Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/65

.] miserable fugitives with his horse, scarcely a man of the infantry would have been left.

The English army camped on the ground which had been occupied by the enemy for the night. Nearly twenty thousand English and their allies entered the battle against something more than the same number of Irish and French. On the side of the English six hundred were killed and one thousand wounded. On the part of the Irish four thousand fell on the field, and nearly as many are said to have perished in the flight. The panic-stricken multitude, flinging their arms away, continued their way, some of them to Limerick, and others to Galway, where D'Usson was now in command. Whole wagon-loads of muskets and other arms were picked up and purchased by Ginckell at a few pence apiece.

The English spent the next day in burying their own dead; but left the corpses of the Irish on the field, and marched forward to attack Galway. D'Usson, who had about two thousand five hundred men in Galway, made at first a show of resistance, calculating on the assistance of Baldearg O'Donnell. But O'Donnell, after endeavouring in vain to bargain for an earldom, consented to accept five hundred pounds a year and a commission in William's army. This unexpected event compelled D'Usson to surrender, on condition that he might march out and join the Irish army in its last place of retreat, Limerick.

Ginckell soon followed and invested the town. The last struggle for a monarch little worthy the cause of so much bloodshed was now to be fought out. At Limerick the Irish were to make their last stand for the possession of their native country. If they failed here, the Saxon remained absolute lord of their soil.

On the 14th of August the advanced guard of Ginckell's army appeared in sight of Limerick. On the same day Tyrconnel, who was in authority in this city, died of apoplexy, and D'Usson and Sarsfield were left in full command of the troops. A commission was produced, which appointed three lords-justices—Plowden, Fitton, and Nagle; but the city was in reality a military garrison, and the military ruled. There were fifteen thousand infantry in the town, and three or four thousand cavalry posted on the Clare side of the Shannon, communicating with the town on the island by the Thomond bridge. By this means communication was kept up with the country on that side, so that provisions might be brought in; and several cargoes of biscuits and other dry stores were imported from France. The country all around, however, had been so swept by successive forages, that it was difficult to collect any cattle or corn, and the stoutest hearts were little confident of being able to maintain a long defence.

Ginckell took possession of the Limerick side of the town, and reoccupied the ground before held by the besiegers. He commenced by erecting fresh batteries of far heavier cannon than William brought to bear on the city, and soon poured a fiery storm of balls and shells into it, which crashed in the roofs and laid whole streets desolate. At the same time a squadron of English men-of-war sailed up the Shannon, and closed access to the city or escape from it by water. The town, however, held out till the 22nd of September, when Ginckell, beginning to fear the rains and fevers of autumn, and that they might compel him to draw off, and thus continue the war to another year, determined to obtain possession of the bridge, and attack the cavalry on the other side. He therefore passed the river by a bridge of William's tin boats, and, assaulting the cavalry, put them to utter route. They left their camp with many arms and much store of provisions, and fled with as much precipitation as they had done from Aghrim, scattering again the whole country with their arms. Ginckell next attacked the fort which defended the bridge, carried it and the bridge, and thus was able to invest the whole town. In the haste to draw up the movable part of the bridge nearest to the city, the soldiers retreating from the fort were shut out, and a terrible massacre was made of them on the bridge. Out of eight hundred men only one hundred and twenty escaped into Limerick.

This disaster broke the spirit of the Irish entirely. Even the stout-hearted Sarsfield was convinced that all was over, and it was resolved to capitulate. An armistice was agreed to. The Irish demanded that they should retain their property and their rights; that there should be perfect freedom for the catholic worship, a catholic priest for every parish, a full enjoyment of all municipal privileges, and a full capability to hold all civil and military offices. Ginckell refused these terms, but offered them others so liberal that they were loudly condemned by the English, who were longing after the estates of the Irish. He consented that all such soldiers as desired to continue in the service of James should be not only allowed to do so, but should be shipped to France in English vessels; that French vessels should be allowed to come up and return in safety; that all soldiers who were willing to enter William's service should be received, and that on taking the oath of allegiance all past offences should be overlooked, and they and all Irish subjects taking the oaths should retain their property, should not be sued for any damages or spoliation committed during the war, nor prosecuted for any treason, felony, or misdemeanour, but should, moreover, be capable of holding any office or practising any profession which they were capable of before the war. They were to be allowed to exercise their religion in peace as fully as in the reign of Charles II.

These terms were accepted, and the treaty was signed on the 3rd of October, and thus terminated this war, which, in the vain endeavour to restore a worthless monarch, had turned Ireland into a desert and a charnel-house. When it came to the choice of the soldiers to which banner they would ally themselves, out of the fifteen thousand men, about ten thousand chose to follow the fortunes of James, and were shipped off with all speed, as they began to desert in great numbers. Many of those who actually embarked did it under a solemn assurance from Sarsfield that their wives and children should go with them; but, once having the men on board, this pledge was most cruelly broken, and the greatest part of the women and children were left in frantic misery on the shore. The scenes which took place on this occasion at Cork are described as amongst the most heart-rending in history. But this agony once over, the country sunk down into a condition of passive but gloomy quiet which it required more than a century to terminate. Whilst Scotland again and again was agitated by the endeavours to reinstate the expelled dynasty, Ireland remained passive; and