No More Learning

Commissions were scattered profusely among
idle cosherers who claimed to be descended from good Irish families.
Yet even thus the supply of captains and lieutenants fell short of
the demand; and many companies were commanded by cobblers, tailors and
footmen, [149]

The pay of the soldiers was very small. The private had only threepence
a day. One half only of this pittance was ever given him in money; and
that half was often in arrear. But a far more seductive bait than
his miserable stipend was the prospect of boundless license. If the
government allowed him less than sufficed for his wants, it was not
extreme to mark the means by which he supplied the deficiency. Though
four fifths of the population of Ireland were Celtic and Roman Catholic,
more than four fifths of the property of Ireland belonged to the
Protestant Englishry. The garners, the cellars, above all the flocks
and herds of the minority, were abandoned to the majority. Whatever the
regular troops spared was devoured by bands of marauders who overran
almost every barony in the island. For the arming was now universal. No
man dared to present himself at mass without some weapon, a pike, a
long knife called a skean, or, at the very least, a strong ashen stake,
pointed and hardened in the fire. The very women were exhorted by their
spiritual directors to carry skeans. Every smith, every carpenter,
every cutler, was at constant work on guns and blades. It was scarcely
possible to get a horse shod. If any Protestant artisan refused to
assist in the manufacture of implements which were to be used against
his nation and his religion, he was flung into prison. It seems probable
that, at the end of February, at least a hundred thousand Irishmen
were in arms. Near fifty thousand of them were soldiers. The rest were
banditti, whose violence and licentiousness the Government affected to
disapprove, but did not really exert itself to suppress. The Protestants
not only were not protected, but were not suffered to protect
themselves. It was determined that they should be left unarmed in the
midst of an armed and hostile population. A day was fixed on which they
were to bring all their swords and firelocks to the parish churches; and
it was notified that every Protestant house in which, after that day, a
weapon should be found should be given up to be sacked by the soldiers.
Bitter complaints were made that any knave might, by hiding a spear head
or an old gun barrel in a corner of a mansion, bring utter ruin on the
owner, [150]

Chief Justice Keating, himself a Protestant, and almost the only
Protestant who still held a great place in Ireland, struggled
courageously in the cause of justice and order against the united
strength of the government and the populace. At the Wicklow assizes
of that spring, he, from the seat of judgment, set forth with great
strength of language the miserable state of the country. Whole counties,
he said, were devastated by a rabble resembling the vultures and ravens
which follow the march of an army. Most of these wretches were not
soldiers. They acted under no authority known to the law. Yet it was,
he owned, but too evident that they were encouraged and screened by some
who were in high command. How else could it be that a market overt
for plunder should be held within a short distance of the capital? The
stories which travellers told of the savage Hottentots near the Cape of
Good Hope were realised in Leinster. Nothing was more common than for an
honest man to lie down rich in flocks and herds acquired by the industry
of a long life, and to wake a beggar. It was however to small purpose
that Keating attempted, in the midst of that fearful anarchy, to uphold
the supremacy of the law. Priests and military chiefs appeared on the
bench for the purpose of overawing the judge and countenancing the
robbers. One ruffian escaped because no prosecutor dared to appear.
Another declared that he had armed himself in conformity to the orders
of his spiritual guide, and to the example of many persons of higher
station than himself, whom he saw at that moment in Court. Two only of
the Merry Boys, as they were called, were convicted: the worst criminals
escaped; and the Chief justice indignantly told the jurymen that the
guilt of the public ruin lay at their door, [151]

When such disorder prevailed in Wicklow, it is easy to imagine what must
have been the state of districts more barbarous and more remote from the
seat of government. Keating appears to have been the only magistrate who
strenuously exerted himself to put the law in force. Indeed Nugent, the
Chief justice of the highest criminal court of the realm, declared on
the bench at Cork that, without violence and spoliation, the intentions
of the Government could not be carried into effect, and that robbery
must at that conjuncture be tolerated as a necessary evil, [152]

The destruction of property which took place within a few weeks would be
incredible, if it were not attested by witnesses unconnected with each
other and attached to very different interests. There is a close, and
sometimes almost a verbal, agreement between the description given by
Protestants, who, during that reign of terror, escaped, at the hazard
of their lives, to England, and the descriptions given by the envoys,
commissaries, and captains of Lewis. All agreed in declaring that it
would take many years to repair the waste which had been wrought in a
few weeks by the armed peasantry, [153] Some of the Saxon aristocracy
had mansions richly furnished, and sideboards gorgeous with silver bowls
and chargers. All this wealth disappeared. One house, in which there had
been three thousand pounds' worth of plate, was left without a spoon,
[154] But the chief riches of Ireland consisted in cattle. Innumerable
flocks and herds covered that vast expanse of emerald meadow, saturated
with the moisture of the Atlantic. More than one gentleman possessed
twenty thousand sheep and four thousand oxen. The freebooters who now
overspread the country belonged to a class which was accustomed to
live on potatoes and sour whey, and which had always regarded meat as
a luxury reserved for the rich. These men at first revelled in beef and
mutton, as the savage invaders, who of old poured down from the forests
of the north on Italy, revelled in Massic and Falernian wines. The
Protestants described with contemptuous disgust the strange gluttony of
their newly liberated slaves. The carcasses, half raw and half burned
to cinders, sometimes still bleeding, sometimes in a state of loathsome
decay, were torn to pieces and swallowed without salt, bread, or herbs.
Those marauders who preferred boiled meat, being often in want of
kettles, contrived to boil the steer in his own skin. An absurd
tragicomedy is still extant, which was acted in this and the following
year at some low theatre for the amusement of the English populace. A
crowd of half naked savages appeared on the stage, howling a Celtic song
and dancing round an ox. They then proceeded to cut steaks out of the
animal while still alive and to fling the bleeding flesh on the coals.
In truth the barbarity and filthiness of the banquets of the Rapparees
was such as the dramatists of Grub Street could scarcely caricature.
When Lent began, the plunderers generally ceased to devour, but
continued to destroy. A peasant would kill a cow merely in order to get
a pair of brogues. Often a whole flock of sheep, often a herd of fifty
or sixty kine, was slaughtered: the beasts were flayed; the fleeces and
hides were carried away; and the bodies were left to poison the air.
The French ambassador reported to his master that, in six weeks, fifty
thousand horned cattle had been slain in this manner, and were rotting
on the ground all over the country. The number of sheep that were
butchered during the same time was popularly said to have been three or
four hundred thousand, [155]

Any estimate which can now be framed of the value of the property
destroyed during this fearful conflict of races must necessarily be very
inexact. We are not however absolutely without materials for such an
estimate. The Quakers were neither a very numerous nor a very opulent
class. We can hardly suppose that they were more than a fiftieth part of
the Protestant population of Ireland, or that they possessed more than a
fiftieth part of the Protestant wealth of Ireland. They were undoubtedly
better treated than any other Protestant sect. James had always been
partial to them: they own that Tyrconnel did his best to protect them;
and they seem to have found favour even in the sight of the Rapparees,
[156] Yet the Quakers computed their pecuniary losses at a hundred
thousand pounds, [157]

In Leinster, Munster and Connaught, it was utterly impossible for the
English settlers, few as they were and dispersed, to offer any effectual
resistance to this terrible outbreak of the aboriginal population.
Charleville, Mallow, Sligo, fell into the hands of the natives. Bandon,
where the Protestants had mustered in considerable force, was reduced by
Lieutenant General Macarthy, an Irish officer who was descended from one
of the most illustrious Celtic houses, and who had long served, under a
feigned name, in the French Army, [158] The people of Kenmare held
out in their little fastness till they were attacked by three thousand
regular soldiers, and till it was known that several pieces of ordnance
were coming to batter down the turf wall which surrounded the agent's
house. Then at length a capitulation was concluded. The colonists were
suffered to embark in a small vessel scantily supplied with food and
water. They had no experienced navigator on board: but after a voyage
of a fortnight, during which they were crowded together like slaves in
a Guinea ship, and suffered the extremity of thirst and hunger, they
reached Bristol in safety, [159] When such was the fate of the towns, it
was evident that the country seats which the Protestant landowners had
recently fortified in the three southern provinces could no longer be
defended. Many families submitted, delivered up their arms, and
thought themselves happy in escaping with life. But many resolute and
highspirited gentlemen and yeomen were determined to perish rather than
yield. They packed up such valuable property as could easily be carried
away, burned whatever they could not remove, and, well armed and
mounted, set out for those spots in Ulster which were the strongholds of
their race and of their faith. The flower of the Protestant population
of Munster and Connaught found shelter at Enniskillen. Whatever was
bravest and most truehearted in Leinster took the road to Londonderry,
[160]

The spirit of Enniskillen and Londonderry rose higher and higher to
meet the danger. At both places the tidings of what had been done by the
Convention at Westminster were received with transports of joy. William
and Mary were proclaimed at Enniskillen with unanimous enthusiasm,
and with such pomp as the little town could furnish, [161] Lundy, who
commanded at Londonderry, could not venture to oppose himself to the
general sentiment of the citizens and of his own soldiers. He therefore
gave in his adhesion to the new government, and signed a declaration
by which he bound himself to stand by that government, on pain of being
considered a coward and a traitor. A vessel from England soon brought
a commission from William and Mary which confirmed him in his office,
[162]

To reduce the Protestants of Ulster to submission before aid could
arrive from England was now the chief object of Tyrconnel. A great force
was ordered to move northward, under the command of Richard Hamilton.
This man had violated all the obligations which are held most sacred by
gentlemen and soldiers, had broken faith with his friends the Temples,
had forfeited his military parole, and was now not ashamed to take
the field as a general against the government to which he was bound
to render himself up as a prisoner. His march left on the face of the
country traces which the most careless eye could not during many years
fail to discern. His army was accompanied by a rabble, such as Keating
had well compared to the unclean birds of prey which swarm wherever the
scent of carrion is strong. The general professed himself anxious to
save from ruin and outrage all Protestants who remained quietly at their
homes; and he most readily gave them protections tinder his hand. But
these protections proved of no avail; and he was forced to own that,
whatever power he might be able to exercise over his soldiers, he could
not keep order among the mob of campfollowers. The country behind
him was a wilderness; and soon the country before him became equally
desolate. For at the fame of his approach the colonists burned their
furniture, pulled down their houses, and retreated northward. Some
of them attempted to make a stand at Dromore, but were broken and
scattered. Then the flight became wild and tumultuous. The fugitives
broke down the bridges and burned the ferryboats. Whole towns, the seats
of the Protestant population, were left in ruins without one inhabitant.
The people of Omagh destroyed their own dwellings so utterly that no
roof was left to shelter the enemy from the rain and wind. The people of
Cavan migrated in one body to Enniskillen. The day was wet and stormy.
The road was deep in mire. It was a piteous sight to see, mingled with
the armed men, the women and children weeping, famished, and toiling
through the mud up to their knees. All Lisburn fled to Antrim; and, as
the foes drew nearer, all Lisburn and Antrim together came pouring into
Londonderry. Thirty thousand Protestants, of both sexes and of every
age, were crowded behind the bulwarks of the City of Refuge. There, at
length, on the verge of the ocean, hunted to the last asylum, and
baited into a mood in which men may be destroyed, but will not easily be
subjugated, the imperial race turned desperately to bay, [163]

Meanwhile Mountjoy and Rice had arrived in France. Mountjoy was
instantly put under arrest and thrown into the Bastile. James determined
to comply with the invitation which Rice had brought, and applied to
Lewis for the help of a French army. But Lewis, though he showed, as to
all things which concerned the personal dignity and comfort of his
royal guests, a delicacy even romantic, and a liberality approaching to
profusion, was unwilling to send a large body of troops to Ireland.
He saw that France would have to maintain a long war on the Continent
against a formidable coalition: her expenditure must be immense; and,
great as were her resources, he felt it to be important that nothing
should be wasted. He doubtless regarded with sincere commiseration and
good will the unfortunate exiles to whom he had given so princely a
welcome. Yet neither commiseration nor good will could prevent him from
speedily discovering that his brother of England was the dullest and
most perverse of human beings. The folly of James, his incapacity to
read the characters of men and the signs of the times, his obstinacy,
always most offensively displayed when wisdom enjoined concession,
his vacillation, always exhibited most pitiably in emergencies which
required firmness, had made him an outcast from England, and might, if
his counsels were blindly followed, bring great calamities on France.
As a legitimate sovereign expelled by rebels, as a confessor of the true
faith persecuted by heretics, as a near kinsman of the House of Bourbon,
who had seated himself on the hearth of that House, he was entitled to
hospitality, to tenderness, to respect. It was fit that he should have
a stately palace and a spacious forest, that the household troops should
salute him with the highest military honours, that he should have at his
command all the hounds of the Grand Huntsman and all the hawks of the
Grand Falconer. But, when a prince, who, at the head of a great fleet
and army, had lost an empire without striking a blow, undertook to
furnish plans for naval and military expeditions; when a prince, who
had been undone by his profound ignorance of the temper of his own
countrymen, of his own soldiers, of his own domestics, of his own
children, undertook to answer for the zeal and fidelity of the Irish
people, whose language he could not speak, and on whose land he had
never set his foot; it was necessary to receive his suggestions with
caution. Such were the sentiments of Lewis; and in these sentiments he
was confirmed by his Minister of War Louvois, who, on private as well as
on public grounds, was unwilling that James should be accompanied by
a large military force. Louvois hated Lauzun. Lauzun was favourite at
Saint Germains. He wore the garter, a badge of honour which has very
seldom been conferred on aliens who were not sovereign princes. It was
believed indeed at the French Court that, in order to distinguish him
from the other knights of the most illustrious of European orders, he
had been decorated with that very George which Charles the First had,
on the scaffold, put into the hands of Juxon, [164] Lauzun had been
encouraged to hope that, if French forces were sent to Ireland, he
should command them; and this ambitious hope Louvois was bent on
disappointing, [165]

An army was therefore for the present refused; but every thing else was
granted. The Brest fleet was ordered to be in readiness to sail. Arms
for ten thousand men and great quantities of ammunition were put on
board. About four hundred captains, lieutenants, cadets and gunners were
selected for the important service of organizing and disciplining the
Irish levies. The chief command was held by a veteran warrior, the
Count of Rosen. Under him were Maumont, who held the rank of lieutenant
general, and a brigadier named Pusignan. Five hundred thousand crowns in
gold, equivalent to about a hundred and twelve thousand pounds sterling,
were sent to Brest, [166] For James's personal comforts provision was
made with anxiety resembling that of a tender mother equipping her
son for a first campaign. The cabin furniture, the camp furniture, the
tents, the bedding, the plate, were luxurious and superb. Nothing,
which could be agreeable or useful to the exile was too costly for the
munificence, or too trifling for the attention, of his gracious and
splendid host. On the fifteenth of February, James paid a farewell visit
to Versailles. He was conducted round the buildings and plantations with
every mark of respect and kindness. The fountains played in his honour.
It was the season of the Carnival; and never had the vast palace and
the sumptuous gardens presented a gayer aspect. In the evening the
two kings, after a long and earnest conference in private, made their
appearance before a splendid circle of lords and ladies. "I hope," said
Lewis, in his noblest and most winning manner, "that we are about to
part, never to meet again in this world. That is the best wish that I
can form for you. But, if any evil chance should force you to return,
be assured that you will find me to the last such as you have found me
hitherto. " On the seventeenth Lewis paid in return a farewell visit to
Saint Germains. At the moment of the parting embrace he said, with
his most amiable smile: "We have forgotten one thing, a cuirass for
yourself. You shall have mine. " The cuirass was brought, and suggested
to the wits of the Court ingenious allusions to the Vulcanian panoply
which Achilles lent to his feebler friend. James set out for Brest; and
his wife, overcome with sickness and sorrow, shut herself up with her
child to weep and pray, [167]

James was accompanied or speedily followed by several of his own
subjects, among whom the most distinguished were his son Berwick,
Cartwright Bishop of Chester, Powis, Dover, and Melfort. Of all the
retinue, none was so odious to the people of Great Britain as Melfort.
He was an apostate: he was believed by many to be an insincere apostate;
and the insolent, arbitrary and menacing language of his state papers
disgusted even the Jacobites. He was therefore a favourite with his
master: for to James unpopularity, obstinacy, and implacability were the
greatest recommendations that a statesman could have.

What Frenchman should attend the King of England in the character of
ambassador had been the subject of grave deliberation at Versailles.
Barillon could not be passed over without a marked slight. But his
selfindulgent habits, his want of energy, and, above all, the credulity
with which he had listened to the professions of Sunderland, had made
an unfavourable impression on the mind of Lewis. What was to be done
in Ireland was not work for a trifler or a dupe. The agent of France in
that kingdom must be equal to much more than the ordinary functions of
an envoy. It would be his right and his duty to offer advice touching
every part of the political and military administration of the country
in which he would represent the most powerful and the most beneficent
of allies. Barillon was therefore passed over. He affected to bear his
disgrace with composure. His political career, though it had brought
great calamities both on the House of Stuart and on the House of
Bourbon, had been by no means unprofitable to himself. He was old, he
said: he was fat: he did not envy younger men the honour of living
on potatoes and whiskey among the Irish bogs; he would try to console
himself with partridges, with champagne, and with the society of the
wittiest men and prettiest women of Paris. It was rumoured, however that
he was tortured by painful emotions which he was studious to conceal:
his health and spirits failed; and he tried to find consolation in
religious duties. Some people were much edified by the piety of the old
voluptuary: but others attributed his death, which took place not long
after his retreat from public life, to shame and vexation, [168]

The Count of Avaux, whose sagacity had detected all the plans of
William, and who had vainly recommended a policy which would probably
have frustrated them, was the man on whom the choice of Lewis fell. In
abilities Avaux had no superior among the numerous able diplomatists
whom his country then possessed. His demeanour was singularly pleasing,
his person handsome, his temper bland. His manners and conversation
were those of a gentleman who had been bred in the most polite and
magnificent of all Courts, who had represented that Court both in
Roman Catholic and Protestant countries, and who had acquired in his
wanderings the art of catching the tone of any society into which
chance might throw him. He was eminently vigilant and adroit, fertile in
resources, and skilful in discovering the weak parts of a character.
His own character, however, was not without its weak parts. The
consciousness that he was of plebeian origin was the torment of
his life. He pined for nobility with a pining at once pitiable and
ludicrous. Able, experienced and accomplished as he was, he sometimes,
under the influence of this mental disease, descended to the level of
Moliere's Jourdain, and entertained malicious observers with scenes
almost as laughable as that in which the honest draper was made a
Mamamouchi, [169] It would have been well if this had been the worst.
But it is not too much to say that of the difference between right and
wrong Avaux had no more notion than a brute. One sentiment was to him
in the place of religion and morality, a superstitious and intolerant
devotion to the Crown which he served. This sentiment pervades all his
despatches, and gives a colour to all his thoughts and words. Nothing
that tended to promote the interest of the French monarchy seemed to him
a crime. Indeed he appears to have taken it for granted that not only
Frenchmen, but all human beings, owed a natural allegiance to the House
of Bourbon, and that whoever hesitated to sacrifice the happiness and
freedom of his own native country to the glory of that House was a
traitor. While he resided at the Hague, he always designated those
Dutchmen who had sold themselves to France as the well intentioned
party. In the letters which he wrote from Ireland, the same feeling
appears still more strongly. He would have been a more sagacious
politician if he had sympathized more with those feelings of moral
approbation and disapprobation which prevail among the vulgar. For his
own indifference to all considerations of justice and mercy was such
that, in his schemes, he made no allowance for the consciences and
sensibilities of his neighbours. More than once he deliberately
recommended wickedness so horrible that wicked men recoiled from it with
indignation. But they could not succeed even in making their scruples
intelligible to him. To every remonstrance he listened with a cynical
sneer, wondering within himself whether those who lectured him were such
fools as they professed to be, or were only shamming.

Such was the man whom Lewis selected to be the companion and monitor of
James. Avaux was charged to open, if possible, a communication with the
malecontents in the English Parliament; and he was authorised to expend,
if necessary, a hundred thousand crowns among them.

James arrived at Brest on the fifth of March, embarked there on board
of a man of war called the Saint Michael, and sailed within forty-eight
hours. He had ample time, however, before his departure, to exhibit some
of the faults by which he had lost England and Scotland, and by which he
was about to lose Ireland. Avaux wrote from the harbour of Brest that it
would not be easy to conduct any important business in concert with the
King of England. His Majesty could not keep any secret from any body.
The very foremast men of the Saint Michael had already heard him
say things which ought to have been reserved for the ears of his
confidential advisers, [170]

The voyage was safely and quietly performed; and, on the afternoon of
the twelfth of March, James landed in the harbour of Kinsale. By the
Roman Catholic population he was received with shouts of unfeigned
transport. The few Protestants who remained in that part of the country
joined in greeting him, and perhaps not insincerely. For, though an
enemy of their religion, he was not an enemy of their nation; and they
might reasonably hope that the worst king would show somewhat more
respect for law and property than had been shown by the Merry Boys and
Rapparees. The Vicar of Kinsale was among those who went to pay
their duty: he was presented by the Bishop of Chester, and was not
ungraciously received, [171]

James learned that his cause was prospering. In the three southern
provinces of Ireland the Protestants were disarmed, and were so
effectually bowed down by terror that he had nothing to apprehend from
them. In the North there was some show of resistance: but Hamilton was
marching against the malecontents; and there was little doubt that they
would easily be crushed. A day was spent at Kinsale in putting the arms
and ammunition out of reach of danger. Horses sufficient to carry a few
travellers were with some difficulty procured; and, on the fourteenth of
March, James proceeded to Cork, [172]

We should greatly err if we imagined that the road by which he entered
that city bore any resemblance to the stately approach which strikes the
traveller of the nineteenth century with admiration. At present Cork,
though deformed by many miserable relics of a former age, holds no mean
place among the ports of the empire. The shipping is more than half what
the shipping of London was at the time of the Revolution. The customs
exceed the whole revenue which the whole kingdom of Ireland, in the
most peaceful and prosperous times, yielded to the Stuarts. The town
is adorned by broad and well built streets, by fair gardens, by a
Corinthian portico which would do honour to Palladio, and by a Gothic
college worthy to stand in the High Street of Oxford. In 1689, the city
extended over about one tenth part of the space which it now covers,
and was intersected by muddy streams, which have long been concealed
by arches and buildings. A desolate marsh, in which the sportsman who
pursued the waterfowl sank deep in water and mire at every step,
covered the area now occupied by stately buildings, the palaces of
great commercial societies. There was only a single street in which two
wheeled carriages could pass each other. From this street diverged to
right and left alleys squalid and noisome beyond the belief of those
who have formed their notions of misery from the most miserable parts
of Saint Giles's and Whitechapel. One of these alleys, called, and, by
comparison, justly called, Broad Lane, is about ten feet wide. From
such places, now seats of hunger and pestilence, abandoned to the most
wretched of mankind, the citizens poured forth to welcome James. He was
received with military honours by Macarthy, who held the chief command
in Munster.

It was impossible for the King to proceed immediately to Dublin; for the
southern counties had been so completely laid waste by the banditti whom
the priests had called to arms, that the means of locomotion were not
easily to be procured. Horses had become rarities: in a large district
there were only two carts; and those Avaux pronounced good for nothing.
Some days elapsed before the money which had been brought from France,
though no very formidable mass, could be dragged over the few miles
which separated Cork from Kinsale, [173]

While the King and his Council were employed in trying to procure
carriages and beasts, Tyrconnel arrived from Dublin. He held encouraging
language. The opposition of Enniskillen he seems to have thought
deserving of little consideration. Londonderry, he said, was the only
important post held by the Protestants; and even Londonderry would not,
in his judgment, hold out many days.

At length James was able to leave Cork for the capital.
On the road,
the shrewd and observant Avaux made many remarks. The first part of the
journey was through wild highlands, where it was not strange that there
should be few traces of art and industry. But, from Kilkenny to the
gates of Dublin, the path of the travellers lay over gently undulating
ground rich with natural verdure. That fertile district should have been
covered with flocks and herds, orchards and cornfields: but it was an
unfilled and unpeopled desert. Even in the towns the artisans were very
few. Manufactured articles were hardly to be found, and if found could
be procured only at immense prices, [174] The truth was that most of the
English inhabitants had fled, and that art, industry, and capital had
fled with them.

James received on his progress numerous marks of the goodwill of the
peasantry; but marks such as, to men bred in the courts of France
and England, had an uncouth and ominous appearance. Though very few
labourers were seen at work in the fields, the road was lined by
Rapparees armed with skeans, stakes, and half pikes, who crowded to look
upon the deliverer of their race. The highway along which he travelled
presented the aspect of a street in which a fair is held. Pipers came
forth to play before him in a style which was not exactly that of the
French opera; and the villagers danced wildly to the music. Long frieze
mantles, resembling those which Spenser had, a century before, described
as meet beds for rebels, and apt cloaks for thieves, were spread along
the path which the cavalcade was to tread; and garlands, in which
cabbage stalks supplied the place of laurels, were offered to the royal
hand. The women insisted on kissing his Majesty; but it should seem that
they bore little resemblance to their posterity; for this compliment
was so distasteful to him that he ordered his retinue to keep them at a
distance, [175]

On the twenty-fourth of March he entered Dublin. That city was then,
in extent and population, the second in the British isles. It contained
between six and seven thousand houses, and probably above thirty
thousand inhabitants, [176] In wealth and beauty, however, Dublin was
inferior to many English towns. Of the graceful and stately public
buildings which now adorn both sides of the Liffey scarcely one had been
even projected. The College, a very different edifice from that which
now stands on the same site, lay quite out of the city, [177] The ground
which is at present occupied by Leinster House and Charlemont House,
by Sackville Street and Merrion Square, was open meadow. Most of the
dwellings were built of timber, and have long given place to more
substantial edifices. The Castle had in 1686 been almost uninhabitable.
Clarendon had complained that he knew of no gentleman in Pall Mall who
was not more conveniently and handsomely lodged than the Lord Lieutenant
of Ireland. No public ceremony could be performed in a becoming manner
under the Viceregal roof. Nay, in spite of constant glazing and tiling,
the rain perpetually drenched the apartments, [178] Tyrconnel, since he
became Lord Deputy, had erected a new building somewhat more commodious.
To this building the King was conducted in state through the southern
part of the city. Every exertion had been made to give an air of
festivity and splendour to the district which he was to traverse. The
streets, which were generally deep in mud, were strewn with gravel.
Boughs and flowers were scattered over the path.

Tapestry and arras hung from the windows of those who could afford to
exhibit such finery. The poor supplied the place of rich stuffs with
blankets and coverlids. In one place was stationed a troop of friars
with a cross; in another a company of forty girls dressed in white and
carrying nosegays. Pipers and harpers played "The King shall enjoy
his own again. " The Lord Deputy carried the sword of state before his
master. The Judges, the Heralds, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, appeared
in all the pomp of office. Soldiers were drawn up on the right and left
to keep the passages clear. 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.