No More Learning

The press was immediately pushed into a closet
behind the bed; the types were flung into the coalhole, and covered with
cinders: the compositor disappeared through a trapdoor in the roof, and
made off over the tiles of the neighbouring houses. In these dens were
manufactured treasonable works of all classes and sizes, from halfpenny
broadsides of doggrel verse up to massy quartos filled with Hebrew
quotations. It was not safe to exhibit such publications openly on a
counter. They were sold only by trusty agents, and in secret places.
Some tracts which were thought likely to produce a great effect were
given away in immense numbers at the expense of wealthy Jacobites.
Sometimes a paper was thrust under a door, sometimes dropped on the
table of a coffeehouse. One day a thousand copies of a scurrilous
pamphlet went out by the postbags. On another day, when the shopkeepers
rose early to take down their shutters, they found the whole of Fleet
Street and the Strand white with seditious handbills, [728]

Of the numerous performances which were ushered into the world by such
shifts as these, none produced a greater sensation than a little book
which purported to be a form of prayer and humiliation for the use of
the persecuted Church. It was impossible to doubt that a considerable
sum had been expended on this work. Ten thousand copies were, by various
means, scattered over the kingdom. No more mendacious, more malignant or
more impious lampoon was ever penned. Though the government had as yet
treated its enemies with a lenity unprecedented in the history of our
country, though not a single person had, since the Revolution, suffered
death for any political offence, the authors of this liturgy were not
ashamed to pray that God would assuage their enemy's insatiable thirst
for blood, or would, if any more of them were to be brought through the
Red Sea to the Land of Promise, prepare them for the passage, [729] They
complained that the Church of England, once the perfection of beauty,
had become a scorn and derision, a heap of ruins, a vineyard of wild
grapes; that her services had ceased to deserve the name of public
worship; that the bread and wine which she dispensed had no longer any
sacramental virtue; that her priests, in the act of swearing fealty to
the usurper, had lost the sacred character which had been conferred on
them by their ordination, [730] James was profanely described as the
stone which foolish builders had rejected; and a fervent petition was
put up that Providence would again make him the head of the corner.
The blessings which were called down on our country were of a singular
description. There was something very like a prayer for another Bloody
Circuit; "Give the King the necks of his enemies;" there was something
very like a prayer for a French invasion; "Raise him up friends abroad;"
and there was a more mysterious prayer, the best comment on which was
afterwards furnished by the Assassination Plot; "Do some great thing for
him; which we in particular know not how to pray for. " [731]

This liturgy was composed, circulated, and read, it is said, in some
congregations of Jacobite schismatics, before William set out for
Ireland, but did not attract general notice till the appearance of a
foreign armament on our coast had roused the national spirit. Then rose
a roar of indignation against the Englishmen who had dared, under the
hypocritical pretence of devotion, to imprecate curses on England. The
deprived Prelates were suspected, and not without some show of reason.
For the nonjurors were, to a man, zealous Episcopalians. Their doctrine
was that, in ecclesiastical matters of grave moment, nothing could be
well done without the sanction of the Bishop. And could it be believed
that any who held this doctrine would compose a service, print it,
circulate it, and actually use it in public worship, without the
approbation of Sancroft, whom the whole party revered, not only as the
true Primate of all England, but also as a Saint and a Confessor? It
was known that the Prelates who had refused the oaths had lately held
several consultations at Lambeth. The subject of those consultations, it
was now said, might easily be guessed. The holy fathers had been engaged
in framing prayers for the destruction of the Protestant colony in
Ireland, for the defeat of the English fleet in the Channel, and for the
speedy arrival of a French army in Kent. The extreme section of the Whig
party pressed this accusation with vindictive eagerness. This then, said
those implacable politicians, was the fruit of King William's merciful
policy. Never had he committed a greater error than when he had
conceived the hope that the hearts of the clergy were to be won by
clemency and moderation. He had not chosen to give credit to men who had
learned by a long and bitter experience that no kindness will tame the
sullen ferocity of a priesthood. He had stroked and pampered when he
should have tried the effect of chains and hunger. He had hazarded the
good will of his best friends by protecting his worst enemies. Those
Bishops who had publicly refused to acknowledge him as their Sovereign,
and who, by that refusal, had forfeited their dignities and revenues,
still continued to live unmolested in palaces which ought to be occupied
by better men: and for this indulgence, an indulgence unexampled in the
history of revolutions, what return had been made to him? Even this,
that the men whom he had, with so much tenderness, screened from just
punishment, had the insolence to describe him in their prayers as a
persecutor defiled with the blood of the righteous; they asked for grace
to endure with fortitude his sanguinary tyranny; they cried to heaven
for a foreign fleet and army to deliver them from his yoke; nay, they
hinted at a wish so odious that even they had not the front to speak
it plainly. One writer, in a pamphlet which produced a great sensation,
expressed his wonder that the people had not, when Tourville was riding
victorious in the Channel, bewitted the nonjuring Prelates. Excited as
the public mind then was, there was some danger that this suggestion
might bring a furious mob to Lambeth. At Norwich indeed the people
actually rose, attacked the palace which the Bishop was still suffered
to occupy, and would have pulled it down but for the timely arrival of
the trainbands, [732] The government very properly instituted criminal
proceedings against the publisher of the work which had produced this
alarming breach of the peace, [733] The deprived Prelates meanwhile put
forth a defence of their conduct. In this document they declared, with
all solemnity, and as in the presence of God, that they had no hand in
the new liturgy, that they knew not who had framed it, that they had
never used it, that they had never held any correspondence directly
or indirectly with the French court, that they were engaged in no plot
against the existing government, and that they would willingly shed
their blood rather than see England subjugated by a foreign prince, who
had, in his own kingdom, cruelly persecuted their Protestant brethren.
As to the write who had marked them out to the public vengeance by a
fearful word, but too well understood, they commended him to the Divine
mercy, and heartily prayed that his great sin might be forgiven him.
Most of those who signed this paper did so doubtless with perfect
sincerity: but it soon appeared that one at least of the subscribers had
added to the crime of betraying his country the crime of calling God to
witness a falsehood, [734]

The events which were passing in the Channel and on the Continent
compelled William to make repeated changes in his plans. During the week
which followed his triumphal entry into Dublin, messengers charged with
evil tidings arrived from England in rapid succession. First came the
account of Waldeck's defeat at Fleurus. The King was much disturbed.
All the pleasure, he said, which his own victory had given him was at
an end. Yet, with that generosity which was hidden under his austere
aspect, he sate down, even in the moment of his first vexation, to write
a kind and encouraging letter to the unfortunate general, [735] Three
days later came intelligence more alarming still. The allied fleet had
been ignominiously beaten. The sea from the Downs to the Land's End was
in possession of the enemy. The next post might bring news that Kent was
invaded. A French squadron might appear in Saint George's Channel, and
might without difficulty burn all the transports which were anchored
in the Bay of Dublin. William determined to return to England; but he
wished to obtain, before he went, the command of a safe haven on the
eastern coast of Ireland. Waterford was the place best suited to his
purpose; and towards Waterford he immediately proceeded. Clonmel and
Kilkenny were abandoned by the Irish troops as soon as it was known that
he was approaching. At Kilkenny he was entertained, on the nineteenth of
July, by the Duke of Ormond in the ancient castle of the Butlers, which
had not long before been occupied by Lauzun, and which therefore, in the
midst of the general devastation, still had tables and chairs, hangings
on the walls, and claret in the cellars. On the twenty-first two
regiments which garrisoned Waterford consented to march out after a
faint show of resistance; a few hours later, the fort of Duncannon,
which, towering on a rocky promontory, commanded the entrance of the
harbour, was surrendered; and William was master of the whole of that
secure and spacious basin which is formed by the united waters of
the Suir, the Nore and the Barrow. He then announced his intention
of instantly returning to England, and, having declared Count Solmes
Commander in Chief of the army of Ireland, set out for Dublin, [736]

But good news met him on the road. Tourville had appeared on the coast
of Devonshire, had put some troops on shore, and had sacked Teignmouth;
but the only effect of this insult had been to raise the whole
population of the western counties in arms against the invaders. The
enemy had departed, after doing just mischief enough to make the cause
of James as odious for a time to Tories as to Whigs. William therefore
again changed his plans, and hastened back to his army, which,
during his absence, had moved westward, and which he rejoined in the
neighbourhood of Cashel, [737]

About this time he received from Mary a letter requesting him to
decide an important question on which the Council of Nine was divided.
Marlborough was of opinion that all danger of invasion was over for that
year. The sea, he said, was open; for the French ships had returned into
port, and were refitting. Now was the time to send an English fleet,
with five thousand troops on board, to the southern extremity of
Ireland. Such a force might easily reduce Cork and Kinsale, two of
the most important strongholds still occupied by the forces of James.
Marlborough was strenuously supported by Nottingham, and as strenuously
opposed by the other members of the interior council with Caermarthen
at their head. The Queen referred the matter to her husband. He highly
approved of the plan, and gave orders that it should be executed by
the General who had formed it. Caermarthen submitted, though with a
bad grace, and with some murmurs at the extraordinary partiality of His
Majesty for Marlborough, [738]

William meanwhile was advancing towards Limerick. In that city the army
which he had put to rout at the Boyne had taken refuge, discomfited,
indeed, and disgraced, but very little diminished. He would not have
had the trouble of besieging the place, if the advice of Lauzun and of
Lauzun's countrymen had been followed. They laughed at the thought of
defending such fortifications, and indeed would not admit that the
name of fortifications could properly be given to heaps of dirt, which
certainly bore little resemblance to the works of Valenciennes and
Philipsburg. "It is unnecessary," said Lauzun, with an oath, "for the
English to bring cannon against such a place as this. What you call your
ramparts might be battered down with roasted apples. " He therefore gave
his voice for evacuating Limerick, and declared that, at all events, he
was determined not to throw away in a hopeless resistance the lives of
the brave men who had been entrusted to his care by his master, [739]
The truth is, that the judgment of the brilliant and adventurous
Frenchman was biassed by his inclinations. He and his companions were
sick of Ireland. They were ready to face death with courage, nay, with
gaiety, on a field of battle. But the dull, squalid, barbarous life,
which they had now been leading during several months, was more than
they could bear. They were as much out of the pale of the civilised
world as if they had been banished to Dahomey or Spitzbergen. The
climate affected their health and spirits. In that unhappy country,
wasted by years of predatory war, hospitality could offer little more
than a couch of straw, a trencher of meat half raw and half burned, and
a draught of sour milk. A crust of bread, a pint of wine, could hardly
be purchased for money. A year of such hardships seemed a century to
men who had always been accustomed to carry with them to the camp the
luxuries of Paris, soft bedding, rich tapestry, sideboards of plate,
hampers of Champagne, opera dancers, cooks and musicians. Better to be
a prisoner in the Bastille, better to be a recluse at La Trappe, than
to be generalissimo of the half naked savages who burrowed in the dreary
swamps of Munster. Any plea was welcome which would serve as an excuse
for returning from that miserable exile to the land of cornfields
and vineyards, of gilded coaches and laced cravats, of ballrooms and
theatres, [740]

Very different was the feeling of the children of the soil. The island,
which to French courtiers was a disconsolate place of banishment, was
the Irishman's home. There were collected all the objects of his love
and of his ambition; and there he hoped that his dust would one day
mingle with the dust of his fathers. To him even the heaven dark with
the vapours of the ocean, the wildernesses of black rushes and stagnant
water, the mud cabins where the peasants and the swine shared their meal
of roots, had a charm which was wanting to the sunny skies, the cultured
fields and the stately mansions of the Seine. He could imagine no fairer
spot than his country, if only his country could be freed from the
tyranny of the Saxons; and all hope that his country would be freed
from the tyranny of the Saxons must be abandoned if Limerick were
surrendered.

The conduct of the Irish during the last two months had sunk their
military reputation to the lowest point. They had, with the exception of
some gallant regiments of cavalry, fled disgracefully at the Boyne, and
had thus incurred the bitter contempt both of their enemies and of their
allies. The English who were at Saint Germains never spoke of the Irish
but as a people of dastards and traitors, [741] The French were so much
exasperated against the unfortunate nation, that Irish merchants, who
had been many years settled at Paris, durst not walk the streets
for fear of being insulted by the populace, [742] So strong was the
prejudice, that absurd stories were invented to explain the intrepidity
with which the horse had fought. It was said that the troopers were not
men of Celtic blood, but descendants of the old English of the pale,
[743] It was also said that they had been intoxicated with brandy just
before the battle, [744] Yet nothing can be more certain than that they
must have been generally of Irish race; nor did the steady valour which
they displayed in a long and almost hopeless conflict against great odds
bear any resemblance to the fury of a coward maddened by strong drink
into momentary hardihood. Even in the infantry, undisciplined and
disorganized as it was, there was much spirit, though little firmness.
Fits of enthusiasm and fits of faintheartedness succeeded each other.
The same battalion, which at one time threw away its arms in a panic and
shrieked for quarter, would on another occasion fight valiantly. On the
day of the Boyne the courage of the ill trained and ill commanded kernes
had ebbed to the lowest point. When they had rallied at Limerick, their
blood was up. Patriotism, fanaticism, shame, revenge, despair, had
raised them above themselves. With one voice officers and men insisted
that the city should be defended to the last. At the head of those
who were for resisting was the brave Sarsfield; and his exhortations
diffused through all ranks a spirit resembling his own. To save his
country was beyond his power. All that he could do was to prolong her
last agony through one bloody and disastrous year, [745]

Tyrconnel was altogether incompetent to decide the question on which the
French and the Irish differed. The only military qualities that he had
ever possessed were personal bravery and skill in the use of the sword.
These qualities had once enabled him to frighten away rivals from the
doors of his mistresses, and to play the Hector at cockpits and hazard
tables. But more was necessary to enable him to form an opinion as to
the possibility of defending Limerick. He would probably, had his temper
been as hot as in the days when he diced with Grammont and threatened
to cut the old Duke of Ormond's throat, have voted for running any risk
however desperate. But age, pain and sickness had left little of the
canting, bullying, fighting Dick Talbot of the Restoration. He had
sunk into deep despondency. He was incapable of strenuous exertion. The
French officers pronounced him utterly ignorant of the art of war. They
had observed that at the Boyne he had seemed to be stupified, unable
to give directions himself, unable even to make up his mind about the
suggestions which were offered by others, [746] The disasters which
had since followed one another in rapid succession were not likely to
restore the tone of a mind so pitiably unnerved. His wife was already in
France with the little which remained of his once ample fortune: his
own wish was to follow her thither: his voice was therefore given for
abandoning the city.

At last a compromise was made. Lauzun and Tyrconnel, with the French
troops, retired to Galway. The great body of the native army, about
twenty thousand strong, remained at Limerick. The chief command there
was entrusted to Boisseleau, who understood the character of the Irish
better, and consequently, judged them more favourably, than any of his
countrymen. In general, the French captains spoke of their unfortunate
allies with boundless contempt and abhorrence, and thus made themselves
as hateful as the English, [747]

Lauzun and Tyrconnel had scarcely departed when the advanced guard of
William's army came in sight. Soon the King himself, accompanied by
Auverquerque and Ginkell, and escorted by three hundred horse, rode
forward to examine the fortifications. The city, then the second in
Ireland, though less altered since that time than most large cities in
the British isles, has undergone a great change. The new town did not
then exist. The ground now covered by those smooth and broad pavements,
those neat gardens, those stately shops flaming with red brick, and gay
with shawls and china, was then an open meadow lying without the walls.
The city consisted of two parts, which had been designated during
several centuries as the English and the Irish town. The English town
stands on an island surrounded by the Shannon, and consists of a knot
of antique houses with gable ends, crowding thick round a venerable
cathedral. The aspect of the streets is such that a traveller who
wanders through them may easily fancy himself in Normandy or Flanders.
Not far from the cathedral, an ancient castle overgrown with weeds and
ivy looks down on the river. A narrow and rapid stream, over which, in
1690, there was only a single bridge, divides the English town from the
quarter anciently occupied by the hovels of the native population. The
view from the top of the cathedral now extends many miles over a level
expanse of rich mould, through which the greatest of Irish rivers winds
between artificial banks. But in the seventeenth century those banks had
not been constructed; and that wide plain, of which the grass, verdant
even beyond the verdure of Munster, now feeds some of the finest cattle
in Europe, was then almost always a marsh and often a lake, [748]

When it was known that the French troops had quitted Limerick, and that
the Irish only remained, the general expectation in the English camp was
that the city would be an easy conquest, [749] Nor was that expectation
unreasonable; for even Sarsfield desponded. One chance, in his opinion,
there still was. William had brought with him none but small guns.
Several large pieces of ordnance, a great quantity of provisions and
ammunition, and a bridge of tin boats, which in the watery plain of the
Shannon was frequently needed, were slowly following from Cashel. If the
guns and gunpowder could be intercepted and destroyed, there might be
some hope. If not, all was lost; and the best thing that a brave and
high spirited Irish gentleman could do was to forget the country which
he had in vain tried to defend, and to seek in some foreign land a home
or a grave.

A few hours, therefore, after the English tents had been pitched before
Limerick, Sarsfield set forth, under cover of the night, with a strong
body of horse and dragoons. He took the road to Killaloe, and crossed
the Shannon there. During the day he lurked with his band in a wild
mountain tract named from the silver mines which it contains. Those
mines had many years before been worked by English proprietors, with the
help of engineers and labourers imported from the Continent. But, in the
rebellion of 1641, the aboriginal population had destroyed the works and
massacred the workmen; nor had the devastation then committed been since
repaired. In this desolate region Sarsfield found no lack of scouts or
of guides; for all the peasantry of Munster were zealous on his side.
He learned in the evening that the detachment which guarded the English
artillery had halted for the night about seven miles from William's
camp, on a pleasant carpet of green turf under the ruined walls of an
old castle that officers and men seemed to think themselves perfectly
secure; that the beasts had been turned loose to graze, and that even
the sentinels were dozing. When it was dark the Irish horsemen quitted
their hiding place, and were conducted by the people of the country to
the place where the escort lay sleeping round the guns. The surprise was
complete. Some of the English sprang to their arms and made an attempt
to resist, but in vain. About sixty fell. One only was taken alive. The
rest fled. The victorious Irish made a huge pile of waggons and pieces
of cannon. Every gun was stuffed with powder, and fixed with its mouth
in the ground; and the whole mass was blown up. The solitary prisoner,
a lieutenant, was treated with great civility by Sarsfield. "If I had
failed in this attempt," said the gallant Irishman, "I should have been
off to France. " [750]

Intelligence had been carried to William's head quarters that Sarsfield
had stolen out of Limerick and was ranging the country. The King guessed
the design of his brave enemy, and sent five hundred horse to protect
the guns. Unhappily there was some delay, which the English, always
disposed to believe the worst of the Dutch courtiers, attributed to
the negligence or perverseness of Portland. At one in the morning the
detachment set out, but had scarcely left the camp when a blaze like
lightning and a crash like thunder announced to the wide plain of the
Shannon that all was over, [751]

Sarsfield had long been the favourite of his countrymen; and this most
seasonable exploit, judiciously planned and vigorously executed, raised
him still higher in their estimation. Their spirits rose; and the
besiegers began to lose heart. William did his best to repair his
loss. Two of the guns which had been blown up were found to be still
serviceable. Two more were sent for from Waterford. Batteries were
constructed of small field pieces, which, though they might have been
useless against one of the fortresses of Hainault or Brabant, made some
impression on the feeble defences of Limerick. Several outworks were
carried by storm; and a breach in the rampart of the city began to
appear.

During these operations, the English army was astonished and amused by
an incident, which produced indeed no very important consequences, but
which illustrates in the most striking manner the real nature of Irish
Jacobitism. In the first rank of those great Celtic houses, which, down
to the close of the reign of Elizabeth, bore rule in Ulster, were the
O'Donnels. The head of that house had yielded to the skill and energy of
Mountjoy, had kissed the hand of James the First, and had consented
to exchange the rude independence of a petty prince for an eminently
honourable place among British subjects. During a short time the
vanquished chief held the rank of an Earl, and was the landlord of an
immense domain of which he had once been the sovereign. But soon he
began to suspect the government of plotting against him, and, in revenge
or in selfdefence, plotted against the government. His schemes failed;
he fled to the continent; his title and his estates were forfeited; and
an Anglosaxon colony was planted in the territory which he had governed.
He meanwhile took refuge at the court of Spain. Between that court and
the aboriginal Irish there had, during the long contest between Philip
and Elizabeth, been a close connection. The exiled chieftain was
welcomed at Madrid as a good Catholic flying from heretical persecutors.
His illustrious descent and princely dignity, which to the English
were subjects of ridicule, secured to him the respect of the Castilian
grandees. His honours were inherited by a succession of banished men who
lived and died far from the land where the memory of their family was
fondly cherished by a rude peasantry, and was kept fresh by the songs
of minstrels and the tales of begging friars. At length, in the
eighty-third year of the exile of this ancient dynasty, it was
known over all Europe that the Irish were again in arms for their
independence. Baldearg O'Donnel, who called himself the O'Donnel, a
title far prouder, in the estimation of his race, than any marquisate or
dukedom, had been bred in Spain, and was in the service of the Spanish
government. He requested the permission of that government to repair to
Ireland. But the House of Austria was now closely leagued with England;
and the permission was refused. The O'Donnel made his escape, and by a
circuitous route, in the course of which he visited Turkey, arrived at
Kinsale a few days after James had sailed thence for France. The effect
produced on the native population by the arrival of this solitary
wanderer was marvellous. Since Ulster had been reconquered by the
Englishry, great multitudes of the Irish inhabitants of that province
had migrated southward, and were now leading a vagrant life in Connaught
and Munster. These men, accustomed from their infancy to hear of the
good old times, when the O'Donnel, solemnly inaugurated on the rock of
Kilmacrenan by the successor of Saint Columb, governed the mountains
of Donegal in defiance of the strangers of the pale, flocked to the
standard of the restored exile. He was soon at the head of seven or
eight thousand Rapparees, or, to use the name peculiar to Ulster,
Creaghts; and his followers adhered to him with a loyalty very different
from the languid sentiment which the Saxon James had been able to
inspire. Priests and even Bishops swelled the train of the adventurer.
He was so much elated by his reception that he sent agents to France,
who assured the ministers of Lewis that the O'Donnel would, if furnished
with arms and ammunition, bring into the field thirty thousand Celts
from Ulster, and that the Celts of Ulster would be found far superior in
every military quality to those of Leinster, Munster and Connaught. No
expression used by Baldearg indicated that he considered himself as
a subject. His notion evidently was that the House of O'Donnel was as
truly and as indefeasibly royal as the House of Stuart; and not a few
of his countrymen were of the same mind. He made a pompous entrance into
Limerick; and his appearance there raised the hopes of the garrison to
a strange pitch. Numerous prophecies were recollected or invented. An
O'Donnel with a red mark was to be the deliverer of his country; and
Baldearg meant a red mark. An O'Donnel was to gain a great battle over
the English near Limerick; and at Limerick the O'Donnel and the English
were now brought face to face, [752]

While these predictions were eagerly repeated by the defenders of the
city, evil presages, grounded not on barbarous oracles, but on grave
military reasons, began to disturb William and his most experienced
officers. The blow struck by Sarsfield had told; the artillery had been
long in doing its work; that work was even now very imperfectly done;
the stock of powder had begun to run low; the autumnal rain had begun
to fall. The soldiers in the trenches were up to their knees in mire. No
precaution was neglected; but, though drains were dug to carry off the
water, and though pewter basins of usquebaugh and brandy blazed all
night in the tents, cases of fever had already occurred, and it might
well be apprehended that, if the army remained but a few days longer on
that swampy soil, there would be a pestilence more terrible than that
which had raged twelve months before under the walls of Dundalk, [753]
A council of war was held. It was determined to make one great effort,
and, if that effort failed, to raise the seige.

On the twenty-seventh of August, at three in the afternoon, the signal
was given. Five hundred grenadiers rushed from the English trenches
to the counterscarp, fired their pieces, and threw their grenades. The
Irish fled into the town, and were followed by the assailants, who,
in the excitement of victory, did not wait for orders. Then began a
terrible street fight. The Irish, as soon as they had recovered
from their surprise, stood resolutely to their arms; and the English
grenadiers, overwhelmed by numbers, were, with great loss, driven back
to the counterscarp. There the struggle was long and desperate. When
indeed was the Roman Catholic Celt to fight if he did not fight on that
day? The very women of Limerick mingled, in the combat, stood firmly
under the hottest fire, and flung stones and broken bottles at the
enemy. In the moment when the conflict was fiercest a mine exploded,
and hurled a fine German battalion into the air. During four hours the
carnage and uproar continued. The thick cloud which rose from the breach
streamed out on the wind for many miles, and disappeared behind the
hills of Clare. Late in the evening the besiegers retired slowly and
sullenly to their camp. Their hope was that a second attack would be
made on the morrow; and the soldiers vowed to have the town or die.
But the powder was now almost exhausted; the rain fell in torrents; the
gloomy masses of cloud which came up from the south west threatened a
havoc more terrible than that of the sword; and there was reason to fear
that the roads, which were already deep in mud, would soon be in such a
state that no wheeled carriage could be dragged through them. The King
determined to raise the siege, and to move his troops to a healthier
region. He had in truth staid long enough; for it was with great
difficulty that his guns and waggons were tugged away by long teams of
oxen, [754]

The history of the first siege of Limerick bears, in some respects,
a remarkable analogy to the history of the siege of Londonderry. The
southern city was, like the northern city, the last asylum of a Church
and of a nation. Both places were crowded by fugitives from all parts of
Ireland. Both places appeared to men who had made a regular study of the
art of war incapable of resisting an enemy. Both were, in the moment of
extreme danger, abandoned by those commanders who should have defended
them. Lauzun and Tyrconnel deserted Limerick as Cunningham and Lundy had
deserted Londonderry. In both cases, religious and patriotic enthusiasm
struggled unassisted against great odds; and, in both cases, religious
and patriotic enthusiasm did what veteran warriors had pronounced it
absurd to attempt.

It was with no pleasurable emotions that Lauzun and Tyrconnel learned at
Galway the fortunate issue of the conflict in which they had refused
to take a part. They were weary of Ireland; they were apprehensive
that their conduct might be unfavourably represented in France; they
therefore determined to be beforehand with their accusers, and took ship
together for the Continent.

Tyrconnel, before he departed, delegated his civil authority to one
council, and his military authority to another. The young Duke of
Berwick was declared Commander in Chief; but this dignity was merely
nominal. Sarsfield, undoubtedly the first of Irish soldiers, was placed
last in the list of the councillors to whom the conduct of the war was
entrusted; and some believed that he would not have been in the list at
all, had not the Viceroy feared that the omission of so popular a name
might produce a mutiny.

William meanwhile had reached Waterford, and had sailed thence for
England. Before he embarked, he entrusted the government of Ireland to
three Lords Justices. Henry Sydney, now Viscount Sydney, stood first
in the commission; and with him were joined Coningsby and Sir Charles
Porter. Porter had formerly held the Great Seal of the kingdom, had,
merely because he was a Protestant, been deprived of it by James, and
had now received it again from the hand of William.

On the sixth of September the King, after a voyage of twenty-four hours,
landed at Bristol. Thence he travelled to London, stopping by the road
at the mansions of some great lords, and it was remarked that all
those who were thus honoured were Tories. He was entertained one day
at Badminton by the Duke of Beaufort, who was supposed to have brought
himself with great difficulty to take the oaths, and on a subsequent
day at a large house near Marlborough which, in our own time, before the
great revolution produced by railways, was renowned as one of the best
inns in England, but which, in the seventeenth century, was a seat of
the Duke of Somerset. William was every where received with marks of
respect and joy. His campaign indeed had not ended quite so prosperously
as it had begun; but on the whole his success had been great beyond
expectation, and had fully vindicated the wisdom of his resolution to
command his army in person. The sack of Teignmouth too was fresh in
the minds of Englishmen, and had for a time reconciled all but the most
fanatical Jacobites to each other and to the throne. The magistracy
and clergy of the capital repaired to Kensington with thanks and
congratulations. The people rang bells and kindled bonfires. For the
Pope, whom good Protestants had been accustomed to immolate, the French
King was on this occasion substituted, probably by way of retaliation
for the insults which had been offered to the effigy of William by
the Parisian populace. A waxen figure, which was doubtless a hideous
caricature of the most graceful and majestic of princes, was dragged
about Westminster in a chariot. Above was inscribed, in large letters,
"Lewis the greatest tyrant of fourteen. " After the procession, the image
was committed to the flames, amidst loud huzzas, in the middle of Covent
Garden, [755]

When William arrived in London, the expedition destined for Cork, was
ready to sail from Portsmouth, and Marlborough had been some time on
board waiting for a fair wind. He was accompanied by Grafton. This young
man had been, immediately after the departure of James, and while the
throne was still vacant, named by William Colonel of the First Regiment
of Foot Guards. The Revolution had scarcely been consummated, when signs
of disaffection began to appear in that regiment, the most important,
both because of its peculiar duties and because of its numerical
strength, of all the regiments in the army. It was thought that the
Colonel had not put this bad spirit down with a sufficiently firm hand.
He was known not to be perfectly satisfied with the new arrangement; he
had voted for a Regency; and it was rumoured, perhaps without reason,
that he had dealings with Saint Germains. The honourable and lucrative
command to which he had just been appointed was taken from him, [756]
Though severely mortified, he behaved like a man of sense and spirit.
Bent on proving that he had been wrongfully suspected, and animated
by an honourable ambition to distinguish himself in his profession,
he obtained permission to serve as a volunteer under Marlborough in
Ireland.

At length, on the eighteenth of September, the wind changed. The fleet
stood out to sea, and on the twenty-first appeared before the harbour
of Cork. The troops landed, and were speedily joined by the Duke of
Wirtemberg, with several regiments, Dutch, Danish, and French, detached
from the army which had lately besieged Limerick. The Duke immediately
put forward a claim which, if the English general had not been a man of
excellent judgment and temper, might have been fatal to the expedition.
His Highness contended that, as a prince of a sovereign house, he was
entitled to command in chief. Marlborough calmly and politely showed
that the pretence was unreasonable. A dispute followed, in which it is
said that the German behaved with rudeness, and the Englishman with that
gentle firmness to which, more perhaps than even to his great abilities,
he owed his success in life. At length a Huguenot officer suggested a
compromise. Marlborough consented to waive part of his rights, and to
allow precedence to the Duke on the alternate days. The first morning
on which Marlborough had the command, he gave the word "Wirtemberg. " The
Duke's heart was won by this compliment and on the next day he gave the
word "Marlborough. "

But, whoever might give the word, genius asserted its indefeasible
superiority. Marlborough was on every day the real general. Cork was
vigorously attacked. Outwork after outwork was rapidly carried. In
forty-eight hours all was over. The traces of the short struggle may
still be seen. The old fort, where the Irish made the hardest fight,
lies in ruins. The Daria Cathedral, so ungracefully joined to the
ancient tower, stands on the site of a Gothic edifice which was
shattered by the English cannon. In the neighbouring churchyard is still
shown the spot where stood, during many ages, one of those round towers
which have perplexed antiquaries. This venerable monument shared the
fate of the neighbouring church. On another spot, which is now called
the Mall, and is lined by the stately houses of banking companies,
railway companies, and insurance companies, but which was then a bog
known by the name of the Rape Marsh, four English regiments, up to the
shoulders in water, advanced gallantly to the assault. Grafton, ever
foremost in danger, while struggling through the quagmire, was struck by
a shot from the ramparts, and was carried back dying. The place where he
fell, then about a hundred yards without the city, but now situated
in the very centre of business and population, is still called Grafton
Street. The assailants had made their way through the swamp, and the
close fighting was just about to begin, when a parley was beaten.
Articles of capitulation were speedily adjusted. The garrison, between
four and five thousand fighting men, became prisoners. Marlborough
promised to intercede with the King both for them and for the
inhabitants, and to prevent outrage and spoliation. His troops he
succeeded in restraining; but crowds of sailors and camp followers came
into the city through the breach; and the houses of many Roman Catholics
were sacked before order was restored.

No commander has ever understood better than Marlborough how to improve
a victory. A few hours after Cork had fallen, his cavalry were on the
road to Kinsale. A trumpeter was sent to summon the place. The Irish
threatened to hang him for bringing such a message, set fire to the
town, and retired into two forts called the Old and the New. The
English horse arrived just in time to extinguish the flames. Marlborough
speedily followed with his infantry. The Old Fort was scaled; and four
hundred and fifty men who defended it were all killed or taken. The New
Fort it was necessary to attack in a more methodical way. Batteries
were planted; trenches were opened; mines were sprung; in a few days
the besiegers were masters of the counterscarp; and all was ready for
storming, when the governor offered to capitulate. The garrison, twelve
hundred strong, was suffered to retire to Limerick; but the conquerors
took possession of the stores, which were of considerable value. Of
all the Irish ports Kinsale was the best situated for intercourse with
France. Here, therefore, was a plenty unknown in any other part of
Munster. At Limerick bread and wine were luxuries which generals and
privy councillors were not always able to procure. But in the New Fort
of Kinsale Marlborough found a thousand barrels of wheat and eighty
pipes of claret.

His success had been complete and rapid; and indeed, had it not been
rapid, it would not have been complete. His campaign, short as it was,
had been long enough to allow time for the deadly work which, in that
age, the moist earth and air of Ireland seldom failed, in the autumnal
season, to perform on English soldiers. The malady which had thinned the
ranks of Schomberg's army at Dundalk, and which had compelled William
to make a hasty retreat from the estuary of the Shannon, had begun to
appear at Kinsale. Quick and vigorous as Marlborough's operations were,
he lost a much greater number of men by disease than by the fire of the
enemy. He presented himself at Kensington only five weeks after he had
sailed from Portsmouth, and was most graciously received. "No officer
living," said William, "who has seen so little service as my Lord
Marlborough, is so fit for great commands. " [757]

In Scotland, as in Ireland, the aspect of things had, during this
memorable summer, changed greatly for the better. That club of
discontented Whigs which had, in the preceding year, ruled the
Parliament, browbeaten the ministers, refused the supplies and stopped
the signet, had sunk under general contempt, and had at length ceased to
exist. There was harmony between the Sovereign and the Estates; and the
long contest between two forms of ecclesiastical government had been
terminated in the only way compatible with the peace and prosperity of
the country.

This happy turn in affairs is to be chiefly ascribed to the errors of
the perfidious, turbulent and revengeful Montgomery. Some weeks after
the close of that session during which he had exercised a boundless
authority over the Scottish Parliament, he went to London with his two
principal confederates, the Earl of Annandale and the Lord Ross. The
three had an audience of William, and presented to him a manifesto
setting forth what they demanded for the public. They would very soon
have changed their tone if he would have granted what they demanded for
themselves. But he resented their conduct deeply, and was determined not
to pay them for annoying him. The reception which he gave them convinced
them that they had no favour to expect. Montgomery's passions were
fierce; his wants were pressing; he was miserably poor; and, if he
could not speedily force himself into a lucrative office, he would be
in danger of rotting in a gaol. Since his services were not likely to
be bought by William, they must be offered to James. A broker was easily
found. Montgomery was an old acquaintance of Ferguson. The two traitors
soon understood each other. They were kindred spirits, differing widely
in intellectual power, but equally vain, restless, false and malevolent.
Montgomery was introduced to Neville Payne, one of the most adroit and
resolute agents of the exiled family, Payne had been long well known
about town as a dabbler in poetry and politics. He had been an intimate
friend of the indiscreet and unfortunate Coleman, and had been committed
to Newgate as an accomplice in the Popish plot. His moral character
had not stood high; but he soon had an opportunity of proving that he
possessed courage and fidelity worthy of a better cause than that of
James and of a better associate than Montgomery.

The negotiation speedily ended in a treaty of alliance, Payne
confidently promised Montgomery, not merely pardon, but riches,
power and dignity. Montgomery as confidently undertook to induce the
Parliament of Scotland to recall the rightful King. Ross and Annandale
readily agreed to whatever their able and active colleague proposed. An
adventurer, who was sometimes called Simpson and sometimes Jones, who
was perfectly willing to serve or to betray any government for hire,
and who received wages at once from Portland and from Neville Payne,
undertook to carry the offers of the Club to James. Montgomery and his
two noble accomplices returned to Edinburgh, and there proceeded to
form a coalition with their old enemies, the defenders of prelacy and of
arbitrary power, [758]

The Scottish opposition, strangely made up of two factions, one zealous
for bishops, the other zealous for synods, one hostile to all liberty,
the other impatient of all government, flattered itself during a short
time with hopes that the civil war would break out in the Highlands with
redoubled fury. But those hopes were disappointed. In the spring of
1690 an officer named Buchan arrived in Lochaber from Ireland. He bore a
commission which appointed him general in chief of all the forces which
were in arms for King James throughout the kingdom of Scotland. Cannon,
who had, since the death of Dundee, held the first post and had proved
himself unfit for it, became second in command. Little however was
gained by the change. It was no easy matter to induce the Gaelic
princes to renew the war. Indeed, but for the influence and eloquence of
Lochiel, not a sword would have been drawn for the House of Stuart.
He, with some difficulty, persuaded the chieftains, who had, in the
preceding year, fought at Killiecrankie, to come to a resolution that,
before the end of the summer, they would muster all their followers and
march into the Lowlands. In the mean time twelve hundred mountaineers of
different tribes were placed under the orders of Buchan, who undertook,
with this force, to keep the English garrisons in constant alarm by
feints and incursions, till the season for more important operations
should arrive. He accordingly marched into Strathspey. But all his plans
were speedily disconcerted by the boldness and dexterity of Sir Thomas
Livingstone, who held Inverness for King William. Livingstone, guided
and assisted by the Grants, who were firmly attached to the new
government, came, with a strong body of cavalry and dragoons, by forced
marches and through arduous defiles, to the place where the Jacobites
had taken up their quarters. He reached the camp fires at dead of night.
The first alarm was given by the rush of the horses over the terrified
sentinels into the midst Of the crowd of Celts who lay sleeping in their
plaids. Buchan escaped bareheaded and without his sword. Cannon ran away
in his shirt. The conquerors lost not a man. Four hundred Highlanders
were killed or taken. The rest fled to their hills and mists, [759]

This event put an end to all thoughts of civil war. The gathering which
had been planned for the summer never took place. Lochiel, even if he
had been willing, was not able to sustain any longer the falling cause.
He had been laid on his bed by a mishap which would alone suffice to
show how little could be effected by a confederacy of the petty kings
of the mountains. At a consultation of the Jacobite leaders, a gentleman
from the Lowlands spoke with severity of those sycophants who had
changed their religion to curry favour with King James. Glengarry was
one of those people who think it dignified to suppose that every body
is always insulting them. He took it into his head that some allusion
to himself was meant. "I am as good a Protestant as you. " he cried, and
added a word not to be patiently borne by a man of spirit. In a moment
both swords were out. Lochiel thrust himself between the combatants,
and, while forcing them asunder, received a wound which was at first
believed to be mortal, [760]

So effectually had the spirit of the disaffected clans been cowed that
Mackay marched unresisted from Perth into Lochaber, fixed his head
quarters at Inverlochy, and proceeded to execute his favourite design
of erecting at that place a fortress which might overawe the mutinous
Camerons and Macdonalds. In a few days the walls were raised; the
ditches were sunk; the pallisades were fixed; demiculverins from a ship
of war were ranged along the parapets, and the general departed, leaving
an officer named Hill in command of a sufficient garrison. Within the
defences there was no want of oatmeal, red herrings, and beef; and
there was rather a superabundance of brandy. The new stronghold, which,
hastily and rudely as it had been constructed, seemed doubtless to the
people of the neighbourhood the most stupendous work that power and
science united had ever produced, was named Fort William in honour of
the King, [761]

By this time the Scottish Parliament had reassembled at Edinburgh.
William had found it no easy matter to decide what course should be
taken with that capricious and unruly body. The English Commons had
sometimes put him out of temper. Yet they had granted him millions,
and had never asked from him such concessions as had been imperiously
demanded by the Scottish legislature, which could give him little and
had given him nothing. The English statesmen with whom he had to deal
did not generally stand or serve to stand high in his esteem. Yet few
of them were so utterly false and shameless as the leading Scottish
politicians. Hamilton was, in morality and honour, rather above than
below his fellows; and even Hamilton was fickle, false and greedy.
"I wish to heaven," William was once provoked into exclaiming, "that
Scotland were a thousand miles off, and that the Duke of Hamilton were
King of it. Then I should be rid of them both. "

After much deliberation William determined to send Melville down to
Edinburgh as Lord High Commissioner. Melville was not a great
statesman; he was not a great orator; he did not look or move like the
representative of royalty; his character was not of more than standard
purity; and the standard of purity among Scottish senators was not
high; but he was by no means deficient in prudence or temper; and he
succeeded, on the whole, better than a man of much higher qualities
might have done.

During the first days of the Session, the friends of the government
desponded, and the chiefs of the opposition were sanguine. Montgomery's
head, though by no means a weak one, had been turned by the triumphs of
the preceding year. He believed that his intrigues and his rhetoric had
completely subjugated the Estates. It seemed to him impossible that,
having exercised a boundless empire in the Parliament House when the
Jacobites were absent, he should be defeated when they were present, and
ready to support whatever he proposed. He had not indeed found it
easy to prevail on them to attend: for they could not take their seats
without taking the oaths. A few of them had some slight scruple of
conscience about foreswearing themselves; and many, who did not know
what a scruple of conscience meant, were apprehensive that they might
offend the rightful King by vowing fealty to the actual King. Some
Lords, however, who were supposed to be in the confidence of James,
asserted that, to their knowledge, he wished his friends to perjure
themselves; and this assertion induced most of the Jacobites, with
Balcarras at their head, to be guilty of perfidy aggravated by impiety,
[762]

It soon appeared, however, that Montgomery's faction, even with this
reinforcement, was no longer a majority of the legislature. For every
supporter that he had gained he had lost two. He had committed an
error which has more than once, in British history, been fatal to great
parliamentary leaders. He had imagined that, as soon as he chose to
coalesce with those to whom he had recently been opposed, all his
followers would imitate his example. He soon found that it was much
easier to inflame animosities than to appease them. The great body Of
Whigs and Presbyterians shrank from the fellowship of the Jacobites.
Some waverers were purchased by the government; nor was the purchase
expensive, for a sum which would hardly be missed in the English
Treasury was immense in the estimation of the needy barons of the North,
[763] Thus the scale was turned; and, in the Scottish Parliaments
of that age, the turn of the scale was every thing; the tendency
of majorities was always to increase, the tendency of minorities to
diminish.

The first question on which a vote was taken related to the election for
a borough. The ministers carried their point by six voices, [764] In an
instant every thing was changed; the spell was broken; the Club, from
being a bugbear, became a laughingstock; the timid and the venal passed
over in crowds from the weaker to the stronger side. It was in vain that
the opposition attempted to revive the disputes of the preceding year.
The King had wisely authorised Melville to give up the Committee of
Articles. The Estates, on the other hand, showed no disposition to pass
another Act of Incapacitation, to censure the government for opening the
Courts of justice, or to question the right of the Sovereign to name
the judges. An extraordinary supply was voted, small, according to the
notions of English financiers, but large for the means of Scotland. The
sum granted was a hundred and sixty-two thousand pounds sterling, to be
raised in the course of four years, [765]

The Jacobites, who found that they had forsworn themselves to no
purpose, sate, bowed down by shame and writhing with vexation, while
Montgomery, who had deceived himself and them, and who, in his rage, had
utterly lost, not indeed his parts and his fluency, but all decorum and
selfcommand, scolded like a waterman on the Thames, and was answered
with equal asperity and even more than equal ability by Sir John
Dalrymple, [766]

The most important acts of this Session were those which fixed the
ecclesiastical constitution of Scotland. By the Claim of Right it
had been declared that the authority of Bishops was an insupportable
grievance; and William, by accepting the Crown, had bound himself not
to uphold an institution condemned by the very instrument on which his
title to the Crown depended. But the Claim of Right had not defined the
form of Church government which was to be substituted for episcopacy;
and, during the stormy Session held in the summer of 1689, the violence
of the Club had made legislation impossible. During many months
therefore every thing had been in confusion. One polity had been pulled
down; and no other polity had been set up. In the Western Lowlands, the
beneficed clergy had been so effectually rabbled, that scarcely one of
them had remained at his post. In Berwickshire, the three Lothians and
Stirlingshire, most of the curates had been removed by the Privy Council
for not obeying that vote of the Convention which had directed all
ministers of parishes, on pain of deprivation, to proclaim William and
Mary King and Queen of Scotland. Thus, throughout a great part of
the realm, there was no public worship except what was performed by
Presbyterian divines, who sometimes officiated in tents, and sometimes,
without any legal right, took possession of the churches. But there were
large districts, especially on the north of the Tay, where the people
had no strong feeling against episcopacy; and there were many priests
who were not disposed to lose their manses, and stipends for the sake of
King James. Hundreds of the old curates, therefore, having been neither
hunted by the populace nor deposed by the Council, still performed their
spiritual functions. Every minister was, during this time of transition,
free to conduct the service and to administer the sacraments as he
thought fit. There was no controlling authority. The legislature had
taken away the jurisdiction of Bishops, and had not established the
jurisdiction of Synods, [767]

To put an end to this anarchy was one of the first duties of the
Parliament. Melville had, with the powerful assistance of Carstairs,
obtained, in spite of the remonstrances of English Tories, authority to
assent to such ecclesiastical arrangements as might satisfy the Scottish
nation. One of the first laws which the Lord Commissioner touched with
the sceptre repealed the Act of Supremacy. He next gave the royal assent
to a law enacting that those Presbyterian divines who had been pastors
of parishes in the days of the Covenant, and had, after the Restoration,
been ejected for refusing to acknowledge episcopal authority, should be
restored. The number of those Pastors had originally been about three
hundred and fifty: but not more than sixty were still living, [768]

The Estates then proceeded to fix the national creed. The Confession of
Faith drawn up by the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, the Longer
and Shorter Catechism, and the Directory, were considered by every good
Presbyterian as the standards of orthodoxy; and it was hoped that the
legislature would recognise them as such, [769] This hope, however, was
in part disappointed. The Confession was read at length, amidst much
yawning, and adopted without alteration. But, when it was proposed that
the Catechisms and the Directory should be taken into consideration, the
ill humour of the audience broke forth into murmurs. For that love of
long sermons which was strong in the Scottish commonalty was not shared
by the Scottish aristocracy. The Parliament had already been listening
during three hours to dry theology, and was not inclined to hear any
thing more about original sin and election. The Duke of Hamilton said
that the Estates had already done all that was essential. They had given
their sanction to a digest of the great principles of Christianity.
The rest might well be left to the Church. The weary majority eagerly
assented, in spite of the muttering of some zealous Presbyterian
ministers who had been admitted to hear the debate, and who could
sometimes hardly restrain themselves from taking part in it, [770]

The memorable law which fixed the ecclesiastical constitution of
Scotland was brought in by the Earl of Sutherland. By this law the
synodical polity was reestablished. The rule of the Church was entrusted
to the sixty ejected ministers who had just been restored, and to such
other persons, whether ministers or elders, as the Sixty should think
fit to admit to a participation of power. The Sixty and their nominees
were authorised to visit all the parishes in the kingdom, and to turn
out all ministers who were deficient in abilities, scandalous in morals,
or unsound in faith. Those parishes which had, during the interregnum,
been deserted by their pastors, or, in plain words, those parishes of
which the pastors had been rabbled, were declared vacant, [771]

To the clause which reestablished synodical government no serious
opposition appears to have been made. But three days were spent in
discussing the question whether the Sovereign should have power to
convoke and to dissolve ecclesiastical assemblies; and the point was
at last left in dangerous ambiguity.