No More Learning

A procession of twenty coaches belonging to
public functionaries was mustered. Before the Castle gate, the King was
met by the host under a canopy borne by four bishops of his church. At
the sight he fell on his knees, and passed some time in devotion. He
then rose and was conducted to the chapel of his palace, once--such are
the vicissitudes of human things--the riding house of Henry Cromwell.
A Te Deum was performed in honour of his Majesty's arrival. The next
morning he held a Privy Council, discharged Chief Justice Keating from
any further attendance at the board, ordered Avaux and Bishop Cartwright
to be sworn in, and issued a proclamation convoking a Parliament to meet
at Dublin on the seventh of May, [179]

When the news that James had arrived in Ireland reached London, the
sorrow and alarm were general, and were mingled with serious discontent.
The multitude, not making sufficient allowance for the difficulties by
which William was encompassed on every side, loudly blamed his neglect.
To all the invectives of the ignorant and malicious he opposed, as was
his wont, nothing but immutable gravity and the silence of profound
disdain. But few minds had received from nature a temper so firm as his;
and still fewer had undergone so long and so rigorous a discipline.
The reproaches which had no power to shake his fortitude, tried from
childhood upwards by both extremes of fortune, inflicted a deadly wound
on a less resolute heart.

While all the coffeehouses were unanimously resolving that a fleet and
army ought to have been long before sent to Dublin, and wondering how so
renowned a politician as his Majesty could have been duped by Hamilton
and Tyrconnel, a gentleman went down to the Temple Stairs, called a
boat, and desired to be pulled to Greenwich. He took the cover of a
letter from his pocket, scratched a few lines with a pencil, and laid
the paper on the seat with some silver for his fare. As the boat passed
under the dark central arch of London Bridge, he sprang into the water
and disappeared. It was found that he had written these words: "My
folly in undertaking what I could not execute hath done the King great
prejudice which cannot be stopped--No easier way for me than this--May
his undertakings prosper--May he have a blessing. " There was no
signature; but the body was soon found, and proved to be that of
John Temple. He was young and highly accomplished: he was heir to an
honourable name; he was united to an amiable woman: he was possessed
of an ample fortune; and he had in prospect the greatest honours of the
state. It does not appear that the public had been at all aware to what
an extent he was answerable for the policy which had brought so much
obloquy on the government. The King, stern as he was, had far too
great a heart to treat an error as a crime. He had just appointed the
unfortunate young man Secretary at War; and the commission was actually
preparing. It is not improbable that the cold magnanimity of the master
was the very thing which made the remorse of the servant insupportable,
[180]

But, great as were the vexations which William had to undergo, those
by which the temper of his father-in-law was at this time tried were
greater still. No court in Europe was distracted by more quarrels and
intrigues than were to be found within the walls of Dublin Castle. The
numerous petty cabals which sprang from the cupidity, the jealousy, and
the malevolence of individuals scarcely deserve mention. But there was
one cause of discord which has been too little noticed, and which is
the key to much that has been thought mysterious in the history of those
times.

Between English Jacobitism and Irish Jacobitism there was nothing in
common. The English Jacobite was animated by a strong enthusiasm for the
family of Stuart; and in his zeal for the interests of that family he
too often forgot the interests of the state. Victory, peace, prosperity,
seemed evils to the stanch nonjuror of our island if they tended to make
usurpation popular and permanent. Defeat, bankruptcy, famine, invasion,
were, in his view, public blessings, if they increased the chance of
a restoration. He would rather have seen his country the last of the
nations under James the Second or James the Third, than the mistress of
the sea, the umpire between contending potentates, the seat of arts, the
hive of industry, under a prince of the House of Nassau or of Brunswick.

The sentiments of the Irish Jacobite were very different, and, it must
in candour be acknowledged, were of a nobler character. The fallen
dynasty was nothing to him. He had not, like a Cheshire or Shropshire
cavalier, been taught from his cradle to consider loyalty to that
dynasty as the first duty of a Christian and a gentleman. All his family
traditions, all the lessons taught him by his foster mother and by his
priests, had been of a very different tendency. He had been brought up
to regard the foreign sovereigns of his native land with the feeling
with which the Jew regarded Caesar, with which the Scot regarded Edward
the First, with which the Castilian regarded Joseph Buonaparte, with
which the Pole regards the Autocrat of the Russias. It was the boast of
the highborn Milesian that, from the twelfth century to the seventeenth,
every generation of his family had been in arms against the English
crown. His remote ancestors had contended with Fitzstephen and De Burgh.
His greatgrandfather had cloven down the soldiers of Elizabeth in the
battle of the Blackwater. His grandfather had conspired with O'Donnel
against James the First. His father had fought under Sir Phelim O'Neill
against Charles the First. The confiscation of the family estate had
been ratified by an Act of Charles the Second. No Puritan, who had been
cited before the High Commission by Laud, who had charged under Cromwell
at Naseby, who had been prosecuted under the Conventicle Act, and who
had been in hiding on account of the Rye House Plot, bore less affection
to the House of Stuart than the O'Haras and Macmahons, on whose support
the fortunes of that House now seemed to depend.

The fixed purpose of these men was to break the foreign yoke, to
exterminate the Saxon colony, to sweep away the Protestant Church, and
to restore the soil to its ancient proprietors. To obtain these ends
they would without the smallest scruple have risen up against James;
and to obtain these ends they rose up for him. The Irish Jacobites,
therefore, were not at all desirous that he should again reign at
Whitehall: for they could not but be aware that a Sovereign of Ireland,
who was also Sovereign of England, would not, and, even if he would,
could not, long administer the government of the smaller and poorer
kingdom in direct opposition to the feeling of the larger and richer.
Their real wish was that the Crowns might be completely separated, and
that their island might, whether under James or without James they cared
little, form a distinct state under the powerful protection of France.

While one party in the Council at Dublin regarded James merely as a tool
to be employed for achieving the deliverance of Ireland, another party
regarded Ireland merely as a tool to be employed for effecting the
restoration of James. To the English and Scotch lords and gentlemen who
had accompanied him from Brest, the island in which they sojourned was
merely a stepping stone by which they were to reach Great Britain.
They were still as much exiles as when they were at Saint Germains; and
indeed they thought Saint Germains a far more pleasant place of exile
than Dublin Castle. They had no sympathy with the native population of
the remote and half barbarous region to which a strange chance had led
them. Nay, they were bound by common extraction and by common language
to that colony which it was the chief object of the native population
to root out. They had indeed, like the great body of their countrymen,
always regarded the aboriginal Irish with very unjust contempt, as
inferior to other European nations, not only in acquired knowledge, but
in natural intelligence and courage; as born Gibeonites who had been
liberally treated, in being permitted to hew wood and to draw water for
a wiser and mightier people. These politicians also thought,--and here
they were undoubtedly in the right,--that, if their master's object was
to recover the throne of England, it would be madness in him to give
himself up to the guidance of the O's and the Macs who regarded England
with mortal enmity. A law declaring the crown of Ireland independent, a
law transferring mitres, glebes, and tithes from the Protestant to the
Roman Catholic Church, a law transferring ten millions of acres from
Saxons to Celts, would doubtless be loudly applauded in Clare and
Tipperary. But what would be the effect of such laws at Westminster?
What at Oxford? It would be poor policy to alienate such men as
Clarendon and Beaufort, Ken and Sherlock, in order to obtain the
applause of the Rapparees of the Bog of Allen, [181]

Thus the English and Irish factions in the Council at Dublin were
engaged in a dispute which admitted of no compromise. Avaux meanwhile
looked on that dispute from a point of view entirely his own. His object
was neither the emancipation of Ireland nor the restoration of James,
but the greatness of the French monarchy. In what way that object might
be best attained was a very complicated problem. Undoubtedly a French
statesman could not but wish for a counterrevolution in England. The
effect of such a counterrevolution would be that the power which was
the most formidable enemy of France would become her firmest ally, that
William would sink into insignificance, and that the European coalition
of which he was the chief would be dissolved. But what chance was
there of such a counterrevolution? The English exiles indeed, after
the fashion of exiles, confidently anticipated a speedy return to their
country. James himself loudly boasted that his subjects on the other
side of the water, though they had been misled for a moment by the
specious names of religion, liberty, and property, were warmly attached
to him, and would rally round him as soon as he appeared among them. But
the wary envoy tried in vain to discover any foundation for these hopes.
He was certain that they were not warranted by any intelligence which
had arrived from any part of Great Britain; and he considered them as
the mere daydreams of a feeble mind. He thought it unlikely that the
usurper, whose ability and resolution he had, during an unintermitted
conflict of ten years, learned to appreciate, would easily part with the
great prize which had been won by such strenuous exertions and profound
combinations. It was therefore necessary to consider what arrangements
would be most beneficial to France, on the supposition that it proved
impossible to dislodge William from England. And it was evident that,
if William could not be dislodged from England, the arrangement most
beneficial to France would be that which had been contemplated eighteen
months before when James had no prospect of a male heir. Ireland must
be severed from the English crown, purged of the English colonists,
reunited to the Church of Rome, placed under the protection of the House
of Bourbon, and made, in every thing but name, a French province.
In war, her resources would be absolutely at the command of her Lord
Paramount. She would furnish his army with recruits. She would furnish
his navy with fine harbours commanding all the great western outlets
of the English trade. The strong national and religious antipathy
with which her aboriginal population regarded the inhabitants of the
neighbouring island would be a sufficient guarantee for their fidelity
to that government which could alone protect her against the Saxon.

On the whole, therefore, it appeared to Avaux that, of the two parties
into which the Council at Dublin was divided, the Irish party was that
which it was for the interest of France to support. He accordingly
connected himself closely with the chiefs of that party, obtained from
them the fullest avowals of all that they designed, and was soon able to
report to his government that neither the gentry nor the common people
were at all unwilling to become French, [182]

The views of Louvois, incomparably the greatest statesman that France
had produced since Richelieu, seem to have entirely agreed with those of
Avaux. The best thing, Louvois wrote, that King James could do would
be to forget that he had reigned in Great Britain, and to think only
of putting Ireland into a good condition, and of establishing himself
firmly there. Whether this were the true interest of the House of Stuart
may be doubted. But it was undoubtedly the true interest of the House of
Bourbon, [183]

About the Scotch and English exiles, and especially about Melfort,
Avaux constantly expressed himself with an asperity hardly to have been
expected from a man of so much sense and experience. Melfort was in
a singularly unfortunate position. He was a renegade: he was a mortal
enemy of the liberties of his country: he was of a bad and tyrannical
nature; and yet he was, in some sense, a patriot. The consequence was
that he was more universally detested than any man of his time. For,
while his apostasy and his arbitrary maxims of government made him the
abhorrence of England and Scotland, his anxiety for the dignity and
integrity of the empire made him the abhorrence of the Irish and of the
French.

The first question to be decided was whether James should remain at
Dublin, or should put himself at the head of his army in Ulster. On this
question the Irish and British factions joined battle. Reasons of no
great weight were adduced on both sides; for neither party ventured to
speak out. The point really in issue was whether the King should be
in Irish or in British hands. If he remained at Dublin, it would be
scarcely possible for him to withhold his assent from any bill presented
to him by the Parliament which he had summoned to meet there. He would
be forced to plunder, perhaps to attaint, innocent Protestant gentlemen
and clergymen by hundreds; and he would thus do irreparable mischief to
his cause on the other side of Saint George's Channel. If he repaired to
Ulster, he would be within a few hours' sail of Great Britain. As soon
as Londonderry had fallen, and it was universally supposed that the fall
of Londonderry could not be long delayed, he might cross the sea
with part of his forces, and land in Scotland, where his friends were
supposed to be numerous. When he was once on British ground, and in the
midst of British adherents, it would no longer be in the power of the
Irish to extort his consent to their schemes of spoliation and revenge.

The discussions in the Council were long and warm. Tyrconnel, who had
just been created a Duke, advised his master to stay in Dublin. Melfort
exhorted his Majesty to set out for Ulster. Avaux exerted all
his influence in support of Tyrconnel; but James, whose personal
inclinations were naturally on the British side of the question,
determined to follow the advice of Melfort, [184] Avaux was deeply
mortified. In his official letters he expressed with great acrimony his
contempt for the King's character and understanding. On Tyrconnel, who
had said that he despaired of the fortunes of James, and that the real
question was between the King of France and the Prince of Orange,
the ambassador pronounced what was meant to be a warm eulogy, but
may perhaps be more properly called an invective. "If he were a born
Frenchman he could not be more zealous for the interests of France. "
[185] The conduct of Melfort, on the other hand, was the subject of an
invective which much resembles eulogy: "He is neither a good Irishman
nor a good Frenchman. All his affections are set on his own country. "
[186]

Since the King was determined to go northward, Avaux did not choose to
be left behind. The royal party set out, leaving Tyrconnel in charge
at Dublin, and arrived at Charlemont on the thirteenth of April. The
journey was a strange one. The country all along the road had been
completely deserted by the industrious population, and laid waste by
bands of robbers. "This," said one of the French officers, "is like
travelling through the deserts of Arabia. " [187] Whatever effects the
colonists had been able to remove were at Londonderry or Enniskillen.
The rest had been stolen or destroyed. Avaux informed his court that he
had not been able to get one truss of hay for his horses without sending
five or six miles. No labourer dared bring any thing for sale lest some
marauder should lay hands on it by the way. The ambassador was put one
night into a miserable taproom full of soldiers smoking, another night
into a dismantled house without windows or shutters to keep out the
rain. At Charlemont a bag of oatmeal was with great difficulty, and as a
matter of favour, procured for the French legation. There was no wheaten
bread, except at the table of the King, who had brought a little flour
from Dublin, and to whom Avaux had lent a servant who knew how to bake.
Those who were honoured with an invitation to the royal table had their
bread and wine measured out to them. Every body else, however high in
rank, ate horsecorn, and drank water or detestable beer, made with oats
instead of barley, and flavoured with some nameless herb as a substitute
for hops, [188] Yet report said that the country between Charlemont
and Strabane was even more desolate than the country between Dublin and
Charlemont. It was impossible to carry a large stock of provisions. The
roads were so bad and the horses so weak, that the baggage waggons
had all been left far behind. The chief officers of the army were
consequently in want of necessaries; and the ill-humour which was the
natural effect of these privations was increased by the insensibility
of James, who seemed not to be aware that every body about him was not
perfectly comfortable, [189]

On the fourteenth of April the King and his train proceeded to Omagh.
The rain fell: the wind blew: the horses could scarcely make their
way through the mud, and in the face of the storm; and the road was
frequently intersected by torrents which might almost be called rivers.
The travellers had to pass several fords where the water was breast
high. Some of the party fainted from fatigue and hunger. All around lay
a frightful wilderness. In a journey of forty miles Avaux counted only
three miserable cabins. Every thing else was rock, bog, and moor. When
at length the travellers reached Omagh, they found it in ruins. The
Protestants, who were the majority of the inhabitants, had abandoned it,
leaving not a wisp of straw nor a cask of liquor. The windows had been
broken: the chimneys had been beaten in: the very locks and bolts of the
doors had been carried away, [190]

Avaux had never ceased to press the King to return to Dublin; but these
expostulations had hitherto produced no effect. The obstinacy of
James, however, was an obstinacy which had nothing in common with manly
resolution, and which, though proof to argument, was easily shaken by
caprice. He received at Omagh, early on the sixteenth of April, letters
which alarmed him. He learned that a strong body of Protestants was in
arms at Strabane, and that English ships of war had been seen near the
mouth of Lough Foyle. In one minute three messages were sent to summon
Avaux to the ruinous chamber in which the royal bed had been prepared.
There James, half dressed, and with the air of a man bewildered by
some great shock, announced his resolution to hasten back instantly
to Dublin. Avaux listened, wondered, and approved. Melfort seemed
prostrated by despair. The travellers retraced their steps, and, late in
the evening, reached Charlemont. There the King received despatches very
different from those which had terrified him a few hours before.
The Protestants who had assembled near Strabane had been attacked by
Hamilton. Under a truehearted leader they would doubtless have stood
their ground. But Lundy, who commanded them, had told them that all was
lost, had ordered them to shift for themselves, and had set them the
example of flight, [191] They had accordingly retired in confusion to
Londonderry. The King's correspondents pronounced it to be impossible
that Londonderry should hold out. His Majesty had only to appear before
the gates; and they would instantly fly open. James now changed his
mind again, blamed himself for having been persuaded to turn his face
southward, and, though it was late in the evening, called for his
horses. The horses were in a miserable plight; but, weary and half
starved as they were, they were saddled. Melfort, completely victorious,
carried off his master to the camp. Avaux, after remonstrating to no
purpose, declared that he was resolved to return to Dublin. It may
be suspected that the extreme discomfort which he had undergone had
something to do with this resolution. For complaints of that discomfort
make up a large part of his letters; and, in truth, a life passed in the
palaces of Italy, in the neat parlours and gardens of Holland, and in
the luxurious pavilions which adorned the suburbs of Paris, was a bad
preparation for the ruined hovels of Ulster. He gave, however, to his
master a more weighty reason for refusing to proceed northward. The
journey of James had been undertaken in opposition to the unanimous
sense of the Irish, and had excited great alarm among them. They
apprehended that he meant to quit them, and to make a descent on
Scotland. They knew that, once landed in Great Britain, he would have
neither the will nor the power to do those things which they most
desired. Avaux, by refusing to proceed further, gave them an assurance
that, whoever might betray them, France would be their constant friend,
[192]

While Avaux was on his way to Dublin, James hastened towards
Londonderry. He found his army concentrated a few miles south of the
city. The French generals who had sailed with him from Brest were in his
train; and two of them, Rosen and Maumont, were placed over the head of
Richard Hamilton, [193] Rosen was a native of Livonia, who had in
early youth become a soldier of fortune, who had fought his way to
distinction, and who, though utterly destitute of the graces and
accomplishments characteristic of the Court of Versailles, was
nevertheless high in favour there. His temper was savage: his manners
were coarse: his language was a strange jargon compounded of various
dialects of French and German. Even those who thought best of him, and
who maintained that his rough exterior covered some good qualities,
owned that his looks were against him, and that it would be unpleasant
to meet such a figure in the dusk at the corner of a wood, [194] The
little that is known of Maumont is to his honour.

In the camp it was generally expected that Londonderry would fall
without a blow. Rosen confidently predicted that the mere sight of
the Irish army would terrify the garrison into submission. But Richard
Hamilton, who knew the temper of the colonists better, had misgivings.
The assailants were sure of one important ally within the walls. Lundy,
the Governor, professed the Protestant religion, and had joined in
proclaiming William and Mary; but he was in secret communication with
the enemies of his Church and of the Sovereigns to whom he had sworn
lealty. Some have suspected that he was a concealed Jacobite, and that
he had affected to acquiesce in the Revolution only in order that he
might be better able to assist in bringing about a Restoration: but
it is probable that his conduct is rather to be attributed to
faintheartedness and poverty of spirit than to zeal for any public
cause. He seems to have thought resistance hopeless; and in truth, to
a military eye, the defences of Londonderry appeared contemptible.
The fortifications consisted of a simple wall overgrown with grass and
weeds: there was no ditch even before the gates: the drawbridges had
long been neglected: the chains were rusty and could scarcely be used:
the parapets and towers were built after a fashion which might well
move disciples of Vauban to laughter; and these feeble defences were on
almost every side commanded by heights. Indeed those who laid out the
city had never meant that it should be able to stand a regular siege,
and had contented themselves with throwing up works sufficient to
protect the inhabitants against a tumultuary attack of the Celtic
peasantry. Avaux assured Louvois that a single French battalion would
easily storm such defences. Even if the place should, notwithstanding
all disadvantages, be able to repel a large army directed by the science
and experience of generals who had served under Conde and Turenne,
hunger must soon bring the contest to an end. The stock of provisions
was small; and the population had been swollen to seven or eight times
the ordinary number by a multitude of colonists flying from the rage of
the natives, [195]

Lundy, therefore, from the time when the Irish army entered Ulster,
seems to have given up all thought of serious resistance, He talked so
despondingly that the citizens and his own soldiers murmured against
him. He seemed, they said, to be bent on discouraging them. Meanwhile
the enemy drew daily nearer and nearer; and it was known that James
himself was coming to take the command of his forces.

Just at this moment a glimpse of hope appeared. On the fourteenth of
April ships from England anchored in the bay. They had on board two
regiments which had been sent, under the command of a Colonel named
Cunningham, to reinforce the garrison. Cunningham and several of his
officers went on shore and conferred with Lundy. Lundy dissuaded them
from landing their men. The place, he said, could not hold out. To throw
more troops into it would therefore be worse than useless: for the more
numerous the garrison, the more prisoners would fall into the hands of
the enemy. The best thing that the two regiments could do would be to
sail back to England. He meant, he said, to withdraw himself privately:
and the inhabitants must then try to make good terms for themselves.

He went through the form of holding a council of war; but from this
council he excluded all those officers of the garrison whose sentiments
he knew to be different from his own. Some, who had ordinarily been
summoned on such occasions, and who now came uninvited, were thrust out
of the room. Whatever the Governor said was echoed by his creatures.
Cunningham and Cunningham's companions could scarcely venture to oppose
their opinion to that of a person whose local knowledge was necessarily
far superior to theirs, and whom they were by their instructions
directed to obey. One brave soldier murmured. "Understand this," he
said, "to give up Londonderry is to give up Ireland. " But his objections
were contemptuously overruled, [196] The meeting broke up. Cunningham
and his officers returned to the ships, and made preparations for
departing. Meanwhile Lundy privately sent a messenger to the head
quarters of the enemy, with assurances that the city should be peaceably
surrendered on the first summons.

But as soon as what had passed in the council of war was whispered about
the streets, the spirit of the soldiers and citizens swelled up high and
fierce against the dastardly and perfidious chief who had betrayed them.
Many of his own officers declared that they no longer thought themselves
bound to obey him. Voices were heard threatening, some that his brains
should be blown out, some that he should be hanged on the walls. A
deputation was sent to Cunningham imploring him to assume the command.
He excused himself on the plausible ground that his orders were to
take directions in all things from the Governor, [197] Meanwhile it was
rumoured that the persons most in Lundy's confidence were stealing
out of the town one by one. Long after dusk on the evening of the
seventeenth it was found that the gates were open and that the keys had
disappeared. The officers who made the discovery took on themselves
to change the passwords and to double the guards. The night, however,
passed over without any assault, [198]

After some anxious hours the day broke. The Irish, with James at their
head, were now within four miles of the city. A tumultuous council of
the chief inhabitants was called. Some of them vehemently reproached the
Governor to his face with his treachery. He had sold them, they cried,
to their deadliest enemy: he had refused admission to the force which
good King William had sent to defend them. While the altercation was
at the height, the sentinels who paced the ramparts announced that the
vanguard of the hostile army was in sight.
Lundy had given orders that
there should be no firing; but his authority was at an end. Two gallant
soldiers, Major Henry Baker and Captain Adam Murray, called the people
to arms. They were assisted by the eloquence of an aged clergyman,
George Walker, rector of the parish of Donaghmore, who had, with many
of his neighbours, taken refuge in Londonderry. The whole of the crowded
city was moved by one impulse. Soldiers, gentlemen, yeomen, artisans,
rushed to the walls and manned the guns. James, who, confident of
success, had approached within a hundred yards of the southern gate,
was received with a shout of "No surrender," and with a fire from the
nearest bastion. An officer of his staff fell dead by his side. The
King and his attendants made all haste to get out of reach of the cannon
balls. Lundy, who was now in imminent danger of being torn limb from
limb by those whom he had betrayed, hid himself in an inner chamber.
There he lay during the day, and at night, with the generous and politic
connivance of Murray and Walker, made his escape in the disguise of a
porter, [199] The part of the wall from which he let himself down is
still pointed out; and people still living talk of having tasted the
fruit of a pear tree which assisted him in his descent. His name is, to
this day, held in execration by the Protestants of the North of Ireland;
and his effigy was long, and perhaps still is, annually hung and burned
by them with marks of abhorrence similar to those which in England are
appropriated to Guy Faux.

And now Londonderry was left destitute of all military and of all civil
government. No man in the town had a right to command any other: the
defences were weak: the provisions were scanty: an incensed tyrant and
a great army were at the gates. But within was that which has often,
in desperate extremities, retrieved the fallen fortunes of nations.
Betrayed, deserted, disorganized, unprovided with resources, begirt with
enemies, the noble city was still no easy conquest. Whatever an
engineer might think of the strength of the ramparts, all that was most
intelligent, most courageous, most highspirited among the Englishry of
Leinster and of Northern Ulster was crowded behind them. The number of
men capable of bearing arms within the walls was seven thousand; and the
whole world could not have furnished seven thousand men better qualified
to meet a terrible emergency with clear judgment, dauntless valour,
and stubborn patience. They were all zealous Protestants; and the
Protestantism of the majority was tinged with Puritanism. They had much
in common with that sober, resolute, and Godfearing class out of which
Cromwell had formed his unconquerable army. But the peculiar situation
in which they had been placed had developed in them some qualities
which, in the mother country, might possibly have remained latent. The
English inhabitants of Ireland were an aristocratic caste, which had
been enabled, by superior civilisation, by close union, by sleepless
vigilance, by cool intrepidity, to keep in subjection a numerous and
hostile population. Almost every one of them had been in some measure
trained both to military and to political functions. Almost every one
was familiar with the use of arms, and was accustomed to bear a part in
the administration of justice. It was remarked by contemporary writers
that the colonists had something of the Castilian haughtiness of manner,
though none of the Castilian indolence, that they spoke English
with remarkable purity and correctness, and that they were, both as
militiamen and as jurymen, superior to their kindred in the mother
country, [200] In all ages, men situated as the Anglosaxons in Ireland
were situated have had peculiar vices and peculiar virtues, the vices
and virtues of masters, as opposed to the vices and virtues of slaves.
The member of a dominant race is, in his dealings with the subject race,
seldom indeed fraudulent,--for fraud is the resource of the weak,--but
imperious, insolent, and cruel. Towards his brethren, on the other hand,
his conduct is generally just, kind, and even noble. His selfrespect
leads him to respect all who belong to his own order. His interest
impels him to cultivate a good understanding with those whose prompt,
strenuous, and courageous assistance may at any moment be necessary to
preserve his property and life. It is a truth ever present to his mind
that his own wellbeing depends on the ascendency of the class to which
he belongs. His very selfishness therefore is sublimed into public
spirit: and this public spirit is stimulated to fierce enthusiasm by
sympathy, by the desire of applause, and by the dread of infamy. For the
only opinion which he values is the opinion of his fellows; and in their
opinion devotion to the common cause is the most sacred of duties. The
character, thus formed, has two aspects. Seen on one side, it must be
regarded by every well constituted mind with disapprobation. Seen on
the other, it irresistibly extorts applause. The Spartan, smiting and
spurning the wretched Helot, moves our disgust. But the same Spartan,
calmly dressing his hair, and uttering his concise jests, on what he
well knows to be his last day, in the pass of Thermopylae, is not to be
contemplated without admiration. To a superficial observer it may seem
strange that so much evil and so much good should be found together.
But in truth the good and the evil, which at first sight appear almost
incompatible, are closely connected, and have a common origin. It was
because the Spartan had been taught to revere himself as one of a race
of sovereigns, and to look down on all that was not Spartan as of an
inferior species, that he had no fellow feeling for the miserable serfs
who crouched before him, and that the thought of submitting to a foreign
master, or of turning his back before an enemy, never, even in the last
extremity, crossed his mind. Something of the same character, compounded
of tyrant and hero, has been found in all nations which have domineered
over more numerous nations. But it has nowhere in modern Europe shown
itself so conspicuously as in Ireland. With what contempt, with what
antipathy, the ruling minority in that country long regarded the subject
majority may be best learned from the hateful laws which, within the
memory of men still living, disgraced the Irish statute book. Those laws
were at length annulled: but the spirit which had dictated them survived
them, and even at this day sometimes breaks out in excesses pernicious
to the commonwealth and dishonourable to the Protestant religion.
Nevertheless it is impossible to deny that the English colonists have
had, with too many of the faults, all the noblest virtues of a sovereign
caste. The faults have, as was natural, been most offensively exhibited
in times of prosperity and security: the virtues have been most
resplendent in times of distress and peril; and never were those virtues
more signally displayed than by the defenders of Londonderry, when their
Governor had abandoned them, and when the camp of their mortal enemy was
pitched before their walls.

No sooner had the first burst of the rage excited by the perfidy of
Lundy spent itself than those whom he had betrayed proceeded, with a
gravity and prudence worthy of the most renowned senates, to provide for
the order and defence of the city. Two governors were elected, Baker
and Walker. Baker took the chief military command. Walker's especial
business was to preserve internal tranquillity, and to dole out supplies
from the magazines, [201] The inhabitants capable of bearing arms were
distributed into eight regiments. Colonels, captains, and subordinate
officers were appointed. In a few hours every man knew his post, and was
ready to repair to it as soon as the beat of the drum was heard. That
machinery, by which Oliver had, in the preceding generation, kept up
among his soldiers so stern and so pertinacious an enthusiasm, was again
employed with not less complete success. Preaching and praying occupied
a large part of every day. Eighteen clergymen of the Established Church
and seven or eight nonconformist ministers were within the walls. They
all exerted themselves indefatigably to rouse and sustain the spirit of
the people. Among themselves there was for the time entire harmony. All
disputes about church government, postures, ceremonies, were forgotten.
The Bishop, having found that his lectures on passive obedience were
derided even by the Episcopalians, had withdrawn himself, first to
Raphoe, and then to England, and was preaching in a chapel in London,
[202] On the other hand, a Scotch fanatic named Hewson, who had exhorted
the Presbyterians not to ally themselves with such as refused to
subscribe the Covenant, had sunk under the well merited disgust and
scorn of the whole Protestant community, [203] The aspect of the
Cathedral was remarkable. Cannon were planted on the summit of the broad
tower which has since given place to a tower of different proportions.
Ammunition was stored in the vaults. In the choir the liturgy of the
Anglican Church was read every morning. Every afternoon the Dissenters
crowded to a simpler worship, [204]

James had waited twenty-four hours, expecting, as it should seem,
the performance of Lundy's promises; and in twenty-four hours the
arrangements for the defence of Londonderry were complete. On the
evening of the nineteenth of April, a trumpeter came to the southern
gate, and asked whether the engagements into which the Governor had
entered would be fulfilled. The answer was that the men who guarded
these walls had nothing to do with the Governor's engagements, and were
determined to resist to the last.

On the following day a messenger of higher rank was sent, Claude
Hamilton, Lord Strabane, one of the few Roman Catholic peers of Ireland.
Murray, who had been appointed to the command of one of the eight
regiments into which the garrison was distributed, advanced from
the gate to meet the flag of truce; and a short conference was held.
Strabane had been authorised to make large promises. The citizens should
have a free pardon for all that was past if they would submit to their
lawful Sovereign. Murray himself should have a colonel's commission, and
a thousand pounds in money. "The men of Londonderry," answered Murray,
"have done nothing that requires a pardon, and own no Sovereign but King
William and Queen Mary. It will not be safe for your Lordship to stay
longer, or to return on the same errand. Let me have the honour of
seeing you through the lines. " [205]

James had been assured, and had fully expected, that the city would
yield as soon as it was known that he was before the walls. Finding
himself mistaken, he broke loose from the control of Melfort, and
determined to return instantly to Dublin. Rosen accompanied the King.
The direction of the siege was intrusted to Maumont. Richard Hamilton
was second, and Pusignan third, in command.

The operations now commenced in earnest. The besiegers began by
battering the town. It was soon on fire in several places. Roofs and
upper stories of houses fell in, and crushed the inmates. During a short
time the garrison, many of whom had never before seen the effect of a
cannonade, seemed to be discomposed by the crash of chimneys, and by
the heaps of ruin mingled with disfigured corpses. But familiarity with
danger and horror produced in a few hours the natural effect. The spirit
of the people rose so high that their chiefs thought it safe to act on
the offensive. On the twenty-first of April a sally was made under
the command of Murray. The Irish stood their ground resolutely; and a
furious and bloody contest took place. Maumont, at the head of a body of
cavalry, flew to the place where the fight was raging. He was struck in
the head by a musket ball, and fell a corpse. The besiegers lost several
other officers, and about two hundred men, before the colonists could
be driven in. Murray escaped with difficulty. His horse was killed under
him; and he was beset by enemies: but he was able to defend himself till
some of his friends made a rush from the gate to his rescue, with old
Walker at their head, [206]

In consequence of the death of Maumont, Hamilton was once more
commander of the Irish army. His exploits in that post did not raise his
reputation. He was a fine gentleman and a brave soldier; but he had no
pretensions to the character of a great general, and had never, in his
life, seen a siege, [207] Pusignan had more science and energy. But
Pusignan survived Maumont little more than a fortnight. At four in
the morning of the sixth of May, the garrison made another sally, took
several flags, and killed many of the besiegers. Pusignan, fighting
gallantly, was shot through the body. The wound was one which a skilful
surgeon might have cured: but there was no such surgeon in the Irish
camp; and the communication with Dublin was slow and irregular. The
poor Frenchman died, complaining bitterly of the barbarous ignorance
and negligence which had shortened his days. A medical man, who had been
sent down express from the capital, arrived after the funeral. James,
in consequence, as it should seem, of this disaster, established a daily
post between Dublin Castle and Hamilton's head quarters. Even by this
conveyance letters did not travel very expeditiously: for the couriers
went on foot; and, from fear probably of the Enniskilleners, took a
circuitous route from military post to military post, [208]

May passed away: June arrived; and still Londonderry held out. There
had been many sallies and skirmishes with various success: but, on the
whole, the advantage had been with the garrison. Several officers of
note had been carried prisoners into the city; and two French banners,
torn after hard fighting from the besiegers, had been hung as trophies
in the chancel of the Cathedral. It seemed that the siege must be turned
into a blockade. But before the hope of reducing the town by main force
was relinquished, it was determined to make a great effort. The point
selected for assault was an outwork called Windmill Hill, which was
not far from the southern gate. Religious stimulants were employed
to animate the courage of the forlorn hope. Many volunteers bound
themselves by oath to make their way into the works or to perish in the
attempt. Captain Butler, son of the Lord Mountgarret, undertook to lead
the sworn men to the attack. On the walls the colonists were drawn up in
three ranks. The office of those who were behind was to load the muskets
of those who were in front. The Irish came on boldly and with a fearful
uproar, but after long and hard fighting were driven back. The women
of Londonderry were seen amidst the thickest fire serving out water and
ammunition to their husbands and brothers. In one place, where the wall
was only seven feet high, Butler and some of his sworn men succeeded in
reaching the top; but they were all killed or made prisoners. At length,
after four hundred of the Irish had fallen, their chiefs ordered a
retreat to be sounded, [209]

Nothing was left but to try the effect of hunger. It was known that the
stock of food in the city was but slender. Indeed it was thought strange
that the supplies should have held out so long. Every precaution was now
taken against the introduction of provisions. All the avenues leading to
the city by land were closely guarded. On the south were encamped, along
the left bank of the Foyle, the horsemen who had followed Lord Galmoy
from the valley of the Barrow. Their chief was of all the Irish captains
the most dreaded and the most abhorred by the Protestants. For he had
disciplined his men with rare skill and care; and many frightful stories
were told of his barbarity and perfidy. Long lines of tents, occupied by
the infantry of Butler and O'Neil, of Lord Slane and Lord Gormanstown,
by Nugent's Westmeath men, by Eustace's Kildare men, and by Cavanagh's
Kerry men, extended northward till they again approached the water side,
[210] The river was fringed with forts and batteries which no vessel
could pass without great peril. After some time it was determined to
make the security still more complete by throwing a barricade across the
stream, about a mile and a half below the city. Several boats full of
stones were sunk. A row of stakes was driven into the bottom of the
river. Large pieces of fir wood, strongly bound together, formed a boom
which was more than a quarter of a mile in length, and which was firmly
fastened to both shores, by cables a foot thick, [211] A huge stone, to
which the cable on the left bank was attached, was removed many years
later, for the purpose of being polished and shaped into a column. But
the intention was abandoned, and the rugged mass still lies, not
many yards from its original site, amidst the shades which surround a
pleasant country house named Boom Hall. Hard by is the well from which
the besiegers drank. A little further off is the burial ground where
they laid their slain, and where even in our own time the spade of the
gardener has struck upon many sculls and thighbones at a short distance
beneath the turf and flowers.

While these things were passing in the North, James was holding his
court at Dublin. On his return thither from Londonderry he received
intelligence that the French fleet, commanded by the Count of Chateau
Renaud, had anchored in Bantry Bay, and had put on shore a large
quantity of military stores and a supply of money. Herbert, who had
just been sent to those seas with an English squadron for the purpose
of intercepting the communications between Britanny and Ireland, learned
where the enemy lay, and sailed into the bay with the intention of
giving battle. But the wind was unfavourable to him: his force was
greatly inferior to that which was opposed to him; and after some
firing, which caused no serious loss to either side, he thought it
prudent to stand out to sea, while the French retired into the recesses
of the harbour. He steered for Scilly, where he expected to find
reinforcements; and Chateau Renaud, content with the credit which he had
acquired, and afraid of losing it if he staid, hastened back to Brest,
though earnestly intreated by James to come round to Dublin.

Both sides claimed the victory. The Commons at Westminster absurdly
passed a vote of thanks to Herbert. James, not less absurdly, ordered
bonfires to be lighted, and a Te Deum to be sung. But these marks of joy
by no means satisfied Avaux, whose national vanity was too strong even
for his characteristic prudence and politeness. He complained that James
was so unjust and ungrateful as to attribute the result of the late
action to the reluctance with which the English seamen fought against
their rightful King and their old commander, and that his Majesty did
not seem to be well pleased by being told that they were flying over the
ocean pursued by the triumphant French. Dover, too, was a bad Frenchman.
He seemed to take no pleasure in the defeat of his countrymen, and had
been heard to say that the affair in Bantry Bay did not deserve to be
called a battle, [212]

On the day after the Te Deum had been sung at Dublin for this indecisive
skirmish, the Parliament convoked by James assembled. The number of
temporal peers of Ireland, when he arrived in that kingdom, was about a
hundred. Of these only fourteen obeyed his summons. Of the fourteen,
ten were Roman Catholics. By the reversing of old attainders, and by new
creations, seventeen more Lords, all Roman Catholics, were introduced
into the Upper House. The Protestant Bishops of Meath, Ossory, Cork, and
Limerick, whether from a sincere conviction that they could not lawfully
withhold their obedience even from a tyrant, or from a vain hope that
the heart even of a tyrant might be softened by their patience, made
their appearance in the midst of their mortal enemies.

The House of Commons consisted almost exclusively of Irishmen and
Papists. With the writs the returning officers had received from
Tyrconnel letters naming the persons whom he wished to see elected. The
largest constituent bodies in the kingdom were at this time very small.
For scarcely any but Roman Catholics dared to show their faces; and the
Roman Catholic freeholders were then very few, not more, it is said,
in some counties, than ten or twelve. Even in cities so considerable
as Cork, Limerick, and Galway, the number of persons who, under the new
Charters, were entitled to vote did not exceed twenty-four. About two
hundred and fifty members took their seats. Of these only six were
Protestants, [213] The list of the names sufficiently indicates the
religious and political temper of the assembly. Alone among the Irish
parliaments of that age, this parliament was filled with Dermots
and Geohagans, O'Neils and O'Donovans, Macmahons, Macnamaras, and
Macgillicuddies. The lead was taken by a few men whose abilities had
been improved by the study of the law, or by experience acquired
in foreign countries. The Attorney General, Sir Richard Nagle, who
represented the county of Cork, was allowed, even by Protestants, to
be an acute and learned jurist. Francis Plowden, the Commissioner of
Revenue, who sate for Bannow, and acted as chief minister of finance,
was an Englishman, and, as he had been a principal agent of the Order of
Jesuits in money matters, must be supposed to have been an excellent
man of business, [214] Colonel Henry Luttrell, member for the county of
Carlow, had served long in France, and had brought back to his native
Ireland a sharpened intellect and polished manners, a flattering tongue,
some skill in war, and much more skill in intrigue. His elder brother,
Colonel Simon Luttrell, who was member for the county of Dublin, and
military governor of the capital, had also resided in France,
and, though inferior to Henry in parts and activity, made a highly
distinguished figure among the adherents of James. The other member for
the county of Dublin was Colonel Patrick Sarsfield. This gallant officer
was regarded by the natives as one of themselves: for his ancestors on
the paternal side, though originally English, were among those early
colonists who were proverbially said to have become more Irish than
Irishmen. His mother was of noble Celtic blood; and he was firmly
attached to the old religion. He had inherited an estate of about two
thousand a year, and was therefore one of the wealthiest Roman Catholics
in the kingdom. His knowledge of courts and camps was such as few of his
countrymen possessed. He had long borne a commission in the English Life
Guards, had lived much about Whitehall, and had fought bravely under
Monmouth on the Continent, and against Monmouth at Sedgemoor. He had,
Avaux wrote, more personal influence than any man in Ireland, and was
indeed a gentleman of eminent merit, brave, upright, honourable, careful
of his men in quarters, and certain to be always found at their head in
the day of battle. His intrepidity, his frankness, his boundless good
nature, his stature, which far exceeded that of ordinary men, and the
strength which he exerted in personal conflict, gained for him the
affectionate admiration of the populace. It is remarkable that the
Englishry generally respected him as a valiant, skilful, and generous
enemy, and that, even in the most ribald farces which were performed by
mountebanks in Smithfield, he was always excepted from the disgraceful
imputations which it was then the fashion to throw on the Irish nation,
[215]

But men like these were rare in the House of Commons which had met at
Dublin. It is no reproach to the Irish nation, a nation which has since
furnished its full proportion of eloquent and accomplished senators, to
say that, of all the parliaments which have met in the British islands,
Barebone's parliament not excepted, the assembly convoked by James
was the most deficient in all the qualities which a legislature should
possess. The stern domination of a hostile caste had blighted the
faculties of the Irish gentleman. If he was so fortunate as to have
lands, he had generally passed his life on them, shooting, fishing,
carousing, and making love among his vassals. If his estate had been
confiscated, he had wandered about from bawn to bawn and from cabin to
cabin, levying small contributions, and living at the expense of other
men. He had never sate in the House of Commons: he had never even taken
an active part at an election: he had never been a magistrate: scarcely
ever had he been on a grand jury. He had therefore absolutely no
experience of public affairs. The English squire of that age, though
assuredly not a very profound or enlightened politician, was a statesman
and a philosopher when compared with the Roman Catholic squire of
Munster or Connaught.

The Parliaments of Ireland had then no fixed place of assembling. Indeed
they met so seldom and broke up so speedily that it would hardly have
been worth while to build and furnish a palace for their special use. It
was not till the Hanoverian dynasty had been long on the throne, that a
senate house which sustains a comparison with the finest compositions
of Inigo Jones arose in College Green. On the spot where the portico
and dome of the Four Courts now overlook the Liffey, stood, in the
seventeenth century, an ancient building which had once been a convent
of Dominican friars, but had since the Reformation been appropriated to
the use of the legal profession, and bore the name of the King's Inns.
There accommodation had been provided for the parliament. On the seventh
of May, James, dressed in royal robes and wearing a crown, took his
seat on the throne in the House of Lords, and ordered the Commons to be
summoned to the bar, [216]

He then expressed his gratitude to the natives of Ireland for having
adhered to his cause when the people of his other kingdoms had deserted
him. His resolution to abolish all religious disabilities in all his
dominions he declared to be unalterable. He invited the houses to take
the Act of Settlement into consideration, and to redress the injuries
of which the old proprietors of the soil had reason to complain. He
concluded by acknowledging in warm terms his obligations to the King of
France, [217]

When the royal speech had been pronounced, the Chancellor directed the
Commons to repair to their chamber and to elect a Speaker. They chose
the Attorney General Nagle; and the choice was approved by the King,
[218]

The Commons next passed resolutions expressing warm gratitude both to
James and to Lewis. Indeed it was proposed to send a deputation with an
address to Avaux; but the Speaker pointed out the gross impropriety of
such a step; and, on this occasion, his interference was successful,
[219] It was seldom however that the House was disposed to listen
to reason. The debates were all rant and tumult. Judge Daly, a Roman
Catholic, but an honest and able man, could not refrain from lamenting
the indecency and folly with which the members of his Church carried
on the work of legislation. Those gentlemen, he said, were not a
Parliament: they were a mere rabble: they resembled nothing so much as
the mob of fishermen and market gardeners, who, at Naples, yelled and
threw up their caps in honour of Massaniello. It was painful to hear
member after member talking wild nonsense about his own losses, and
clamouring for an estate, when the lives of all and the independence of
their common country were in peril. These words were spoken in private;
but some talebearer repeated them to the Commons. A violent storm broke
forth. Daly was ordered to attend at the bar; and there was little doubt
that he would be severely dealt with. But, just when he was at the
door, one of the members rushed in, shouting, "Good news: Londonderry
is taken. " The whole House rose. All the hats were flung into the air.
Three loud huzzas were raised. Every heart was softened by the happy
tidings. Nobody would hear of punishment at such a moment. The order
for Daly's attendance was discharged amidst cries of "No submission; no
submission; we pardon him. " In a few hours it was known that
Londonderry held out as obstinately as ever.