supposed to be numerous. When he was once on British ground, and in the

midst of British adherents, it would no longer be in the power of the

Irish to extort his consent to their schemes of spoliation and revenge.

The discussions in the Council were long and warm. Tyrconnel, who had

just been created a Duke, advised his master to stay in Dublin. Melfort

exhorted his Majesty to set out for Ulster. Avaux exerted all

his influence in support of Tyrconnel; but James, whose personal

inclinations were naturally on the British side of the question,

determined to follow the advice of Melfort, [184] Avaux was deeply

mortified. In his official letters he expressed with great acrimony his

contempt for the King's character and understanding. On Tyrconnel, who

had said that he despaired of the fortunes of James, and that the real

question was between the King of France and the Prince of Orange,

the ambassador pronounced what was meant to be a warm eulogy, but

may perhaps be more properly called an invective. "If he were a born

Frenchman he could not be more zealous for the interests of France."

[185] The conduct of Melfort, on the other hand, was the subject of an

invective which much resembles eulogy: "He is neither a good Irishman

nor a good Frenchman. All his affections are set on his own country."

[186]

Since the King was determined to go northward, Avaux did not choose to

be left behind. The royal party set out, leaving Tyrconnel in charge

at Dublin, and arrived at Charlemont on the thirteenth of April. The

journey was a strange one. The country all along the road had been

completely deserted by the industrious population, and laid waste by

bands of robbers. "This," said one of the French officers, "is like

travelling through the deserts of Arabia." [187] Whatever effects the

colonists had been able to remove were at Londonderry or Enniskillen.

The rest had been stolen or destroyed. Avaux informed his court that he

had not been able to get one truss of hay for his horses without sending

five or six miles. No labourer dared bring any thing for sale lest some

marauder should lay hands on it by the way. The ambassador was put one

night into a miserable taproom full of soldiers smoking, another night

into a dismantled house without windows or shutters to keep out the

rain. At Charlemont a bag of oatmeal was with great difficulty, and as a

matter of favour, procured for the French legation. There was no wheaten

bread, except at the table of the King, who had brought a little flour

from Dublin, and to whom Avaux had lent a servant who knew how to bake.

Those who were honoured with an invitation to the royal table had their

bread and wine measured out to them. Every body else, however high in

rank, ate horsecorn, and drank water or detestable beer, made with oats

instead of barley, and flavoured with some nameless herb as a substitute

for hops, [188] Yet report said that the country between Charlemont

and Strabane was even more desolate than the country between Dublin and

Charlemont. It was impossible to carry a large stock of provisions. The

roads were so bad and the horses so weak, that the baggage waggons

had all been left far behind. The chief officers of the army were

consequently in want of necessaries; and the ill-humour which was the

natural effect of these privations was increased by the insensibility

of James, who seemed not to be aware that every body about him was not

perfectly comfortable, [189]

On the fourteenth of April the King and his train proceeded to Omagh.

The rain fell: the wind blew: the horses could scarcely make their

way through the mud, and in the face of the storm; and the road was

frequently intersected by torrents which might almost be called rivers.

The travellers had to pass several fords where the water was breast

high. Some of the party fainted from fatigue and hunger. All around lay

a frightful wilderness. In a journey of forty miles Avaux counted only

three miserable cabins. Every thing else was rock, bog, and moor. When

at length the travellers reached Omagh, they found it in ruins. The

Protestants, who were the majority of the inhabitants, had abandoned it,

leaving not a wisp of straw nor a cask of liquor. The windows had been

broken: the chimneys had been beaten in: the very locks and bolts of the

doors had been carried away, [190]

Avaux had never ceased to press the King to return to Dublin; but these

expostulations had hitherto produced no effect. The obstinacy of

James, however, was an obstinacy which had nothing in common with manly

resolution, and which, though proof to argument, was easily shaken by

caprice. He received at Omagh, early on the sixteenth of April, letters

which alarmed him. He learned that a strong body of Protestants was in

arms at Strabane, and that English ships of war had been seen near the

mouth of Lough Foyle. In one minute three messages were sent to summon

Avaux to the ruinous chamber in which the royal bed had been prepared.

There James, half dressed, and with the air of a man bewildered by

some great shock, announced his resolution to hasten back instantly

to Dublin. Avaux listened, wondered, and approved. Melfort seemed

prostrated by despair. The travellers retraced their steps, and, late in

the evening, reached Charlemont. There the King received despatches very

different from those which had terrified him a few hours before.

The Protestants who had assembled near Strabane had been attacked by

Hamilton. Under a truehearted leader they would doubtless have stood

their ground. But Lundy, who commanded them, had told them that all was

lost, had ordered them to shift for themselves, and had set them the

example of flight, [191] They had accordingly retired in confusion to

Londonderry. The King's correspondents pronounced it to be impossible

that Londonderry should hold out. His Majesty had only to appear before

the gates; and they would instantly fly open. James now changed his

mind again, blamed himself for having been persuaded to turn his face

southward, and, though it was late in the evening, called for his

horses. The horses were in a miserable plight; but, weary and half

starved as they were, they were saddled. Melfort, completely victorious,

carried off his master to the camp. Avaux, after remonstrating to no

purpose, declared that he was resolved to return to Dublin. It may

be suspected that the extreme discomfort which he had undergone had

something to do with this resolution. For complaints of that discomfort

make up a large part of his letters; and, in truth, a life passed in the

palaces of Italy, in the neat parlours and gardens of Holland, and in

the luxurious pavilions which adorned the suburbs of Paris, was a bad

preparation for the ruined hovels of Ulster. He gave, however, to his

master a more weighty reason for refusing to proceed northward. The

journey of James had been undertaken in opposition to the unanimous

sense of the Irish, and had excited great alarm among them. They

apprehended that he meant to quit them, and to make a descent on

Scotland. They knew that, once landed in Great Britain, he would have

neither the will nor the power to do those things which they most

desired. Avaux, by refusing to proceed further, gave them an assurance

that, whoever might betray them, France would be their constant friend,

[192]