ward with such troops as could be instantly put in motion, and promised to follow speedily with a larger force. Berry had approached within a few miles of a new position taken by Macarthy in advance, when, encountering a much more numerous body of dragoons, commanded by the notorious Anthony Hamilton, he retreated judiciously to a pass some miles in the rear, where a narrow causeway led across a marsh, with a copse of brushwood on both sides, at its further extremity, within which he placed his men. Hamilton came up immediately, and dismounting his troopers near to the causeway, commenced firing over the bog and into the copses. At the first fire of the Enniskilleners Hamilton was severely wounded. In their next discharge the second, who then assumed the command, was shot dead. More than thirty of their men fell with them. The dragoons then fled, and were pursued with great slaughter for upwards of a mile. "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 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.' He instantly made his dispositions for an attack. 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 another followed, through the little town of Newtown 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 lay across the bog was the only road by which 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 off 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 encumbrances. The infantry, seeing themselves deserted, flung down their pikes and muskets and ran for their lives." So far we have copied the account of this fight from Lord Macaulay, as not only the most concise but the most accurate. When he adds, "that now the conquerors gave loose to that ferocity which has seldom failed to disgrace the civil wars of Ireland; that the butchery was terrible; that near fifteen hundred of the vanquished were put to the sword," he does not enquire whether quarter were asked and refused, whether it was in human nature for the pursuing few to know when they were safe against the fresh attacks of the flying many; against those who would have shown them no mercy had the fortune of the day been the reverse and against them. Fear is cruel, and so is hate. Yet the Enniskilleners took four hundred prisoners, including Macarthy himself, although wounded. In despair he had advanced upon them at the last, courting death, and firing his pistol at them when otherwise, as he was told, he might easily have escaped. The Enniskilleners lost only twenty men killed and fifty wounded. The battle of Newtown Butler was won on the same afternoon on which the boom thrown over the Foyle was broken. At Strabane the news met the army of James which was retreating from Londonderry. All was then terror and confusion; the tents were struck; the military stores were flung by waggon-loads into the waters of the Mourne; and the dismayed Jacobites, leaving many sick and wounded to the tender mercy of the victorious Williamites, fled to Omagh, and thence to Charlemont. Sarsfield, who commanded at Sligo, found it necessary to abandon that town, which was instantly occupied by Kirke's troops. Recovering from his illness, Gustavus Hamilton, with his renowned Enniskilleners, joined the army under Duke Schomberg, which soon after landed in Ireland; and constituting themselves his advance guard, distinguished themselves by feats of valour. On the twenty seventh of September a body of them, under Colonel Loyd, having routed a force of five thousand men under Colonel O'Kelly, with seven hundred men and three commanders slain, their own force not exceeding a thousand men, the Duke was so pleased as to cause the whole body to be drawn out in line, and rode along it uncovered to express his thanks. In the month of December a party of them under Colonel Wolseley had no sooner surprised the garrison at Belturbet than they learned preparations were making at Cavan to recover the place. According to their uniform custom they resolved to anticipate the attack. Before they could reach Cavan the Duke of Berwick had arrived there with a powerful reinforcement; and the forces were four thousand against one thousand. They met near Cavan. The onset of the Enniskilleners carried all before it. Pursuing into the town the conquerors dispersing began to plunder. The enemy concentrated in the fort, and began the fight anew. The Enniskilleners would have certainly been cut to pieces, but Wolseley conceived the idea of setting the town on fire. Thus forced out he was able to lead them again against the rallied enemy, and again to defeat them with great loss. Three hundred slain, two hundred prisoners, several officers of rank inclusive, and a large booty of cattle were the result of this foray. In the battle of the Boyne Hamilton commanded a regiment, and there signalized himself by his usual valour and conduct, having had a horse killed under him on the thirtieth of June in the following year, and a very narrow escape from death.* At the capture of Athlone he waded the Shannon at the head of his regiment, being the first man to plant his foot in the rapid stream, and on gaining possession distinguished himself by resisting the efforts of the French army encamped close by to recover it. On account of its great importance the government of this place was committed into his hands. He was present and took a prominent part in all the principal battles fought by De Ginckle. On the reduction of the country he was made one of the privy council, promoted to the rank of brigadier-general, and received grants of forfeited lands. In the reign of Anne, he was further raised to the rank of major-general, and represented the county of Donegal in parliament, until created viscount Boyne. At the siege of Vigo he commanded a regiment, and made himself so useful upon the occasion, that he was presented with a service of plate by the queen. In 1714, George I. advanced him to the dignity of baron Hamilton of Stackaller. The same king granted him a military pension of £182 10s. yearly, and promoted him to the title of viscount Boyne, by patent dated 1717. He married a daughter of Sir Henry Brooke, and had by her a daughter and three sons. He died September, 1723, in the eightyfourth year of his age. PATRICK SARSFIELD. KILLED A. D. 1693. THE ancestors of this gallant officer on the paternal side, though originally English, were among those early colonists who were proverbially said to have become more Irish than Irishmen. In the sixteenth century, by one of the numerous revolutions of that country, the property of the manor of Lucan came into the possession of the Sarsfields. In 1566 Sir William Sarsfield was distinguished for his good services against Shane O'Neile; for which he was knighted by Sidney. His mother was of noble native blood; and he was firmly attached to the old religion. He had inherited an estate of about £2,000 a-year, and was therefore one of the wealthiest Roman Catholics of the kingdom. His knowledge of courts and camps was such as few of his countrymen possessed. He had long borne a commission in the Life Guards, and had lived much about Whitehall. He had fought bravely under Monmouth on the continent, and against Monmouth at Sedgemoor. "According to Avaux," the representative of Louis at the court of James at Dublin, who made it his study to observe and to report to his master upon the qualities of the public men of that court, "Patrick Sarsfield," says Lord Macaulay, "had" when, in the commence * Preamble of his patent. ment of 1689, elected one of the members of the city of Dublin in the parliament of James, "more personal influence than any man in Ireland. He describes him as indeed a gentleman of eminent merit, brave, upright, honourable, careful of his men in quarters, and certain to be always found at their head in the day of battle. His intrepidity, his frankness, his boundless good nature, his stature, which far exceeded that of ordinary men, and the strength which he exerted in personal conflict, gained for him the affectionate admiration of the populace. It is remarkable that the English of all ranks and opinions generally respected him as a valiant, skilful, and generous enemy, and that even in the most ribald farces which were performed by mountebanks in Smithfield, he was always excepted from the disgraceful imputations which it was then the fashion to throw upon the Jacobite party in Ireland." But not only were men like Sarsfield rare in that house of commons; of which it has been truly said, "that of all the parliaments which have met in the British islands, Barebones' parliament not excepted, it was the most deficient in all the qualities which a legislature should possess ;" he took not, he could not take, any share in the infamous proceedings that have made its name odious in every Christian and legal ear. The traitorous manoeuvre by which the garrison of Sligo was withdrawn in the month of April left that port and town defenceless, when it was immediately seized upon by a detachment under Sarsfield, who was sent, in anticipation of the withdrawal, as the result of the intelligence between Lundy of Londonderry and Tyrconnel of Dublin. Sarsfield remained in charge, ever watchful of these daring irregulars, until he was instructed to concentrate an expedition against the armed colonists of Enniskillen; an expedition which was surprised and dispersed on the stream of the Drouse before its preparations were completed. On the loss of the battle of Newtown-Butler, fought by Macarthy against the Enniskilleners, he retired from Sligo before a force sent by Kirke from Londonderry. So little did James appreciate the merits of the best officer in his army, that it was not without great difficulty that the French ambassador Avaux and commander Rosen prevailed on his Majesty to give Sarsfield the command of an expedition despatched in the autumn of that year into Connaught, and to raise him to the rank of brigadier on the occasion. "He is a brave fellow," said James, with an air of intellectual superiority that must have made his auditors stare, "but he is very scantily supplied with brains." Sarsfield, however, fully vindicated the opinion of his French admirers. He dislodged the English from Sligo; and he effectually secured Galway, which had been in considerable danger. It was one of the misfortunes of James to have repeated changes in the generals sent him from France to take the command-in-chief of his troops in Ireland. Lauzen, who succeeded the patron of Sarsfield, although he brought with him seven to eight thousand French infantry, the best perhaps the Continent could supply, was an unfortunate exchange for Rosen. At the battle of the Boyne, in apprehension that the left wing of the Jacobite army would be turned, and a pass, in the rear of the fight, called Duleek, be seized by the troops of William, which had forced a passage over the bridge of Slane, Lauzen not only detached all his own men, but the horse of Sarsfield and Sarsfield himself, to cover that only possible line of retreat, leaving the native forces to meet the strength of the English, Enniskilleners, and Dutch, in the centre and right, without an officer capable of handling them. Thus prevented from displaying the skill and courage which his enemies allowed him to possess, Sarsfield could, on this fatal day for his master, only protect James in his flight with his horse, while the French infantry with considerable coolness covered the retreat of the beaten and disorderly Irish horse and foot. The conduct of the native soldiery, in the series of fights which terminated in this crowning victory of the Williamites, had sunk their military reputation to the lowest point, and had exposed them to the bitter contempt both of their enemies and of their allies. The Jacobites at Paris, English and Scotch, never spoke of them but as dastards and traitors. The French were so exasperated at the reports that reached them of their behaviour, that Irish merchants, who had been many years settled at Paris, durst not walk the streets for fear of being insulted by the populace. So strong was the prejudice, that stories were current to explain the intrepidity with which the horse had fought as contrasted with the pusillanimity of the foot soldiers. It was said that the troopers were not men of the aboriginal races, but descendants of the old English of the Strongbow conquest, or the Scots of the Ulster settlement. And notwithstanding Lord Macaulay's faint contradiction, this was unquestionably true of their officers, and largely of the men also. The forlorn hope, who were cut off to a man after leaping their horses over the wall into the Windmill-hill outwork of Londonderry, were Butler's, under the command of a Butler of Ormonde of the line of Mountgarret. The cavalry which made the gallant attempt to retrieve the day at the Boyne, and which had so nearly succeeded, were chiefly of the Kilkenny Normans, and were led by a Hamilton, of Scottish ancestry. Sarsfield himself, the first swordsman of their force, was of the hated Saxon race. The correspondence of Avaux, of Rosen, of Lauzen, and of St. Ruth, the representatives, at different times during this period, of France in Ireland, abounds with complaints of the conduct of the Irish force. The language of James himself, in the unseemly speech he addressed to the Lord Mayor of Dublin on the morning after his flight from the field, teemed with reproaches of the cowardice of that official's countrymen. But in truth the Irish foot had become a curse and a scandal to Ireland through lack of military administration alone. A few months of strict discipline and regular drilling have frequently turned rude but athletic and enthusiastic peasants into good soldiers. But the Irish foot soldiers had not merely not been well-trained; they had been elaborately ill-trained. The greatest of our generals repeatedly and emphatically declared that even the admirable army which had fought its way under his command from Torres Vedras to Toulouse, would, if he had suffered it to contract habits of pillage, have become, in a few weeks, unfit for all military purposes. But, from the day on which they were enlisted, the foot soldiers of James were not merely permitted, but invited, to supply the deficiencies of pay by marauding. Accordingly, after eighteen months of nominal soldiership, they were |