2 riot and debauchery.' The Irish army itself showed in favourable contrast to the discreditable force which had come, it seemed, for no other purpose than to bring the revolution into contempt. Forty years had passed since Cromwell landed on the same errand. The cause was unchanged, but the men who were its champions were of another breed and soul. In Schomberg's camp 'religion was but canting,' and whoredom and drunkenness the soldiers' natural amusement. The defenders of Londonderry and Enniskillen, few though they might be, were more formidable to Rosen and Tyrconnell than the loose companies of swearing ruffians who were dying of the rot, through their own vices, in the Belfast Hospital. The situation could not continue. The English Parliament grew impatient. A little more and France, finding James succeed better than had been expected, might throw its whole power into the scale, and Ireland might be irrecoverably lost. Schomberg was so sharply censured that William found it necessary, as Cromwell had found, to take charge of the war in person. With a fresh army composed of better stuff, though of the same motley materials, he crossed the Channel on 14th June, 1690, and joined the camp at Carrickfergus. Following Cromwell's example, he resolved to strike at once, and with all his force. A few days were spent in reorganizing Schomberg's troops, and then, with 36,000 men, he commenced his march on Dublin. Against the advice of his best officers, CHAP. III. 1690 BOOK I. 1690 for fresh troops from Brest were daily expected, and Louis was meditating a descent on England in William's absence, which would distract him, and, perhaps, compel his return, James determined to risk an immediate engagement. The Irish, he said, were now confident; he had the advantage of numbers; and to abandon Dublin, and retreat as the Council of War advised, might dispirit and divide them. in The action of 1st July, on the Boyne, must be passed over, like the siege of Derry and Enniskillen, with the briefest notice. The result only concerns us here. The Irish, though with every advantage of position, exhibited once more their unvarying inability to encounter the English in the field in their own country. The patriotic ecstasy which had flowed so freely in torrents of rhetoric, congealed at the sound of cannon. They did not even attempt to make a creditable stand. James, who had shown personal cowardice, hid his disgrace in flight, and stole back to France. William advanced to Dublin, but lingered purposely in following up his success, the hope that Tyrconnell would now throw up the game. Tyrconnell made no sign, and he went on to Kilkenny. His discipline was now as stringent as Oliver's. He saw some of his men once plundering an old woman; he struck one on the spot with his cane, and promptly hanged the whole party. But with the Irish he was studiously lenient. He promised publicly that, if they would lay down their arms, all that had been done should be forgotten. When no response came, he turned westward, made a feeble attempt upon Athlone, passed on, and sate down before Limerick. But he betrayed no intention, and he felt no desire, to break down by violence a people whom, in III. 1690 his inexperience, he believed it possible to win by CHAP. indulgent terms. He refused to look upon them as rebels when they were in arms for one whom they regarded as their natural sovereign. He either did not or could not see that the essential enmity was against England and the English settlement; and he shrunk from pushing a war to extremities, which must then be followed by fresh forfeitures. The reality of the situation was obscured by the confusion of political feeling, and instead of ending the campaign promptly and decisively, and reviving Cromwell's policy, which ought never to have been touched, he imagined, as many an amiable person has imagined before and since, that the native Irish had been handled irrationally and cruelly, and needed only kindness to become faithful subjects. Neither should the Irish race be dealt with hardly, if William could help it, nor the Irish religion. James's Parliament had enacted liberty of worship. It would be a shame if the champion of Protestantism was less tolerant than an assembly of Catholics; and he was purposely dilatory, as if to enable them to offer conditions which he could grant. Sir Arthur Ashton imagined that he could hold Drogheda for many months. Cromwell stormed Drogheda the day after his cannon opened on it. The same spirit would have taken Limerick had the spirit been there. But William lingered till the rains forced him to raise the siege; and he returned to England, leaving Tyrconnell another year for reflection. Lord Sidney, Sir Charles Porter, the late Chancellor, and Thomas Coningsby, who had stood by William at 1 Brother of Algernon Sidney, great grandson of Sir Philip, created afterwards Earl of Romney. 2 Created Lord Coningsby of Clanbrassil. BOOK I. 1690 the Boyne and staunched his wound when he was hit, were left as Lords Justices, and were all well inclined to moderate counsels. The army went into winter quarters, and Baron Ginkel remained in command.' Cork was taken from the sea in September, and the south and east of Ireland submitted; but Athlone and all the country west of it continued in Tyrconnell's hands. He held Connaught, Clare, Limerick, and Kerry; and with the sea open behind him, and the Shannon in his front, he trusted to the tide of events in Europe and to possible revolution in England, or at any rate to a continuance of assistance from France. The English Parliament met on 2nd October. Large money grants were necessary for the war with France; the Irish expenses had been enormous; and naturally and inevitably the House of Commons insisted that the cost should not be borne by the English taxpayers; the Irish lords and gentlemen who made a fresh reconquest necessary must pay for it, and a million at least of the estimates must be charged, as in 1642, on the anticipated confiscations. William's disposition to leniency was understood; but there would be no escape from an Act of Parliament; and a bill of attainder was introduced against all who had been in arms. Confiscations were now complicated with difficulties unknown in earlier times. Estates were mortgaged, charged with settlements, and otherwise encumbered in their tenures. Creditors petitioned, and raised difficulties, and a clause was introduced which would have reduced the compulsory forfeitures by twothirds, and left the King free to grant what terms he 1 Godard de Ginkel, one of William's most distinguished of ficers created for his Irish services Earl of Athlone. pleased to those who had not yet surrendered. The House of Commons did not choose to be put off with evasions and excuses. But the bill was stopped in the Lords, to leave William's hands unbound. The King desired most earnestly to be allowed still to hold out hopes to the Irish of favourable consideration. Touched by the fate of a gallant nation, that had made itself the victim to French promises,' says Sir Charles Wogan, 'the Prince of Orange, before the decisive battle of Aghrim, offered the Irish Catholics the free exercise of their religion, half the churches of the kingdom, half the employments, civil and military too, and the moiety of their ancient properties." Sir Charles Wogan was Tyrconnell's nephew; he affects to speak from personal knowledge, and he adds, that 'these proposals were to have the sanction of an act of Parliament.' If William ever made such an offer, he was promising more than England would have allowed him to perform; but had Tyrconnell possessed ordinary sense, there can be no doubt at all that he might have secured conditions which would have left the Catholics materially unweakened, and free to resume the struggle when a fresh chance offered. When the siege of Limerick was raised, he went to France, attended by Sir Richard Nagle and Chief Baron Rice, to ascertain if he was to have further support. France, unhappily for him and his cause, gave him just so much help as encouraged him to persevere, not enough to give him a serious chance of success. He returned up the Shannon in January 1691, with three frigates, clothes, arms, ammunition, and a little money. Louis, like every foreign ally on whom the 1 'Sir Charles Wogan to Swift.' Swift's Works, vol. xviii. p. 10, &c. CHAP. III. 1691 |