The French general was
hastening
to the rescue when a cannon ball
carried off his head.
carried off his head.
Macaulay
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.
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.
