Sackville was astonished and not much pleased by the message. He was a

sturdy Cavalier of the old school. He had been persecuted in the days of

the Popish plot for manfully saying what he thought, and what every body

now thinks, about Oates and Bedloe. [64] Since the Revolution he had

put his neck in peril for King James, had been chased by officers with

warrants, and had been designated as a traitor in a proclamation to

which Marlborough himself had been a party. [65] It was not without

reluctance that the stanch royalist crossed the hated threshold of the

deserter. He was repaid for his effort by the edifying spectacle of such

an agony of repentance as he had never before seen. "Will you," said

Marlborough, "be my intercessor with the King? Will you tell him what

I suffer? My crimes now appear to me in their true light; and I shrink

with horror from the contemplation. The thought of them is with me day

and night. I sit down to table; but I cannot eat. I throw myself on my

bed; but I cannot sleep. I am ready to sacrifice every thing, to brave

every thing, to bring utter ruin on my fortunes, if only I may be free

from the misery of a wounded spirit." If appearances could be trusted,

this great offender was as true a penitent as David or as Peter.

Sackville reported to his friends what had passed. They could not but

acknowledge that, if the arch traitor, who had hitherto opposed to

conscience and to public opinion the same cool and placid hardihood

which distinguished him on fields of battle, had really begun to feel

remorse, it would be absurd to reject, on account of his unworthiness,

the inestimable services which it was in his power to render to the

good cause. He sate in the interior council; he held high command in

the army; he had been recently entrusted, and would doubtless again be

entrusted, with the direction of important military operations. It was

true that no man had incurred equal guilt; but it was true also that no

man had it in his power to make equal reparation. If he was sincere,

he might doubtless earn the pardon which he so much desired. But was he

sincere? Had he not been just as loud in professions of loyalty on the

very eve of his crime? It was necessary to put him to the test. Several

tests were applied by Sackville and Lloyd. Marlborough was required to

furnish full information touching the strength and the distribution of

all the divisions of the English army; and he complied. He was required

to disclose the whole plan of the approaching campaign; and he did so.

The Jacobite leaders watched carefully for inaccuracies in his reports,

but could find none. It was thought a still stronger proof of his

fidelity that he gave valuable intelligence about what was doing in the

office of the Secretary of State. A deposition had been sworn against

one zealous royalist. A warrant was preparing against another. These

intimations saved several of the malecontents from imprisonment, if

not from the gallows; and it was impossible for them not to feel some

relenting towards the awakened sinner to whom they owed so much.

He however, in his secret conversations with his new allies, laid no

claim to merit. He did not, he said, ask for confidence. How could he,

after the villanies which he had committed against the best of Kings,

hope ever to be trusted again? It was enough for a wretch like him to be

permitted to make, at the cost of his life, some poor atonement to the

gracious master, whom he had indeed basely injured, but whom he had

never ceased to love. It was not improbable that, in the summer, he

might command the English forces in Flanders. Was it wished that he

should bring them over in a body to the French camp? If such were the

royal pleasure, he would undertake that the thing should be done. But

on the whole he thought that it would be better to wait till the next

session of Parliament. And then he hinted at a plan which he afterwards

more fully matured, for expelling the usurper by means of the English

legislature and the English army. In the meantime he hoped that James

would command Godolphin not to quit the Treasury. A private man could

do little for the good cause. One who was the director of the national

finances, and the depository of the gravest secrets of state, might

render inestimable services.

Marlborough's pretended repentance imposed so completely on those who

managed the affairs of James in London that they sent Lloyd to France,

with the cheering intelligence that the most depraved of all rebels had

been wonderfully transformed into a loyal subject. The tidings filled

James with delight and hope. Had he been wise, they would have excited

in him only aversion and distrust. It was absurd to imagine that a man

really heartbroken by remorse and shame for one act of perfidy would

determine to lighten his conscience by committing a second act of

perfidy as odious and as disgraceful as the first. The promised

atonement was so wicked and base that it never could be made by any man

sincerely desirous to atone for past wickedness and baseness. The truth

was that, when Marlborough told the Jacobites that his sense of guilt

prevented him from swallowing his food by day and taking his rest at

night, he was laughing at them. The loss of half a guinea would have

done more to spoil his appetite and to disturb his slumbers than all the

terrors of an evil conscience. What his offers really proved was that

his former crime had sprung, not from an ill regulated zeal for the

interests of his country and his religion, but from a deep and incurable

moral disease which had infected the whole man. James, however, partly

from dulness and partly from selfishness, could never see any immorality

in any action by which he was benefited. To conspire against him, to

betray him, to break an oath of allegiance sworn to him, were crimes for

which no punishment here or hereafter could be too severe. But to murder

his enemies, to break faith with his enemies was not only innocent but

laudable. The desertion at Salisbury had been the worst of crimes;

for it had ruined him. A similar desertion in Flanders would be an

honourable exploit; for it might restore him.

The penitent was informed by his Jacobite friends that he was forgiven.

The news was most welcome; but something more was necessary to restore

his lost peace of mind. Might he hope to have, in the royal handwriting,

two lines containing a promise of pardon? It was not, of course, for

his own sake that he asked this. But he was confident that, with such

a document in his hands, he could bring back to the right path some

persons of great note who adhered to the usurper, only because they

imagined that they had no mercy to expect from the legitimate King. They

would return to their duty as soon as they saw that even the worst of

all criminals had, on his repentance, been generously forgiven. The

promise was written, sent, and carefully treasured up. Marlborough had

now attained one object, an object which was common to him with Russell

and Godolphin. But he had other objects which neither Russell nor

Godolphin had ever contemplated. There is, as we shall hereafter

see, strong reason to believe that this wise, brave, wicked man, was

meditating a plan worthy of his fertile intellect and daring spirit, and

not less worthy of his deeply corrupted heart, a plan which, if it had

not been frustrated by strange means, would have ruined William without

benefiting James, and would have made the successful traitor master of

England and arbiter of Europe.

Thus things stood, when, in May 1691, William, after a short and busy

sojourn in England, set out again for the Continent, where the regular

campaign was about to open. He took with him Marlborough, whose

abilities he justly appreciated, and of whose recent negotiations with

Saint Germains he had not the faintest suspicion. At the Hague several

important military and political consultations were held; and, on every

occasion, the superiority of the accomplished Englishman was felt by

the most distinguished soldiers and statesmen of the United Provinces.

Heinsius, long after, used to relate a conversation which took place at

this time between William and the Prince of Vaudemont, one of the ablest

commanders in the Dutch service. Vaudemont spoke well of several

English officers, and among them of Talmash and Mackay, but pronounced

Marlborough superior beyond comparison to the rest. "He has every

quality of a general. His very look shows it. He cannot fail to achieve

something great." "I really believe, cousin," answered the King, "that

my Lord will make good every thing that you have said of him."

There was still a short interval before the commencement of military

operations. William passed that interval in his beloved park at Loo.

Marlborough spent two or three days there, and was then despatched to

Flanders with orders to collect all the English forces, to form a camp

in the neighbourhood of Brussels, and to have every thing in readiness

for the King's arrival.

And now Marlborough had an opportunity of proving the sincerity of those

professions by which he had obtained from a heart, well described by

himself as harder than a marble chimneypiece, the pardon of an offence

such as might have moved even a gentle nature to deadly resentment. He

received from Saint Germains a message claiming the instant performance

of his promise to desert at the head of his troops. He was told that

this was the greatest service which he could render to the Crown. His

word was pledged; and the gracious master who had forgiven all past

errors confidently expected that it would be redeemed. The hypocrite

evaded the demand with characteristic dexterity. In the most respectful

and affectionate language he excused himself for not immediately obeying

the royal commands. The promise which he was required to fulfil had not

been quite correctly understood. There had been some misapprehension

on the part of the messengers. To carry over a regiment or two would

do more harm than good. To carry over a whole army was a business which

would require much time and management. [66] While James was murmuring

over these apologies, and wishing that he had not been quite so

placable, William arrived at the head quarters of the allied forces, and

took the chief command.

The military operations in Flanders recommenced early in June and

terminated at the close of September. No important action took place.

The two armies marched and countermarched, drew near and receded. During

some time they confronted each other with less than a league between

them. But neither William nor Luxemburg would fight except at an

advantage; and neither gave the other any advantage. Languid as the

campaign was, it is on one account remarkable. During more than a

century our country had sent no great force to make war by land out of

the British isles. Our aristocracy had therefore long ceased to be

a military class. The nobles of France, of Germany, of Holland, were

generally soldiers. It would probably have been difficult to find in the

brilliant circle which surrounded Lewis at Versailles a single Marquess

or Viscount of forty who had not been at some battle or siege. But the

immense majority of our peers, baronets and opulent esquires had never

served except in the trainbands, and had never borne a part in any

military exploit more serious than that of putting down a riot or of

keeping a street clear for a procession. The generation which had fought

at Edgehill and Lansdowne had nearly passed away. The wars of Charles

the Second had been almost entirely maritime. During his reign therefore

the sea service had been decidedly more the mode than the land service;

and, repeatedly, when our fleet sailed to encounter the Dutch, such

multitudes of men of fashion had gone on board that the parks and the

theatres had been left desolate. In 1691 at length, for the first time

since Henry the Eighth laid siege to Boulogne, an English army appeared

on the Continent under the command of an English king. A camp, which was

also a court, was irresistibly attractive to many young patricians

full of natural intrepidity, and ambitious of the favour which men

of distinguished bravery have always found in the eyes of women. To

volunteer for Flanders became the rage among the fine gentlemen who

combed their flowing wigs and exchanged their richly perfumed snuffs at

the Saint James's Coffeehouse. William's headquarters were enlivened

by a crowd of splendid equipages and by a rapid succession of sumptuous

banquets. For among the high born and high spirited youths who repaired

to his standard were some who, though quite willing to face a battery,

were not at all disposed to deny themselves the luxuries with which they

had been surrounded in Soho Square. In a few months Shadwell brought

these valiant fops and epicures on the stage. The town was made merry

with the character of a courageous but prodigal and effeminate coxcomb,

who is impatient to cross swords with the best men in the French

household troops, but who is much dejected by learning that he may find

it difficult to have his champagne iced daily during the summer. He

carries with him cooks, confectioners and laundresses, a waggonload of

plate, a wardrobe of laced and embroidered suits, and much rich tent

furniture, of which the patterns have been chosen by a committee of fine

ladies. [67]

While the hostile armies watched each other in Flanders, hostilities

were carried on with somewhat more vigour in other parts of Europe.

The French gained some advantages in Catalonia and in Piedmont. Their

Turkish allies, who in the east menaced the dominions of the Emperor,

were defeated by Lewis of Baden in a great battle. But nowhere were the

events of the summer so important as in Ireland.

From October 1690 till May 1691, no military operation on a large scale

was attempted in that kingdom. The area of the island was, during the

winter and spring, not unequally divided between the contending races.

The whole of Ulster, the greater part of Leinster and about one third

of Munster had submitted to the English. The whole of Connaught, the

greater part of Munster, and two or three counties of Leinster were held

by the Irish. The tortuous boundary formed by William's garrisons ran

in a north eastern direction from the bay of Castlehaven to Mallow, and

then, inclining still further eastward, proceeded to Cashel. From

Cashel the line went to Mullingar, from Mullingar to Longford, and from

Longford to Cavan, skirted Lough Erne on the west, and met the ocean

again at Ballyshannon. [68]

On the English side of this pale there was a rude and imperfect order.

Two Lords Justices, Coningsby and Porter, assisted by a Privy Council,

represented King William at Dublin Castle. Judges, Sheriffs and

Justices of the Peace had been appointed; and assizes were, after a long

interval, held in several county towns. The colonists had meanwhile

been formed into a strong militia, under the command of officers who had

commissions from the Crown. The trainbands of the capital consisted of

two thousand five hundred foot, two troops of horse and two troops

of dragoons, all Protestants and all well armed and clad. [69] On the

fourth of November, the anniversary of William's birth, and on the

fifth, the anniversary of his landing at Torbay, the whole of this force

appeared in all the pomp of war. The vanquished and disarmed natives

assisted, with suppressed grief and anger, at the triumph of the

caste which they had, five months before, oppressed and plundered with

impunity. The Lords Justices went in state to Saint Patrick's Cathedral;

bells were rung; bonfires were lighted; hogsheads of ale and claret were

set abroach in the streets; fireworks were exhibited on College Green; a

great company of nobles and public functionaries feasted at the Castle;

and, as the second course came up, the trumpets sounded, and Ulster King

at Arms proclaimed, in Latin, French and English, William and Mary, by

the grace of God, King and Queen of Great Britain, France, and Ireland.

[70]

Within the territory where the Saxon race was dominant, trade and

industry had already begun to revive. The brazen counters which bore the

image and superscription of James gave place to silver. The fugitives

who had taken refuge in England came back in multitudes; and, by their

intelligence, diligence and thrift, the devastation caused by two years

of confusion and robbery was soon in part repaired. Merchantmen heavily

laden were constantly passing and repassing Saint George's Channel.

The receipts of the custom houses on the eastern coast, from Cork to

Londonderry, amounted in six months to sixty-seven thousand five hundred

pounds, a sum such as would have been thought extraordinary even in the

most prosperous times. [71]

The Irish who remained within the English pale were, one and all,

hostile to the English domination. They were therefore subjected to

a rigorous system of police, the natural though lamentable effect of

extreme danger and extreme provocation. A Papist was not permitted to

have a sword or a gun. He was not permitted to go more than three miles

out of his parish except to the market town on the market day. Lest he

should give information or assistance to his brethren who occupied the

western half of the island, he was forbidden to live within ten miles of

the frontier. Lest he should turn his house into a place of resort

for malecontents, he was forbidden to sell liquor by retail. One

proclamation announced that, if the property of any Protestant should be

injured by marauders, his loss should be made good at the expense of his

Popish neighbours. Another gave notice that, if any Papist who had not

been at least three months domiciled in Dublin should be found there, he

should be treated as a spy. Not more than five Papists were to assemble

in the capital or its neighbourhood on any pretext. Without a protection

from the government no member of the Church of Rome was safe; and the

government would not grant a protection to any member of the Church of

Rome who had a son in the Irish army. [72]

In spite of all precautions and severities, however, the Celt found many

opportunities of taking a sly revenge. Houses and barns were frequently

burned; soldiers were frequently murdered; and it was scarcely possible

to obtain evidence against the malefactors, who had with them the

sympathies of the whole population. On such occasions the government

sometimes ventured on acts which seemed better suited to a Turkish than

to an English administration. One of these acts became a favourite theme

of Jacobite pamphleteers, and was the subject of a serious parliamentary

inquiry at Westminster. Six musketeers were found butchered only a few

miles from Dublin. The inhabitants of the village where the crime had

been committed, men, women, and children, were driven like sheep into

the Castle, where the Privy Council was sitting. The heart of one of the

assassins, named Gafney, failed him. He consented to be a witness, was

examined by the Board, acknowledged his guilt, and named some of his

accomplices. He was then removed in custody; but a priest obtained

access to him during a few minutes. What passed during those few minutes

appeared when he was a second time brought before the Council. He had

the effrontery to deny that he had owned any thing or accused any body.

His hearers, several of whom had taken down his confession in writing,

were enraged at his impudence. The Lords justices broke out; "You are

a rogue; You are a villain; You shall be hanged; Where is the Provost

Marshal?" The Provost Marshal came. "Take that man," said Coningsby,

pointing to Gafney; "take that man, and hang him." There was no gallows

ready; but the carriage of a gun served the purpose; and the prisoner

was instantly tied up without a trial, without even a written order for

the execution; and this though the courts of law were sitting at the

distance of only a few hundred yards. The English House of Commons, some

years later, after a long discussion, resolved, without a division, that

the order for the execution of Gafney was arbitrary and illegal, but

that Coningsby's fault was so much extenuated by the circumstances in

which he was placed that it was not a proper subject for impeachment.

[73]

It was not only by the implacable hostility of the Irish that the Saxon

of the pale was at this time harassed. His allies caused him almost as

much annoyance as his helots. The help of troops from abroad was indeed

necessary to him; but it was dearly bought. Even William, in whom

the whole civil and military authority was concentrated, had found it

difficult to maintain discipline in an army collected from many lands,

and composed in great part of mercenaries accustomed to live at free

quarters. The powers which had been united in him were now divided and

subdivided. The two Lords justices considered the civil administration

as their province, and left the army to the management of Ginkell, who

was General in Chief. Ginkell kept excellent order among the auxiliaries

from Holland, who were under his more immediate command. But his

authority over the English and the Danes was less entire; and

unfortunately their pay was, during part of the winter, in arrear. They

indemnified themselves by excesses and exactions for the want of that

which was their due; and it was hardly possible to punish men with

severity for not choosing to starve with arms in their hands. At length

in the spring large supplies of money and stores arrived; arrears

were paid up; rations were plentiful; and a more rigid discipline was

enforced. But too many traces of the bad habits which the soldiers had

contracted were discernible till the close of the war. [74]

In that part of Ireland, meanwhile, which still acknowledged James as

King, there could hardly be said to be any law, any property, or any

government. The Roman Catholics of Ulster and Leinster had fled westward

by tens of thousands, driving before them a large part of the cattle

which had escaped the havoc of two terrible years. The influx of food

into the Celtic region, however, was far from keeping pace with the

influx of consumers. The necessaries of life were scarce. Conveniences

to which every plain farmer and burgess in England was accustomed could

hardly be procured by nobles and generals. No coin was to be seen except

lumps of base metal which were called crowns and shillings. Nominal

prices were enormously high. A quart of ale cost two and sixpence, a

quart of brandy three pounds. The only towns of any note on the western

coast were Limerick and Galway; and the oppression which the shopkeepers

of those towns underwent was such that many of them stole away with the

remains of their stocks to the English territory, where a Papist, though

he had to endure much restraint and much humiliation, was allowed to

put his own price on his goods, and received that price in silver.

Those traders who remained within the unhappy region were ruined.

Every warehouse that contained any valuable property was broken open by

ruffians who pretended that they were commissioned to procure stores for

the public service; and the owner received, in return for bales of cloth

and hogsheads of sugar, some fragments of old kettles and saucepans,

which would not in London or Paris have been taken by a beggar.

As soon as a merchant ship arrived in the bay of Galway or in the

Shannon, she was boarded by these robbers. The cargo was carried away;

and the proprietor was forced to content himself with such a quantity

of cowhides, of wool and of tallow as the gang which had plundered him

chose to give him. The consequence was that, while foreign commodities

were pouring fast into the harbours of Londonderry, Carrickfergus,

Dublin, Waterford and Cork, every mariner avoided Limerick and Galway as

nests of pirates. [75]

The distinction between the Irish foot soldier and the Irish Rapparee

had never been very strongly marked. It now disappeared. Great part of

the army was turned loose to live by marauding. An incessant predatory

war raged along the line which separated the domain of William from

that of James. Every day companies of freebooters, sometimes wrapped in

twisted straw which served the purpose of armour, stole into the English

territory, burned, sacked, pillaged, and hastened back to their

own ground. To guard against these incursions was not easy; for the

peasantry of the plundered country had a strong fellow feeling with the

plunderers. To empty the granary, to set fire to the dwelling, to drive

away the cows, of a heretic was regarded by every squalid inhabitant

of a mud cabin as a good work. A troop engaged in such a work might

confidently expect to fall in, notwithstanding all the proclamations

of the Lords justices, with some friend who would indicate the richest

booty, the shortest road, and the safest hiding place. The English

complained that it was no easy matter to catch a Rapparee. Sometimes,

when he saw danger approaching, he lay down in the long grass of the

bog; and then it was as difficult to find him as to find a hare sitting.

Sometimes he sprang into a stream, and lay there, like an otter, with

only his mouth and nostrils above the water. Nay, a whole gang of

banditti would, in the twinkling of an eye, transform itself into a

crowd of harmless labourers. Every man took his gun to pieces, hid the

lock in his clothes, stuck a cork in the muzzle, stopped the touch hole

with a quill, and threw the weapon into the next pond. Nothing was to be

seen but a train of poor rustics who had not so much as a cudgel among

them, and whose humble look and crouching walk seemed to show that their

spirit was thoroughly broken to slavery. When the peril was over, when

the signal was given, every man flew to the place where he had hid his

arms; and soon the robbers were in full march towards some Protestant

mansion. One band penetrated to Clonmel, another to the vicinity of

Maryborough; a third made its den in a woody islet of firm ground,

surrounded by the vast bog of Allen, harried the county of Wicklow, and

alarmed even the suburbs of Dublin. Such expeditions indeed were not

always successful. Sometimes the plunderers fell in with parties of

militia or with detachments from the English garrisons, in situations in

which disguise, flight and resistance were alike impossible. When this

happened every kerne who was taken was hanged, without any ceremony, on

the nearest tree. [76]

At the head quarters of the Irish army there was, during the winter, no

authority capable of exacting obedience even within a circle of a mile.

Tyrconnel was absent at the Court of France. He had left the supreme

government in the hands of a Council of Regency composed of twelve

persons. The nominal command of the army he had confided to Berwick; but

Berwick, though, as was afterwards proved, a man of no common courage

and capacity, was young and inexperienced. His powers were unsuspected

by the world and by himself; [77] and he submitted without reluctance

to the tutelage of a Council of War nominated by the Lord Lieutenant.

Neither the Council of Regency nor the Council of War was popular at

Limerick. The Irish complained that men who were not Irish had been

entrusted with a large share in the administration. The cry was loudest

against an officer named Thomas Maxwell. For it was certain that he was

a Scotchman; it was doubtful whether he was a Roman Catholic; and he had

not concealed the dislike which he felt for that Celtic Parliament which

had repealed the Act of Settlement and passed the Act of Attainder.

[78] The discontent, fomented by the arts of intriguers, among whom

the cunning and unprincipled Henry Luttrell seems to have been the most

active, soon broke forth into open rebellion. A great meeting was held.

Many officers of the army, some peers, some lawyers of high note and

some prelates of the Roman Catholic Church were present. It was resolved

that the government set up by the Lord Lieutenant was unknown to the

constitution. Ireland, it was said, could be legally governed, in the

absence of the King, only by a Lord Lieutenant, by a Lord Deputy or by

Lords Justices. The King was absent. The Lord Lieutenant was absent.

There was no Lord Deputy. There were no Lords Justices. The Act by

which Tyrconnel had delegated his authority to a junto composed of his

creatures was a mere nullity. The nation was therefore left without any

legitimate chief, and might, without violating the allegiance due to

the Crown, make temporary provision for its own safety. A deputation was

sent to inform Berwick that he had assumed a power to which he had

no right, but that nevertheless the army and people of Ireland would

willingly acknowledge him as their head if he would consent to govern by

the advice of a council truly Irish. Berwick indignantly expressed his

wonder that military men should presume to meet and deliberate without

the permission of their general. They answered that there was no

general, and that, if His Grace did not choose to undertake the

administration on the terms proposed, another leader would easily be

found. Berwick very reluctantly yielded, and continued to be a puppet in

a new set of hands. [79]

Those who had effected this revolution thought it prudent to send a

deputation to France for the purpose of vindicating their proceedings.

Of the deputation the Roman Catholic Bishop of Cork and the two

Luttrells were members. In the ship which conveyed them from Limerick

to Brest they found a fellow passenger whose presence was by no means

agreeable to them, their enemy, Maxwell. They suspected, and not without

reason, that he was going, like them, to Saint Germains, but on a very

different errand. The truth was that Berwick had sent Maxwell to watch

their motions and to traverse their designs. Henry Luttrell, the least

scrupulous of men, proposed to settle the matter at once by tossing the

Scotchman into the sea. But the Bishop, who was a man of conscience,

and Simon Luttrell, who was a man of honour, objected to this expedient.

[80]

Meanwhile at Limerick the supreme power was in abeyance. Berwick,

finding that he had no real authority, altogether neglected business,

and gave himself up to such pleasures as that dreary place of banishment

afforded. There was among the Irish chiefs no man of sufficient weight

and ability to control the rest. Sarsfield for a time took the lead. But

Sarsfield, though eminently brave and active in the field, was little

skilled in the administration of war, and still less skilled in civil

business. Those who were most desirous to support his authority were

forced to own that his nature was too unsuspicious and indulgent for

a post in which it was hardly possible to be too distrustful or too

severe. He believed whatever was told him. He signed whatever was set

before him. The commissaries, encouraged by his lenity, robbed and

embezzled more shamelessly than ever. They sallied forth daily, guarded

by pikes and firelocks, to seize, nominally for the public service, but

really for themselves, wool, linen, leather, tallow, domestic utensils,

instruments of husbandry, searched every pantry, every wardrobe, every

cellar, and even laid sacrilegious hands on the property of priests and

prelates. [81]

Early in the spring the government, if it is to be so called, of

which Berwick was the ostensible head, was dissolved by the return of

Tyrconnel. The Luttrells had, in the name of their countrymen, implored

James not to subject so loyal a people to so odious and incapable a

viceroy. Tyrconnel, they said, was old; he was infirm; he needed much

sleep; he knew nothing of war; he was dilatory; he was partial; he was

rapacious; he was distrusted and hated by the whole nation. The Irish,

deserted by him, had made a gallant stand, and had compelled the

victorious army of the Prince of Orange to retreat. They hoped soon to

take the field again, thirty thousand strong; and they adjured their

King to send them some captain worthy to command such a force. Tyrconnel

and Maxwell, on the other hand, represented the delegates as mutineers,

demagogues, traitors, and pressed James to send Henry Luttrell to

keep Mountjoy company in the Bastille. James, bewildered by these

criminations and recriminations, hesitated long, and at last, with

characteristic wisdom, relieved himself from trouble by giving all the

quarrellers fair words and by sending them all back to have their fight

out in Ireland. Berwick was at the same time recalled to France. [82]

Tyrconnel was received at Limerick, even by his enemies, with decent

respect. Much as they hated him, they could not question the validity

of his commission; and, though they still maintained that they had

been perfectly justified in annulling, during his absence, the

unconstitutional arrangements which he had made, they acknowledged that,

when he was present, he was their lawful governor. He was not altogether

unprovided with the means of conciliating them. He brought many gracious

messages and promises, a patent of peerage for Sarsfield, some

money which was not of brass, and some clothing, which was even more

acceptable than money. The new garments were not indeed very fine. But

even the generals had long been out at elbows; and there were few of the

common men whose habiliments would have been thought sufficient to dress

a scarecrow in a more prosperous country. Now, at length, for the first

time in many months, every private soldier could boast of a pair of

breeches and a pair of brogues. The Lord Lieutenant had also been

authorised to announce that he should soon be followed by several ships,

laden with provisions and military stores. This announcement was most

welcome to the troops, who had long been without bread, and who had

nothing stronger than water to drink. [83]

During some weeks the supplies were impatiently expected. At last,

Tyrconnel was forced to shut himself up; for, whenever he appeared in

public, the soldiers ran after him clamouring for food. Even the beef

and mutton, which, half raw, half burned, without vegetables, without

salt, had hitherto supported the army, had become scarce; and the common

men were on rations of horseflesh when the promised sails were seen in

the mouth of the Shannon. [84]

A distinguished French general, named Saint Ruth, was on board with his

staff. He brought a commission which appointed him commander in chief of

the Irish army. The commission did not expressly declare that he was to

be independent of the viceregal authority; but he had been assured by

James that Tyrconnel should have secret instructions not to intermeddle

in the conduct of the war. Saint Ruth was assisted by another general

officer named D'Usson. The French ships brought some arms, some

ammunition, and a plentiful supply of corn and flour. The spirits of the

Irish rose; and the Te Deum was chaunted with fervent devotion in the

cathedral of Limerick. [85]

Tyrconnel had made no preparations for the approaching campaign. But

Saint Ruth, as soon as he had landed, exerted himself strenuously to

redeem the time which had been lost. He was a man of courage, activity

and resolution, but of a harsh and imperious nature. In his own country

he was celebrated as the most merciless persecutor that had ever

dragooned the Huguenots to mass. It was asserted by English Whigs that

he was known in France by the nickname of the Hangman; that, at Rome,

the very cardinals had shown their abhorrence of his cruelty; and

that even Queen Christina, who had little right to be squeamish about

bloodshed, had turned away from him with loathing. He had recently held

a command in Savoy. The Irish regiments in the French service had formed

part of his army, and had behaved extremely well. It was therefore

supposed that he had a peculiar talent for managing Irish troops. But

there was a wide difference between the well clad, well armed and well

drilled Irish, with whom he was familiar, and the ragged marauders whom

he found swarming in the alleys of Limerick. Accustomed to the splendour

and the discipline of French camps and garrisons, he was disgusted by

finding that, in the country to which he had been sent, a regiment of

infantry meant a mob of people as naked, as dirty and as disorderly

as the beggars, whom he had been accustomed to see on the Continent

besieging the door of a monastery or pursuing a diligence up him. With

ill concealed contempt, however, he addressed himself vigorously to the

task of disciplining these strange soldiers, and was day and night in

the saddle, galloping from post to post, from Limerick to Athlone, from

Athlone to the northern extremity of Lough Rea, and from Lough Rea back

to Limerick. [86]

It was indeed necessary that he should bestir himself; for, a few days

after his arrival, he learned that, on the other side of the Pale,

all was ready for action. The greater part of the English force was

collected, before the close of May, in the neighbourhood of Mullingar.

Ginkell commanded in chief. He had under him the two best officers,

after Marlborough, of whom our island could then boast, Talmash and

Mackay. The Marquess of Ruvigny, the hereditary chief of the refugees,

and elder brother of the brave Caillemot, who had fallen at the Boyne,

had joined the army with the rank of major general. The Lord Justice

Coningsby, though not by profession a soldier, came down from Dublin, to

animate the zeal of the troops. The appearance of the camp showed that

the money voted by the English Parliament had not been spared. The

uniforms were new; the ranks were one blaze of scarlet; and the train of

artillery was such as had never before been seen in Ireland. [87]

On the sixth of June Ginkell moved his head quarters from Mullingar. On

the seventh he reached Ballymore. At Ballymore, on a peninsula almost

surrounded by something between a swamp and a lake, stood an ancient

fortress, which had recently been fortified under Sarsfield's direction,

and which was defended by above a thousand men. The English guns were

instantly planted. In a few hours the besiegers had the satisfaction of

seeing the besieged running like rabbits from one shelter to another.

The governor, who had at first held high language, begged piteously for

quarter, and obtained it. The whole garrison were marched off to Dublin.

Only eight of the conquerors had fallen. [88]

Ginkell passed some days in reconstructing the defences of Ballymore.

This work had scarcely been performed when he was joined by the Danish

auxiliaries under the command of the Duke of Wirtemberg. The whole army

then moved westward, and, on the nineteenth of June, appeared before the

walls of Athlone. [89]

Athlone was perhaps, in a military point of view, the most important

place in the island. Rosen, who understood war well, had always

maintained that it was there that the Irishry would, with most

advantage, make a stand against the Englishry. [90] The town, which was

surrounded by ramparts of earth, lay partly in Leinster and partly

in Connaught. The English quarter, which was in Leinster, had once

consisted of new and handsome houses, but had been burned by the Irish

some months before, and now lay in heaps of ruin. The Celtic quarter,

which was in Connaught, was old and meanly built. [91] The Shannon,

which is the boundary of the two provinces, rushed through Athlone in

a deep and rapid stream, and turned two large mills which rose on the

arches of a stone bridge. Above the bridge, on the Connaught side,

a castle, built, it was said, by King John, towered to the height of

seventy feet, and extended two hundred feet along the river. Fifty or

sixty yards below the bridge was a narrow ford. [92]

During the night of the nineteenth the English placed their cannon. On

the morning of the twentieth the firing began. At five in the afternoon

an assault was made. A brave French refugee with a grenade in his hand

was the first to climb the breach, and fell, cheering his countrymen to

the onset with his latest breath. Such were the gallant spirits which

the bigotry of Lewis had sent to recruit, in the time of his utmost

need, the armies of his deadliest enemies. The example was not lost. The

grenades fell thick. The assailants mounted by hundreds. The Irish gave

way and ran towards the bridge. There the press was so great that some

of the fugitives were crushed to death in the narrow passage, and others

were forced over the parapets into the waters which roared among the

mill wheels below. In a few hours Ginkell had made himself master of the

English quarter of Athlone; and this success had cost him only twenty

men killed and forty wounded. [93]

But his work was only begun. Between him and the Irish town the Shannon

ran fiercely. The bridge was so narrow that a few resolute men might

keep it against an army. The mills which stood on it were strongly

guarded; and it was commanded by the guns of the castle. That part of

the Connaught shore where the river was fordable was defended by works,

which the Lord Lieutenant had, in spite of the murmurs of a powerful

party, forced Saint Ruth to entrust to the care of Maxwell. Maxwell had

come back from France a more unpopular man than he had been when he

went thither. It was rumoured that he had, at Versailles, spoken

opprobriously of the Irish nation; and he had, on this account, been,

only a few days before, publicly affronted by Sarsfield. [94] On the

twenty-first of June the English were busied in flinging up batteries

along the Leinster bank. On the twenty-second, soon after dawn, the

cannonade began. The firing continued all that day and all the following

night. When morning broke again, one whole side of the castle had been

beaten down; the thatched lanes of the Celtic town lay in ashes; and one

of the mills had been burned with sixty soldiers who defended it. [95]

Still however the Irish defended the bridge resolutely. During several

days there was sharp fighting hand to hand in the strait passage. The

assailants gained ground, but gained it inch by inch. The courage of the

garrison was sustained by the hope of speedy succour. Saint Ruth had at

length completed his preparations; and the tidings that Athlone was

in danger had induced him to take the field in haste at the head of an

army, superior in number, though inferior in more important elements of

military strength, to the army of Ginkell. The French general seems to

have thought that the bridge and the ford might easily be defended, till

the autumnal rains and the pestilence which ordinarily accompanied them

should compel the enemy to retire. He therefore contented himself with

sending successive detachments to reinforce the garrison. The immediate

conduct of the defence he entrusted to his second in command, D'Usson,

and fixed his own head quarters two or three miles from the town. He

expressed his astonishment that so experienced a commander as Ginkell

should persist in a hopeless enterprise. "His master ought to hang him

for trying to take Athlone; and mine ought to hang me if I lose it."

[96]

Saint Ruth, however, was by no means at ease. He had found, to his great

mortification, that he had not the full authority which the promises

made to him at Saint Germains had entitled him to expect. The Lord

Lieutenant was in the camp. His bodily and mental infirmities had

perceptibly increased within the last few weeks. The slow and uncertain

step with which he, who had once been renowned for vigour and agility,

now tottered from his easy chair to his couch, was no unapt type of the

sluggish and wavering movement of that mind which had once pursued its

objects with a vehemence restrained neither by fear nor by pity, neither

by conscience nor by shame. Yet, with impaired strength, both physical

and intellectual, the broken old man clung pertinaciously to power. If

he had received private orders not to meddle with the conduct of the

war, he disregarded them. He assumed all the authority of a sovereign,

showed himself ostentatiously to the troops as their supreme chief, and

affected to treat Saint Ruth as a lieutenant. Soon the interference of

the Viceroy excited the vehement indignation of that powerful party in

the army which had long hated him. Many officers signed an instrument by

which they declared that they did not consider him as entitled to their

obedience in the field. Some of them offered him gross personal insults.

He was told to his face that, if he persisted in remaining where he was

not wanted, the ropes of his pavilion should be cut. He, on the other

hand, sent his emissaries to all the camp fires, and tried to make a

party among the common soldiers against the French general. [97]

The only thing in which Tyrconnel and Saint Ruth agreed was in dreading

and disliking Sarsfield. Not only was he popular with the great body

of his countrymen; he was also surrounded by a knot of retainers whose

devotion to him resembled the devotion of the Ismailite murderers to

the Old Man of the Mountain. It was known that one of these fanatics, a

colonel, had used language which, in the mouth of an officer so high in

rank, might well cause uneasiness. "The King," this man had said, "is

nothing to me. I obey Sarsfield. Let Sarsfield tell me to kill any

man in the whole army; and I will do it." Sarsfield was, indeed, too

honourable a gentleman to abuse his immense power over the minds of

his worshippers. But the Viceroy and the Commander in Chief might not

unnaturally be disturbed by the thought that Sarsfield's honour was

their only guarantee against mutiny and assassination. The consequence

was that, at the crisis of the fate of Ireland, the services of the

first of Irish soldiers were not used, or were used with jealous

caution, and that, if he ventured to offer a suggestion, it was received

with a sneer or a frown. [98]

A great and unexpected disaster put an end to these disputes. On the

thirtieth of June Ginkell called a council of war. Forage began to be

scarce; and it was absolutely necessary that the besiegers should either

force their way across the river or retreat. The difficulty of effecting

a passage over the shattered remains of the bridge seemed almost

insuperable. It was proposed to try the ford. The Duke of Wirtemberg,

Talmash, and Ruvigny gave their voices in favour of this plan; and

Ginkell, with some misgivings, consented. [99]

It was determined that the attempt should be made that very afternoon.

The Irish, fancying that the English were about to retreat, kept guard

carelessly. Part of the garrison was idling, part dosing. D'Usson was at

table. Saint Ruth was in his tent, writing a letter to his master filled

with charges against Tyrconnel. Meanwhile, fifteen hundred grenadiers;

each wearing in his hat a green bough, were mustered on the Leinster

bank of the Shannon. Many of them doubtless remembered that on that day

year they had, at the command of King William, put green boughs in their

hats on the banks of the Boyne. Guineas had been liberally scattered

among these picked men; but their alacrity was such as gold cannot

purchase. Six battalions were in readiness to support the attack.

Mackay commanded. He did not approve of the plan; but he executed it as

zealously and energetically as if he had himself been the author of it.

The Duke of Wirtemberg, Talmash, and several other gallant officers, to

whom no part in the enterprise had been assigned, insisted on serving

that day as private volunteers; and their appearance in the ranks

excited the fiercest enthusiasm among the soldiers.

It was six o'clock. A peal from the steeple of the church gave the

signal. Prince George of Hesse Darmstadt, and Gustavus Hamilton, the

brave chief of the Enniskilleners, descended first into the Shannon.

Then the grenadiers lifted the Duke of Wirtemberg on their shoulders,

and, with a great shout, plunged twenty abreast up to their cravats in

water. The stream ran deep and strong; but in a few minutes the head of

the column reached dry land. Talmash was the fifth man that set foot

on the Connaught shore. The Irish, taken unprepared, fired one confused

volley and fled, leaving their commander, Maxwell, a prisoner. The

conquerors clambered up the bank over the remains of walls shattered by

a cannonade of ten days. Mackay heard his men cursing and swearing as

they stumbled among the rubbish. "My lads," cried the stout old Puritan

in the midst of the uproar, "you are brave fellows; but do not swear.

We have more reason to thank God for the goodness which He has shown

us this day than to take His name in vain." The victory was complete.

Planks were placed on the broken arches of the bridge and pontoons

laid on the river, without any opposition on the part of the terrified

garrison. With the loss of twelve men killed and about thirty wounded

the English had, in a few minutes, forced their way into Connaught.

[100]

At the first alarm D'Usson hastened towards the river; but he was

met, swept away, trampled down, and almost killed by the torrent of

fugitives. He was carried to the camp in such a state that it was

necessary to bleed him. "Taken!" cried Saint Ruth, in dismay. "It cannot

be. A town taken, and I close by with an army to relieve it!" Cruelly

mortified, he struck his tents under cover of the night, and retreated

in the direction of Galway. At dawn the English saw far off, from the

top of King John's ruined castle, the Irish army moving through the

dreary region which separates the Shannon from the Suck. Before noon the

rearguard had disappeared. [101]

Even before the loss of Athlone the Celtic camp had been distracted by

factions. It may easily be supposed, therefore, that, after so great a

disaster, nothing was to be heard but crimination and recrimination. The

enemies of the Lord Lieutenant were more clamorous than ever. He and his

creatures had brought the kingdom to the verge of perdition. He would

meddle with what he did not understand. He would overrule the plans of

men who were real soldiers. He would entrust the most important of all

posts to his tool, his spy, the wretched Maxwell, not a born Irishman,

not a sincere Catholic, at best a blunderer, and too probably a traitor.

Maxwell, it was affirmed, had left his men unprovided with ammunition.

When they had applied to him for powder and ball, he had asked whether

they wanted to shoot larks. Just before the attack he had told them to

go to their supper and to take their rest, for that nothing more would

be done that day. When he had delivered himself up a prisoner, he had

uttered some words which seemed to indicate a previous understanding

with the conquerors. The Lord Lieutenant's few friends told a very

different story. According to them, Tyrconnel and Maxwell had suggested

precautions which would have made a surprise impossible. The French

General, impatient of all interference, had omitted to take those

precautions. Maxwell had been rudely told that, if he was afraid, he had

better resign his command. He had done his duty bravely. He had stood

while his men fled. He had consequently fallen into the hands of the

enemy; and he was now, in his absence, slandered by those to whom his

captivity was justly imputable. [102] On which side the truth lay it

is not easy, at this distance of time, to pronounce. The cry against

Tyrconnel was, at the moment, so loud, that he gave way and sullenly

retired to Limerick. D'Usson, who had not yet recovered from the hurts

inflicted by his own runaway troops, repaired to Galway. [103]

Saint Ruth, now left in undisputed possession of the supreme command,

was bent on trying the chances of a battle. Most of the Irish officers,

with Sarsfield at their head, were of a very different mind. It was,

they said, not to be dissembled that, in discipline, the army of Ginkell

was far superior to theirs. The wise course, therefore, evidently was

to carry on the war in such a manner that the difference between the

disciplined and the undisciplined soldier might be as small as possible.

It was well known that raw recruits often played their part well in a

foray, in a street fight or in the defence of a rampart; but that, on a

pitched field, they had little chance against veterans. "Let most of our

foot be collected behind the walls of Limerick and Galway. Let the rest,

together with our horse, get in the rear of the enemy, and cut off his

supplies. If he advances into Connaught, let us overrun Leinster. If he

sits down before Galway, which may well be defended, let us make a push

for Dublin, which is altogether defenceless." [104] Saint Ruth might,

perhaps, have thought this advice good, if his judgment had not

been biassed by his passions. But he was smarting from the pain of a

humiliating defeat. In sight of his tent, the English had passed a rapid

river, and had stormed a strong town. He could not but feel that, though

others might have been to blame, he was not himself blameless. He had,

to say the least, taken things too easily. Lewis, accustomed to be

served during many years by commanders who were not in the habit of

leaving to chance any thing which could be made secure by wisdom, would

hardly think it a sufficient excuse that his general had not expected

the enemy to make so bold and sudden an attack. The Lord Lieutenant

would, of course, represent what had passed in the most unfavourable

manner; and whatever the Lord Lieutenant said James would echo. A

sharp reprimand, a letter of recall, might be expected. To return

to Versailles a culprit; to approach the great King in an agony of

distress; to see him shrug his shoulders, knit his brow and turn his

back; to be sent, far from courts and camps, to languish at some dull

country seat; this was too much to be borne; and yet this might well

be apprehended. There was one escape; to fight, and to conquer or to

perish.

In such a temper Saint Ruth pitched his camp about thirty miles from

Athlone on the road to Galway, near the ruined castle of Aghrim, and

determined to await the approach of the English army.

His whole deportment was changed. He had hitherto treated the Irish

soldiers with contemptuous severity. But now that he had resolved

to stake life and fame on the valour of the despised race, he became

another man. During the few days which remained to him he exerted

himself to win by indulgence and caresses the hearts of all who were

under his command. [105] He, at the same time, administered to his

troops moral stimulants of the most potent kind. He was a zealous Roman

Catholic; and it is probable that the severity with which he had treated

the Protestants of his own country ought to be partly ascribed to the

hatred which he felt for their doctrines. He now tried to give to the

war the character of a crusade. The clergy were the agents whom he

employed to sustain the courage of his soldiers. The whole camp was in

a ferment with religious excitement. In every regiment priests were

praying, preaching, shriving, holding up the host and the cup. While the

soldiers swore on the sacramental bread not to abandon their colours,

the General addressed to the officers an appeal which might have moved

the most languid and effeminate natures to heroic exertion. They were

fighting, he said, for their religion, their liberty and their honour.

Unhappy events, too widely celebrated, had brought a reproach on the

national character. Irish soldiership was every where mentioned with a

sneer. If they wished to retrieve the fame of their country, this was

the time and this the place. [106]

The spot on which he had determined to bring the fate of Ireland to

issue seems to have been chosen with great judgment. His army was drawn

up on the slope of a hill, which was almost surrounded by red bog. In

front, near the edge of the morass, were some fences out of which a

breastwork was without difficulty constructed.

On the eleventh of July, Ginkell, having repaired the fortifications

of Athlone and left a garrison there, fixed his headquarters at

Ballinasloe, about four miles from Aghrim, and rode forward to take a

view of the Irish position. On his return he gave orders that ammunition

should be served out, that every musket and bayonet should be got ready

for action, and that early on the morrow every man should be under arms

without beat of drum. Two regiments were to remain in charge of the

camp; the rest, unincumbered by baggage, were to march against the

enemy.

Soon after six, the next morning, the English were on the way to Aghrim.

But some delay was occasioned by a thick fog which hung till noon

over the moist valley of the Suck; a further delay was caused by the

necessity of dislodging the Irish from some outposts; and the afternoon

was far advanced when the two armies at length confronted each other

with nothing but the bog and the breastwork between them. The English

and their allies were under twenty thousand; the Irish above twenty-five

thousand.

Ginkell held a short consultation with his principal officers. Should

he attack instantly, or wait till the next morning? Mackay was for

attacking instantly; and his opinion prevailed. At five the battle

began. The English foot, in such order as they could keep on treacherous

and uneven ground, made their way, sinking deep in mud at every step, to

the Irish works. But those works were defended with a resolution such as

extorted some words of ungracious eulogy even from men who entertained

the strongest prejudices against the Celtic race. [107] Again and again

the assailants were driven back. Again and again they returned to the

struggle. Once they were broken, and chased across the morass; but

Talmash rallied them, and forced the pursuers to retire. The fight had

lasted two hours; the evening was closing in; and still the advantage

was on the side of the Irish. Ginkell began to meditate a retreat. The

hopes of Saint Ruth rose high. "The day is ours, my boys," he cried,

waving his hat in the air. "We will drive them before us to the walls of

Dublin." But fortune was already on the turn. Mackay and Ruvigny, with

the English and Huguenot cavalry, had succeeded in passing the bog at

a place where two horsemen could scarcely ride abreast. Saint Ruth at

first laughed when he saw the Blues, in single file, struggling through

the morass under a fire which every moment laid some gallant hat and

feather on the earth. "What do they mean?" he asked; and then he

swore that it was pity to see such fine fellows rushing to certain

destruction. "Let them cross, however;" he said. "The more they are,

the more we shall kill." But soon he saw them laying hurdles on the

quagmire. A broader and safer path was formed; squadron after squadron

reached firm ground: the flank of the Irish army was speedily turned.

The French general was hastening to the rescue when a cannon ball

carried off his head. Those who were about him thought that it would

be dangerous to make his fate known. His corpse was wrapped in a cloak,

carried from the field, and laid, with all secresy, in the sacred ground

among the ruins of the ancient monastery of Loughrea. Till the fight was

over neither army was aware that he was no more. To conceal his death

from the private soldiers might perhaps have been prudent. To conceal it

from his lieutenants was madness. The crisis of the battle had arrived;

and there was none to give direction. Sarsfield was in command of the

reserve. But he had been strictly enjoined by Saint Ruth not to stir

without orders; and no orders came. Mackay and Ruvigny with their horse

charged the Irish in flank. Talmash and his foot returned to the attack

in front with dogged determination. The breastwork was carried. The

Irish, still fighting, retreated from inclosure to inclosure. But, as

inclosure after inclosure was forced, their efforts became fainter

and fainter. At length they broke and fled. Then followed a horrible

carnage. The conquerors were in a savage mood. For a report had been

spread among them that, during the early part of the battle, some

English captives who had been admitted to quarter had been put to the

sword. Only four hundred prisoners were taken. The number of the slain

was, in proportion to the number engaged, greater than in any other

battle of that age. But for the coming on of a moonless night, made

darker by a misty rain, scarcely a man would have escaped. The obscurity

enabled Sarsfield, with a few squadrons which still remained unbroken,

to cover the retreat. Of the conquerors six hundred were killed, and

about a thousand wounded.

The English slept that night on the field of battle. On the following

day they buried their companions in arms, and then marched westward.

The vanquished were left unburied, a strange and ghastly spectacle. Four

thousand Irish corpses were counted on the field of battle. A hundred

and fifty lay in one small inclosure, a hundred and twenty in another.

But the slaughter had not been confined to the field of battle. One who

was there tells us that, from the top of the hill on which the Celtic

camp had been pitched, he saw the country, to the distance of near four

miles, white with the naked bodies of the slain. The plain looked, he

said, like an immense pasture covered by flocks of sheep. As usual,

different estimates were formed even by eyewitnesses. But it seems

probable that the number of the Irish who fell was not less than seven

thousand. Soon a multitude of dogs came to feast on the carnage. These

beasts became so fierce, and acquired such a taste for human flesh,

that it was long dangerous for men to travel this road otherwise than in

companies. [108]

The beaten army had now lost all the appearance of an army, and

resembled a rabble crowding home from a fair after a faction fight. One

great stream of fugitives ran towards Galway, another towards Limerick.

The roads to both cities were covered with weapons which had been flung

away. Ginkell offered sixpence for every musket. In a short time so many

waggon loads were collected that he reduced the price to twopence; and

still great numbers of muskets came in. [109]

The conquerors marched first against Galway. D'Usson was there, and

had under him seven regiments, thinned by the slaughter of Aghrim and

utterly disorganized and disheartened. The last hope of the garrison

and of the Roman Catholic inhabitants was that Baldearg O'Donnel, the

promised deliverer of their race, would come to the rescue. But Baldearg

O'Donnel was not duped by the superstitious veneration of which he

was the object. While there remained any doubt about the issue of the

conflict between the Englishry and the Irishry, he had stood aloof.

On the day of the battle he had remained at a safe distance with his

tumultuary army; and, as soon as he had learned that his countrymen had

been put to rout, he fled, plundering and burning all the way, to the

mountains of Mayo. Thence he sent to Ginkell offers of submission

and service. Ginkell gladly seized the opportunity of breaking up

a formidable band of marauders, and of turning to good account the

influence which the name of a Celtic dynasty still exercised over the

Celtic race. The negotiation however was not without difficulties. The

wandering adventurer at first demanded nothing less than an earldom.

After some haggling he consented to sell the love of a whole people, and

his pretensions to regal dignity, for a pension of five hundred pounds a

year. Yet the spell which bound his followers to hire was not altogether

broken. Some enthusiasts from Ulster were willing to fight under the

O'Donnel against their own language and their own religion. With a small

body of these devoted adherents, he joined a division of the English

army, and on several occasions did useful service to William. [110]

When it was known that no succour was to be expected from the hero whose

advent had been foretold by so many seers, the Irish who were shut up in

Galway lost all heart. D'Usson had returned a stout answer to the

first summons of the besiegers; but he soon saw that resistance was

impossible, and made haste to capitulate. The garrison was suffered

to retire to Limerick with the honours of war. A full amnesty for past

offences was granted to the citizens; and it was stipulated that, within

the walls, the Roman Catholic priests should be allowed to perform

in private the rites of their religion. On these terms the gates were

thrown open. Ginkell was received with profound respect by the Mayor and

Aldermen, and was complimented in a set speech by the Recorder. D'Usson,

with about two thousand three hundred men, marched unmolested to

Limerick. [111]

At Limerick, the last asylum of the vanquished race, the authority of

Tyrconnel was supreme. There was now no general who could pretend that

his commission made him independent of the Lord Lieutenant; nor was the

Lord Lieutenant now so unpopular as he had been a fortnight earlier.

Since the battle there had been a reflux of public feeling. No part of

that great disaster could be imputed to the Viceroy. His opinion indeed

had been against trying the chances of a pitched field, and he could

with some plausibility assert that the neglect of his counsels had

caused the ruin of Ireland. [112]

He made some preparations for defending Limerick, repaired the

fortifications, and sent out parties to bring in provisions. The

country, many miles round, was swept bare by these detachments, and

a considerable quantity of cattle and fodder was collected within the

walls. There was also a large stock of biscuit imported from France.

The infantry assembled at Limerick were about fifteen thousand men.

The Irish horse and dragoons, three or four thousand in number, were

encamped on the Clare side of the Shannon. The communication between

their camp and the city was maintained by means of a bridge called the

Thomond Bridge, which was protected by a fort. These means of defence

were not contemptible. But the fall of Athlone and the slaughter of

Aghrim had broken the spirit of the army. A small party, at the head of

which were Sarsfield and a brave Scotch officer named Wauchop, cherished

a hope that the triumphant progress of Ginkell might be stopped by those

walls from which William had, in the preceding year, been forced to

retreat. But many of the Irish chiefs loudly declared that it was

time to think of capitulating. Henry Luttrell, always fond of dark and

crooked politics, opened a secret negotiation with the English. One of

his letters was intercepted; and he was put under arrest; but many

who blamed his perfidy agreed with him in thinking that it was idle to

prolong the contest. Tyrconnel himself was convinced that all was lost.

His only hope was that he might be able to prolong the struggle till

he could receive from Saint Germains permission to treat. He wrote to

request that permission, and prevailed, with some difficulty, on his

desponding countrymen to bind themselves by an oath not to capitulate

till an answer from James should arrive. [113]

A few days after the oath had been administered, Tyrconnel was no more.

On the eleventh of August he dined with D'Usson. The party was gay. The

Lord Lieutenant seemed to have thrown off the load which had bowed down

his body and mind; he drank; he jested; he was again the Dick Talbot

who had diced and revelled with Grammont. Soon after he had risen from

table, an apoplectic stroke deprived him of speech and sensation. On the

fourteenth he breathed his last. The wasted remains of that form which

had once been a model for statuaries were laid under the pavement of the

Cathedral; but no inscription, no tradition, preserves the memory of the

spot. [114]

As soon as the Lord Lieutenant was no more, Plowden, who had

superintended the Irish finances while there were any Irish finances to

superintend, produced a commission under the great seal of James. This

commission appointed Plowden himself, Fitton and Nagle, Lords justices

in the event of Tyrconnel's death. There was much murmuring when the

names were made known. For both Plowden and Fitton were Saxons. The

commission, however, proved to be a mere nullity. For it was accompanied

by instructions which forbade the Lords justices to interfere in the

conduct of the war; and, within the narrow space to which the dominions

of James were now reduced, war was the only business. The government

was, therefore, really in the hands of D'Usson and Sarsfield. [115]

On the day on which Tyrconnel died, the advanced guard of the English

army came within sight of Limerick. Ginkell encamped on the same ground

which William had occupied twelve months before. The batteries, on which

were planted guns and bombs, very different from those which William had

been forced to use, played day and night; and soon roofs were blazing

and walls crashing in every corner of the city. Whole streets were

reduced to ashes. Meanwhile several English ships of war came up the

Shannon and anchored about a mile below the city. [116]

Still the place held out; the garrison was, in numerical strength,

little inferior to the besieging army; and it seemed not impossible

that the defence might be prolonged till the equinoctial rains should a

second time compel the English to retire. Ginkell determined on striking

a bold stroke. No point in the whole circle of the fortifications was

more important, and no point seemed to be more secure, than the Thomond

Bridge, which joined the city to the camp of the Irish horse on the

Clare bank of the Shannon. The Dutch General's plan was to separate the

infantry within the ramparts from the cavalry without; and this plan he

executed with great skill, vigour and success. He laid a bridge of

tin boats on the river, crossed it with a strong body of troops, drove

before him in confusion fifteen hundred dragoons who made a faint show

of resistance, and marched towards the quarters of the Irish horse. The

Irish horse sustained but ill on this day the reputation which they had

gained at the Boyne. Indeed, that reputation had been purchased by

the almost entire destruction of the best regiments. Recruits had been

without much difficulty found. But the loss of fifteen hundred excellent

soldiers was not to be repaired. The camp was abandoned without a blow.

Some of the cavalry fled into the city. The rest, driving before them

as many cattle as could be collected in that moment of panic, retired to

the hills. Much beef, brandy and harness was found in the magazines; and

the marshy plain of the Shannon was covered with firelocks and grenades

which the fugitives had thrown away. [117]

The conquerors returned in triumph to their camp. But Ginkell was not

content with the advantage which he had gained. He was bent on cutting

off all communication between Limerick and the county of Clare. In a

few days, therefore, he again crossed the river at the head of several

regiments, and attacked the fort which protected the Thomond Bridge. In

a short time the fort was stormed. The soldiers who had garrisoned it

fled in confusion to the city. The Town Major, a French officer, who

commanded at the Thomond Gate, afraid that the pursuers would enter with

the fugitives, ordered that part of the bridge which was nearest to the

city to be drawn up. Many of the Irish went headlong into the stream and

perished there. Others cried for quarter, and held up handkerchiefs

in token of submission. But the conquerors were mad with rage; their

cruelty could not be immediately restrained; and no prisoners were made

till the heaps of corpses rose above the parapets. The garrison of the

fort had consisted of about eight hundred men. Of these only a hundred

and twenty escaped into Limerick. [118]

This disaster seemed likely to produce a general mutiny in the besieged

city. The Irish clamoured for the blood of the Town Major who

had ordered the bridge to be drawn up in the face of their flying

countrymen. His superiors were forced to promise that he should be

brought before a court martial. Happily for him, he had received a

mortal wound, in the act of closing the Thomond Gate, and was saved by

a soldier's death from the fury of the multitude. [119] The cry for

capitulation became so loud and importunate that the generals could not

resist it. D'Usson informed his government that the fight at the

bridge had so effectually cowed the spirit of the garrison that it was

impossible to continue the struggle. [120] Some exception may perhaps

be taken to the evidence of D'Usson; for undoubtedly he, like every

Frenchman who had held any command in the Irish army, was weary of his

banishment, and impatient to see Paris again. But it is certain that

even Sarsfield had lost heart. Up to this time his voice had been for

stubborn resistance. He was now not only willing, but impatient to

treat. [121] It seemed to him that the city was doomed. There was no

hope of succour, domestic or foreign. In every part of Ireland the

Saxons had set their feet on the necks of the natives. Sligo had fallen.

Even those wild islands which intercept the huge waves of the Atlantic

from the bay of Galway had acknowledged the authority of William. The

men of Kerry, reputed the fiercest and most ungovernable part of the

aboriginal population, had held out long, but had at length been routed,

and chased to their woods and mountains. [122] A French fleet, if a

French fleet were now to arrive on the coast of Munster, would find

the mouth of the Shannon guarded by English men of war. The stock of

provisions within Limerick was already running low. If the siege were

prolonged, the town would, in all human probability, be reduced either

by force or by blockade. And, if Ginkell should enter through the

breach, or should be implored by a multitude perishing with hunger

to dictate his own terms, what could be expected but a tyranny more

inexorably severe than that of Cromwell? Would it not then be wise

to try what conditions could be obtained while the victors had still

something to fear from the rage and despair of the vanquished; while

the last Irish army could still make some show of resistance behind the

walls of the last Irish fortress?

On the evening of the day which followed the fight at the Thomond

Gate, the drums of Limerick beat a parley; and Wauchop, from one of the

towers, hailed the besiegers, and requested Ruvigny to grant Sarsfield

an interview. The brave Frenchman who was an exile on account of his

attachment to one religion, and the brave Irishman who was about

to become an exile on account of his attachment to another, met and

conferred, doubtless with mutual sympathy and respect. [123] Ginkell,

to whom Ruvigny reported what had passed, willingly consented to an

armistice. For, constant as his success had been, it had not made him

secure. The chances were greatly on his side. Yet it was possible that

an attempt to storm the city might fail, as a similar attempt had failed

twelve months before. If the siege should be turned into a blockade,

it was probable that the pestilence which had been fatal to the army of

Schomberg, which had compelled William to retreat, and which had all but

prevailed even against the genius and energy of Marlborough, might soon

avenge the carnage of Aghrim. The rains had lately been heavy. The whole

plain might shortly be an immense pool of stagnant water. It might be

necessary to move the troops to a healthier situation than the bank

of the Shannon, and to provide for them a warmer shelter than that of

tents. The enemy would be safe till the spring. In the spring a French

army might land in Ireland; the natives might again rise in arms from

Donegal to Kerry; and the war, which was now all but extinguished, might

blaze forth fiercer than ever.

A negotiation was therefore opened with a sincere desire on both sides

to put an end to the contest. The chiefs of the Irish army held several

consultations at which some Roman Catholic prelates and some eminent

lawyers were invited to assist. A preliminary question, which perplexed

tender consciences, was submitted by the Bishops. The late Lord

Lieutenant had persuaded the officers of the garrison to swear that they

would not surrender Limerick till they should receive an answer to the

letter in which their situation had been explained to James. The Bishops

thought that the oath was no longer binding. It had been taken at a time

when the communications with France were open, and in the full belief

that the answer of James would arrive within three weeks. More than

twice that time had elapsed. Every avenue leading to the city was

strictly guarded by the enemy. His Majesty's faithful subjects, by

holding out till it had become impossible for him to signify his

pleasure to them, had acted up to the spirit of their promise. [124]

The next question was what terms should be demanded. A paper, containing

propositions which statesmen of our age will think reasonable, but which

to the most humane and liberal English Protestants of the seventeenth

century appeared extravagant, was sent to the camp of the besiegers.

What was asked was that all offences should be covered with oblivion,

that perfect freedom of worship should be allowed to the native

population, that every parish should have its priest, and that Irish

Roman Catholics should be capable of holding all offices, civil and

military, and of enjoying all municipal privileges. [125]

Ginkell knew little of the laws and feelings of the English; but he

had about him persons who were competent to direct him. They had a week

before prevented him from breaking a Rapparee on the wheel; and they now

suggested an answer to the propositions of the enemy. "I am a stranger

here," said Ginkell; "I am ignorant of the constitution of these

kingdoms; but I am assured that what you ask is inconsistent with

that constitution; and therefore I cannot with honour consent." He

immediately ordered a new battery to be thrown up, and guns and mortars

to be planted on it. But his preparations were speedily interrupted by

another message from the city. The Irish begged that, since he could not

grant what they had demanded, he would tell them what he was willing to

grant. He called his advisers round him, and, after some consultation,

sent back a paper containing the heads of a treaty, such as he had

reason to believe that the government which he served would approve.

What he offered was indeed much less than what the Irish desired, but

was quite as much as, when they considered their situation and the

temper of the English nation, they could expect. They speedily notified

their assent. It was agreed that there should be a cessation of arms,

not only by land, but in the ports and bays of Munster, and that a fleet

of French transports should be suffered to come up the Shannon in peace

and to depart in peace. The signing of the treaty was deferred till

the Lords justices, who represented William at Dublin, should arrive

at Ginkell's quarters. But there was during some days a relaxation of

military vigilance on both sides. Prisoners were set at liberty. The

outposts of the two armies chatted and messed together. The English

officers rambled into the town. The Irish officers dined in the camp.

Anecdotes of what passed at the friendly meetings of these men, who had

so lately been mortal enemies, were widely circulated. One story, in

particular, was repeated in every part of Europe. "Has not this last

campaign," said Sarsfield to some English officers, "raised your opinion

of Irish soldiers?" "To tell you the truth," answered an Englishman, "we

think of them much as we always did." "However meanly you may think of

us," replied Sarsfield, "change Kings with us, and we will willingly try

our luck with you again." He was doubtless thinking of the day on which

he had seen the two Sovereigns at the head of two great armies, William

foremost in the charge, and James foremost in the flight. [126]

On the first of October, Coningsby and Porter arrived at the English

headquarters. On the second the articles of capitulation were discussed

at great length and definitely settled. On the third they were signed.

They were divided into two parts, a military treaty and a civil treaty.

The former was subscribed only by the generals on both sides. The Lords

justices set their names to the latter. [127]

By the military treaty it was agreed that such Irish officers and

soldiers as should declare that they wished to go to France should be

conveyed thither, and should, in the meantime, remain under the command

of their own generals. Ginkell undertook to furnish a considerable

number of transports. French vessels were also to be permitted to pass

and repass freely between Britanny and Munster. Part of Limerick was to

be immediately delivered up to the English. But the island on which the

Cathedral and the Castle stand was to remain, for the present, in the

keeping of the Irish.

The terms of the civil treaty were very different from those which

Ginkell had sternly refused to grant. It was not stipulated that the

Roman Catholics of Ireland should be competent to hold any political or

military office, or that they should be admitted into any corporation.

But they obtained a promise that they should enjoy such privileges in

the exercise of their religion as were consistent with the law, or as

they had enjoyed in the reign of Charles the Second.

To all inhabitants of Limerick, and to all officers and soldiers in

the Jacobite army, who should submit to the government and notify their

submission by taking the oath of allegiance, an entire amnesty was

promised. They were to retain their property; they were to be allowed

to exercise any profession which they had exercised before the troubles;

they were not to be punished for any treason, felony, or misdemeanour

committed since the accession of the late King; nay, they were not to

be sued for damages on account of any act of spoliation or outrage which

they might have committed during the three years of confusion. This was

more than the Lords justices were constitutionally competent to

grant. It was therefore added that the government would use its utmost

endeavours to obtain a Parliamentary ratification of the treaty. [128]

As soon as the two instruments had been signed, the English entered the

city, and occupied one quarter of it. A narrow, but deep branch of

the Shannon separated them from the quarter which was still in the

possession of the Irish. [129]

In a few hours a dispute arose which seemed likely to produce a renewal

of hostilities. Sarsfield had resolved to seek his fortune in the

service of France, and was naturally desirous to carry with him to the

Continent such a body of troops as would be an important addition to the

army of Lewis. Ginkell was as naturally unwilling to send thousands

of men to swell the forces of the enemy. Both generals appealed to the

treaty. Each construed it as suited his purpose, and each complained

that the other had violated it. Sarsfield was accused of putting one of

his officers under arrest for refusing to go to the Continent. Ginkell,

greatly excited, declared that he would teach the Irish to play tricks

with him, and began to make preparations for a cannonade. Sarsfield

came to the English camp, and tried to justify what he had done. The

altercation was sharp. "I submit," said Sarsfield, at last: "I am in

your power." "Not at all in my power," said Ginkell, "go back and do

your worst." The imprisoned officer was liberated; a sanguinary contest

was averted; and the two commanders contented themselves with a war of

words. [130] Ginkell put forth proclamations assuring the Irish that, if

they would live quietly in their own land, they should be protected and

favoured, and that if they preferred a military life, they should be

admitted into the service of King William. It was added that no man,

who chose to reject this gracious invitation and to become a soldier of

Lewis, must expect ever again to set foot on the island. Sarsfield and

Wauchop exerted their eloquence on the other side. The present aspect

of affairs, they said, was doubtless gloomy; but there was bright sky

beyond the cloud. The banishment would be short. The return would be

triumphant. Within a year the French would invade England. In such

an invasion the Irish troops, if only they remained unbroken, would

assuredly bear a chief part. In the meantime it was far better for them

to live in a neighbouring and friendly country, under the parental care

of their own rightful King, than to trust the Prince of Orange, who

would probably send them to the other end of the world to fight for his

ally the Emperor against the Janissaries.

The help of the Roman Catholic clergy was called in. On the day on

which those who had made up their minds to go to France were required

to announce their determination, the priests were indefatigable in

exhorting. At the head of every regiment a sermon was preached on the

duty of adhering to the cause of the Church, and on the sin and danger

of consorting with unbelievers. [131] Whoever, it was said, should enter

the service of the usurpers would do so at the peril of his soul. The

heretics affirmed that, after the peroration, a plentiful allowance of

brandy was served out to the audience, and that, when the brandy had

been swallowed, a Bishop pronounced a benediction. Thus duly prepared

by physical and moral stimulants, the garrison, consisting of about

fourteen thousand infantry, was drawn up in the vast meadow which lay

on the Clare bank of the Shannon. Here copies of Ginkell's proclamation

were profusely scattered about; and English officers went through the

ranks imploring the men not to ruin themselves, and explaining to them

the advantages which the soldiers of King William enjoyed. At length the

decisive moment came. The troops were ordered to pass in review.

Those who wished to remain in Ireland were directed to file off at

a particular spot. All who passed that spot were to be considered as

having made their choice for France. Sarsfield and Wauchop on one side,

Porter, Coningsby and Ginkell on the other, looked on with painful

anxiety. D'Usson and his countrymen, though not uninterested in the

spectacle, found it hard to preserve their gravity. The confusion,

the clamour, the grotesque appearance of an army in which there could

scarcely be seen a shirt or a pair of pantaloons, a shoe or a stocking,

presented so ludicrous a contrast to the orderly and brilliant

appearance of their master's troops, that they amused themselves by

wondering what the Parisians would say to see such a force mustered on

the plain of Grenelle. [132]

First marched what was called the Royal regiment, fourteen hundred

strong. All but seven went beyond the fatal point. Ginkell's countenance

showed that he was deeply mortified. He was consoled, however, by seeing

the next regiment, which consisted of natives of Ulster, turn off to a

man. There had arisen, notwithstanding the community of blood, language

and religion, an antipathy between the Celts of Ulster and those of

the other three provinces; nor is it improbable that the example and

influence of Baldearg O'Donnel may have had some effect on the people of

the land which his forefathers had ruled. [133] In most of the regiments

there was a division of opinion; but a great majority declared for

France. Henry Luttrell was one of those who turned off. He was rewarded

for his desertion, and perhaps for other services, with a grant of the

large estate of his elder brother Simon, who firmly adhered to the cause

of James, with a pension of five hundred pounds a year from the Crown,

and with the abhorrence of the Roman Catholic population. After living

in wealth, luxury and infamy, during a quarter of a century, Henry

Luttrell was murdered while going through Dublin in his sedan chair;

and the Irish House of Commons declared that there was reason to suspect

that he had fallen by the revenge of the Papists. [134] Eighty years

after his death his grave near Luttrellstown was violated by the

descendants of those whom he had betrayed, and his skull was broken

to pieces with a pickaxe. [135] The deadly hatred of which he was the

object descended to his son and to his grandson; and, unhappily, nothing

in the character either of his son or of his grandson tended to mitigate

the feeling which the name of Luttrell excited. [136]

When the long procession had closed, it was found that about a thousand

men had agreed to enter into William's service. About two thousand

accepted passes from Ginkell, and went quietly home. About eleven

thousand returned with Sarsfield to the city. A few hours after the

garrison had passed in review, the horse, who were encamped some miles

from the town, were required to make their choice; and most of them

volunteered for France. [137]

Sarsfield considered the troops who remained with him as under an

irrevocable obligation to go abroad; and, lest they should be tempted to

retract their consent, he confined them within the ramparts, and ordered

the gates to be shut and strongly guarded. Ginkell, though in his

vexation he muttered some threats, seems to have felt that he could not

justifiably interfere. But the precautions of the Irish general were

far from being completely successful. It was by no means strange that a

superstitious and excitable kerne, with a sermon and a dram in his head,

should be ready to promise whatever his priests required; neither was it

strange that, when he had slept off his liquor, and when anathemas were

no longer ringing in his ears, he should feel painful misgivings. He

had bound himself to go into exile, perhaps for life, beyond that dreary

expanse of waters which impressed his rude mind with mysterious terror.

His thoughts ran on all that he was to leave, on the well known peat

stack and potatoe ground, and on the mud cabin, which, humble as it was,

was still his home. He was never again to see the familiar faces round

the turf fire, or to hear the familiar notes of the old Celtic songs.

The ocean was to roll between him and the dwelling of his greyheaded

parents and his blooming sweetheart. Here were some who, unable to bear

the misery of such a separation, and, finding it impossible to pass the

sentinels who watched the gates, sprang into the river and gained the

opposite bank. The number of these daring swimmers, however, was not

great; and the army would probably have been transported almost entire

if it had remained at Limerick till the day of embarkation. But many of

the vessels in which the voyage was to be performed lay at Cork; and

it was necessary that Sarsfield should proceed thither with some of his

best regiments. It was a march of not less than four days through a

wild country. To prevent agile youths, familiar with all the shifts of

a vagrant and predatory life, from stealing off to the bogs, and woods

under cover of the night, was impossible.

Indeed, many soldiers had the audacity to run away by broad daylight

before they were out of sight of Limerick Cathedral. The Royal regiment,

which had, on the day of the review, set so striking an example of

fidelity to the cause of James, dwindled from fourteen hundred men to

five hundred. Before the last ships departed, news came that those who

had sailed by the first ships had been ungraciously received at Brest.

They had been scantily fed; they had been able to obtain neither pay nor

clothing; though winter was setting in, they slept in the fields with no

covering but the hedges. Many had been heard to say that it would have

been far better to die in old Ireland than to live in the inhospitable

country to which they had been banished. The effect of those reports was

that hundreds, who had long persisted in their intention of emigrating,

refused at the last moment to go on board, threw down their arms, and

returned to their native villages. [138]

Sarsfield perceived that one chief cause of the desertion which was

thinning his army was the natural unwillingness of the men to leave

their families in a state of destitution. Cork and its neighbourhood

were filled with the kindred of those who were going abroad. Great

numbers of women, many of them leading, carrying, suckling their

infants, covered all the roads which led to the place of embarkation.

The Irish general, apprehensive of the effect which the entreaties and

lamentations of these poor creatures could not fail to produce, put

forth a proclamation, in which he assured his soldiers that they should

be permitted to carry their wives and families to France. It would be

injurious to the memory of so brave and loyal a gentleman to suppose

that when he made this promise he meant to break it. It is much more

probable that he had formed an erroneous estimate of the number of those

who would demand a passage, and that he found himself, when it was

too late to alter his arrangements, unable to keep his word. After the

soldiers had embarked, room was found for the families of many. But

still there remained on the water side a great multitude clamouring

piteously to be taken on board. As the last boats put off there was a

rush into the surf. Some women caught hold of the ropes, were dragged

out of their depth, clung till their fingers were cut through, and

perished in the waves. The ships began to move. A wild and terrible wail

rose from the shore, and excited unwonted compassion in hearts steeled

by hatred of the Irish race and of the Romish faith. Even the stern

Cromwellian, now at length, after a desperate struggle of three years,

left the undisputed lord of the bloodstained and devastated island,

could not hear unmoved that bitter cry, in which was poured forth all

the rage and all the sorrow of a conquered nation. [139]

The sails disappeared. The emaciated and brokenhearted crowd of those

whom a stroke more cruel than that of death had made widows and orphans

dispersed, to beg their way home through a wasted land, or to lie down

and die by the roadside of grief and hunger. The exiles departed, to

learn in foreign camps that discipline without which natural courage is

of small avail, and to retrieve on distant fields of battle the honour

which had been lost by a long series of defeats at home. In Ireland

there was peace. The domination of the colonists was absolute. The

native population was tranquil with the ghastly tranquillity of

exhaustion and of despair. There were indeed outrages, robberies,

fireraisings, assassinations. But more than a century passed away

without one general insurrection. During that century, two rebellions

were raised in Great Britain by the adherents of the House of Stuart.

But neither when the elder Pretender was crowned at Scone, nor when the

younger held his court at Holyrood, was the standard of that House set

up in Connaught or Munster. In 1745, indeed, when the Highlanders were

marching towards London, the Roman Catholics of Ireland were so quiet

that the Lord Lieutenant could, without the smallest risk, send several

regiments across Saint George's Channel to recruit the army of the Duke

of Cumberland. Nor was this submission the effect of content, but of

mere stupefaction and brokenness of heart. The iron had entered into the

soul. The memory of past defeats, the habit of daily enduring insult

and oppression, had cowed the spirit of the unhappy nation. There were

indeed Irish Roman Catholics of great ability, energy and ambition; but

they were to be found every where except in Ireland, at Versailles and

at Saint Ildefonso, in the armies of Frederic and in the armies of Maria

Theresa. One exile became a Marshal of France. Another became Prime

Minister of Spain. If he had staid in his native land he would have been

regarded as an inferior by all the ignorant and worthless squireens who

drank the glorious and immortal memory. In his palace at Madrid he had

the pleasure of being assiduously courted by the ambassador of George

the Second, and of bidding defiance in high terms to the ambassador of

George the Third. [140] Scattered over all Europe were to be found

brave Irish generals, dexterous Irish diplomatists, Irish Counts, Irish

Barons, Irish Knights of Saint Lewis and of Saint Leopold, of the White

Eagle and of the Golden Fleece, who, if they had remained in the house

of bondage, could not have been ensigns of marching regiments or freemen

of petty corporations. These men, the natural chiefs of their race,

having been withdrawn, what remained was utterly helpless and passive.

A rising of the Irishry against the Englishry was no more to be

apprehended than a rising of the women and children against the men.

[141]

There were indeed, in those days, fierce disputes between the mother

country and the colony; but in those disputes the aboriginal population

had no more interest than the Red Indians in the dispute between Old

England and New England about the Stamp Act. The ruling few, even when

in mutiny against the government, had no mercy for any thing that

looked like mutiny on the part of the subject many. None of those Roman

patriots, who poniarded Julius Caesar for aspiring to be a king,

would have had the smallest scruple about crucifying a whole school of

gladiators for attempting to escape from the most odious and degrading

of all kinds of servitude. None of those Virginian patriots, who

vindicated their separation from the British empire by proclaiming it to

be a selfevident truth that all men were endowed by the Creator with an

unalienable right to liberty, would have had the smallest scruple about

shooting any negro slave who had laid claim to that unalienable right.

And, in the same manner, the Protestant masters of Ireland, while

ostentatiously professing the political doctrines of Locke and Sidney,

held that a people who spoke the Celtic tongue and heard mass could have

no concern in those doctrines. Molyneux questioned the supremacy of

the English legislature. Swift assailed, with the keenest ridicule and

invective, every part of the system of government. Lucas disquieted the

administration of Lord Harrington. Boyle overthrew the administration

of the Duke of Dorset. But neither Molyneux nor Swift, neither Lucas nor

Boyle, ever thought of appealing to the native population. They would

as soon have thought of appealing to the swine. [142] At a later period

Henry Flood excited the dominant class to demand a Parliamentary reform,

and to use even revolutionary means for the purpose of obtaining that

reform. But neither he, nor those who looked up to him as their chief,

and who went close to the verge of treason at his bidding, would consent

to admit the subject class to the smallest share of political power. The

virtuous and accomplished Charlemont, a Whig of the Whigs, passed a long

life in contending for what he called the freedom of his country. But

he voted against the law which gave the elective franchise to Roman

Catholic freeholders; and he died fixed in the opinion that the

Parliament House ought to be kept pure from Roman Catholic members.

Indeed, during the century which followed the Revolution, the

inclination of an English Protestant to trample on the Irishry was

generally proportioned to the zeal which he professed for political

liberty in the abstract. If he uttered any expression of compassion for

the majority oppressed by the minority, he might be safely set down as a

bigoted Tory and High Churchman. [143]

All this time hatred, kept down by fear, festered in the hearts of the

children of the soil. They were still the same people that had sprung

to arms in 1641 at the call of O'Neill, and in 1689 at the call of

Tyrconnel. To them every festival instituted by the State was a day of

mourning, and every public trophy set up by the State was a memorial of

shame. We have never known, and can but faintly conceive, the feelings

of a nation doomed to see constantly in all its public places the

monuments of its subjugation. Such monuments every where met the eye

of the Irish Roman Catholics. In front of the Senate House of their

country, they saw the statue of their conqueror. If they entered, they

saw the walls tapestried with the defeats of their fathers. At length,

after a hundred years of servitude, endured without one vigorous or

combined struggle for emancipation, the French revolution awakened a

wild hope in the bosoms of the oppressed. Men who had inherited all the

pretensions and all the passions of the Parliament which James had held

at the Kings Inns could not hear unmoved of the downfall of a wealthy

established Church, of the flight of a splendid aristocracy, of the

confiscation of an immense territory. Old antipathies, which had never

slumbered, were excited to new and terrible energy by the combination

of stimulants which, in any other society, would have counteracted each

other. The spirit of Popery and the spirit of Jacobinism, irreconcilable

antagonists every where else, were for once mingled in an unnatural

and portentous union. Their joint influence produced the third and

last rising up of the aboriginal population against the colony. The

greatgrandsons of the soldiers of Galmoy and Sarsfield were opposed to

the greatgrandsons of the soldiers of Wolseley and Mitchelburn. The Celt

again looked impatiently for the sails which were to bring succour from

Brest; and the Saxon was again backed by the whole power of England.

Again the victory remained with the well educated and well organized

minority. But, happily, the vanquished people found protection in

a quarter from which they would once have had to expect nothing but

implacable severity. By this time the philosophy of the eighteenth

century had purifed English Whiggism from that deep taint of intolerance

which had been contracted during a long and close alliance with the

Puritanism of the seventeenth century. Enlightened men had begun to feel

that the arguments by which Milton and Locke, Tillotson and Burnet, had

vindicated the rights of conscience might be urged with not less force

in favour of the Roman Catholic than in favour of the Independent or

the Baptist. The great party which traces its descent through the

Exclusionists up to the Roundheads continued during thirty years, in

spite of royal frowns and popular clamours, to demand a share in all

the benefits of our free constitution for those Irish Papists whom the

Roundheads and the Exclusionists had considered merely as beasts of

chase or as beasts of burden. But it will be for some other historian to

relate the vicissitudes of that great conflict, and the late triumph of

reason and humanity. Unhappily such a historian will have to relate that

the triumph won by such exertions and by such sacrifices was immediately

followed by disappointment; that it proved far less easy to eradicate

evil passions than to repeal evil laws; and that, long after every

trace of national and religious animosity had been obliterated from the

Statute Book, national and religious animosities continued to rankle

in the bosoms of millions. May he be able also to relate that wisdom,

justice and time gradually did in Ireland what they had done in

Scotland, and that all the races which inhabit the British isles were at

length indissolubly blended into one people!