No More Learning

In a moment all was changed. The enemies of France,--and all the
population, except Frenchmen and British Jacobites, were her enemies,
eagerly felicitated one another. All the clerks of the Spanish legation
were too few to make transcripts of the despatches for the Cardinals and
Bishops who were impatient to know the details of the victory. The first
copy was sent to the Pope, and was doubtless welcome to him, [712]

The good news from Ireland reached London at a moment when good news
was needed. The English flag had been disgraced in the English seas.
A foreign enemy threatened the coast. Traitors were at work within the
realm. Mary had exerted herself beyond her strength. Her gentle nature
was unequal to the cruel anxieties of her position; and she complained
that she could scarcely snatch a moment from business to calm herself by
prayer. Her distress rose to the highest point when she learned that the
camps of her father and her husband were pitched near to each other, and
that tidings of a battle might be hourly expected. She stole time for a
visit to Kensington, and had three hours of quiet in the garden, then a
rural solitude, [713] But the recollection of days passed there with him
whom she might never see again overpowered her. "The place," she wrote
to him, "made me think how happy I was there when I had your dear
company. But now I will say no more; for I shall hurt my own eyes, which
I want now more than ever. Adieu. Think of me, and love me as much as I
shall you, whom I love more than my life. " [714]

Early on the morning after these tender lines had been despatched,
Whitehall was roused by the arrival of a post from Ireland. Nottingham
was called out of bed. The Queen, who was just going to the chapel where
she daily attended divine service, was informed that William had been
wounded. She had wept much; but till that moment she had wept alone, and
had constrained herself to show a cheerful countenance to her Court and
Council. But when Nottingham put her husband's letter into her hands,
she burst into tears. She was still trembling with the violence of her
emotions, and had scarcely finished a letter to William in which she
poured out her love, her fears and her thankfulness, with the sweet
natural eloquence of her sex, when another messenger arrived with the
news that the English army had forced a passage across the Boyne, that
the Irish were flying in confusion, and that the King was well. Yet she
was visibly uneasy till Nottingham had assured her that James was safe.
The grave Secretary, who seems to have really esteemed and loved her,
afterwards described with much feeling that struggle of filial duty with
conjugal affection. On the same day she wrote to adjure her husband to
see that no harm befell her father. "I know," she said, "I need not beg
you to let him be taken care of; for I am confident you will for your
own sake; yet add that to all your kindness; and, for my sake, let
people know you would have no hurt happen to his person. " [715] This
solicitude, though amiable, was superfluous. Her father was perfectly
competent to take care of himself. He had never, during the battle, run
the smallest risk of hurt; and, while his daughter was shuddering at the
dangers to which she fancied that he was exposed in Ireland, he was half
way on his voyage to France.

It chanced that the glad tidings arrived at Whitehall on the day to
which the Parliament stood prorogued. The Speaker and several members of
the House of Commons who were in London met, according to form, at ten
in the morning, and were summoned by Black Rod to the bar of the Peers.
The Parliament was then again prorogued by commission. As soon as this
ceremony had been performed, the Chancellor of the Exchequer put into
the hands of the Clerk the despatch which had just arrived from Ireland,
and the Clerk read it with a loud voice to the lords and gentlemen
present, [716] The good news spread rapidly from Westminster Hall to
all the coffeehouses, and was received with transports of joy. For
those Englishmen who wished to see an English army beaten and an English
colony extirpated by the French and Irish were a minority even of the
Jacobite party.

On the ninth day after the battle of the Boyne James landed at Brest,
with an excellent appetite, in high spirits, and in a talkative humour.
He told the history of his defeat to everybody who would listen to him.
But French officers who understood war, and who compared his story with
other accounts, pronounced that, though His Majesty had witnessed the
battle, he knew nothing about it, except that his army had been routed,
[717] From Brest he proceeded to Saint Germains, where, a few hours
after his arrival, he was visited by Lewis. The French King had too much
delicacy and generosity to utter a word which could sound like reproach.
Nothing, he declared, that could conduce to the comfort of the royal
family of England should be wanting, as far as his power extended. But
he was by no means disposed to listen to the political and military
projects of his unlucky guest. James recommended an immediate descent
on England. That kingdom, he said, had been drained of troops by the
demands of Ireland. The seven or eight thousand regular soldiers who
were left would be unable to withstand a great French army. The people
were ashamed of their error and impatient to repair it. As soon as their
rightful King showed himself, they would rally round him in multitudes,
[718] Lewis was too polite and goodnatured to express what he must
have felt. He contented himself with answering coldly that he could not
decide upon any plan about the British islands till he had heard from
his generals in Ireland. James was importunate, and seemed to think
himself ill used, because, a fortnight after he had run away from one
army, he was not entrusted with another. Lewis was not to be provoked
into uttering an unkind or uncourteous word: but he was resolute and,
in order to avoid solicitation which gave him pain, he pretended to
be unwell. During some time, whenever James came to Versailles, he was
respectfully informed that His Most Christian Majesty was not equal to
the transaction of business. The highspirited and quickwitted nobles who
daily crowded the antechambers could not help sneering while they bowed
low to the royal visitor, whose poltroonery and stupidity had a second
time made him an exile and a mendicant. They even whispered their
sarcasms loud enough to call up the haughty blood of the Guelphs in
the cheeks of Mary of Modena. But the insensibility of James was of no
common kind. It had long been found proof against reason and against
pity. It now sustained a still harder trial, and was found proof even
against contempt, [719]

While he was enduring with ignominious fortitude the polite scorn of
the French aristocracy, and doing his best to weary out his benefactor's
patience and good breeding by repeating that this was the very moment
for an invasion of England, and that the whole island was impatiently
expecting its foreign deliverers, events were passing which signally
proved how little the banished oppressor understood the character of his
countrymen.

Tourville had, since the battle of Beachy Head, ranged the Channel
unopposed. On the twenty-first of July his masts were seen from the
rocks of Portland. On the twenty-second he anchored in the harbour
of Torbay, under the same heights which had, not many months before,
sheltered the armament of William. The French fleet, which now had
a considerable number of troops on board, consisted of a hundred and
eleven sail. The galleys, which formed a large part of this force,
resembled rather those ships with which Alcibiades and Lysander disputed
the sovereignty of the Aegean than those which contended at the Nile
and at Trafalgar. The galley was very long and very narrow, the deck
not more than two feet from the water edge. Each galley was propelled by
fifty or sixty huge oars, and each oar was tugged by five or six
slaves. The full complement of slaves to a vessel was three hundred and
thirty-six; the full complement of officers and soldiers a hundred and
fifty. Of the unhappy rowers some were criminals who had been justly
condemned to a life of hardship and danger; a few had been guilty only
of adhering obstinately to the Huguenot worship; the great majority
were purchased bondsmen, generally Turks and Moors. They were of course
always forming plans for massacring their tyrants and escaping from
servitude, and could be kept in order only by constant stripes and by
the frequent infliction of death in horrible forms. An Englishman, who
happened to fall in with about twelve hundred of these most miserable
and most desperate of human beings on their road from Marseilles to join
Tourville's squadron, heard them vowing that, if they came near a man
of war bearing the cross of Saint George, they would never again see a
French dockyard, [720]

In the Mediterranean galleys were in ordinary use: but none had ever
before been seen on the stormy ocean which roars round our island. The
flatterers of Lewis said that the appearance of such a squadron on the
Atlantic was one of those wonders which were reserved for his reign;
and a medal was struck at Paris to commemorate this bold experiment in
maritime war, [721] English sailors, with more reason, predicted that
the first gale would send the whole of this fairweather armament to
the bottom of the Channel. Indeed the galley, like the ancient trireme,
generally kept close to the shore, and ventured out of sight of land
only when the water was unruffled and the sky serene. But the qualities
which made this sort of ship unfit to brave tempests and billows made it
peculiarly fit for the purpose of landing soldiers. Tourville determined
to try what effect would be produced by a disembarkation. The English
Jacobites who had taken refuge in France were all confident that the
whole population of the island was ready to rally round an invading
army; and he probably gave them credit for understanding the temper of
their countrymen.

Never was there a greater error. Indeed the French admiral is said by
tradition to have received, while he was still out at sea, a lesson
which might have taught him not to rely on the assurances of exiles.
He picked up a fishing boat, and interrogated the owner, a plain Sussex
man, about the sentiments of the nation. "Are you," he said, "for King
James? " "I do not know much about such matters," answered the fisherman.
"I have nothing to say against King James. He is a very worthy
gentleman, I believe. God bless him! " "A good fellow! " said Tourville:
"then I am sure you will have no objection to take service with us. "
"What! " cried the prisoner; "I go with the French to fight against the
English! Your honour must excuse me; I could not do it to save my life. "
[722] This poor fisherman, whether he was a real or an imaginary person,
spoke the sense of the nation. The beacon on the ridge overlooking
Teignmouth was kindled; the High Tor and Causland made answer; and soon
all the hill tops of the West were on re, Messengers were riding hard
all night from Deputy Lieutenant to Deputy Lieutenant. Early the next
morning, without chief, without summons, five hundred gentlemen and
yeomen, armed and mounted, had assembled on the summit of Haldon Hill.
In twenty-four hours all Devonshire was up. Every road in the county
from sea to sea was covered by multitudes of fighting men, all with
their faces set towards Torbay. The lords of a hundred manors, proud of
their long pedigrees and old coats of arms, took the field at the head
of their tenantry, Drakes, Prideauxes and Rolles, Fowell of Fowelscombe
and Fulford of Fulford, Sir Bourchier Wray of Tawstock Park and Sir
William Courtenay of Powderham Castle. Letters written by several of
the Deputy Lieutenants who were most active during this anxious week are
still preserved. All these letters agree in extolling the courage and
enthusiasm of the people. But all agree also in expressing the most
painful solicitude as to the result of an encounter between a raw
militia and veterans who had served under Turenne and Luxemburg; and all
call for the help of regular troops, in language very unlike that which,
when the pressure of danger was not felt, country gentlemen were then in
the habit of using about standing armies.

Tourville, finding that the whole population was united as one man
against him, contented himself with sending his galleys to ravage
Teignmouth, now a gay watering place consisting of twelve hundred
houses, then an obscure village of about forty cottages. The inhabitants
had fled. Their dwellings were burned; the venerable parish church was
sacked, the pulpit and the communion table demolished, the Bibles and
Prayer Books torn and scattered about the roads; the cattle and pigs
were slaughtered; and a few small vessels which were employed in fishing
or in the coasting trade, were destroyed. By this time sixteen or
seventeen thousand Devonshire men had encamped close to the shore; and
all the neighbouring counties had risen. The tin mines of Cornwall had
sent forth a great multitude of rude and hardy men mortally hostile to
Popery. Ten thousand of them had just signed an address to the Queen,
in which they had promised to stand by her against every enemy; and they
now kept their word, [723] In truth, the whole nation was stirred. Two
and twenty troops of cavalry, furnished by Suffolk, Essex, Hertfordshire
and Buckinghamshire, were reviewed by Mary at Hounslow, and were
complimented by Marlborough on their martial appearance. The militia of
Kent and Surrey encamped on Blackheath, [724] Van Citters informed the
States General that all England was up in arms, on foot or on horseback,
that the disastrous event of the battle of Beachy Head had not cowed,
but exasperated the people, and that every company of soldiers which he
passed on the road was shouting with one voice, "God bless King William
and Queen Mary. " [725]

Charles Granville, Lord Lansdowne, eldest son of the Earl of Bath, came
with some troops from the garrison of Plymouth to take the command
of the tumultuary army which had assembled round the basin of Torbay.
Lansdowne was no novice. He had served several hard campaigns against
the common enemy of Christendom, and had been created a Count of the
Roman Empire in reward of the valour which he had displayed on that
memorable day, sung by Filicaja and by Waller, when the infidels retired
from the walls of Vienna. He made preparations for action; but the
French did not choose to attack him, and were indeed impatient to
depart. They found some difficulty in getting away. One day the wind was
adverse to the sailing vessels. Another day the water was too rough for
the galleys. At length the fleet stood out to sea. As the line of ships
turned the lofty cape which overlooks Torquay, an incident happened
which, though slight in itself, greatly interested the thousands who
lined the coast. Two wretched slaves disengaged themselves from an oar,
and sprang overboard. One of them perished. The other, after struggling
more than an hour in the water, came safe to English ground, and was
cordially welcomed by a population to which the discipline of the
galleys was a thing strange and shocking. He proved to be a Turk, and
was humanely sent back to his own country.

A pompous description of the expedition appeared in the Paris Gazette.
But in truth Tourville's exploits had been inglorious, and yet less
inglorious than impolitic. The injury which he had done bore no
proportion to the resentment which he had roused. Hitherto the Jacobites
had tried to persuade the nation that the French would come as friends
and deliverers, would observe strict discipline, would respect the
temples and the ceremonies of the established religion, and would
depart as soon as the Dutch oppressors had been expelled and the ancient
constitution of the realm restored. The short visit of Tourville to our
coast had shown how little reason there was to expect such moderation
from the soldiers of Lewis. They had been in our island only a few
hours, and had occupied only a few acres. But within a few hours and
a few acres had been exhibited in miniature the devastation of the
Palatinate. What had happened was communicated to the whole kingdom far
more rapidly than by gazettes or news letters. A brief for the relief
of the people of Teignmouth was read in all the ten thousand parish
churches of the land. No congregation could hear without emotion that
the Popish marauders had made desolate the habitations of quiet and
humble peasants, had outraged the altars of God, had torn to pieces
the Gospels and the Communion service. A street, built out of the
contributions of the charitable, on the site of the dwellings which the
invaders had destroyed, still retains the name of French Street, [726]

The outcry against those who were, with good reason, suspected of having
invited the enemy to make a descent on our shores was vehement and
general, and was swollen by many voices which had recently been loud in
clamour against the government of William. The question had ceased to
be a question between two dynasties, and had become a question between
England and France. So strong was the national sentiment that nonjurors
and Papists shared or affected to share it. Dryden, not long after
the burning of Teignmouth, laid a play at the feet of Halifax, with
a dedication eminently ingenious, artful, and eloquent. The dramatist
congratulated his patron on having taken shelter in a calm haven from
the storms of public life, and, with great force and beauty of diction,
magnified the felicity of the statesman who exchanges the bustle of
office and the fame of oratory for philosophic studies and domestic
endearments. England could not complain that she was defrauded of the
service to which she had a right. Even the severe discipline of ancient
Rome permitted a soldier, after many campaigns, to claim his dismission;
and Halifax had surely done enough for his country to be entitled to the
same privilege. But the poet added that there was one case in which
the Roman veteran, even after his discharge, was required to resume his
shield and his pilum; and that one case was an invasion of the Gauls.
That a writer who had purchased the smiles of James by apostasy, who had
been driven in disgrace from the court of William, and who had a deeper
interest in the restoration of the exiled House than any man who made
letters his calling, should have used, whether sincerely or insincerely,
such language as this, is a fact which may convince us that the
determination never to be subjugated by foreigners was fixed in the
hearts of the people, [727]

There was indeed a Jacobite literature in which no trace of this
patriotic spirit can be detected, a literature the remains of which
prove that there were Englishmen perfectly willing to see the English
flag dishonoured, the English soil invaded, the English capital sacked,
the English crown worn by a vassal of Lewis, if only they might avenge
themselves on their enemies, and especially on William, whom they hated
with a hatred half frightful half ludicrous. But this literature was
altogether a work of darkness. The law by which the Parliament of James
had subjected the press to the control of censors was still in force;
and, though the officers whose business it was to prevent the infraction
of that law were not extreme to mark every irregularity committed by a
bookseller who understood the art of conveying a guinea in a squeeze
of the hand, they could not wink at the open vending of unlicensed
pamphlets filled with ribald insults to the Sovereign, and with direct
instigations to rebellion. But there had long lurked in the garrets of
London a class of printers who worked steadily at their calling with
precautions resembling those employed by coiners and forgers. Women were
on the watch to give the alarm by their screams if an officer appeared
near the workshop. The press was immediately pushed into a closet
behind the bed; the types were flung into the coalhole, and covered with
cinders: the compositor disappeared through a trapdoor in the roof, and
made off over the tiles of the neighbouring houses. In these dens were
manufactured treasonable works of all classes and sizes, from halfpenny
broadsides of doggrel verse up to massy quartos filled with Hebrew
quotations. It was not safe to exhibit such publications openly on a
counter. They were sold only by trusty agents, and in secret places.
Some tracts which were thought likely to produce a great effect were
given away in immense numbers at the expense of wealthy Jacobites.
Sometimes a paper was thrust under a door, sometimes dropped on the
table of a coffeehouse. One day a thousand copies of a scurrilous
pamphlet went out by the postbags. On another day, when the shopkeepers
rose early to take down their shutters, they found the whole of Fleet
Street and the Strand white with seditious handbills, [728]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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