 History of England, Chapter 12, Part 6. The views of Lvois, incomparably the greatest statesman that France had produced since Richelieu, seemed to have entirely agreed with those of Avvo. The best thing Lvois wrote that King James could do would be to forget that he had reigned in Great Britain and to think only of putting Ireland into a good condition and of establishing himself firmly there. Whether this were the true interest of the House of Stuart may be doubted, but it was undoubtedly the true interest of the House of Bourbon. About the scotch in English exiles, and especially about Melfort, Avvo constantly expressed himself with an asperity hardly to be expected from a man of so much sense and experience. Melfort was in a singularly unfortunate position. He was a renegade. He was a mortal enemy of the liberties of his country. He was of a bad and tyrannical nature, and yet he was in some sense a patriot. The consequence was that he was more universally detested than any man of his time, for while his apostasy and his arbitrary maxims of government made him the abhorrence of England and Scotland, his anxiety for the dignity and integrity of the Empire made him the abhorrence of the Irish and of the French. The first question to be decided was whether James should remain at Dublin or should put himself at the head of his army in Ulster. On this question the Irish and British factions joined battle. Reasons of no great weight were adduced on both sides, for neither party ventured to speak out. The point really in issue was whether the King should be in Irish or in British hands. If he remained at Dublin it would be scarcely possible for him to withhold his assent from any bill presented to him by the Parliament which he had summoned to meet there. He would be forced to plunder, perhaps to attain, innocent Protestant gentlemen and clergymen by hundreds, and he would thus do irreparable mischief to his cause on the other side of St George's Channel. If he repaired to Ulster he would be within a few hours sail of Great Britain. As soon as Londonderry had fallen, and it was universally supposed that the fall of Londonderry could not be long delayed, he might cross the sea with part of his forces and land in Scotland where his friends were supposed to be numerous. When he was once on British ground and in the midst of British adherence it would no longer be in the power of the Irish to extort his consent to their schemes of spoliation and revenge. The discussions in the council were long and warm. Turconel, who had just been created a duke, advised his master to stay in Dublin. Melford exhorted his majesty to set out for Ulster. Avow exerted all his influence in support of Turconel, but James, whose personal inclinations were naturally on the British side of the question, determined to follow the advice of Melford. Avow was deeply mortified. In his official letters he expressed with great acrimony his contempt for the king's character and understanding. On Turconel, who had said that he despaired of the fortunes of James and that the real question was between the king of France and the prince of Orange, the ambassador pronounced to what was meant to be a warm eulogy but may perhaps be more properly called an invective. If he were a born Frenchman he could not be more zealous for the interests of France. The conduct of Melford, on the other hand, was a subject of an invective which much resembles eulogy. He is neither a good Irishman nor a good Frenchman. All his affections are set on his own country. Since the king was determined to go northward, Avow did not choose to be left behind. The royal party set out, leaving Turconel in charge at Dublin, and arrived at Charlemont on the thirteenth of April. The journey was a strange one. The country all along the road had been completely deserted by the industrious population and laid waste by bands of robbers. This said one of the French officers is like traveling through the deserts of Arabia. Whatever effects a colonist had been able to remove were at Londonderry or Anisquilin. The rest had been stolen or destroyed. Avow informed his court that he had not been able to get one truss of hay for his horses without sending five or six miles. No laborer dared bring anything for sale lest some robber should lay hands on it by the way. The ambassador was put one night into a miserable tap room full of soldiers smoking, another night into a dismantled house without windows or shutters to keep out the rain. As Charlemont a bag of oatmeal was, with great difficulty, and as a matter of favour procured for the French legation. There was no wheat and bread except at the table of the king, who had brought a little flour from Dublin and to whom Avow had lent a servant who knew how to bake. Those who were honoured with an invitation to the royal table had their bread and wine measured out to them. Everybody else however high in rank ate horse corn and drank water or detestable beer made with oats instead of barley and flavoured with some nameless herb as a substitute for hops. Yet reports said that the country between Charlemont and Straben was even more desolate than the country between Dublin and Charlemont. It was impossible to carry a large stock of provisions. The roads were so bad and the horses so weak that the baggage wagons had all been left far behind. The chief officers of the army were consequently in want of necessaries, and the ill humour which was the natural effect of these privations was increased by the insensibility of James, who seemed not to be aware that everybody about him was not perfectly comfortable. On the fourteenth of April the king and his train proceeded to Oma. The rain fell, the wind blew, the horses could scarcely make their way through the mud and in the face of the storm, and the road was frequently intersected by torrents, which might almost be called rivers. The travellers had to pass several fords where the water was breast-high. Some of the party fainted from fatigue and hunger. All around lay a frightful wilderness. In a journey of forty miles, Avo counted only three miserable cabins. Everything else was rock, bog, and moor. When at length the travellers reached Oma they found it in ruins. The protestants who were the majority of the inhabitants had abandoned it, leaving not a wisp of straw nor a cask of liquor. The windows had been broken, the chimneys had been beaten in, the very locks and bolts of the doors had been carried away. Avo had never ceased to press the king to return to Dublin, but these expostulations had hitherto produced no effect. The obstinacy of James, however, was an obstancy which had nothing in common with manly resolution, and which, though proof to argument, was easily shaken by Caprice. He received at Oma early on the sixteenth of April letters which alarmed him. He learned that a strong body of protestants was in arms at Straben, and that English ships of war had been seen near the mouth of Loch Foil. In one minute three messages were sent to summon Avo to the ruinous chamber in which the royal bed had been prepared. There, James, half-trust, and with the air of a man bewildered by some great shock, announced his resolution to hasten back instantly to Dublin. Avo listened, wondered, and approved. Avo seemed prostrated by despair. The travellers retraced their steps, and late in the evening reached Charlemont. There the king received dispatches very different from those which had terrified him a few hours before. The protestants who had assembled near Straben had been attacked by Hamilton. Under a true-hearted leader they would doubtless have stood their ground, but Lundy, who commanded them, had told them that all was lost, had ordered them to shift for themselves, and had set them the example of flight. They had accordingly retired in confusion to London Derry. The king's correspondence pronounced it to be impossible that London Derry should hold out. His majesty had only to appear before the gates, and they would instantly fly open. James now changed his mind again, blamed himself for having been persuaded to turn his face southward, and, though it was late in the evening, called for his horses. The horses were in a miserable plight, but weary and half-starved as they were, they were saddled. Melford, completely victorious, carried off his master to the camp. Avo, after remonstrating to no purpose, declared that he was resolved to return to Dublin. It may be suspected that the extreme discomfort which he had undergone had something to do with this resolution. For complaints of that discomfort make up a large part of his letters, and in truth a life passed in the palaces of Italy, in the neat parlours and gardens of Holland, and in the luxurious pavilions which adorned the suburbs of Paris was a bad preparation for the ruined hovels of Ulster. He gave, however, to his master a more weighty reason for refusing to proceed northward. The journey of James had been undertaken in opposition to the unanimous sense of the Irish, and had excited great alarm among them. They apprehended that he meant to quit them and to make a descent on Scotland. They knew that once landed in Great Britain, he would have neither the will nor the power to do those things which they most desired. Avo, by refusing to proceed further, gave them an assurance that whoever might betray them, France, would be their constant friend. While Avo was on his way to Dublin, James hastened toward Londonderry. He found his army concentrated a few miles south of the city. The French generals who had sailed with him from Brest were in his train, and two of them, Rosen and Montmont, were placed over the head of Richard Hamilton. Rosen was a native of Livonia, who had an early youth become a soldier of fortune, who had fought his way to distinction, and who, though utterly destitute of the graces and accomplishments characteristic of the court of Versailles, was nevertheless high in favour there. His temper was savage, his manners were coarse, his language was a strange jargon compounded of various dialects of French and German. Even those who thought best of him and who maintained that his rough exterior covered some good qualities, owned that his looks were against him, and that it would be unpleasant to meet such a figure in the dusk at the corner of a wood. The little that is known of Montmont is to his honour. In the camp it was generally expected that Londonderry would fall without a blow. Rosen confidently predicted that the mere sight of the Irish army would terrify the garrison into submission. But Richard Hamilton, who knew the temper of the colonists better, had misgivings. The assailants were sure of one important ally within the walls. Londy the governor professed the Protestant religion and had joined in proclaiming lame and merry, but he was in secret communication with the enemies of his church and of the sovereigns to whom he had sworn fealty. Some have suspected that he was a concealed Jacobite, and that he had affected Aquius in the revolution only in order that he might be better able to assist in bringing about a restoration. But it is probable that his conduct is rather to be attributed to faint heartedness and poverty of spirit than to zeal for any public cause. He seems to have thought resistance hopeless and in truth to a military eye the defences of Londonderry appeared contemptible. The fortifications consisted of a simple wall overgrown with grass and weeds. There was no ditch even before the gates. The drawbridges had long been neglected. The chains were rusty and could scarcely be used. The parapets and towers were built after a fashion which might well move disciples of Vauban to laughter, and these feeble defences were on almost every side commanded by heights. Indeed those who laid out the city had never meant that it should be able to stand a regular siege and had contented themselves with throwing up works sufficient to protect the inhabitants against a tumultuous attack of the Celtic peasantry. Avo assured Lvois that a single French battalion would easily storm such defences, even if the place should not was standing all disadvantages, be able to repel a large army directed by the science and experience of generals who had served under Conde and Turin. Hunger must soon bring the contest to an end. The stock of provisions was small and the population had been swollen to seven or eight times the ordinary number by the multitude of colonists flowing from the rage of the natives. Lindy therefore from the time when the Irish army interdulster seemed to have given up all thought of serious resistance, he talked so despondingly that the citizens and his own soldiers murmured against him. He seemed, they said, to be bent on discouraging them. Meanwhile the enemy drew daily nearer and nearer, and it was known that James himself was coming to take command of his forces. Just at this moment a glimpse of hope appeared. On the 14th of April ships from England anchored in the bay. They had on board two regiments which had been sent under the command of a colonel named Cunningham to reinforce the garrison. Cunningham and several of his officers went on shore and conferred with Lindy. Lindy dissuaded them from landing their men. The place, he said, could not hold out. To throw more troops into it would therefore be worse than useless, for the more numerous the garrison the more prisoners would fall into the hands of the enemy. The best thing that the two regiments could do would be to sail back to England. He meant, he said, to withdraw himself privately, and the inhabitants must then try to make good terms for themselves. He went through the form of holding a council of war, but from this council he excluded all those officers of the garrison whose sentiments he knew to be different from his own. Some who had ordinarily been summoned on such occasions and who now came uninvited were thrust out of the room. Whatever the governor said was echoed by his creatures. Cunningham and Cunningham's companions could scarcely venture to oppose their opinion to that of a person whose local knowledge was necessarily far superior to theirs, and whom they were by their instructions directed to obey. One brave soldier murmured, understand this, he said, to give up Londonderry is to give up Ireland. But his objections were contemptuously overruled. The meeting broke up. Cunningham and his officers returned to the ships and made preparations for departing. Meanwhile, Lundy privately sent a messenger to the headquarters of the enemy with assurances that the city should be peaceably surrendered on the first summons. But as soon as what had passed in the council of war was whispered about the streets, the spirit of the soldiers and citizens swelled up high and fierce against the dastardly and perfidious chief who had betrayed them. Many of his own officers declared that they no longer thought themselves bound to obey him. The voices were heard threatening, some that his brains should be blown out, some that he should be hanged on the walls. A deputation was sent to Cunningham imploring him to assume the command. He excused himself on the plausible ground that his orders were to take direction in all things from the governor. Meanwhile it was rumored that the persons most in Lundy's confidence were stealing out of the town one by one. Long after dusk on the evening of the seventeenth it was found that the gates were open and that the keys had disappeared. The officers who made the discovery took on themselves to change the passwords and to double the guards. The night however passed without any assault. After some anxious hours the day broke. The Irish, with James at their head, were now within four miles of the city. A tumultuous council of the chief inhabitants was called. Some of them vehemently reproached the governor to his face with his treachery. He had sold them, they cried, to their deadliest enemy. He had refused admission to the force which good King William had sent to defend them. While the altercation was at the height, the sentinels who paced the ramparts announced that the vanguard of the hostile army was in sight. Lundy had given orders that there should be no firing, but his authority was at an end. Two gallant soldiers, Major Henry Baker and Captain Adam Murray, called the people to arms. They were assisted by the eloquence of an aged clergyman, George Walker, rector of the parish of Dunamore, who had with many of his neighbors taken refuge in Londonderry. The whole of the crowded city was moved by one impulse. Soldiers, gentlemen, yeoman, artisans rushed to the walls and demand the guns. James, who confident of success had approached within 100 yards of the southern gate, was received with a shout of no surrender and with a fire from the nearest bastion. An officer of his staff fell dead by his side. The king and his attendants made all haste to get out of reach of the cannonballs. Lundy, who was now in imminent danger of being torn limb from limb by those whom he had betrayed, hid himself in an inner chamber. There he lay during the day, and at night, with the generous and politic connivance of Murray and Walker, made his escape in the disguise of a porter. The part of the wall from which he let himself down is still pointed out, and people still living talk of having tasted the fruit of a pear tree which assisted him in his descent. His name is, to this day, held in execration by the Protestants of the north of Ireland, and his effigy was long and perhaps still is annually hung and burned by them, with marks of abhorrence similar to those which in England are appropriated to Guy Fawkes. End of Part 6. History of England, Chapter 12, Part 7. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to find out how you can volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. History of England, from the Assession of James II, by Thomas Babington Macaulay, Chapter 12, Part 7. And now, London Dairy was left destitute of all military and of all civil government. No man in the town had a right to command any other. The defences were weak. The provisions were scanty. An incensed tyranny and a great army were at the gates. But within was that which has often, in desperate extremities, retrieved the fallen fortunes of nations. Betrayed, deserted, disorganized, unprovided with resources, Begirt with enemies, the noble city was still no easy conquest. Whatever an engineer might think of the strength of the ramparts, all that was most intelligent, most courageous, most high-spirited, among the Englishry of Leinster, and of Northern Ulster, was crowded behind them. The number of men capable of bearing arms within the walls was 7,000, and the whole world could not have furnished 7,000 men better qualified to meet a terrible emergency with clear judgment, dauntless valor, and a stubborn patience. They were all zealous protestants, and the Protestantism of the majority was tinged with Puritanism. They had much in common with that sober, resolute, and Godfaring class out of which Cromwell had formed his unconquerable army. But the peculiar situation in which they had been placed had developed in them some qualities which, in the mother country, might possibly have remained latent. The English inhabitants of Ireland were an aristocratic caste, which had been enabled by superior civilization, by close union, by sleepless vigilance, by cool intrepidity, to keep in subjection a numerous and hostile population. Almost every one of them had been in some measure trained both to military and to political functions. Almost every one was familiar with the use of arms and was accustomed to bear a part in the administration of justice. It was remarked by contemporary writers that the colonists had something of the Castilian haughtiness of manner, though none of the Castilian indolence, that they spoke English with remarkable purity and correctness, and that they were, both as militiamen and as jurymen, superior to their kindred in the mother country. In all ages men situated as the Anglo-Saxons in Ireland were situated have had peculiar vices and peculiar virtues, the vices and virtues of masters, as opposed to the vices and virtues of slaves. The member of a dominant race is, in his dealings with the subject race, seldom indeed fraudulent. For fraud is the resource of the weak, but imperious, insolent, and cruel. Towards his brethren, on the other hand, his conduct is generally just, kind, and even noble. His self-respect leads him to respect all who belong to his own order. His interest impels him to cultivate a good understanding with those whose prompt, strenuous, and courageous assistance may at any moment be necessary to preserve his property and life. It is a truth ever present to his mind that his own well-being depends on the ascendancy of the class to which he belongs. His very selfishness, therefore, is sublimed into public spirit, and this public spirit is stimulated to fierce enthusiasm by sympathy, by the desire of applause, and by the dread of infamy. For the only opinion which he values is the opinion of his fellows, and in their opinion devotion to the common cause is the most sacred of duties. The character, thus formed, has two aspects. Seen on one side, it must be regarded by every well-constituted mind with disapprobation. Seen on the other, it irresistibly exhorts applause. His spartan, smiting and spurning, the wretched hellet, moves our disgust, but the same spartan, calmly dressing his hair and uttering his concise jests on what he well knows to be his last day in the passive thermopoly, is not to be contemplated without admiration. To a superficial observer it may seem strange that so much evil and so much good should be found together, but in truth the good and the evil which at first sight appear almost incompatible are closely connected and have a common origin. It was because the spartan had been taught to revere himself as one of a race of sovereigns, and to look down on all that was not spartan as of an inferior species, that he had no fellow feeling for the miserable serfs who crouched before him, and that the thought of submitting to a foreign master or of turning his back before an enemy never, even in the last extremity, crossed his mind. Something of the same character, compounded of tyrant and hero, has been found in all nations which have domineered over more numerous nations, but it has nowhere in modern Europe shown itself so conspiciously as in Ireland. With what contempt, with what antipathy the ruling minority in that country long regarded the subject majority may be best learned from the hateful laws which, within the memory of men still living, disgraced the Irish statute book. Those laws were at length annulled, but the spirit which had dictated them survived them, and even at this day sometimes breaks out in excesses pernicious to the common wealth and dishonorable to the Protestant religion. Nevertheless it is impossible to deny the English colonists have had, with too many of the faults, all the noblest virtues of a sovereign caste. The faults have, as was natural, been most offensively exhibited in times of prosperity and security. The virtues have been most resplendent in times of distress and peril, and never were those virtues more singly displayed than by the defenders of Londonderry when their governor had abandoned them, and when the camp of their mortal enemy was pitched before their walls. No sooner had the first burst of the rage excited by the perfidity of Lundy spent itself than those whom he had betrayed proceeded with a gravity and prudence worthy of the most renowned sentence. To provide for the order and defense of the city. Two governors were elected, Baker and Walker. Baker took the chief military command. Baker's special business was to preserve internal tranquility and to dull out supplies from the magazines. The inhabitants, capable of bearing arms, were distributed into eight regiments. Colonel's captains and subordinate officers were appointed. In a few hours every man knew his post and was ready to repair to it as soon as the beat of the drum was heard. That machinery by which Oliver had in the preceding generation kept up among his soldiers so stern and so pertinacious and enthusiasm was again employed with not less complete success. Preaching and praying occupied a large part of every day. Eighteen clergymen of the established church and seven or eight nonconformist ministers were within the walls. They all exerted themselves indefatigably to rouse and sustain the spirit of the people. Among themselves there was for the time entire harmony. All disputes about church, government, postures, ceremonies were forgotten. The bishop, having found that his lectures on passive obedience were derided even by the Episcopalians, had withdrawn himself, first to Rappo and then to England, and was preaching in a chapel in London. On the other hand a scotch fanatic named Houston, who had exhorted the Presbyterians not to ally themselves with such as refused to subscribe to the Covenant, had sunk under the well merited disgust and scorn of the whole Protestant community. The aspect of the cathedral was remarkable. Canon were planted on the summit of the broad tower which has since given place to a tower of different proportions. Ammunition was stored in the vaults. In the choir the liturgy of the Anglican church was read every morning. Every afternoon the dissenters crowded to a simpler worship. James had waited twenty-four hours, expecting, as it should seem, the performance of Lundy's promises. And in twenty-four hours the arrangements for the defense of Londonderry were complete. On the evening of the nineteenth of April a trumpeteer came to the southern gate and asked whether the engagements into which the governor had entered would be fulfilled. The answer was that the men who guarded these walls had nothing to do with the governor's engagements and were determined to resist to the last. On the following day a messenger of higher rank was sent, Claude Hamilton, Lord Strabane, one of the few Roman Catholic peers of Ireland. Murray, who had been appointed to the command of one of the eight regiments into which the garrison was distributed, advanced from the gate to meet the flag of Truce. And a short conference was held. Strabane had been authorized to make large promises. The citizens should have a free pardon for all that was passed if they would submit to their lawful sovereign. Murray himself should have a colonel's commission and a thousand pounds in money. Quote, the men of Londonderry, and quote, answered Murray, quote, have done nothing that requires a pardon and own no sovereign but King William and Queen Mary. It will not be safe for your lordship to stay longer or to return on the same errand. Let me have the honour of seeing you through the lines. End quote. James had been assured and had fully expected that the city would yield as soon as it was known that he was before the walls. When he himself mistaken, he broke loose from the control of Melfort and determined to return instantly to Dublin. Rosen accompanied the king. The direction of the siege was entrusted to Maumont. Richard Hamilton was second and Pusignan third in command. The operations now commenced in earnest. The besiegers began by battering the town. Soon on fire in several places, roofs and upper stories of houses fell in and crushed the inmates. During a short time, the garrison, many of whom had never before seen the effect of a cannonade, seemed to be discomposed by the crash of chimneys and by the heaps of ruin mingled with disfigured corpses. But familiarity with danger and horror produced in a few hours the natural effect. The spirit of the people rose so high that their chiefs thought it safe to act on the offensive. On the twenty-first of April, a sally was made under the command of Murray. The Irish stood their ground resolutely, and a furious and bloody contest took place. Maumont, at the head of the body of cavalry, flew to the place where the fight was raging. He was struck in the head by a musket-ball and fell a corpse. The besiegers lost several other officers and about two hundred men before the colonists could be driven in. Murray escaped with difficulty. His horse was killed under him, and he was beset by enemies. But he was able to defend himself till some of his friends made a rush from the gate to his rescue with old Walker at their head. In consequence of the death of Maumont, Hamilton was once more commander of the Irish army. His exploits in that post did not raise his reputation. He was a fine gentleman and a brave soldier, but he had no pretensions to the character of a great general and had never, in his life, seen a siege. Pusignan had more science and energy. But Pusignan survived Maumont little more than a fortnight. At four in the morning of the sixth of May the garrison made another sally, took several flags, and killed many of the besiegers. Pusignan, fighting gallantly, was shot through the body. The wound was one which a skillful surgeon might have cured. But there was no such surgeon in the Irish camp, and the communication with Dublin was slow and irregular. The poor Frenchman died, complaining bitterly of the barbarous ignorance and negligence which had shortened his days. A medical man, who had been sent down express from the capital, arrived after the funeral. James, in consequence, as it should seem, of this disaster, established a daily post between Dublin Castle and Hamilton's headquarters. Even by this conveyance letters did not travel very expeditiously, for the couriers went on foot and, from fear probably of the Ein Skelleners, took a circuitous route from military post to military post. May passed away, June arrived, and still, London Dairy held out. There had been many sallies and skirmishes with various success. But, on the whole, the advantage had been with the garrison. Several officers of note had been carried prisoners into the city, and two French banners, torn after hard fighting from the besiegers, had been hung as trophies in the chancel of the cathedral. It seemed that the siege must be turned into a blockade. But before the hope of reducing the town by main force was relinquished it was determined to make a great effort. The point selected for assault was an outwork called Windmill Hill, which was not far from the southern gate. Religious stimulants were employed to animate the courage of the forlorn hope. Many volunteers bound themselves by oath to make their way into the works or to perish in the attempt. London Butler, son of the Lord Montgarit, undertook to lead the sworn men to the attack. On the walls the colonists were drawn up in three ranks. The office of those who were behind was to load the muskets of those who were in front. The Irish came on boldly with a fearful uproar, but after long and hard fighting were driven back. The women of Londonderry were seen amidst the thickest fire serving out water and ammunition to their husbands and brothers. In one place where the wall was only seven feet high Butler and some of his sworn men succeeded in reaching the top, but they were all killed or made prisoners. At length after four hundred of the Irish had fallen their chiefs ordered a retreat to be sounded. Nothing was left but to try the effect of hunger. It was known that the stock of food in the city was but slender. Indeed it was thought strange that the supplies should have held out so long. Every precaution was now taken against the introduction of provisions. All the avenues leading to the city by land were closely guarded. On the south were encamped along the left bank of the foil the horsemen who had followed Lord Galmoy from the valley of the Barrow. Their chief was of all the Irish captains the most dreaded and most abhorred by the Protestants, for he had disciplined his men with rare skill and care, and many frightful stories were told of his barbarity and perfidity. Long lines of tents occupied by the infantry of Butler and O'Neill of Lord Slane and Lord Gormonstown, by Nugent's Westmeath men, by Eustances, Kildare men, and by Kavanaugh's Carymen, extended northward till they again approached the waterside. The river was fringed with forts and batteries, which no vessel could pass without great peril. After some time it was determined to make the security still more complete by throwing a barricade across the stream. About a mile and a half below the city, several boats full of stones were sunk. A row of stakes was driven into the bottom of the river. Such pieces of firwood, strongly bound together, formed a boom which was more than a quarter of a mile in length and which was firmly fastened to both shores by cables a foot thick. A huge stone to which the cable on the left bank was attached was removed many years later for the purpose of being polished and shaped into a column. But the intention was abandoned, and the rugged mass still lies not many yards from its original site, amidst the shades which surround a pleasant country house named Boom Hall. Hard is the well from which the besiegers drank, a little further off is the burial ground where they laid their slain, and where, in our own time the spade of the gardener has struck on many skulls and thigh bones at a short distance beneath the turf and flowers. While these things were passing in the north, James was holding his court in Dublin. On his return thither from Londonderry he received intelligence that the French fleet, commanded by the Count of Chateau-Renaud, had anchored in Bantry Bay, and had put on shore a large quantity of military stores and a supply of money. Herbert, who had just been sent to those seas with an English squadrant for the purpose of intercepting the communications between Brittany and Ireland, learned where the enemy lay and sailed into the bay with the intention of giving battle. But the wind was unfavorable to him. His force was greatly inferior to that which was opposed to him, and after some firing which caused no serious loss to either side he thought it prudent to stand out to sea, while the French retired into the recesses of the harbour. He steered for skilly, where he expected to find reinforcements, and Chateau-Renaud, content with the credit which he had acquired and afraid of losing it, if he stayed, hastened back to breast. Though earnestly entreated by James to come round to Dublin, both sides claimed the victory, the commons at Westminster absurdly passed a vote of thanks to Herbert. James, not less absurdly, ordered bonfires to be lighted, and to daim to be sung. But these marks of joy by no means satisfied of ox, whose national vanity was too strong even for his characteristic prudence and politeness. He complained that James was so unjust and ungrateful as to attribute the result of the late action to the reluctance with which the English seamen fought against their rightful king and their old commander, and that his majesty did not seem to be well pleased by being told that they were flying over the ocean pursued by the triumphant French. Dover, too, was a bad Frenchman. He seemed to take no pleasure in the defeat of his countrymen, and had been heard to say that the affair in Bantry Bay did not deserve to be called a battle. On the day after the ta daim had been sung at Dublin for this indecisive skirmish the Parliament convoked by James assembled. The number of temporal peers of Ireland when he arrived in that kingdom was about a hundred. Of these only fourteen obeyed his summons. Of the fourteen ten were Roman Catholics. By the reversing of old attainers and by new creations, seventeen more lords, all Roman Catholics were introduced into the upper house. The Protestant bishops of Meath, Ossary, Cork, Limerick, whether from a sincere conviction that they could not lawfully withhold their obedience even from a tyrant, or from a vain hope that the heart, even of a tyrant, might be softened by their patience, made their appearance in the midst of their mortal enemies. The House of Commons consisted almost exclusively of Irishmen and Papists. With the writs the returning officers had received from Tyr Connell letters naming the persons whom he wished to see elected. The largest constituent bodies in the kingdom were at this time very small. For scarcely any but Roman Catholics dared to show their faces. And the Roman Catholic free-holders were then very few, not more it is said, in some counties than ten or twelve. Even in the cities so considerable as Cork, Limerick, and Galway the number of persons who under the new charters were entitled to vote did not exceed twenty-four. About two hundred and fifty members took their seats. And of these only six were Protestants. The list of the names sufficiently indicates the religious and political temper of the Assembly. Alone among the Irish parliaments of that age this parliament was filled with Dermottes and Gohagans, O'Neils and O'Donovans, MacMonds, McNamaras, and McGillicuddies. The lead was taken by a few men whose abilities had been improved by the study of the law, or by experience acquired in foreign countries. The Attorney General, Sir Richard Nagel, who represented the county of Cork, was allowed, even by the Protestants, to be an acute and learned jurist. Francis Plowden, the Commissioner of Revenue, who sate for Bannow and acted as Chief Minister of Finance, was an Englishman, and, as he had been a principal agent of the Order of Jesuits in money matters, must be supposed to have been an excellent man of business. Colonel Henry Luttrell, member for the county of Carlow, had served long in France and had brought back to his native Ireland a sharpened intellect and polished manners, a flattering tongue, some skill in war, and much more skill in intrigue. His elder brother, Colonel Simon Luttrell, who was member for the county of Dublin and military governor of the capital, had also resided in France and, though inferior to Henry, in parts and activity, made a highly distinguished figure among the adherents of James. The other member for the county of Dublin was Colonel Patrick Sarsfield. This gallant officer was regarded by the natives as one of themselves. For his ancestors on the paternal side, though originally English, were among those early colonists who were proverbially said to have become more Irish than Irishmen. His mother was of noble Celtic blood and he was firmly attached to the old religion. He had inherited an estate of about two thousand a year and was therefore one of the wealthiest Roman Catholics in the kingdom. His knowledge of courts and camps was such as few of his countrymen possessed. He had long borne a commission in the English lifeguards, had lived much about Whitehall and had fought bravely under Monmouth on the continent, and against Monmouth at Sedgemore. He had, a Vox wrote, more personal influence than any man in Ireland, and was indeed a gentleman of eminent merit, brave, upright, honorable, careful of his men and 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 Englishry generally respected him as a valiant, skillful, and generous enemy, and that, even in the most reballed farces, which were performed by mount-banks in Smithfield, he was always accepted from the disgraceful imputations, which it was then the fashion to throw on the Irish nation. But men like these were rare in the House of Commons, which had met at Dublin. It was no reproach to the Irish nation, a nation which has since furnished its full proportion of eloquent and accomplished senators. To say that, of all the parliaments which have met in the British islands, Barebones Parliament, not accepted, the Assembly convoked by James was the most efficient in all the qualities which a legislature should possess. The stern domination of a hostile caste had blighted the faculties of the Irish gentleman. If he was so fortunate as to have lands, he had generally passed his life on them, shooting, fishing, carousing, and making love among his vassals. If his estate had been confiscated he had wandered about from bond to bond and from cabin to cabin, levying small contributions and living at the expense of other men. He had never sat in the House of Commons. He had never even taken an active part at an election. He had never been a magistrate, scarcely ever had he been on a grand jury. He had therefore absolutely no experience of public affairs. The English squire of that age, though assuredly not a very profound or enlightened politician, was a statesman and philosopher when compared with the Roman Catholic squire of Munster or Penaught. The parliaments of Ireland had then no fixed place of gambling. Indeed, they met so seldom and broke up so speedily that it would hardly have been worthwhile to build and furnish a palace for their special use. It was not until the Hanoverian dynasty had been long on the throne that a senate house which sustains a comparison with the finest compositions of Inigo Jones arose in College Green. On the spot where the portico and dome of the four courts now overlook the Liffey stood in the seventeenth century an ancient building which had once been a convent of Dominican friars, but had since the reformation been appropriated to the use of the legal profession and bore the name of the king's inn. Their accommodation had been provided for the parliament. On the seventeenth of May James, dressed in royal robes and wearing a crown, took his seat on the throne in the House of Lords and ordered the commons to be summoned to the bar. He then expressed his gratitude to the natives of Ireland for having adhered to his cause when the people of his other kingdoms had deserted him. His resolution to abolish all religious disabilities in all his dominions he declared to be unalterable. He invited the House to take the act of settlement into consideration and to redress the injuries of which the old proprietors of the soil had reason to complain. He concluded by acknowledging in warm terms his obligations to the king of France. End of PART VII History of England from the Excession of James II by Thomas Babingdon Macaulay CHAPTER XII PART VIII When the royal speech had been pronounced, the Chancellor directed the commons to repair to their chamber and to elect a speaker. They chose the Attorney-General Nagel, and the choice was approved by the king. The commons next passed resolutions expressing warm gratitude both to James and to Louis. Indeed it was proposed to send a deputation with an address to avow, but the speaker pointed out the gross impropriety of such a step, and on this occasion his interference was successful. It was seldom, however, that the House was disposed to listen to reason. The debates were all rant and tumult. Judge Daley, a Roman Catholic but an honest and able man, could not refrain from lamenting the indecency and folly with which the members of his church carried on the work of legislation. Those gentlemen, he said, were not a Parliament. They were a mere rabble. They resembled nothing as much as the mob of fishermen and market gardeners, who, at Naples, yelled and threw up their caps in honour of Masseniello. It was painful to hear, member after member, talking wild nonsense about his own losses, and clamouring for an estate when the lives of all and the independence of their common country were in peril. These words were spoken in private, but some tale-bearer repeated them to the commons. A violent storm broke forth. Daley was ordered to attend at the bar, and there was little doubt that he would be severely dealt with. But just when he was at the door, one of the members rushed in, shouting, Good news, London Derry is taken! The whole house rose. All the hats were flung into the air. Three loud hussars were raised. Every heart was softened by the happy tidings. Nobody would hear of punishment at such a moment. The order for Daley's attendance was discharged amidst cries of, No submission! No submission! We pardon him! In a few hours it was known that London Derry held out as obstinately as ever. This transaction, in itself unimportant, deserves to be recorded as showing how destitute that house of commons was of the qualities which ought to be found in the great council of a kingdom. And this assembly, without experience, without gravity, and without temper, was now to legislate on questions which would have tasked to the utmost the capacity of the greatest statesman. One act James induced them to pass, which would have been most honourable to him and to them, if there were not abundant proofs that it was meant to be a dead letter. It was an act purporting to grant entire liberty of conscience to all Christian sects. On this occasion a proclamation was put forth announcing in boastful language to the English people that their rightful king had now signally refuted those slanderers who had accused him of affecting zeal for religious liberty merely in order to serve a turn. If he were at heart inclined to persecution, would he not have persecuted the Irish Protestants? He did not want power. He did not want provocation. Yet at Dublin, where members of his church were the majority, as at Westminster, where they were a minority, he had firmly adhered to the principles laid down in his much maligned declaration of indulgence. Unfortunately for him the same wind which carried his fair professions to England carried there also evidence that his professions were insincere. A single law, worthy of Turgut or of Franklin, seemed ludicrously out of place in the midst of a crowd of laws which would have disgraced Gardiner or Alva. A necessary preliminary to the vast work of spoliation and slaughter on which the legislators of Dublin were bent was an act annulling the authority which the English Parliament, both as the Supreme Legislature and as the Supreme Court of Appeal, had hitherto exercised over Ireland. This act was rapidly passed and then followed in quick succession, confiscations, and prescriptions on a gigantic scale. The personal estates of absentees above the age of 17 years were transferred to the King. When lay property was thus invaded it was not likely that the endowments which had been in contravention of every signed principle lavished on the church of the minority would be spared. To reduce those endowments without prejudice to existing interests would have been a reform worthy of a good prince and of a good Parliament. But no such reform would satisfy the vindictive bigots who sat at the King's inns. By one sweeping act the greater part of the tithe was transferred from Protestant to Roman Catholic clergy and the existing incumbents were left without one farthing of compensation to die of hunger. A bill repealing the act of settlement and transferring many thousands of square miles from Saxon to Celtic landlords was brought in and carried by acclamation. Of legislation such as this it is impossible to speak too severely. But for the legislators there are excuses which it is the duty of the historian to notice. They acted unmercifully, unjustly, unwisely. But it would be absurd to expect mercy, justice, or wisdom from a class of men first abased by many years of oppression and then maddened by the joy of a sudden deliverance and armed with irresistible power. The representatives of the Irish nation were, with few exceptions, rude and ignorant. They had lived in a state of constant irritation. At aristocratical sentiments they had been in a servile position. With the highest pride of blood they had been exposed to daily affronts, such as might well have roused the collar of the humblest plebeian. Inside of the fields and castles which they regarded as their own they had been glad to be invited by a peasant to partake of his way and his potatoes. Those violent emotions of hatred and qubitity which the situation of the native gentleman could scarcely fail to call forth, appeared to him under the specious guise of patriotism and piety. For his enemies were the enemies of the nation, and the same tyranny which had robbed him of his patrimony had robbed his church of vast wealth bestowed on her by the devotion of an earlier age. How was power likely to be used by an uneducated and inexperienced man agitated by strong desires and resentments which he mistook for sacred duties? And when two or three hundred such men were brought together in one assembly, what was to be expected but that the passions which each had long nursed in silence would be at once matured into fearful vigor by the influence of sympathy? Between James and his parliament there was little in common, except hatred of the Protestant religion. He was an Englishman. He had not utterly extinguished all national feeling in his mind, and he could not but be displeased by the malevolence with which his Celtic supporters regarded the race from which he sprang. The range of his intellectual vision was small, yet it was impossible that, having reigned in England and looking constantly forward to the day when he should reign in England once more, he should not take a wider view of politics than was taken by men who had no objects out of Ireland. The few Irish Protestants who still adhered to him, and the British nobles, both Protestant and Roman Catholic who had followed him into exile, implored him to restrain the violence of the rapacious and vindictive Senate which he had convoked. They, with peculiar earnestness, implored him not to consent to the repeal of the Act of Settlement. On what security they asked could any man invest his money, or give a portion to his children, if he could not rely on positive laws, and on the uninterrupted possession of many years? The military adventurers among whom Cromwell portioned out the soil might perhaps be regarded as wrongdoers, but how large a part of their estates had passed by fair purchase into other hands? How much money had proprietors borrowed on mortgage, on statute merchant, on statute staple? How many capitalists had trusting to legislative acts and to royal promises come over from England and brought land in Ulster and Lenster without the least misgiving as to the title? What a sum had those capitalists expended during a quarter of a century in building, draining, implosing, planting! The terms of the compromise which Charles II had sanctioned might not be, in all respects, just. That was one injustice to be redressed by committing another injustice more monstrous still, and what effect was likely to be produced in England by the cry of thousands of innocent English families whom an English king had doomed to ruin. The complaints of such a body of sufferers might delay, might prevent the restoration to which all loyal subjects were eagerly looking forward, and even if his majesty should, in spite of those complaints, be happily restored. He would, to the end of his life, feel the pernicious effects of the injustice which evil advisors were now urging him to commit. He would find that, in trying to quiet one set of malcontents, he had created another. As surely as he yielded to the clamour raised at Dublin for a repeal of the act of settlement, he would, from the day on which he returned to Westminster, be assailed by as loud and pertinentious a clamour for a repeal of that repeal. He could not but be aware that no English parliament, however loyal, would permit such laws as were now passing through the Irish parliament to stand. Had he made up his mind to take the part of Ireland against the universal sense of England, if so, to what could he look forward but another banishment, and another deposition? Or would he, when he had recovered the greater kingdom, revoke the bores by which, in his distress, he had purchased the help of the smaller? It might seem an insult to him even to suggest that he could harbour the thought of such unprincely, of such unmanly perfidy, yet what other course would be left to him? And was it not better for him to refuse unreasonable concessions now than to retract those concessions hereafter in a manner which must bring on him reproaches insupportable to a noble mind? This situation was doubtless embarrassing, yet in this case, as in other cases, it would be found that the path of justice was the path of wisdom. Though James had, in his speech at the opening of the session declared against the act of settlement, he felt that these arguments were unanswerable. He had several conferences with the leading members of the Heist of Commons, and earnestly recommended moderation, but his exhortations irritated the passions which he wished to allay. Many of the native gentry held high in violent language. It was impudent, they said, to talk about the rights of purchasers. How could right spring out of wrong? People who chose to buy property acquired by injustice must take the consequences of their folly and cupidity. It was clear that the lower house was altogether impracticable. James had four years before refused to make the smallest concession to the most-of-sequious parliament that has ever sat in England, and it might have been expected that the obstinacy, which he had never wanted when it was a vice, would not have failed him now when it would have been a virtue. During a short time he seemed determined to act justly. He even talked of dissolving the parliament. The chiefs of the old Celtic families, on the other hand, said publicly that if he didn't give them back their inheritance they would not fight for his. His very soldiers railed on him in the streets of Dublin. At length he determined to go down himself to the House of Peers, not in his robes and crime, but in the garb in which he had been used to attend debates at Westminster, and personally to solicit the lords to put some check on the violence of the commons. But just as he was getting into his coach for this purpose he was stopped by Avau. Avau was as zealous as any Irishman for the bills which the commons were urging forward. It was enough for him that those bills seemed likely to make the enmity between England and Ireland irreconcilable. His remonstrances induced James to abstain from openly opposing the repeal of the Act of Settlement. Still the unfortunate Prince continued to cherish some faint hope that the law for which the commons were so zealous would be rejected or at least modified by the Peers. Lord Granard, one of the few Protestant noblemen who sat in that Parliament, exerted himself strenuously on the side of public faith and science policy. The King sent him a message of thanks. We Protestants, said Granard to Peers who brought the message, are few in number. We can do little. His Majesty should try his influence with the Roman Catholics. His Majesty answered Peers with an oath, dares not say what he thinks. A few days later James met Granard riding towards the Parliament-house. Where are you going, my Lord? said the King. To enter my protest, Sir, answered Granard against the repeal of the Act of Settlement. You are right, said the King, but I am fallen into the hands of people who will ram that and much more down my throat. James yielded to the will of the commons, but the unfavorable impression which his short and feeble resistance had made upon them was not to be removed by his submission. They regarded him with profound distrust. They considered him, as at heart, an Englishman, and not a day past without some indication of this feeling. They were in no haste to grant him a supply. One party among them planned an address urging him to dismiss Melphot as an enemy of their nation. Another party drew up a bill for deposing all the Protestant bishops, even the four who were then actually sitting in Parliament. It was not without difficulty that Avau and Tierchanel, whose influence in the lower high afar exceeded the King's, could restrain the zeal of the majority. It is remarkable that, while the King was losing the confidence and goodwill of the Irish commons by faintly defending against them in one quarter the institution of property, he was himself in another quarter attacking that institution with violence if possible or reckless than theirs. He soon found that no money came into his ex-checker. The cause was sufficiently obvious. The trade was at an end. Floating capital had been withdrawn in great masses from the island. Of the fixed capital much had been destroyed and the rest was lying idle. Thousands of those Protestants who were the most industrious and intelligent part of the population had emigrated to England. Thousands had taken refuge in the places which still held out for William and Mary. Of the Roman Catholic peasantry who were in the vigor of life, the majority had enlisted in the army or had joined gangs of plunderers. The poverty of the treasury was the necessary effect of the poverty of the country. Public prosperity could be restored only by the restoration of private prosperity, and private prosperity could be restored only by years of peace and security. James was absurd enough to imagine that there was a more speedy and efficacious remedy. He could, he conceived at once, extricate himself from his financial difficulties by the simple process of calling a farving a shilling. The right of coining was undoubtedly a flower of the prerogative, and in his view the right of coining included the right of debasing the coin. Pots, pans, knockers of doors, pieces of ordinance which had long been passed use were carried to the mint. In a shorter time lumps of base metal, nominally worth near a million sterling, intrinsically worth about a sixtieth part of that sum, were in circulation. A royal edict declared these pieces to be legal tender in all cases whatever. A mortgage for a thousand pounds was cleared off by a bag of counters made out of old kettles. The creditors who complained to the court of chanceery were told by Fitton to take their money and be gone, but of all classes the tradesmen of Dublin, who were generally protestants, were the greatest losers. At first, of course, they raised their demands, but the magistrates of the city took on themselves to meet this heretical machination by putting forth a tariff regulating prices. Any man who belonged to the caste now dominant might walk into a shop, lay on the counter a bit of brass-worth-threpence, and carry off goods to the value of half a guinea. Legal redress was out of the question. Indeed the sufferers thought themselves happy if, by sacrifice of their stock in trade, they could redeem their limbs and their lives. There was not a baker's shop in the city, round which twenty or thirty soldiers were not constantly prowling. Some persons who refused the base money were arrested by troopers and carried before the provost-martial, who cursed them, swore at them, locked them up in dark cells, and by threatening to hang them at their own doors soon overcame their resistance. Of all the plagues of that time none made a deeper or more lasting impression on the minds of the Protestants of Dublin than the plague of the brass money. To the recollection of the confusion and misery which had been produced by James's coin must be in part ascribed the strenuous opposition which, thirty-five years later, large classes, firmly attached to the house of Hanover, offered to the government of George I in the affair of Wood's patent. There can be no question that James, in thus altering by his own authority the terms of all the contracts in the kingdom, assumed a power which belonged only to the whole legislature. Yet the commons did not remonstrate. There was no power, however unconstitutional, which they were not willing to concede to him, as long as he used it to crush and plunder the English population. On the other hand they respected no prerogative, however ancient, however legitimate, however salutary, if they apprehended that he might use it to protect the race which they abhorred. They were not satisfied till they had extorted his reluctant consent to a portentous law, a law without parallel in the history of civilised countries, the great act of attainder. A list was framed, containing between two and three thousand names. At the top was half the period of Ireland. Then came baronettes, knights, clergymen, squires, merchants, yeoman, artisans, women, children. No investigation was made. Any member who wished to rid himself of a creditor, a rival, a private enemy, gave in the name to the clerk at the table, and it was generally inserted without discussion. The only debate of which any account has come down to us, related to the Earl of Stratford. He had friends in the house who ventured to offer something in his favour, but a few words from Simon Luttrell settled the question. I have, he said, heard the King say some hard things of that Lord. This was thought sufficient, and the name of Stratford stands fifth in the long table of the proscribed. Days were fixed before which those whose names were on the list were required to surrender themselves to such justice as was then administered to English Protestants in Dublin. If a proscribed person was in Ireland he must surrender himself by the tenth of August. If he had left Ireland since the fifth of November 1688 he must surrender himself by the first of September. If he had left Ireland before the fifth of November 1688 he must surrender himself by the first of October. If he failed to appear by the appointed day he was to be hanged, drawn, and quartered without a trial, and his property was to be confiscated. It might be physically impossible for him to deliver himself up within the time fixed by the act. He might be bedridden. He might be in the West Indies. He might be in prison. Indeed there notoriously were such cases. Among the attainted lords was Muntjoy. He had been induced by the villainy of Tirkanel to trust himself at Saint-Germain. He had been thrown into the Bastille. He was still lying there, and the Irish Parliament was not ashamed to enact that. Unless he could within a few weeks make his escape from his cell and present himself at Dublin he too should be put to death. And it was not even pretended that there had been any enquiry into the guilt of those who were thus prescribed, as not a single one among them had been heard in his own defence, and as it was certain that it would be physically impossible for many of them to surrender themselves in time, it was clear that nothing but a large exercise of the royal prerogative of mercy could prevent the perpetration of iniquities so horrible that no precedent could be found for them, even in the lamentable history of the troubles of Ireland. The commons therefore determined that the royal prerogative of mercy should be limited. Several regulations were devised for the purpose of making the passing of pardons difficult and costly, and finally it was enacted that every pardon granted by his Majesty after the end of November 1689 to any of the many hundreds of persons who have been sentenced to death without a child should be absolutely void and of none effect. So Richard Nagel came in state to the bar of the lords and presented the bill with a speech worthy of the occasion. Many of the persons here attainted, said he, have been proved traitors by such evidence as satisfies us. As to the rest, we have followed common fame. With such reckless barbarity was the list framed that fanatical royalists who were at that very time hazarding their property, their liberty, their lives in the cause of James were not secure from prescription. The most learned man of whom the Jacobite party could boast was Henry Dodwell, Camdenian professor in the University of Oxford. In the cause of hereditary monarchy he shrank from no sacrifice and from no danger. It was about him that William uttered those memorable words. He has set his heart on being a martyr, and I have set my mind on disappointing him. But James was more cruel to friends than William to foes. Dodwell was a Protestant. He had some property in Connort. These crimes were sufficient and he was set down in the long roll of those who were doomed to the gallows and the quartering block. That James would give his assent to a bill which took from him the power of pardoning seemed to many persons impossible. He had, four years before, quarrelled with the most loyal of Parliament rather than cede a prerogative which didn't belong to him. It might therefore well be expected that he would now have struggled hard to retain a precious prerogative which had been enjoyed by his predecessors ever since the origin of the monarchy and which had never been questioned by the Whigs. The stern look and raised voice with which he had reprimanded the Tory gentleman, who in the language of profound reverence and fervent affection implored him not to dispense with the laws would now have been in place. He might also have seen that the right course was the wise course. Had he on this great occasion had the spirit to declare that he would not shed the blood of the innocent, and that even as respected the guilty he would not divest himself of the power of tempering judgment with mercy, he would have regained more hearts in England than he would have lost in Ireland. But it was ever his fate to resist where he should have yielded and to yield where he should have resisted. This most wicked of all laws received his sanction, and it is but a very small extenuation of his guilt that his sanction was somewhat reluctantly given. That nothing might be wanting to the completeness of this great crime extreme care was taken to prevent the persons who were attainted from knowing that they were attainted till the day of grace fixed in the act was passed. The role of names was not published, but kept carefully locked up in Fitten's closet. Some Protestants who still adhered to the cause of James, but who were anxious to know whether any of their friends or relations had been prescribed, tried hard to obtain a sight of the list. But solicitation, remonstrance, even bribery, proved vain. Not a single copy got abroad till it was too late for any of the thousands who had been condemned without a trial to obtain a pardon. CHAPTER XII. PART IX. Towards the close of July James paroded the Houses. They had sat more than ten weeks, and in that space of time they had proved most fully that, great as have been the evils which Protestant ascendancy has produced in Ireland, the evils produced by Popish ascendancy would have been greater still. That the colonists, when they had won the victory gracefully abused it, that their legislation was, during many years, unjust and tyrannical, is most true. But it is not less true that they never quite came up to the atrocious example set by their vanquished enemy during his short tenure of power. Indeed, while James was loudly boasting that he had passed an act granting entire liberty of conscience to all sects, a persecution as cruel as that of Longdok was raging through all provinces which owned his authority. It was said by those who wished to find an excuse for him that almost all the Protestants who still remained in Munster, Conort and Lentster were his enemies, and that it was not as schismatics but as rebels in heart, who wanted only opportunity to become rebels in act, that he gave them up to be oppressed and despoiled, and, to this excuse, some weight might have been allowed, if he had strenuously exerted himself to protect those few colonists who, though firmly attached to the Reformed religion, were still true to the doctrines of non-resistance and of indefeasible hereditary right. Even these devoted royalists find that their heresy was in his view a crime for which no services or sacrifices would atone. Three or four maned noblemen, members of the Anglican church who had welcomed him to Ireland, and had sat in his parliament, represented to him that, if the rule which forbade any Protestant to possess any weapon were strictly enforced, their country-houses would be at the mercy of the rapparees, and obtained from him permission to keep arms sufficient for a few servants. But avow remonstrated. The indulgence, he said, was grossly abused. These Protestant lords were not to be trusted. They were turning their houses into fortresses. His Majesty would soon have reason to repent his goodness. These representations prevailed, and Roman Catholic troops were quartered in the suspected dwellings. Still harder was the lot of those Protestant clergymen who continued to cling with desperate fidelity to the cause of the lords anointed. Of all the Anglican divines, the one who had had the largest share of James' good graces seems to have been Cartwright. Whether Cartwright could long have continued to be a favourite without being an apostate may be doubted. He died a few weeks after his arrival in Ireland, and thence forward his church had no one to plead her cause. Nevertheless a few of her prelates and priests continued for a time to teach what they had taught in the days of the exclusion-bill, but it was at the peril of life or limb that they exercised their functions. Every wearer of a cassock was a mark for the insults and outrages of soldiers and wraparise. In the country his house was robbed, and he was fortunate if it was not burned over his head. He was hunted through the streets of Dublin with cries of, there goes that devil of a heretic! Sometimes he was knocked down. Sometimes he was cuddled. The rulers of the University of Dublin, trained in the Anglican doctrine of passive obedience, had greeted James on his first arrival at the castle, and had been assured by him that he would protect them in the enjoyment of their property and their privileges. They were now without any trial, without any accusation thrust out of their house. The communion-plate of the chapel, the books in the library, the very chairs and beds of the collegians were seized. The front of the building was turned into a magazine, part into a barrack, part into a prison. Simon Luttrel, who was governor of the capital, was, with great difficulty and by powerful intercession, induced to let the ejected fellows and scholars depart in safety. He at length permitted them to remain at large with this condition, that, on pain of death, no three of them should meet together. No Protestant divine suffered more hardships than Dr. William King, Dean of St. Patrick's. He had long been distinguished by the fervour with which he had inculcated the duty of passively obeying even the worst rulers. At a later period, when he had published a defense of the Revolution and had accepted a mighter from the new government, he was reminded that he had invoked the divine vengeance on the usurpers, and had declared himself willing to die a hundred deaths rather than desert the cause of hereditary right. He had said that the true religion had often been strengthened by persecution, but could never be strengthened by rebellion, that it would be a glorious day for the Church of England when a whole cartload of her ministers should go to the gallows for the doctrine of non-resistance, and that his highest ambition was to be one of such a company. It is not improbable that when he spoke thus he felt as he spoke, but his principles, though they might perhaps have held out against the severities and the promises of William, were not proof against the ingratitude of James. Human nature at last asserted its rights. After King had been repeatedly imprisoned by the government to which he was divertedly attached, after he had been insulted and threatened in his own choir by the soldiers, after he had been interdicted from burying in his own churchyard and from preaching in his own pulpit, after he had narrowly escaped with life from a musket shot fired at him in the street, he began to think the weak theory of government less unreasonable and un-christian than it had once appeared to him, and persuaded himself that the oppressed church might lawfully accept deliverance if God should be pleased by whatever means to send it to her. In no time it appeared that James would have done well to hearken to those counsellors who had told him that the acts by which he was trying to make himself popular in one of his three kingdoms would make him odious in the others. It was in some sense fortunate for England that, after he had ceased to reign here, he continued during more than a year to reign in Ireland. The revolution had been followed by a reaction of public feeling in his favour. That reaction, if it had been suffered to proceed uninterrupted, might perhaps not have ceased till he was again king, but it was violently interrupted by himself. He would not suffer his people to forget. He would not suffer them to hope. While they were trying to find excuses for his past errors, and to persuade themselves that he would not repeat these errors, he forced upon them in their own despite the conviction that he was incorrigible, that the sharpest discipline of adversity had taught him nothing, and that if they were weak enough to recall him, they would soon have to depose him again. It was in vain that the Jacobites put forth pamphlets about the cruelty with which he had been treated by those who were nearest to him in blood, about the imperious, temper and uncourteous manners of William, about the favour shown to the Dutch, about the heavy taxes, about the suspension of the Havius Corpus Act, about the dangers which threatened the church from the enmity of Purians and Latitudarians. James refuted these pamphlets far more effectively than all the ablest and most elegant we writers united could have done. Every week came the news that he had passed some new act for robbing or murdering Protestants. Every colonist who succeeded in stealing across the sea from Lentster to Holyhead or Bristol brought fearful reports of the tyranny under which his brethren grained. What impression these reports made on the Protestants of our island may be easily inferred from the fact that they moved the indignation of Ron Quillo, a Spaniard and a bigoted member of the Church of Rome. He informed his court that, though the English laws against papery might seem severe, they were so much mitigated by the prudence and humanity of the government that they caused no annoyance to quiet people, and he took upon himself to assure the Holy See that what a Roman Catholic suffered in London was nothing compared with what a Protestant suffered in Ireland. The fugitive Englishry found in England warm sympathy and munificent relief. Many were received into the houses of friends and kinsmen. Many were indebted for the means of subsistence to the liberality of strangers. Among those who bore a part in this work of mercy, none contributed more largely or less ostentatiously than the Queen. The House of Commons placed at the King's disposal fifteen thousand pounds for the relief of those refugees whose wants were most pressing, and requested him to give commissions in the army to those who were qualified for military employment. An act was also passed enabling Benefist clergymen who had fled from Ireland to hold preferment in England. Yet the interest which the nation felt in these unfortunate guests was languid when compared with the interest excited by that portion of the Saxon colony which still maintained in Ulster a desperate conflict against overwhelming odds. On this subject, scarcely one dissensioned voice was to be heard in our island. Wigs, Tories, nay, even those Jacobites in whom Jacobitism had not extinguished every patriotic sentiment, gloried in the glory of Ennis Kilin and Londonderry. The House of Commons was all of one mind. "'This is no time to be counting cost,' said Honest Birch, who well remembered the way in which Oliver had made war on the Irish. "'Are those brave fellows in Londonderry to be deserted? If we lose them, will not all the world cry shame upon us? A boom across the river? Why have we not cut the boom in pieces? Are our brethren to perish almost in sight of England, within a few hours of voyage of our shores?' "'How?' the most vehement man of one party had declared that the hearts of the people were set on Ireland. Seymour, the leader of the other people, declared that, though he had not taken part in setting up the new government, he should cordially support it in all that might be necessary for the preservation of Ireland.' The Commons appointed a committee to enquire into the cause of the delays and miscarriages which had been all but fatal to the English Revulster. The officers, to whose treachery or cowardice the public ascribed the calamities of Londonderry were put under arrest. Londi was sent to the Tar, cunning him to the gate-house. The agitation of the public mind was in some degree calmed by the announcement that, before the end of the summer, an army powerful enough to re-establish the English ascendancy in Ireland would be sent across in George's Channel, and that Schomburg would be general. In the meantime an expedition which was thought to be sufficient for the relief of Londonderry was dispatched from Liverpool under the command of Kirk. The dogged obstinacy with which this man had, in spite of royal solicitations, adhered to his religion, and the part which he had taken in the revolution had perhaps entitled him to an amnesty for past crimes. But it is difficult to understand why the government should have selected for a post of the highest importance an officer who was generally and justly hated, who had never shown eminent talents for war, and who, both in Africa and in England, had notoriously tolerated among his soldiers a licentiousness not only shocking to humanity, but also incompatible with discipline. On the 16th of May Kirk's troops embarked. On the 22nd they sailed, but contrary winds made the passage slow and forced the armament to stop long at the Isle of Man. Meanwhile, the Protestants of Ulster were defending themselves with stubborn courage against a greater superiority of force. The Ennis-Killeners had never ceased to wage a vigorous partisan war against the native population. Early in May they marched to encounter a large body of troops from Connort who had made an in-road into Donagall. The Irish were speedily routed, and fled to Sligo with the loss of 120 men killed and sixty taken. Two small pieces of artillery and several horses fell into the hands of the conquerors. Elated by this success, the Ennis-Killeners soon invaded the county of Cavern, drove before them fifteen hundred of James's troops, took and destroyed the castle of Balancari, reputed the strongest in that part of the kingdom, and carried off the pikes and muskets of the garrison. The next incursion was into Meath. Three thousand oxen and two thousand sheep were swept away and brought safe to the little island in Lochairn. These daring exploits spread terror even to the gates of Dublin. Colonel Hugh Sutherland was ordered to march against Ennis-Killen with a regiment of dragoons and two regiments of foot. He carried with him arms for the native peasantry, and many repaired to his standard. The Ennis-Killeners did not wait till he came into their neighbourhood, but advanced to encounter him. He declined an action and retreated, leaving his stores at Belturbet under the care of a detachment of three hundred soldiers. The Protestants attacked Belturbet with vigour, made their way into a lofty house which overlooked the town, and thence opened such a fire that in two hours the garrison surrendered. Four hundred muskets, a great quantity of powder, many horses, many sacks of biscuits, many barrels of meal were taken, and were sent to Ennis-Killen. The boats which brought these precious spoils were joyfully welcomed. The fear of hunger was removed. While the aboriginal population had in many counties altogether neglected the cultivation of the earth in the expectation it should seem that marauding would prove an inexhaustible resource, the colonists, true to the provident and industrious character of their race, had in the midst of war not omitted carefully to till the soil in the neighbourhood of their strongholds. The harvest was now not far remote, and till the harvest the food taken from the enemy would be amply sufficient. Yet in the midst of success and plenty the Ennis-Killeners were tortured by cruel anxiety for Londonderry. They were bound to the defenders of that city not only by religious and national sympathy, but by common interest, for there could be no doubt that if Londonderry fell the whole Irish army would instantly march in irresistible force upon Locke-Anne. 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. 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 8th of June, horse-flesh was almost the only meat which could be purchased, and of horse-flesh 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 15th of June a gleam of hope appeared. The sentinels on the top of the cathedrals saw sales nine miles off in the Bay of Loch Foyle. Thirty vessels of different sizes were counted. Signals were made from the steeples and returned from the mastheads, 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 Kirk had arrived from England, with troops, arms, ammunition, and provisions to relieve the city. In London Derry expectation was at the height, but a few hours of feverish joy were followed by weeks of misery. Kirk 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 Loch 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 cannonballs was almost exhausted, and their place was supplied by brick bats coated with lead. Pestilence began as usual to make its appearance in the train of hunger. Marine 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 Mitchellbourne. Meanwhile, it was known at Dublin that Kirk and his squadron were on the coast of Ulster. The alarm was great at the castle. Even before this news arrived, Avau 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. On the nineteenth of June he arrived at the headquarters 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 raise the city to the ground. He would spare no living thing, 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 London Derry. 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 London Derry, and should there be starved to death in the sight of their countrymen, their friends and 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 2nd 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 columnists, 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. All prisoners of high rank were in the town. Here the two they had been well treated and had received as good rations as were measured out to the gallowson. They were now closely confined. A gallows was erected on one of the bastions, 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 the 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 have been driven at the point of the pike to dry a famine between the camp and the city. Rosen persisted during forty-eight hours. In that time many unhappy creatures perished, but London Derry held out as resolutely as ever, and he saw that his crime was likely to produce nothing but hatred and obliquy. 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. 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. Melfor could not refrain from adding that, if Rosen had been an Englishman, he would have been hanged. Avere 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. 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 rarely even more callous than that of the soldier. End of Part 9