CHAPTER XVI

William lands at Carrickfergus, and proceeds to Belfast--State of

Dublin; William's military Arrangements--William marches southward--The

Irish Army retreats--The Irish make a Stand at the Boyne--The Army of

James--The Army of William--Walker, now Bishop of Derry, accompanies

the Army--William reconnoitres the Irish Position; William is

wounded--Battle of the Boyne--Flight of James--Loss of the two

Armies--Fall of Drogheda; State of Dublin--James flies to France;

Dublin evacuated by the French and Irish Troops--Entry of William into

Dublin--Effect produced in France by the News from Ireland--Effect

produced at Rome by the News from Ireland--Effect produced in London

by the News from Ireland--James arrives in France; his Reception

there--Tourville attempts a Descent on England--Teignmouth

destroyed--Excitement of the English Nation against the French--The

Jacobite Press--The Jacobite Form of Prayer and Humiliation--Clamour

against the nonjuring Bishops--Military Operations in Ireland; Waterford

taken--The Irish Army collected at Limerick; Lauzun pronounces that

the Place cannot be defended--The Irish insist on defending

Limerick--Tyrconnel is against defending Limerick; Limerick defended by

the Irish alone--Sarsfield surprises the English Artillery--Arrival

of Baldearg O'Donnel at Limerick--The Besiegers suffer from the

Rains--Unsuccessful Assault on Limerick; The Siege raised--Tyrconnel and

Lauzun go to France; William returns to England; Reception of William

in England--Expedition to the South of Ireland--Marlborough takes

Cork--Marlborough takes Kinsale--Affairs of Scotland; Intrigues of

Montgomery with the Jacobites--War in the Highlands--Fort William built;

Meeting of the Scottish Parliament--Melville Lord High Commissioner; the

Government obtains a Majority--Ecclesiastical Legislation--The Coalition

between the Club and the Jacobites dissolved--The Chiefs of the Club

betray each other--General Acquiescence in the new Ecclesiastical

Polity--Complaints of the Episcopalians--The Presbyterian

Conjurors--William dissatisfied with the Ecclesiastical Arrangements

in Scotland--Meeting of the General Assembly of the Church of

Scotland--State of Affairs on the Continent--The Duke of Savoy joins

the Coalition--Supplies voted; Ways and Means--Proceedings against

Torrington--Torrington's Trial and Acquittal--Animosity of the

Whigs against Caermarthen--Jacobite Plot--Meeting of the leading

Conspirators--The Conspirators determine to send Preston to Saint

Germains--Papers entrusted to Preston--Information of the Plot given to

Caermarthen--Arrest of Preston and his Companions

WILLIAM had been, during the whole spring, impatiently expected in

Ulster. The Protestant settlements along the coast of that province had,

in the course of the month of May, been repeatedly agitated by false

reports of his arrival. It was not, however, till the afternoon of the

fourteenth of June that he landed at Carrickfergus. The inhabitants of

the town crowded the main street and greeted him with loud acclamations:

but they caught only a glimpse of him. As soon as he was on dry ground

he mounted and set off for Belfast. On the road he was met by Schomberg.

The meeting took place close to a white house, the only human dwelling

then visible, in the space of many miles, on the dreary strand of the

estuary of the Laggan. A village and a cotton mill now rise where the

white house then stood alone; and all the shore is adorned by a gay

succession of country houses, shrubberies and flower beds. Belfast has

become one of the greatest and most flourishing seats of industry in the

British isles. A busy population of eighty thousand souls is collected

there. The duties annually paid at the Custom House exceed the duties

annually paid at the Custom House of London in the most prosperous years

of the reign of Charles the Second. Other Irish towns may present more

picturesque forms to the eye. But Belfast is the only large Irish town

in which the traveller is not disgusted by the loathsome aspect

and odour of long lines of human dens far inferior in comfort and

cleanliness to the dwellings which, in happier countries, are provided

for cattle. No other large Irish town is so well cleaned, so well paved,

so brilliantly lighted. The place of domes and spires is supplied

by edifices, less pleasing to the taste, but not less indicative of

prosperity, huge factories, towering many stories above the chimneys of

the houses, and resounding with the roar of machinery. The Belfast which

William entered was a small English settlement of about three hundred

houses, commanded by a stately castle which has long disappeared, the

seat of the noble family of Chichester. In this mansion, which is said

to have borne some resemblance to the palace of Whitehall, and which was

celebrated for its terraces and orchards stretching down to the river

side, preparations had been made for the King's reception. He was

welcomed at the Northern Gate by the magistrates and burgesses in their

robes of office. The multitude pressed on his carriage with shouts of

"God save the Protestant King." For the town was one of the strongholds

of the Reformed Faith, and, when, two generations later, the inhabitants

were, for the first time, numbered, it was found that the Roman

Catholics were not more than one in fifteen, [676]

The night came; but the Protestant counties were awake and up. A royal

salute had been fired from the castle of Belfast. It had been echoed and

reechoed by guns which Schomberg had placed at wide intervals for the

purpose of conveying signals from post to post. Wherever the peal was

heard, it was known that King William was come. Before midnight all the

heights of Antrim and Down were blazing with bonfires. The light was

seen across the bays of Carlingford and Dundalk, and gave notice to

the outposts of the enemy that the decisive hour was at hand. Within

forty-eight hours after William had landed, James set out from Dublin

for the Irish camp, which was pitched near the northern frontier of

Leinster, [677]

In Dublin the agitation was fearful. None could doubt that the decisive

crisis was approaching; and the agony of suspense stimulated to the

highest point the passions of both the hostile castes. The majority

could easily detect, in the looks and tones of the oppressed minority,

signs which indicated the hope of a speedy deliverance and of a terrible

revenge. Simon Luttrell, to whom the care of the capital was entrusted,

hastened to take such precautions as fear and hatred dictated. A

proclamation appeared, enjoining all Protestants to remain in their

houses from nightfall to dawn, and prohibiting them, on pain of death,

from assembling in any place or for any purpose to the number of more

than five. No indulgence was granted even to those divines of the

Established Church who had never ceased to teach the doctrine of non

resistance. Doctor William King, who had, after long holding out, lately

begun to waver in his political creed, was committed to custody. There

was no gaol large enough to hold one half of those whom the governor

suspected of evil designs. The College and several parish churches were

used as prisons; and into those buildings men accused of no crime but

their religion were crowded in such numbers that they could hardly

breathe, [678]

The two rival princes meanwhile were busied in collecting their forces.

Loughbrickland was the place appointed by William for the rendezvous of

the scattered divisions of his army. While his troops were assembling,

he exerted himself indefatigably to improve their discipline and to

provide for their subsistence. He had brought from England two hundred

thousand pounds in money and a great quantity of ammunition and

provisions. Pillaging was prohibited under severe penalties. At the

same time supplies were liberally dispensed; and all the paymasters

of regiments were directed to send in their accounts without delay, in

order that there might be no arrears, [679] Thomas Coningsby, Member of

Parliament for Leominster, a busy and unscrupulous Whig, accompanied the

King, and acted as Paymaster General. It deserves to be mentioned that

William, at this time, authorised the Collector of Customs at Belfast

to pay every year twelve hundred pounds into the hands of some of

the principal dissenting ministers of Down and Antrim, who were to be

trustees for their brethren. The King declared that he bestowed this

sum on the nonconformist divines, partly as a reward for their eminent

loyalty to him, and partly as a compensation for their recent losses.

Such was the origin of that donation which is still annually bestowed by

the government on the Presbyterian clergy of Ulster, [680]

William was all himself again. His spirits, depressed by eighteen months

passed in dull state, amidst factions and intrigues which he but

half understood, rose high as soon as he was surrounded by tents

and standards, [681] It was strange to see how rapidly this man, so

unpopular at Westminster, obtained a complete mastery over the hearts of

his brethren in arms. They observed with delight that, infirm as he

was, he took his share of every hardship which they underwent; that

he thought more of their comfort than of his own, that he sharply

reprimanded some officers, who were so anxious to procure luxuries for

his table as to forget the wants of the common soldiers; that he never

once, from the day on which he took the field, lodged in a house, but,

even in the neighbourhood of cities and palaces, slept in his small

moveable hut of wood; that no solicitations could induce him, on a hot

day and in a high wind, to move out of the choking cloud of dust, which

overhung the line of march, and which severely tried lungs less delicate

than his. Every man under his command became familiar with his looks and

with his voice; for there was not a regiment which he did not inspect

with minute attention. His pleasant looks and sayings were long

remembered. One brave soldier has recorded in his journal the kind and

courteous manner in which a basket of the first cherries of the year

was accepted from him by the King, and the sprightliness with which His

Majesty conversed at supper with those who stood round the table, [682]

On the twenty-fourth of June, the tenth day after William's landing, he

marched southward from Loughbrickland with all his forces. He was fully

determined to take the first opportunity of fighting. Schomberg and some

other officers recommended caution and delay. But the King answered that

he had not come to Ireland to let the grass grow under his feet. The

event seems to prove that he judged rightly as a general. That he judged

rightly as a statesman cannot be doubted. He knew that the English

nation was discontented with the way in which the war had hitherto been

conducted; that nothing but rapid and splendid success could revive the

enthusiasm of his friends and quell the spirit of his enemies; and

that a defeat could scarcely be more injurious to his fame and to his

interests than a languid and indecisive campaign.

The country through which he advanced had, during eighteen months, been

fearfully wasted both by soldiers and by Rapparees. The cattle had been

slaughtered: the plantations had been cut down: the fences and houses

were in ruins. Not a human being was to be found near the road, except a

few naked and meagre wretches who had no food but the husks of oats, and

who were seen picking those husks, like chickens, from amidst dust and

cinders, [683] Yet, even under such disadvantages, the natural fertility

of the country, the rich green of the earth, the bays and rivers so

admirably fitted for trade, could not but strike the King's observant

eye. Perhaps he thought how different an aspect that unhappy region

would have presented if it had been blessed with such a government and

such a religion as had made his native Holland the wonder of the world;

how endless a succession of pleasure houses, tulip gardens and dairy

farms would have lined the road from Lisburn to Belfast; how many

hundreds of barges would have been constantly passing up and down the

Laggan; what a forest of masts would have bristled in the desolate

port of Newry; and what vast warehouses and stately mansions would

have covered the space occupied by the noisome alleys of Dundalk. "The

country," he was heard to say, "is worth fighting for."

The original intention of James seems to have been to try the chances

of a pitched field on the border between Leinster and Ulster. But this

design was abandoned, in consequence, apparently, of the representations

of Lauzun, who, though very little disposed and very little qualified to

conduct a campaign on the Fabian system, had the admonitions of Louvois

still in his ears, [684] James, though resolved not to give up Dublin

without a battle, consented to retreat till he should reach some spot

where he might have the vantage of ground. When therefore William's

advanced guard reached Dundalk, nothing was to be seen of the Irish

Army, except a great cloud of dust which was slowly rolling southwards

towards Ardee. The English halted one night near the ground on which

Schomberg's camp had been pitched in the preceding year; and many sad

recollections were awakened by the sight of that dreary marsh, the

sepulchre of thousands of brave men, [685]

Still William continued to push forward, and still the Irish receded

before him, till, on the morning of Monday the thirtieth of June, his

army, marching in three columns, reached the summit of a rising ground

near the southern frontier of the county of Louth. Beneath lay a valley,

now so rich and so cheerful that the Englishman who gazes on it may

imagine himself to be in one of the most highly favoured parts of his

own highly favoured country. Fields of wheat, woodlands, meadows bright

with daisies and clover, slope gently down to the edge of the Boyne.

That bright and tranquil stream, the boundary of Louth and Meath, having

flowed many miles between verdant banks crowned by modern palaces, and

by the ruined keeps of old Norman barons of the pale, is here about

to mingle with the sea. Five miles to the west of the place from which

William looked down on the river, now stands, on a verdant bank, amidst

noble woods, Slane Castle, the mansion of the Marquess of Conyngham.

Two miles to the east, a cloud of smoke from factories and steam vessels

overhangs the busy town and port of Drogheda. On the Meath side of the

Boyne, the ground, still all corn, grass, flowers, and foliage, rises

with a gentle swell to an eminence surmounted by a conspicuous tuft of

ash trees which overshades the ruined church and desolate graveyard of

Donore, [686]

In the seventeenth century the landscape presented a very different

aspect. The traces of art and industry were few. Scarcely a vessel was

on the river except those rude coracles of wickerwork covered with the

skins of horses, in which the Celtic peasantry fished for trout

and salmon. Drogheda, now peopled by twenty thousand industrious

inhabitants, was a small knot of narrow, crooked and filthy lanes,

encircled by a ditch and a mound. The houses were built of wood with

high gables and projecting upper stories. Without the walls of the town,

scarcely a dwelling was to be seen except at a place called Oldbridge.

At Oldbridge the river was fordable; and on the south of the ford were a

few mud cabins, and a single house built of more solid materials.

When William caught sight of the valley of the Boyne, he could

not suppress an exclamation and a gesture of delight. He had been

apprehensive that the enemy would avoid a decisive action, and would

protract the war till the autumnal rains should return with pestilence

in their train. He was now at ease. It was plain that the contest would

be sharp and short. The pavilion of James was pitched on the eminence

of Donore. The flags of the House of Stuart and of the House of Bourbon

waved together in defiance on the walls of Drogheda. All the southern

bank of the river was lined by the camp and batteries of the hostile

army. Thousands of armed men were moving about among the tents; and

every one, horse soldier or foot soldier, French or Irish, had a white

badge in his hat. That colour had been chosen in compliment to the House

of Bourbon. "I am glad to see you, gentlemen," said the King, as his

keen eye surveyed the Irish lines. "If you escape me now, the fault will

be mine." [687]

Each of the contending princes had some advantages over his rival.

James, standing on the defensive, behind entrenchments, with a river

before him, had the stronger position; [688] but his troops were inferior

both in number and in quality to those which were opposed to him. He

probably had thirty thousand men. About a third part of this force

consisted of excellent French infantry and excellent Irish cavalry. But

the rest of his army was the scoff of all Europe. The Irish dragoons

were bad; the Irish infantry worse. It was said that their ordinary way

of fighting was to discharge their pieces once, and then to run away

bawling "Quarter" and "Murder." Their inefficiency was, in that age,

commonly imputed, both by their enemies and by their allies, to natural

poltroonery. How little ground there was for such an imputation has

since been signally proved by many heroic achievements in every part of

the globe. It ought, indeed, even in the seventeenth century, to have

occurred to reasonable men, that a race which furnished some of the best

horse soldiers in the world would certainly, with judicious training,

furnish good foot soldiers. But the Irish foot soldiers had not merely

not been well trained; they had been elaborately ill trained. The

greatest of our generals repeatedly and emphatically declared that even

the admirable army which fought its way, under his command, from Torres

Vedras to Toulouse, would, if he had suffered it to contract habits of

pillage, have become, in a few weeks, unfit for all military purposes.

What then was likely to be the character of troops who, from the day on

which they enlisted, were not merely permitted, but invited, to supply

the deficiencies of pay by marauding? They were, as might have been

expected, a mere mob, furious indeed and clamorous in their zeal for

the cause which they had espoused, but incapable of opposing a stedfast

resistance to a well ordered force. In truth, all that the discipline,

if it is to be so called, of James's army had done for the Celtic kerne

had been to debase and enervate him. After eighteen months of nominal

soldiership, he was positively farther from being a soldier than on the

day on which he quilted his hovel for the camp.

William had under his command near thirty-six thousand men, born in

many lands, and speaking many tongues. Scarcely one Protestant Church,

scarcely one Protestant nation, was unrepresented in the army which

a strange series of events had brought to fight for the Protestant

religion in the remotest island of the west. About half the troops were

natives of England. Ormond was there with the Life Guards, and Oxford

with the Blues. Sir John Lanier, an officer who had acquired military

experience on the Continent, and whose prudence was held in high esteem,

was at the head of the Queen's regiment of horse, now the First Dragoon

Guards. There were Beaumont's foot, who had, in defiance of the mandate

of James, refused to admit Irish papists among them, and Hastings's

foot, who had, on the disastrous day of Killiecrankie, maintained

the military reputation of the Saxon race. There were the two Tangier

battalions, hitherto known only by deeds of violence and rapine, but

destined to begin on the following morning a long career of glory.

The Scotch Guards marched under the command of their countryman James

Douglas. Two fine British regiments, which had been in the service

of the States General, and had often looked death in the face under

William's leading, followed him in this campaign, not only as their

general, but as their native King. They now rank as the fifth and sixth

of the line. The former was led by an officer who had no skill in the

higher parts of military science, but whom the whole army allowed to be

the bravest of all the brave, John Cutts. Conspicuous among the Dutch

troops were Portland's and Ginkell's Horse, and Solmes's Blue regiment,

consisting of two thousand of the finest infantry in Europe. Germany had

sent to the field some warriors, sprung from her noblest houses.

Prince George of Hesse Darmstadt, a gallant youth who was serving his

apprenticeship in the military art, rode near the King. A strong

brigade of Danish mercenaries was commanded by Duke Charles Frederic of

Wirtemberg, a near kinsman of the head of his illustrious family. It was

reported that of all the soldiers of William these were most dreaded

by the Irish. For centuries of Saxon domination had not effaced the

recollection of the violence and cruelty of the Scandinavian sea

kings; and an ancient prophecy that the Danes would one day destroy the

children of the soil was still repeated with superstitious horror, [689]

Among the foreign auxiliaries were a Brandenburg regiment and a Finland

regiment. But in that great array, so variously composed, were two

bodies of men animated by a spirit peculiarly fierce and implacable,

the Huguenots of France thirsting for the blood of the French, and the

Englishry of Ireland impatient to trample down the Irish. The ranks of

the refugees had been effectually purged of spies and traitors, and were

made up of men such as had contended in the preceding century against

the power of the House of Valois and the genius of the House of

Lorraine. All the boldest spirits of the unconquerable colony had

repaired to William's camp. Mitchelburne was there with the stubborn

defenders of Londonderry, and Wolseley with the warriors who had raised

the unanimous shout of "Advance" on the day of Newton Butler. Sir Albert

Conyngham, the ancestor of the noble family whose seat now overlooks

the Boyne, had brought from the neighbourhood of Lough Erne a gallant

regiment of dragoons which still glories in the name of Enniskillen, and

which has proved on the shores of the Euxine that it has not degenerated

since the day of the Boyne, [690]

Walker, notwithstanding his advanced age and his peaceful profession,

accompanied the men of Londonderry, and tried to animate their zeal by

exhortation and by example. He was now a great prelate. Ezekiel Hopkins

had taken refuge from Popish persecutors and Presbyterian rebels in

the city of London, had brought himself to swear allegiance to the

government, had obtained a cure, and had died in the performance of the

humble duties of a parish priest, [691] William, on his march through

Louth, learned that the rich see of Derry was at his disposal. He

instantly made choice of Walker to be the new Bishop. The brave old man,

during the few hours of life which remained to him, was overwhelmed with

salutations and congratulations. Unhappily he had, during the siege in

which he had so highly distinguished himself, contracted a passion for

war; and he easily persuaded himself that, in indulging this passion, he

was discharging a duty to his country and his religion. He ought to have

remembered that the peculiar circumstances which had justified him in

becoming a combatant had ceased to exist, and that, in a disciplined

army led by generals of long experience and great fame a fighting

divine was likely to give less help than scandal. The Bishop elect was

determined to be wherever danger was; and the way in which he exposed

himself excited the extreme disgust of his royal patron, who hated a

meddler almost as much as a coward. A soldier who ran away from a battle

and a gownsman who pushed himself into a battle were the two objects

which most strongly excited William's spleen.

It was still early in the day. The King rode slowly along the northern

bank of the river, and closely examined the position of the Irish, from

whom he was sometimes separated by an interval of little more than two

hundred feet. He was accompanied by Schomberg, Ormond, Sidney, Solmes,

Prince George of Hesse, Coningsby, and others. "Their army is but

small;" said one of the Dutch officers. Indeed it did not appear to

consist of more than sixteen thousand men. But it was well known, from

the reports brought by deserters, that many regiments were concealed

from view by the undulations of the ground. "They may be stronger than

they look," said William; "but, weak or strong, I will soon know all

about them." [692]

At length he alighted at a spot nearly opposite to Oldbridge, sate

down on the turf to rest himself, and called for breakfast. The sumpter

horses were unloaded: the canteens were opened; and a tablecloth was

spread on the grass. The place is marked by an obelisk, built while

many veterans who could well remember the events of that day were still

living.

While William was at his repast, a group of horsemen appeared close to

the water on the opposite shore. Among them his attendants could discern

some who had once been conspicuous at reviews in Hyde Park and at balls

in the gallery of Whitehall, the youthful Berwick, the small, fairhaired

Lauzun, Tyrconnel, once admired by maids of honour as the model of manly

vigour and beauty, but now bent down by years and crippled by gout, and,

overtopping all, the stately head of Sarsfield.

The chiefs of the Irish army soon discovered that the person who,

surrounded by a splendid circle, was breakfasting on the opposite bank,

was the Prince of Orange. They sent for artillery. Two field pieces,

screened from view by a troop of cavalry, were brought down almost to

the brink of the river, and placed behind a hedge. William, who had just

risen from his meal, and was again in the saddle, was the mark of both

guns. The first shot struck one of the holsters of Prince George of

Hesse, and brought his horse to the ground. "Ah!" cried the King; "the

poor Prince is killed." As the words passed his lips, he was himself

hit by a second ball, a sixpounder. It merely tore his coat, grazed his

shoulder, and drew two or three ounces of blood. Both armies saw that

the shot had taken effect; for the King sank down for a moment on his

horse's neck. A yell of exultation rose from the Irish camp. The English

and their allies were in dismay. Solmes flung himself prostrate on the

earth, and burst into tears. But William's deportment soon reassured his

friends. "There is no harm done," he said: "but the bullet came quite

near enough." Coningsby put his handkerchief to the wound: a surgeon was

sent for: a plaster was applied; and the King, as soon as the dressing

was finished, rode round all the posts of his army amidst loud

acclamations. Such was the energy of his spirit that, in spite of his

feeble health, in spite of his recent hurt, he was that day nineteen

hours on horseback, [693]

A cannonade was kept up on both sides till the evening. William observed

with especial attention the effect produced by the Irish shots on the

English regiments which had never been in action, and declared himself

satisfied with the result. "All is right," he said; "they stand fire

well." Long after sunset he made a final inspection of his forces by

torchlight, and gave orders that every thing should be ready for forcing

a passage across the river on the morrow. Every soldier was to put a

green bough in his hat. The baggage and great coats were to be left

under a guard. The word was Westminster.

The King's resolution to attack the Irish was not approved by all his

lieutenants. Schomberg, in particular, pronounced the experiment too

hazardous, and, when his opinion was overruled, retired to his tent in

no very good humour. When the order of battle was delivered to him, he

muttered that he had been more used to give such orders than to receive

them. For this little fit of sullenness, very pardonable in a general

who had won great victories when his master was still a child, the brave

veteran made, on the following morning, a noble atonement.

The first of July dawned, a day which has never since returned without

exciting strong emotions of very different kinds in the two populations

which divide Ireland. The sun rose bright and cloudless. Soon after four

both armies were in motion. William ordered his right wing, under the

command of Meinhart Schomberg, one of the Duke's sons, to march to the

bridge of Slane, some miles up the river, to cross there, and to turn

the left flank of the Irish army. Meinhart Schomberg was assisted by

Portland and Douglas. James, anticipating some such design, had already

sent to the bridge a regiment of dragoons, commanded by Sir Neil O'Neil.

O'Neil behaved himself like a brave gentleman: but he soon received a

mortal wound; his men fled; and the English right wing passed the river.

This move made Lauzun uneasy. What if the English right wing should get

into the rear of the army of James? About four miles south of the Boyne

was a place called Duleek, where the road to Dublin was so narrow, that

two cars could not pass each other, and where on both sides of the

road lay a morass which afforded no firm footing. If Meinhart Schomberg

should occupy this spot, it would be impossible for the Irish to

retreat. They must either conquer, or be cut off to a man. Disturbed by

this apprehension, the French general marched with his countrymen and

with Sarsfield's horse in the direction of Slane Bridge. Thus the fords

near Oldbridge were left to be defended by the Irish alone.

It was now near ten o'clock. William put himself at the head of his left

wing, which was composed exclusively of cavalry, and prepared to

pass the river not far above Drogheda. The centre of his army, which

consisted almost exclusively of foot, was entrusted to the command of

Schomberg, and was marshalled opposite to Oldbridge. At Oldbridge the

whole Irish infantry had been collected. The Meath bank bristled with

pikes and bayonets. A fortification had been made by French engineers

out of the hedges and buildings; and a breastwork had been thrown up

close to the water side, [694] Tyrconnel was there; and under him were

Richard Hamilton and Antrim.

Schomberg gave the word. Solmes's Blues were the first to move. They

marched gallantly, with drums beating, to the brink of the Boyne. Then

the drums stopped; and the men, ten abreast, descended into the water.

Next plunged Londonderry and Enniskillen. A little to the left of

Londonderry and Enniskillen, Caillemot crossed, at the head of a long

column of French refugees. A little to the left of Caillemot and his

refugees, the main body of the English infantry struggled through the

river, up to their armpits in water. Still further down the stream the

Danes found another ford. In a few minutes the Boyne, for a quarter of a

mile, was alive with muskets and green boughs.

It was not till the assailants had reached the middle of the channel

that they became aware of the whole difficulty and danger of the service

in which they were engaged. They had as yet seen little more than half

the hostile army. Now whole regiments of foot and horse seemed to start

out of the earth. A wild shout of defiance rose from the whole shore:

during one moment the event seemed doubtful: but the Protestants pressed

resolutely forward; and in another moment the whole Irish line gave

way. Tyrconnel looked on in helpless despair. He did not want personal

courage; but his military skill was so small that he hardly ever

reviewed his regiment in the Phoenix Park without committing some

blunder; and to rally the ranks which were breaking all round him was

no task for a general who had survived the energy of his body and of

his mind, and yet had still the rudiments of his profession to learn.

Several of his best officers fell while vainly endeavouring to prevail

on their soldiers to look the Dutch Blues in the face. Richard Hamilton

ordered a body of foot to fall on the French refugees, who were still

deep in water. He led the way, and, accompanied by several courageous

gentlemen, advanced, sword in hand, into the river. But neither

his commands nor his example could infuse courage into that mob of

cowstealers. He was left almost alone, and retired from the bank in

despair. Further down the river Antrim's division ran like sheep at the

approach of the English column. Whole regiments flung away arms, colours

and cloaks, and scampered off to the hills without striking a blow or

firing a shot, [695]

It required many years and many heroic exploits to take away the

reproach which that ignominious rout left on the Irish name. Yet, even

before the day closed, it was abundantly proved that the reproach was

unjust. Richard Hamilton put himself at the head of the cavalry, and,

under his command, they made a gallant, though an unsuccessful attempt

to retrieve the day. They maintained a desperate fight in the bed of the

river with Sulmes's Blues. They drove the Danish brigade back into the

stream. They fell impetuously on the Huguenot regiments, which, not

being provided with pikes, then ordinarily used by foot to repel horse,

began to give ground. Caillemot, while encouraging his fellow exiles,

received a mortal wound in the thigh. Four of his men carried him back

across the ford to his tent. As he passed, he continued to urge forward

the rear ranks which were still up to the breast in the water. "On;

on; my lads: to glory; to glory." Schomberg, who had remained on the

northern bank, and who had thence watched the progress of his troops

with the eye of a general, now thought that the emergency required

from him the personal exertion of a soldier. Those who stood about him

besought him in vain to put on his cuirass. Without defensive armour

he rode through the river, and rallied the refugees whom the fall of

Caillemot had dismayed. "Come on," he cried in French, pointing to the

Popish squadrons; "come on, gentlemen; there are your persecutors."

Those were his last words. As he spoke, a band of Irish horsemen rushed

upon him and encircled him for a moment. When they retired, he was on

the ground. His friends raised him; but he was already a corpse. Two

sabre wounds were on his head; and a bullet from a carbine was lodged

in his neck. Almost at the same moment Walker, while exhorting the

colonists of Ulster to play the men, was shot dead. During near half an

hour the battle continued to rage along the southern shore of the river.

All was smoke, dust and din. Old soldiers were heard to say that they

had seldom seen sharper work in the Low Countries. But, just at this

conjuncture, William came up with the left wing. He had found much

difficulty in crossing. The tide was running fast. His charger had been

forced to swim, and had been almost lost in the mud. As soon as the King

was on firm ground he took his sword in his left hand,--for his right

arm was stiff with his wound and his bandage,--and led his men to the

place where the fight was the hottest. His arrival decided the fate of

the day. Yet the Irish horse retired fighting obstinately. It was long

remembered among the Protestants of Ulster that, in the midst of the

tumult, William rode to the head of the Enniskilleners. "What will

you do for me?" he cried. He was not immediately recognised; and one

trooper, taking him for an enemy, was about to fire. William gently put

aside the carbine. "What," said he, "do you not know your friends?" "It

is His Majesty;" said the Colonel. The ranks of sturdy Protestant yeomen

set up a shout of joy. "Gentlemen," said William, "you shall be my

guards to day. I have heard much of you. Let me see something of you."

One of the most remarkable peculiarities of this man, ordinarily so

saturnine and reserved, was that danger acted on him like wine,

opened his heart, loosened his tongue, and took away all appearance of

constraint from his manner. On this memorable day he was seen wherever

the peril was greatest. One ball struck the cap of his pistol: another

carried off the heel of his jackboot: but his lieutenants in vain

implored him to retire to some station from which he could give his

orders without exposing a life so valuable to Europe. His troops,

animated by his example, gained ground fast. The Irish cavalry made

their last stand at a house called Plottin Castle, about a mile and a

half south of Oldbridge. There the Enniskilleners were repelled with the

loss of fifty men, and were hotly pursued, till William rallied them and

turned the chase back. In this encounter Richard Hamilton, who had done

all that could be done by valour to retrieve a reputation forfeited by

perfidy, [696] was severely wounded, taken prisoner, and instantly brought,

through the smoke and over the carnage, before the prince whom he had

foully wronged. On no occasion did the character of William show itself

in a more striking manner. "Is this business over?" he said; "or will

your horse make more fight?" "On my honour, Sir," answered Hamilton, "I

believe that they will." "Your honour!" muttered William; "your honour!"

That half suppressed exclamation was the only revenge which he

condescended to take for an injury for which many sovereigns, far more

affable and gracious in their ordinary deportment, would have exacted

a terrible retribution. Then, restraining himself, he ordered his own

surgeon to look to the hurts of the captive, [697]

And now the battle was over. Hamilton was mistaken in thinking that his

horse would continue to fight. Whole troops had been cut to pieces. One

fine regiment had only thirty unwounded men left. It was enough that

these gallant soldiers had disputed the field till they were left

without support, or hope, or guidance, till their bravest leader was a

captive, and till their King had fled.

Whether James had owed his early reputation for valour to accident and

flattery, or whether, as he advanced in life, his character underwent

a change, may be doubted. But it is certain that, in his youth, he

was generally believed to possess, not merely that average measure of

fortitude which qualifies a soldier to go through a campaign without

disgrace, but that high and serene intrepidity which is the virtue of

great commanders, [698] It is equally certain that, in his later years,

he repeatedly, at conjunctures such as have often inspired timorous and

delicate women with heroic courage, showed a pusillanimous anxiety about

his personal safety. Of the most powerful motives which can induce human

beings to encounter peril none was wanting to him on the day of the

Boyne. The eyes of his contemporaries and of posterity, of friends

devoted to his cause and of enemies eager to witness his humiliation,

were fixed upon him. He had, in his own opinion, sacred rights to

maintain and cruel wrongs to revenge. He was a King come to fight for

three kingdoms. He was a father come to fight for the birthright of his

child. He was a zealous Roman Catholic, come to fight in the holiest of

crusades. If all this was not enough, he saw, from the secure position

which he occupied on the height of Donore, a sight which, it might have

been thought, would have roused the most torpid of mankind to emulation.

He saw his rival, weak, sickly, wounded, swimming the river, struggling

through the mud, leading the charge, stopping the flight, grasping the

sword with the left hand, managing the bridle with a bandaged arm. But

none of these things moved that sluggish and ignoble nature. He watched,

from a safe distance, the beginning of the battle on which his fate and

the fate of his race depended. When it became clear that the day was

going against Ireland, he was seized with an apprehension that his

flight might be intercepted, and galloped towards Dublin. He was

escorted by a bodyguard under the command of Sarsfield, who had, on that

day, had no opportunity of displaying the skill and courage which his

enemies allowed that he possessed, [699] The French auxiliaries, who

had been employed the whole morning in keeping William's right wing in

check, covered the flight of the beaten army. They were indeed in some

danger of being broken and swept away by the torrent of runaways, all

pressing to get first to the pass of Duleek, and were forced to fire

repeatedly on these despicable allies, [700] The retreat was, however,

effected with less loss than might have been expected. For even the

admirers of William owned that he did not show in the pursuit the energy

which even his detractors acknowledged that he had shown in the battle.

Perhaps his physical infirmities, his hurt, and the fatigue which he had

undergone, had made him incapable of bodily or mental exertion. Of the

last forty hours he had passed thirty-five on horseback. Schomberg, who

might have supplied his place, was no more. It was said in the camp that

the King could not do every thing, and that what was not done by him was

not done at all.

The slaughter had been less than on any battle field of equal importance

and celebrity. Of the Irish only about fifteen hundred had fallen; but

they were almost all cavalry, the flower of the army, brave and well

disciplined men, whose place could not easily be supplied. William

gave strict orders that there should be no unnecessary bloodshed,

and enforced those orders by an act of laudable severity. One of his

soldiers, after the fight was over, butchered three defenceless Irishmen

who asked for quarter. The King ordered the murderer to be hanged on the

spot, [701]

The loss of the conquerors did not exceed five hundred men but among

them was the first captain in Europe. To his corpse every honour was

paid. The only cemetery in which so illustrious a warrior, slain in arms

for the liberties and religion of England, could properly be laid

was that venerable Abbey, hallowed by the dust of many generations

of princes, heroes and poets. It was announced that the brave veteran

should have a public funeral at Westminster. In the mean time his corpse

was embalmed with such skill as could be found in the camp, and was

deposited in a leaden coffin, [702]

Walker was treated less respectfully. William thought him a busybody who

had been properly punished for running into danger without any call of

duty, and expressed that feeling, with characteristic bluntness, on the

field of battle. "Sir," said an attendant, "the Bishop of Derry has been

killed by a shot at the ford." "What took him there?" growled the King.

The victorious army advanced that day to Duleek, and passed the warm

summer night there under the open sky. The tents and the baggage waggons

were still on the north of the river. William's coach had been brought

over; and he slept in it surrounded by his soldiers. On the following

day, Drogheda surrendered without a blow, and the garrison, thirteen

hundred strong, marched out unarmed, [703]

Meanwhile Dublin had been in violent commotion. On the thirtieth of June

it was known that the armies were face to face with the Boyne between

them, and that a battle was almost inevitable. The news that William had

been wounded came that evening. The first report was that the wound was

mortal. It was believed, and confidently repeated, that the usurper was

no more; and couriers started bearing the glad tidings of his death to

the French ships which lay in the ports of Munster. From daybreak on

the first of July the streets of Dublin were filled with persons eagerly

asking and telling news. A thousand wild rumours wandered to and fro

among the crowd. A fleet of men of war under the white flag had been

seen from the hill of Howth. An army commanded by a Marshal of France

had landed in Kent. There had been hard fighting at the Boyne; but

the Irish had won the day; the English right wing had been routed; the

Prince of Orange was a prisoner. While the Roman Catholics heard and

repeated these stories in all the places of public resort, the few

Protestants who were still out of prison, afraid of being torn to

pieces, shut themselves up in their inner chambers. But, towards five

in the afternoon, a few runaways on tired horses came straggling in with

evil tidings. By six it was known that all was lost. Soon after sunset,

James, escorted by two hundred cavalry, rode into the Castle. At

the threshold he was met by the wife of Tyrconnel, once the gay and

beautiful Fanny Jennings, the loveliest coquette in the brilliant

Whitehall of the Restoration. To her the vanquished King had to announce

the ruin of her fortunes and of his own. And now the tide of fugitives

came in fast. Till midnight all the northern avenues of the capital were

choked by trains of cars and by bands of dragoons, spent with running

and riding, and begrimed with dust. Some had lost their fire arms, and

some their swords. Some were disfigured by recent wounds. At two in the

morning Dublin was still: but, before the early dawn of midsummer, the

sleepers were roused by the peal of trumpets; and the horse, who had, on

the preceding day, so well supported the honour of their country,

came pouring through the streets, with ranks fearfully thinned, yet

preserving, even in that extremity, some show of military order. Two

hours later Lauzun's drums were heard; and the French regiments, in

unbroken array, marched into the city, [704] Many thought that, with

such a force, a stand might still be made. But, before six o'clock,

the Lord Mayor and some of the principal Roman Catholic citizens were

summoned in haste to the Castle. James took leave of them with a speech

which did him little honour. He had often, he said, been warned that

Irishmen, however well they might look, would never acquit themselves

well on a field of battle; and he had now found that the warning was but

too true. He had been so unfortunate as to see himself in less than

two years abandoned by two armies. His English troops had not wanted

courage; but they had wanted loyalty. His Irish troops were, no doubt,

attached to his cause, which was their own. But as soon as they were

brought front to front with an enemy, they ran away. The loss indeed had

been little. More shame for those who had fled with so little loss. "I

will never command an Irish army again. I must shift for myself; and so

must you." After thus reviling his soldiers for being the rabble which

his own mismanagement had made them, and for following the example of

cowardice which he had himself set them, he uttered a few words more

worthy of a King. He knew, he said, that some of his adherents had

declared that they would burn Dublin down rather than suffer it to fall

into the hands of the English. Such an act would disgrace him in the

eyes of all mankind: for nobody would believe that his friends would

venture so far without his sanction. Such an act would also draw on

those who committed it severities which otherwise they had no cause to

apprehend: for inhumanity to vanquished enemies was not among the faults

of the Prince of Orange. For these reasons James charged his hearers on

their allegiance neither to sack nor to destroy the city, [705] He then

took his departure, crossed the Wicklow hills with all speed, and never

stopped till he was fifty miles from Dublin. Scarcely had he alighted

to take some refreshment when he was scared by an absurd report that the

pursuers were close upon him. He started again, rode hard all night,

and gave orders that the bridges should be pulled down behind him. At

sunrise on the third of July he reached the harbour of Waterford.

Thence he went by sea to Kinsale, where he embarked on board of a French

frigate, and sailed for Brest, [706]

After his departure the confusion in Dublin increased hourly. During the

whole of the day which followed the battle, flying foot soldiers,

weary and soiled with travel, were constantly coming in. Roman Catholic

citizens, with their wives, their families and their household stuff,

were constantly going out. In some parts of the capital there was still

an appearance of martial order and preparedness. Guards were posted at

the gates: the Castle was occupied by a strong body of troops; and it

was generally supposed that the enemy would not be admitted without a

struggle. Indeed some swaggerers, who had, a few hours before, run from

the breastwork at Oldbridge without drawing a trigger, now swore that

they would lay the town in ashes rather than leave it to the Prince of

Orange. But towards the evening Tyrconnel and Lauzun collected all their

forces, and marched out of the city by the road leading to that vast

sheepwalk which extends over the table land of Kildare. Instantly the

face of things in Dublin was changed. The Protestants every where came

forth from their hiding places. Some of them entered the houses of their

persecutors and demanded arms. The doors of the prisons were opened.

The Bishops of Meath and Limerick, Doctor King, and others, who had

long held the doctrine of passive obedience, but who had at length been

converted by oppression into moderate Whigs, formed themselves into a

provisional government, and sent a messenger to William's camp, with the

news that Dublin was prepared to welcome him. At eight that evening a

troop of English dragoons arrived. They were met by the whole Protestant

population on College Green, where the statue of the deliverer now

stands. Hundreds embraced the soldiers, hung fondly about the necks of

the horses, and ran wildly about, shaking hands with each other. On the

morrow a large body of cavalry arrived; and soon from every side came

news of the effects which the victory of the Boyne had produced.

James had quitted the island. Wexford had declared for William. Within

twenty-five miles of the capital there was not a Papist in arms. Almost

all the baggage and stores of the defeated army had been seized by the

conquerors. The Enniskilleners had taken not less than three hundred

cars, and had found among the booty ten thousand pounds in money,

much plate, many valuable trinkets, and all the rich camp equipage of

Tyrconnel and Lauzun, [707]

William fixed his head quarters at Ferns, about two miles from Dublin.

Thence, on the morning of Sunday, the sixth of July, he rode in great

state to the cathedral, and there, with the crown on his head, returned

public thanks to God in the choir which is now hung with the banners of

the Knights of Saint Patrick. King preached, with all the fervour of a

neophyte, on the great deliverance which God had wrought for the Church.

The Protestant magistrates of the city appeared again, after a long

interval, in the pomp of office. William could not be persuaded to

repose himself at the Castle, but in the evening returned to his camp,

and slept there in his wooden cabin, [708]

The fame of these great events flew fast, and excited strong emotions

all over Europe. The news of William's wound every where preceded by a

few hours the news of his victory. Paris was roused at dead of night by

the arrival of a courier who brought the joyful intelligence that the

heretic, the parricide, the mortal enemy of the greatness of France, had

been struck dead by a cannon ball in the sight of the two armies. The

commissaries of police ran about the city, knocked at the doors, and

called the people up to illuminate. In an hour streets, quays and

bridges were in a blaze: drums were beating and trumpets sounding: the

bells of Notre Dame were ringing; peals of cannon were resounding from

the batteries of the Bastile. Tables were set out in the streets; and

wine was served to all who passed. A Prince of Orange, made of straw,

was trailed through the mud, and at last committed to the flames. He was

attended by a hideous effigy of the devil, carrying a scroll, on which

was written, "I have been waiting for thee these two years." The shops

of several Huguenots who had been dragooned into calling themselves

Catholics, but were suspected of being still heretics at heart, were

sacked by the rabble. It was hardly safe to question the truth of

the report which had been so eagerly welcomed by the multitude. Soon,

however, some coolheaded people ventured to remark that the fact of the

tyrant's death was not quite so certain as might be wished. Then arose

a vehement controversy about the effect of such wounds; for the vulgar

notion was that no person struck by a cannon ball on the shoulder could

recover. The disputants appealed to medical authority; and the doors of

the great surgeons and physicians were thronged, it was jocosely said,

as if there had been a pestilence in Paris. The question was soon

settled by a letter from James, which announced his defeat and his

arrival at Brest, [709]

At Rome the news from Ireland produced a sensation of a very different

kind. There too the report of William's death was, during a short

time, credited. At the French embassy all was joy and triumph: but the

Ambassadors of the House of Austria were in despair; and the aspect of

the Pontifical Court by no means indicated exultation, [710] Melfort,

in a transport of joy, sate down to write a letter of congratulation to

Mary of Modena. That letter is still extant, and would alone suffice

to explain why he was the favourite of James. Herod,--so William was

designated, was gone. There must be a restoration; and that restoration

ought to be followed by a terrible revenge and by the establishment of

despotism. The power of the purse must be taken away from the Commons.

Political offenders must be tried, not by juries, but by judges on whom

the Crown could depend. The Habeas Corpus Act must be rescinded. The

authors of the Revolution must be punished with merciless severity.

"If," the cruel apostate wrote, "if the King is forced to pardon, let

it be as few rogues as he can." [711] After the lapse of some anxious

hours, a messenger bearing later and more authentic intelligence

alighted at the palace occupied by the representative of the Catholic

King. In a moment all was changed. The enemies of France,--and all the

population, except Frenchmen and British Jacobites, were her enemies,

eagerly felicitated one another. All the clerks of the Spanish legation

were too few to make transcripts of the despatches for the Cardinals and

Bishops who were impatient to know the details of the victory. The first

copy was sent to the Pope, and was doubtless welcome to him, [712]

The good news from Ireland reached London at a moment when good news

was needed. The English flag had been disgraced in the English seas.

A foreign enemy threatened the coast. Traitors were at work within the

realm. Mary had exerted herself beyond her strength. Her gentle nature

was unequal to the cruel anxieties of her position; and she complained

that she could scarcely snatch a moment from business to calm herself by

prayer. Her distress rose to the highest point when she learned that the

camps of her father and her husband were pitched near to each other, and

that tidings of a battle might be hourly expected. She stole time for a

visit to Kensington, and had three hours of quiet in the garden, then a

rural solitude, [713] But the recollection of days passed there with him

whom she might never see again overpowered her. "The place," she wrote

to him, "made me think how happy I was there when I had your dear

company. But now I will say no more; for I shall hurt my own eyes, which

I want now more than ever. Adieu. Think of me, and love me as much as I

shall you, whom I love more than my life." [714]

Early on the morning after these tender lines had been despatched,

Whitehall was roused by the arrival of a post from Ireland. Nottingham

was called out of bed. The Queen, who was just going to the chapel where

she daily attended divine service, was informed that William had been

wounded. She had wept much; but till that moment she had wept alone, and

had constrained herself to show a cheerful countenance to her Court and

Council. But when Nottingham put her husband's letter into her hands,

she burst into tears. She was still trembling with the violence of her

emotions, and had scarcely finished a letter to William in which she

poured out her love, her fears and her thankfulness, with the sweet

natural eloquence of her sex, when another messenger arrived with the

news that the English army had forced a passage across the Boyne, that

the Irish were flying in confusion, and that the King was well. Yet she

was visibly uneasy till Nottingham had assured her that James was safe.

The grave Secretary, who seems to have really esteemed and loved her,

afterwards described with much feeling that struggle of filial duty with

conjugal affection. On the same day she wrote to adjure her husband to

see that no harm befell her father. "I know," she said, "I need not beg

you to let him be taken care of; for I am confident you will for your

own sake; yet add that to all your kindness; and, for my sake, let

people know you would have no hurt happen to his person." [715] This

solicitude, though amiable, was superfluous. Her father was perfectly

competent to take care of himself. He had never, during the battle, run

the smallest risk of hurt; and, while his daughter was shuddering at the

dangers to which she fancied that he was exposed in Ireland, he was half

way on his voyage to France.

It chanced that the glad tidings arrived at Whitehall on the day to

which the Parliament stood prorogued. The Speaker and several members of

the House of Commons who were in London met, according to form, at ten

in the morning, and were summoned by Black Rod to the bar of the Peers.

The Parliament was then again prorogued by commission. As soon as this

ceremony had been performed, the Chancellor of the Exchequer put into

the hands of the Clerk the despatch which had just arrived from Ireland,

and the Clerk read it with a loud voice to the lords and gentlemen

present, [716] The good news spread rapidly from Westminster Hall to

all the coffeehouses, and was received with transports of joy. For

those Englishmen who wished to see an English army beaten and an English

colony extirpated by the French and Irish were a minority even of the

Jacobite party.

On the ninth day after the battle of the Boyne James landed at Brest,

with an excellent appetite, in high spirits, and in a talkative humour.

He told the history of his defeat to everybody who would listen to him.

But French officers who understood war, and who compared his story with

other accounts, pronounced that, though His Majesty had witnessed the

battle, he knew nothing about it, except that his army had been routed,

[717] From Brest he proceeded to Saint Germains, where, a few hours

after his arrival, he was visited by Lewis. The French King had too much

delicacy and generosity to utter a word which could sound like reproach.

Nothing, he declared, that could conduce to the comfort of the royal

family of England should be wanting, as far as his power extended. But

he was by no means disposed to listen to the political and military

projects of his unlucky guest. James recommended an immediate descent

on England. That kingdom, he said, had been drained of troops by the

demands of Ireland. The seven or eight thousand regular soldiers who

were left would be unable to withstand a great French army. The people

were ashamed of their error and impatient to repair it. As soon as their

rightful King showed himself, they would rally round him in multitudes,

[718] Lewis was too polite and goodnatured to express what he must

have felt. He contented himself with answering coldly that he could not

decide upon any plan about the British islands till he had heard from

his generals in Ireland. James was importunate, and seemed to think

himself ill used, because, a fortnight after he had run away from one

army, he was not entrusted with another. Lewis was not to be provoked

into uttering an unkind or uncourteous word: but he was resolute and,

in order to avoid solicitation which gave him pain, he pretended to

be unwell. During some time, whenever James came to Versailles, he was

respectfully informed that His Most Christian Majesty was not equal to

the transaction of business. The highspirited and quickwitted nobles who

daily crowded the antechambers could not help sneering while they bowed

low to the royal visitor, whose poltroonery and stupidity had a second

time made him an exile and a mendicant. They even whispered their

sarcasms loud enough to call up the haughty blood of the Guelphs in

the cheeks of Mary of Modena. But the insensibility of James was of no

common kind. It had long been found proof against reason and against

pity. It now sustained a still harder trial, and was found proof even

against contempt, [719]

While he was enduring with ignominious fortitude the polite scorn of

the French aristocracy, and doing his best to weary out his benefactor's

patience and good breeding by repeating that this was the very moment

for an invasion of England, and that the whole island was impatiently

expecting its foreign deliverers, events were passing which signally

proved how little the banished oppressor understood the character of his

countrymen.

Tourville had, since the battle of Beachy Head, ranged the Channel

unopposed. On the twenty-first of July his masts were seen from the

rocks of Portland. On the twenty-second he anchored in the harbour

of Torbay, under the same heights which had, not many months before,

sheltered the armament of William. The French fleet, which now had

a considerable number of troops on board, consisted of a hundred and

eleven sail. The galleys, which formed a large part of this force,

resembled rather those ships with which Alcibiades and Lysander disputed

the sovereignty of the Aegean than those which contended at the Nile

and at Trafalgar. The galley was very long and very narrow, the deck

not more than two feet from the water edge. Each galley was propelled by

fifty or sixty huge oars, and each oar was tugged by five or six

slaves. The full complement of slaves to a vessel was three hundred and

thirty-six; the full complement of officers and soldiers a hundred and

fifty. Of the unhappy rowers some were criminals who had been justly

condemned to a life of hardship and danger; a few had been guilty only

of adhering obstinately to the Huguenot worship; the great majority

were purchased bondsmen, generally Turks and Moors. They were of course

always forming plans for massacring their tyrants and escaping from

servitude, and could be kept in order only by constant stripes and by

the frequent infliction of death in horrible forms. An Englishman, who

happened to fall in with about twelve hundred of these most miserable

and most desperate of human beings on their road from Marseilles to join

Tourville's squadron, heard them vowing that, if they came near a man

of war bearing the cross of Saint George, they would never again see a

French dockyard, [720]

In the Mediterranean galleys were in ordinary use: but none had ever

before been seen on the stormy ocean which roars round our island. The

flatterers of Lewis said that the appearance of such a squadron on the

Atlantic was one of those wonders which were reserved for his reign;

and a medal was struck at Paris to commemorate this bold experiment in

maritime war, [721] English sailors, with more reason, predicted that

the first gale would send the whole of this fairweather armament to

the bottom of the Channel. Indeed the galley, like the ancient trireme,

generally kept close to the shore, and ventured out of sight of land

only when the water was unruffled and the sky serene. But the qualities

which made this sort of ship unfit to brave tempests and billows made it

peculiarly fit for the purpose of landing soldiers. Tourville determined

to try what effect would be produced by a disembarkation. The English

Jacobites who had taken refuge in France were all confident that the

whole population of the island was ready to rally round an invading

army; and he probably gave them credit for understanding the temper of

their countrymen.

Never was there a greater error. Indeed the French admiral is said by

tradition to have received, while he was still out at sea, a lesson

which might have taught him not to rely on the assurances of exiles.

He picked up a fishing boat, and interrogated the owner, a plain Sussex

man, about the sentiments of the nation. "Are you," he said, "for King

James?" "I do not know much about such matters," answered the fisherman.

"I have nothing to say against King James. He is a very worthy

gentleman, I believe. God bless him!" "A good fellow!" said Tourville:

"then I am sure you will have no objection to take service with us."

"What!" cried the prisoner; "I go with the French to fight against the

English! Your honour must excuse me; I could not do it to save my life."

[722] This poor fisherman, whether he was a real or an imaginary person,

spoke the sense of the nation. The beacon on the ridge overlooking

Teignmouth was kindled; the High Tor and Causland made answer; and soon

all the hill tops of the West were on re, Messengers were riding hard

all night from Deputy Lieutenant to Deputy Lieutenant. Early the next

morning, without chief, without summons, five hundred gentlemen and

yeomen, armed and mounted, had assembled on the summit of Haldon Hill.

In twenty-four hours all Devonshire was up. Every road in the county

from sea to sea was covered by multitudes of fighting men, all with

their faces set towards Torbay. The lords of a hundred manors, proud of

their long pedigrees and old coats of arms, took the field at the head

of their tenantry, Drakes, Prideauxes and Rolles, Fowell of Fowelscombe

and Fulford of Fulford, Sir Bourchier Wray of Tawstock Park and Sir

William Courtenay of Powderham Castle. Letters written by several of

the Deputy Lieutenants who were most active during this anxious week are

still preserved. All these letters agree in extolling the courage and

enthusiasm of the people. But all agree also in expressing the most

painful solicitude as to the result of an encounter between a raw

militia and veterans who had served under Turenne and Luxemburg; and all

call for the help of regular troops, in language very unlike that which,

when the pressure of danger was not felt, country gentlemen were then in

the habit of using about standing armies.

Tourville, finding that the whole population was united as one man

against him, contented himself with sending his galleys to ravage

Teignmouth, now a gay watering place consisting of twelve hundred

houses, then an obscure village of about forty cottages. The inhabitants

had fled. Their dwellings were burned; the venerable parish church was

sacked, the pulpit and the communion table demolished, the Bibles and

Prayer Books torn and scattered about the roads; the cattle and pigs

were slaughtered; and a few small vessels which were employed in fishing

or in the coasting trade, were destroyed. By this time sixteen or

seventeen thousand Devonshire men had encamped close to the shore; and

all the neighbouring counties had risen. The tin mines of Cornwall had

sent forth a great multitude of rude and hardy men mortally hostile to

Popery. Ten thousand of them had just signed an address to the Queen,

in which they had promised to stand by her against every enemy; and they

now kept their word, [723] In truth, the whole nation was stirred. Two

and twenty troops of cavalry, furnished by Suffolk, Essex, Hertfordshire

and Buckinghamshire, were reviewed by Mary at Hounslow, and were

complimented by Marlborough on their martial appearance. The militia of

Kent and Surrey encamped on Blackheath, [724] Van Citters informed the

States General that all England was up in arms, on foot or on horseback,

that the disastrous event of the battle of Beachy Head had not cowed,

but exasperated the people, and that every company of soldiers which he

passed on the road was shouting with one voice, "God bless King William

and Queen Mary." [725]

Charles Granville, Lord Lansdowne, eldest son of the Earl of Bath, came

with some troops from the garrison of Plymouth to take the command

of the tumultuary army which had assembled round the basin of Torbay.

Lansdowne was no novice. He had served several hard campaigns against

the common enemy of Christendom, and had been created a Count of the

Roman Empire in reward of the valour which he had displayed on that

memorable day, sung by Filicaja and by Waller, when the infidels retired

from the walls of Vienna. He made preparations for action; but the

French did not choose to attack him, and were indeed impatient to

depart. They found some difficulty in getting away. One day the wind was

adverse to the sailing vessels. Another day the water was too rough for

the galleys. At length the fleet stood out to sea. As the line of ships

turned the lofty cape which overlooks Torquay, an incident happened

which, though slight in itself, greatly interested the thousands who

lined the coast. Two wretched slaves disengaged themselves from an oar,

and sprang overboard. One of them perished. The other, after struggling

more than an hour in the water, came safe to English ground, and was

cordially welcomed by a population to which the discipline of the

galleys was a thing strange and shocking. He proved to be a Turk, and

was humanely sent back to his own country.

A pompous description of the expedition appeared in the Paris Gazette.

But in truth Tourville's exploits had been inglorious, and yet less

inglorious than impolitic. The injury which he had done bore no

proportion to the resentment which he had roused. Hitherto the Jacobites

had tried to persuade the nation that the French would come as friends

and deliverers, would observe strict discipline, would respect the

temples and the ceremonies of the established religion, and would

depart as soon as the Dutch oppressors had been expelled and the ancient

constitution of the realm restored. The short visit of Tourville to our

coast had shown how little reason there was to expect such moderation

from the soldiers of Lewis. They had been in our island only a few

hours, and had occupied only a few acres. But within a few hours and

a few acres had been exhibited in miniature the devastation of the

Palatinate. What had happened was communicated to the whole kingdom far

more rapidly than by gazettes or news letters. A brief for the relief

of the people of Teignmouth was read in all the ten thousand parish

churches of the land. No congregation could hear without emotion that

the Popish marauders had made desolate the habitations of quiet and

humble peasants, had outraged the altars of God, had torn to pieces

the Gospels and the Communion service. A street, built out of the

contributions of the charitable, on the site of the dwellings which the

invaders had destroyed, still retains the name of French Street, [726]

The outcry against those who were, with good reason, suspected of having

invited the enemy to make a descent on our shores was vehement and

general, and was swollen by many voices which had recently been loud in

clamour against the government of William. The question had ceased to

be a question between two dynasties, and had become a question between

England and France. So strong was the national sentiment that nonjurors

and Papists shared or affected to share it. Dryden, not long after

the burning of Teignmouth, laid a play at the feet of Halifax, with

a dedication eminently ingenious, artful, and eloquent. The dramatist

congratulated his patron on having taken shelter in a calm haven from

the storms of public life, and, with great force and beauty of diction,

magnified the felicity of the statesman who exchanges the bustle of

office and the fame of oratory for philosophic studies and domestic

endearments. England could not complain that she was defrauded of the

service to which she had a right. Even the severe discipline of ancient

Rome permitted a soldier, after many campaigns, to claim his dismission;

and Halifax had surely done enough for his country to be entitled to the

same privilege. But the poet added that there was one case in which

the Roman veteran, even after his discharge, was required to resume his

shield and his pilum; and that one case was an invasion of the Gauls.

That a writer who had purchased the smiles of James by apostasy, who had

been driven in disgrace from the court of William, and who had a deeper

interest in the restoration of the exiled House than any man who made

letters his calling, should have used, whether sincerely or insincerely,

such language as this, is a fact which may convince us that the

determination never to be subjugated by foreigners was fixed in the

hearts of the people, [727]

There was indeed a Jacobite literature in which no trace of this

patriotic spirit can be detected, a literature the remains of which

prove that there were Englishmen perfectly willing to see the English

flag dishonoured, the English soil invaded, the English capital sacked,

the English crown worn by a vassal of Lewis, if only they might avenge

themselves on their enemies, and especially on William, whom they hated

with a hatred half frightful half ludicrous. But this literature was

altogether a work of darkness. The law by which the Parliament of James

had subjected the press to the control of censors was still in force;

and, though the officers whose business it was to prevent the infraction

of that law were not extreme to mark every irregularity committed by a

bookseller who understood the art of conveying a guinea in a squeeze

of the hand, they could not wink at the open vending of unlicensed

pamphlets filled with ribald insults to the Sovereign, and with direct

instigations to rebellion. But there had long lurked in the garrets of

London a class of printers who worked steadily at their calling with

precautions resembling those employed by coiners and forgers. Women were

on the watch to give the alarm by their screams if an officer appeared

near the workshop. The press was immediately pushed into a closet

behind the bed; the types were flung into the coalhole, and covered with

cinders: the compositor disappeared through a trapdoor in the roof, and

made off over the tiles of the neighbouring houses. In these dens were

manufactured treasonable works of all classes and sizes, from halfpenny

broadsides of doggrel verse up to massy quartos filled with Hebrew

quotations. It was not safe to exhibit such publications openly on a

counter. They were sold only by trusty agents, and in secret places.

Some tracts which were thought likely to produce a great effect were

given away in immense numbers at the expense of wealthy Jacobites.

Sometimes a paper was thrust under a door, sometimes dropped on the

table of a coffeehouse. One day a thousand copies of a scurrilous

pamphlet went out by the postbags. On another day, when the shopkeepers

rose early to take down their shutters, they found the whole of Fleet

Street and the Strand white with seditious handbills, [728]

Of the numerous performances which were ushered into the world by such

shifts as these, none produced a greater sensation than a little book

which purported to be a form of prayer and humiliation for the use of

the persecuted Church. It was impossible to doubt that a considerable

sum had been expended on this work. Ten thousand copies were, by various

means, scattered over the kingdom. No more mendacious, more malignant or

more impious lampoon was ever penned. Though the government had as yet

treated its enemies with a lenity unprecedented in the history of our

country, though not a single person had, since the Revolution, suffered

death for any political offence, the authors of this liturgy were not

ashamed to pray that God would assuage their enemy's insatiable thirst

for blood, or would, if any more of them were to be brought through the

Red Sea to the Land of Promise, prepare them for the passage, [729] They

complained that the Church of England, once the perfection of beauty,

had become a scorn and derision, a heap of ruins, a vineyard of wild

grapes; that her services had ceased to deserve the name of public

worship; that the bread and wine which she dispensed had no longer any

sacramental virtue; that her priests, in the act of swearing fealty to

the usurper, had lost the sacred character which had been conferred on

them by their ordination, [730] James was profanely described as the

stone which foolish builders had rejected; and a fervent petition was

put up that Providence would again make him the head of the corner.

The blessings which were called down on our country were of a singular

description. There was something very like a prayer for another Bloody

Circuit; "Give the King the necks of his enemies;" there was something

very like a prayer for a French invasion; "Raise him up friends abroad;"

and there was a more mysterious prayer, the best comment on which was

afterwards furnished by the Assassination Plot; "Do some great thing for

him; which we in particular know not how to pray for." [731]

This liturgy was composed, circulated, and read, it is said, in some

congregations of Jacobite schismatics, before William set out for

Ireland, but did not attract general notice till the appearance of a

foreign armament on our coast had roused the national spirit. Then rose

a roar of indignation against the Englishmen who had dared, under the

hypocritical pretence of devotion, to imprecate curses on England. The

deprived Prelates were suspected, and not without some show of reason.

For the nonjurors were, to a man, zealous Episcopalians. Their doctrine

was that, in ecclesiastical matters of grave moment, nothing could be

well done without the sanction of the Bishop. And could it be believed

that any who held this doctrine would compose a service, print it,

circulate it, and actually use it in public worship, without the

approbation of Sancroft, whom the whole party revered, not only as the

true Primate of all England, but also as a Saint and a Confessor? It

was known that the Prelates who had refused the oaths had lately held

several consultations at Lambeth. The subject of those consultations, it

was now said, might easily be guessed. The holy fathers had been engaged

in framing prayers for the destruction of the Protestant colony in

Ireland, for the defeat of the English fleet in the Channel, and for the

speedy arrival of a French army in Kent. The extreme section of the Whig

party pressed this accusation with vindictive eagerness. This then, said

those implacable politicians, was the fruit of King William's merciful

policy. Never had he committed a greater error than when he had

conceived the hope that the hearts of the clergy were to be won by

clemency and moderation. He had not chosen to give credit to men who had

learned by a long and bitter experience that no kindness will tame the

sullen ferocity of a priesthood. He had stroked and pampered when he

should have tried the effect of chains and hunger. He had hazarded the

good will of his best friends by protecting his worst enemies. Those

Bishops who had publicly refused to acknowledge him as their Sovereign,

and who, by that refusal, had forfeited their dignities and revenues,

still continued to live unmolested in palaces which ought to be occupied

by better men: and for this indulgence, an indulgence unexampled in the

history of revolutions, what return had been made to him? Even this,

that the men whom he had, with so much tenderness, screened from just

punishment, had the insolence to describe him in their prayers as a

persecutor defiled with the blood of the righteous; they asked for grace

to endure with fortitude his sanguinary tyranny; they cried to heaven

for a foreign fleet and army to deliver them from his yoke; nay, they

hinted at a wish so odious that even they had not the front to speak

it plainly. One writer, in a pamphlet which produced a great sensation,

expressed his wonder that the people had not, when Tourville was riding

victorious in the Channel, bewitted the nonjuring Prelates. Excited as

the public mind then was, there was some danger that this suggestion

might bring a furious mob to Lambeth. At Norwich indeed the people

actually rose, attacked the palace which the Bishop was still suffered

to occupy, and would have pulled it down but for the timely arrival of

the trainbands, [732] The government very properly instituted criminal

proceedings against the publisher of the work which had produced this

alarming breach of the peace, [733] The deprived Prelates meanwhile put

forth a defence of their conduct. In this document they declared, with

all solemnity, and as in the presence of God, that they had no hand in

the new liturgy, that they knew not who had framed it, that they had

never used it, that they had never held any correspondence directly

or indirectly with the French court, that they were engaged in no plot

against the existing government, and that they would willingly shed

their blood rather than see England subjugated by a foreign prince, who

had, in his own kingdom, cruelly persecuted their Protestant brethren.

As to the write who had marked them out to the public vengeance by a

fearful word, but too well understood, they commended him to the Divine

mercy, and heartily prayed that his great sin might be forgiven him.

Most of those who signed this paper did so doubtless with perfect

sincerity: but it soon appeared that one at least of the subscribers had

added to the crime of betraying his country the crime of calling God to

witness a falsehood, [734]

The events which were passing in the Channel and on the Continent

compelled William to make repeated changes in his plans. During the week

which followed his triumphal entry into Dublin, messengers charged with

evil tidings arrived from England in rapid succession. First came the

account of Waldeck's defeat at Fleurus. The King was much disturbed.

All the pleasure, he said, which his own victory had given him was at

an end. Yet, with that generosity which was hidden under his austere

aspect, he sate down, even in the moment of his first vexation, to write

a kind and encouraging letter to the unfortunate general, [735] Three

days later came intelligence more alarming still. The allied fleet had

been ignominiously beaten. The sea from the Downs to the Land's End was

in possession of the enemy. The next post might bring news that Kent was

invaded. A French squadron might appear in Saint George's Channel, and

might without difficulty burn all the transports which were anchored

in the Bay of Dublin. William determined to return to England; but he

wished to obtain, before he went, the command of a safe haven on the

eastern coast of Ireland. Waterford was the place best suited to his

purpose; and towards Waterford he immediately proceeded. Clonmel and

Kilkenny were abandoned by the Irish troops as soon as it was known that

he was approaching. At Kilkenny he was entertained, on the nineteenth of

July, by the Duke of Ormond in the ancient castle of the Butlers, which

had not long before been occupied by Lauzun, and which therefore, in the

midst of the general devastation, still had tables and chairs, hangings

on the walls, and claret in the cellars. On the twenty-first two

regiments which garrisoned Waterford consented to march out after a

faint show of resistance; a few hours later, the fort of Duncannon,

which, towering on a rocky promontory, commanded the entrance of the

harbour, was surrendered; and William was master of the whole of that

secure and spacious basin which is formed by the united waters of

the Suir, the Nore and the Barrow. He then announced his intention

of instantly returning to England, and, having declared Count Solmes

Commander in Chief of the army of Ireland, set out for Dublin, [736]

But good news met him on the road. Tourville had appeared on the coast

of Devonshire, had put some troops on shore, and had sacked Teignmouth;

but the only effect of this insult had been to raise the whole

population of the western counties in arms against the invaders. The

enemy had departed, after doing just mischief enough to make the cause

of James as odious for a time to Tories as to Whigs. William therefore

again changed his plans, and hastened back to his army, which,

during his absence, had moved westward, and which he rejoined in the

neighbourhood of Cashel, [737]

About this time he received from Mary a letter requesting him to

decide an important question on which the Council of Nine was divided.

Marlborough was of opinion that all danger of invasion was over for that

year. The sea, he said, was open; for the French ships had returned into

port, and were refitting. Now was the time to send an English fleet,

with five thousand troops on board, to the southern extremity of

Ireland. Such a force might easily reduce Cork and Kinsale, two of

the most important strongholds still occupied by the forces of James.

Marlborough was strenuously supported by Nottingham, and as strenuously

opposed by the other members of the interior council with Caermarthen

at their head. The Queen referred the matter to her husband. He highly

approved of the plan, and gave orders that it should be executed by

the General who had formed it. Caermarthen submitted, though with a

bad grace, and with some murmurs at the extraordinary partiality of His

Majesty for Marlborough, [738]

William meanwhile was advancing towards Limerick. In that city the army

which he had put to rout at the Boyne had taken refuge, discomfited,

indeed, and disgraced, but very little diminished. He would not have

had the trouble of besieging the place, if the advice of Lauzun and of

Lauzun's countrymen had been followed. They laughed at the thought of

defending such fortifications, and indeed would not admit that the

name of fortifications could properly be given to heaps of dirt, which

certainly bore little resemblance to the works of Valenciennes and

Philipsburg. "It is unnecessary," said Lauzun, with an oath, "for the

English to bring cannon against such a place as this. What you call your

ramparts might be battered down with roasted apples." He therefore gave

his voice for evacuating Limerick, and declared that, at all events, he

was determined not to throw away in a hopeless resistance the lives of

the brave men who had been entrusted to his care by his master, [739]

The truth is, that the judgment of the brilliant and adventurous

Frenchman was biassed by his inclinations. He and his companions were

sick of Ireland. They were ready to face death with courage, nay, with

gaiety, on a field of battle. But the dull, squalid, barbarous life,

which they had now been leading during several months, was more than

they could bear. They were as much out of the pale of the civilised

world as if they had been banished to Dahomey or Spitzbergen. The

climate affected their health and spirits. In that unhappy country,

wasted by years of predatory war, hospitality could offer little more

than a couch of straw, a trencher of meat half raw and half burned, and

a draught of sour milk. A crust of bread, a pint of wine, could hardly

be purchased for money. A year of such hardships seemed a century to

men who had always been accustomed to carry with them to the camp the

luxuries of Paris, soft bedding, rich tapestry, sideboards of plate,

hampers of Champagne, opera dancers, cooks and musicians. Better to be

a prisoner in the Bastille, better to be a recluse at La Trappe, than

to be generalissimo of the half naked savages who burrowed in the dreary

swamps of Munster. Any plea was welcome which would serve as an excuse

for returning from that miserable exile to the land of cornfields

and vineyards, of gilded coaches and laced cravats, of ballrooms and

theatres, [740]

Very different was the feeling of the children of the soil. The island,

which to French courtiers was a disconsolate place of banishment, was

the Irishman's home. There were collected all the objects of his love

and of his ambition; and there he hoped that his dust would one day

mingle with the dust of his fathers. To him even the heaven dark with

the vapours of the ocean, the wildernesses of black rushes and stagnant

water, the mud cabins where the peasants and the swine shared their meal

of roots, had a charm which was wanting to the sunny skies, the cultured

fields and the stately mansions of the Seine. He could imagine no fairer

spot than his country, if only his country could be freed from the

tyranny of the Saxons; and all hope that his country would be freed

from the tyranny of the Saxons must be abandoned if Limerick were

surrendered.

The conduct of the Irish during the last two months had sunk their

military reputation to the lowest point. They had, with the exception of

some gallant regiments of cavalry, fled disgracefully at the Boyne, and

had thus incurred the bitter contempt both of their enemies and of their

allies. The English who were at Saint Germains never spoke of the Irish

but as a people of dastards and traitors, [741] The French were so much

exasperated against the unfortunate nation, that Irish merchants, who

had been many years settled at Paris, durst not walk the streets

for fear of being insulted by the populace, [742] So strong was the

prejudice, that absurd stories were invented to explain the intrepidity

with which the horse had fought. It was said that the troopers were not

men of Celtic blood, but descendants of the old English of the pale,

[743] It was also said that they had been intoxicated with brandy just

before the battle, [744] Yet nothing can be more certain than that they

must have been generally of Irish race; nor did the steady valour which

they displayed in a long and almost hopeless conflict against great odds

bear any resemblance to the fury of a coward maddened by strong drink

into momentary hardihood. Even in the infantry, undisciplined and

disorganized as it was, there was much spirit, though little firmness.

Fits of enthusiasm and fits of faintheartedness succeeded each other.

The same battalion, which at one time threw away its arms in a panic and

shrieked for quarter, would on another occasion fight valiantly. On the

day of the Boyne the courage of the ill trained and ill commanded kernes

had ebbed to the lowest point. When they had rallied at Limerick, their

blood was up. Patriotism, fanaticism, shame, revenge, despair, had

raised them above themselves. With one voice officers and men insisted

that the city should be defended to the last. At the head of those

who were for resisting was the brave Sarsfield; and his exhortations

diffused through all ranks a spirit resembling his own. To save his

country was beyond his power. All that he could do was to prolong her

last agony through one bloody and disastrous year, [745]

Tyrconnel was altogether incompetent to decide the question on which the

French and the Irish differed. The only military qualities that he had

ever possessed were personal bravery and skill in the use of the sword.

These qualities had once enabled him to frighten away rivals from the

doors of his mistresses, and to play the Hector at cockpits and hazard

tables. But more was necessary to enable him to form an opinion as to

the possibility of defending Limerick. He would probably, had his temper

been as hot as in the days when he diced with Grammont and threatened

to cut the old Duke of Ormond's throat, have voted for running any risk

however desperate. But age, pain and sickness had left little of the

canting, bullying, fighting Dick Talbot of the Restoration. He had

sunk into deep despondency. He was incapable of strenuous exertion. The

French officers pronounced him utterly ignorant of the art of war. They

had observed that at the Boyne he had seemed to be stupified, unable

to give directions himself, unable even to make up his mind about the

suggestions which were offered by others, [746] The disasters which

had since followed one another in rapid succession were not likely to

restore the tone of a mind so pitiably unnerved. His wife was already in

France with the little which remained of his once ample fortune: his

own wish was to follow her thither: his voice was therefore given for

abandoning the city.

At last a compromise was made. Lauzun and Tyrconnel, with the French

troops, retired to Galway. The great body of the native army, about

twenty thousand strong, remained at Limerick. The chief command there

was entrusted to Boisseleau, who understood the character of the Irish

better, and consequently, judged them more favourably, than any of his

countrymen. In general, the French captains spoke of their unfortunate

allies with boundless contempt and abhorrence, and thus made themselves

as hateful as the English, [747]

Lauzun and Tyrconnel had scarcely departed when the advanced guard of

William's army came in sight. Soon the King himself, accompanied by

Auverquerque and Ginkell, and escorted by three hundred horse, rode

forward to examine the fortifications. The city, then the second in

Ireland, though less altered since that time than most large cities in

the British isles, has undergone a great change. The new town did not

then exist. The ground now covered by those smooth and broad pavements,

those neat gardens, those stately shops flaming with red brick, and gay

with shawls and china, was then an open meadow lying without the walls.

The city consisted of two parts, which had been designated during

several centuries as the English and the Irish town. The English town

stands on an island surrounded by the Shannon, and consists of a knot

of antique houses with gable ends, crowding thick round a venerable

cathedral. The aspect of the streets is such that a traveller who

wanders through them may easily fancy himself in Normandy or Flanders.

Not far from the cathedral, an ancient castle overgrown with weeds and

ivy looks down on the river. A narrow and rapid stream, over which, in

1690, there was only a single bridge, divides the English town from the

quarter anciently occupied by the hovels of the native population. The

view from the top of the cathedral now extends many miles over a level

expanse of rich mould, through which the greatest of Irish rivers winds

between artificial banks. But in the seventeenth century those banks had

not been constructed; and that wide plain, of which the grass, verdant

even beyond the verdure of Munster, now feeds some of the finest cattle

in Europe, was then almost always a marsh and often a lake, [748]

When it was known that the French troops had quitted Limerick, and that

the Irish only remained, the general expectation in the English camp was

that the city would be an easy conquest, [749] Nor was that expectation

unreasonable; for even Sarsfield desponded. One chance, in his opinion,

there still was. William had brought with him none but small guns.

Several large pieces of ordnance, a great quantity of provisions and

ammunition, and a bridge of tin boats, which in the watery plain of the

Shannon was frequently needed, were slowly following from Cashel. If the

guns and gunpowder could be intercepted and destroyed, there might be

some hope. If not, all was lost; and the best thing that a brave and

high spirited Irish gentleman could do was to forget the country which

he had in vain tried to defend, and to seek in some foreign land a home

or a grave.

A few hours, therefore, after the English tents had been pitched before

Limerick, Sarsfield set forth, under cover of the night, with a strong

body of horse and dragoons. He took the road to Killaloe, and crossed

the Shannon there. During the day he lurked with his band in a wild

mountain tract named from the silver mines which it contains. Those

mines had many years before been worked by English proprietors, with the

help of engineers and labourers imported from the Continent. But, in the

rebellion of 1641, the aboriginal population had destroyed the works and

massacred the workmen; nor had the devastation then committed been since

repaired. In this desolate region Sarsfield found no lack of scouts or

of guides; for all the peasantry of Munster were zealous on his side.

He learned in the evening that the detachment which guarded the English

artillery had halted for the night about seven miles from William's

camp, on a pleasant carpet of green turf under the ruined walls of an

old castle that officers and men seemed to think themselves perfectly

secure; that the beasts had been turned loose to graze, and that even

the sentinels were dozing. When it was dark the Irish horsemen quitted

their hiding place, and were conducted by the people of the country to

the place where the escort lay sleeping round the guns. The surprise was

complete. Some of the English sprang to their arms and made an attempt

to resist, but in vain. About sixty fell. One only was taken alive. The

rest fled. The victorious Irish made a huge pile of waggons and pieces

of cannon. Every gun was stuffed with powder, and fixed with its mouth

in the ground; and the whole mass was blown up. The solitary prisoner,

a lieutenant, was treated with great civility by Sarsfield. "If I had

failed in this attempt," said the gallant Irishman, "I should have been

off to France." [750]

Intelligence had been carried to William's head quarters that Sarsfield

had stolen out of Limerick and was ranging the country. The King guessed

the design of his brave enemy, and sent five hundred horse to protect

the guns. Unhappily there was some delay, which the English, always

disposed to believe the worst of the Dutch courtiers, attributed to

the negligence or perverseness of Portland. At one in the morning the

detachment set out, but had scarcely left the camp when a blaze like

lightning and a crash like thunder announced to the wide plain of the

Shannon that all was over, [751]

Sarsfield had long been the favourite of his countrymen; and this most

seasonable exploit, judiciously planned and vigorously executed, raised

him still higher in their estimation. Their spirits rose; and the

besiegers began to lose heart. William did his best to repair his

loss. Two of the guns which had been blown up were found to be still

serviceable. Two more were sent for from Waterford. Batteries were

constructed of small field pieces, which, though they might have been

useless against one of the fortresses of Hainault or Brabant, made some

impression on the feeble defences of Limerick. Several outworks were

carried by storm; and a breach in the rampart of the city began to

appear.

During these operations, the English army was astonished and amused by

an incident, which produced indeed no very important consequences, but

which illustrates in the most striking manner the real nature of Irish

Jacobitism. In the first rank of those great Celtic houses, which, down

to the close of the reign of Elizabeth, bore rule in Ulster, were the

O'Donnels. The head of that house had yielded to the skill and energy of

Mountjoy, had kissed the hand of James the First, and had consented

to exchange the rude independence of a petty prince for an eminently

honourable place among British subjects. During a short time the

vanquished chief held the rank of an Earl, and was the landlord of an

immense domain of which he had once been the sovereign. But soon he

began to suspect the government of plotting against him, and, in revenge

or in selfdefence, plotted against the government. His schemes failed;

he fled to the continent; his title and his estates were forfeited; and

an Anglosaxon colony was planted in the territory which he had governed.

He meanwhile took refuge at the court of Spain. Between that court and

the aboriginal Irish there had, during the long contest between Philip

and Elizabeth, been a close connection. The exiled chieftain was

welcomed at Madrid as a good Catholic flying from heretical persecutors.

His illustrious descent and princely dignity, which to the English

were subjects of ridicule, secured to him the respect of the Castilian

grandees. His honours were inherited by a succession of banished men who

lived and died far from the land where the memory of their family was

fondly cherished by a rude peasantry, and was kept fresh by the songs

of minstrels and the tales of begging friars. At length, in the

eighty-third year of the exile of this ancient dynasty, it was

known over all Europe that the Irish were again in arms for their

independence. Baldearg O'Donnel, who called himself the O'Donnel, a

title far prouder, in the estimation of his race, than any marquisate or

dukedom, had been bred in Spain, and was in the service of the Spanish

government. He requested the permission of that government to repair to

Ireland. But the House of Austria was now closely leagued with England;

and the permission was refused. The O'Donnel made his escape, and by a

circuitous route, in the course of which he visited Turkey, arrived at

Kinsale a few days after James had sailed thence for France. The effect

produced on the native population by the arrival of this solitary

wanderer was marvellous. Since Ulster had been reconquered by the

Englishry, great multitudes of the Irish inhabitants of that province

had migrated southward, and were now leading a vagrant life in Connaught

and Munster. These men, accustomed from their infancy to hear of the

good old times, when the O'Donnel, solemnly inaugurated on the rock of

Kilmacrenan by the successor of Saint Columb, governed the mountains

of Donegal in defiance of the strangers of the pale, flocked to the

standard of the restored exile. He was soon at the head of seven or

eight thousand Rapparees, or, to use the name peculiar to Ulster,

Creaghts; and his followers adhered to him with a loyalty very different

from the languid sentiment which the Saxon James had been able to

inspire. Priests and even Bishops swelled the train of the adventurer.

He was so much elated by his reception that he sent agents to France,

who assured the ministers of Lewis that the O'Donnel would, if furnished

with arms and ammunition, bring into the field thirty thousand Celts

from Ulster, and that the Celts of Ulster would be found far superior in

every military quality to those of Leinster, Munster and Connaught. No

expression used by Baldearg indicated that he considered himself as

a subject. His notion evidently was that the House of O'Donnel was as

truly and as indefeasibly royal as the House of Stuart; and not a few

of his countrymen were of the same mind. He made a pompous entrance into

Limerick; and his appearance there raised the hopes of the garrison to

a strange pitch. Numerous prophecies were recollected or invented. An

O'Donnel with a red mark was to be the deliverer of his country; and

Baldearg meant a red mark. An O'Donnel was to gain a great battle over

the English near Limerick; and at Limerick the O'Donnel and the English

were now brought face to face, [752]

While these predictions were eagerly repeated by the defenders of the

city, evil presages, grounded not on barbarous oracles, but on grave

military reasons, began to disturb William and his most experienced

officers. The blow struck by Sarsfield had told; the artillery had been

long in doing its work; that work was even now very imperfectly done;

the stock of powder had begun to run low; the autumnal rain had begun

to fall. The soldiers in the trenches were up to their knees in mire. No

precaution was neglected; but, though drains were dug to carry off the

water, and though pewter basins of usquebaugh and brandy blazed all

night in the tents, cases of fever had already occurred, and it might

well be apprehended that, if the army remained but a few days longer on

that swampy soil, there would be a pestilence more terrible than that

which had raged twelve months before under the walls of Dundalk, [753]

A council of war was held. It was determined to make one great effort,

and, if that effort failed, to raise the seige.

On the twenty-seventh of August, at three in the afternoon, the signal

was given. Five hundred grenadiers rushed from the English trenches

to the counterscarp, fired their pieces, and threw their grenades. The

Irish fled into the town, and were followed by the assailants, who,

in the excitement of victory, did not wait for orders. Then began a

terrible street fight. The Irish, as soon as they had recovered

from their surprise, stood resolutely to their arms; and the English

grenadiers, overwhelmed by numbers, were, with great loss, driven back

to the counterscarp. There the struggle was long and desperate. When

indeed was the Roman Catholic Celt to fight if he did not fight on that

day? The very women of Limerick mingled, in the combat, stood firmly

under the hottest fire, and flung stones and broken bottles at the

enemy. In the moment when the conflict was fiercest a mine exploded,

and hurled a fine German battalion into the air. During four hours the

carnage and uproar continued. The thick cloud which rose from the breach

streamed out on the wind for many miles, and disappeared behind the

hills of Clare. Late in the evening the besiegers retired slowly and

sullenly to their camp. Their hope was that a second attack would be

made on the morrow; and the soldiers vowed to have the town or die.

But the powder was now almost exhausted; the rain fell in torrents; the

gloomy masses of cloud which came up from the south west threatened a

havoc more terrible than that of the sword; and there was reason to fear

that the roads, which were already deep in mud, would soon be in such a

state that no wheeled carriage could be dragged through them. The King

determined to raise the siege, and to move his troops to a healthier

region. He had in truth staid long enough; for it was with great

difficulty that his guns and waggons were tugged away by long teams of

oxen, [754]

The history of the first siege of Limerick bears, in some respects,

a remarkable analogy to the history of the siege of Londonderry. The

southern city was, like the northern city, the last asylum of a Church

and of a nation. Both places were crowded by fugitives from all parts of

Ireland. Both places appeared to men who had made a regular study of the

art of war incapable of resisting an enemy. Both were, in the moment of

extreme danger, abandoned by those commanders who should have defended

them. Lauzun and Tyrconnel deserted Limerick as Cunningham and Lundy had

deserted Londonderry. In both cases, religious and patriotic enthusiasm

struggled unassisted against great odds; and, in both cases, religious

and patriotic enthusiasm did what veteran warriors had pronounced it

absurd to attempt.

It was with no pleasurable emotions that Lauzun and Tyrconnel learned at

Galway the fortunate issue of the conflict in which they had refused

to take a part. They were weary of Ireland; they were apprehensive

that their conduct might be unfavourably represented in France; they

therefore determined to be beforehand with their accusers, and took ship

together for the Continent.

Tyrconnel, before he departed, delegated his civil authority to one

council, and his military authority to another. The young Duke of

Berwick was declared Commander in Chief; but this dignity was merely

nominal. Sarsfield, undoubtedly the first of Irish soldiers, was placed

last in the list of the councillors to whom the conduct of the war was

entrusted; and some believed that he would not have been in the list at

all, had not the Viceroy feared that the omission of so popular a name

might produce a mutiny.

William meanwhile had reached Waterford, and had sailed thence for

England. Before he embarked, he entrusted the government of Ireland to

three Lords Justices. Henry Sydney, now Viscount Sydney, stood first

in the commission; and with him were joined Coningsby and Sir Charles

Porter. Porter had formerly held the Great Seal of the kingdom, had,

merely because he was a Protestant, been deprived of it by James, and

had now received it again from the hand of William.

On the sixth of September the King, after a voyage of twenty-four hours,

landed at Bristol. Thence he travelled to London, stopping by the road

at the mansions of some great lords, and it was remarked that all

those who were thus honoured were Tories. He was entertained one day

at Badminton by the Duke of Beaufort, who was supposed to have brought

himself with great difficulty to take the oaths, and on a subsequent

day at a large house near Marlborough which, in our own time, before the

great revolution produced by railways, was renowned as one of the best

inns in England, but which, in the seventeenth century, was a seat of

the Duke of Somerset. William was every where received with marks of

respect and joy. His campaign indeed had not ended quite so prosperously

as it had begun; but on the whole his success had been great beyond

expectation, and had fully vindicated the wisdom of his resolution to

command his army in person. The sack of Teignmouth too was fresh in

the minds of Englishmen, and had for a time reconciled all but the most

fanatical Jacobites to each other and to the throne. The magistracy

and clergy of the capital repaired to Kensington with thanks and

congratulations. The people rang bells and kindled bonfires. For the

Pope, whom good Protestants had been accustomed to immolate, the French

King was on this occasion substituted, probably by way of retaliation

for the insults which had been offered to the effigy of William by

the Parisian populace. A waxen figure, which was doubtless a hideous

caricature of the most graceful and majestic of princes, was dragged

about Westminster in a chariot. Above was inscribed, in large letters,

"Lewis the greatest tyrant of fourteen." After the procession, the image

was committed to the flames, amidst loud huzzas, in the middle of Covent

Garden, [755]

When William arrived in London, the expedition destined for Cork, was

ready to sail from Portsmouth, and Marlborough had been some time on

board waiting for a fair wind. He was accompanied by Grafton. This young

man had been, immediately after the departure of James, and while the

throne was still vacant, named by William Colonel of the First Regiment

of Foot Guards. The Revolution had scarcely been consummated, when signs

of disaffection began to appear in that regiment, the most important,

both because of its peculiar duties and because of its numerical

strength, of all the regiments in the army. It was thought that the

Colonel had not put this bad spirit down with a sufficiently firm hand.

He was known not to be perfectly satisfied with the new arrangement; he

had voted for a Regency; and it was rumoured, perhaps without reason,

that he had dealings with Saint Germains. The honourable and lucrative

command to which he had just been appointed was taken from him, [756]

Though severely mortified, he behaved like a man of sense and spirit.

Bent on proving that he had been wrongfully suspected, and animated

by an honourable ambition to distinguish himself in his profession,

he obtained permission to serve as a volunteer under Marlborough in

Ireland.

At length, on the eighteenth of September, the wind changed. The fleet

stood out to sea, and on the twenty-first appeared before the harbour

of Cork. The troops landed, and were speedily joined by the Duke of

Wirtemberg, with several regiments, Dutch, Danish, and French, detached

from the army which had lately besieged Limerick. The Duke immediately

put forward a claim which, if the English general had not been a man of

excellent judgment and temper, might have been fatal to the expedition.

His Highness contended that, as a prince of a sovereign house, he was

entitled to command in chief. Marlborough calmly and politely showed

that the pretence was unreasonable. A dispute followed, in which it is

said that the German behaved with rudeness, and the Englishman with that

gentle firmness to which, more perhaps than even to his great abilities,

he owed his success in life. At length a Huguenot officer suggested a

compromise. Marlborough consented to waive part of his rights, and to

allow precedence to the Duke on the alternate days. The first morning

on which Marlborough had the command, he gave the word "Wirtemberg." The

Duke's heart was won by this compliment and on the next day he gave the

word "Marlborough."

But, whoever might give the word, genius asserted its indefeasible

superiority. Marlborough was on every day the real general. Cork was

vigorously attacked. Outwork after outwork was rapidly carried. In

forty-eight hours all was over. The traces of the short struggle may

still be seen. The old fort, where the Irish made the hardest fight,

lies in ruins. The Daria Cathedral, so ungracefully joined to the

ancient tower, stands on the site of a Gothic edifice which was

shattered by the English cannon. In the neighbouring churchyard is still

shown the spot where stood, during many ages, one of those round towers

which have perplexed antiquaries. This venerable monument shared the

fate of the neighbouring church. On another spot, which is now called

the Mall, and is lined by the stately houses of banking companies,

railway companies, and insurance companies, but which was then a bog

known by the name of the Rape Marsh, four English regiments, up to the

shoulders in water, advanced gallantly to the assault. Grafton, ever

foremost in danger, while struggling through the quagmire, was struck by

a shot from the ramparts, and was carried back dying. The place where he

fell, then about a hundred yards without the city, but now situated

in the very centre of business and population, is still called Grafton

Street. The assailants had made their way through the swamp, and the

close fighting was just about to begin, when a parley was beaten.

Articles of capitulation were speedily adjusted. The garrison, between

four and five thousand fighting men, became prisoners. Marlborough

promised to intercede with the King both for them and for the

inhabitants, and to prevent outrage and spoliation. His troops he

succeeded in restraining; but crowds of sailors and camp followers came

into the city through the breach; and the houses of many Roman Catholics

were sacked before order was restored.