The men seemed influenced by the malignity and wanton cruelty of demons, and neither William nor his generals were able to controul or restrain them. William's campaign in Ireland, however, was now at an end. After conducting his troops to Clonmel, and placing them under the command of Count Solmes and General Ginckle, he proceeded to Waterford, and embarked at Duncannon fort, for England, accompanied by a small train of attendants.

Notwithstanding the advanced season of the year, the campaign was not yet ended on the part of the English army; another general now appeared for the first time in the field, namely, the Earl of Marlborough. This lord, ambitious to make a name for himself (for he was as yet unknown), and anxious to have a share in the glory and profits of the Irish war, represented to the government the immense importance of Cork and Kinsale to the English, and the necessity for securing them without delay. There were now lying in England five thousand men ready for the service, and with these and other reinforcements which he trusted to obtain in Ireland, he undertook to reduce these two towns. William yielded a reluctant assent to the earl's requests; after which he set sail with his army, and reached the harbour of Cork towards the end of September. Shortly after landing, he was joined by 4,000 Danes, under the command of the Duke of Wirtemberg. Some dissension arose between the two generals as to the respective shares which they were to bear in the command of the combined force; but at length they came to an arrangement, and the siege of Cork was pushed with vigour. The city being commanded on almost all sides by hills, and the defences being in a very incomplete state, the garrison was ill able to resist the assaults of the English army. The castle of Shandon, which commanded the city on the north side, was in so dilapidated a state, that, without defence, it was at once abandoned to the besiegers. Thus circumstanced, the governor prepared to surrender, but not until he had bravely resisted for three days, and the ammunition of the garrison was entirely exhausted. The city was then yielded up, and the garrison surrendered themselves prisoners of war, on condition that the lives and properties of the citizens should be respected. But no sooner had the capitulation taken place than a general plunder of the catholic inhabitants commenced. The soldiers and the protestant mob joined in the work of licentiousness and rapine, and it was with the utmost difficulty that Marlborough and Wirtemberg could restore order throughout the city. The loss sustained by the besiegers was not great the only person of distinction who fell was the Duke of Grafton, one of the numerous illegitimate children of Charles II. As a military exploit, the taking of Cork was of little note, though it was magnified into importance for party purposes.

From Cork, Marlborough proceeded with his army to Kinsale, and after a short but gallant resistance, compelled it to surrender; the garrison marching out with arms and baggage. Marlborough

having thus effected the objects for which he had landed in Ireland, he returned to England, having been scarcely a month absent, and was received with general acclamations by the English people. They were loud in their praises of their native hero, and boasted that he had accomplished more in one month than the king's phlegmatic Dutch generals had done in two campaigns.

The dissensions between the French and Irish still continuing after the defeat of the English before Limerick, Boileau drew off his troops, and marched them to Galway, where they waited the arrival of transports to carry them to France.* The brave and active Sarsfield was left to carry on the war, which he did with remarkable skill and intrepidity. Ginckle, for some time, kept his forces posted on different parts of the Shannon, ready to combine, in case of necessity; and, after the capture of Cork, he attempted to harass the Irish by a winter campaign. But in this he egregiously failed. Sarsfield and his troops, who knew every foot of ground, beat them back from the mountain passes; they cut up their detachments, and surprised their convoys; keeping the English in a state of constant terror and alarm. The Irish cavalry were especially active during this season. They swept the country around the posts of the English, and dashed in among them at all hours, regardless of danger or death. Although on most occasions the Irish were successful, they met with a severe and dispiriting repulse on attempting to surprise the frontier garrison of Mullingar.

The miserable condition of the peasantry of Ireland, at this time, may be imagined rather than described. The country had now been in a state of civil war, with longer or shorter intervals of peace, for nearly a century. It had scarcely known what repose was, since the reign of Henry the VIIIth. Since then extensive confiscations of lands had taken place in every part of Ireland; and in some places estates had been confiscated three or four times during the century. The native owners of the soil had been reduced, in innumerable instances, to the lowest level of existence; while the miserable peasants were treated as outcasts and Helots in the land. Treatment such as this was calculated, in the very nature to things, to give rise to feelings of revenge, of hatred, and of savage retaliation. Treat the meanest thing with contumely, with scorn, or with bitter hate, and it will rebel at the insult against its nature: even the worm is impelled to turn against the foot that tramples on it. Are we to wonder that the poor Irish peasants, long deadened to every thing like a sense of mercy for their oppressors, now circled round them in every direction, and plundered and slew them at

The Irish were by no means mortified at the departure of the French. That superiority which these foreigners affected to assume, the partiality which James had discovered to his French auxiliaries, and the preference given to their officers in all promotions, disgusted and exasperated the natives. The French spoke with contempt of the meanness of the Irish; the Irish affected to ridicule the pomp and pageantry of the French. They cursed those proud fellows who strutted in their "leathern trunks," as they called their great boots, and lamented that they were even preferred to their own brave countrymen. Hence the separation was equally agreeable to both parties.---LELAND, vol. iii, p. 587.

every opportunity. The Irish peasantry were now what the English government had made them all that their conquerors left to them was hunger, destitution, and the hope of vengeance. This deadly feeling, in the horrible jubilee which now reigned throughout the wasted and ravaged country, had become elevated almost to the rank of a virtue! In the awful hell of violence, crime, murder, and famine, which the invaders had caused, vengeance and hatred survived, to remind them that man cannot be brutalized and oppressed by his fellow-man, without entailing equal misery and suffering upon the tyrant as on the victim.

For a long time, there had been a floating population of homeless misery throughout Ireland. In Ulster, tens of thousands had been driven into the wilds and mountain wastes, to make room for James's settlers from England and Scotland. Expelled from their homes, these miserable families were reduced to the lowest abyss of misery. In course of time, however, they became familiar with famine: destitution became their daily companion: misery became habitual to them. They soon grew accustomed to the savage life into which they had been driven, and became a regular and recognized part of the population. They were first known as the Creaghts, and lived almost exclusively by the plunder of the settlers upon their lands. They were deprived of their honest means of living, and compelled to rob for a subsistence. The appetites implanted in us by God are stronger than the laws forged for us by man; and if the impulses of nature be outrageously violated, human legislation proves weaker than a cobweb in its power to resist them. The result of all such violation on the part of man, is suffering, both social and individual. The Creaghts were imbruted by the cruelty, selfishness, and bigotry of their invaders; and the result was, the new settlers lived in constant terror of their lives and properties.

In every succeeding stage of civil war, the number of this outlawed and destitute population increased. In Cromwell's time, the rival armies burnt down towns, villages, and hamlets, in their route; and the number of the homeless was thus regularly aug mented. Many of the peasants were by this means driven into the ranks of the patriots; but by far the largest proportion of them roved at large about the country for a subsistence. From preying upon their enemies, they were at length driven to prey upon their own countrymen. They lived by robbery and plunder, being generally known by the name of Tories; and under this name they were regularly hunted by the soldiers of Cromwell. Toryhunting, like priest-hunting, was a favourite field-sport of the new military occupants of Ireland.

The same class of the population became greatly augmented during the invasion of William of Orange. His mercenaries treated the peasantry with brutal cruelty; pursuing them with fire and sword, and plundering alike the protestants who clung to them for protection, and the catholics who fled from them for safety. Driven

from their homes in multitudes, they drew together in bands, armed with half-pikes, from whence arose the name by which they were now known, that of Rapparees. They plundered the country in all directions, but generally within the English lines,-hung about the skirts of the English army, and cut off every straggler, whom they instantly stripped to the skin, in the rage of their hatred not unfrequently mangling the dead body. Concealing their arms by day, they drew them forth at night, and assembling in large bodies, they rushed upon their prey, which they carried off with them to their fastnesses in the bogs and mountains, before the English forces could collect to resist them. During the whole winter, the army of William was harassed by the attacks of these guerillas. To oppose them, the government organized a body of Protestant Rapparees, which only served to increase the mischief; for, imitating the tactics of their opponents, they spent their time in the robbery and plunder of the country-people. Such was the deplorable state of Ireland at this period: such were the horrors and agonies which awaited on this awful time of civil strife.

CHAPTER XXVI.

Campaign of 1691-James supersedes Sarsfield in the command, and appoints Saint Ruth-His preparations-General Ginckle lays siege to Athlone Is driven back— His devices all baffled-Saint Ruth withdraws the garrison-His arrogance and confidence-The English resolve on a general assault-The English cross the river-The two armies concentrate-The heights of Kilcommeden-The battle of Aughrim—Death of Saint Ruth, and defeat of the Irish-The disastrous retreat-Ginckle advances to Galway-Its surrender- The celebrated siege and treaty of Limerick-Close of the war-and departure of the Irish army.

THE campaign of 1691 commenced with great preparations on both sides. The Irish were elated by their triumphs at Athlone and Limerick, and now anticipated a successful conclusion to the war under their own favourite leaders. But they were again doomed to be cursed by the infatuated imbecility of the monarch for whom they were in arms. He had already done all that he could to destroy their chances of success; most probably being piqued at the gallantry of their resistance, after his cowardly abandonment of them. Now that he saw that there was some honour to be gained in the Irish war, he determined that the Irish generals should have as little of it as possible. Accordingly, on the arrival of the intelligence of the successful management of the campaign under the Irish generals, and the gallant defence of Athlone and Limerick, one of James's first acts was to supersede Sarsfield in the command of the army, and bestow it upon a vain and frivolous Frenchman, Monsieur Saint Ruth. Sarsfield was disgusted at this ungrateful treatment of his services; nor did the empty title of Earl of Lucan, conferred upon him by James, at all tend to reconcile him to the insult.

Great assistance had been expected from Louis in the approaching campaign; but, farther than a supply of military stores, a small sum of money, and a few French officers, the expected aid was not forthcoming. What was worst of all, the new general, St. Ruth, was ignorant of the country, and ignorant of the army under his command. He treated both the Irish soldiers and officers with supercilious contempt; so that there wanted that complete sympathy and mutual understanding between the army and its head, which is absolutely necessary to the success of every patriotic military movement. Saint Ruth, after frittering away his time in giving a series of balls and festivals, resolved on his plan of the campaign: it was to maintain a defensive war behind the Shannon, according to the plan originally fixed upon by the Irish generals. But he too implicitly trusted to the present state of its defences, considering them to be impregnable. Had he improved the opportunity of strengthening them while there was yet time, he might have defied all the strength which England could have brought against him. Leaving strong garrisons at Limerick and Athlone, Saint Ruth took up his position, with the main body of his army, behind the latter town.

General Ginckle, warned by the results of the last campaign, had made the most careful preparations for renewing the war, and his army was now in a highly effective state for taking the field. He had been reinforced by some excellent troops from Scotland, and was well supplied, through the vigilance of William, with all the necessaries of war. He was also aided by many brave and experienced officers. Assembling his army together at Mullingar, he resolved to open the campaign by an attack upon Athlone. This place was strongly fortified, and was occupied both on the Irish and English side by the troops of Saint Ruth. Ginckle, after reducing the fort of Ballynore, sat down before Athlone on the 18th of June. The English town, on the Leinster side of the river, which Colonel Grace had on the former occasion abandoned as untenable, was first assaulted and carried, but not until after a fierce and desperate resistance had been made by the Irish troops. When they found they could no longer maintain the place, they retreated across the bridge to the Irish town, breaking down the arch nearest the Connaught side of the river. The English now lay entrenched on the one side, and the Irish on the other. A furious fire was opened and kept up on both sides; though the English had greatly the advantage in the number of artillery and the weight of metal.

The cannonade continued for nine days, during which the English expended not less than 12,000 cannon balls, 600 bombs, nearly 50 tons of powder, and a great many tons of stone shot.* The havock which those instruments of destruction caused was tremendous. Athlone was soon a heap of ruins. Yet still the garrison

Story's Wars of Ireland.