Chapter XII: Reign of William and Mary (2)

The news of the defeat of Mackay caused consternation throughout the Lowlands, and even in London, whither it was carried by couriers charged with earnest appeals to the king to hasten forces on to Scotland, to protect the people from the torrents of victorious barbarians from the mountains, who were with terror expected to devastate the whole country. The Scottish Convention urged Hamilton to dismiss them, that they might provide for their safety; but fast on the heels of the first news came that of the certain death of Dundee, which at once reassured the country; for, without him, the Highlanders were regarded as comparatively innocuous, as a body without a head. And this was very near the truth; for the command had now fallen on the Irish officer Cannon, who, with his ragamuffin brigade, was not likely to remain long very formidable. In fact, he very soon managed to disgust the proud Highland chieftains. Lochiel returned home, and many of the Celts, satisfied with their plunder, followed his example. Others, however, stimulated by the hope of similar good fortune, came rushing from their hills, adding, by their conflicting prejudices and wild insubordination, only to the weakness of the force. Cannon dispatched a party of the Robertsons into the Lowlands to collect cattle and provisions for his army; but Mackay came upon them at St. Johnstone's, and killed one hundred and twenty of them, and took thirty prisoners. This revived the spirit of his troops, and infused new confidence through the country. In fact, Mackay was an excellent general, and was unremitting in his exertions to renew the courage and discipline of his troops. He had seen the fatal effect of the clumsy use of the bayonets at Killiecrankie, and he lost no time in having them made to screw upon the muskets, so that these could be fired with them ready fixed.

And very soon he had need of all his generalship. The ministers at Edinburgh had ordered him to garrison Dunkeld with the Cameronian regiment newly raised. The town was unfortified; and in vain Mackay protested against exposing his men thus to the attack of the whole body of the Highlanders encamped at Blair Castle. But the Highland army, led on by Cannon, were received with a spirit worthy of the old race of Covenanters, were repulsed, and driven back with great slaughter. The young commander Lieutenant-Colonel Cleland, and after him Captain Monro, fell at the head of the besieged; but the victory was decisive. The Highlanders dispersed with their booty to their homes; Cannon, with his disorderly Irish, escaped to the Isle of Mull; the fame of Mackay and his troops was higher than ever, and the war in Scotland was at an end.

We have continued to this point the affairs of Scotland, that we might not interrupt the still more important transactions which at the same time took place in Ireland. On the 12th of March, two days before the opening of the Scottish Convention, James had landed in Ireland. That island was peculiarly open to the influence of James, for the bulk of the population were Catholics, and they were thrown into a state of great excitement by the hope of being able to drive the Protestants from their estates by his appearance there with a French army, of wreaking vengeance on them for all their past oppressions, and of regaining their ancient patrimony.

From the moment almost that James had mounted the throne of England, he began his preparations for putting down Protestantism in Ireland, and raising a military power there which should enable him to crush it also in England. The Protestant judges had been removed one after another from the bench, so that little justice could be obtained in Irish tribunals by Protestant suitors. The Protestants were diligently weeded out of the army, and lying Dick Talbot, the Earl of Tyrconnel, James's most obsequious tool, was his Lord-Lieutenant, and bent on carrying out his plans to the fullest extent. There arose a terrible panic amongst the Protestants that a general massacre was contemplated, and the Englishry began to collect whatever of value they could carry with them, and escape across the Channel into England or Wales. Tyrconnel sent for the leading Protestants to Dublin, and protested with many oaths that the whole rumour was a malicious and groundless lie. Nobody, however, put any faith in his assurances, and the exodus rapidly increased, whilst such Protestants as possessed any means of defence in towns, armed themselves, threw up fortifications, and determined to sell their lives dear. Such was the case at Kenmare, in Kerry; at Bandon, Mallow, Sligo, Charleville, Enniskillen, and Londonderry.

Such was the state of Ireland at the time of the landing of William at Torbay. Tyrconnel despatched a body of Popish infantry in December, 1688, to take possession of Enniskillen. The inhabitants summoned the Protestants of the surrounding country to their aid, rushed out on the soldiers as they approached the gates of the town, and defeated them. They then appointed Gustavus Hamilton, a captain in the army, their governor, and determined to hold their own against the lieutenant-governor. Londonderry likewise shut its gates in the face of the Earl of Antrim, who armed a Popish regiment to garrison their town. This exploit was the work of thirteen apprentices, whose bold and decisive deed was quickly imitated by the rest of the inhabitants. The town was put into a posture of thorough defence, the country round was alarmed, the Protestant gentry flocked in with armed followers, horse and foot, and Antrim thought it prudent to retire to Coleraine.

At another time Tyrconnel would have taken a bloody vengeance on the courageous Protestants of Ulster, but matters in England appeared too critical to permit him such indulgence. He had recourse, therefore, to artifice. He despatched Lord Mountjoy, the Master of the Ordnance, with his regiment, which included many Protestants, to Londonderry. Mountjoy was a Protestant himself, though an adherent of King James; had much property in Ulster, and was highly respected there. The citizens of Londonderry willingly admitted him within their walls, and suffered him to leave a garrison there, consisting solely of Protestant soldiers, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Lundy as governor. To the people of Enniskillen Mountjoy was less courteous; he somewhat curtly treated a deputation thence, and advised them to submit unconditionally to James. Tyrconnel even affected to enter into negotiation with William, and General Richard Hamilton was not very wisely despatched by William to Ireland to treat with him. Hamilton had been in command under Tyrconnel till a recent period, and had been sent by him with reinforcements to James in England. There, finding James had fled, he coolly went over to William, and, strangely enough, was deemed sufficiently trustworthy to be returned to his old master as negotiator. He no sooner arrived than he once more declared for King James. Tyrconnel, however, did not himself so soon throw off the mask of duplicity. He protested to the Prince of Orange that he was quite disposed to treat for the surrender of Ireland, and to the alarmed Catholics of Ireland--who got some wind of his proceedings--that he had not the most distant idea of submitting. On the other hand, he prevailed on Lord Mountjoy, who had so well served him at Londonderry, to go on a mission to James at St. Germains, professedly to procure a concession from James that his Irish subjects should submit to William for the present, and not rush into a contest to which they were unequal, but wait for better times. The real truth was, that James had already despatched Captain Rush from St. Germains to Tyrconnel to assure him that he was coming himself with all haste with a powerful fleet and army. Tyrconnel was, therefore, desirous to get Mountjoy secured, as he was capable of uniting the Protestants and heading them against the bloody butchery that James and Tyrconnel destined for them. Mountjoy somewhat reluctantly fell into the snare. He proceeded to France, accompanied by Chief Baron Rice, a fanatical Papist, who had boasted that he would drive a coach and six through the Act of Settlement. Rice had secret instructions to denounce Mountjoy as a traitor, and to recommend James to make him fast. No sooner, therefore, did he present himself at St. Germains than he was clapped into the Bastille.

This act of diabolical treachery being completed, Tyrconnel now abandoned further disguise, and prepared to hand over the whole Protestant population of Ireland to the exterminating fury of the Catholic natives. "Now or never! now and for ever!" was the watchword of blood and death to all the Englishry. It was embroidered on the viceregal banner, and floated over the castle of Dublin. The Catholics were called on to arm and secure Ireland for the Irish. The call was obeyed with the avidity of savages. Those who had not arms manufactured them out of scythes, forks, and other rural implements. Every smithy was aglow, every hammer resounding in preparation of pike and skean, the Irish long knife. By February, 1689, the army of Ireland was swelled with regulars and irregulars to a hundred thousand men. There was one universal shout of Bacchanalian acclaim, and rush to secure the plunder of the Protestants. The houses of the wealthy were ransacked, the cattle driven off, the buildings, and even the heaths set fire to. The wild marauders roasted the slaughtered cattle and sheep at huge fires often made of timbers of the buildings, emptied the cellars, and sang songs of triumph over the heretic Englishry, and of Ireland restored to its legitimate owners. What an Ireland it was likely to become under them was soon evident. They were not content to kill enough to satisfy their hunger; these children of oppression and ignorance, like wolves, destroyed for the mere pleasure of destroying; and D'Avaux, the French ambassador, who accompanied James over the country from Kinsale to Dublin, describes it as one black, wasted desert, for scores of miles without a single inhabitant, and calculates that in six weeks these infuriate savages had slaughtered fifty thousand cattle and three or four hundred thousand sheep.

Before such an inundation of fury and murder, the few Protestant inhabitants were swept away like chaff before the wind. All the fortified towns and houses in the south were forced by the ruthless mob and soldiery, or were abandoned, and the people fled for their lives to seek an asylum in Ulster. Those of Kenmare managed to get across in a small vessel to Bristol.

In all this fearful scene of devastation Hamilton, who had come over as the emissary of William, was one of the most active and unpitying agents. Enniskillen and Londonderry were the only Protestant places which now held out, and Hamilton commenced his march northward to reduce them. This march was only another wild blast of desolation, like that which had swept the south, and left the country a howling wilderness. In addition to Hamilton's regular troops, hosts of the self-armed and merciless Irish collected on his track, and burnt, plundered, and murdered without mercy. The people fled before the rout, themselves burning their own dwellings, and laying waste with fire the whole district, so that it should afford no shelter or sustenance to the enemy. The whole of the Protestant population retreated northwards, leaving even Lisburn and Antrim deserted. Thirty thousand fugitives soon found themselves cooped up within the walls of Londonderry, and many thousands were shut up in Enniskillen.

At this crisis James landed at Kinsale, and marched to Cork. He had brought no army, but a number of officers to command the Irish troops. His General-in-Chief was Count Rosen, a man of much military experience. Next to him were Lieutenant-General Maumont, Brigadier-General Pusignan, and four hundred other officers of different ranks. He was accompanied by Count D'Avaux, who had been ambassador in England, a man clever, shrewd, keenly observant, and with little mercy or principle. His object was to secure Ireland rather for Louis than for James, and he served his master with cunning and zeal. James brought with him arms for ten thousand men, abundance of ammunition, and a military chest of about a hundred and twenty thousand pounds sterling. Before quitting St. Germains Louis XIV. himself had paid James a parting visit, displayed towards him the most marked friendship, embraced him at parting, and told him, in his epigrammatic way, that the greatest good that he could desire for him was that they might never meet again.

James landed on the 12th of March, and two days after was in Cork. The Irish received him with enthusiastic acclamations as a saviour; but the effects of his anticipated arrival, and the measures concerted by himself and carried out by the brutal Tyrconnel, met him on the instant. He was anxious to push on to Dublin; but the whole country was a desert, and horses could not be procured in sufficient numbers to convey his baggage, nor food to sustain them on the way. During the detention consequent on this, Tyrconnel arrived to welcome His Majesty to Ireland. On the 24th of March he entered Dublin amid the hurrahs and the festive demonstrations of flowers, garlands of evergreens, of tapestry and carpets hung from the windows, of processions of young girls in white, and friars and priests with their crosses, and with the host itself. At sight of that, James alighted, and, falling on his knees in the mud, bared his head in humble devotion. The next morning James proceeded to form his Privy Council. This was composed of his natural son, the Duke of Berwick, the Duke of Powis; the Earls of Abercorn, Melfort, Dover, Carlingford, and Clanricarde; the Lords Thomas Howard, Kilmallock, Merrion, Kenmare; Lord Chief Justice Herbert, the Bishop of Chester, General Sarsfield, Colonel Dorrington, and, strangely enough, D'Avaux, who should have retained the independent position of ambassador; the Marquis D'Abbeville, and two other foreigners. The Protestant Bishop of Meath, at the head of his clergy, appeared before him, imploring his protection, and permission to lay before him the account of the injuries they and their flocks had received. James affected to declare that he was just as much as ever desirous to afford full liberty of conscience, and to protect all his subjects in their rights and opinions; but he said it was impossible to alter what had already taken place, and he gave an immediate proof of the impartiality which Protestants were likely to receive at his hands by dismissing Keating, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, the only Protestant judge still remaining on the bench.

These measures dispatched, it became the question whether, in the interval before the meeting of Parliament, James should continue in Dublin, or should proceed to the army besieging Londonderry, and encourage it by his presence. This called forth the conflicting views and interests of his adherents, and his whole court became rent by struggling factions. The English exiles warmly urged the king to proceed to Ulster. They cared little for the fate of Ireland, their views and wishes were fixed on England. In the north, as soon as Londonderry was put down, it was easy for James to go across to Scotland, there to commence the campaign for the recovery of the English crown. But this was the very thing which his Irish partisans dreaded. They felt certain that if James recovered the English throne, they should be left to contend with the colonists of Ulster themselves; and the victorious ascendency of that small but sturdy body of people was too vividly burnt into their minds by ages of their domination. They therefore counselled James to remain as a king at Dublin, and leave his generals to put down the opposition in the north; and in this they were zealously seconded by D'Avaux and the French. James on the throne of England would be a very different person to James on the throne of Ireland only. In the one case, if he succeeded, he might ere long become independent of Louis; if he failed, the English Protestant king would soon subdue Ireland to his sway. But if James continued only monarch of Ireland, he must continue wholly dependent on Louis. He could only maintain himself there by his aid in men and money, and then Ireland would become gradually a French colony--a dependence most flattering to the pride and power of France--a perpetual thorn in the side of England.

The contention between the two parties was fierce, and Tyrconnel joined with the French and Irish in advising James to remain at Dublin. On the other hand, Melfort and the English pointed out to him the immense advantage to his prospects to settle the last remains of disaffection in the north, and to appear again in arms in his chief kingdom, where they persuaded him that the Highlanders and all the Catholic and Royalist English would now flock to his standard. William, they assured him, was to the highest degree unpopular; a powerful party in Scotland were opposed to him, and in the ascendant. These views prevailed. James, attended by D'Avaux and the French officers, set out for Ulster. The journey was again through a country blasted by the horrors of war and robbery. There was no fodder for their horses, scarcely a roof to shelter the heads of the travellers; and, after a long and terrible journey, plunging and struggling through deep roads, and bogs where there was no road at all, famished and worn out by fatigue, they reached Charlemont on the 13th of April. When James at length arrived before Londonderry, the fall of that place did not appear likely to be quite so early an event as he had been led to believe. Rosen, however, treated lightly the resistance which the inhabitants could make. The walls of the town were old, the ditches could scarcely be discerned, the gates and drawbridges were in disorder, and the town was commanded at various points by heights from which artillery might play upon it. What was still more favourable to James, it was well known that Lundy, the governor, was a traitor. Rosen was placed in the chief command, and Maumont next to him over the head of Hamilton. Lundy meanwhile depressed the spirits of the people within by telling them that it was useless to attempt to defend such a place, and kept up a secret correspondence with the enemy without, informing them of all that passed there, and of its weak points and condition. He did more--he contrived to send away succours which arrived from England. Colonel Cunningham appeared in the bay with a fleet having on board two regiments for the defence of the place. Cunningham and his chief officers went on shore and waited on the governor. Lundy called a council, taking care to exclude all but his own creatures; and these informed Cunningham that it was mere waste of men and money to land them; the town was perfectly indefensible; and that, in fact, he was going to surrender it. His supporters confirmed this view of the case, and Cunningham and his officers withdrew, and soon after made sail homeward, to the despair of the inhabitants; Lundy, as he saw them depart, sending word into the enemy's camp that he was ready to surrender.

But the spirit of the inhabitants was now roused. They openly declared Lundy a traitor, and, if they could have found him, would have killed him on the spot. He had, however, concealed himself, and at night was enabled, by connivance of his friends, to escape over the walls in disguise. As night approached, the people, to their astonishment, found the gates set open, and the keys were not to be found. People said they had seen the confederates of Lundy stealing out, and the alarm flew through the place. The townsmen came together, and called all to arms by beat of drum. A message was despatched to Cunningham to bring in his forces; but he was already on the move, and declared that his orders permitted him only to follow the commands of the governor.

Thus deserted, the inhabitants courageously resolved to depend on their own energies. They placed Major Baker and Captain Murray at the head of the armed citizens, who amounted to seven thousand, many of them Ulster gentlemen of family, and endowed with all the dauntless spirit which had made them so long masters of the north of Ireland. At this moment, too, the Rev. George Walker, the Rector of Donaghmore, who had been driven in along with the rest of the fugitives, displayed that spirit, eloquence, and ability which inspired the whole place with a wonderful enthusiasm, and which have made his name famous amongst the Protestant patriots of Ireland. Walker was appointed joint governor with Major Baker, and they set themselves to work to organise their armed people into military bodies with their proper officers, to place cannon on all the most effective points, and post sentinels on the walls and at the gates. The forces of James were already drawn up before the place, expecting the promised surrender of Lundy. Presently a trumpeter appeared at the southern gate, and demanded the fulfilment of the governor's engagement. He was answered that the governor had no longer any command there. The next day, the 20th of April, James sent Lord Strabane, a Catholic peer of Ireland, offering a free pardon for all past offences on condition of an immediate surrender, and a bribe to Captain Murray, who was sent to hold a parley with him, of a thousand pounds and a colonelcy in the royal army. Murray repelled the offer with contempt, and advised Strabane, if he valued his safety, to make the best of his way out of gunshot.

At this unexpected answer, James displayed the same pusillanimity which marked his conduct when he fled from England. Instead of ordering the place to be stormed, he lost heart, and, though he had been only eleven days before the town, set off back to Dublin, taking Count Rosen with him, and leaving Maumont in command, with Hamilton and Pusignan under him. Then the siege was pushed on with spirit. The batteries were opened on the town, to which the townsmen replied vigorously; and, on the 21st of April, made a desperate sally under Captain Murray, killed General Maumont and two hundred of the Irish, and, under cover of a strong fire kept up by a party headed by Walker, regained the town. The siege under Hamilton, who succeeded to the command, then languished. On the 4th of May the townspeople made another sally, and killed Pusignan. After this sallies became frequent, the bold men of Londonderry carried off several officers prisoners into the town, and two flags of the French, which they hung up in the cathedral. It was at length resolved by the besiegers to carry the place by storm, but they were repelled with great loss, the very women joining in the _mêlée_, and carrying ammunition and refreshments to the defenders on the walls. As the storming of the town was found to be impracticable, Hamilton commenced a blockade. The troops were drawn round the place, and a strong boom thrown across the river, and the besiegers awaited the progress of famine.

All this time the people of Enniskillen had been making a noble diversion. They had marched out into the surrounding country, levied contributions of provisions from the native Irish, and given battle to and defeated several considerable bodies of troops sent against them. They took and sacked Belturbet, and carried off a great quantity of provisions; they made skirmishing parties, and scoured the country in the rear of the army besieging Londonderry, cutting off straggling foragers, and impeding supplies. The news of the continued siege of Londonderry, and the heroic conduct of the people of both these places, raised a wonderful enthusiasm in England on their behalf. Lundy, who had reached London, and Cunningham, who had brought back his regiments, were arrested, and Lundy was thrown into the Tower and Cunningham into the Gatehouse. Kirke was also dispatched with a body of troops from Liverpool to relieve the besieged in Londonderry. On the 15th of June his squadron was discerned approaching, and wonderful was the exultation when it was ascertained that Kirke had arrived with troops, arms, ammunition, and supplies of food.

It was high time that relief should have come, for they were reduced to the most direful extremities, and were out of cannon-ball, and nearly out of powder. But they were doomed to a horrible disappointment. Kirke, who could be bold enough in perpetrating barbarities on defenceless people, was too faint-hearted to attempt forcing the boom in the river, and relieving the place. He drew off his fleet to the entrance of Lough Foyle, and lay there in tantalising inactivity. His presence, instead of benefiting them, brought fresh horrors upon them; for no sooner did James in Dublin learn that there was a chance of Kirke's throwing in fresh forces and provisions, than he dispatched Rosen to resume the command, with orders to take the place at all costs.

This Rosen, who was a Russian, from Livonia, was a brutal savage, and vowed that he would take the place, or roast the inhabitants alive. He first began by endeavouring to undermine the walls; but the besieged so briskly attacked the sappers, that they soon killed a hundred of them, and compelled them to retire. Filled with fury, Rosen swore that he would raze the walls to the ground, and massacre every creature in the town,--men, women, and children. He flung a shell into the place, to which was attached a threat that, if they did not at once surrender, he would collect from the whole country round all the people, their friends and relatives, the women, the children, the aged, drive them under the walls, and keep them there till they perished. He knew that the besieged could give them no support, for they were perishing fast themselves from famine, and its attendant fevers and diseases. The fighting men were so weak that they often fell down in endeavouring to strike a blow at the enemy. They were living on dogs, rats, any vile thing they could seize. They had eaten up all the horses to three, which were mere skin and bone. They had salted the hides and chewed them to keep down their ravening hunger. There were some amongst them who began to talk of eating the bodies of those who fell in the action. Numbers perished daily in their houses of exhaustion, and the stench arising from the unburied dead was terrible and pestilential. Many of their best men had died from fever, amongst them Major Baker, their military governor, and Colonel Mitchelbourne had been elected in his place. They were reduced to fire brickbats instead of cannon-balls; and their walls were so battered, that it was not they but their own spirit which kept out the enemy. Yet, amid these horrors, they treated the menace with silent contempt, and sent out an order that any one even uttering the word "Surrender," should be instantly put to death.

The savage Rosen put his menace into force. He drove the wretched people from the country, at the point of the pike, under the walls. On the 2nd of July this melancholy crowd of many hundreds was seen by the besieged from the walls, hemmed in between the town and the army--old men incapable of bearing arms, miserable women, and lamenting children, where, without food or shelter, they were cooped up between their enemies and their friends, who could not help them. Many of these unhappy people had protections under James's own hand, but Rosen cared not for that. For two days and nights this woful throng of human beings was kept there, in spite of the strong remonstrances of Hamilton and other English officers, who were not accustomed to such devilish modes of war. The indignant men in Londonderry erected gallows on the walls, and sent Rosen word that, unless he let the perishing people go, they would hang up the principal of their prisoners. But it was not till many of the victims had died, and a storm of indignation at this unheard-of barbarity assailed him in his own camp, that Rosen opened his ranks and allowed the poor wretches to depart.

James, who was himself by no means of the melting mood, was shocked when he heard of this diabolical barbarity, and the comments upon it amongst those around him. He recalled Rosen and restored the command to Hamilton. Then the siege again went on with redoubled fury, and all the last expiring strength of the besieged was required to sustain it. Hamilton also terrified them by continual _ruses_ and false rumours. He ordered his soldiers to raise a loud shout, and the besieged to be informed that Enniskillen had fallen, and that now there was no hope whatever for them. The besieged were so depressed by this news, for they had no means of testing it, that they offered to capitulate, but could obtain no terms that they could accept. And all this time the imbecile or base Kirke was lying within a few miles of them with abundance of provisions, and a force capable with ease of forcing its way to them. He had even the cruelty to send in a secret message to Walker that he was coming in full force, and then to lie still again for more than a fortnight. At length, however, he received a peremptory order from William to force the boom and relieve the town. No sooner did this order reach him than he showed with what ease he could have accomplished this at first, six weeks ago. The boom was burst asunder by two vessels--the _Mountjoy_ and _Phœnix_--dashing themselves against it, while they were covered by a third, the _Dartmouth_, and the place was open (July 30) to the conveyance of the troops and the provisions. Kirke was invited to take the command, and the Irish camp, despairing of any success, drew off on the 1st of August, and raised this most memorable siege, in which four out of the seven thousand defenders perished, besides a multitude of other inhabitants, amounting, according to some calculations, to eight or nine thousand souls. On the side of the Irish as many are said to have fallen; and of the thirty-six French gunners who directed the cannonade, all had been killed but five. Besides the miseries endured in the town, those of the poor people who survived being driven under the walls found, on their return to what had been their homes, that they were their homes no longer. Their villages, crops, ricks, buildings, all had been burnt down, and the whole country laid waste.

The Enniskilleners had meanwhile been actively engaged against other detachments of James's army, but had bravely beaten them off, and on the same day that Londonderry was relieved had won a signal victory over them at Newton Butler, attacking five thousand Irish under General Macarthy, though they themselves numbered only about three hundred, and killing, it is said, two thousand, and driving five hundred more into Lough Erne, where they were drowned. This decisive defeat of the Irish hastened the retreat of the army retiring from Londonderry. They fled towards Dublin in haste and terror, leaving behind their baggage. Sarsfield abandoned Sligo, and James was on the very point of abandoning Dublin in the midst of the panic that seized it. At the same time came from Scotland the news of the death of Dundee at Killiecrankie; and on the 13th of August Marshal Schomberg landed at Carrickfergus with an army of sixteen thousand, composed of English, Scots, Dutch, Danes, and French Huguenots. Matters were fast assuming a serious aspect for James; his affairs not only in the field, but his civil government, falling every day into a more ominous condition.

One reason for James quitting the siege of Londonderry in person was that the time for the assembling of his Irish Parliament drew near. No sooner did he reach Dublin than he was met by the news that the English fleet under Admiral Herbert had been beaten by the French at Bantry Bay. Herbert had been ordered to intercept the French fleet between Brest and Ireland; but he had missed it, and James had safely landed. Whilst he was still beating about, a second squadron, under Chateau Renard, had also made its way over, and anchored with the first in Bantry Bay. On Herbert discovering them there, confident in their superior numbers, they came out, and there was a sharp fight. In the evening Herbert sheered off towards the Scilly Isles, and the French with great exultation, as in a victory, returned into the bay. James found the French at Dublin in high spirits at the unusual circumstance of beating English sailors; but his English adherents were by no means pleased with this triumphing over their countrymen, hostile though they were; and James, who had always prided himself on the English navy, is said, when D'Avaux boasted how the French had beaten the English, to have replied gloomily, "It is the first time." Even the English exiles in France showed a similar mortification, though the French victory, such as it was, was in their cause. Both sides, however, claimed the victory. In England Parliament voted thanks to Herbert; in Dublin James ordered bonfires and a _Te Deum_.

On the 7th of May, the day after the _Te Deum_, James met his Parliament. What sort of a Parliament it was, and what it was likely to do in Ireland may be surmised from the fact that there were only six Protestants in the whole House of Commons, consisting of two hundred and fifty members. Only fourteen lords appeared to his summons, and of these only four were Protestants. By new creations, and by reversal of attainders against Catholic peers, he managed to add seventeen more members to the Upper House, all Catholics, so that in the whole Parliament there were only ten Protestants, and four of these were the Bishops of Meath, Ossory, Cork, and Limerick. The majority of these members were not only Catholic, eager to visit upon the Protestants all the miseries and spoliations which the latter had inflicted on them, but they were men totally unaccustomed to the business of legislation or government, from having been long excluded from such functions, and condemned to pass their time on their estates in that half savage condition which qualified them rather for bandits than for lawgivers and magistrates.

James's first act was that of complete toleration of liberty of conscience to all Christian denominations. This sounded well, and was in perfect keeping with his declarations and endeavours in England for which he had been driven out, and England had now an opportunity of observing with what justice; of judging whether or not his real object had been wrongfully suspected. In his speech from the throne, he reverted with great pride to these endeavours, and to his determination still to be the liberator of conscience. This was language worthy of the noblest lawgiver that ever existed; but, unfortunately, James's English subjects never could be persuaded of his sincerity, and did not believe that this happiness would arrive as the result of his indulgence. The very next Act which he now passed decided that they had not mistrusted him without cause. Scarcely had he passed the Act of Toleration, when he followed it up by the repeal of the Act of Settlement, by which the Protestants held their estates, and their rights and liberties in Ireland. This just and tolerant monarch thus, at one stroke, handed over the whole Protestant body to the mercy of the Irish Catholics, and to one universal doom of confiscation. The Bill was received with exultation by this Parliament, which portended all the horrors which were to follow.

But there were other parties whose estates were not derived from the Act of Settlement, but from purchase, and another Act was passed to include them. It was a Bill confiscating the property of all who had aided or abetted the Prince of Orange in his attempt on the Crown, or who were absent and did not return to their homes before the 5th of October. The number of persons included in this great Act of Attainder, as it was called, amounted to between two and three thousand, including men of all ranks from the highest noble to the simplest freeholder. All the property of absentees above seventeen years of age was transferred to the king. The most unbounded lust of robbery and revenge was thus kindled in the public mind. Every one who wanted his neighbour's property, or had a grudge against him, hurried to give in his name to the Clerk of the House of Commons, and, without any or much inquiry, it was inserted in the Bill.

To make the separation of England and Ireland complete, and to set up the most effectual barrier against his own authority, should he again regain the throne of England, James permitted his Parliament to pass an Act declaring that the Parliament of England had no power or authority over Ireland, and this contrary to the provisions of Poynings' Act, which gave the initiative power to the English Council, and made every Irish Act invalid unless first submitted to the King and Council of England.

Having transferred the property of the laity back to the Irish, another Act made as sweeping a conveyance of that of the Church from the Protestant to the Catholic clergy. Little regard had been had to Catholic rights in piling property on the Protestant hierarchy, and as little was shown in taking it back again. The Anglican clergy were left in a condition of utter destitution, and more than this, they were not safe if they appeared in public. They were hooted, pelted, and sometimes fired at. All colleges and schools from which the Protestants had excluded the Catholics were now seized and employed as Popish seminaries or monasteries. The College of Dublin was turned into a barrack and a prison. No Protestants were allowed to appear together in numbers more than three, on pain of death. This was James's notion of the liberty of conscience, and a tender regard for "every man's rights and liberties." It was a fine lesson, too, for the clergy and gentry who had welcomed him to Ireland as the friends of passive obedience. They had now enough of that doctrine, and went over pretty rapidly to a different notion. The Protestants everywhere were overrun by soldiers and rapparees. Their estates were seized, their houses plundered, their persons insulted and abused, and a more fearful condition of things never existed in any country at any time. The officers of the army sold the Protestants protections, which were no longer regarded when fresh marauders wanted more money.

This model Parliament voted twenty thousand pounds a year to Tyrconnel for bringing this state of things about, and twenty thousand pounds a month to the king. But the country was so completely desolated, and its trade so completely destroyed by this reign of terror and of licence, that James did not find the taxes come in very copiously; and he resorted to a means of making money plentiful worthy of himself. He collected all the old pots, pans, brass knockers, old cannon, and metal in almost any shape, and coined clumsy money out of them, on which he put about a hundred times their intrinsic value. The consequence was that shopkeepers refused to receive this base coin. All men to whom debts were due, or who had mortgages on other men's property, were opposed to having them discharged by a heap of metal which in a few weeks might be worth only a few pence a pound. Those who refused such payment were arrested, and menaced with being hanged at their own doors. Many were thrown into prison, and trade and intercourse were plunged into a condition of the wildest anarchy. The whole country was a scene of violence, confusion, and distress. Such was the state of Ireland and of James's Court when, as we have seen, Schomberg landed with his army at Carrickfergus on the 23rd of August, and roused James, his Court, and the whole country to a sense of their danger, and of the necessity for one great and universal effort. A spirit of new life seemed to animate them, and James, receiving fresh hope from the sight, marched from Dublin at the head of his troops to encounter Schomberg.

During the summer the Court of William had not been an enviable place. In the spring the Parliament had proceeded to reverse the judgments which had been passed in the last reign against Lord William Russell, Algernon Sidney, the Earl of Devonshire, Cornish, Alice Lisle, and Samuel Johnson. Some of the Whigs who had suffered obtained pecuniary compensation, but Johnson obtained none. He was deemed by the Whigs to be too violent--in fact, he was a Radical of that day. The scoundrel Titus Oates crawled again from his obscurity, and, by help of his old friends the Whigs, managed to obtain a pension of three hundred pounds a year. This done, there was an attempt to convert the Declaration of Rights into a Bill of Rights--thus giving it all the authority of Parliamentary law; and in this Bill it was proposed, in case of William, Mary, and Anne all dying without issue, to settle the succession on the Duchess Sophia of Brunswick Lüneburg, the daughter of the Queen of Bohemia, and granddaughter of James I.; but it failed for the time. A Bill of Indemnity was also brought in as an Act of oblivion of all past offences; but this too was rejected. The triumphant Whigs, so far from being willing to forgive the Tories who had supported James, and had been their successful opponents during the attempts through Titus Oates and his fellow-plotters to exclude James from the succession, were now clamorous for their blood and ruin. William refused to comply with their truculent desires, and became, in consequence, the object of their undisguised hatred. They particularly directed their combined efforts against Danby, now Earl of Caermarthen, and Halifax. They demanded that Caermarthen should be dismissed from the office of President of the Council, and Halifax from holding the Privy Seal, and being Speaker of the House of Lords. But William steadfastly resisted their demands, and declared that he had done enough for them and their friends, and would do no more especially in the direction of vengeance against such as were disposed to live quietly and serve the State faithfully.

On the 19th of October the second session of William's first Parliament met. The Commons were liberal in voting supplies; they granted at once two million pounds, and declared that they would support the king to the utmost of their ability in reducing Ireland to his authority, and in prosecuting the war with France. The required sum was to be levied partly by a poll-tax, partly by new duties on tea, coffee, and chocolate, partly by an assessment of one hundred thousand pounds on the Jews, but chiefly by a tax on real property. The Jews, however, protested that they would sooner quit the kingdom than submit to the imposition, and that source was abandoned. The Commons next took up the Bill of Rights, and passed it, omitting the clause respecting the succession of the House of Brunswick, which measure was not brought forward again for eleven years. They, however, took care, at the suggestion of Burnet to insert a clause that no person who should marry a Papist should be capable of ascending the throne; and if any one on the throne so married, the subjects should be absolved from their allegiance.

After thus demonstrating their zeal for maintaining the throne in affluence and power, the Commons next proceeded to display it in a careful scrutiny of the mode in which the last supplies had been spent. The conduct of both army and navy had not been such as to satisfy the public. The Commons had, indeed, not only excused the defeat of Herbert at Bantry Bay, but even thanked him for it as though it had been a victory. But neither had Schomberg effected anything in Ireland; and he loudly complained that it was impossible to fight with an army that was not supplied with the necessary food, clothing, or ammunition. This led to a searching scrutiny into the commissariat department, William himself being the foremost in the inquiry, and the most frightful peculation and abuses were brought to light. The muskets and other arms fell to pieces in the soldiers' hands; and, when fever and pestilence were decimating the camp there was not a drug to be found, though one thousand seven hundred pounds had been charged Government for medicines. What baggage and supplies there were could not be got to the army for want of horses to draw the waggons; and the very cavalry went afoot, because Shales, the Commissary-General, had let out the horses destined for this service to the farmers of Cheshire to do their work. The meat for the men stank, the brandy was so foully adulterated that it produced sickness and severe pains. In the navy the case was the same; and Herbert, now Lord Torrington, was severely blamed for not being personally at the fleet to see into the condition of his sailors, but was screened from deserved punishment by his connections. The king was empowered by Parliament at length to appoint a Commission of Inquiry to discover the whole extent of the evil, and to take remedies against its recurrence.

Then the Commons reverted again to their fierce party warfare. Whigs and Tories manifested an equal desire to crush their opponents if they had the power, and they kept William in a constant state of uneasiness by their mutual ferocity, and their alternate eagerness to force him into persecution and blood. Edmund Ludlow, one of the regicides, who had managed to escape the murderous vengeance of Charles and James, but whose companion, John Lisle, had fallen by the hands of Charles's assassins at Lausanne, had been persuaded that he might now return to England unmolested. But he soon found that he was mistaken. The Tories vehemently demanded his arrest of the king, and William was obliged to promise compliance; but he appeared in no haste in issuing the warrant; and probably a hint was given to Ludlow, for he escaped again to the Continent, and there remained till his death.

On the other hand, the Whigs were as unrelaxing in their desire of persecuting the Tories. They refused to proceed with the Indemnity Bill, which William was anxious to get passed as a final preventive of their deadly intentions. They arrested and sent to the Tower the Earls of Peterborough and Salisbury for going over from their party to that of James in the last reign, in order to impeach them of high treason. The same was done to Sir Edward Hales and Obadiah Walker. They appointed a committee to inquire into the share of various individuals in the deaths of Lord William Russell, Sidney, and others of the Whig party. The committee was termed "the Committee of Murder," and they summoned such of the judges, law officers of the Crown, and others as had taken part in these prosecutions. Sir Dudley North and Halifax were called before them, and underwent a severe examination; but they did not succeed in establishing a charge sufficient to commit them upon. Halifax had already resigned the Speakership of the House of Lords, and they sought to bring William to deprive him of the Privy Seal. In these proceedings of the Commons, John Hampden, the grandson of the great patriot, and John Howe, were the most violent. Hampden went the length of saying that William ought to dismiss every man who had gone over to him from the late king, and ought not to employ any one who entertained Republican principles. This declaration, from a man who had himself been a full-length Republican and the friend of Sidney, threw the House into a roar of laughter; but that did not abash Hampden. On behalf of a committee of the Commons, he drew up an address so violent that it was altogether dropped, calling on the king to dismiss the authors of the late malversations and the consequent failures of the army and navy.

The Whigs next brought in a Bill to restore to the corporations their charters, which had been taken away by Charles II.; but, not content with the legitimate fact of the restoration of these ancient rights, they again seized on this as an opportunity for inflicting a blow on the Tories. They introduced at the instigation of William Sacheverell, a clause disqualifying for seven years every mayor, recorder, common councilman, or other officer who had been in any way a party to the surrender of these charters. They added a penalty of five hundred pounds and perpetual disqualification for every person who, in violation of this clause, should presume to hold office in any corporation. They declared that if the Lords should hesitate to pass this Bill, they would withhold the supplies till it was acquiesced in.

But William did not hesitate to express his displeasure with the Bill, and with the indecent hurry with which it was pushed forward. A short delay was interposed, and meanwhile the news of the intended passing of the Bill was carried into every quarter of the kingdom, and the Tories, Peers and Commons, who had gone down to their estates for Christmas, hastened up to town to oppose it. The battle was furious. The Whigs flattered themselves that, if they carried this Bill, the returns to the next Parliament would be such that they should be able to exclude their opponents from all power and place. After a fierce and prolonged debate, the Bill was thrown out, and the Tories, elated by their victory, again brought forward the Indemnity Bill; but this time they were defeated in turn, and the Whigs immediately proceeded with their design of converting this Bill into one of pains and penalties; and to show that they were in earnest, they summoned Sir Robert Sawyer before the House for his part in the prosecution of the Whigs in the last reign. He had been Attorney-General, and conducted some of the worst cases which were decided under Jeffreys and his unprincipled colleagues, with a spirit which had made him peculiarly odious. The case of Sir Thomas Armstrong was in particular brought forward--a very flagrant one. Sir Thomas had been charged with being engaged in the Rye House plot. He had escaped to the Netherlands, but the authorities having been bribed to give him up, he was brought back, and hanged, without a hearing, as an outlaw. It was a barbarous case, and deserved the severest condemnation. But it was pleaded, on the other hand, that Sawyer had rendered great services to the Whig cause; that he had stoutly resisted the attempts of James to introduce Popery and despotism; that he had resigned his office rather than advocate the Dispensing Power, and had undertaken the defence of the seven bishops. No matter; he was excepted from indemnity and expelled the House. A committee of the whole House proceeded to make out a complete list of all the offenders to be excluded from the benefit of the Bill.

This brought William to a resolve which, if carried into effect, would have given a death-blow to the Whig party, and have neutralised the glory of their accomplishment of the Revolution. He sent for his chief ministers, and announced to them his determination to relinquish the fruitless task of endeavouring to govern a country thus torn to pieces by faction; that he was weary of the whole concern, and would return to Holland, never more to meddle with English affairs, but abandon them to the queen; that for ten months he had been vainly endeavouring to make peace between the factions of Whig and Tory, and to prevent them from rushing at each other's throats; that they clearly regarded nothing but their mutual animosities, for in their indulgence they utterly neglected the urgent affairs of the nation. Their enemy was in Ireland, yet it had no effect in bringing them to their senses. Still worse, every department of the Government was overrun with corruption, peculation, and neglect. The public service was paralysed; the public peace was entirely destroyed; and as for himself, with far from robust health and with the duty of settling the Government upon him, it was useless further to contend; he could contend no longer. A squadron was ready to bear him away, and he could only hope that they would show more regard to the wishes of the queen than they had to his.