commenced his career as a barrister. He appeared in a stuff gown pleading before that bench which he had so long adorned, and commanding the respect of the most inveterate enemies of his religion and nation. It is gratifying to learn that his honourable labours met their due reward. He amassed a second fortune more considerable than that which had been confiscated. He died in a good old age, bequeathing to his successors extensive estates, the reward of industry and probity, and an honourable name which none of them have disgraced.

The military affairs, after the raising of the siege of Derry, were unaccountably neglected by James and his officers. They knew that William was making active preparations for the invasion of Ireland, and they took no efficient measures of defence. Soldiers marched and countermarched without plan, order, or regularity. They were billeted on the inhabitants of the cities and towns, who vainly remonstrated against the hardship; but they were neither employed in garrisoning the towns on the coast, nor in subduing the Protestants of the north, who might have been easily crushed by a vigorous effort. The real cause of this confusion in the military councils appears to have been the national jealousy between the Irish and French officers, and the unwise partiality of the foolish king for foreigners. There was even a suspicion that James had agreed to place Ireland under the protection of France; and the Irish, justly indignant, were resolved not to submit to such an insult. It is probable that, had William at this time offered fair and favourable terms to the Catholics, he might have obtained the kingdom by negotiations, and averted the misery of two years of desolating war,

CHAPTER XI.

The Campaigns of Schomberg and William.

THE delay of making any efforts to support the cause of Protestantism in Ireland exposed William III. to great and unmerited censure. He found that

the crown which he had been so eager to obtain was indeed a crown of thorns, and that those who had been foremost in promoting his elevation were now as anxious to hasten his downfall. Dundee was in arms in Scotland-the English fleet had suffered a severe defeat in Bantry Bay-the power of the French king threatened the ruin of Holland, which William loved much better than his new dominions -and finally, the distraction of England prevented the new king from paying that attention to Ireland which its importance required, and which the English people very imperatively demanded. The popular discontent hurried the preparations. With considerable difficulty an army of somewhat more than ten thousand men was assembled, and placed under the command of Duke Schomberg, an officer of great reputation. The materials of which this army was composed exhibited a strange mixture of nations and languages. There were Danes, Germans, Dutchmen, French refugees, and military adventurers from every European country. The "thirty years' war" had filled Europe with those soldiers of fortune, ready to lend their swords to the service of any cause which promised pay and plunder; but after the accession of Louis XIV., some appearance of principle was manifested by such adventurers; regarding his wars, as indeed they in

some sort were, a contest between Catholicism and Protestantism for the supremacy in Europe, they no longer showed an utter indifference to principle, but selected a service which, in some measure, accorded with their religious profession. William was justly regarded as the head of the Protestant party in Europe; the pay given by England and Holland was higher and more secure than that of other states; and both these causes supplied William with bodies of hardy veterans, familiar with war from their cradle.

Bravery, however, was the chief, almost the only valuable attribute possessed by these men. They were the outcasts of all society, familiar with every crime, abandoned to every excess. Vices for which language scarcely ventures to find a name, abominations that may not be described, and can scarcely be imagined, were constantly practised by these bands, which the long continental wars had called into existence. The traditions of Irish Protestants and Catholics contain a horrid catalogue of the enormities practised by "this black banditti ;" and these accounts are fully confirmed by the narratives which the contemporary writers have given of their conduct in other countries.* With these were joined some raw English levies, who found it much easier to imitate the debaucheries, than to practise the discipline, of the foreigners. Indeed, no worse scourge could be sent by an angry Providence than the army which now proceeded against Ireland.

On the 13th of August, 1689, Schomberg's troops effected their landing in Bangor Bay, near Carrickfergus, without encountering any opposition. A

* If there was any necessity to add confirmation to these facts, which, however, are sufficiently notorious, it might be found in the letters of Dr. Gorge, Schomberg's secretary and chaplain. Let one extract suffice. "Can we expect," says he, speaking of the English army, "that Sodom will destroy Babylon; or that debauchery will extirpate popery ? Our enemy fights against us with the principle of a mistaken conscience; we, against the conviction of our own consciences, against them,"

favourable opportunity was afforded to the Irish quartered in the neighbourhood of attacking him during the night; but it was lost, because the leaders had greatly overrated the quantity and quality of the English army. They believed that it amounted to thirty thousand, though it scarcely exceeded onethird of the number; and they believed that it was totally composed of veterans, though at least onehalf consisted of raw levies. It was long before this fatal error was dissipated. Schomberg's first enterprise was the siege of Carrickfergus. The place was vigorously attacked, and as obstinately defended. Macarty More, the governor, did not surrender until his last barrel of powder was expended, and even then obtained honourable conditions. No attempt was made to relieve the town by James or his general. They were at the time busily employed in long discussions on the plan of the campaign, when the slightest exertion of vigour would have terminated it in a few days. It is painful to add that the terms of the capitulation were flagrantly violated. The inhabitants were stripped and plundered; the women treated with a licentious cruelty which will not admit of description. It is worthy of remark, that in all the civil wars by which Ireland has been devastated, no instance of a single injury offered to a female can be charged against the native Irish; while, in every instance, the conduct of the English soldiers was not only licentious, but brutal. The exertions of Schomberg, who was an honourable and humane man, at length checked these atrocities; but by these exertions he incurred the hatred of his own soldiers.

Soon after the English army had landed, they were joined by the Enniskilleners, and were perfectly astounded by the appearance of the men whose fame had been so loudly trumpeted in England. Every man was armed and equipped after his own fashion, and each man was attended by a mounted

servant bearing his baggage. Discipline was as little regarded as uniformity. They rode in a confused body, and only formed a hasty line when preparing to fight. Descended from the Levellers and Covehanters, they preserved all the gloomy fanaticism of their fathers, and believed the slaughtering of papists an act of religious duty. They were robbers and murderers on principle, for they believed themselves commissioned to remove idolatry from the land. Inferior to the old Levellers in strength and skill, they equalled them in enthusiasm, and surpassed them in courage. They never hesitated to encounter any odds, however unequal; and rejoiced in the prospect of death, while engaged in what they called the service of the Lord. Reeking from the field of battle, they assembled round their preachers, who always accompanied them in their expeditions, and listened with eager delight to their wild effusions, in which the magnificent orientalisms of the Old Testament were strangely combined with their own gross and vulgar sentiments. They were like the modern Cossacks a formidable body of irregular cavalry, and for that very reason an encumbrance to an orderly and disciplined army.

Neither Schomberg, nor any of William's generals, understood the value of these men. William himself despised them most heartily, and subjected them to military execution by the dozen for violating the laws of war. From the moment that they joined the regular army, they performed no exploit worthy of their former fame, simply because they could not learn a new mode of fighting. They were aware of this themselves, and frequently declared with truth, that "they could do no good while acting under orders."

Schomberg advanced along the coast, for the convenience of being supported by the fleet. The country was a complete desert, having been ex