No More Learning

For there could be no doubt that, if Londonderry
fell, the whole Irish army would instantly march in irresistible force
upon Lough Erne. Yet what could be done? Some brave men were for making
a desperate attempt to relieve the besieged city; but the odds were
too great. Detachments however were sent which infested the rear of the
blockading army, cut off supplies, and, on one occasion, carried away
the horses of three entire troops of cavalry, [244] Still the line of
posts which surrounded Londonderry by land remained unbroken. The river
was still strictly closed and guarded. Within the walls the distress had
become extreme. So early as the eighth of June horseflesh was almost
the only meat which could be purchased; and of horseflesh the supply was
scanty. It was necessary to make up the deficiency with tallow; and even
tallow was doled out with a parsimonious hand.

On the fifteenth of June a gleam of hope appeared. The sentinels on the
top of the Cathedral saw sails nine miles off in the bay of Lough Foyle.
Thirty vessels of different sizes were counted. Signals were made from
the steeples and returned from the mast heads, but were imperfectly
understood on both sides. At last a messenger from the fleet eluded the
Irish sentinels, dived under the boom, and informed the garrison that
Kirke had arrived from England with troops, arms, ammunition, and
provisions, to relieve the city, [245]

In Londonderry expectation was at the height: but a few hours of
feverish joy were followed by weeks of misery. Kirke thought it unsafe
to make any attempt, either by land or by water, on the lines of the
besiegers, and retired to the entrance of Lough Foyle, where, during
several weeks, he lay inactive.

And now the pressure of famine became every day more severe. A strict
search was made in all the recesses of all the houses of the city; and
some provisions, which had been concealed in cellars by people who had
since died or made their escape, were discovered and carried to the
magazines. The stock of cannon balls was almost exhausted; and their
place was supplied by brickbats coated with lead. Pestilence began, as
usual, to make its appearance in the train of hunger. Fifteen officers
died of fever in one day. The Governor Baker was among those who sank
under the disease. His place was supplied by Colonel John Mitchelburne,
[246]

Meanwhile it was known at Dublin that Kirke and his squadron were on
the coast of Ulster. The alarm was great at the Castle. Even before this
news arrived, Avaux had given it as his opinion that Richard Hamilton
was unequal to the difficulties of the situation. It had therefore been
resolved that Rosen should take the chief command. He was now sent down
with all speed, [247]

On the nineteenth of June he arrived at the head quarter of the
besieging army. At first he attempted to undermine the walls; but his
plan was discovered; and he was compelled to abandon it after a sharp
fight, in which more than a hundred of his men were slain. Then his
fury rose to a strange pitch. He, an old soldier, a Marshal of France in
expectancy, trained in the school of the greatest generals, accustomed,
during many years, to scientific war, to be baffled by a mob of country
gentlemen, farmers, shopkeepers, who were protected only by a wall which
any good engineer would at once have pronounced untenable! He raved, he
blasphemed, in a language of his own, made up of all the dialects spoken
from the Baltic to the Atlantic. He would raze the city to the ground:
he would spare no living thing; no, not the young girls; not the babies
at the breast. As to the leaders, death was too light a punishment for
them: he would rack them: he would roast them alive. In his rage he
ordered a shell to be flung into the town with a letter containing
a horrible menace. He would, he said, gather into one body all the
Protestants who had remained at their homes between Charlemont and the
sea, old men, women, children, many of them near in blood and affection
to the defenders of Londonderry. No protection, whatever might be the
authority by which it had been given, should be respected. The multitude
thus brought together should be driven under the walls of Londonderry,
and should there be starved to death in the sight of their countrymen,
their friends, their kinsmen. This was no idle threat. Parties were
instantly sent out in all directions to collect victims. At dawn, on the
morning of the second of July, hundreds of Protestants, who were charged
with no crime, who were incapable of bearing arms, and many of whom had
protections granted by James, were dragged to the gates of the city.
It was imagined that the piteous sight would quell the spirit of the
colonists. But the only effect was to rouse that spirit to still greater
energy. An order was immediately put forth that no man should utter the
word Surrender on pain of death; and no man uttered that word. Several
prisoners of high rank were in the town. Hitherto they had been well
treated, and had received as good rations as were measured out to the
garrison. They were now, closely confined. A gallows was erected on one
of the bastion; and a message was conveyed to Rosen, requesting him
to send a confessor instantly to prepare his friends for death. The
prisoners in great dismay wrote to the savage Livonian, but received
no answer. They then addressed themselves to their countryman, Richard
Hamilton. They were willing, they said, to shed their blood for their
King; but they thought it hard to die the ignominious death of thieves
in consequence of the barbarity of their own companions in arms.
Hamilton, though a man of lax principles, was not cruel. He had been
disgusted by the inhumanity of Rosen, but, being only second in command,
could not venture to express publicly all that he thought. He however
remonstrated strongly. Some Irish officers felt on this occasion as it
was natural that brave men should feel, and declared, weeping with pity
and indignation, that they should never cease to have in their ears the
cries of the poor women and children who had been driven at the point of
the pike to die of famine between the camp and the city. Rosen persisted
during forty-eight hours. In that time many unhappy creatures perished:
but Londonderry held out as resolutely as ever; and he saw that his
crime was likely to produce nothing but hatred and obloquy. He at length
gave way, and suffered the survivors to withdraw. The garrison then took
down the gallows which had been erected on the bastion, [248]

When the tidings of these events reached Dublin, James, though by no
means prone to compassion, was startled by an atrocity of which the
civil wars of England had furnished no example, and was displeased by
learning that protections, given by his authority, and guaranteed by his
honour, had been publicly declared to be nullities. He complained to
the French ambassador, and said, with a warmth which the occasion fully
justified, that Rosen was a barbarous Muscovite. Melfort could not
refrain from adding that, if Rosen had been an Englishman, he would
have been hanged. Avaux was utterly unable to understand this effeminate
sensibility. In his opinion, nothing had been done that was at all
reprehensible; and he had some difficulty in commanding himself when he
heard the King and the secretary blame, in strong language, an act of
wholesome severity, [249] In truth the French ambassador and the French
general were well paired. There was a great difference doubtless, in
appearance and manner, between the handsome, graceful, and refined
diplomatist, whose dexterity and suavity had been renowned at the most
polite courts of Europe, and the military adventurer, whose look and
voice reminded all who came near him that he had been born in a half
savage country, that he had risen from the ranks, and that he had once
been sentenced to death for marauding. But the heart of the courtier was
really even more callous than that of the soldier.

Rosen was recalled to Dublin; and Richard Hamilton was again left in the
chief command. He tried gentler means than those which had brought so
much reproach on his predecessor. No trick, no lie, which was thought
likely to discourage the starving garrison was spared. One day a great
shout was raised by the whole Irish camp. The defenders of Londonderry
were soon informed that the army of James was rejoicing on account of
the fall of Enniskillen. They were told that they had now no chance of
being relieved, and were exhorted to save their lives by capitulating.
They consented to negotiate. But what they asked was, that they should
be permitted to depart armed and in military array, by land or by water
at their choice. They demanded hostages for the exact fulfilment of
these conditions, and insisted that the hostages should be sent on board
of the fleet which lay in Lough Foyle. Such terms Hamilton durst not
grant: the Governors would abate nothing: the treaty was broken off; and
the conflict recommenced, [250]

By this time July was far advanced; and the state of the city was, hour
by hour, becoming more frightful. The number of the inhabitants had been
thinned more by famine and disease than by the fire of the enemy. Yet
that fire was sharper and more constant than ever. One of the gates was
beaten in: one of the bastions was laid in ruins; but the breaches made
by day were repaired by night with indefatigable activity. Every attack
was still repelled. But the fighting men of the garrison were so much
exhausted that they could scarcely keep their legs. Several of them, in
the act of striking at the enemy, fell down from mere weakness. A very
small quantity of grain remained, and was doled out by mouthfuls. The
stock of salted hides was considerable, and by gnawing them the garrison
appeased the rage of hunger. Dogs, fattened on the blood of the slain
who lay unburied round the town, were luxuries which few could afford
to purchase. The price of a whelp's paw was five shillings and sixpence.
Nine horses were still alive, and but barely alive. They were so lean
that little meat was likely to be found upon them. It was, however,
determined to slaughter them for food. The people perished so fast that
it was impossible for the survivors to perform the rites of sepulture.
There was scarcely a cellar in which some corpse was not decaying. Such
was the extremity of distress, that the rats who came to feast in those
hideous dens were eagerly hunted and greedily devoured. A small fish,
caught in the river, was not to be purchased with money. The only
price for which such a treasure could be obtained was some handfuls of
oatmeal. Leprosies, such as strange and unwholesome diet engenders, made
existence a constant torment. The whole city was poisoned by the stench
exhaled from the bodies of the dead and of the half dead. That there
should be fits of discontent and insubordination among men enduring such
misery was inevitable. At one moment it was suspected that Walker had
laid up somewhere a secret store of food, and was revelling in private,
while he exhorted others to suffer resolutely for the good cause. His
house was strictly examined: his innocence was fully proved: he regained
his popularity; and the garrison, with death in near prospect, thronged
to the cathedral to hear him preach, drank in his earnest eloquence with
delight, and went forth from the house of God with haggard faces and
tottering steps, but with spirit still unsubdued. There were, indeed,
some secret plottings. A very few obscure traitors opened communications
with the enemy. But it was necessary that all such dealings should be
carefully concealed. None dared to utter publicly any words save words
of defiance and stubborn resolution. Even in that extremity the general
cry was "No surrender. " And there were not wanting voices which, in low
tones, added, "First the horses and hides; and then the prisoners;
and then each other. " It was afterwards related, half in jest, yet not
without a horrible mixture of earnest, that a corpulent citizen, whose
bulk presented a strange contrast to the skeletons which surrounded him,
thought it expedient to conceal himself from the numerous eyes which
followed him with cannibal looks whenever he appeared in the streets,
[251]

It was no slight aggravation of the sufferings of the garrison that
all this time the English ships were seen far off in Lough Foyle.
Communication between the fleet and the city was almost impossible.
One diver who had attempted to pass the boom was drowned. Another
was hanged. The language of signals was hardly intelligible. On the
thirteenth of July, however, a piece of paper sewed up in a cloth
button came to Walker's hands. It was a letter from Kirke, and contained
assurances of speedy relief. But more than a fortnight of intense misery
had since elapsed; and the hearts of the most sanguine were sick with
deferred hope. By no art could the provisions which were left be made to
hold out two days more, [252]

Just at this time Kirke received a despatch from England, which
contained positive orders that Londonderry should be relieved. He
accordingly determined to make an attempt which, as far as appears, he
might have made, with at least an equally fair prospect of success, six
weeks earlier, [253]

Among the merchant ships which had come to Lough Foyle under his convoy
was one called the Mountjoy. The master, Micaiah Browning, a native of
Londonderry, had brought from England a large cargo of provisions. He
had, it is said, repeatedly remonstrated against the inaction of
the armament. He now eagerly volunteered to take the first risk of
succouring his fellow citizens; and his offer was accepted. Andrew
Douglas, master of the Phoenix, who had on board a great quantity of
meal from Scotland, was willing to share the danger and the honour.
The two merchantmen were to be escorted by the Dartmouth frigate of
thirty-six guns, commanded by Captain John Leake, afterwards an admiral
of great fame.

It was the thirtieth of July. The sun had just set: the evening
sermon in the cathedral was over; and the heartbroken congregation
had separated, when the sentinels on the tower saw the sails of three
vessels coming up the Foyle. Soon there was a stir in the Irish camp.
The besiegers were on the alert for miles along both shores. The ships
were in extreme peril: for the river was low; and the only navigable
channel Tan very near to the left bank, where the head quarters of the
enemy had been fixed, and where the batteries were most numerous.
Leake performed his duty with a skill and spirit worthy of his noble
profession, exposed his frigate to cover the merchantmen, and used his
guns with great effect. At length the little squadron came to the place
of peril. Then the Mountjoy took the lead, and went right at the bottom.
The huge barricade cracked and gave way: but the shock was such that the
Mountjoy rebounded, and stuck in the mud. A yell of triumph rose from
the banks: the Irish rushed to their boats, and were preparing to board;
but the Dartmouth poured on them a well directed broadside, which threw
them into disorder. Just then the Phoenix dashed at the breach which the
Mountjoy had made, and was in a moment within the fence. Meantime the
tide was rising fast. The Mountjoy began to move, and soon passed safe
through the broken stakes and floating spars. But her brave master was
no more. A shot from one of the batteries had struck him; and he died
by the most enviable of all deaths, in sight of the city which was his
birthplace, which was his home, and which had just been saved by his
courage and self-devotion from the most frightful form of destruction.
The night had closed in before the conflict at the boom began; but the
flash of the guns was seen, and the noise heard, by the lean and
ghastly multitude which covered the walls of the city. When the Mountjoy
grounded, and when the shout of triumph rose from the Irish on both
sides of the river, the hearts of the besieged died within them. One who
endured the unutterable anguish of that moment has told that they looked
fearfully livid in each other's eyes. Even after the barricade had been
passed, there was a terrible half hour of suspense. It was ten o'clock
before the ships arrived at the quay. The whole population was there
to welcome them. A screen made of casks filled with earth was hastily
thrown up to protect the landing place from the batteries on the other
side of the river; and then the work of unloading began. First were
rolled on shore barrels containing six thousand bushels of meal. Then
came great cheeses, casks of beef, flitches of bacon, kegs of butter,
sacks of Pease and biscuit, ankers of brandy. Not many hours before,
half a pound of tallow and three quarters of a pound of salted hide had
been weighed out with niggardly care to every fighting man. The ration
which each now received was three pounds of flour, two pounds of beef,
and a pint of Pease. It is easy to imagine with what tears grace was
said over the suppers of that evening. There was little sleep on either
side of the wall. The bonfires shone bright along the whole circuit of
the ramparts. The Irish guns continued to roar all night; and all night
the bells of the rescued city made answer to the Irish guns with a peal
of joyous defiance. Through the whole of the thirty-first of July the
batteries of the enemy continued to play. But, soon after the sun had
again gone down, flames were seen arising from the camp; and, when the
first of August dawned, a line of smoking ruins marked the site lately
occupied by the huts of the besiegers; and the citizens saw far off the
long column of pikes and standards retreating up the left bank of the
Foyle towards Strabane, [254]

So ended this great siege, the most memorable in the annals of the
British isles. It had lasted a hundred and five days. The garrison had
been reduced from about seven thousand effective men to about three
thousand. The loss of the besiegers cannot be precisely ascertained.
Walker estimated it at eight thousand men. It is certain from the
despatches of Avaux that the regiments which returned from the blockade
had been so much thinned that many of them were not more than two
hundred strong. Of thirty-six French gunners who had superintended the
cannonading, thirty-one had been killed or disabled, [255] The means
both of attack and of defence had undoubtedly been such as would have
moved the great warriors of the Continent to laughter; and this is the
very circumstance which gives so peculiar an interest to the history
of the contest. It was a contest, not between engineers, but between
nations; and the victory remained with the nation which, though inferior
in number, was superior in civilisation, in capacity for selfgovernment,
and in stubbornness of resolution, [256]

As soon as it was known that the Irish army had retired, a deputation
from the city hastened to Lough Foyle, and invited Kirk to take the
command. He came accompanied by a long train of officers, and was
received in state by the two Governors, who delivered up to him the
authority which, under the pressure of necessity, they had assumed.
He remained only a few days; but he had time to show enough of the
incurable vices of his character to disgust a population distinguished
by austere morals and ardent public spirit. There was, however, no
outbreak. The city was in the highest good humour. Such quantities of
provisions had been landed from the fleet, that there was in every house
a plenty never before known. A few days earlier a man had been glad to
obtain for twenty pence a mouthful of carrion scraped from the bones of
a starved horse. A pound of good beef was now sold for three halfpence.
Meanwhile all hands were busied in removing corpses which had been
thinly covered with earth, in filling up the holes which the shells
had ploughed in the ground, and in repairing the battered roofs of
the houses. The recollection of past dangers and privations, and the
consciousness of having deserved well of the English nation and of all
Protestant Churches, swelled the hearts of the townspeople with honest
pride. That pride grew stronger when they received from William a letter
acknowledging, in the most affectionate language, the debt which he owed
to the brave and trusty citizens of his good city. The whole population
crowded to the Diamond to hear the royal epistle read. At the close all
the guns on the ramparts sent forth a voice of joy: all the ships in
the river made answer: barrels of ale were broken up; and the health of
their Majesties was drunk with shouts and volleys of musketry.

Five generations have since passed away; and still the wall of
Londonderry is to the Protestants of Ulster what the trophy of Marathon
was to the Athenians. A lofty pillar, rising from a bastion which bore
during many weeks the heaviest fire of the enemy, is seen far up and far
down the Foyle. On the summit is the statue of Walker, such as when, in
the last and most terrible emergency, his eloquence roused the fainting
courage of his brethren. In one hand he grasps a Bible. The other,
pointing down the river, seems to direct the eyes of his famished
audience to the English topmasts in the distant bay. Such a monument was
well deserved: yet it was scarcely needed: for in truth the whole
city is to this day a monument of the great deliverance. The wall is
carefully preserved; nor would any plea of health or convenience be held
by the inhabitants sufficient to justify the demolition of that sacred
enclosure which, in the evil time, gave shelter to their race and their
religion, [257] The summit of the ramparts forms a pleasant walk. The
bastions have been turned into little gardens. Here and there, among
the shrubs and flowers, may be seen the old culverins which scattered
bricks, cased with lead, among the Irish ranks. One antique gun, the
gift of the Fishmongers of London, was distinguished, during the hundred
and five memorable days, by the loudness of its report, and still
bears the name of Roaring Meg. The cathedral is filled with relics and
trophies. In the vestibule is a huge shell, one of many hundreds of
shells which were thrown into the city. Over the altar are still seen
the French flagstaves, taken by the garrison in a desperate sally. The
white ensigns of the House of Bourbon have long been dust: but their
place has been supplied by new banners, the work of the fairest hands of
Ulster. The anniversary of the day on which the gates were closed, and
the anniversary of the day on which the siege was raised, have been
down to our own time celebrated by salutes, processions, banquets,
and sermons: Lundy has been executed in effigy; and the sword, said by
tradition to be that of Maumont, has, on great occasions, been carried
in triumph. There is still a Walker Club and a Murray Club. The humble
tombs of the Protestant captains have been carefully sought out,
repaired, and embellished. It is impossible not to respect the sentiment
which indicates itself by these tokens. It is a sentiment which belongs
to the higher and purer part of human nature, and which adds not a
little to the strength of states. A people which takes no pride in the
noble achievements of remote ancestors will never achieve any thing
worthy to be remembered with pride by remote descendants. Yet it is
impossible for the moralist or the statesman to look with unmixed
complacency on the solemnities with which Londonderry commemorates her
deliverance, and on the honours which she pays to those who saved her.
Unhappily the animosities of her brave champions have descended with
their glory. The faults which are ordinarily found in dominant castes
and dominant sects have not seldom shown themselves without disguise at
her festivities; and even with the expressions of pious gratitude which
have resounded from her pulpits have too often been mingled words of
wrath and defiance.

The Irish army which had retreated to Strabane remained there but a very
short time. The spirit of the troops had been depressed by their recent
failure, and was soon completely cowed by the news of a great disaster
in another quarter.

Three weeks before this time the Duke of Berwick had gained an
advantage over a detachment of the Enniskilleners, and had, by their own
confession, killed or taken more than fifty of them. They were in
hopes of obtaining some assistance from Kirke, to whom they had sent a
deputation; and they still persisted in rejecting all terms offered by
the enemy. It was therefore determined at Dublin that an attack should
be made upon them from several quarters at once. Macarthy, who had
been rewarded for his services in Munster with the title of Viscount
Mountcashel, marched towards Lough Erne from the east with three
regiments of foot, two regiments of dragoons, and some troops of
cavalry. A considerable force, which lay encamped near the mouth of the
river Drowes, was at the same time to advance from the west. The Duke
of Berwick was to come from the north, with such horse and dragoons
as could be spared from the army which was besieging Londonderry. The
Enniskilleners were not fully apprised of the whole plan which had been
laid for their destruction; but they knew that Macarthy was on the road
with a force exceeding any which they could bring into the field. Their
anxiety was in some degree relieved by the return of the deputation
which they had sent to Kirke.
Kirke could spare no soldiers; but he had
sent some arms, some ammunition, and some experienced officers, of whom
the chief were Colonel Wolseley and Lieutenant Colonel Berry. These
officers had come by sea round the coast of Donegal, and had run up the
Line. On Sunday, the twenty-ninth of July, it was known that their boat
was approaching the island of Enniskillen. The whole population, male
and female, came to the shore to greet them. It was with difficulty,
that they made their way to the Castle through the crowds which hung
on them, blessing God that dear old England had not quite forgotten
the Englishmen who upheld her cause against great odds in the heart of
Ireland.

Wolseley seems to have been in every respect well qualified for his
post. He was a stanch Protestant, had distinguished himself among the
Yorkshiremen who rose up for the Prince of Orange and a free Parliament,
and had, if he is not belied, proved his zeal for liberty and pure
religion, by causing the Mayor of Scarborough, who had made a speech
in favour of King James, to be brought into the market place and well
tossed there in a blanket, [258] This vehement hatred of Popery was,
in the estimation of the men of Enniskillen, the first of all
qualifications for command: and Wolseley had other and more important
qualifications. Though himself regularly bred to war, he seems to have
had a peculiar aptitude for the management of irregular troops. He had
scarcely taken on himself the chief command when he received notice that
Mountcashel had laid siege to the Castle of Crum. Crum was the
frontier garrison of the Protestants of Fermanagh. The ruins of the
old fortifications are now among the attractions of a beautiful
pleasureground, situated on a woody promontory which overlooks Lough
Erne. Wolseley determined to raise the siege. He sent Berry forward with
such troops as could be instantly put in motion, and promised to follow
speedily with a larger force.

Berry, after marching some miles, encountered thirteen companies
of Macarthy's dragoons commanded by Anthony, the most brilliant and
accomplished of all who bore the name of Hamilton, but much less
successful as a soldier than as a courtier, a lover, and a writer.
Hamilton's dragoons ran at the first fire: he was severely wounded; and
his second in command was shot dead. Macarthy soon came up to support
Hamilton; and at the same time Wolseley came up to support Berry. The
hostile armies were now in presence of each other. Macarthy had above
five thousand men and several pieces of artillery. The Enniskilleners
were under three thousand; and they had marched in such haste that
they had brought only one day's provisions. It was therefore absolutely
necessary for them either to fight instantly or to retreat. Wolseley
determined to consult the men; and this determination, which, in
ordinary circumstances, would have been most unworthy of a general, was
fully justified by the peculiar composition and temper of the little
army, an army made up of gentlemen and yeomen fighting, not for pay, but
for their lands, their wives, their children, and their God. The
ranks were drawn up under arms; and the question was put, "Advance or
Retreat? " The answer was an universal shout of "Advance. " Wolseley
gave out the word, "No Popery. " It was received with loud applause. He
instantly made his dispositions for an attack. As he approached, the
enemy, to his great surprise, began to retire. The Enniskilleners were
eager to pursue with all speed: but their commander, suspecting a snare,
restrained their ardour, and positively forbade them to break their
ranks. Thus one army retreated and the other followed, in good order,
through the little town of Newton Butler. About a mile from that town
the Irish faced about, and made a stand. Their position was well chosen.
They were drawn up on a hill at the foot of which lay a deep bog. A
narrow paved causeway which ran across the bog was the only road by
which the cavalry of the Enniskilleners could advance; for on the right
and left were pools, turf pits, and quagmires, which afforded no footing
to horses. Macarthy placed his cannon in such a manner as to sweep this
causeway.

Wolseley ordered his infantry to the attack. They struggled through the
bog, made their way to firm ground, and rushed on the guns. There was
then a short and desperate fight. The Irish cannoneers stood gallantly
to their pieces till they were cut down to a man. The Enniskillen horse,
no longer in danger of being mowed down by the fire of the artillery,
came fast up the causeway. The Irish dragoons who had run away in the
morning were smitten with another panic, and, without striking a blow,
galloped from the field. The horse followed the example. Such was the
terror of the fugitives that many of them spurred hard till their beasts
fell down, and then continued to fly on foot, throwing away carbines,
swords, and even coats as incumbrances. The infantry, seeing themselves
deserted, flung down their pikes and muskets and ran for their lives.
The conquerors now gave loose to that ferocity which has seldom failed
to disgrace the civil wars of Ireland. The butchery was terrible. Near
fifteen hundred of the vanquished were put to the sword. About five
hundred more, in ignorance of the country, took a road which led to
Lough Erne. The lake was before them: the enemy behind: they plunged
into the waters and perished there. Macarthy, abandoned by his troops,
rushed into the midst of the pursuers and very nearly found the death
which he sought. He was wounded in several places: he was struck to the
ground; and in another moment his brains would have been knocked out
with the butt end of a musket, when he was recognised and saved. The
colonists lost only twenty men killed and fifty wounded. They took four
hundred prisoners, seven pieces of cannon, fourteen barrels of powder,
all the drums and all the colours of the vanquished enemy, [259]

The battle of Newton Butler was won on the same afternoon on which the
boom thrown over the Foyle was broken. At Strabane the news met the
Celtic army which was retreating from Londonderry. All was terror and
confusion: the tents were struck: the military stores were flung by
waggon loads into the waters of the Mourne; and the dismayed
Irish, leaving many sick and wounded to the mercy of the victorious
Protestants, fled to Omagh, and thence to Charlemont. Sarsfield, who
commanded at Sligo, found it necessary to abandon that town, which was
instantly occupied by a detachment of Kirke's troops, [260] Dublin was
in consternation. James dropped words which indicated an intention of
flying to the Continent. Evil tidings indeed came fast upon him. Almost
at the same time at which he learned that one of his armies had raised
the siege of Londonderry, and that another had been routed at Newton
Butler, he received intelligence scarcely less disheartening from
Scotland.

It is now necessary to trace the progress of those events to which
Scotland owes her political and her religious liberty, her prosperity
and her civilisation.




CHAPTER XIII.

The Revolution more violent in Scotland than in England--Elections
for the Convention; Rabbling of the Episcopal Clergy--State of
Edinburgh--Question of an Union between England and Scotland
raised--Wish of the English Low Churchmen to preserve Episcopacy
in Scotland--Opinions of William about Church Government in
Scotland--Comparative Strength of Religious Parties in Scotland--Letter
from William to the Scotch Convention--William's Instructions to
his Agents in Scotland; the Dalrymples--Melville--James's Agents in
Scotland: Dundee; Balcarras--Meeting of the Convention--Hamilton elected
President--Committee of Elections; Edinburgh Castle summoned--Dundee
threatened by the Covenanters--Letter from James to the
Convention--Effect of James's Letter--Flight of Dundee--Tumultuous
Sitting of the Convention--A Committee appointed to frame a Plan of
Government--Resolutions proposed by the Committee--William and
Mary proclaimed; the Claim of Right; Abolition of
Episcopacy--Torture--William and Mary accept the Crown of
Scotland--Discontent of the Covenanters--Ministerial Arrangements
in Scotland--Hamilton; Crawford--The Dalrymples; Lockhart;
Montgomery--Melville; Carstairs--The Club formed: Annandale; Ross--Hume;
Fletcher of Saltoun--War breaks out in the Highlands; State of the
Highlands--Peculiar Nature of Jacobitism in the Highlands--Jealousy
of the Ascendency of the Campbells--The Stewarts and Macnaghtens--The
Macleans; the Camerons: Lochiel--The Macdonalds; Feud between the
Macdonalds and Mackintoshes; Inverness--Inverness threatened by
Macdonald of Keppoch--Dundee appears in Keppoch's Camp--Insurrection
of the Clans hostile to the Campbells--Tarbet's Advice to the
Government--Indecisive Campaign in the Highlands--Military Character of
the Highlanders--Quarrels in the Highland Army--Dundee applies to James
for Assistance; the War in the Highlands suspended--Scruples of the
Covenanters about taking Arms for King William--The Cameronian
Regiment raised--Edinburgh Castle surrenders--Session of Parliament at
Edinburgh--Ascendancy of the Club--Troubles in Athol--The War breaks out
again in the Highlands--Death of Dundee--Retreat of Mackay--Effect of
the Battle of Killiecrankie; the Scottish Parliament adjourned--The
Highland Army reinforced--Skirmish at Saint Johnston's--Disorders in the
Highland Army--Mackay's Advice disregarded by the Scotch Ministers--The
Cameronians stationed at Dunkeld--The Highlanders attack the Cameronians
and are repulsed--Dissolution of the Highland Army; Intrigues of the
Club; State of the Lowlands

THE violence of revolutions is generally proportioned to the degree
of the maladministration which has produced them. It is therefore not
strange that the government of Scotland, having been during many years
far more oppressive and corrupt than the government of England, should
have fallen with a far heavier ruin. The movement against the last
king of the House of Stuart was in England conservative, in Scotland
destructive. The English complained, not of the law, but of the
violation of the law. They rose up against the first magistrate merely
in order to assert the supremacy of the law. They were for the most part
strongly attached to the Church established by law. Even in applying
that extraordinary remedy to which an extraordinary emergency compelled
them to have recourse, they deviated as little as possible from the
ordinary methods prescribed by the law. The Convention which met at
Westminster, though summoned by irregular writs, was constituted on the
exact model of a regular Parliament. No man was invited to the Upper
House whose right to sit there was not clear. The knights and burgesses
were chosen by those electors who would have been entitled to choose
the members of a House of Commons called under the great seal. The
franchises of the forty shilling freeholder, of the householder paying
scot and lot, of the burgage tenant, of the liveryman of London, of the
Master of Arts of Oxford, were respected. The sense of the constituent
bodies was taken with as little violence on the part of mobs, with as
little trickery on the part of returning officers, as at any
general election of that age. When at length the Estates met, their
deliberations were carried on with perfect freedom and in strict
accordance with ancient forms. There was indeed, after the first
flight of James, an alarming anarchy in London and in some parts of the
country. But that anarchy nowhere lasted longer than forty-eight hours.
From the day on which William reached Saint James's, not even the most
unpopular agents of the fallen government, not even the ministers of
the Roman Catholic Church, had any thing to fear from the fury of the
populace.

In Scotland the course of events was very different. There the law
itself was a grievance; and James had perhaps incurred more unpopularity
by enforcing it than by violating it. The Church established by law was
the most odious institution in the realm. The tribunals had pronounced
some sentences so flagitious, the Parliament had passed some acts so
oppressive, that, unless those sentences and those Acts were treated
as nullities, it would be impossible to bring together a Convention
commanding the public respect and expressing the public opinion. It was
hardly to be expected, for example, that the Whigs, in this day of their
power, would endure to see their hereditary leader, the son of a martyr,
the grandson of a martyr, excluded from the Parliament House in which
nine of his ancestors had sate as Earls of Argyle, and excluded by a
judgment on which the whole kingdom cried shame. Still less was it to be
expected that they would suffer the election of members for counties and
towns to be conducted according to the provisions of the existing law.
For under the existing law no elector could vote without swearing that
he renounced the Covenant, and that he acknowledged the Royal supremacy
in matters ecclesiastical, [261] Such an oath no rigid Presbyterian
could take. If such an oath had been exacted, the constituent bodies
would have been merely small knots of prelatists: the business of
devising securities against oppression would have been left to the
oppressors; and the great party which had been most active in effecting
the Revolution would, in an assembly sprung from the Revolution, have
had not a single representative, [262]

William saw that he must not think of paying to the laws of Scotland
that scrupulous respect which he had wisely and righteously paid to the
laws of England. It was absolutely necessary that he should determine
by his own authority how that Convention which was to meet at Edinburgh
should be chosen, and that he should assume the power of annulling some
judgments and some statutes. He accordingly summoned to the parliament
house several Lords who had been deprived of their honours by sentences
which the general voice loudly condemned as unjust; and he took on
himself to dispense with the Act which deprived Presbyterians of the
elective franchise.

The consequence was that the choice of almost all the shires and burghs
fell on Whig candidates. The defeated party complained loudly of foul
play, of the rudeness of the populace, and of the partiality of the
presiding magistrates; and these complaints were in many cases well
founded. It is not under such rulers as Lauderdale and Dundee that
nations learn justice and moderation, [263]

Nor was it only at the elections that the popular feeling, so long and
so severely compressed, exploded with violence. The heads and the hands
of the martyred Whigs were taken down from the gates of Edinburgh,
carried in procession by great multitudes to the cemeteries, and laid
in the earth with solemn respect, [264] It would have been well if the
public enthusiasm had manifested itself in no less praiseworthy
form. Unhappily throughout a large part of Scotland the clergy of the
Established Church were, to use the phrase then common, rabbled.
The morning of Christmas day was fixed for the commencement of these
outrages. For nothing disgusted the rigid Covenanter more than the
reverence paid by the prelatist to the ancient holidays of the Church.
That such reverence may be carried to an absurd extreme is true. But a
philosopher may perhaps be inclined to think the opposite extreme
not less absurd, and may ask why religion should reject the aid of
associations which exist in every nation sufficiently civilised to have
a calendar, and which are found by experience to have a powerful and
often a salutary effect. The Puritan, who was, in general, but too
ready to follow precedents and analogies drawn from the history and
jurisprudence of the Jews, might have found in the Old Testament quite
as clear warrant for keeping festivals in honour of great events as for
assassinating bishops and refusing quarter to captives. He certainly did
not learn from his master, Calvin, to hold such festivals in abhorrence;
for it was in consequence of the strenuous exertions of Calvin that
Christmas was, after an interval of some years, again observed by the
citizens of Geneva, [265] But there had arisen in Scotland Calvinists
who were to Calvin what Calvin was to Laud. To these austere fanatics
a holiday was an object of positive disgust and hatred. They long
continued in their solemn manifestoes to reckon it among the sins which
would one day bring down some fearful judgment on the land that the
Court of Session took a vacation in the last week of December, [266]

On Christmas day, therefore, the Covenanters held armed musters by
concert in many parts of the western shires. Each band marched to the
nearest manse, and sacked the cellar and larder of the minister, which
at that season were probably better stocked than usual. The priest of
Baal was reviled and insulted, sometimes beaten, sometimes ducked. His
furniture was thrown out of the windows; his wife and children turned
out of doors in the snow. He was then carried to the market place, and
exposed during some time as a malefactor. His gown was torn to shreds
over his head: if he had a prayer book in his pocket it was burned;
and he was dismissed with a charge, never, as he valued his life, to
officiate in the parish again. The work of reformation having been thus
completed, the reformers locked up the church and departed with the
keys. In justice to these men it must be owned that they had suffered
such oppression as may excuse, though it cannot justify, their violence;
and that, though they were rude even to brutality, they do not appear to
have been guilty of any intentional injury to life or limb, [267]

The disorder spread fast. In Ayrshire, Clydesdale, Nithisdale,
Annandale, every parish was visited by these turbulent zealots. About
two hundred curates--so the episcopal parish priests were called--were
expelled. The graver Covenanters, while they applauded the fervour of
their riotous brethren, were apprehensive that proceedings so irregular
might give scandal, and learned, with especial concern, that here and
there an Achan had disgraced the good cause by stooping to plunder the
Canaanites whom he ought only to have smitten. A general meeting of
ministers and elders was called for the purpose of preventing such
discreditable excesses. In this meeting it was determined that, for the
future, the ejection of the established clergy should be performed in
a more ceremonious manner. A form of notice was drawn up and served on
every curate in the Western Lowlands who had not yet been rabbled.
This notice was simply a threatening letter, commanding him to quit his
parish peaceably, on pain of being turned out by force, [268]

The Scottish Bishops, in great dismay, sent the Dean of Glasgow to
plead the cause of their persecuted Church at Westminster. The outrages
committed by the Covenanters were in the highest degree offensive
to William, who had, in the south of the island, protected even
Benedictines and Franciscans from insult and spoliation. But, though he
had, at the request of a large number of the noblemen and gentlemen of
Scotland, taken on himself provisionally the executive administration
of that kingdom, the means of maintaining order there were not at his
command. He had not a single regiment north of the Tweed, or indeed
within many miles of that river. It was vain to hope that mere words
would quiet a nation which had not, in any age, been very amenable to
control, and which was now agitated by hopes and resentments, such as
great revolutions, following great oppressions, naturally engender. A
proclamation was however put forth, directing that all people should lay
down their arms, and that, till the Convention should have settled the
government, the clergy of the Established Church should be suffered to
reside on their cures without molestation. But this proclamation, not
being supported by troops, was very little regarded. On the very day
after it was published at Glasgow, the venerable Cathedral of that city,
almost the only fine church of the middle ages which stands uninjured
in Scotland, was attacked by a crowd of Presbyterians from the meeting
houses, with whom were mingled many of their fiercer brethren from the
hills. It was a Sunday; but to rabble a congregation of prelatists
was held to be a work of necessity and mercy. The worshippers were
dispersed, beaten, and pelted with snowballs. It was indeed asserted
that some wounds were inflicted with much more formidable weapons, [269]

Edinburgh, the seat of government, was in a state of anarchy. The
Castle, which commanded the whole city, was still held for James by the
Duke of Gordon. The common people were generally Whigs. The College of
justice, a great forensic society composed of judges, advocates, writers
to the signet, and solicitors, was the stronghold of Toryism: for a
rigid test had during some years excluded Presbyterians from all the
departments of the legal profession. The lawyers, some hundreds in
number, formed themselves into a battalion of infantry, and for a time
effectually kept down the multitude. They paid, however, so much respect
to William's authority as to disband themselves when his proclamation
was published. But the example of obedience which they had set was not
imitated. Scarcely had they laid down their weapons, when Covenanters
from the west, who had done all that was to be done in the way of
pelting and hustling the curates of their own neighbourhood, came
dropping into Edinburgh, by tens and twenties, for the purpose of
protecting, or, if need should be, of overawing the Convention. Glasgow
alone sent four hundred of these men. It could hardly be doubted
that they were directed by some leader of great weight. They showed
themselves little in any public place: but it was known that every
cellar was filled with them; and it might well be apprehended that, at
the first signal, they would pour forth from their caverns, and appear
armed round the Parliament house, [270]

It might have been expected that every patriotic and enlightened
Scotchman would have earnestly desired to see the agitation appeased,
and some government established which might be able to protect property
and to enforce the law. An imperfect settlement which could be speedily
made might well appear to such a man preferable to a perfect settlement
which must be the work of time. Just at this moment, however, a party,
strong both in numbers and in abilities, raised a new and most important
question, which seemed not unlikely to prolong the interregnum till the
autumn. This party maintained that the Estates ought not immediately
to declare William and Mary King and Queen, but to propose to England a
treaty of union, and to keep the throne vacant till such a treaty should
be concluded on terms advantageous to Scotland, [271]

It may seem strange that a large portion of a people, whose patriotism,
exhibited, often in a heroic, and sometimes in a comic form, has long
been proverbial, should have been willing, nay impatient, to surrender
an independence which had been, through many ages, dearly prized and
manfully defended. The truth is that the stubborn spirit which the arms
of the Plantagenets and Tudors had been unable to subdue had begun to
yield to a very different kind of force. Customhouses and tariffs were
rapidly doing what the carnage of Falkirk and Halidon, of Flodden and of
Pinkie, had failed to do. Scotland had some experience of the effects
of an union. She had, near forty years before, been united to England
on such terms as England, flushed with conquest, chose to dictate. That
union was inseparably associated in the minds of the vanquished people
with defeat and humiliation. And yet even that union, cruelly as it had
wounded the pride of the Scots, had promoted their prosperity. Cromwell,
with wisdom and liberality rare in his age, had established the most
complete freedom of trade between the dominant and the subject country.
While he governed, no prohibition, no duty, impeded the transit of
commodities from any part of the island to any other. His navigation
laws imposed no restraint on the trade of Scotland. A Scotch vessel was
at liberty to carry a Scotch cargo to Barbadoes, and to bring the sugars
of Barbadoes into the port of London, [272] The rule of the Protector
therefore had been propitious to the industry and to the physical
wellbeing of the Scottish people. Hating him and cursing him, they could
not help thriving under him, and often, during the administration of
their legitimate princes, looked back with regret to the golden days of
the usurper, [273]

The Restoration came, and changed every thing. The Scots regained
their independence, and soon began to find that independence had its
discomfort as well as its dignity. The English parliament treated them
as aliens and as rivals. A new Navigation Act put them on almost the
same footing with the Dutch. High duties, and in some cases prohibitory
duties, were imposed on the products of Scottish industry. It is not
wonderful that a nation eminently industrious, shrewd, and enterprising,
a nation which, having been long kept back by a sterile soil and
a severe climate, was just beginning to prosper in spite of these
disadvantages, and which found its progress suddenly stopped, should
think itself cruelly treated. Yet there was no help. Complaint was vain.
Retaliation was impossible. The Sovereign, even if he had the wish, had
not the power, to bear himself evenly between his large and his small
kingdom, between the kingdom from which he drew an annual revenue of a
million and a half and the kingdom from which he drew an annual revenue
of little more than sixty thousand pounds. He dared neither to refuse
his assent to any English law injurious to the trade of Scotland, nor to
give his assent to any Scotch law injurious to the trade of England.

The complaints of the Scotch, however, were so loud that Charles, in
1667, appointed Commissioners to arrange the terms of a commercial
treaty between the two British kingdoms. The conferences were soon
broken off; and all that passed while they continued proved that
there was only one way in which Scotland could obtain a share of the
commercial prosperity which England at that time enjoyed, [274] The
Scotch must become one people with the English. The Parliament which
had hitherto sate at Edinburgh must be incorporated with the Parliament
which sate at Westminster. The sacrifice could not but be painfully
felt by a brave and haughty people, who had, during twelve generations,
regarded the southern domination with deadly aversion, and whose hearts
still swelled at the thought of the death of Wallace and of the triumphs
of Bruce. There were doubtless many punctilious patriots who would have
strenuously opposed an union even if they could have foreseen that
the effect of an union would be to make Glasgow a greater city than
Amsterdam, and to cover the dreary Lothians with harvests and woods,
neat farmhouses and stately mansions. But there was also a large class
which was not disposed to throw away great and substantial advantages in
order to preserve mere names and ceremonies; and the influence of this
class was such that, in the year 1670, the Scotch Parliament made direct
overtures to England, [275] The King undertook the office of mediator;
and negotiators were named on both sides; but nothing was concluded.

The question, having slept during eighteen years, was suddenly revived
by the Revolution. Different classes, impelled by different motives,
concurred on this point. With merchants, eager to share in the
advantages of the West Indian Trade, were joined active and aspiring
politicians who wished to exhibit their abilities in a more conspicuous
theatre than the Scottish Parliament House, and to collect riches from
a more copious source than the Scottish treasury. The cry for union was
swelled by the voices of some artful Jacobites, who merely wished to
cause discord and delay, and who hoped to attain this end by mixing up
with the difficult question which it was the especial business of
the Convention to settle another question more difficult still. It is
probable that some who disliked the ascetic habits and rigid discipline
of the Presbyterians wished for an union as the only mode of maintaining
prelacy in the northern part of the island. In an united Parliament the
English members must greatly preponderate; and in England the bishops
were held in high honour by the great majority of the population. The
Episcopal Church of Scotland, it was plain, rested on a narrow basis,
and would fall before the first attack. The Episcopal Church of Great
Britain might have a foundation broad and solid enough to withstand all
assaults.

Whether, in 1689, it would have been possible to effect a civil union
without a religious union may well be doubted. But there can be no doubt
that a religious union would have been one of the greatest calamities
that could have befallen either kingdom. The union accomplished in 1707
has indeed been a great blessing both to England and to Scotland. But
it has been a blessing because, in constituting one State, it left two
Churches. The political interest of the contracting parties was the
same: but the ecclesiastical dispute between them was one which admitted
of no compromise. They could therefore preserve harmony only by agreeing
to differ. Had there been an amalgamation of the hierarchies, there
never would have been an amalgamation of the nations. Successive
Mitchells would have fired at successive Sharpes. Five generations of
Claverhouses would have butchered five generations of Camerons. Those
marvellous improvements which have changed the face of Scotland would
never have been effected. Plains now rich with harvests would have
remained barren moors. Waterfalls which now turn the wheels of immense
factories would have resounded in a wilderness. New Lanark would still
have been a sheepwalk, and Greenock a fishing hamlet. What little
strength Scotland could under such a system have possessed must, in an
estimate of the resources of Great Britain, have been, not added, but
deducted. So encumbered, our country never could have held, either
in peace or in war, a place in the first rank of nations. We are
unfortunately not without the means of judging of the effect which may
be produced on the moral and physical state of a people by establishing,
in the exclusive enjoyment of riches and dignity a Church loved and
reverenced only by the few, and regarded by the many with religious
and national aversion. One such Church is quite burden enough for the
energies of one empire.

But these things, which to us, who have been taught by a bitter
experience, seem clear, were by no means clear in 1689, even to very
tolerant and enlightened politicians. In truth the English Low Churchmen
were, if possible, more anxious than the English High Churchmen to
preserve Episcopacy in Scotland. It is a remarkable fact that Burnet,
who was always accused of wishing to establish the Calvinistic
discipline in the south of the island, incurred great unpopularity among
his own countrymen by his efforts to uphold prelacy in the north. He was
doubtless in error: but his error is to be attributed to a cause which
does him no discredit. His favourite object, an object unattainable
indeed, yet such as might well fascinate a large intellect and a
benevolent heart, had long been an honourable treaty between the
Anglican Church and the Nonconformists. He thought it most unfortunate
that one opportunity of concluding such a treaty should have been
lost at the time of the Restoration. It seemed to him that another
opportunity was afforded by the Revolution. He and his friends were
eagerly pushing forward Nottingham's Comprehension Bill, and were
flattering themselves with vain hopes of success. But they felt
that there could hardly be a Comprehension in one of the two British
kingdoms, unless there were also a Comprehension in the other.
Concession must be purchased by concession. If the Presbyterian
pertinaciously refused to listen to any terms of compromise where he was
strong, it would be almost impossible to obtain for him liberal terms of
compromise where he was weak. Bishops must therefore be allowed to keep
their sees in Scotland, in order that divines not ordained by Bishops
might be allowed to hold rectories and canonries in England.

Thus the cause of the Episcopalians in the north and the cause of the
Presbyterians in the south were bound up together in a manner which
might well perplex even a skilful statesman.