" "However meanly you may think of
us," replied Sarsfield, "change Kings with us, and we will willingly try
our luck with you again.
us," replied Sarsfield, "change Kings with us, and we will willingly try
our luck with you again.
Macaulay
"We will drive them before us to the walls of
Dublin. " But fortune was already on the turn. Mackay and Ruvigny, with
the English and Huguenot cavalry, had succeeded in passing the bog at
a place where two horsemen could scarcely ride abreast. Saint Ruth at
first laughed when he saw the Blues, in single file, struggling through
the morass under a fire which every moment laid some gallant hat and
feather on the earth. "What do they mean? " he asked; and then he
swore that it was pity to see such fine fellows rushing to certain
destruction. "Let them cross, however;" he said. "The more they are,
the more we shall kill. " But soon he saw them laying hurdles on the
quagmire. A broader and safer path was formed; squadron after squadron
reached firm ground: the flank of the Irish army was speedily turned.
The French general was hastening to the rescue when a cannon ball
carried off his head. Those who were about him thought that it would
be dangerous to make his fate known. His corpse was wrapped in a cloak,
carried from the field, and laid, with all secresy, in the sacred ground
among the ruins of the ancient monastery of Loughrea. Till the fight was
over neither army was aware that he was no more. To conceal his death
from the private soldiers might perhaps have been prudent. To conceal it
from his lieutenants was madness. The crisis of the battle had arrived;
and there was none to give direction. Sarsfield was in command of the
reserve. But he had been strictly enjoined by Saint Ruth not to stir
without orders; and no orders came. Mackay and Ruvigny with their horse
charged the Irish in flank. Talmash and his foot returned to the attack
in front with dogged determination. The breastwork was carried. The
Irish, still fighting, retreated from inclosure to inclosure. But, as
inclosure after inclosure was forced, their efforts became fainter
and fainter. At length they broke and fled. Then followed a horrible
carnage. The conquerors were in a savage mood. For a report had been
spread among them that, during the early part of the battle, some
English captives who had been admitted to quarter had been put to the
sword. Only four hundred prisoners were taken. The number of the slain
was, in proportion to the number engaged, greater than in any other
battle of that age. But for the coming on of a moonless night, made
darker by a misty rain, scarcely a man would have escaped. The obscurity
enabled Sarsfield, with a few squadrons which still remained unbroken,
to cover the retreat. Of the conquerors six hundred were killed, and
about a thousand wounded.
The English slept that night on the field of battle. On the following
day they buried their companions in arms, and then marched westward.
The vanquished were left unburied, a strange and ghastly spectacle. Four
thousand Irish corpses were counted on the field of battle. A hundred
and fifty lay in one small inclosure, a hundred and twenty in another.
But the slaughter had not been confined to the field of battle. One who
was there tells us that, from the top of the hill on which the Celtic
camp had been pitched, he saw the country, to the distance of near four
miles, white with the naked bodies of the slain. The plain looked, he
said, like an immense pasture covered by flocks of sheep. As usual,
different estimates were formed even by eyewitnesses. But it seems
probable that the number of the Irish who fell was not less than seven
thousand. Soon a multitude of dogs came to feast on the carnage. These
beasts became so fierce, and acquired such a taste for human flesh,
that it was long dangerous for men to travel this road otherwise than in
companies. [108]
The beaten army had now lost all the appearance of an army, and
resembled a rabble crowding home from a fair after a faction fight. One
great stream of fugitives ran towards Galway, another towards Limerick.
The roads to both cities were covered with weapons which had been flung
away. Ginkell offered sixpence for every musket. In a short time so many
waggon loads were collected that he reduced the price to twopence; and
still great numbers of muskets came in. [109]
The conquerors marched first against Galway. D'Usson was there, and
had under him seven regiments, thinned by the slaughter of Aghrim and
utterly disorganized and disheartened. The last hope of the garrison
and of the Roman Catholic inhabitants was that Baldearg O'Donnel, the
promised deliverer of their race, would come to the rescue. But Baldearg
O'Donnel was not duped by the superstitious veneration of which he
was the object. While there remained any doubt about the issue of the
conflict between the Englishry and the Irishry, he had stood aloof.
On the day of the battle he had remained at a safe distance with his
tumultuary army; and, as soon as he had learned that his countrymen had
been put to rout, he fled, plundering and burning all the way, to the
mountains of Mayo. Thence he sent to Ginkell offers of submission
and service. Ginkell gladly seized the opportunity of breaking up
a formidable band of marauders, and of turning to good account the
influence which the name of a Celtic dynasty still exercised over the
Celtic race. The negotiation however was not without difficulties. The
wandering adventurer at first demanded nothing less than an earldom.
After some haggling he consented to sell the love of a whole people, and
his pretensions to regal dignity, for a pension of five hundred pounds a
year. Yet the spell which bound his followers to hire was not altogether
broken. Some enthusiasts from Ulster were willing to fight under the
O'Donnel against their own language and their own religion. With a small
body of these devoted adherents, he joined a division of the English
army, and on several occasions did useful service to William. [110]
When it was known that no succour was to be expected from the hero whose
advent had been foretold by so many seers, the Irish who were shut up in
Galway lost all heart. D'Usson had returned a stout answer to the
first summons of the besiegers; but he soon saw that resistance was
impossible, and made haste to capitulate. The garrison was suffered
to retire to Limerick with the honours of war. A full amnesty for past
offences was granted to the citizens; and it was stipulated that, within
the walls, the Roman Catholic priests should be allowed to perform
in private the rites of their religion. On these terms the gates were
thrown open. Ginkell was received with profound respect by the Mayor and
Aldermen, and was complimented in a set speech by the Recorder. D'Usson,
with about two thousand three hundred men, marched unmolested to
Limerick. [111]
At Limerick, the last asylum of the vanquished race, the authority of
Tyrconnel was supreme. There was now no general who could pretend that
his commission made him independent of the Lord Lieutenant; nor was the
Lord Lieutenant now so unpopular as he had been a fortnight earlier.
Since the battle there had been a reflux of public feeling. No part of
that great disaster could be imputed to the Viceroy. His opinion indeed
had been against trying the chances of a pitched field, and he could
with some plausibility assert that the neglect of his counsels had
caused the ruin of Ireland. [112]
He made some preparations for defending Limerick, repaired the
fortifications, and sent out parties to bring in provisions. The
country, many miles round, was swept bare by these detachments, and
a considerable quantity of cattle and fodder was collected within the
walls. There was also a large stock of biscuit imported from France.
The infantry assembled at Limerick were about fifteen thousand men.
The Irish horse and dragoons, three or four thousand in number, were
encamped on the Clare side of the Shannon. The communication between
their camp and the city was maintained by means of a bridge called the
Thomond Bridge, which was protected by a fort. These means of defence
were not contemptible. But the fall of Athlone and the slaughter of
Aghrim had broken the spirit of the army. A small party, at the head of
which were Sarsfield and a brave Scotch officer named Wauchop, cherished
a hope that the triumphant progress of Ginkell might be stopped by those
walls from which William had, in the preceding year, been forced to
retreat. But many of the Irish chiefs loudly declared that it was
time to think of capitulating. Henry Luttrell, always fond of dark and
crooked politics, opened a secret negotiation with the English. One of
his letters was intercepted; and he was put under arrest; but many
who blamed his perfidy agreed with him in thinking that it was idle to
prolong the contest. Tyrconnel himself was convinced that all was lost.
His only hope was that he might be able to prolong the struggle till
he could receive from Saint Germains permission to treat. He wrote to
request that permission, and prevailed, with some difficulty, on his
desponding countrymen to bind themselves by an oath not to capitulate
till an answer from James should arrive. [113]
A few days after the oath had been administered, Tyrconnel was no more.
On the eleventh of August he dined with D'Usson. The party was gay. The
Lord Lieutenant seemed to have thrown off the load which had bowed down
his body and mind; he drank; he jested; he was again the Dick Talbot
who had diced and revelled with Grammont. Soon after he had risen from
table, an apoplectic stroke deprived him of speech and sensation. On the
fourteenth he breathed his last. The wasted remains of that form which
had once been a model for statuaries were laid under the pavement of the
Cathedral; but no inscription, no tradition, preserves the memory of the
spot. [114]
As soon as the Lord Lieutenant was no more, Plowden, who had
superintended the Irish finances while there were any Irish finances to
superintend, produced a commission under the great seal of James. This
commission appointed Plowden himself, Fitton and Nagle, Lords justices
in the event of Tyrconnel's death. There was much murmuring when the
names were made known. For both Plowden and Fitton were Saxons. The
commission, however, proved to be a mere nullity. For it was accompanied
by instructions which forbade the Lords justices to interfere in the
conduct of the war; and, within the narrow space to which the dominions
of James were now reduced, war was the only business. The government
was, therefore, really in the hands of D'Usson and Sarsfield. [115]
On the day on which Tyrconnel died, the advanced guard of the English
army came within sight of Limerick. Ginkell encamped on the same ground
which William had occupied twelve months before. The batteries, on which
were planted guns and bombs, very different from those which William had
been forced to use, played day and night; and soon roofs were blazing
and walls crashing in every corner of the city. Whole streets were
reduced to ashes. Meanwhile several English ships of war came up the
Shannon and anchored about a mile below the city. [116]
Still the place held out; the garrison was, in numerical strength,
little inferior to the besieging army; and it seemed not impossible
that the defence might be prolonged till the equinoctial rains should a
second time compel the English to retire. Ginkell determined on striking
a bold stroke. No point in the whole circle of the fortifications was
more important, and no point seemed to be more secure, than the Thomond
Bridge, which joined the city to the camp of the Irish horse on the
Clare bank of the Shannon. The Dutch General's plan was to separate the
infantry within the ramparts from the cavalry without; and this plan he
executed with great skill, vigour and success. He laid a bridge of
tin boats on the river, crossed it with a strong body of troops, drove
before him in confusion fifteen hundred dragoons who made a faint show
of resistance, and marched towards the quarters of the Irish horse. The
Irish horse sustained but ill on this day the reputation which they had
gained at the Boyne. Indeed, that reputation had been purchased by
the almost entire destruction of the best regiments. Recruits had been
without much difficulty found. But the loss of fifteen hundred excellent
soldiers was not to be repaired. The camp was abandoned without a blow.
Some of the cavalry fled into the city. The rest, driving before them
as many cattle as could be collected in that moment of panic, retired to
the hills. Much beef, brandy and harness was found in the magazines; and
the marshy plain of the Shannon was covered with firelocks and grenades
which the fugitives had thrown away. [117]
The conquerors returned in triumph to their camp. But Ginkell was not
content with the advantage which he had gained. He was bent on cutting
off all communication between Limerick and the county of Clare. In a
few days, therefore, he again crossed the river at the head of several
regiments, and attacked the fort which protected the Thomond Bridge. In
a short time the fort was stormed. The soldiers who had garrisoned it
fled in confusion to the city. The Town Major, a French officer, who
commanded at the Thomond Gate, afraid that the pursuers would enter with
the fugitives, ordered that part of the bridge which was nearest to the
city to be drawn up. Many of the Irish went headlong into the stream and
perished there. Others cried for quarter, and held up handkerchiefs
in token of submission. But the conquerors were mad with rage; their
cruelty could not be immediately restrained; and no prisoners were made
till the heaps of corpses rose above the parapets. The garrison of the
fort had consisted of about eight hundred men. Of these only a hundred
and twenty escaped into Limerick. [118]
This disaster seemed likely to produce a general mutiny in the besieged
city. The Irish clamoured for the blood of the Town Major who
had ordered the bridge to be drawn up in the face of their flying
countrymen. His superiors were forced to promise that he should be
brought before a court martial. Happily for him, he had received a
mortal wound, in the act of closing the Thomond Gate, and was saved by
a soldier's death from the fury of the multitude. [119] The cry for
capitulation became so loud and importunate that the generals could not
resist it. D'Usson informed his government that the fight at the
bridge had so effectually cowed the spirit of the garrison that it was
impossible to continue the struggle. [120] Some exception may perhaps
be taken to the evidence of D'Usson; for undoubtedly he, like every
Frenchman who had held any command in the Irish army, was weary of his
banishment, and impatient to see Paris again. But it is certain that
even Sarsfield had lost heart. Up to this time his voice had been for
stubborn resistance. He was now not only willing, but impatient to
treat. [121] It seemed to him that the city was doomed. There was no
hope of succour, domestic or foreign. In every part of Ireland the
Saxons had set their feet on the necks of the natives. Sligo had fallen.
Even those wild islands which intercept the huge waves of the Atlantic
from the bay of Galway had acknowledged the authority of William. The
men of Kerry, reputed the fiercest and most ungovernable part of the
aboriginal population, had held out long, but had at length been routed,
and chased to their woods and mountains. [122] A French fleet, if a
French fleet were now to arrive on the coast of Munster, would find
the mouth of the Shannon guarded by English men of war. The stock of
provisions within Limerick was already running low. If the siege were
prolonged, the town would, in all human probability, be reduced either
by force or by blockade. And, if Ginkell should enter through the
breach, or should be implored by a multitude perishing with hunger
to dictate his own terms, what could be expected but a tyranny more
inexorably severe than that of Cromwell? Would it not then be wise
to try what conditions could be obtained while the victors had still
something to fear from the rage and despair of the vanquished; while
the last Irish army could still make some show of resistance behind the
walls of the last Irish fortress?
On the evening of the day which followed the fight at the Thomond
Gate, the drums of Limerick beat a parley; and Wauchop, from one of the
towers, hailed the besiegers, and requested Ruvigny to grant Sarsfield
an interview. The brave Frenchman who was an exile on account of his
attachment to one religion, and the brave Irishman who was about
to become an exile on account of his attachment to another, met and
conferred, doubtless with mutual sympathy and respect. [123] Ginkell,
to whom Ruvigny reported what had passed, willingly consented to an
armistice. For, constant as his success had been, it had not made him
secure. The chances were greatly on his side. Yet it was possible that
an attempt to storm the city might fail, as a similar attempt had failed
twelve months before. If the siege should be turned into a blockade,
it was probable that the pestilence which had been fatal to the army of
Schomberg, which had compelled William to retreat, and which had all but
prevailed even against the genius and energy of Marlborough, might soon
avenge the carnage of Aghrim. The rains had lately been heavy. The whole
plain might shortly be an immense pool of stagnant water. It might be
necessary to move the troops to a healthier situation than the bank
of the Shannon, and to provide for them a warmer shelter than that of
tents. The enemy would be safe till the spring. In the spring a French
army might land in Ireland; the natives might again rise in arms from
Donegal to Kerry; and the war, which was now all but extinguished, might
blaze forth fiercer than ever.
A negotiation was therefore opened with a sincere desire on both sides
to put an end to the contest. The chiefs of the Irish army held several
consultations at which some Roman Catholic prelates and some eminent
lawyers were invited to assist. A preliminary question, which perplexed
tender consciences, was submitted by the Bishops. The late Lord
Lieutenant had persuaded the officers of the garrison to swear that they
would not surrender Limerick till they should receive an answer to the
letter in which their situation had been explained to James. The Bishops
thought that the oath was no longer binding. It had been taken at a time
when the communications with France were open, and in the full belief
that the answer of James would arrive within three weeks. More than
twice that time had elapsed. Every avenue leading to the city was
strictly guarded by the enemy. His Majesty's faithful subjects, by
holding out till it had become impossible for him to signify his
pleasure to them, had acted up to the spirit of their promise. [124]
The next question was what terms should be demanded. A paper, containing
propositions which statesmen of our age will think reasonable, but which
to the most humane and liberal English Protestants of the seventeenth
century appeared extravagant, was sent to the camp of the besiegers.
What was asked was that all offences should be covered with oblivion,
that perfect freedom of worship should be allowed to the native
population, that every parish should have its priest, and that Irish
Roman Catholics should be capable of holding all offices, civil and
military, and of enjoying all municipal privileges. [125]
Ginkell knew little of the laws and feelings of the English; but he
had about him persons who were competent to direct him. They had a week
before prevented him from breaking a Rapparee on the wheel; and they now
suggested an answer to the propositions of the enemy. "I am a stranger
here," said Ginkell; "I am ignorant of the constitution of these
kingdoms; but I am assured that what you ask is inconsistent with
that constitution; and therefore I cannot with honour consent. " He
immediately ordered a new battery to be thrown up, and guns and mortars
to be planted on it. But his preparations were speedily interrupted by
another message from the city. The Irish begged that, since he could not
grant what they had demanded, he would tell them what he was willing to
grant. He called his advisers round him, and, after some consultation,
sent back a paper containing the heads of a treaty, such as he had
reason to believe that the government which he served would approve.
What he offered was indeed much less than what the Irish desired, but
was quite as much as, when they considered their situation and the
temper of the English nation, they could expect. They speedily notified
their assent. It was agreed that there should be a cessation of arms,
not only by land, but in the ports and bays of Munster, and that a fleet
of French transports should be suffered to come up the Shannon in peace
and to depart in peace. The signing of the treaty was deferred till
the Lords justices, who represented William at Dublin, should arrive
at Ginkell's quarters. But there was during some days a relaxation of
military vigilance on both sides. Prisoners were set at liberty. The
outposts of the two armies chatted and messed together. The English
officers rambled into the town. The Irish officers dined in the camp.
Anecdotes of what passed at the friendly meetings of these men, who had
so lately been mortal enemies, were widely circulated. One story, in
particular, was repeated in every part of Europe. "Has not this last
campaign," said Sarsfield to some English officers, "raised your opinion
of Irish soldiers? " "To tell you the truth," answered an Englishman, "we
think of them much as we always did.
" "However meanly you may think of
us," replied Sarsfield, "change Kings with us, and we will willingly try
our luck with you again. " He was doubtless thinking of the day on which
he had seen the two Sovereigns at the head of two great armies, William
foremost in the charge, and James foremost in the flight. [126]
On the first of October, Coningsby and Porter arrived at the English
headquarters. On the second the articles of capitulation were discussed
at great length and definitely settled. On the third they were signed.
They were divided into two parts, a military treaty and a civil treaty.
The former was subscribed only by the generals on both sides. The Lords
justices set their names to the latter. [127]
By the military treaty it was agreed that such Irish officers and
soldiers as should declare that they wished to go to France should be
conveyed thither, and should, in the meantime, remain under the command
of their own generals. Ginkell undertook to furnish a considerable
number of transports. French vessels were also to be permitted to pass
and repass freely between Britanny and Munster. Part of Limerick was to
be immediately delivered up to the English. But the island on which the
Cathedral and the Castle stand was to remain, for the present, in the
keeping of the Irish.
The terms of the civil treaty were very different from those which
Ginkell had sternly refused to grant. It was not stipulated that the
Roman Catholics of Ireland should be competent to hold any political or
military office, or that they should be admitted into any corporation.
But they obtained a promise that they should enjoy such privileges in
the exercise of their religion as were consistent with the law, or as
they had enjoyed in the reign of Charles the Second.
To all inhabitants of Limerick, and to all officers and soldiers in
the Jacobite army, who should submit to the government and notify their
submission by taking the oath of allegiance, an entire amnesty was
promised. They were to retain their property; they were to be allowed
to exercise any profession which they had exercised before the troubles;
they were not to be punished for any treason, felony, or misdemeanour
committed since the accession of the late King; nay, they were not to
be sued for damages on account of any act of spoliation or outrage which
they might have committed during the three years of confusion. This was
more than the Lords justices were constitutionally competent to
grant. It was therefore added that the government would use its utmost
endeavours to obtain a Parliamentary ratification of the treaty. [128]
As soon as the two instruments had been signed, the English entered the
city, and occupied one quarter of it. A narrow, but deep branch of
the Shannon separated them from the quarter which was still in the
possession of the Irish. [129]
In a few hours a dispute arose which seemed likely to produce a renewal
of hostilities. Sarsfield had resolved to seek his fortune in the
service of France, and was naturally desirous to carry with him to the
Continent such a body of troops as would be an important addition to the
army of Lewis. Ginkell was as naturally unwilling to send thousands
of men to swell the forces of the enemy. Both generals appealed to the
treaty. Each construed it as suited his purpose, and each complained
that the other had violated it. Sarsfield was accused of putting one of
his officers under arrest for refusing to go to the Continent. Ginkell,
greatly excited, declared that he would teach the Irish to play tricks
with him, and began to make preparations for a cannonade. Sarsfield
came to the English camp, and tried to justify what he had done. The
altercation was sharp. "I submit," said Sarsfield, at last: "I am in
your power. " "Not at all in my power," said Ginkell, "go back and do
your worst. " The imprisoned officer was liberated; a sanguinary contest
was averted; and the two commanders contented themselves with a war of
words. [130] Ginkell put forth proclamations assuring the Irish that, if
they would live quietly in their own land, they should be protected and
favoured, and that if they preferred a military life, they should be
admitted into the service of King William. It was added that no man,
who chose to reject this gracious invitation and to become a soldier of
Lewis, must expect ever again to set foot on the island. Sarsfield and
Wauchop exerted their eloquence on the other side. The present aspect
of affairs, they said, was doubtless gloomy; but there was bright sky
beyond the cloud. The banishment would be short. The return would be
triumphant. Within a year the French would invade England. In such
an invasion the Irish troops, if only they remained unbroken, would
assuredly bear a chief part. In the meantime it was far better for them
to live in a neighbouring and friendly country, under the parental care
of their own rightful King, than to trust the Prince of Orange, who
would probably send them to the other end of the world to fight for his
ally the Emperor against the Janissaries.
The help of the Roman Catholic clergy was called in. On the day on
which those who had made up their minds to go to France were required
to announce their determination, the priests were indefatigable in
exhorting. At the head of every regiment a sermon was preached on the
duty of adhering to the cause of the Church, and on the sin and danger
of consorting with unbelievers. [131] Whoever, it was said, should enter
the service of the usurpers would do so at the peril of his soul. The
heretics affirmed that, after the peroration, a plentiful allowance of
brandy was served out to the audience, and that, when the brandy had
been swallowed, a Bishop pronounced a benediction. Thus duly prepared
by physical and moral stimulants, the garrison, consisting of about
fourteen thousand infantry, was drawn up in the vast meadow which lay
on the Clare bank of the Shannon. Here copies of Ginkell's proclamation
were profusely scattered about; and English officers went through the
ranks imploring the men not to ruin themselves, and explaining to them
the advantages which the soldiers of King William enjoyed. At length the
decisive moment came. The troops were ordered to pass in review.
Those who wished to remain in Ireland were directed to file off at
a particular spot. All who passed that spot were to be considered as
having made their choice for France. Sarsfield and Wauchop on one side,
Porter, Coningsby and Ginkell on the other, looked on with painful
anxiety. D'Usson and his countrymen, though not uninterested in the
spectacle, found it hard to preserve their gravity. The confusion,
the clamour, the grotesque appearance of an army in which there could
scarcely be seen a shirt or a pair of pantaloons, a shoe or a stocking,
presented so ludicrous a contrast to the orderly and brilliant
appearance of their master's troops, that they amused themselves by
wondering what the Parisians would say to see such a force mustered on
the plain of Grenelle. [132]
First marched what was called the Royal regiment, fourteen hundred
strong. All but seven went beyond the fatal point. Ginkell's countenance
showed that he was deeply mortified. He was consoled, however, by seeing
the next regiment, which consisted of natives of Ulster, turn off to a
man. There had arisen, notwithstanding the community of blood, language
and religion, an antipathy between the Celts of Ulster and those of
the other three provinces; nor is it improbable that the example and
influence of Baldearg O'Donnel may have had some effect on the people of
the land which his forefathers had ruled. [133] In most of the regiments
there was a division of opinion; but a great majority declared for
France. Henry Luttrell was one of those who turned off. He was rewarded
for his desertion, and perhaps for other services, with a grant of the
large estate of his elder brother Simon, who firmly adhered to the cause
of James, with a pension of five hundred pounds a year from the Crown,
and with the abhorrence of the Roman Catholic population. After living
in wealth, luxury and infamy, during a quarter of a century, Henry
Luttrell was murdered while going through Dublin in his sedan chair;
and the Irish House of Commons declared that there was reason to suspect
that he had fallen by the revenge of the Papists. [134] Eighty years
after his death his grave near Luttrellstown was violated by the
descendants of those whom he had betrayed, and his skull was broken
to pieces with a pickaxe. [135] The deadly hatred of which he was the
object descended to his son and to his grandson; and, unhappily, nothing
in the character either of his son or of his grandson tended to mitigate
the feeling which the name of Luttrell excited. [136]
When the long procession had closed, it was found that about a thousand
men had agreed to enter into William's service. About two thousand
accepted passes from Ginkell, and went quietly home. About eleven
thousand returned with Sarsfield to the city. A few hours after the
garrison had passed in review, the horse, who were encamped some miles
from the town, were required to make their choice; and most of them
volunteered for France. [137]
Sarsfield considered the troops who remained with him as under an
irrevocable obligation to go abroad; and, lest they should be tempted to
retract their consent, he confined them within the ramparts, and ordered
the gates to be shut and strongly guarded. Ginkell, though in his
vexation he muttered some threats, seems to have felt that he could not
justifiably interfere. But the precautions of the Irish general were
far from being completely successful. It was by no means strange that a
superstitious and excitable kerne, with a sermon and a dram in his head,
should be ready to promise whatever his priests required; neither was it
strange that, when he had slept off his liquor, and when anathemas were
no longer ringing in his ears, he should feel painful misgivings. He
had bound himself to go into exile, perhaps for life, beyond that dreary
expanse of waters which impressed his rude mind with mysterious terror.
His thoughts ran on all that he was to leave, on the well known peat
stack and potatoe ground, and on the mud cabin, which, humble as it was,
was still his home. He was never again to see the familiar faces round
the turf fire, or to hear the familiar notes of the old Celtic songs.
The ocean was to roll between him and the dwelling of his greyheaded
parents and his blooming sweetheart. Here were some who, unable to bear
the misery of such a separation, and, finding it impossible to pass the
sentinels who watched the gates, sprang into the river and gained the
opposite bank. The number of these daring swimmers, however, was not
great; and the army would probably have been transported almost entire
if it had remained at Limerick till the day of embarkation. But many of
the vessels in which the voyage was to be performed lay at Cork; and
it was necessary that Sarsfield should proceed thither with some of his
best regiments. It was a march of not less than four days through a
wild country. To prevent agile youths, familiar with all the shifts of
a vagrant and predatory life, from stealing off to the bogs, and woods
under cover of the night, was impossible.
Indeed, many soldiers had the audacity to run away by broad daylight
before they were out of sight of Limerick Cathedral. The Royal regiment,
which had, on the day of the review, set so striking an example of
fidelity to the cause of James, dwindled from fourteen hundred men to
five hundred. Before the last ships departed, news came that those who
had sailed by the first ships had been ungraciously received at Brest.
They had been scantily fed; they had been able to obtain neither pay nor
clothing; though winter was setting in, they slept in the fields with no
covering but the hedges. Many had been heard to say that it would have
been far better to die in old Ireland than to live in the inhospitable
country to which they had been banished. The effect of those reports was
that hundreds, who had long persisted in their intention of emigrating,
refused at the last moment to go on board, threw down their arms, and
returned to their native villages. [138]
Sarsfield perceived that one chief cause of the desertion which was
thinning his army was the natural unwillingness of the men to leave
their families in a state of destitution. Cork and its neighbourhood
were filled with the kindred of those who were going abroad. Great
numbers of women, many of them leading, carrying, suckling their
infants, covered all the roads which led to the place of embarkation.
The Irish general, apprehensive of the effect which the entreaties and
lamentations of these poor creatures could not fail to produce, put
forth a proclamation, in which he assured his soldiers that they should
be permitted to carry their wives and families to France. It would be
injurious to the memory of so brave and loyal a gentleman to suppose
that when he made this promise he meant to break it. It is much more
probable that he had formed an erroneous estimate of the number of those
who would demand a passage, and that he found himself, when it was
too late to alter his arrangements, unable to keep his word. After the
soldiers had embarked, room was found for the families of many. But
still there remained on the water side a great multitude clamouring
piteously to be taken on board. As the last boats put off there was a
rush into the surf. Some women caught hold of the ropes, were dragged
out of their depth, clung till their fingers were cut through, and
perished in the waves. The ships began to move. A wild and terrible wail
rose from the shore, and excited unwonted compassion in hearts steeled
by hatred of the Irish race and of the Romish faith. Even the stern
Cromwellian, now at length, after a desperate struggle of three years,
left the undisputed lord of the bloodstained and devastated island,
could not hear unmoved that bitter cry, in which was poured forth all
the rage and all the sorrow of a conquered nation. [139]
The sails disappeared. The emaciated and brokenhearted crowd of those
whom a stroke more cruel than that of death had made widows and orphans
dispersed, to beg their way home through a wasted land, or to lie down
and die by the roadside of grief and hunger. The exiles departed, to
learn in foreign camps that discipline without which natural courage is
of small avail, and to retrieve on distant fields of battle the honour
which had been lost by a long series of defeats at home. In Ireland
there was peace. The domination of the colonists was absolute. The
native population was tranquil with the ghastly tranquillity of
exhaustion and of despair. There were indeed outrages, robberies,
fireraisings, assassinations. But more than a century passed away
without one general insurrection. During that century, two rebellions
were raised in Great Britain by the adherents of the House of Stuart.
But neither when the elder Pretender was crowned at Scone, nor when the
younger held his court at Holyrood, was the standard of that House set
up in Connaught or Munster. In 1745, indeed, when the Highlanders were
marching towards London, the Roman Catholics of Ireland were so quiet
that the Lord Lieutenant could, without the smallest risk, send several
regiments across Saint George's Channel to recruit the army of the Duke
of Cumberland. Nor was this submission the effect of content, but of
mere stupefaction and brokenness of heart. The iron had entered into the
soul. The memory of past defeats, the habit of daily enduring insult
and oppression, had cowed the spirit of the unhappy nation. There were
indeed Irish Roman Catholics of great ability, energy and ambition; but
they were to be found every where except in Ireland, at Versailles and
at Saint Ildefonso, in the armies of Frederic and in the armies of Maria
Theresa. One exile became a Marshal of France. Another became Prime
Minister of Spain. If he had staid in his native land he would have been
regarded as an inferior by all the ignorant and worthless squireens who
drank the glorious and immortal memory. In his palace at Madrid he had
the pleasure of being assiduously courted by the ambassador of George
the Second, and of bidding defiance in high terms to the ambassador of
George the Third. [140] Scattered over all Europe were to be found
brave Irish generals, dexterous Irish diplomatists, Irish Counts, Irish
Barons, Irish Knights of Saint Lewis and of Saint Leopold, of the White
Eagle and of the Golden Fleece, who, if they had remained in the house
of bondage, could not have been ensigns of marching regiments or freemen
of petty corporations. These men, the natural chiefs of their race,
having been withdrawn, what remained was utterly helpless and passive.
A rising of the Irishry against the Englishry was no more to be
apprehended than a rising of the women and children against the men.
[141]
There were indeed, in those days, fierce disputes between the mother
country and the colony; but in those disputes the aboriginal population
had no more interest than the Red Indians in the dispute between Old
England and New England about the Stamp Act. The ruling few, even when
in mutiny against the government, had no mercy for any thing that
looked like mutiny on the part of the subject many. None of those Roman
patriots, who poniarded Julius Caesar for aspiring to be a king,
would have had the smallest scruple about crucifying a whole school of
gladiators for attempting to escape from the most odious and degrading
of all kinds of servitude. None of those Virginian patriots, who
vindicated their separation from the British empire by proclaiming it to
be a selfevident truth that all men were endowed by the Creator with an
unalienable right to liberty, would have had the smallest scruple about
shooting any negro slave who had laid claim to that unalienable right.
And, in the same manner, the Protestant masters of Ireland, while
ostentatiously professing the political doctrines of Locke and Sidney,
held that a people who spoke the Celtic tongue and heard mass could have
no concern in those doctrines. Molyneux questioned the supremacy of
the English legislature. Swift assailed, with the keenest ridicule and
invective, every part of the system of government. Lucas disquieted the
administration of Lord Harrington. Boyle overthrew the administration
of the Duke of Dorset. But neither Molyneux nor Swift, neither Lucas nor
Boyle, ever thought of appealing to the native population. They would
as soon have thought of appealing to the swine. [142] At a later period
Henry Flood excited the dominant class to demand a Parliamentary reform,
and to use even revolutionary means for the purpose of obtaining that
reform. But neither he, nor those who looked up to him as their chief,
and who went close to the verge of treason at his bidding, would consent
to admit the subject class to the smallest share of political power. The
virtuous and accomplished Charlemont, a Whig of the Whigs, passed a long
life in contending for what he called the freedom of his country. But
he voted against the law which gave the elective franchise to Roman
Catholic freeholders; and he died fixed in the opinion that the
Parliament House ought to be kept pure from Roman Catholic members.
Indeed, during the century which followed the Revolution, the
inclination of an English Protestant to trample on the Irishry was
generally proportioned to the zeal which he professed for political
liberty in the abstract. If he uttered any expression of compassion for
the majority oppressed by the minority, he might be safely set down as a
bigoted Tory and High Churchman. [143]
All this time hatred, kept down by fear, festered in the hearts of the
children of the soil. They were still the same people that had sprung
to arms in 1641 at the call of O'Neill, and in 1689 at the call of
Tyrconnel. To them every festival instituted by the State was a day of
mourning, and every public trophy set up by the State was a memorial of
shame. We have never known, and can but faintly conceive, the feelings
of a nation doomed to see constantly in all its public places the
monuments of its subjugation. Such monuments every where met the eye
of the Irish Roman Catholics. In front of the Senate House of their
country, they saw the statue of their conqueror. If they entered, they
saw the walls tapestried with the defeats of their fathers. At length,
after a hundred years of servitude, endured without one vigorous or
combined struggle for emancipation, the French revolution awakened a
wild hope in the bosoms of the oppressed. Men who had inherited all the
pretensions and all the passions of the Parliament which James had held
at the Kings Inns could not hear unmoved of the downfall of a wealthy
established Church, of the flight of a splendid aristocracy, of the
confiscation of an immense territory. Old antipathies, which had never
slumbered, were excited to new and terrible energy by the combination
of stimulants which, in any other society, would have counteracted each
other. The spirit of Popery and the spirit of Jacobinism, irreconcilable
antagonists every where else, were for once mingled in an unnatural
and portentous union. Their joint influence produced the third and
last rising up of the aboriginal population against the colony. The
greatgrandsons of the soldiers of Galmoy and Sarsfield were opposed to
the greatgrandsons of the soldiers of Wolseley and Mitchelburn. The Celt
again looked impatiently for the sails which were to bring succour from
Brest; and the Saxon was again backed by the whole power of England.
Again the victory remained with the well educated and well organized
minority. But, happily, the vanquished people found protection in
a quarter from which they would once have had to expect nothing but
implacable severity. By this time the philosophy of the eighteenth
century had purifed English Whiggism from that deep taint of intolerance
which had been contracted during a long and close alliance with the
Puritanism of the seventeenth century. Enlightened men had begun to feel
that the arguments by which Milton and Locke, Tillotson and Burnet, had
vindicated the rights of conscience might be urged with not less force
in favour of the Roman Catholic than in favour of the Independent or
the Baptist. The great party which traces its descent through the
Exclusionists up to the Roundheads continued during thirty years, in
spite of royal frowns and popular clamours, to demand a share in all
the benefits of our free constitution for those Irish Papists whom the
Roundheads and the Exclusionists had considered merely as beasts of
chase or as beasts of burden. But it will be for some other historian to
relate the vicissitudes of that great conflict, and the late triumph of
reason and humanity. Unhappily such a historian will have to relate that
the triumph won by such exertions and by such sacrifices was immediately
followed by disappointment; that it proved far less easy to eradicate
evil passions than to repeal evil laws; and that, long after every
trace of national and religious animosity had been obliterated from the
Statute Book, national and religious animosities continued to rankle
in the bosoms of millions. May he be able also to relate that wisdom,
justice and time gradually did in Ireland what they had done in
Scotland, and that all the races which inhabit the British isles were at
length indissolubly blended into one people!
CHAPTER XVIII
Opening of the Parliament--Debates on the Salaries and Fees of Official
Men--Act excluding Papists from Public Trust in Ireland--Debates on the
East India Trade--Debates on the Bill for regulating Trials in Cases
of High Treason--Plot formed by Marlborough against the Government of
William--Marlborough's Plot disclosed by the Jacobites--Disgrace
of Marlborough; Various Reports touching the Cause of Marlborough's
Disgrace. --Rupture between Mary and Anne--Fuller's Plot--Close of
the Session; Bill for ascertaining the Salaries of the Judges
rejected--Misterial Changes in England--Ministerial Changes in
Scotland--State of the Highlands--Breadalbane employed to negotiate
with the Rebel Clans--Glencoe--William goes to the Continent; Death of
Louvois--The French Government determines to send an Expedition
against England--James believes that the English Fleet is friendly to
him--Conduct of Russell--A Daughter born to James--Preparations made
in England to repel Invasion--James goes down to his Army at La
Hogue--James's Declaration--Effect produced by James's Declaration--The
English and Dutch Fleets join; Temper of the English Fleet--Battle of La
Hogue--Rejoicings in England--Young's Plot
ON the nineteenth of October 1691, William arrived at Kensington from
the Netherlands. [144] Three days later he opened the Parliament. The
aspect of affairs was, on the whole, cheering. By land there had been
gains and losses; but the balance was in favour of England. Against the
fall of Mons might well be set off the taking of Athlone, the victory
of Aghrim, the surrender of Limerick and the pacification of Ireland. At
sea there had been no great victory; but there had been a great display
of power and of activity; and, though many were dissatisfied because
more had not been done, none could deny that there had been a change for
the better. The ruin caused by the foibles and vices of Torrington had
been repaired; the fleet had been well equipped; the rations had been
abundant and wholesome; and the health of the crews had consequently
been, for that age, wonderfully good. Russell, who commanded the naval
forces of the allies, had in vain offered battle to the French. The
white flag, which, in the preceding year, had ranged the Channel
unresisted from the Land's End to the Straits of Dover, now, as soon as
our topmasts were descried twenty leagues off, abandoned the open sea,
and retired into the depths of the harbour of Brest. The appearance of
an English squadron in the estuary of the Shannon had decided the fate
of the last fortress which had held out for King James; and a fleet
of merchantmen from the Levant, valued at four millions sterling,
had, through dangers which had caused many sleepless nights to the
underwriters of Lombard Street, been convoyed safe into the Thames.
[145] The Lords and Commons listened with signs of satisfaction to a
speech in which the King congratulated them on the event of the war
in Ireland, and expressed his confidence that they would continue to
support him in the war with France. He told them that a great naval
armament would be necessary, and that, in his opinion, the conflict
by land could not be effectually maintained with less than sixty-five
thousand men. [146]
He was thanked in affectionate terms; the force which he asked was
voted; and large supplies were granted with little difficulty. But when
the Ways and Means were taken into consideration, symptoms of discontent
began to appear. Eighteen months before, when the Commons had been
employed in settling the Civil List, many members had shown a very
natural disposition to complain of the amount of the salaries and fees
received by official men. Keen speeches had been made, and, what was
much less usual, had been printed; there had been much excitement out of
doors; but nothing had been done. The subject was now revived. A report
made by the Commissioners who had been appointed in the preceding
year to examine the public accounts disclosed some facts which excited
indignation, and others which raised grave suspicion. The House seemed
fully determined to make an extensive reform; and, in truth, nothing
could have averted such a reform except the folly and violence of the
reformers. That they should have been angry is indeed not strange. The
enormous gains, direct and indirect, of the servants of the public went
on increasing, while the gains of every body else were diminishing.
Rents were falling; trade was languishing; every man who lived either on
what his ancestors had left him or on the fruits of his own industry
was forced to retrench. The placeman alone throve amidst the general
distress. "Look," cried the incensed squires, "at the Comptroller of the
Customs. Ten years ago, he walked, and we rode. Our incomes have been
curtailed; his salary has been doubled; we have sold our horses; he has
bought them; and now we go on foot, and are splashed by his coach and
six. " Lowther vainly endeavoured to stand up against the storm. He
was heard with little favour by the country gentlemen who had not long
before looked up to him as one of their leaders. He had left them; he
had become a courtier; he had two good places, one in the Treasury, the
other in the household. He had recently received from the King's own
hand a gratuity of two thousand guineas. [147] It seemed perfectly
natural that he should defend abuses by which he profited. The taunts
and reproaches with which he was assailed were insupportable to his
sensitive nature. He lost his head, almost fainted away on the floor
of the House, and talked about righting himself in another place. [148]
Unfortunately no member rose at this conjuncture to propose that the
civil establishment of the kingdom should be carefully revised, that
sinecures should be abolished, that exorbitant official incomes should
be reduced, and that no servant of the State should be allowed to exact,
under any pretence, any thing beyond his known and lawful remuneration.
In this way it would have been possible to diminish the public burdens,
and at the same time to increase the efficiency of every public
department.
Dublin. " But fortune was already on the turn. Mackay and Ruvigny, with
the English and Huguenot cavalry, had succeeded in passing the bog at
a place where two horsemen could scarcely ride abreast. Saint Ruth at
first laughed when he saw the Blues, in single file, struggling through
the morass under a fire which every moment laid some gallant hat and
feather on the earth. "What do they mean? " he asked; and then he
swore that it was pity to see such fine fellows rushing to certain
destruction. "Let them cross, however;" he said. "The more they are,
the more we shall kill. " But soon he saw them laying hurdles on the
quagmire. A broader and safer path was formed; squadron after squadron
reached firm ground: the flank of the Irish army was speedily turned.
The French general was hastening to the rescue when a cannon ball
carried off his head. Those who were about him thought that it would
be dangerous to make his fate known. His corpse was wrapped in a cloak,
carried from the field, and laid, with all secresy, in the sacred ground
among the ruins of the ancient monastery of Loughrea. Till the fight was
over neither army was aware that he was no more. To conceal his death
from the private soldiers might perhaps have been prudent. To conceal it
from his lieutenants was madness. The crisis of the battle had arrived;
and there was none to give direction. Sarsfield was in command of the
reserve. But he had been strictly enjoined by Saint Ruth not to stir
without orders; and no orders came. Mackay and Ruvigny with their horse
charged the Irish in flank. Talmash and his foot returned to the attack
in front with dogged determination. The breastwork was carried. The
Irish, still fighting, retreated from inclosure to inclosure. But, as
inclosure after inclosure was forced, their efforts became fainter
and fainter. At length they broke and fled. Then followed a horrible
carnage. The conquerors were in a savage mood. For a report had been
spread among them that, during the early part of the battle, some
English captives who had been admitted to quarter had been put to the
sword. Only four hundred prisoners were taken. The number of the slain
was, in proportion to the number engaged, greater than in any other
battle of that age. But for the coming on of a moonless night, made
darker by a misty rain, scarcely a man would have escaped. The obscurity
enabled Sarsfield, with a few squadrons which still remained unbroken,
to cover the retreat. Of the conquerors six hundred were killed, and
about a thousand wounded.
The English slept that night on the field of battle. On the following
day they buried their companions in arms, and then marched westward.
The vanquished were left unburied, a strange and ghastly spectacle. Four
thousand Irish corpses were counted on the field of battle. A hundred
and fifty lay in one small inclosure, a hundred and twenty in another.
But the slaughter had not been confined to the field of battle. One who
was there tells us that, from the top of the hill on which the Celtic
camp had been pitched, he saw the country, to the distance of near four
miles, white with the naked bodies of the slain. The plain looked, he
said, like an immense pasture covered by flocks of sheep. As usual,
different estimates were formed even by eyewitnesses. But it seems
probable that the number of the Irish who fell was not less than seven
thousand. Soon a multitude of dogs came to feast on the carnage. These
beasts became so fierce, and acquired such a taste for human flesh,
that it was long dangerous for men to travel this road otherwise than in
companies. [108]
The beaten army had now lost all the appearance of an army, and
resembled a rabble crowding home from a fair after a faction fight. One
great stream of fugitives ran towards Galway, another towards Limerick.
The roads to both cities were covered with weapons which had been flung
away. Ginkell offered sixpence for every musket. In a short time so many
waggon loads were collected that he reduced the price to twopence; and
still great numbers of muskets came in. [109]
The conquerors marched first against Galway. D'Usson was there, and
had under him seven regiments, thinned by the slaughter of Aghrim and
utterly disorganized and disheartened. The last hope of the garrison
and of the Roman Catholic inhabitants was that Baldearg O'Donnel, the
promised deliverer of their race, would come to the rescue. But Baldearg
O'Donnel was not duped by the superstitious veneration of which he
was the object. While there remained any doubt about the issue of the
conflict between the Englishry and the Irishry, he had stood aloof.
On the day of the battle he had remained at a safe distance with his
tumultuary army; and, as soon as he had learned that his countrymen had
been put to rout, he fled, plundering and burning all the way, to the
mountains of Mayo. Thence he sent to Ginkell offers of submission
and service. Ginkell gladly seized the opportunity of breaking up
a formidable band of marauders, and of turning to good account the
influence which the name of a Celtic dynasty still exercised over the
Celtic race. The negotiation however was not without difficulties. The
wandering adventurer at first demanded nothing less than an earldom.
After some haggling he consented to sell the love of a whole people, and
his pretensions to regal dignity, for a pension of five hundred pounds a
year. Yet the spell which bound his followers to hire was not altogether
broken. Some enthusiasts from Ulster were willing to fight under the
O'Donnel against their own language and their own religion. With a small
body of these devoted adherents, he joined a division of the English
army, and on several occasions did useful service to William. [110]
When it was known that no succour was to be expected from the hero whose
advent had been foretold by so many seers, the Irish who were shut up in
Galway lost all heart. D'Usson had returned a stout answer to the
first summons of the besiegers; but he soon saw that resistance was
impossible, and made haste to capitulate. The garrison was suffered
to retire to Limerick with the honours of war. A full amnesty for past
offences was granted to the citizens; and it was stipulated that, within
the walls, the Roman Catholic priests should be allowed to perform
in private the rites of their religion. On these terms the gates were
thrown open. Ginkell was received with profound respect by the Mayor and
Aldermen, and was complimented in a set speech by the Recorder. D'Usson,
with about two thousand three hundred men, marched unmolested to
Limerick. [111]
At Limerick, the last asylum of the vanquished race, the authority of
Tyrconnel was supreme. There was now no general who could pretend that
his commission made him independent of the Lord Lieutenant; nor was the
Lord Lieutenant now so unpopular as he had been a fortnight earlier.
Since the battle there had been a reflux of public feeling. No part of
that great disaster could be imputed to the Viceroy. His opinion indeed
had been against trying the chances of a pitched field, and he could
with some plausibility assert that the neglect of his counsels had
caused the ruin of Ireland. [112]
He made some preparations for defending Limerick, repaired the
fortifications, and sent out parties to bring in provisions. The
country, many miles round, was swept bare by these detachments, and
a considerable quantity of cattle and fodder was collected within the
walls. There was also a large stock of biscuit imported from France.
The infantry assembled at Limerick were about fifteen thousand men.
The Irish horse and dragoons, three or four thousand in number, were
encamped on the Clare side of the Shannon. The communication between
their camp and the city was maintained by means of a bridge called the
Thomond Bridge, which was protected by a fort. These means of defence
were not contemptible. But the fall of Athlone and the slaughter of
Aghrim had broken the spirit of the army. A small party, at the head of
which were Sarsfield and a brave Scotch officer named Wauchop, cherished
a hope that the triumphant progress of Ginkell might be stopped by those
walls from which William had, in the preceding year, been forced to
retreat. But many of the Irish chiefs loudly declared that it was
time to think of capitulating. Henry Luttrell, always fond of dark and
crooked politics, opened a secret negotiation with the English. One of
his letters was intercepted; and he was put under arrest; but many
who blamed his perfidy agreed with him in thinking that it was idle to
prolong the contest. Tyrconnel himself was convinced that all was lost.
His only hope was that he might be able to prolong the struggle till
he could receive from Saint Germains permission to treat. He wrote to
request that permission, and prevailed, with some difficulty, on his
desponding countrymen to bind themselves by an oath not to capitulate
till an answer from James should arrive. [113]
A few days after the oath had been administered, Tyrconnel was no more.
On the eleventh of August he dined with D'Usson. The party was gay. The
Lord Lieutenant seemed to have thrown off the load which had bowed down
his body and mind; he drank; he jested; he was again the Dick Talbot
who had diced and revelled with Grammont. Soon after he had risen from
table, an apoplectic stroke deprived him of speech and sensation. On the
fourteenth he breathed his last. The wasted remains of that form which
had once been a model for statuaries were laid under the pavement of the
Cathedral; but no inscription, no tradition, preserves the memory of the
spot. [114]
As soon as the Lord Lieutenant was no more, Plowden, who had
superintended the Irish finances while there were any Irish finances to
superintend, produced a commission under the great seal of James. This
commission appointed Plowden himself, Fitton and Nagle, Lords justices
in the event of Tyrconnel's death. There was much murmuring when the
names were made known. For both Plowden and Fitton were Saxons. The
commission, however, proved to be a mere nullity. For it was accompanied
by instructions which forbade the Lords justices to interfere in the
conduct of the war; and, within the narrow space to which the dominions
of James were now reduced, war was the only business. The government
was, therefore, really in the hands of D'Usson and Sarsfield. [115]
On the day on which Tyrconnel died, the advanced guard of the English
army came within sight of Limerick. Ginkell encamped on the same ground
which William had occupied twelve months before. The batteries, on which
were planted guns and bombs, very different from those which William had
been forced to use, played day and night; and soon roofs were blazing
and walls crashing in every corner of the city. Whole streets were
reduced to ashes. Meanwhile several English ships of war came up the
Shannon and anchored about a mile below the city. [116]
Still the place held out; the garrison was, in numerical strength,
little inferior to the besieging army; and it seemed not impossible
that the defence might be prolonged till the equinoctial rains should a
second time compel the English to retire. Ginkell determined on striking
a bold stroke. No point in the whole circle of the fortifications was
more important, and no point seemed to be more secure, than the Thomond
Bridge, which joined the city to the camp of the Irish horse on the
Clare bank of the Shannon. The Dutch General's plan was to separate the
infantry within the ramparts from the cavalry without; and this plan he
executed with great skill, vigour and success. He laid a bridge of
tin boats on the river, crossed it with a strong body of troops, drove
before him in confusion fifteen hundred dragoons who made a faint show
of resistance, and marched towards the quarters of the Irish horse. The
Irish horse sustained but ill on this day the reputation which they had
gained at the Boyne. Indeed, that reputation had been purchased by
the almost entire destruction of the best regiments. Recruits had been
without much difficulty found. But the loss of fifteen hundred excellent
soldiers was not to be repaired. The camp was abandoned without a blow.
Some of the cavalry fled into the city. The rest, driving before them
as many cattle as could be collected in that moment of panic, retired to
the hills. Much beef, brandy and harness was found in the magazines; and
the marshy plain of the Shannon was covered with firelocks and grenades
which the fugitives had thrown away. [117]
The conquerors returned in triumph to their camp. But Ginkell was not
content with the advantage which he had gained. He was bent on cutting
off all communication between Limerick and the county of Clare. In a
few days, therefore, he again crossed the river at the head of several
regiments, and attacked the fort which protected the Thomond Bridge. In
a short time the fort was stormed. The soldiers who had garrisoned it
fled in confusion to the city. The Town Major, a French officer, who
commanded at the Thomond Gate, afraid that the pursuers would enter with
the fugitives, ordered that part of the bridge which was nearest to the
city to be drawn up. Many of the Irish went headlong into the stream and
perished there. Others cried for quarter, and held up handkerchiefs
in token of submission. But the conquerors were mad with rage; their
cruelty could not be immediately restrained; and no prisoners were made
till the heaps of corpses rose above the parapets. The garrison of the
fort had consisted of about eight hundred men. Of these only a hundred
and twenty escaped into Limerick. [118]
This disaster seemed likely to produce a general mutiny in the besieged
city. The Irish clamoured for the blood of the Town Major who
had ordered the bridge to be drawn up in the face of their flying
countrymen. His superiors were forced to promise that he should be
brought before a court martial. Happily for him, he had received a
mortal wound, in the act of closing the Thomond Gate, and was saved by
a soldier's death from the fury of the multitude. [119] The cry for
capitulation became so loud and importunate that the generals could not
resist it. D'Usson informed his government that the fight at the
bridge had so effectually cowed the spirit of the garrison that it was
impossible to continue the struggle. [120] Some exception may perhaps
be taken to the evidence of D'Usson; for undoubtedly he, like every
Frenchman who had held any command in the Irish army, was weary of his
banishment, and impatient to see Paris again. But it is certain that
even Sarsfield had lost heart. Up to this time his voice had been for
stubborn resistance. He was now not only willing, but impatient to
treat. [121] It seemed to him that the city was doomed. There was no
hope of succour, domestic or foreign. In every part of Ireland the
Saxons had set their feet on the necks of the natives. Sligo had fallen.
Even those wild islands which intercept the huge waves of the Atlantic
from the bay of Galway had acknowledged the authority of William. The
men of Kerry, reputed the fiercest and most ungovernable part of the
aboriginal population, had held out long, but had at length been routed,
and chased to their woods and mountains. [122] A French fleet, if a
French fleet were now to arrive on the coast of Munster, would find
the mouth of the Shannon guarded by English men of war. The stock of
provisions within Limerick was already running low. If the siege were
prolonged, the town would, in all human probability, be reduced either
by force or by blockade. And, if Ginkell should enter through the
breach, or should be implored by a multitude perishing with hunger
to dictate his own terms, what could be expected but a tyranny more
inexorably severe than that of Cromwell? Would it not then be wise
to try what conditions could be obtained while the victors had still
something to fear from the rage and despair of the vanquished; while
the last Irish army could still make some show of resistance behind the
walls of the last Irish fortress?
On the evening of the day which followed the fight at the Thomond
Gate, the drums of Limerick beat a parley; and Wauchop, from one of the
towers, hailed the besiegers, and requested Ruvigny to grant Sarsfield
an interview. The brave Frenchman who was an exile on account of his
attachment to one religion, and the brave Irishman who was about
to become an exile on account of his attachment to another, met and
conferred, doubtless with mutual sympathy and respect. [123] Ginkell,
to whom Ruvigny reported what had passed, willingly consented to an
armistice. For, constant as his success had been, it had not made him
secure. The chances were greatly on his side. Yet it was possible that
an attempt to storm the city might fail, as a similar attempt had failed
twelve months before. If the siege should be turned into a blockade,
it was probable that the pestilence which had been fatal to the army of
Schomberg, which had compelled William to retreat, and which had all but
prevailed even against the genius and energy of Marlborough, might soon
avenge the carnage of Aghrim. The rains had lately been heavy. The whole
plain might shortly be an immense pool of stagnant water. It might be
necessary to move the troops to a healthier situation than the bank
of the Shannon, and to provide for them a warmer shelter than that of
tents. The enemy would be safe till the spring. In the spring a French
army might land in Ireland; the natives might again rise in arms from
Donegal to Kerry; and the war, which was now all but extinguished, might
blaze forth fiercer than ever.
A negotiation was therefore opened with a sincere desire on both sides
to put an end to the contest. The chiefs of the Irish army held several
consultations at which some Roman Catholic prelates and some eminent
lawyers were invited to assist. A preliminary question, which perplexed
tender consciences, was submitted by the Bishops. The late Lord
Lieutenant had persuaded the officers of the garrison to swear that they
would not surrender Limerick till they should receive an answer to the
letter in which their situation had been explained to James. The Bishops
thought that the oath was no longer binding. It had been taken at a time
when the communications with France were open, and in the full belief
that the answer of James would arrive within three weeks. More than
twice that time had elapsed. Every avenue leading to the city was
strictly guarded by the enemy. His Majesty's faithful subjects, by
holding out till it had become impossible for him to signify his
pleasure to them, had acted up to the spirit of their promise. [124]
The next question was what terms should be demanded. A paper, containing
propositions which statesmen of our age will think reasonable, but which
to the most humane and liberal English Protestants of the seventeenth
century appeared extravagant, was sent to the camp of the besiegers.
What was asked was that all offences should be covered with oblivion,
that perfect freedom of worship should be allowed to the native
population, that every parish should have its priest, and that Irish
Roman Catholics should be capable of holding all offices, civil and
military, and of enjoying all municipal privileges. [125]
Ginkell knew little of the laws and feelings of the English; but he
had about him persons who were competent to direct him. They had a week
before prevented him from breaking a Rapparee on the wheel; and they now
suggested an answer to the propositions of the enemy. "I am a stranger
here," said Ginkell; "I am ignorant of the constitution of these
kingdoms; but I am assured that what you ask is inconsistent with
that constitution; and therefore I cannot with honour consent. " He
immediately ordered a new battery to be thrown up, and guns and mortars
to be planted on it. But his preparations were speedily interrupted by
another message from the city. The Irish begged that, since he could not
grant what they had demanded, he would tell them what he was willing to
grant. He called his advisers round him, and, after some consultation,
sent back a paper containing the heads of a treaty, such as he had
reason to believe that the government which he served would approve.
What he offered was indeed much less than what the Irish desired, but
was quite as much as, when they considered their situation and the
temper of the English nation, they could expect. They speedily notified
their assent. It was agreed that there should be a cessation of arms,
not only by land, but in the ports and bays of Munster, and that a fleet
of French transports should be suffered to come up the Shannon in peace
and to depart in peace. The signing of the treaty was deferred till
the Lords justices, who represented William at Dublin, should arrive
at Ginkell's quarters. But there was during some days a relaxation of
military vigilance on both sides. Prisoners were set at liberty. The
outposts of the two armies chatted and messed together. The English
officers rambled into the town. The Irish officers dined in the camp.
Anecdotes of what passed at the friendly meetings of these men, who had
so lately been mortal enemies, were widely circulated. One story, in
particular, was repeated in every part of Europe. "Has not this last
campaign," said Sarsfield to some English officers, "raised your opinion
of Irish soldiers? " "To tell you the truth," answered an Englishman, "we
think of them much as we always did.
" "However meanly you may think of
us," replied Sarsfield, "change Kings with us, and we will willingly try
our luck with you again. " He was doubtless thinking of the day on which
he had seen the two Sovereigns at the head of two great armies, William
foremost in the charge, and James foremost in the flight. [126]
On the first of October, Coningsby and Porter arrived at the English
headquarters. On the second the articles of capitulation were discussed
at great length and definitely settled. On the third they were signed.
They were divided into two parts, a military treaty and a civil treaty.
The former was subscribed only by the generals on both sides. The Lords
justices set their names to the latter. [127]
By the military treaty it was agreed that such Irish officers and
soldiers as should declare that they wished to go to France should be
conveyed thither, and should, in the meantime, remain under the command
of their own generals. Ginkell undertook to furnish a considerable
number of transports. French vessels were also to be permitted to pass
and repass freely between Britanny and Munster. Part of Limerick was to
be immediately delivered up to the English. But the island on which the
Cathedral and the Castle stand was to remain, for the present, in the
keeping of the Irish.
The terms of the civil treaty were very different from those which
Ginkell had sternly refused to grant. It was not stipulated that the
Roman Catholics of Ireland should be competent to hold any political or
military office, or that they should be admitted into any corporation.
But they obtained a promise that they should enjoy such privileges in
the exercise of their religion as were consistent with the law, or as
they had enjoyed in the reign of Charles the Second.
To all inhabitants of Limerick, and to all officers and soldiers in
the Jacobite army, who should submit to the government and notify their
submission by taking the oath of allegiance, an entire amnesty was
promised. They were to retain their property; they were to be allowed
to exercise any profession which they had exercised before the troubles;
they were not to be punished for any treason, felony, or misdemeanour
committed since the accession of the late King; nay, they were not to
be sued for damages on account of any act of spoliation or outrage which
they might have committed during the three years of confusion. This was
more than the Lords justices were constitutionally competent to
grant. It was therefore added that the government would use its utmost
endeavours to obtain a Parliamentary ratification of the treaty. [128]
As soon as the two instruments had been signed, the English entered the
city, and occupied one quarter of it. A narrow, but deep branch of
the Shannon separated them from the quarter which was still in the
possession of the Irish. [129]
In a few hours a dispute arose which seemed likely to produce a renewal
of hostilities. Sarsfield had resolved to seek his fortune in the
service of France, and was naturally desirous to carry with him to the
Continent such a body of troops as would be an important addition to the
army of Lewis. Ginkell was as naturally unwilling to send thousands
of men to swell the forces of the enemy. Both generals appealed to the
treaty. Each construed it as suited his purpose, and each complained
that the other had violated it. Sarsfield was accused of putting one of
his officers under arrest for refusing to go to the Continent. Ginkell,
greatly excited, declared that he would teach the Irish to play tricks
with him, and began to make preparations for a cannonade. Sarsfield
came to the English camp, and tried to justify what he had done. The
altercation was sharp. "I submit," said Sarsfield, at last: "I am in
your power. " "Not at all in my power," said Ginkell, "go back and do
your worst. " The imprisoned officer was liberated; a sanguinary contest
was averted; and the two commanders contented themselves with a war of
words. [130] Ginkell put forth proclamations assuring the Irish that, if
they would live quietly in their own land, they should be protected and
favoured, and that if they preferred a military life, they should be
admitted into the service of King William. It was added that no man,
who chose to reject this gracious invitation and to become a soldier of
Lewis, must expect ever again to set foot on the island. Sarsfield and
Wauchop exerted their eloquence on the other side. The present aspect
of affairs, they said, was doubtless gloomy; but there was bright sky
beyond the cloud. The banishment would be short. The return would be
triumphant. Within a year the French would invade England. In such
an invasion the Irish troops, if only they remained unbroken, would
assuredly bear a chief part. In the meantime it was far better for them
to live in a neighbouring and friendly country, under the parental care
of their own rightful King, than to trust the Prince of Orange, who
would probably send them to the other end of the world to fight for his
ally the Emperor against the Janissaries.
The help of the Roman Catholic clergy was called in. On the day on
which those who had made up their minds to go to France were required
to announce their determination, the priests were indefatigable in
exhorting. At the head of every regiment a sermon was preached on the
duty of adhering to the cause of the Church, and on the sin and danger
of consorting with unbelievers. [131] Whoever, it was said, should enter
the service of the usurpers would do so at the peril of his soul. The
heretics affirmed that, after the peroration, a plentiful allowance of
brandy was served out to the audience, and that, when the brandy had
been swallowed, a Bishop pronounced a benediction. Thus duly prepared
by physical and moral stimulants, the garrison, consisting of about
fourteen thousand infantry, was drawn up in the vast meadow which lay
on the Clare bank of the Shannon. Here copies of Ginkell's proclamation
were profusely scattered about; and English officers went through the
ranks imploring the men not to ruin themselves, and explaining to them
the advantages which the soldiers of King William enjoyed. At length the
decisive moment came. The troops were ordered to pass in review.
Those who wished to remain in Ireland were directed to file off at
a particular spot. All who passed that spot were to be considered as
having made their choice for France. Sarsfield and Wauchop on one side,
Porter, Coningsby and Ginkell on the other, looked on with painful
anxiety. D'Usson and his countrymen, though not uninterested in the
spectacle, found it hard to preserve their gravity. The confusion,
the clamour, the grotesque appearance of an army in which there could
scarcely be seen a shirt or a pair of pantaloons, a shoe or a stocking,
presented so ludicrous a contrast to the orderly and brilliant
appearance of their master's troops, that they amused themselves by
wondering what the Parisians would say to see such a force mustered on
the plain of Grenelle. [132]
First marched what was called the Royal regiment, fourteen hundred
strong. All but seven went beyond the fatal point. Ginkell's countenance
showed that he was deeply mortified. He was consoled, however, by seeing
the next regiment, which consisted of natives of Ulster, turn off to a
man. There had arisen, notwithstanding the community of blood, language
and religion, an antipathy between the Celts of Ulster and those of
the other three provinces; nor is it improbable that the example and
influence of Baldearg O'Donnel may have had some effect on the people of
the land which his forefathers had ruled. [133] In most of the regiments
there was a division of opinion; but a great majority declared for
France. Henry Luttrell was one of those who turned off. He was rewarded
for his desertion, and perhaps for other services, with a grant of the
large estate of his elder brother Simon, who firmly adhered to the cause
of James, with a pension of five hundred pounds a year from the Crown,
and with the abhorrence of the Roman Catholic population. After living
in wealth, luxury and infamy, during a quarter of a century, Henry
Luttrell was murdered while going through Dublin in his sedan chair;
and the Irish House of Commons declared that there was reason to suspect
that he had fallen by the revenge of the Papists. [134] Eighty years
after his death his grave near Luttrellstown was violated by the
descendants of those whom he had betrayed, and his skull was broken
to pieces with a pickaxe. [135] The deadly hatred of which he was the
object descended to his son and to his grandson; and, unhappily, nothing
in the character either of his son or of his grandson tended to mitigate
the feeling which the name of Luttrell excited. [136]
When the long procession had closed, it was found that about a thousand
men had agreed to enter into William's service. About two thousand
accepted passes from Ginkell, and went quietly home. About eleven
thousand returned with Sarsfield to the city. A few hours after the
garrison had passed in review, the horse, who were encamped some miles
from the town, were required to make their choice; and most of them
volunteered for France. [137]
Sarsfield considered the troops who remained with him as under an
irrevocable obligation to go abroad; and, lest they should be tempted to
retract their consent, he confined them within the ramparts, and ordered
the gates to be shut and strongly guarded. Ginkell, though in his
vexation he muttered some threats, seems to have felt that he could not
justifiably interfere. But the precautions of the Irish general were
far from being completely successful. It was by no means strange that a
superstitious and excitable kerne, with a sermon and a dram in his head,
should be ready to promise whatever his priests required; neither was it
strange that, when he had slept off his liquor, and when anathemas were
no longer ringing in his ears, he should feel painful misgivings. He
had bound himself to go into exile, perhaps for life, beyond that dreary
expanse of waters which impressed his rude mind with mysterious terror.
His thoughts ran on all that he was to leave, on the well known peat
stack and potatoe ground, and on the mud cabin, which, humble as it was,
was still his home. He was never again to see the familiar faces round
the turf fire, or to hear the familiar notes of the old Celtic songs.
The ocean was to roll between him and the dwelling of his greyheaded
parents and his blooming sweetheart. Here were some who, unable to bear
the misery of such a separation, and, finding it impossible to pass the
sentinels who watched the gates, sprang into the river and gained the
opposite bank. The number of these daring swimmers, however, was not
great; and the army would probably have been transported almost entire
if it had remained at Limerick till the day of embarkation. But many of
the vessels in which the voyage was to be performed lay at Cork; and
it was necessary that Sarsfield should proceed thither with some of his
best regiments. It was a march of not less than four days through a
wild country. To prevent agile youths, familiar with all the shifts of
a vagrant and predatory life, from stealing off to the bogs, and woods
under cover of the night, was impossible.
Indeed, many soldiers had the audacity to run away by broad daylight
before they were out of sight of Limerick Cathedral. The Royal regiment,
which had, on the day of the review, set so striking an example of
fidelity to the cause of James, dwindled from fourteen hundred men to
five hundred. Before the last ships departed, news came that those who
had sailed by the first ships had been ungraciously received at Brest.
They had been scantily fed; they had been able to obtain neither pay nor
clothing; though winter was setting in, they slept in the fields with no
covering but the hedges. Many had been heard to say that it would have
been far better to die in old Ireland than to live in the inhospitable
country to which they had been banished. The effect of those reports was
that hundreds, who had long persisted in their intention of emigrating,
refused at the last moment to go on board, threw down their arms, and
returned to their native villages. [138]
Sarsfield perceived that one chief cause of the desertion which was
thinning his army was the natural unwillingness of the men to leave
their families in a state of destitution. Cork and its neighbourhood
were filled with the kindred of those who were going abroad. Great
numbers of women, many of them leading, carrying, suckling their
infants, covered all the roads which led to the place of embarkation.
The Irish general, apprehensive of the effect which the entreaties and
lamentations of these poor creatures could not fail to produce, put
forth a proclamation, in which he assured his soldiers that they should
be permitted to carry their wives and families to France. It would be
injurious to the memory of so brave and loyal a gentleman to suppose
that when he made this promise he meant to break it. It is much more
probable that he had formed an erroneous estimate of the number of those
who would demand a passage, and that he found himself, when it was
too late to alter his arrangements, unable to keep his word. After the
soldiers had embarked, room was found for the families of many. But
still there remained on the water side a great multitude clamouring
piteously to be taken on board. As the last boats put off there was a
rush into the surf. Some women caught hold of the ropes, were dragged
out of their depth, clung till their fingers were cut through, and
perished in the waves. The ships began to move. A wild and terrible wail
rose from the shore, and excited unwonted compassion in hearts steeled
by hatred of the Irish race and of the Romish faith. Even the stern
Cromwellian, now at length, after a desperate struggle of three years,
left the undisputed lord of the bloodstained and devastated island,
could not hear unmoved that bitter cry, in which was poured forth all
the rage and all the sorrow of a conquered nation. [139]
The sails disappeared. The emaciated and brokenhearted crowd of those
whom a stroke more cruel than that of death had made widows and orphans
dispersed, to beg their way home through a wasted land, or to lie down
and die by the roadside of grief and hunger. The exiles departed, to
learn in foreign camps that discipline without which natural courage is
of small avail, and to retrieve on distant fields of battle the honour
which had been lost by a long series of defeats at home. In Ireland
there was peace. The domination of the colonists was absolute. The
native population was tranquil with the ghastly tranquillity of
exhaustion and of despair. There were indeed outrages, robberies,
fireraisings, assassinations. But more than a century passed away
without one general insurrection. During that century, two rebellions
were raised in Great Britain by the adherents of the House of Stuart.
But neither when the elder Pretender was crowned at Scone, nor when the
younger held his court at Holyrood, was the standard of that House set
up in Connaught or Munster. In 1745, indeed, when the Highlanders were
marching towards London, the Roman Catholics of Ireland were so quiet
that the Lord Lieutenant could, without the smallest risk, send several
regiments across Saint George's Channel to recruit the army of the Duke
of Cumberland. Nor was this submission the effect of content, but of
mere stupefaction and brokenness of heart. The iron had entered into the
soul. The memory of past defeats, the habit of daily enduring insult
and oppression, had cowed the spirit of the unhappy nation. There were
indeed Irish Roman Catholics of great ability, energy and ambition; but
they were to be found every where except in Ireland, at Versailles and
at Saint Ildefonso, in the armies of Frederic and in the armies of Maria
Theresa. One exile became a Marshal of France. Another became Prime
Minister of Spain. If he had staid in his native land he would have been
regarded as an inferior by all the ignorant and worthless squireens who
drank the glorious and immortal memory. In his palace at Madrid he had
the pleasure of being assiduously courted by the ambassador of George
the Second, and of bidding defiance in high terms to the ambassador of
George the Third. [140] Scattered over all Europe were to be found
brave Irish generals, dexterous Irish diplomatists, Irish Counts, Irish
Barons, Irish Knights of Saint Lewis and of Saint Leopold, of the White
Eagle and of the Golden Fleece, who, if they had remained in the house
of bondage, could not have been ensigns of marching regiments or freemen
of petty corporations. These men, the natural chiefs of their race,
having been withdrawn, what remained was utterly helpless and passive.
A rising of the Irishry against the Englishry was no more to be
apprehended than a rising of the women and children against the men.
[141]
There were indeed, in those days, fierce disputes between the mother
country and the colony; but in those disputes the aboriginal population
had no more interest than the Red Indians in the dispute between Old
England and New England about the Stamp Act. The ruling few, even when
in mutiny against the government, had no mercy for any thing that
looked like mutiny on the part of the subject many. None of those Roman
patriots, who poniarded Julius Caesar for aspiring to be a king,
would have had the smallest scruple about crucifying a whole school of
gladiators for attempting to escape from the most odious and degrading
of all kinds of servitude. None of those Virginian patriots, who
vindicated their separation from the British empire by proclaiming it to
be a selfevident truth that all men were endowed by the Creator with an
unalienable right to liberty, would have had the smallest scruple about
shooting any negro slave who had laid claim to that unalienable right.
And, in the same manner, the Protestant masters of Ireland, while
ostentatiously professing the political doctrines of Locke and Sidney,
held that a people who spoke the Celtic tongue and heard mass could have
no concern in those doctrines. Molyneux questioned the supremacy of
the English legislature. Swift assailed, with the keenest ridicule and
invective, every part of the system of government. Lucas disquieted the
administration of Lord Harrington. Boyle overthrew the administration
of the Duke of Dorset. But neither Molyneux nor Swift, neither Lucas nor
Boyle, ever thought of appealing to the native population. They would
as soon have thought of appealing to the swine. [142] At a later period
Henry Flood excited the dominant class to demand a Parliamentary reform,
and to use even revolutionary means for the purpose of obtaining that
reform. But neither he, nor those who looked up to him as their chief,
and who went close to the verge of treason at his bidding, would consent
to admit the subject class to the smallest share of political power. The
virtuous and accomplished Charlemont, a Whig of the Whigs, passed a long
life in contending for what he called the freedom of his country. But
he voted against the law which gave the elective franchise to Roman
Catholic freeholders; and he died fixed in the opinion that the
Parliament House ought to be kept pure from Roman Catholic members.
Indeed, during the century which followed the Revolution, the
inclination of an English Protestant to trample on the Irishry was
generally proportioned to the zeal which he professed for political
liberty in the abstract. If he uttered any expression of compassion for
the majority oppressed by the minority, he might be safely set down as a
bigoted Tory and High Churchman. [143]
All this time hatred, kept down by fear, festered in the hearts of the
children of the soil. They were still the same people that had sprung
to arms in 1641 at the call of O'Neill, and in 1689 at the call of
Tyrconnel. To them every festival instituted by the State was a day of
mourning, and every public trophy set up by the State was a memorial of
shame. We have never known, and can but faintly conceive, the feelings
of a nation doomed to see constantly in all its public places the
monuments of its subjugation. Such monuments every where met the eye
of the Irish Roman Catholics. In front of the Senate House of their
country, they saw the statue of their conqueror. If they entered, they
saw the walls tapestried with the defeats of their fathers. At length,
after a hundred years of servitude, endured without one vigorous or
combined struggle for emancipation, the French revolution awakened a
wild hope in the bosoms of the oppressed. Men who had inherited all the
pretensions and all the passions of the Parliament which James had held
at the Kings Inns could not hear unmoved of the downfall of a wealthy
established Church, of the flight of a splendid aristocracy, of the
confiscation of an immense territory. Old antipathies, which had never
slumbered, were excited to new and terrible energy by the combination
of stimulants which, in any other society, would have counteracted each
other. The spirit of Popery and the spirit of Jacobinism, irreconcilable
antagonists every where else, were for once mingled in an unnatural
and portentous union. Their joint influence produced the third and
last rising up of the aboriginal population against the colony. The
greatgrandsons of the soldiers of Galmoy and Sarsfield were opposed to
the greatgrandsons of the soldiers of Wolseley and Mitchelburn. The Celt
again looked impatiently for the sails which were to bring succour from
Brest; and the Saxon was again backed by the whole power of England.
Again the victory remained with the well educated and well organized
minority. But, happily, the vanquished people found protection in
a quarter from which they would once have had to expect nothing but
implacable severity. By this time the philosophy of the eighteenth
century had purifed English Whiggism from that deep taint of intolerance
which had been contracted during a long and close alliance with the
Puritanism of the seventeenth century. Enlightened men had begun to feel
that the arguments by which Milton and Locke, Tillotson and Burnet, had
vindicated the rights of conscience might be urged with not less force
in favour of the Roman Catholic than in favour of the Independent or
the Baptist. The great party which traces its descent through the
Exclusionists up to the Roundheads continued during thirty years, in
spite of royal frowns and popular clamours, to demand a share in all
the benefits of our free constitution for those Irish Papists whom the
Roundheads and the Exclusionists had considered merely as beasts of
chase or as beasts of burden. But it will be for some other historian to
relate the vicissitudes of that great conflict, and the late triumph of
reason and humanity. Unhappily such a historian will have to relate that
the triumph won by such exertions and by such sacrifices was immediately
followed by disappointment; that it proved far less easy to eradicate
evil passions than to repeal evil laws; and that, long after every
trace of national and religious animosity had been obliterated from the
Statute Book, national and religious animosities continued to rankle
in the bosoms of millions. May he be able also to relate that wisdom,
justice and time gradually did in Ireland what they had done in
Scotland, and that all the races which inhabit the British isles were at
length indissolubly blended into one people!
CHAPTER XVIII
Opening of the Parliament--Debates on the Salaries and Fees of Official
Men--Act excluding Papists from Public Trust in Ireland--Debates on the
East India Trade--Debates on the Bill for regulating Trials in Cases
of High Treason--Plot formed by Marlborough against the Government of
William--Marlborough's Plot disclosed by the Jacobites--Disgrace
of Marlborough; Various Reports touching the Cause of Marlborough's
Disgrace. --Rupture between Mary and Anne--Fuller's Plot--Close of
the Session; Bill for ascertaining the Salaries of the Judges
rejected--Misterial Changes in England--Ministerial Changes in
Scotland--State of the Highlands--Breadalbane employed to negotiate
with the Rebel Clans--Glencoe--William goes to the Continent; Death of
Louvois--The French Government determines to send an Expedition
against England--James believes that the English Fleet is friendly to
him--Conduct of Russell--A Daughter born to James--Preparations made
in England to repel Invasion--James goes down to his Army at La
Hogue--James's Declaration--Effect produced by James's Declaration--The
English and Dutch Fleets join; Temper of the English Fleet--Battle of La
Hogue--Rejoicings in England--Young's Plot
ON the nineteenth of October 1691, William arrived at Kensington from
the Netherlands. [144] Three days later he opened the Parliament. The
aspect of affairs was, on the whole, cheering. By land there had been
gains and losses; but the balance was in favour of England. Against the
fall of Mons might well be set off the taking of Athlone, the victory
of Aghrim, the surrender of Limerick and the pacification of Ireland. At
sea there had been no great victory; but there had been a great display
of power and of activity; and, though many were dissatisfied because
more had not been done, none could deny that there had been a change for
the better. The ruin caused by the foibles and vices of Torrington had
been repaired; the fleet had been well equipped; the rations had been
abundant and wholesome; and the health of the crews had consequently
been, for that age, wonderfully good. Russell, who commanded the naval
forces of the allies, had in vain offered battle to the French. The
white flag, which, in the preceding year, had ranged the Channel
unresisted from the Land's End to the Straits of Dover, now, as soon as
our topmasts were descried twenty leagues off, abandoned the open sea,
and retired into the depths of the harbour of Brest. The appearance of
an English squadron in the estuary of the Shannon had decided the fate
of the last fortress which had held out for King James; and a fleet
of merchantmen from the Levant, valued at four millions sterling,
had, through dangers which had caused many sleepless nights to the
underwriters of Lombard Street, been convoyed safe into the Thames.
[145] The Lords and Commons listened with signs of satisfaction to a
speech in which the King congratulated them on the event of the war
in Ireland, and expressed his confidence that they would continue to
support him in the war with France. He told them that a great naval
armament would be necessary, and that, in his opinion, the conflict
by land could not be effectually maintained with less than sixty-five
thousand men. [146]
He was thanked in affectionate terms; the force which he asked was
voted; and large supplies were granted with little difficulty. But when
the Ways and Means were taken into consideration, symptoms of discontent
began to appear. Eighteen months before, when the Commons had been
employed in settling the Civil List, many members had shown a very
natural disposition to complain of the amount of the salaries and fees
received by official men. Keen speeches had been made, and, what was
much less usual, had been printed; there had been much excitement out of
doors; but nothing had been done. The subject was now revived. A report
made by the Commissioners who had been appointed in the preceding
year to examine the public accounts disclosed some facts which excited
indignation, and others which raised grave suspicion. The House seemed
fully determined to make an extensive reform; and, in truth, nothing
could have averted such a reform except the folly and violence of the
reformers. That they should have been angry is indeed not strange. The
enormous gains, direct and indirect, of the servants of the public went
on increasing, while the gains of every body else were diminishing.
Rents were falling; trade was languishing; every man who lived either on
what his ancestors had left him or on the fruits of his own industry
was forced to retrench. The placeman alone throve amidst the general
distress. "Look," cried the incensed squires, "at the Comptroller of the
Customs. Ten years ago, he walked, and we rode. Our incomes have been
curtailed; his salary has been doubled; we have sold our horses; he has
bought them; and now we go on foot, and are splashed by his coach and
six. " Lowther vainly endeavoured to stand up against the storm. He
was heard with little favour by the country gentlemen who had not long
before looked up to him as one of their leaders. He had left them; he
had become a courtier; he had two good places, one in the Treasury, the
other in the household. He had recently received from the King's own
hand a gratuity of two thousand guineas. [147] It seemed perfectly
natural that he should defend abuses by which he profited. The taunts
and reproaches with which he was assailed were insupportable to his
sensitive nature. He lost his head, almost fainted away on the floor
of the House, and talked about righting himself in another place. [148]
Unfortunately no member rose at this conjuncture to propose that the
civil establishment of the kingdom should be carefully revised, that
sinecures should be abolished, that exorbitant official incomes should
be reduced, and that no servant of the State should be allowed to exact,
under any pretence, any thing beyond his known and lawful remuneration.
In this way it would have been possible to diminish the public burdens,
and at the same time to increase the efficiency of every public
department.
